The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Leading the news this Tuesday, Polish workers ended the strike led by the Solidarity movement. President Reagan said he has not ruled out pardons for North and Poindexter. The Administration is confident that the medium range missile treaty hitch can be quickly resolved. Crew error was blamed for the Northwest Airlines crash that killed 156 people. We'll have details in our news summary in a moment. Judy Woodruff is in Washington tonight. Judy? JUDY WOODRUFF: After the news summary the snag that's developed in ratifying the U. S. /Soviet missile treaty is our lead focus. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman David Boren and two defense analysts assess what's at stake. Then, a European view of U. S. /Soviet relations in a newsmaker interview with NATO Chief Lord Carrington. Next, John Merrow has another in his series of reports on two school teachers in their first year in the classroom. And finally, a Jim Fisher essay on a hidden America that reflects the problems of the third world.News Summary WOODRUFF: Hundreds of workers in Gdansk, Poland, gave up their week long strike at the Lenin shipyard today without a settlement of their demands for higher pay and the right to form a union. Police surrounding the shipyard stood by silently as the workers marched out carrying a cross and the Polish flag. They were led by Lech Walesa, the leader of the outlawed Union Solidarity. Talks with management broke off yesterday and today there were reports that two couriers who had brought food to the workers inside the shipyard had been detained and beaten. Robin? MacNEIL: President Reagan said today he had not ruled out pardons for Oliver North and John Poindexter. Yesterday syndicated columnist Carl Rowen reported that the President had effectively ruled out pardons before the trials of any of the defendants in the Iran contra case. As he left a White House ceremony today, the President stopped long enough to take one question on the subject.

REPORTER: Mr. President, have you definitely ruled out pardons for Poindexter and North? Pres. RONALD REAGAN: No. MacNEIL: Asked afterwards to reconcile the different responses, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said, ''You've got a yes and a no, which means no definitive decision has been made. '' Oliver North today invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to hand over his notebooks to congressional investigators. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is interested in some 3000 pages of notes made by North while he was a key White House operative in the Iran contra affair. Lawyer Brendan Sullivan appeared today to plead North's constitutional right against self incrimination. Sullivan's arguments against turning over the notes brought this comment from Democratic John Kerry, Chairman of the subcommittee investigating links between contra aid and drug trafficking.

Sen. JOHN KERRY, (D) Mass. : I am suggesting that it is the first time I have ever heard of in history an attorney who is not cleared, classified cleared or even any security clearance whatsoever, sits as the custodian of documents which have been walked out of the workplace of the most highly sensitive government agency that we have. It's unheard of, and I think it's inappropriate. WOODRUFF: A senior Reagan Administration official expressed confidence today that Secretary of State Shultz will be able to clear up differences that have cropped up over the U. S. /Soviet missile treaty when Shultz meets with Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze. That word came just before Shultz boarded a plane to fly to Geneva for the meeting. Yesterday senate leaders in both parties decided to delay the start of floor debate on the treaty because of still unresolved disagreements over how each side can monitor the other side's compliance. But after a meeting at the White House today, one of those leaders sounded optimistic that it wouldn't take long to get the ratification process back on track again.

Sen. RICHARD LUGAR, (R) Indiana: I think that there is good will in a bipartisan way to see the INF Treaty ratified. I think there are problems, but that the Soviets after all in our judgment want to have a treaty, we want to have a treaty, and it seems to me there are things to be clarified as opposed to a great deal of argumentation. WOODRUFF: From Moscow today came a report about a speech given last Saturday by Soviet leader Gorbachev. In the speech to editors of leading newspapers, Gorbachev acknowledged that his reform policy, known as perestroika, is causing turmoil in Soviet society. He said that people at every level were confused and panicking about the reforms, but he said they were not outrightly opposed to the plan. He reaffirmed his commitment to the policy and he called on the media to cover all aspects of it. MacNEIL: The people of Denmark voted today in a parliamentary election seen as a test of that nation's allegiance to NATO. According to early returns, conservative Prime Minister Paul Schleuter, who was looking for a clear endorsement of his nation's role in NATO, may have suffered a setback. Recently the Social Democratic opposition pushed through a parliamentary resolution to reassert Denmark's peacetime ban on nuclear weapons on her territory. It urged the government to warn each visiting naval vessel of the nonnuclear policy. The U. S. and Britain say that threatens NATO's solidarity. French President Francois Mitterrand today chose fellow socialist Michele Rocard to succeed the conservative Jacques Chirac as Prime Minister. Chirac resigned following his defeat by Mitterrand in Sunday's second round presidential election. Rocard, who is 57, is a popular politician who was going to run for President himself, but withdrew in favor of Mitterrand. Rocard calls himself a ''free enterprise leftist,'' and has the support of centrists members of the National Assembly. WOODRUFF: Back in this country, federal investigators said today that crew error was the cause of last year's crash of a Northwest Airlines jet in Detroit that killed 156 people. The plane crashed on a highway shortly after takeoff. Investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the plane's wing flaps were not properly set for takeoff. They say the crew did not follow a standard preflight check list which would have required them to set the flaps. The NTSB released a computer graphic simulation of the event leading to the crash. It shows the plane in trouble immediately after liftoff, dipping left and right several times in the first seconds of flight. Then the plane almost rolls over. It hits a light post, then part of a building before crashing onto the highway. The Airline Pilots Association criticized the NTSB report. The union said mechanical problems could have caused the crash. They said the union would conduct a further investigation. In another transportation story, the Federal Railroad Administration said today that five rail workers involved in last month's commuter railroad crash near New York City have tested positive for illegal drugs. Traces of marijuana were found in the body of the engineer of one of the trains. He was the only person killed in the accident. Four other dispatch and tower workers also showed drug traces, including morphine, codeine, and marijuana. MacNEIL: Five big Wall Street firms today suspended a method of computerized stock trading because of widespread criticism that it is causing volatility and destroying investor confidence. The method uses computers to sell stocks in New York and buy stock index futures in Chicago, or the reverse, to profit from momentary differences in prices. Many investors have reportedly complained that program trading forced them out of stocks because they believed it made the market like a gambling casino. The five firms which said they were indefinitely suspending this profitable activity were Salomon Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Paine Webber, Bear Stearns and Kidder Peabody. WOODRUFF: National Guardsmen patrolled the streets of Middlesboro, Kentucky, today. They were looking for looters following last night's tornado and high winds, which killed one woman and injured at least 15 other people in the Southeastern Kentucky town. The storm tore the roofs off buildings, shattered windows and knocked out power. A furniture store was destroyed, leaving furniture in the streets. At local airports small planes were flipped over by the winds. A radio news room was destroyed just as the news director was about to broadcast a heavy thunderstorm warning. That ends our news summary. Still ahead, what's holding up the intermediate missile treaty, a European view from NATO's Lord Carrington, another in our series of two first year teachers, and an essay on the third world close to home. Treaty Snag MacNEIL: We go first tonight to the U. S. Senate's decision to postpone consideration of the U. S. /Soviet treaty on intermediate missiles. The stumbling block is a conflict over how to verify compliance with the treaty. In a moment we'll talk to the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and two experts on verification. But first some background from congressional correspondent Cokie Roberts.

COKIE ROBERTS: When President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty last December, they hailed it as a first step in arms control between the two leaders. The Administration hoped that by the time the two men met again at the Moscow summit the treaty would be ratified and talks on further reduction could begin. And the Senate seemed to be playing into that scenario. Committees held hearings and reported the treaty favorably to the full Senate, where floor action was scheduled to begin this week with ratification likely before the summit meeting later this month. But then a glitch developed over the issue of on site inspection, the ability of U. S. and Soviet monitors to check each other's military facilities to make sure that neither side is cheating. The Soviet Union came up with a different interpretation of how those inspections would work than the U. S. had previously understood. On the Senate floor today, arms services committee chairman Sam Nunn chastised the Soviet Union for what the Senate considers the Soviet's reversal on verification procedures. Sen. SAM NUNN, (D) Georgia: I would urge the negotiators for the Soviet Union and the high level policymakers in the Soviet Union to follow the old adage that when all else fails, read the directions. And the directions are pretty clear in these three to four major policy disputes that we have right now. These are not unimportant matters or incidental matters or details. They go to the very heart of the meaning of the treaty itself, and the spirit in which it's going to be implemented.

ROBERTS: The Senate is not satisfied with the Soviet response to U. S. protests and will wait to debate the treaty until after Secretary of State Shultz meets with Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze in Geneva this week. Republican leader Robert Dole brought the administration's blessing to the Senate's decision to delay. Sen. ROBERT DOLE, Senate Minority Leader: There's no disagreement. These are issues that must be resolved. The President understands the Senate has a constitutional responsibility dealing with this treaty. And he's still very hopeful, of course, that these matters can be resolved very quickly and that as indicated in the past, once they are that we'll move ahead on consideration of the treaty.

ROBERTS: But the Democratic leader warned that the Senate may not be able to move too quickly. Sen. ROBERT BYRD, Senate Majority Leader: I've resisted having the Senate pressured into premature action on this treaty. I felt and still feel that this is a matter of such significance that we ought to be sure where we're going before we head down the vote. If there are going to be mistakes made, if there are going to be gaps in the treaty, we ought to find it out now, rather than at a time after it has been approved by the Senate and ratified through the exchange of instruments.

ROBERTS: Supporters of the INF Treaty want all the problems ironed out before the agreement reaches the Senate floor. Once there, the opponents will have their say. Their aim all along has been to delay ratification until after the Moscow summit, hoping to thwart any further disarmament talks. By raising questions about on site inspections, the Soviets may have played right into the opponents' hands. But despite pressures to ratify this treaty before the Moscow summit, supporters say the question of verification is too important to be put aside. WOODRUFF: We go now to the key player in the Senate deliberations, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, David Boren, Democrat of Oklahoma. Senator, a senior administration official was quoted today as saying that all this can be resolved very quickly once Secretary Shultz gets to Geneva, that we're talking about just technical details and it can be worked out. On the other hand, we hear Senator Nunn saying that it's not just details, this goes to the heart of the treaty. Which is it? Sen. DAVID BOREN, (D) Oklahoma: Well, Judy, it's very important. There's some details to be worked out that I think are critical. You cannot have effective on site inspection when you don't have an agreement about the boundaries of the sites where you're looking, where you don't have agreement about the size of containers that you can look into to make sure that they don't contain illegal missiles. So this is extremely important for us to resolve these problems. I'm very hopeful, like the Administration, that they can be resolved quickly. There's no problem with language. The treaty speaks for itself, the negotiating record speaks for itself. The Soviets have agreed to these things in the past, and it's just in recent days that officials of the Soviet Union have been talking about not abiding by the clear language of the agreement. WOODRUFF: Well, wait a minute. If you're optimistic that this can be resolved quickly, then why is such a big deal being made over all this? Sen. BOREN: Well, it has to still be resolved. I'm hopeful. I'm a supporter of this treaty, I'd like to see it go forward, but on the other hand, on site inspection has been held up as a centerpiece of this treaty, as a precedent for future arms control agreements, and if we don't have a meeting of the minds, if we don't have an agreement on how we're going to have on site inspection so that that simply falls apart, then obviously it would be devastating as far as the treaty is concerned. So it has to be resolved. Now, I'm optimistic it can be, I'm hopeful that it will be this week. But the ball's really in the Soviet court. WOODRUFF: What exactly are you suggesting that the Soviets have done? Are you saying that they've reneged on a promise? Sen. BOREN: That's exactly what they've done. The agreement speaks for itself. The Soviets spelled out the inspection boundaries, that we had a right to inspect everything within these boundaries, that we had the right to look in containers that might contain weapons that are no longer supposed to be in production or being deployed. And now they're simply saying, Wait a minute, we didn't say the whole inspection site, we didn't say all the containers could be inspected, we didn't say you could take photographs or use other methods of verification. Now that completely goes to the heart of the agreement. And it's disturbing. And it's because we're for arms control that we think that these disagreements and misunderstandings should be resolved now. You know, I want to keep the momentum going toward future arms control, toward further reductions. And the worst thing in the word we could do right now is start trying to live under a treaty where the two sides don't have the same understanding of it. That'll just cause mistrust, and it will undercut our efforts for future arms control. So it's got to be cleared up right now, it can be and it should be. WOODRUFF: What do you think is behind what the Soviets are doing? I read one account today that had an official attributing it to lower level Soviet officials creating problems that higher level Soviet officials could easily resolve. Sen. BOREN: Well, I hope that's the case. They may have problems within their government just as we sometimes have with our bureaucracies. Sometimes not following what the leaders really want to see done. I hope that's the case. And as I say, these are not highly technical matters or difficult matters to resolve. And that's what we hope will happen in Geneva on Wednesday and Thursday. Now, if this instead represents some serious division of opinion within the highest levels of the Soviet Government, then we could have real trouble. I think we're really mystified right now as to why the Soviets would be causing these problems on the eve of the Senate debate. Why are they doing it? We just don't know. WOODRUFF: Senator Boren, stay with us. Robin? MacNEIL: Now we turn to two men who've dealt extensively with the verification issue. Frank Gaffney is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, and coauthor of a recent study of verification published by the American Enterprise Institute. He's now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington. Michael Krepon served on the Arms Control Agency from 1978 to '81, and is the author of a forthcoming book on verification and compliance. He's a senior associate and director of the verification project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. Mr. Krepon, are the senators blowing this out of proportion? Is it serious enough matter to put the whole treaty on hold? MICHAEL KREPON, Carnegie Endowment: Much more difficult issues have been resolved already in the course of these negotiations. But timing is critical in arms control, and if the timing is right, very modest issues tend to take on importance far beyond their inherent value. And that's I think the case right now. MacNEIL: You say these are being given an importance beyond their inherent -- that they're not inherently that important? Mr. KREPON: Well, they're important because they go to several issues that relate not just to the ratification of the INF Treaty, but also to the successful conclusion of a Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. But the issues here are imminently resolvable. They are not nearly as large and divisive as the issues that the two sides resolved in the course of the negotiations. MacNEIL: Mr. Gaffney, if these details are so serious, why are they just coming up now? Was it some failure in the negotiation to spell them out in the first place? FRANK GAFFNEY, Hudson Institute: I've said all along, Robin, that one of the principal problems with this treaty was that it was negotiated under a deadline. My view is had this treaty been prepared at the pace that agreements were being reached instead of in order to meet an arbitrary and artificial summit signing ceremony, we probably would have resolved these issues, we certainly would have identified them as issues before we had a signed treaty. We're in the peculiar position of finding out that there were fundamental disagreements evidently on at least points of some importance to members of the United States Senate that could very easily have been resolved before the treaty was signed and worked. MacNEIL: Do you agree with that, Mr. Krepon, that vague promises were put into the treaty in order to get it all agreed by the last summit signing, and that in the normal way these things are negotiated, this stuff would have been resolved before? In other words, was this the victim of haste? Mr. KREPON: Well, there was some haste involved, but we live in an imperfect world. And important undertakings by governments cannot always be done in the quiet, timeless method that Frank is suggesting. Even if this agreement were done in a nice bucolic setting, there would still be questions to iron out in the implementation of this treaty. The reason's simple. We're breaking a lot of new ground here. The two sides really don't have much experience in this, very steep learning curves. And so there are things to iron out, not just now, but there will be other things to iron out down the road a piece. MacNEIL: Mr. Gaffney, Mr. Krepon seems to agree with the Administration, he thinks it can be ironed out or resolved fairly easily. Do you think so? Mr. GAFFNEY: Well, I think it almost certainly will be resolved. I'm afraid, though, it will be resolved in much the same way that the issues that caused the problems in the first place were resolved. And that is there will be a very high level meeting between, in this case, the Secretary of State and the Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union. And cosmetic solutions will be arrived at. I don't think they will solve what are fundamental problems. And more to the point, I suspect shortly we'll find that there are still other problems that will arise. Because you cannot -- the issue isn't whether it's a pastoral setting. There are few settings more pastoral and bucolic than Geneva after all -- the issue really is the quality control that goes into negotiating something that isn't just another agreement. These are agreements that fundamentally affect our national security and time ought to be taken to do them right. MacNEIL: Mr. Krepon, what does this difficulty say about the problems of verifying a START, a Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which is the new treaty they're trying to negotiate now? Mr. KREPON: Well, first, before we get to START, if I may, this problem tells us a lot about the need for political oversight in the implementation process. There are many different parts of the National Security bureaucracies involved here. They have differing degrees of enthusiasm for carrying out these obligations. It's going to require a concerted effort among the political leadership in both countries to make sure that the problems when they arise get resolved very, very expeditiously, and are not dragged out and elevated in importance. That's what's happened here. MacNEIL: Are you saying that that problem exists in the U. S. as well as in the Soviet? Mr. KREPON: I believe the problem exists here as well as there. In the United States we have four different organizations that have been formed to work on the implementation of this treaty and to work on compliance questions. We have a new organization that's affiliated with the Department of Defense that reports to the Undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, that's to carry out inspections. We have a message center in the State Department. We have a monitoring office in the intelligence community, and at some point we may well have an office to work on compliance questions, either in the arms control agency or the State Department. Somebody has got to be in charge to make sure that actions are properly coordinated and addressed early on so that this sort of a problem doesn't happen over and over and over again. MacNEIL: Okay. Let's bring Senator Boren back into this. First of all, Senator, on the question that Mr. Gaffney raised, he has some anxiety that Shultz and Shevardnadze meeting are going to come to some high level agreement, which, in his words, would just provide another cosmetic solution to this. Sen. BOREN: Robin, I don't think that's going to happen. I think the Secretary understands, we have visited with him, our own concerns. I think he understands that the problem is that we have not put down on paper exact language both sides could sign off on that indicates that they understand the treaty the same way. So we're looking for very specific language, very specific agreements. And I think he understands that. I think he understands that that's his mission in Geneva. And I think he's going to really try to accomplish that. And let me say I think that will be a great step forward for the treaty. The worst thing in the world we could do is to send the treaty to the floor with loose ends, that those who want to find some excuse to oppose the treaty could seize upon and use as a reason for defeating it. MacNEIL: So you agree with the point that Cokie Roberts made a moment ago that in a way if it is Soviet officials who are reneging, or going back on the understandings, that they are helping opponents of the treaty in the U. S. Senate? Sen. BOREN: I think that's exactly right, and the Soviets need to understand that. If they genuinely want this treaty, they should be cooperating with us in Geneva over the next two days to resolve these difficulties. As I say, they're not highly technical, the language is straightforward, they simply need to reaffirm the commitments that they have made in the past. But those of us who are saying don't start the debate -- and by the way, that's been a bipartisan decision, the White House has also concurred in that decision -- are simply saying Let's don't begin the debate with the questions that are out there unresolved. That's not the way to ratify a treaty. It's also not the way to have future understanding between the United States and the Soviet Union or future negotiations toward even more important arms control agreements. MacNEIL: Mr. Gaffney, does the Senator's assurance about the Secretary's understanding that they have to get clear language, does that reassure you? Mr. GAFFNEY: Well, Robin, I've unfortunately been at those meetings myself, I've witnessed the kinds of solutions that almost inevitably emerge from them, and it doesn't inspire confidence. And I fear that the Senator will be put shortly in a position of having to take language that is less clear cut than he would like on the grounds that it's the best that Secretary Shultz could get on the time available. Now, I think this shows two important things, Robin. One, it destroys utterly the myth of the infallibility of our negotiators. This is not a perfect treaty. The AEI report that you mentioned, a sequel to which we will release next week, identifies serious problems with the treaty, and frankly they're in my view more serious than the ones that are outstanding now. The second issue is -- clearly shows we can go back to the Soviets and work on these problems without killing the treaty. These were two myths that I think the Administration and many of their friends on the Hill have propounded that simply do not stand up to the test of practical reality and we ought to take advantage of them to try to fix the treaty. MacNEIL: How do you react to that, Senator, and also to the point that under the pressure of deadlines and everything, you may be forced to accept language that is vaguer than you'd like, because Shultz says it is the best he can get. Sen. BOREN: Well, I'd say we're simply not going to do that. I think the Intelligence Committee and the other committees involved have already demonstrated that we take our own responsibility for our national security interests of our country very, very seriously. To protect our own national security interests, we're not going to accept vague language. And as I say, to keep arms control in the future on track so that we can avoid misunderstanding, we're not going to accept vagueness. We're going to have to have specific answers. I think we've demonstrated that we take the responsibility seriously. I think we've also demonstrated that Congress can be involved in a constructive way in finding some of these loose ends. I agree with some of the things that have been said. We have a large bureaucracy here involved, we have different elements that are working on different parts of the treaty process. MacNEIL: Can I interrupt you for a moment. Do you agree with Mr. Krepon that very strong political leadership will be needed once the treaty is ratified, assuming it is, in this administration and on into the future in order to coordinate those disparate agencies? Sen. BOREN: I think that's exactly right, and I think that's a role that the President himself must ultimately play. The President must be up enough on the details of the treaty and what's going on to sit down and be the referee between competing parts of his own Administration. That's absolutely essential, and I think in the past as this treaty began to evolve, there were some elements of the administration that had different feelings about it. And there was not the push necessary from the top to assure that all of these competing viewpoints would be brought together and that there would be an efficient ending of the problems. So that's essential. I think the President has to be back of it, he has to understand the details of the treaty process and be a part of it. MacNEIL: Yeah. Mr. Krepon, do you have a further comment on that? Mr. KREPON: Well, people like Frank feel that this treaty is a snare and a delusion, even though they were deeply involved in it for many, many years. The Soviets can foster that impression if they stonewall the Secretary of State in Geneva tomorrow and the next day. MacNEIL: I see. Well, I think we will leave it there. I'd like to thank you, Senator Boren for joining us on Capitol Hill, Mr. Krepon and Mr. Gaffney in our studios. Lord Carrington WOODRUFF: Other than the United States and the Soviet Union, the countries with the greatest stake in the superpower arms control talks are the European allies of the United States. Today, the European chief of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Lord Carrington, was at the White House to receive the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Reagan. Lord Carrington, a former British Defense and Foreign Minister, has been at the NATO job for nearly four years and is about to retire. I interviewed him earlier this afternoon. Lord Carrington, thank you for being with us, and congratulations. President Reagan today cited, I read, your contributions in keeping NATO unified, and yet we see on the other side of the Atlantic today voters in Denmark went to the polls and registered really a less than ringing endorsement of Denmark's continued involvement in NATO. How do you read the results there? Lord CARRINGTON, NATO Secretary General: Well, they have a very funny, I mean to us, very funny, constitutional electoral system, where it makes it almost impossible for any party to get a majority because any party which has more than 2% of the vote has a right to a seat in Parliament. So you do get a rather confused issue. I think that what you see in Denmark is a wish to stay in the NATO Alliance, but a doubt about nuclear weapons. And this has always been the case in Denmark, and it was brought to a head by this resolution passed by the (unintelligible) by their parliament, really, which caused both the Americans and the British to say that what they were asking was not right. WOODRUFF: Well, how much of a setback is this for NATO? Lord CARRINGTON: Well, I don't think probably the election was a setback, but I think if the trend continues it certainly is a setback for the Alliance, because, you see, what one must always realize is that if you have an alliance of 16 countries who benefit because they are sharing the advantages of 16 countries defending them, or 15 other countries defending them, and in particular the United States with its neutral umbrella, then there is an obligation as well to share some of the burdens and the risks. And this is something which all European countries have got to understand if they really want the Alliance to go on. And so I think that this was a really rather crucial issue in the selection. WOODRUFF: Do you think that other countries, other European members of NATO may follow suit now? Lord CARRINGTON: No, I don't think so, because when we had a debate in the NATO Council on this particular resolution, it really was very noticeable how all the other countries said no, we've got to draw the line here, the Americans and the British so they're not going to confirm or deny that they carry nuclear weapons in their vessels for very good reasons. And we support them. No, I don't think it will spread. WOODRUFF: Speaking of sharing the burden, another kind of burden sharing is the issue that has come up very much, especially in this election year here in the United States. And that's this whole issue of to what extent the United States is over subsidizing its share of the cost of NATO military defense. What is your view? Do you think, are you worried, are you concerned, that burden sharing could lead to something that would be dangerous for NATO? Lord CARRINGTON: The argument about burden sharing has been going on for a very long time. And inconclusively because everybody produces statistics which prove their own case. I think one or two things are really quite clear. First of all, the situation in Europe is quite different from what it was when the alliance was founded. After all, Europe at the end of the Second World War was on its economic knees. Now it isn't, it's very prosperous. And therefore there should be a greater effort on the part of the Europeans than there was some time ago. And I think that there is a perception in the United States that even now the Europeans don't do enough. I think perhaps they underestimate a little bit what the Europeans do. But I think there is an element of truth in it. WOODRUFF: You think the Europeans don't do enough? Lord CARRINGTON: I think they ought to do more, yes. I think the problems are -- when you talk about Europeans, I mean, everybody talks about the bloody Europeans, it doesn't really mean anything. It's a geographic location. Some European countries are doing really rather a lot. WOODRUFF: Which ones? Lord CARRINGTON: Well, I think -- it's difficult because my own country is one which is doing quite a lot. I think the Turks for example are doing quite a lot. A lot of countries which are doing -- and there are some which are not. WOODRUFF: Which ones? Lord CARRINGTON: No. I don't think I would like to -- I mean, you just have to look at the tables to see the ones that are not doing enough. And what you have to do, I think, it's an alliance problem. What the Alliance has got to do is really to gather to persuade those countries which are not doing enough to do more. And I don't think it's going to be any good kicking them in the teeth and saying you've got to do more. You've got to encourage them by doing all sorts of different things. And just one more thing. You see, there is a political problem in all this. That here you have a period, a rather extraordinary period in which for the first time you're getting agreements which reduce weapons. And the whole tone of East/West relations, the American/Soviet relations is changed, and at the same time that that's happening, and you see Secretary Shultz and Mr. Shevardnadze and President Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev, at the same time the Europeans are being asked to spend more on defense. And there is a political problem in the perceptions that people have about the threat which they now face. I happen to think they're wrong because I don't think there's a threat in the sense of we're going to get an invasion by the Soviet Union. But what I do think is that the military potential is still there and we have to be prudent. WOODRUFF: Well, what do you think will happen? All three of our remaining presidential candidates, as you know, are still talking about, have been talking about, the need for Europe to pick up more of the cost of NATO. What happens when our next president comes in office and pushes this very hard? What will the results be? Lord CARRINGTON: You know, you have to make your mind in the United States about your own affairs, to a very large extent. I mean, you have to say to yourself Why am I doing this? I mean, what is the object? Am I doing it because I love the Europeans, or am I doing it because it is in my interests, for the defense of the United States we shouldn't see the disappearance of Europe or Japan, or whoever it might be. And you have to make up your mind about how much money you're prepared to do for your own defense. Which in the judgment of previous administrations has been the defense of Europe in the same way that before the Second World War British defense was on the Rhine and not on the Channel Coast. So I think in a sense you have to look at it a little more in global terms and not just are they doing as much as we want? Although I'm very much one of those who think that we should do more. WOODRUFF: These latest snags that have developed over the INF Treaty and the decision in the Senate now to delay the debate. How serious a problem is this? How serious are the issues that have come up here at the last minute? Lord CARRINGTON: I don't know the exact details of this verification, but of course verification is enormously important. There's no point in entering into an agreement which is not verifiable, because you create distrust instead of trust. And Secretary Shultz is flying tonight to Geneva with Paul Nitzler, and obviously they will try and settle this. But I do think it's an important point. But I have a feeling that it isn't ill will on the part of the Soviet Union. I think these are complicated treaties and I hope very much that this will be ironed out. . WOODRUFF: Are you convinced that it will be ironed out? Do you have enough information to know that -- Lord CARRINGTON: Not of a technical kind. But I just have a sort of political sense that the Soviet Union has just as much of an interest as we have in getting the agreements. And I don't think it would probably fall on something which has risen at such a late hour. WOODRUFF: Your own Prime Minister Thatcher said in an interview -- I believe it was yesterday -- that it's important for the United States to go ahead and ratify this INF TReaty in order, among other things, not to undermine what Mr. Gorbachev is trying to do in the way of reforms in the Soviet Union. Now, there's a report just this afternoon, Mr. Gorbachev is publicly admitting that he's having political problems. How much trouble do you think he is in in the Soviet Union with his reforms? Do you have a sense of that? Lord CARRINGTON: Difficult to make a judgment about that. He is obviously doing some things which are unpopular in the sense that they are going to cause people who have privileges and comfort and did live at a rather high level standard of life than other people, are going to find that is going to be removed from them in order to make the Soviet economy more efficient. And obviously people don't like that kind of thing. So I would judge he would get a bit of trouble from that. And he will also get trouble from what you might call the conservatives, an odd way of describing communists as being conservatives, but those who are rather more traditional, Brezhnev Stalinites. So I think he will have some trouble, but I think that Mr. Gorbachev is a pretty good operator, and I think that he looks to me fairly confident. And I doubt very much whether he would say to the world at large if he was having great trouble if he didn't think he was going to overcome it. WOODRUFF: How important though do you think this INF Treaty is to his keeping the clout, staying in power, continuing with this reform methods? Lord CARRINGTON: Well, I think the INF Treaty is important in the sense that he's got to show some kind of results of his new change of policy. He isn't going to show any results in the economic field for a bit because it takes much longer to do that. And so I think the INF is important to him as a demonstration that his new policy has actually paid off and that there is a new relationship between East and West, and particularly with the Soviet Union. Exactly the same way that I think it's important for him that President Reagan should go to Moscow at the end of this month, because it's a status symbol for him as well, something needed. WOODRUFF: That the treaty be ratified before the President goes? Lord CARRINGTON: Oh, I don't know -- that's not the end of the world. But I think that the fact that President Reagan's going is very important. WOODRUFF: Lord Carrington, we thank you for being with us. First Lesson MacNEIL: Over the past eight months our education correspondent John Merrow has been reporting on the progress of two first year teachers as they settle in to their new careers. Tonight, Merrow goes back to Woodlawn, Maryland for his third report. LYNN ROBBINS, first year teacher: So, John, do Engine Joe, Nicole, do Aunt Polly, Jenny, do Morgana Faye. Do it on that sideboard and just erase what's already up there. Okay? Front board Laurence, do Merlin, Mike, do Lancelot, and Tanya, do Robin Hood.

JOHN MERROW: It may be a cliche, but it's true that first year teachers learn as much as they teach. Lynn Robbins has taught these 7th graders at Johnnycake Middle School grammar, vocabulary and writing skills. She has taught them about Call of the Wild, Robin Hood, King Arthur and Tom Sawyer. But she's also learning and changing as her students have noticed. STUDENT: I think she's teached different since the beginning of the year, 'cause she used to make it hard, and now she makes it like fun. She gives us good Oh's that have cartoons and everything on it. And she like makes us read out of the book out loud, you know. I think she makes it fun. STUDENT: Well, at the beginning of the year she didn't know everybody too well. She knew them by their name and all, but she didn't know me too well. And now it's getting close to the end of the year, she knows you like a book. You can't get over one. So she's been kind of strict, but not too strict. MERROW: How would you rate her as a teacher? STUDENT: She's going to kill me for this, but I've got to say around a four. From one to ten, I've got to say a four. STUDENT: I would give her around an eight, because I like her.

MERROW: Student ratings from one to ten are hardly scientific, but then Lynn's job is not to make them like her, it's to reach and teach as many as possible. These three make the judgments that count, Principal Steve Jones, English supervisor Sharon Norman, and Department Chairman Paul Dougherty. They evaluate her four times a year. The first evaluation went relatively well. The second, in December, did not. STEVE JONES, Principal, Johnnycake Middle School: She was playing the orchestrator, she was playing the conductor. The focus was on her, and not on the kids. In the Middle School, kids have to be actively involved in their learning, and we can't have, as you and I are accustomed to seeing in college, the teacher in front of the classroom lecturing and hoping that the students will walk away with all this wisdom. That's not the case with these kids. They have to be active in their learning. MERROW: She was too dominant? She talked too much? Mr. JONES: To an extent I guess we could say that.

MERROW: Lynn was quite upset by the second evaluation. She wrote about it in the journal she's been keeping at our request. Ms. ROBBINS: I don't know how to begin to explain what's happening and how I feel. I've been so frustrated that I can't even keep things in perspective. First there was a second observation. I thought the lesson was better than the first observation; they didn't. In fact they seemed utterly stunned at how bad it was. The worst of it all was being told that the evaluators wanted to see me again. So I face another observation next week, with really no hope of giving them what they want at all.

MERROW: Nervous about her third evaluation, Lynn asked us not to come into the room, and we agreed. Lynn teaches about 900 class periods a year, but is judged on only four of them. Afterwards, she evaluated her own performance. Ms. ROBBINS: I thought it went very well. I was very pleased with it. In fact, I was elated with it. I really was very happy.

MERROW: Happily for Lynn the three observers were also pleased. Mr. JONES: I was just really delighted to get that sense of rapport between Lynn and this class. You know, there was a point when we were kind of concerned about how she related -- MAN: She was offputting, very offputting -- Mr. JONES: Yeah, and she was -- you notice (unintelligible) she let the kids now -- even that faux pas the kid made about historical vs. hysterical, that little girl felt good about that. SHARON NORMAN, English supervisor: It's funny, she was still animated and still upbeat and enthusiastic, but there was I thought an effort on her part to be a little more subdued and less in the spotlight herself and put more on the kid. Mr. JONES: I think that little edge was taken off -- PAUL DOUGHERTY, Chairman, English Department: I think a quality of good teaching is when your ego is strong enough that you don't have to show it off, that the student can always be the star, even when they're wrong.

MERROW: Controlling her own ego was only the first lesson. There's a second lesson, which Lynn seems to be learning. Ms. ROBBINS: You ask me what I learned, and that's definitely one thing. The importance of the kids feeling like they are succeeding, because if they're not then when they get to high school, they're gone. And it really does make all the difference in the world. You have to find their level and then go just one step on the ladder and ask them to reach that much farther. SUSAN HOLST, first year teacher: Now, see if you can answer question 3. Can you calculate the mass of the water? You knew what the (unintelligible) weight, what the mass (unintelligible) was, and then you added the water to it.

MERROW: Susan Holst is a first year science teacher at nearby Woodlawn High School. While Lynn Robbins was overpowering her seventh graders, Susan was having a different problem. She's covered the required subjects: heat, light, magnetism and electricity, but it's been a struggle. STUDENT: The class took advantage of her in the beginning of the year. And she kept on, you know, she always told everybody we as a class whole should be quiet, you know, nicely. She never really had to send nobody out of the room. MERROW: How did she try to control the class at the beginning of the year? STUDENT: Just tell them to settle down and be quiet. MERROW: And what would happen? STUDENT: Everybody'd be quiet for a little while, but since she was just telling them to be quiet, they'd get rowdy again. MERROW: You keep saying 'they,' but you mean you? STUDENT: Oh, everybody.

MERROW: For Susan Holst, teaching stopped being fun. Every day was a struggle with students coming into class late, forgetting their books, whispering, not paying attention. Ms. HOLST: I call it discipline problems, but they're not really problems, it's just behavior. They're just having problems knowing how to behave. It's not a problem because I know how to deal with this, but I was just tired of dealing with it every day and trying to come up with a way that I wouldn't have to go through the same routine every day.

MERROW: There are ways to manage a classroom so you can keep students focused on the subject matter. Susan found her solution by chance, from a veteran of many years in the classroom. MARY ROSE TORRES, teacher: We were at a Christmas party for the faculty, and we just started talking and she was saying how bad this one class was to handle. And I just gave her a few suggestions on what to do. And mainly it was a matter of giving them a class grade rather than get on their behavior all the time. MERROW: What's the new system? STUDENT: Points. MERROW: Tell me how it works. STUDENT: You get 10 points. Well, you have no points and as the week goes along you either subtract them or add them for doing good things or bad things. MERROW: Like what? STUDENT: Like not bringing your stuff to class, talking out of turn, talking to your neighbor. Ms. HOLST: If I'm looking at them and I have to stop class because they're talking, they can see me make the 'T' under their name in the book, so they know immediately what's happened. MERROW: Does this work? STUDENT: Yes. MERROW: Explain. STUDENT: Everything just calmed down since she got bolder and had a new system. It works. It's better than it was in the beginning of the year, way better. MERROW: Do you feel at all guilty, that you sold out, that you're less idealistic? Ms. HOLST: I wish I didn't have to be. MERROW: But? Ms. HOLST: But this is the only thing that they have cared about so far. And so I guess I'm manipulating it in a way. It's like my only tool. It's my only ace.

MERROW: Like most new teachers, Susan Holst has traveled the road from naive idealism to hard practicality. Ms. HOLST: I think I came in kind of 'isn't this going to be great, I'm going to teach you all this stuff, and you're just going to sit there and learn it and we're going to have a great time. ' And they're just kids, they're not college kids, they're not there because they paid all that money and they want to learn something. They're there because they have to be there. And if I can teach them something along the way, that's great. But for a lot of them it's not the greatest thing, so I've had to get a lot tougher. Next year, just wait until next year, I'm going to be really tough.

MERROW: But there won't be a next year for Susan Holst. Not at Woodlawn High School. She has learned how to control a class and is now a better teacher, but student enrollment is down, and the school has one science too many. Susan, the last one hired, is the first to go. Although she may be offered a position in another Baltimore County School. Lou Sergi is Susan's principal. Ms. HOLST: When can I hope to know one way or another? LOU SERGI, Principal, Woodlawn High School: I think probably not until mid July. Ms. HOLST: Will I know even if I have a job? Mr. SERGI: Well, they'll tell you before you leave here in June that you have a job or you don't have a job. I'm pretty sure you have a job. It's just a matter of the placement.

MERROW: The awful uncertainty has forced Susan and her husband to put their lives on hold. Susan has written about her feelings in her journal. Ms. HOLST: I guess it would be different if I were being asked to leave because I wasn't doing a good enough job. But I really think I am good, and I have proven that. I'm going to be 25 this year. I would like to consider having a family, but I certainly cannot be pursuing that if I do not know whether I have a job. If I do notget a job next year, my husband would feel that he could no longer stay in school. To me this is the worst thing that could happen. I might have to get a job in a different field as soon as school is out to assure that he stay in school. You see, the hardest part is the uncertainty.

MERROW: Right now Susan Holst is putting off looking for a job, clinging to the hope that another school in the same system will need a science teacher. MacNEIL: A spokesman for the Baltimore County School System told the NewsHour today that they had just decided to offer Susan Holst a science teaching position at another school. ''We want to keep her,'' the spokesman said. America's Third World WOODRUFF: Finally tonight, regular essayist Jim Fisher takes a look at a small town in Kansas that feels more like the third world than America.

JIM FISHER: Early spring in the farm belt. A window of time before April and May soften the view, before the trees bud and the winter wheat grows again, before the spring planted corn and beans blunt the edge of hard land. This is Quenemo, Kansas, 400 souls. Houses and streets, garage, a combination beer joint/pool hall, an upholstery shop and a post office. Zip 66528. A real place. Not unlike a lot of midwestern towns. That is, until you take a long look at Main Street. Not all that long ago, Saturdays especially, people filled the streets of Quenemo and towns like it. Not now. Today Quenemo is mostly forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind. It's a place where the bus and rail service ended years ago, where the only planes are five miles up, leaving wispy contrails against the blue skies as they head for either coast. To what essentially in 1988 is another world. Simply put, Quenemo and other places have become this nation's own third world. Well, maybe not quite third on a scale of three. Try two and a half, and pushing two and three quarters. Most of the third world definitions are here. Cheap raw materials go out, grain, livestock, lumber and energy to other parts of the country or overseas. Like those African or Latin American nations on television, the most valuable resource of all, fertile young people, has left, or is leaving for the manufacturing jobs that aren't here. For the service jobs that don't exist. Bet on it, there will never be a McDonald's in Quenemo. For those who are left, the elderly and the infirm, the only real occupations seem to be old age and dying. And now there's a new dimension. In local newspapers, East Coast yuppies with children plea for Kansas, Iowa or South Dakota bred nannies. Childless California couples often advertise for middlewestern surrogate mothers. This fabled granary of the world, at least in the eyes of some, has still other resources, genetic and otherwise for the buying. And what in the third world scheme of things comes back to places like Quenemo and others on the periphery of the American dream? Finished goods, often too expensive to buy. You have to look hard here to see a new car or pickup. The insoluble problem is that American farmers don't grow food anymore. Progress locked them into growing raw materials. Soybeans processed into oleo margarine, or dollar a loaf bread containing a nickel's worth of wheat. Other things come home to Quenemo. Letters, photographs of babies that should have been born here, federal payments, welfare really for crops not grown. Notices saying Government Funds for this or that sort of rural aid aren't available. None of this is really new. For decades people have left rural America. But until recently even in hard times, Quenemo and places like it were busy little towns. They were the engine that supposedly ran America, a country where farming, mining and lumbering were hard jobs, but ones that counted. And there was always hope. That's faded now. Too many have left. The inclination to recycle what are really the long ago dreams of Quenemo's past generations, even if to some place else, seems gone. You can almost wager that part of this Main Street will eventually burn down, or fall down. And in a corner of your heart you almost wished it happened tomorrow, because American isn't supposed to look this way. Recap MacNEIL: Again the main stories in the news. President Reagan said he has not ruled out pardoning North and Poindexter. Polish workers ended their strike at the Lenin shipyards in Gdansk after nine days, without gaining legal status for the outlawed Solidarity Union. The Reagan Administration said it was confident it could resolve differences with the Soviets over verifying the medium range missile treaty. The National Transportation Safety Board said crew error caused the crash of a Northwest Airlines plane which killed 156 people. Good night, Judy. WOODRUFF: Good night, Robin. That's our NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and good night.