The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Tuesday, newly elected Russian President Boris Yeltsin began a four day visit to the United States. Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan said the recession had bottomed out but there was still no sign of rebound. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: After the News Summary, Judy Woodruff runs a four way discussion of the U.S. policy that keeps out foreigners infected with the AIDS virus and Robert MacNeil talks with the leading critic of political correctness. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Boris Yeltsin arrived in the United States today fresh from his election as president of the Russian Republic. He flew from Moscow to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington. His four day schedule includes meetings with Pres. Bush, Vice Pres. Quayle, members of the cabinet and congressional leaders. He will also see U.S. business leaders in New York City. Yeltsin won 57 percent of the vote at last week's election. He spoke to reporters on arrival.

BORIS YELTSIN: [Speaking through Interpreter] We are making this trip several days after event of historic magnitude for Russia, mainly the first ever direct and free presidential elections where the peoples of Russia made a strong statement in favor of moving further along the road of democracy and of the radical economic reform. We expectthis visit to launch a direct dialogue between Russia and the United States in the interest of stronger and stable interaction between the USSR and the United States and in the interest of further strengthening positive processes throughout the world.

MR. LEHRER: White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said today President Bush was anxious to meet Yeltsin but the primary U.S. relationship would remain with the central Soviet government of President Gorbachev. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Gorbachev got some advice today from Sec. of State Baker. During a visit to Germany, Baker said the Soviet President should make a new effort at serious market reform. If he did, Baker said the Soviets would be welcome to join the West's political and economic alliance. He also called on the West to encourage reforms in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

SEC. BAKER: We must begin to extend the transatlantic community to Central and Eastern Europe and to the Soviet Union. These are still incomplete pieces of our architecture.

MR. MacNeil: Baker is in Berlin for a 34 nation conference on European security which opens tomorrow. He will also meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Bessmertnykh in an effort to resolve differences over a nuclear arms reduction treaty.

MR. LEHRER: Eight more U.S. Navy ships headed for the Philippines to evacuate military families. About 7,000 U.S. military dependents have already left because of the eruption of the Pinatubo Volcano. Officials said they hoped to have all 20,000 out by week's end. Scientists said the volcano was steadily calming. We have a report from Mark Austin of Independent Television News.

MR. AUSTIN: Mount Pinatubo slowly simmers today after a week of devastating eruptions. For hundreds of miles around lush farming country has become a wasteland and these are the waters off Luzon Island, rich fishing ground threatened by a thick layer of ash and debris, wave after wave of volcanic sludge. Some farming families are returning to see for themselves the hopeless scene. Others never left. This man was only given his few acres of land by the government in January.

MAN: I think I will stay here because my home is here.

MR. AUSTIN: The Phillipines' air links to the world remain cut. The international airport has been closed for three days. The fear is that ash dust will clog aircraft engines and the technology employed to clear the runways suggest it may not be open for a while. But in the worst affected areas, the people make the best of a disaster. Where bridges are down, makeshift crossings soon take their place and a business is made out of a misfortune.

MR. LEHRER: A mudslide in Chile killed at least 61 people and injured more than 750. It happened early today in Antofagasta, a city of 200,000, nine hundred miles North of Santiago. The slide was triggered by more than five hours of torrential rains. Up to two feet of mud covered downtown streets in the city. It cut off power and water and destroyed wooden shacks in a group of poor neighborhoods. Police said at least 1,000 people were left homeless.

MR. MacNeil: Back in this country, the four military service chiefs told a Senate committee today they were personally opposed to letting women serve in combat. Gen. Merrill McPeak said the Air Force would be prepared to let women fly combat missions if Congress changed the law, but he said that did not change his personal feelings. Senators questioned the general's reasoning.

SEN. WILLIAM COHEN, [R] Maine: Suppose you had a woman pilot, she was an instructor pilot, of superior intelligence, of great physical conditioning, and in every way she was superior to a male counterpart vying for a combat position, would your personal judgment be because you would not want to see the risk to her life increased by putting her in a combat role, that you would pick the male over the female under those circumstances?

GEN. MERRILL McPEAK, Air Force Chief of Staff: That's correct.

SEN. COHEN: So, in other words, you would have a militarily less effective situation because of a personal view?

GEN. McPEAK: Well, I admit it doesn't make much sense, but that's the way I feel about it. It seems to me that the data indicates that there are some women, at least some women, who can do this combat job as well as men, okay? So it's the law that is preventing us from pushing into this area and I find comfort in that. That's my personal prejudice that I talked about.

MR. MacNeil: A small rocket carrying scientific experiments was destroyed shortly after its launch this morning from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rocket veered off course about 10 seconds after lift-off. Computer commands were sent to self-destruct and the debris fell into the Atlantic Ocean. The rocket was part of a joint project between NASA and private industry.

MR. LEHRER: Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said today the recession had bottomed out, but he said recovery had not begun and he would not predict when it would. Greenspan made the comments in testimony before the House Ways & Means Committee. The Commerce Department reported more improvement in the housing industry. Construction of new homes and apartments was up in May for the second straight month. The gain was slight, just .1 percent.

MR. MacNeil: A new government study has found that children who live with adults who smoke are twice as likely to have poor health as children who live in smoke free homes. Health & Human Services Sec. Louis Sullivan said he hoped the study would make both cigarette companies and parents realize the serious health risks associated with passive smoking. Another report released today by the Senate Judiciary Committee said violent crime was escalating in rural America. Fifteen of the nation's nineteen rural states responded to the survey. Six of those states reported increases above 10 percent. That's it for the News Summary. Still ahead AIDS and immigration and political correctness. FOCUS - PERSONA NON GRATA

MR. LEHRER: Foreigners infected with the AIDS virus are not allowed into the United States of America. That is a policy of hot debate at the International AIDS Conference in Italy this week and the subject of our lead story tonight. Next year's conference is scheduled for Harvard University in Boston. Harvard has threatened to cancel its sponsorship because of the policy. Judy Woodruff in a pretaped segment reports.

MS. WOODRUFF: Currently all foreign nationals who apply for citizenship receive an AIDS test and are barred from entry if they test positive. That policy has been the subject of a major debate within the Bush administration. But the problem of how to stop the spread of AIDS has been controversial since the very beginning of the epidemic. We begin with this background report from Kwame Holman.

MR. HOLMAN: It's estimated that as many as a million Americans have been infected with the AIDS virus. In the 10 years since AIDS was identified, 175,000 people in this country have contracted the disease or died from it. The debate over how to control the spread of AIDS often has pitted health experts against public officials. In 1984, 13 year old Ryan White, ahemophiliac, contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion. As a result, he was barred from attending a public school near Cocomo, Indiana. Ryan's doctors said he posed no threat to his fellow students. But a local judge reflecting concerns of many parents enjoined Ryan from attending classes. Ryan eventually returned to school. But on his first day back, 40 percent of his fellow students stayed home. The question of how to stop the spread of AIDS also divided the Reagan administration. Then Surgeon Gen. C. Everett Koop, the nation's top health official, outraged conservatives by advocating the practice of safe sex. Koop helped arrange for an AIDS pamphlet discussing the use of condoms and other sexual matters to be mailed to 108 million homes.

DR. C. EVERETT KOOP, Surgeon General: [May 4, 1988] For the first time in our nation's history the federal government is sending information on a sexually transmitted disease to every home in America. We are taking this step because the epidemic of misunderstanding about how AIDS is spread and how it is not spread seems at times as difficult to control as the epidemic itself.

MR. HOLMAN: The latest clash over AIDS policy concerns the Immigration & Naturalization Service. Since 1987, the INS has required everyone applying to immigrate to the United States to be tested for the AIDS or HIV virus. Those who test positive are barred automatically from entry. AIDS activists and some international health organizations oppose the ban, arguing that it's discriminatory and medically unjustified. The policy, which prompted demonstrations at last year's international AIDS conference in San Francisco, also is opposed by public health officials at the Centers For Disease Control. In February 1990, the CDC recommended that HIV infection and six other contagious diseases be removed from the exclusionary list. The CDC advised that tuberculosis, which can be spread by casual contact, should remain. Sec. of Health & Human Services, Dr. Louis Sullivan, agreed. In January, he proposed ending the ban. "This policy will bring us in line with the best medical thinking, here and abroad. We have been virtually the only major country to try to bar HIV infected travelers," he said. But the Justice Department and many conservatives objected, Republican Congressman William Dannemeyer of California, for example. "Our health care system," he argued, "is already inundated trying to keep up with the health needs of American people who are here as citizens." The Sullivan proposal was scheduled to take effect June 1, but as a result of the controversy, Sullivan shelved the plan for 60 days to allow the public more time to comment so the ban on immigrants infected with the AIDS virus is still in effect.

MS. WOODRUFF: Whatever the government decision it will affect not only people who want to come to the United States. Many foreign nationals who have tested positive for infection with the AIDS virus already live inside the U.S. under temporary or permanent visas. Our first guest is one such person. He is Rupert Whitaker. Mr. Whitaker works as an AIDS researcher at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Mr. Whitaker, you were born in Great Britain, is that right, you're a British citizen?

MR. WHITAKER: That's correct, yes.

MS. WOODRUFF: And you're here in the United States working at the University of Michigan under a temporary -- what sort of visa arrangement do you have?

MR. WHITAKER: It's a training visa to complete my post doctoral research training and it can last up to five years.

MS. WOODRUFF: And how long have you been in the United States?

MR. WHITAKER: Six years.

MS. WOODRUFF: So it's been extended.

MR. WHITAKER: I came in as a student and then transferred to what's called a J-1 visa.

MS. WOODRUFF: I see. As you understand this extension of the ban on people who have tested positive with the virus -- and it, obviously, has not affected you so far --

MR. WHITAKER: Well, it hasn't so far, but as of this moment, it's like coming out, I can -- I am opening myself up to being deported at the moment.

MS. WOODRUFF: Because --

MR. WHITAKER: Because --

MS. WOODRUFF: Because you have not spoken publicly about it before.

MR. WHITAKER: That's correct.

MS. WOODRUFF: What is your understanding of what will happen to you? I mean, once it is determined either through a test or some other fashion that you are infected, what would happen to you?

MR. WHITAKER: There are various possibilities. One is that I could be arrested and deported effectively immediately, or I could be allowed to leave the country and then barred from entering this country ever again.

MS. WOODRUFF: You have not been tested -- they have not asked - - the government has not asked you for a test.

MR. WHITAKER: That's correct. They had no reason to suspect that I was HIV positive.

MS. WOODRUFF: I see. So there was not a regular procedure at that point that said that everyone coming in under this sort of temporary visa --

MR. WHITAKER: Right.

MS. WOODRUFF: -- would have that arrangement.

MR. WHITAKER: But at the moment, as the policy stands, only those who come in to seek permanent residency or a green card and/or citizenship are tested routinely. However, anybody is -- any foreigner is liable to be tested. That includes tourists, businessmen, students, trainees as myself.

MS. WOODRUFF: But since you're not here on a permanent visa situation or permanent residency status, what makes you think that you might be vulnerable if the government, the authorities, determine that you are infected?

MR. WHITAKER: Because they can choose to test me any time and on that basis of that test result then deport or exclude me from this country.

MS. WOODRUFF: How do you feel about all this?

MR. WHITAKER: Well, the reason why I agreed to come on this afternoon was to express how offensive this really is. It's extremely bad science and it is an extremely poor policy technically. It's impractical and it, it just doesn't achieve its goal.

MS. WOODRUFF: Why not?

MR. WHITAKER: For I think probably the best reason why it doesn't is the fact that people such as myself who have been living in this country for six years and more can go undetected all the time, and it's -- the people who seek permanent residency are a very, very, very small fraction of the foreigners who come to this country every year.

MS. WOODRUFF: So you're saying, your primary argument against it is those people who have been living here under a temporary situation or, as you say, under resident visa status who would then have to be subject to being tested and being deported, what about the policy though of restricting new people coming into the United States?

MR. WHITAKER: Well, for instance, somebody in my position could still come and live here for six years without ever being detected, because people in my position on a training visa, for instance, aren't required to be tested. Students aren't, tourists aren't, businessmen, business women aren't required to be tested on the whole, although if there's reason that the Immigration Service thinks that they may be positive, say they're gay, then they can choose to test them at any time.

MS. WOODRUFF: But it's clear that you think this policy is the wrong way to go.

MR. WHITAKER: Oh, definitely. It's the object of scorn really of the international scientific community.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. We want to now turn to two views on what the government policy should be, two more views. David Rogers is the vice chairman of The National Commission on AIDS, that's Dr. David Rogers. That organization strongly endorses lifting the immigration restriction. And Congressman William Dannemeyer, Republican of California, has led a campaign urging Sec. Sullivan and HHS and others to continue the restriction. Congressman Dannemeyer, what do you say to the argument made by Rupert Whitaker and others that this is just not going to accomplish what it was meant to accomplish?

REP. DANNEMEYER: To the extent that we can, those of us who have the responsibility of watching out for the health care system of America and for the federal tax dollars in this country that are available for health care, I think it's in our interest as Americans to reduce the drain on our health care system and my heart goes out to Mr. Whitaker. I hope we find a cure for this disease so that he and other sufferers of the disease will have hope for life. But, you know, it costs $75,000 per person to take care of an AIDS patient in our health care system, and we have a million people today that are infected. That's looking at a health care cost with what we have now of $75 billion. Now who's going to pay that?

MS. WOODRUFF: So you're prepared to tell Mr. Whitaker and others that they have to leave the United States, is that right?

REP. DANNEMEYER: Sometimes you make tough choices in life and when they involve people and human beings they get even tougher, but I have a responsibility to the taxpayers and a health care system of this nation that I think deserves respect.

MS. WOODRUFF: Dr. Rogers, what about that?

DR. ROGERS: Well, it'll come as no surprise that I disagree profoundly. One, I think the Secretary made the only appropriate decision. There is absolutely no medical or scientific reason to exclude people who are HIV positive, and in terms of Mr. Dannemeyer's concerns about the economics of it --

MS. WOODRUFF: Go ahead. And then I'm going to ask you --

DR. ROGERS: Yeah. I think that's, that's utter nonsense. We've never before excluded a group on the basis of a medical precondition. What about people with cancer, with high blood pressure, with heart disease who are coming in?

MS. WOODRUFF: But people have been excluded, as I understand it, in years past and may still be, if I understand this correctly, for certain contagious diseases, certain sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis, as I understand it, and until now tuberculosis and one or two other diseases.

DR. ROGERS: Well, Judy, all those diseases were removed with the exception of active tuberculosis.

MS. WOODRUFF: Have already been removed, is that correct?

DR. ROGERS: This is the Secretary's recommendation based on good science and on good medical evidence and on the opinions of people like Dr. Koop or the American Public Health Association or the AMA or WHO that have said these diseases are not of public health significance in terms of contagion.

MS. WOODRUFF: If that's the case, Congressman Dannemeyer, why can't you take the word of the medical experts on this?

REP. DANNEMEYER: Well, let's look at this for a moment. We cannot out of one side of our mouths say that AIDS is of no significance in AIDS and at the same time witness the fact that we have appropriated $350 million just to bail out certain big city hospitals that were being inundated with cost in health care crisis in their own cities today. You can't have it both ways.

MS. WOODRUFF: But on the medical -- I'm talking specifically about the argument of contagion, which is I gather a major part of the opposition or the --

REP. DANNEMEYER: The American Medical Association policy is consistent with the position that I'm urging right now. They recommend that this nation not admit for immigration persons who are HIV positive.

MS. WOODRUFF: For what reason?

REP. DANNEMEYER: For the reason that I think we should focus a little in this whole epidemic on the rights of the uninfected and not exclusively focus on the rights of the infected. I believe the civil rights of the uninfected should be of equal significance to the civil rights of the infected.

MS. WOODRUFF: Dr. Rogers.

DR. ROGERS: Well, no argument on that. First, as a correction, the AMA has not taken that position. The AMA has said let's exclude people who have significant disabilities but not on the basis of HIV testing, but in terms of the other issue, remind me of it again --

MS. WOODRUFF: Congressman Dannemeyer, you were saying -- the infection, the notion that it's contagious, and that the people who are not infected have rights as well.

DR. ROGERS: Of course they have rights, but it's worth pointing out that we have -- one of the tragedies of this epidemic is we have 120,000 Americans who have, who have AIDS, perhaps a million infected. We are the reservoir, not the rest of the world, in terms of those with infection and we should be much more serious about dealing with that. Simply barring those who are HIV positive does nothing to promote the public health of the United States and as Dr. Whitaker has mentioned makes us, the rest of the world is very concerned about our posture.

MS. WOODRUFF: But just to explain, why doesn't it promote the public health? Because if you do permit people who do have a contagious disease, which AIDS is at a certain, under certain conditions, why is that not a threat?

DR. ROGERS: Well, one of the few bright spots about AIDS is that it is so difficult to transmit. It is transmitted by very specific sexual behaviors, by the transmission of blood, probably in the birth process, period. It is simply not transmitted by casual contact. And the tragedy, the thing that I most worry about, is at a time when we've been struggling so hard with fear, with discrimination, with hate, that this sends a very bad message, sends a bad message to Americans about this disease.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. What about his point, his last answer, Congressman Dannemeyer, that it is not easily contagious?

REP. DANNEMEYER: Well, he chooses, he chooses to ignore the fact that we're struggling now with how to explain that five patients of a dentist in Florida have now tested HIV positive and medical science can't tell us how that happened. It's interesting to find out just how this did occur. But you know, I want to change the focus, if I may, just a moment on this whole treatment of the epidemic, because I think we're missing an important point of dealing with this issue as a public health issue in America, not a civil rights issue. I don't know whether you want to talk about the issue of reportability and contact tracing as a means of controlling this epidemic within the United States, but let's wake up to something. We've got over a million people that are infected with this epidemic, and the tragedy is that in 10 states of this nation today we are not enforcing routine steps to control the people who have this disease, namely reportability and contact tracing.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. Let's define the term. What do you mean by -- let me just turn to you, Dr. Rogers, for a response. When he talks about contact tracing, what exactly is he referring to and would you please respond to that point?

DR. ROGERS: He's suggesting that for those who we find to be HIV positive that the contacts, sexual contacts, for example, of those people be explored and traced.

MS. WOODRUFF: That the records be kept of who contacted it?

DR. ROGERS: Yes. I think what's vastly more important, and I think each study on this has suggested that we need careful counseling, careful testing. No argument about the fact that people should know their HIV status now. It's important because we can treat people. I have no argument about that. But mandatory testing simply has not worked well. It sends underground precisely the ones we wish to get at.

MS. WOODRUFF: But what about Mr. Dannemeyer's other point, that there's this dentist in Florida, there is still some question about how the disease was transmitted.

DR. ROGERS: It's a serious concern, but I would point out that of the thousands of interactions between health professionals and patients, this is the only instance in which that has occurred, and we need to explore it very carefully, and the appropriate question is: How do we best protect individuals from HIV infected health professionals? And that's undergoing a careful look by CDC right now.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. Mr. Whitaker will rejoin us now. And we're also joined by Dr. William Jones of Little Rock, Arkansas, who was a member of Gov. Bill Clinton's task force on AIDS. Dr. Jones has organized a letter writing campaign to state medical societies to support continuing the restrictions. Dr. Jones, what is your main concern? Why is it so important to you that these restrictions stay on the books?

DR. JONES: Judy, I don't see this as a civil rights issue or a gay rights issue. I see it as a public health and economics issue. Regarding the public health, HIV disease is both communicable and sexually transmissible. The infection is a continuum of disease - - [audio difficulty]

MS. WOODRUFF: I'm going to have to interrupt Dr. Jones because we're having some difficulty with audio there. We're going to work on that if you'll just bear with us, Dr. Jones. We'll try to come back to you in just a moment. Let me return now to Congressman Dannemeyer to pick up on that point, because I think it was one that you were going to -- you were starting to make a moment ago, and that is the economic burden -- I think that may have been the word you used -- on the United States, on our society, and on the government, whatever. How much of a burden are you saying is placed if we let in a small number of people every year who may be infected with the AIDS virus? What is the problem? What is your complaint?

REP. DANNEMEYER: Well, I think you're asking the wrong person in a way, and I'm not being facetious. Maybe you should be directing your question to the people in certain urban centers of America like New York City, for example, where the health care system is being seriously strained just taking care of the tragedy of these AIDS patients there today and, you know, should the taxpayers of this country be paying for taking care of people who have been infected outside the United States? And I'll come back to the point I made at the beginning of this broadcast. I have a responsibility as a member of Congress to be concerned about the burden on the taxpayers of this country and the health care system, and that I think explains the position that I have taken.

MS. WOODRUFF: How do you respond to that, Mr. Whitaker, as someone who knows this disease personally?

MR. WHITAKER: Well, I'm also a taxpayer. I've been a taxpayer in this country for several years. And it's my money that goes towards supporting the American economy as well. The question of draining the American health budget, it's a reasonable question to ask, however, people aren't going to be flooding into this country in order to seek medical care here, because like it or not, the American medical system treats medical care as a privilege. And you can only gain medical care if you can afford insurance or pay for it directly. Now it's --

MS. WOODRUFF: How do you know -- let me just stop you there -- how do you know people aren't going to be flooding -- I mean, the United States is known, for example, to have one of the more superior health systems in the world, there are a lot of complaints about it now in terms of how we're going to pay for it --

MR. WHITAKER: Right.

MS. WOODRUFF: -- and how we serve all income groups on a fair basis, but we are known, the United States is known for having certainly advanced medical treatment available -- how do you know that people might not come here to get, to have access to advanced forms of treatment?

MR. WHITAKER: Well, perhaps I can clarify the comment about the American medical system being advanced. Indeed, technically it is highly advanced, but the truth is that America and South Africa are the only two countries in the developed world where you can actually go bankrupt through ill health. For instance, were I to get ill, there's no doubt that I would return immediately to Europe because my medical treatment there would be much more secure and of an equal standard.

MS. WOODRUFF: Congressman Dannemeyer, do you want to respond to that point, that people aren't going to be flooding into the United States looking for --

REP. DANNEMEYER: You know, it's amazing, because earlier today - - I'm a member of the Budget Committee, and we had people coming for us, just wringing their hands about what we're going to do with exploding health care costs in America. We Americans have about 12 percent of our GNP spent on health care costs in this nation. That's the highest in the developed world of percentage of GNP and there are among many reasons for it the technology in this country and also the government's direction to provide certain health care services to people are driving up costs, and a lot of reasons we could cite, but, you know, the idea that we can take in more people here at a time when we're adding four-tenths of a trillion to the national debt and our health care system is in crisis I just think that that's not logic speaking, that's emotion speaking.

MS. WOODRUFF: Dr. Rogers, how many years is it generally accepted that someone -- I mean, we've certainly talked about this for other reasons and in other discussions -- but how many years can someone be infected with the AIDS virus and still be holding down a job, be a contributing member to society, before he or she has to be either hospitalized or, you know, receiving continuous medical treatment that would prevent him from holding down a job?

DR. ROGERS: You're making part of my point for me. Ten to fourteen years. Dr. Whitaker tells me he's been perfectly healthy for 10 years on this score. And we ought to put this in perspective, that one, the vast majority of immigrants are coming to jobs, many of them to jobs of special skills that we want, so people do not flood into the United States on that issue.

MS. WOODRUFF: Do we know that for a fact?

DR. ROGERS: Yes, we do.

MS. WOODRUFF: That most of them have jobs or positions --

DR. ROGERS: Absolutely.

MS. WOODRUFF: -- or educational situations before --

DR. ROGERS: Or families that they're coming to. If you look at the data on this, for example, in the three years in which we have done this testing, 400,000 or so tests which cost us an enormous amount, four hundred to four hundred and fifty actually HIV positive -- and I'm uncertain as to how many of those were actually trying to immigrate -- if you run the costs, the costs of testing them would more than pay for the lifetime costs if we even put that in there.

MS. WOODRUFF: You mean the cost of testing immigrants?

DR. ROGERS: Yes.

MS. WOODRUFF: People who come to the United States.

DR. ROGERS: Yes.

MS. WOODRUFF: I understand that Dr. Jones may be back with us again. Can you hear me now?

DR. JONES: Yes, I can. And I want to make a point that I wanted to get into earlier in this conversation.

MS. WOODRUFF: There's a little bit of static, but we're going to try to go ahead with this.

DR. JONES: I want to make sure that the people understand that I am not a spokesperson for the American Medical Association but I am a member, I am a past president, Arkansas Medical Society, constituent AMA, and earlier in this program, it was said that AMA is not opposed to immigration of HIV positive individuals. In December 1990, the House Delegate to the American Medical Association accepted report RR of the Board of Trustees which said in part to test immigrants for HIV disease and exclude those who test positive. I object to the fact that when this first was brought up in January that the press releases and also the press release from Health & Human Services included the AMA in the group of people who said they're with Dr. Sullivan on this issue. And that is not correct.

MS. WOODRUFF: So your point is that language has been passed by a governing group of the AMA.

DR. JONES: The AMA House Delegates, the ultimate deciding vote of policy says exclude those who test positive.

MS. WOODRUFF: What about -- let me take you back, Dr. Jones, to the point that Dr. Rogers was just making that we are, we would be spending a lot more money or at least as much money testing these people coming into the United States that might much more wisely be spent on treating people who might have the HIV virus and might not come down with it for ten or fourteen years later.

DR. JONES: Well, I think he's correct on the time span, but I think that all of these programs, testing, condom programs, needle sharing programs -- needle exchange programs, et cetera, are all important aspects of this epidemic control, but they pale in comparison to the ultimate impact that a system that mandated reportability and contract tracing would have on this epidemic. It's a tradition of historic merit of 40 years in the control of sexually transmitted diseases and the longer we don't employ this in this epidemic, the greater the tragedy and loss of lives of the United States citizens.

MS. WOODRUFF: Dr. Jones, just one last comment. I want to go around to all of you. And what is your understanding of what's going to happen at the end of this 60 day period? There will be comments that will go to Sec. Sullivan, is that correct, and to others in the administration?

DR. JONES: My letter in the 60 day comment is in the mail. It will be the same as it was when I wrote him in February. I would like to add that in Arkansas 15.7 percent of the sexual and drug contacts to known HIV positive individuals are themselves HIV positive. And this is something we have to consider.

MS. WOODRUFF: Dr. Rogers.

DR. ROGERS: Well, it seems to me that the important point is that the Secretary has made the only medically appropriate decision. There is no public health risk of letting, of allowing people who are HIV positive into this country. Mr. Dannemeyer may have other reasons for not wishing those people here, but it would be -- Sec. Sullivan would be derelict in his scientific responsibilities if he said anything other than what he said. All the scientific evidence is this is not an appropriate reason for blocking immigration of people.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. Well, gentlemen, I think we're out of time but we do appreciate your all being with us. Mr. Whitaker, Dr. Jones, Congressman Dannemeyer, and Dr. Rogers, we thank you all for being with us. SERIES - THE BIG CHILL?

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight we continue our week of conversations on political correctness, the trend on college campuses some see as having a chilling effect on free speech and traditional scholarship. Others see it as an effort to recognize the achievements of women and minorities. Last night we heard from Prof. Molefi Asante, chairman of the African-American Studies Program at Temple University. Tonight we're joined by one of the most provocative critics of political correctness, Dinesh D'Souza, whose book "Illiberal Education" is a national best seller. In a recent conversation I asked what "illiberal education" meant.

MR. D'SOUZA: My basic argument is that the central principles of liberal education are being turned on their head. Liberal education should be about equality of opportunity, about giving everyone a fair chance. Instead, in many universities it is now quite routine to see the practice of racial preference, both in student admissions, as well as in faculty hiring. Second, liberal education should be about integration, about bringing groups together. Instead, we have a new separatism on campus, what some have called a new segregation on campus. And finally liberal education should be about high standards and about free speech, free and open debate. Instead, many campuses are witnessing attack on academic standards as being the soul property of white males and further, many campuses, more than a hundred, now have censorship regulations outlawing racially and sexually offensive speech. So we have gone from liberal education to its antithetical opposite, to illiberal education.

MR. MacNeil: More than a hundred campuses have such regulations. That is still a fairly small percentage of the very large and diverse animal that is American higher education.

MR. D'SOUZA: That's true. On the other hand, these are campuses like Stanford, like the University of Michigan, some of the Ivy League colleges, campuses that set the pace for other colleges, both in the area of admissions and the area of life on campus and the curriculum when these elite, private, and state schools set policies, many others follow suit.

MR. MacNeil: The curriculum, discuss the curriculum. Some of these are very large universities. How much of the curriculum is banned or tainted by this trend that you're talking about?

MR. D'SOUZA: Since the 1960s, the colleges have moved away from requirements. They have tended to require very little of their students, and until quite recently, a number of colleges had required courses in the classics of Western civilization so that if you were a physics major or a math major, you would still have to take these courses. Now what has happened is that we have seen an attack on these courses as being biased, as being Euro centric, and the argument is that they should make way for non-Western requirements, so for example, in a much publicized case, Stanford abolished its so-called Western culture requirement and replaced it with a multicultural requirement emphasizing the work by women, by persons of color, and by natives of the third world.

MR. MacNeil: You're not in favor of that?

MR. D'SOUZA: I'm in favor of a multicultural curriculum that emphasizes what Mathew Arnold called the best that has been thought and said. Non-Western cultures have produced great works that are worthy of study, and I think young people should know something about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. To do so it's helpful to be exposed to the Koran. Young people should know something about the rise of Japanese capitalism. Is there a Confucian ethic behind the success of Asian entrepreneurship in the same way we hear about Max Vaber, the Protestant ethic, and the spirit of capitalism? These are legitimate questions but they are not the questions routinely pursued in most multicultural courses which instead are degenerated to a kind of ethnic cheerleading, a primitive romanticism about the third world, are combined with the systematic denunciation of the West.

MR. MacNeil: And what proportion of the core curriculum do you think is now given over to such courses in great universities like Stanford or Berkeley, which we have seen at the beginning of this series?

MR. D'SOUZA: I think we're witnessing a transition and so that it is currently the case that at places like Stanford you read Western classics in conjunction with non Western works, but there is a movement of change, of transition, if you will, in which the Western classics are increasingly diminished and the non Western works very often polemical, ideological, anti Western in tone, are being emphasized.

MR. MacNeil: And you don't -- why is it not a good thing to stimulate thinking about the multiculturalism that is and is increasingly becoming this country through works which raise the consciousness or the -- of those people themselves, black, Asian, whatever, or the sensitivity of people like me who are white about those countries? What is wrong with doing that?

MR. D'SOUZA: There's nothing wrong with this critical examination. In fact, my argument is that this critical examination does not, in fact, take place. The reason is that non Western classics are, to put it bluntly, politically incorrect. If you look at the Koran, for example, it embodies a notion of male superiority. The Tale of Gengi, the Japanese classic, for example, celebrates a hierarchical, a courtly version of society, and the Indian classics, The Bagvagita, The Getangeli, are reduction of Western materialism and atheism. The activists who want to study other cultures want to find an alternative to what they consider to be the racist, sexist and homophobic West. Yet, when they look abroad, they find that non Western cultures are often inhospitable to their political prejudices so they ignore the non Western classics and instead, they find an Algerian revolutionary who is advocating a neo Marxist revolution and they teach him, they pass him off as an authentic voice of the third world. But, in fact, France Fernon, for example, does not represent the people of thethird world, but he represents the politics and the prejudices of Stanford professors and Stanford students.

MR. MacNeil: But that is not all that students at Stanford are learning.

MR. D'SOUZA: It's not. But when you examine in detail the specific currents of multiculturalism, you realize that they operate to the effect of distorting non Western cultures. You must have heard about this trend called Afro centricity, which is common both in the high schools as well as in the colleges. Well, Afro centricity is basically an effort to trace the lineage of American blacks to the country of Egypt, which is said to be an African culture, and it is further said that the Pharaohs were black, that Cleopatra was black, that Hannibal was black and so on. These things are taught not even as controversial but as true. Now Egypt is in the continent of Africa, but Egypt has never been considered an African civilization but a distinctive Egyptian civilization. The Egyptians went into the deep South but very often to capture slaves. And slavery persisted in the Arab world long after it was abolished in the West.

MR. MacNeil: But the teaching of Afro centric courses is not confined to the teaching of Egypt as one of the -- as one of the ingredients of African culture. That isn't the only content.

MR. D'SOUZA: It springs from a desire to say that each ethnic group, in this case blacks, have a civilization that constitutes their cultural property, and there's a desire to say that this civilization is just as great, if not greater, as what the white guys did. Egypt is the country in Africa which can, in fact, boast

MR. D'SOUZA: I'm a native of India. I was raised in Bombay. I came to this country in 1978. I became a citizen last year. I'm a first generation immigrant to the United States. I think that America is becoming a multiracial society and the whole issue is transcending black and white. We are going to have four or more groups, whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians in this diverse culture. It's very important to have a fair set of rules to arbitrate the differences among these groups. And the problem is that universities and to some extent society at large is moving away from a fair or neutral set of principles and is engaging in a politics of expediency, of racial rationing, of racial preference. I think this is a formula for division, for vulcanization, and ultimately for racial hostility.

MR. MacNeil: When you were at Dartmouth College and you edited the Review, you were notorious for a while -- I guess I could safely say you were the enfant terrible of the new conservatives for a number of acts that that -- articles that Review published that appeared to exacerbate racial tensions there. You were trying to stir it up a bit then, were you?

MR. D'SOUZA: I think that some of the more flamboyant controversies involving the Review have occurred long after I graduated. I've been out since '83, and some of the more recent up surges in tension have occurred subsequently. I think it is the case that universities tend to enforce a kind of political or liberal etiquette on a campus. And what the Review does is it challenges those orthodoxies. You can describe it as America's original politically incorrect institution. And so that created tension. That created a skirmish not so much with other students as with the administration.

MR. MacNeil: But the motive was to stir it up and to get people talking about things that were considered impermissible up to that time.

MR. D'SOUZA: I think that's right, that the topics of race and to a lesserextent gender have been taboo in our society, particularly in the universities. What people say in public is not the same as what they believe in private. I think the Review sometimes in an adolescent and sophomoric way was trying to open up the discussion on those topics.

MR. MacNeil: What should universities do to encourage appreciation of multiculturalism and sensitivity to people of different races and different sexes and points of view actually? What should universities do if what they're doing now, in your view, is wrong?

MR. D'SOUZA: I think universities should encourage that freedom of mind that is going to draw students to that which is different, to that which is unusual. We have a natural curiosity about those who are not like us, and this is why we're interested, for example, not just in other cultures but in the past. I heard a wonderful line the other day which said that the past is another country. It's really true that if you go into 5th Century BC Greece, you are in a different civilization, one that is in a historical sense connected to our own, but one which operated in very different ways, and so this natural sense of wonder, this imagination, can be imaginatively cultivated by colleges, but they have to do so in a manner that respects difference and that respects freedom.

MR. MacNeil: The point is made, to use your phrase, the past is a different country, is made by people of my generation who are still on campuses and in faculties, that the past is a different country to people of your generation or a bit younger who weren't around during the civil rights struggles of the '60s and, therefore, don't appreciate the history of that and are, therefore, more insensitive than the older generation is to what blacks of that generation and this generation have gone through.

MR. D'SOUZA: I don't think it's true.

MR. MacNeil: You don't think that's true.

MR. D'SOUZA: In fact, I think survey data show that Americans have become consistently more tolerant on racial issues. I do think that there was a civil rights consensus in this country built in the late '50s and the 1960s which emphasized two principles: first the principle of integration or desegregation, which began with Brown Vs. Board of Education, the famous Supreme Court case; and second, the principle of equality of opportunity, giving everyone a fair chance. Martin Luther King put it best. Judge us by the content of our character, not the color of our skins. The problem is that those two principles have collapsed. In fact, they have been to some extent abandoned by the civil rights leadership, itself, so that integration has given way to racial separatism and the affirmation of ethnic difference, and equality of opportunity has given way to racial preference.

MR. MacNeil: What do you say to the argument which one hears that raising political correctness is another way now of attacking affirmative action which is in itself another way of keeping up on the agenda white, on the political agenda white racial fears or fears of reverse discrimination?

MR. D'SOUZA: Well, the central paradox is that affirmative action or racial preference policies that are now routinely practiced by colleges are saying to students that the best way to fight discrimination in America is to practice discrimination. This is to say the least a paradoxical assertion, one that at the very least needs to be publicly stated and defended. Maybe there are good arguments for affirmative action, but they need to be named. The case of Georgetown University, where the kid released partial data about the subject, and the university responded not by releasing full information, not by debating the issue, but by punishing the student, so critics of political correctness are not saying get rid of affirmative action but [a] let's talk about it and [b] let's discuss some possible alternatives.

MR. MacNeil: But are not some critics of political correctness, to return to my question, particularly on the conservative end of the political spectrum, and there are critics on the liberal end as well, are not some critics raising it so as to keep the issue at the front of the political agenda?

MR. D'SOUZA: Well, I suppose that's true. Everyone makes arguments that have some political connotation and you like to make arguments favorable to your own point of view, but what's striking about this whole debate is the broad spectrum of opinion and the broad spectrum of criticism that's emerged. I mean, we're not -- David Duke has not emerged as a primary commentator on political correctness. We're talking about historians and scholars within the university and without, ranging from conservatists to Marxists who are taking these positions.

MR. MacNeil: Since this was first raised within the last year or so, first raised in a large way, do you think that that wave has already begun to pass and that the publicity given to it and some of the sillier examples of political correctness having been exposed, that it's already declining?

MR. D'SOUZA: I think we might start to see a change this fall. I do think that some of the more repressive and authoritarian forces in the universities are somewhat on the defensive and we might see some constructive change over time, but it's a slow process, because many of the people we're talking about have tenure. They are institutionalized, they are heads of major academic organizations. We are not criticizing a handful of student radicals, but really people who are deans and college presidents, the academic establishment.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Mr. D'Souza, thank you very much for joining us.

MR. D'SOUZA: Thank you. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, Boris Yeltsin, the Gorbachev political rival who is president of the Russian Republic, arrived in Washington for a meeting with President Bush and other U.S. officials, and Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan said the recession has bottomed out but recovery has not yet begun. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour tonight. Join us tomorrow night for an interview with South African Leader Mangosutha Buthelesi and our third conversation about political correctness. I'm Robert MacNeil. Thank you and good night.