The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. In the headlines this Friday, the unofficial death toll in the Mexico earthquake went to more than 3,000. The Lebanon hostage families took their pleas for help to the White House. The French defense minister and secret police chief quit over the Greenpeace ship incident. And 14 people died in violent anti-Marcos protests in the Philippines. We will have the details in a moment. Robert MacNeil is away; Judy Woodruff is in New York. Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: The Mexico earthquake is our main focus on the NewsHour tonight along with a set of newsmaker interviews. First, an American eyewitness tells about living through the disaster; then an earthquake expert explains what made it happen. Next, released Lebanese hostage Benjamin Weir joins us for a newsmaker interview along with the son of another hostage still in captivity. Part two of an exclusive interview with President Marcos caps our weeklong series on the Philippines. Finally, a conversation with the wizard of Wobegon, Garrison Keillor.News Summary

WOODRUFF: Words cannot do justice to what rescuers faced in Mexico today as they continued to grope with the magnitude of yesterday's giant earthquake. They counted the dead, which unofficially were expected to range up to 3,000, and they searched for the living amid ruins that stretched on for blocks in Mexico City. To make matters worse, there were continuing smaller aftershocks that rumbled through the area from Mexico's Pacific coast, where the quake struck, to the capital city. News correspondents compared the overall scene to a war zone. Last night thousands of people huddled together outdoors near the ruins of their homes. Many of them held handkerchiefs to their noses to shut off the odors from bodies buried in the rubble. But they kept quiet so rescuers could hear any cries for help from the ruins. Today more than 50,000 rescue workers were fighting the fires and searching through the remains of 250 collapsed buildings, looking for about a thousand people who are still trapped. Several schools were demolished, and at least one of them is known to have a number of pupils trapped inside. Among the other buildings that collapsed were high-rise apartment houses and hotels, both likely to have a considerable number of people inside. As of late today, about 5,000 people have been treated for injuries in Mexico City alone. Hundreds more have been killed and injured in three Mexican states. As the search went on, bodies were being found in the wreckage from time to time, and some of the earthquake victims were found alive and taken to hospitals for treatment.

President Reagan sent a message to Mexico's President de la Madrid last night offering any assistance that might be required. Today the State Department said Mexico had not officially responded yet, but Secretary of State Shultz met with the Mexican ambassador to discuss the situation. Before their meeting they spoke with reporters.

GEORGE SHULTZ, Secretary of State: I have expressed personally, as I have in writing and as President Reagan has, our deep sympathy for the people of Mexico and our readiness to extend a helping hand in whatever way will genuinely make a contribution.

Sr. ESPINOSA de LOS REYES, Mexican Ambassador: We have to have a real knowledge of what the people is needing. If simply the assistance start pouring, it's a problem of organizing and managing this assistance. And better to really assess the damage, the needs, and then in case weneed this type of foreign assistance, we will proceed to establish the proper channels.

WOODRUFF: On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, two bills were introduced to provide disaster aid to Mexico. One called for $75 million in assistance, the other $25 million. There was word today that at least two Americans may have been among the quake victims, but a spokesman at the American Embassy in Mexico did not immediately release their identities. Jim?

LEHRER: The Reverend Benjamin Weir went to the White House today. He and family members of the six kidnapped Americans still being held in Lebanon met with Vice President Bush. Weir was released Saturday and yesterday made his first public appearance, saying his Shiite Moslem captors will release the remaining six in exchange for 17 other terrorists now in jail in Kuwait. There was a news conference after today's meeting with Vice President Bush.

ANDY MIHELICH, nephew of hostage: We're disappointed that they will not explore other alternative options, whatever those may be. We are not politicians, we are not diplomats. We believe, however, that a diplomatic solution can be sought if so approached. So we're disappointed that they're not going to consider that as an alternative option.

REPORTER: Did they offer you any hope at all that the other hostages, the other six are going to be coming home any time soon?

Mr. MIHELICH: No. I was pleased. I come out of there with mixed emotions. The most positive part, besides the willingness to talk with the captors, is I do generally believe that Vice President Bush is compassionate and empathetic with our cause. Unfortunately we just have some disagreements as to the means.

LEHRER: President Reagan went back to the Bethesda Naval Hospital this afternoon for a post-operative cancer check. White House spokesmen said the examinations were normal and routine for someone who had had a cancerous tumor removed from the colon. Mr. Reagan had such an operation July 13th, and this was his first return to the hospital since. Mr. Reagan told reporters during a photo opportunity earlier in the day that he was doing fine.

There was some unexpected bad news on the economy today. The Commerce Department estimated the gross national product grew at a 2.8 rate during the summer, a rate considerably below what was predicted. The administration had hoped and publicly expected a strong surge in the economy and the GNP number. There was also bad news today for John DeLorean, the former auto executive and entrepreneur. He was indicted in Detroit on 15 counts of fraud, income tax and other federal criminal violations. All of the alleged crimes grew out of the operation of his now bankrupt sportscar company. DeLorean, who is 60 years old, was once a General Motors vice president. He was acquitted by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles last year of charges he trafficked in cocaine.

WOODRUFF: The latest chapter in the East-West spy saga came today out of Moscow and it involved the U.S. The KGB announced the arrest of a Soviet it said was spying for the American CIA. The KGB statement said a man named A.G. Tolkachev was "caught in the act" trying to pass military documents to a U.S. Embassy official in Moscow. Tolkachev was a staff member at one of Moscow's research institutes.

France's defense minister resigned today in the scandal over the sinking of an antinuclear movement ship last July. Mr. Charles Hernu submitted his resignation and the French secret service chief has been fired. Both men were implicated in charges that the secret service arranged to have the Greenpeace movement ship, The Rainbow Warrior, blown up. Here is a report by John Harrison of the BBC.

JOHN HARRISON, BBC [voice-over]: The Elysee Palace and the brief formal announcement of a new defense minister to replace the old.

FRENCH OFFICIAL [translated]: Mr. Paul Quilles has been nominated as the minister of defense to replace Mr. Charles Hernu, whose resignation has been accepted.

HARRISON [voice-over]: Over at the Defense Ministry itself, behind the ceremonial guard, a change in the political guard. Out goes Monsieur Hernu, the political price the establishment must pay for sinking The Rainbow Warrior. In comes Paul Quilles, whose task now is to find out just who sank the Greenpeace ship and who ordered it. Out along with Mr. Hernu goes Admiral Pierre Lacoste, head of the secret service. He was asked by Monsieur Hernu if he knew anything about the latest revelations that a captain and a staff sergeant under his command actually blew up The Rainbow Warrior. Lacoste refused to answer, saying in effect, "My duty is to my men, not to my political masters." That, for President Mitterrand and Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, was too much: Lacoste had to go.

WOODRUFF: At least 14 people were killed today in the Philippines in demonstrations marking the 13th anniversary of martial law. Soldiers opened fire on one group of protesters, and another 200 were reported to have been arrested. It was the bloodiest demonstration under President Ferdinand Marcos in two years.

And in South Africa, the Reverend Allan Boesak was charged with subversion for advocating a march to the prison where Nelson Mandela is being held. Boesak is a prominent anti-apartheid leader who was jailed without charge three weeks ago. He was released on bail today, but ordered not to attend public meetings nor to talk to reporters, and to surrender his passport and to stay in his home from 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. every day.

LEHRER: And finally in the news of this day, a jury in Pittsburgh convicted Curtis Strong of selling cocaine to major-league baseball players. Strong is a Philadelphia caterer who was fingered by several current and former ballplayers as having sold them or others cocaine. All of the players, including Dave Parker of the Cincinnati Reds and Keith Hernandez of the New York Mets, testified under grants of immunity and were not charged with crimes.

WOODRUFF: Coming up on the NewsHour, our major focus is the Mexico earthquake. An eyewitness and a quake expert are joining us. Then newsmaker interviews with released hostage Benjamin Weir and the son of a hostage still in Lebanon. Next the second half of our interview with President Marcos of the Philippines, and finally, the creator of Lake Wobegon. Earthquake: Assessing the Loss

LEHRER: The Mexico earthquake is first tonight. Unofficial counts say more than 3,000 people were killed, another 5,000 injured in the tragedy that hit the country yesterday morning, and the worst is not over yet. Workers are still frantically trying to find survivors and victims buried in the rubble of collapsed buildings. The hardest-hit area was the center of Mexico City. Deborah Conner of Santa Cruz, California, was there when it happened. She is with us tonight from the studios of public station KQED-San Francisco.

Mrs. Conner, where exactly were you when the quake hit?

DEBORAH CONNER: I was in the Zone Rosa, in a hotel, Hotel Genova. That was one of the harder-hit areas.

LEHRER: Yeah, okay. What happened?

Ms. CONNER: Well, I was the only I've spoken to that couldn't sleep that night, and an hour or so before dawn I felt a very slight tremor. And --

LEHRER: What happened? I mean, did something in the room move, or what?

Ms. CONNER: The bed.

LEHRER: The bed moved. Okay.

Ms. CONNER: The bed rolled, and the springs were shaking, and I thought "This feels like an earthquake," but then it passed. And then shortly after seven the real quake hit.

LEHRER: Now, then what happened? I mean, when the quake hit, where were you and what did you see and feel and all of that?

Ms. CONNER: I was just waking up and my husband stood up and said, "I think there's an earthquake," and we got under a doorway. And the room -- we were on the fourth floor, the top floor of this hotel, and the building began to sway, and for several seconds it continued this way and then it got more intense and more intense, and the floor began to roll as the building swayed. And it felt like it was going over. On one level I was very calm and felt that I would be okay, and on another level I was very calm and thought I was dying.

LEHRER: Were you able to remain standing?

Ms. CONNER: My husband and I held onto each other and the doorframe, and we stayed up.

LEHRER: When you say sway, give me some feel for the play from one end of the sway to the other when it was at its worst.

Ms. CONNER: It felt like it was several feet, but my head wasn't that clear. It really felt that it was swaying several feet and that at one time it would just go far enough and then continue. But it didn't.

LEHRER: It didn't, yeah. All right. And the floor you say was -- what kind of floor was it, a wooden floor or a plaster floor?

Ms. CONNER: Well, it was carpet, so I don't know what the substructure was. I suspect it was wood. It's an older hotel that I was in, and we were up on the fourth floor, and it --

LEHRER: And when you say it was rolling, what do you mean?

Ms. CONNER: It just felt sort of like water with waves. But mainly I was concentrating on the building swaying, because that was the most frightening.

LEHRER: When did you realize that it was not going to fall all the way over and you weren't going to die?

Ms. CONNER: I guess after about a little over a minute.

LEHRER: A little over a minute? All right, then what did you do? What did you and your husband do?

Ms. CONNER: We got shoes on and went downstairs to see what the hotel looked like, and our hotel was undamaged. But outside in the same block and in surrounding blocks the buildings were gone, some buildings -- not all, of course.

LEHRER: What was the sound? What did you hear when you stepped outside?

Ms. CONNER: Screaming. And cars. Well, no, not cars, I -- screaming.

LEHRER: Okay, then what did you do? Were you still -- I assume you hadn't dressed, right?

Ms. CONNER: Yes, I had dressed.

LEHRER: Oh, you had dressed. I see.

Ms. CONNER: I went back in and tried to be calm and talk to other people, particularly people who worked in the hotel, to see what they had seen. One woman was coming to work by the Hilton, and she said it looked like from about the 10th floor up, I believe -- it's a 14- or 15-story building -- the 10th floor up was down, and people running through the streets.

LEHRER: Okay, you left the hotel, you and your husband left the hotel. How long was it before you actually left the hotel?

Ms. CONNER: We were there about an hour and a half. It was very difficult to get transportation. There was a VW van that stopped and took my husband and I and some other people to the airport, and on the way there you could see buildings in the streets and every few blocks there was one or two buildings down. Some just partially, some completely. The roads were buckled; the pavement was ripped up. On some roads you couldn't go through. It was rush hour, so the roads were filled with cars. And the ambulances and the trucks with the people who were working, volunteering to dig people out of the rubble, had a terrible time getting through. There were military police everywhere and regular police.

LEHRER: Did you see any victims?

Ms. CONNER: I saw some people trapped.

LEHRER: In what way? How were they -- describe that, please.

Ms. CONNER: I suppose it had been about a 10-story building, and several top floors were completely crushed. And some in the bottom were crushed. But in between, on I guess about the fifth or sixth floor, the walls had -- the ceiling and floor hadn't met completely, and you could see people up there, children. And by that time they must have been there two hours. And they were trying to test the walls, I suppose to see if they could put a ladder up to get people out. But they were just sort of hanging out, some screaming. But really it was pretty calm, for all of the chaos.

LEHRER: There was not panic?

Ms. CONNER: No. There were a lot of volunteers getting on the trucks to dig people out. Volunteers trying to help guide traffic to prevent cars from going down roads that were impassable. Of course, traffic in Mexico City is terrible, but it was unbelievable. The ambulances were having to go up over the curb to get anywhere.

LEHRER: How in the world were you able to get on an airplane and get out of there? How did that happen?

Ms. CONNER: Well, we got to the airport in that van. He was a good driver, and after we got out of the center part of the city, towards the airport, things looked normal.

LEHRER: That's north of the city, right? That's where the airport is.

Ms. CONNER: Right. A little north and I think to the east.

LEHRER: Yeah, yeah.

Ms. CONNER: But I had expected chaos at the airport but it was very calm. The tower that relayed messages and communicated with the planes was down, and there was one runway that was closed because of a jet fuel leak. But they had power at the airport, and most of the desks were manned. And it was calm, much like it always is in the Mexico airport.

LEHRER: Finally, what were you and your husband doing in Mexico? Was it a pleasure trip, or business, or what?

Ms. CONNER: It was business. We have a store and we sell artifacts, hand-crafted goods from Latin America, and we were on a buying trip.

LEHRER: I see. Well, Mrs. Conner, thank you very much for talking with us tonight. Judy?

WOODRUFF: We take a closer look now at what caused the Mexican disaster. The starting point, or epicenter, of yesterday's earthquake was actually more than 200 miles away from Mexico City on the Pacific coast. But the shock waves were felt as far away as Houston. The epicenter was where two huge geologic plates, in effect the continent and the sea floor, meet and continually push against one another. The quake occurred when the two plates essentially scraped by each other, sending violent tremors through the continent. We hear more about the earthquake and whether a similar disaster could happen here from Dr. Bruce Bolt, head of the seismographic station at the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Bolt is also chairman of a California commission concerned with earthquake safety. He joins us tonight from public station KQED in San Francisco.

Dr. Bolt, first of all, what exactly caused this earthquake to happen, to begin to happen?

Dr. BRUCE BOLT: Well, as your graphic showed very well, the Pacific plate, in that place called the Cocos plate, is always under pressure against the continent, and after sufficient forces build up there will be a sudden slip, and the energy which has concentrated for hundreds of years is suddenly released in the matter of 10 seconds. And the scraping of the two parts by one another produce the high-frequency shaking.

WOODRUFF: What made it happen at that moment? Do we know?

Dr. BOLT: Well, there was a piece of rock down there that just was not strong enough to withstand the forces and it started to slip. We cannot predict at the moment just what part of a fault will slip and when it will slip.

WOODRUFF: Was this predicted?

Dr. BOLT: Well, it has been known for quite a number of years that in this particular part of the west coast of Mexico there was a gap, what's called a seismic gap, in which no big earthquake had occurred for about 180 years and perhaps longer. Large earthquakes had occurred on each side of this region, but none within it. And so people had published papers pointing to this and suggesting it was a prime place for a large earthquake to occur.

WOODRUFF: Now, was the Mexican government aware of this?

Dr. BOLT: Oh, I'm sure they were. Some of the papers were published by leading Mexican scientists. However, that kind of prediction of course only goes a certain distance, because it doesn't give the week or the year or even the decade in which this event will take place. And there are other places along the Mexican coast also where similar earthquakes could occur.

WOODRUFF: You know, we know that there have been some aftershocks. How long do those continue, and just how big a danger do they continue to pose?

Dr. BOLT: They could be quite dangerous, because many buildings are much damaged but don't collapse by the principal shake, and it only takes a smaller amount of energy to bring them down. The earthquake in Chile on March the 3rd is a similar earthquake to this one in Mexico. It was off the coast also. And in that case many aftershocks occurred weeks afterwards which caused some damage.

WOODRUFF: Why is it that even though the center, the epicenter, was near the coast, most of the damage was a couple of hundred miles away in Mexico City and not along the coastline?

Dr. BOLT: Well, you have to see the source of an earthquake as being not a point. The epicenter is the place where the breaking first starts. But the whole source area of slip probably extended -- and I'm speculating on past experience -- for a hundred miles north-south and a hundred miles east-west. And over that whole area, there would have been seismic waves being generated like a great antenna, which radiated this energy up through the rocks.

WOODRUFF: But I mean, again, why Mexico City rather than -- I mean, why wasn't there more damage along the coast, then?

Dr. BOLT: Well, I don't know about damage to the smaller towns in the region of the main slip. But Acapulco, for example, evidently is not so much damaged as the downtown part of Mexico City. I would think there might be three reasons. First of all, the foundation soils are very different in Acapulco and Mexico City. Mexico City is built on an old lake -- when the conquistadores arrived it was a lake, and the city has been built by filling in there whereas --

WOODRUFF: So it's soft soil.

Dr. BOLT: Soil, and fill of various kinds, whereas Acapulco is on firm ground. And under those conditions, the seismic waves amplify in Mexico City, and in particular frequency ranges where certain buildings are centered, they can cause much greater damage.

WOODRUFF: You mentioned a couple of other reasons.

Dr. BOLT: Well, another reason might be that when the slip takes place it is sometimes focused on a particular part of the surface of the earth. This happened in Chile where the focus was towards the southeast. We still have to do the research, but it may be that the slip was such that energy was focused towards Mexico City.

WOODRUFF: I see. And one other reason -- anything else?

Dr. BOLT: The other reason may be that the kind of construction that collapsed or did badly in Mexico City is not so common in Acapulco.

WOODRUFF: How prepared -- well, let me ask you this first. Do we have information -- I mean, we're always hearing about the possibility of an earthquake in southern California -- do we have information now similar to the information that you said was available before this earthquake in Mexico about the possibility of an earthquake in this country?

Dr. BOLT: Yes, we have the same sort of historical information. From about 1800 the earthquake record is complete here in California as it is in Mexico. And so we have long-term trends of strain along the main fault systems, and that can be used to develop policies to put resources into the reduction of risk mainly coming from old buildings which were built before the modern building code.

WOODRUFF: And how would you compare our preparations for a disaster with what we've seen down in Mexico City?

Dr. BOLT: I wouldn't like to make a direct comparison with what is happening in Mexico City; I think it is a bit early. But I think that in the last 10 years or so the preparation for a big earthquake in California has been greatly improved, and both the state government and the federal government are paying attention to this. Of course, more needs to be done. There are many, many, we don't know how many, hazardous buildings in the metropolitan areas of California which in an earthquake of this magnitude would probably collapse and there would be many people killed.

WOODRUFF: You say of this magnitude -- 7.8 on the Richter Scale. Can you describe for us -- I mean, we've heard the situation described, but how does that compare to the other major earthquakes?

Dr. BOLT: The last earthquake that people remember, perhaps certainly in Los Angeles, that did a lot of damage was the 1971 earthquake in San Fernando Valley. And it had an energy release that was about one fiftieth the amount of energy released in this earthquake. The last great earthquake in California was the 1906 San Francisco earthquake which had a much greater release of energy.

WOODRUFF: So you're saying this one was enormous compared --

Dr. BOLT: This was an enormous earthquake, but we have had, and will have again, I'm sure, earthquakes in California which affect even a larger distance along the coastline and which release even more energy than this does.

WOODRUFF: Not a very happy note on which to end this interview. But thank you, Dr. Bruce Bolt, for joining us.

LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour, Reverend Weir and Eric Jacobsen, son of hostage David Jacobsen, tell us about their talk with Vice President Bush this afternoon. We finish our week of reports on the Philippines with the second part of the Charles Krause interview with President Marcos. And we close the program and the week with the man of Lake Wobegon, Garrison Keillor. Lebanon Hostages: Liberating the Others

LEHRER: Family members of the six remaining kidnapped Americans in Lebanon paid a call on Vice President Bush today. The Reverend Benjamin Weir, who was released by the Shiite Moslem kidnappers Saturday, went with them. He is here now with Eric Jacobsen, the son of hostage David Jacobsen, director of the American University Hospital in Beirut.

Reverend Weir, what was your message to the Vice President today?

Rev. BENJAMIN WEIR: Really three things. I expressed my appreciation for the kindness and the efficiency of American officials who received me and transported me to the United States. And secondly, that I was glad to hear that the State Department and the administration is open to the possibility of contacts that are other than through diplomatic channels. And I said to the Vice President that I hoped these opportunities would be pursued.

LEHRER: And what did he say?

Rev. WEIR: And he said, yes, they would, and that in particular one nongovernmental negotiator that I had mentioned earlier today, they were very much interested in and would follow up on.

LEHRER: Who's that?

Rev. WEIR: Mr. Terry Waite, who is an envoy of the Church of England Archbishop of Canterbury.

LEHRER: He has access to the captors?

Rev. WEIR: No, but that his services would be considered and would be used, and that they are to some extent already in contact with him.

LEHRER: Is that right? In other words, he is in contact with the captors, right?

Rev. WEIR: With the U.S. government.

LEHRER: With U.S. government, but what about the other end?

Rev. WEIR: He didn't say.

LEHRER: Who didn't say?

Rev. WEIR: The Vice President.

LEHRER: The Vice President didn't say. But I mean, are you saying that he -- do you know anything yourself about the viability of this man as a contact?

Rev. WEIR: I understand he has been of service before and that he is willing to be available to open up the channels of communication.

LEHRER: I see. Now, Mr. Jacobsen, what did you and the other family members of those still there have to say to the Vice President?

ERIC JACOBSEN: I think we went to talk to him today partly due to Reverend Weir's release, more to get a message from him regarding our relatives, to get some specifics and I think to further our hope that their release is very near as the result of his release now.

LEHRER: Do you have any feel that that's so?

Mr. JACOBSEN: Unfortunately I think it was just the opposite feeling we came out of it with.

LEHRER: Describe it.

Mr. JACOBSEN: I think there was no real information given to us that would indicate that there is an imminent release possible for them.

LEHRER: What about the question that the Reverend Weir -- you raised yesterday in your public news conference, I assume it came up today, and that is the willingness of the United States government to negotiate a release of the six, your father included? Did you have the feeling from the Vice President the United States is willing to negotiate with these folks?

Mr. JACOBSEN: He made it very clear that they will not negotiate on the -- for the release of the 17 men in Kuwait. However, a positive thing was revealed, the fact that they are willing to talk through any means possible directly to the men responsible. And I think that's something we've been pushing for, and this is the first, to my knowledge, of his saying he will.

LEHRER: Did you get the feeling that there had not been any contact on the behalf of you and your six colleagues until you came back and said this yesterday?

Rev. WEIR: I said to him that I really did not know whether any attempts they had made had been productive so far as my release was concerned. I just couldn't tell. I hoped that was true, but I couldn't tell whether there had been an effective contact or not.

LEHRER: Well, what did he say? Did he lead you to believe that there was a U.S. government effort that helped facilitate your release?

Rev. WEIR: I understood him to say that he believed an attempt -- or that he believed that what they had been carrying on probably had resulted in my release.

LEHRER: Do you believe that, Mr. Jacobsen?

Mr. JACOBSEN: Vice President Bush asked me the very same question along with everyone else, and I have to give the same answer: I really don't know. It's difficult to make a decision on that because I've had no facts presented on either side.

LEHRER: Well, let me ask you a nonfactual question, Mr. Jacobsen, straight out. Do you want the United States government to negotiate with Kuwait? In other words, try to get the release of those 17 if that's what it would take to release your -- get freedom for your father?

Mr. JACOBSEN: I think I want the U.S. government to begin talking, to find out what is necessary, the bottom line, to get them released. As far as the 17, I'm not the one they're negotiating with on that, so I think it's best left up to the U.S. government.

LEHRER: Do you feel, Reverend Weir -- you've been back now a few days, you've had 24 hours of all of the exposure and all of the other things; met with the Vice President today -- do you personally believe that if it came to that, if the only way those six people could be released was to also release the 17 in those Kuwait jails, should it be done, just as a matter of principle? Should it be done?

Rev. WEIR: I think it should be seriously considered. I would hope that as Eric has said, that all the means would be explored and that there might be found some midway in which to bring that about. I would --

LEHRER: Have you in any way, either one of you, come to the conclusion in the last 24 hours that there could be a conflict between your all's personal interest and the interests of the United States government? Mr. Jacobsen?

Mr. JACOBSEN: Oh, I think that we felt that there's been a conflict since this first began, and I think that was part of our message today to Vice President Bush, is that we don't want to have a conflict; we want to work together; we want to avoid the problems and resolve the problems that exist between us as family members and the U.S. government.

LEHRER: What have been those problems?

Mr. JACOBSEN: I think a feeling of lack of communication between us and them, and the frustration that results in that, and the resulting feel that we have to get something accomplished by means of using the media, criticizing the administration and such. And that's something we really don't like and we would like to avoid.

LEHRER: But did you tell the Vice President, "Hey look, if you guys don't do something quick, we are going to again criticize the U.S. government and stay on your backs until those six people are home"?

Mr. JACOBSEN: I think that should have been pretty obvious to him.

LEHRER: Do you feel sitting there, Reverend Weir, that that message got over to the Vice President?

Rev. WEIR: I think it was implied. I don't know whether he fully accepted that message or not.

LEHRER: What do you say, Reverend Weir, after 24 hours now, to those who suggest that you are in effect a propagandist for the Shiite Moslems who held you captive and who hold David Jacobsen and the others?

Rev. WEIR: I certainly don't regard myself as a propagandist. I do regard myself as a messenger for the message they wanted to deliver to the United States government and to the American people. And secondly I feel that in some sense I'm an emissary in behalf of the hostages, to try to highlight the fact that they are still held captive and that it is highly desirable to try to find a means that would lead toward their release, and hopefully some means of communication that might open up the channels that would bring about their release.

LEHRER: Gentlemen, thank you both very much. Philippines: Palace View

WOODRUFF: We turn tonight, as we have all this week, to the Philippines, "Islands of Discontent." That discontent flared up today when at least 14 people were killed by police at a protest to mark the 13th anniversary of martial law rule by President Ferdinand Marcos. Demonstrators had formed a human barricade in the capital of Negros province, some 500 miles southwest of Manila. According to government authorities, a shot from the crowd hit a policeman, and then the police opened fire. The protest in Negros was one of a series in the Philippines today. Opposition to the Marcos government, both political and military, has been on the upswing in the Philippines. Recently, correspondent Charles Krause and producer Susan Mills spent six weeks there. And we conclude their report with part two of an exclusive interview with President Marcos. It centers on his view of the political and military opposition he faces.

CHARLES KRAUSE: The Pentagon has publicly said that it fears that the guerrillas, the NPA, could come to power here or at least reach a strategic stalemate --

FERDINAND MARCOS, President of the Philippines: They are completely wrong.

KRAUSE: Why is that?

Pres. MARCOS: Because their perceptions away from battle are fed by people who may not see the way we see. Do you tell me that a ragtag group of about 10,000 men, who has probably arms amounting about 5-7,000, are going to overcome our armed forces? Ridiculous.

KRAUSE: That isn't though what they're really saying. What they're saying is that if -- that the growth has been so rapid that if you project it out three, four or five years --

Pres. MARCOS: The growth has been going on for the last five years -- 1980. And the reason for this is the [unintelligible] -- reduction of the budget of the armed forces. A lack of discipline because of the lack of logistics. A lack of support. Lack of R&R. Some of those boys have been -- our boys in the armed forces have been fighting in the jungles for eight years. We were compelled to cut the appropriations of the armed forces by 20 when the oil crisis started. And then we had to retrain abusive members of the armed forces.

KRAUSE: Well, yes, but it was, after all, the Pentagon which is saying that they're fearful of an insurgency.

Pres. MARCOS: One thing clear in your government is they are not quite clear about accepting what they want to do. Some who say we should use aid as a leverage or military compensation package with the bases as a leverage for reform. Reform for what? We've been reforming since 1965. They never took that into account. I am surprised that people who have been trying to fight insurgency in other parts of the world, and have failed, are now trying to teach us how to fight insurgency. That is a serious matter. We have captured the new leaders of the Maoists -- Peking-oriented Communist Party. They're all in jail, and almost all the members of the Central Committee. We've accomplished all of this, and yet some of you people who have gone to the Central Americas and not done very well, now come and tell us how to run the anti-insurgency campaign. Now, you judge: who has the better credentials?

KRAUSE: Mr. President, changing subjects a bit, we spent some time in Negros, and we went there specifically because we wanted to have a better sense of what the insurgency and counterinsurgency looked like in that province. And one of the things that we were told by Bishop Fortich and other people in Negros is that the savagings 7? -- , the abuses are continuing.

Pres. MARCOS: Look, the mayor of one of the towns in the southern part of Negros escaped with some of his men. He was fighting the NPA. Don't expect the military to have killed him.

KRAUSE: No, of course not, and no one denies that the NPA is capable of killing people, killing your soldiers, eliminating politicians, whatever. Some of them are, but some of them also say that the military -- the growing militarization there is contributing to the insurgency.

Pres. MARCOS: Ah, you've been talking to the opposition.

KRAUSE: Well, some of them are in the opposition, that's true.

Pres. MARCOS: Yes, that is their standard attack. Militarization? Do they or don't they want to fight the NPA? It's not a question of militarization. They see one set of soldiers and they say we've been militarized. How many soldiers do we have then as compared to the NPA? There are more NPA than soldiers. That's the truth about it. There is a new unit that has been assigned, but better than that, we have of course changed some of the commanders; we have reformed the entire setup, we have retrained some of the negligent officers. And I think there will be developments there quite soon which will probably mean a return of the initiative to the military.

KRAUSE [voice-over]: Despite the president's optimism, both the guerrillas and the democratic opposition appear to be growing stronger. To remedy what Washington views as an increasingly dangerous situation in the Philippines, the U.S. is urging Marcos to hold the first honest presidential election here since 1969.

[interviewing] Do you have any doubt at all that you could win a free and fair election in this country today?

Pres. MARCOS: Well, of course there's always a doubt in any election. There is always a battle in an election.

KRAUSE: But do you feel confident?

Pres. MARCOS: I am confident, because I know exactly that -- how our people feel. We are running surveys almost every month. Not just on elections, of course -- these always include the economic issues as well as the anti-insurgency issues.

KRAUSE: How have these reports that you or members of your family and members of your government have amassed fortunes abroad --

Pres. MARCOS: Stupid. Those are false, and I am intent -- as you know, I have avoided making any comment on this, and you are the only one who has dared to bring this up to me personally. And my answer is, there is no basis for this.

KRAUSE: Have you given any thought to who your running mate might be if you hold an election this year or next year?

Pres. MARCOS: No, this is a matter which also is hanging over our heads.

KRAUSE: As you know, many people talk about your wife as being a very key --

Pres. MARCOS: No, no, no, no. She has no intentions of running as vice president or president. She is contented as it is, working on human resources, development in human settlements.

KRAUSE: One question which I do have to ask you because it's being talked about all over anyway, and that is, how is your health? Do you see any --

Pres. MARCOS: No, I'm in good health as you can see. I exercise every day now. My blood pressure's 120 over 80; pulse rate 66, 68. I get a little excited, might get 72. Let's see, what are the other indications?I am feeling well. I exercise at least one hour every day, and I eat well. I feel well -- I can work continuously provided I take a short nap at noontime. I can do with only four or five hours of sleep at night. But all this talk about me dying -- a little exaggerated, as Mark Twain says.

KRAUSE: Okay. You have been in political life in this country for almost 50 years, and you have been president of this country for 20 years. When does the time come for you to decide it's enough, I've done what I had to do, and I just want to stop all of this and retire and relax and play golf or --

Pres. MARCOS: Well, I've said that several times. But I ask, you tell me whom I can train so that he will continue with this program to bring out the poor, the human resources development program, and maintain our ideology, our freedom, which is to fight communism? Unfortunately, some of the leaders with whom I was in touch who might have been trained have passed away, either from illness or from something else. If Aquino had not been too mischievous he might have made it. But first of all, he talked too much. He was -- I have asked the opposition to give me names quietly, because I deal with them, I talk to them. They see me -- don't let them fool you, they see me. I have not been all that oppressive. I talk to Tanada, I talk to the others. You look at the opposition, now you be frank with me -- they can't even agree on who's going to be leader. They can't agree on who's going to be the candidate.

KRAUSE: Do you expect, then, to be president for the rest of your life?

Pres. MARCOS: No, not the rest of my life. If I can get these programs on the road, and we are able to get over the hump, you can expect me to start organizing some of the -- probably some of the younger men to take over. And I think that with a little luck, I should be able to get out of these burdens that I have, quite soon, I hope.

WOODRUFF: Tomorrow President Marcos will hear from his critics first hand. Antigovernment demonstrators say they will march to the presidential palace in Manila where they plan to stage a mock trial of the president and his wife, Imelda. Garrison Keillor: Wizard of Wobegon

LEHRER: We have several labels for what we do here on the NewsHour: focus segments, profiles, newsmaker interviews, among other things. But what's next, what we close with tonight, doesn't fit any of them. It's just that Garrison Keillor was in New York City the other day, and Robert MacNeil wanted to meet and talk to him. Keillor, of course, is the man from the famous public radio program "A Prairie Home Companion" and the famous author of the new best-selling book about Keillor's fictional hometown. It's called Lake Wobegon Days.

ROBERT MacNEIL [voice-over]: We caught up with Garrison Keillor at a recent public reading in New York City.

GARRISON KEILLOR [reading]: The town of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, lies on the shore against Adams Hill looking east across the blue-green water to the dark woods. From the south the highway aims for the lake, bends hard left by the magnificent concrete Grecian grain silos, and eases over a leg of the hill past the "Slow, Children" sign, bringing the traveler in on Main Street toward the town's one traffic light, which is almost always green.

Mr. KEILLOR: My small town is a literary small town. It's real to me, it's real within its frame; but I draw a distinction between my town in Minnesota and all the other towns around it where people live and raise children and die. My town doesn't argue for life in a small town in Minnesota being good for you, good for me. I only want to write about people, a few people, about all I can handle at one time, and to do that I need to put them in a small town where I can talk about them. But Lake Wobegon is the people who live there, and they are no better, no worse than the common run of people that you might find anywhere.

Mr. KEILLOR [reading]: A quarter-mile away a silver boat sits off the weeds in Sunfish Bay. A man in a bright blue jacket waves his pole. The line is hooked on weeds. It is Dr. Newt, retired after 40-odd years of dentistry, now free to ply the waters in the molar tube and drop a line where the big fighting sunfish lie in wait. "Open wide," he says. "This may sting a little bit. All right, now bite down."

MacNEIL [voice-over]: Many of Keillor's characters, to quote Thoreau, lead lives of quiet desperation. Take Mr. and Mrs. Deener for example.

Mr. KEILLOR [reading]: He said, "If you'd just pay attention to the kids once in a while, maybe they'd learn something about discipline." She slammed the door shut and yelled some things through it at him. She forgot what, but something connected, something she had been saving up for a long time. And when he heard it he said, "That's it, I don't have to take this anymore," and marched to the front door and threw it open. He had been about to say, "You don't need to tell me you don't care, I know you don't care," when he remembered that it was March and he was barefooted. He was going to say the line and slam the door, but instead had to go back for socks. He yanked clothes out of the drawer and threw them on the floor, looking for his long wool socks. Meanwhile he kept repeating himself: "I've had it. A man can only take so much. There's a limit to how much a man can take. I've come to the end of my rope. Men can take just so much and no more. Take so much and after that you've had enough. When you've had enough, you've had enough," as the children drifted away and Marlis went to make coffee. And the moment was lost for him. He wandered into the kitchen later to ask if she had seen his wool socks, and she said no, would he like a cup of coffee. He said yes. She whispered, "To go?" but he didn't say.

MacNEIL: You're quite hard on the people in Lake Wobegon. The 95 theses you have one of the returning characters tempted to nail on the door of the Lutheran Church -- eventually he doesn't; he sends them to the newspaper and they don't get published. Those are very hard, those theses, of what he considered the town and the culture and his family responsible for in him.

Mr. KEILLOR: He did have a lot of hard things to say. He dragged out all the hardest and sharpest and the most jagged things and nailed them all together into one manifesto.

Mr. KEILLOR [reading]: Here are a few of his 95 theses. Number one: you have fed me wretched food. Vegetables boiled to extinction, fistfuls of white sugar, slabs of fat. Mucousy casseroles made with globs of cream of mushroom, until it's amazing that my heart still beats. Food was not fuel but ballast in our home. We ate and then we sank like rocks.

You taught me to be nice so that now I am so full of niceness I have no sense of right and wrong, no outrage, no passion.

You taught me when the going gets tough, the tough get going, teaching me to plod forward in the face of certain doom.

You taught me to trust my own incompetence, and even now won't let me mash potatoes without your direct supervision.

You taught me not to be unusual for fear of what the neighbors would say. They were omniscient, ableto see through walls. We knew they would talk because we always talked about them.

Mr. KEILLOR: And along about the 81st or 82nd thesis, you get tired of him and think he just ought to get on with his life.

MacNEIL: But he is you.

Mr. KEILLOR: He is?

MacNEIL: Is he?

Mr. KEILLOR: Not to me. He's not me. I'm sitting here looking at you.

WOODRUFF: Garrison Keillor, delightful. Turning to a final look at the news this Friday, it is now estimated that 3,000 people have died in the earthquake that rocked Mexico yesterday. On the NewsHour tonight, the Reverend Benjamin Weir quoted Vice President Bush as saying the U.S. is to some extent in contact with a British mediator whom Weir has suggested to negotiate for the release of the six American hostages still in Lebanon. And in the Philippines, at least 14 people died as anti-Marcos protesters marked the anniversary of martial law.

Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Judy. Have a nice weekend. We'll see you on Monday night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.