The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MS. FARNSWORTH: Good evening. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth in Washington.

MR. MAC NEIL: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After tonight's News Summary, we have an update on the NATO actions in peace efforts on Bosnia, then five historians discuss the final act of World War II, Japan's formal surrender 50 years ago, and we analyze the week's political scene with Mark Shields, joined tonight by Linda Chavez. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MAC NEIL: Leaders from Bosnia, Croatia, and the Yugoslav republic will meet in Geneva next week to work out principles for a Bosnian peace settlement. The State Department made the announcement several hours after NATO and the United Nations temporarily suspended air attacks on Bosnian Serb positions in the former Yugoslav republic. Overnight, the NATO warplanes and UN ground forces have continued to bombard the Serbs. They were backed up early this morning by the multinational Rapid Reaction Force stationed on the hills above Sarajevo. The three-day NATO assault was designed to remove the Serb threat to the UN-designated safe areas and force the Bosnian Serbs to the negotiating table. President Clinton said he was satisfied with the results. He spoke at a World War II commemoration in Hawaii.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: This is a positive step forward but much remains to be done. Our own negotiating team will continue its work to bring the parties together, and as I said yesterday, no one should doubt NATO's resolve to prevent the further slaughter of innocent civilians in Sarajevo and the other safe areas in Bosnia. I know that every American shares my pride in the skill and professionalism, the bravery, and the success of our pilots and crews and their NATO colleagues in the last few days.

MR. MAC NEIL: We'll have more on Bosnia after the News Summary.

MS. FARNSWORTH: France reportedly is ready to resume underground nuclear tests in the South Pacific as protests mount. Late today, French commandos boarded two Greenpeace ships when the vessels refused to turn back in French Polynesia's territorial waters. Two Greenpeace divers even swam under the French nuclear testing platform before they were arrested. In Tahiti, 750 miles from the test site, demonstrators stormed the military runway next to the airport for two hours. Sixty riot police forced them off the tarmac. Despite international criticism, the French government says it intends to conduct at least seven tests by next May.

MR. MAC NEIL: In U.S. economic news today, the unemployment rate dropped .1 of a percent to 5.6 percent in July. The Labor Department reported nearly 1/4 million new non-farm jobs were created. That was due partly to accelerated job growth in many service industries and local government. The Commerce Department reported its Index of Leading Economic Indicators fell .2 of a percent in June. That follows a .2 percent increase--in July, I'm sorry--that followed an increase in June. The Index predicts economic activity six to nine months in the future.

MS. FARNSWORTH: A study published today in the medical journal "Circulations" said high doses of a popular blood pressure medicine may increase the risk of heart attacks. The drugs are known as calcium channel blockers and were widely used to treat heart attacks and chest pains in addition to high blood pressure. Based on the study, the National Institutes of Health warned yesterday that patients--warned patients about taking large doses of the drugs nifedipine, marketed under the names Procardia and Adalat. The NIH warning is not binding on doctors but has left many physicians and patients confused. Medical experts said people in doubt should consult their doctors.

MR. MAC NEIL: As we said, President Clinton was in Hawaii today to begin a three-day commemoration of the Japanese surrender that ended World War II. Seven hundred civilian veterans and hundreds of active duty troops attended today's opening parade to honor those who the President said suffered through the most horrible thing ever done by man. The President reviewed uniform troops at Wheeler Army Airfield and then paid tribute to the sacrifices of America's warriors.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: We recall a time when war made the idyllic Pacific hell on earth, and we celebrate the generation of Americans who won that war and ensured the triumph of freedom over tyranny. Never before had the fight for freedom stretched across such a vast expanse of land and sea. And never before had the energies of the American people been so fully required or so fully joined. At war, our people found a sense of mission in the world and shared purpose at home that became the bedrock for 1/2 century of peace and prosperity. The World War II generation truly saved the world.

MS. FARNSWORTH: That's it for the News Summary. Now it's on to an update on Bosnia, remembering Japan's surrender, and Mark Shields and Linda Chavez on politics. UPDATE - PEACE UNDER FIRE

MS. FARNSWORTH: We begin tonight with an update on the search for peace in Bosnia. Today's announcement of a diplomatic breakthrough, a meeting of the foreign ministers of Bosnia, Croatia, and Yugoslavia in Geneva next week, followed another round of shuttle diplomacy. Peter Morgan of Independent Television News wraps up the day's events.

PETER MORGAN, ITN: NATO's decision to call a 24-hour pause in its air offensive has given all sides time to take stock and time to talk. While Sarajevans tried to adjust to the sudden silence, the UN's force commander, Lt. Gen. Bernard Janvier, met the Bosnian Serb army commander, Radko Mladic, in the border town of Zvornig. The UN ultimatum to the Bosnian Serbs: "Withdraw your heavy weapons and allow free access to the city." These demands are being enforced with tough new conditions for the control of heavy weapons.

ALEXANDER IVANKO, UNPROFOR Spokesman: [Sarajevo] It will not be a monitoring regime; it will be a controlling regime. In practice, it will work that the consent of the Bosnian Serbs will not necessarily be needed for the United Nations to operate, which means that we have the Rapid Reaction Force in place, and it will deal with the violations of the total exclusion zone, if any occur.

PETER MORGAN: The Rapid Reaction Force, though, is still active. This afternoon, 24 French artillery rounds were fired at a Bosnian Serb position in Vogosca, North of Sarajevo. Half an hour later, British guns opened up on a surface-to-air missile site at Lukaveca. The UN then remains on its guard. It's wary of reports of a partial Serb withdrawal. The only confirmed report is of three Bosnian Serb tanks moving North out of the city's exclusion zone. That's why the Bosnian government is disappointed by NATO's decision to suspend operations.

MUHAMED SACIRBEY, Foreign Minister, Bosnia: Any pause would be, No. 1, seen as counterproductive in the peace process, and No. 2, would allow the Serbian forces to psychologically feel that they are no longer under the same threat to withdraw.

PETER MORGAN: After more than 500 sorties, NATO and the UN now have a chance to review their operation. Parts of Cheneca, a Serb town near Gorazde, were targeted by NATO planes early this morning. The jets left their distinctive mark, though some of the bombs failed to explode. The Serb authorities have not allowed camera crews to film damage at military sites, so it's impossible to assess exactly how accurate the raids have been. That job is being done by RAF photographic interpreters working with French and American teams back in Italy. This week the UN effectively took sides against the Bosnian Serbs, a change which worries some officials.

YASUSHI AKASHI, UN Special Envoy: Well, we still are a peacekeeping force. We try our best to maintain our impartiality. We try our best not to become a party in this conflict, but, nevertheless, under Security Council resolution, we have to maintain our posture of doing our best to deter attacks on the safe areas.

MICHAEL CLARK, Centre for War Studies, King's College: I think the NATO air strikes have achieved tactical success because they've clearly suppressed artillery fire around Sarajevo, and I suspect that the Serbs will be pulling out their artillery from Sarajevo, if only to protect it. And whether they can achieve tactical success elsewhere, say around Tuzla, and further to the Northwest, I think remains to be seen because the Serbs are often governed by warlords more than their own leadership, and a lot of local outbreaks of fighting are still I think quite possible.

PETER MORGAN: Such doubts are being put to one side while U.S. diplomats try and use force to find peace. Obstacles remain. Five EU monitors are being held by the Bosnian Serbs, reportedly at Viscigrad, near the Serbian border, and two French airmen are still missing. The U.S. envoy, Richard Holbrooke, is back in Belgrade, this time for detailed talks with Serbia's President Milosevic, part of a frenetic round of Balkan meetings.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, Assistant Secretary of State: We're talking now with the leader of the unified Serbian-Bosnian Serb delegation. We're talking about the map, about constitutional issues, about economic reconstruction, about these issues. I am not going to discuss any of the negotiating details today, but I will say that these are serious talks.

PETER MORGAN: But after three years of war, there is little common ground. The Sarajevo government is ready to discuss the internal political arrangements of Bosnia but not the integrity of the state, itself.

HARIS SILAJDZIC, Prime Minister, Bosnia: Bosnia-Herzegovina must remain one state within its internationally recognized borders. Bosnia-Herzegovina is not a new country. It's a 1000-year-old country. It will remain a country. And that is not negotiable.

MICHAEL CLARK: The great irony is that after four years of war, the deaths of 30,000 odd people and the displacement of 3.8 million, we might be back at square one, and the Bosnian government know that, and they're desperately trying to safeguard their constitutional position. But I have to say I don't think their chances are very good.

PETER MORGAN: NATO's action then may have complicated the Bosnian war. They have raised hopes in Sarajevo while raising the stakes with the Bosnian Serbs. The region could face a future where there is no war but equally no peace.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Still ahead, remembering Japan's surrender and political analysis by Mark Shields and Linda Chavez. FOCUS - WAR AND REMEMBRANCE

MR. MAC NEIL:Next, 50 years on from the formal surrender of Japan to the World War II allies. The surrender was signed September 2, 1945, on the deck of the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay, three weeks after Japan gave up the war. We start with an account of the surrender ceremony from one of the most famous correspondents and authors to emerge from the conflict, Theodore H. White. In part, this is how Teddy White remembered the day in his memoir In Search of History.

MR. MAC NEIL: This was to be no cloistered surrender, as had been the surrender of the Germans at Rantz three months earlier. MacArthur wanted everyone there and the world to watch. The Missouri's veranda deck bristled with high command. Then came the American press pack. The enlisted men who had fought the war--the sailors and the Marines--found what space they could, and very few of the Missouri's crew could have remained below. This would be a sight to remember, to tell their children, to tell their grandchildren. None of us knew then that this was the last war America would cleanly, conclusively win. We thought it was the last war ever. A shrill piping announced the arrival of the Japanese. The first aboard was Mamaru Shigametsu, the new Japanese foreign minister--in silk hat, morning coat, and striped trousers, limping on his wooden leg and a cane. He had lost his leg in an assassination attempt before the war. The young radicals of pre- war Japan had tried to kill him because he wanted peace with America. But that had been long ago. None of us knew it, so none of us offered a hand to the crippled old man as he dragged himself to the veranda deck, where he would seal the surrender in the war he had once sought to avoid. At eight minutes past 9, on September 2, 1945, Douglas MacArthur emerged from a cabin and took the curse off the savage moment. MacArthur could always savor a moment, and this one was worth savoring. If television had been available then, he would have delighted in displaying himself to it. He was master of the Pacific. He had spent some time composing his remarks, and what emerged was a mixture of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, with phrases plucked from the William McKinley School of American Rhetoric.

GENERAL MAC ARTHUR: We are gathered here, representatives of the major warring powers, to conclude a solemn agreement whereby peace may be restored. I now invite the representatives of the emperor of Japan to sign the instrument of surrender at the places indicated.

MR. MAC NEIL: Shigametsu limped forward to sign the document. He signed--withdrew. Now the clouds above the ship were breaking with sun patches when a drone sounded. The 400 B-29's came low, low over the Missouri, and 1500 fleet planes rose above and around their wings. They had laid waste this country, its empire, its sea lanes. They had blasted open not only the cities but its mind. It was the supreme moment of air power.

MR. MAC NEIL: Now, we have our panel of historians. Doris Kearns Goodwin's most recent book is on the Roosevelt White House during World War II. Michael Beschloss has written on the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Bush presidencies. Haynes Johnson is a journalist and author. Stephen Ambrose's works include a two-volume biography of Eisenhower and a history of the D-Day landing, and Robert Donovan, a journalist and author, has written a two-volume history of the Truman presidency among his twelve books. He served in the infantry in World War II. Michael Beschloss, how did the symbolism of that scene that we've just seen again shape American thinking over the decades that followed do you think?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, Presidential Historian: Well, you know, this, Robin, was the moment that we Americans had been waiting for for nearly four years since Pearl Harbor, and you know, in order to keep the nation mobilized in fighting this very costly war, American leaders from President Roosevelt on down had to almost overemphasize how wonderful it would be after V-J Day occurred. Americans had every expectation that these years after V-J Day would be the best years of our lives in the words of the famous film. But, you know, it's often said that this moment 50 years ago, Japan was year 001, the beginning of a new age. In a lesser sense but still an important one, it was the same thing for the United States. We did not know after the war how involved government would be in our lives and our economy. We didn't know how big the military establishment would be. Harry Truman wanted to for the first time in American history preserve a large military establishment in the wake of a war. And most importantly, we didn't know what kind of a world we would live in, whether it would be one of the kind that Franklin Roosevelt hoped for with great American- Soviet cooperation, a peaceful world, or whether we would see the culmination of the moments that we had already seen in 1945 of tension between the two great remaining powers.

MR. MAC NEIL: Stephen Ambrose, did that--the symbolism of American power represented by that scene on the deck of the Missouri, was America ever again as strong as it was that moment?

STEPHEN AMBROSE, Historian: [Butte, MT] Well, we were strong- -we've been a lot stronger. We have way more fire power in the nuclear age than was available in 1945. I think that American hubris has never really been so high as it was at that moment on the battleship Missouri. We had licked Hitler and now we had licked Tojo and Hirohito. We stood astride the world like a colossus; anything was possible. And as Michael says, we were going into a future that had a lot of uncertainty to it, but it was going to be this great dream that we had had for the four years of the war just as soon as thing is over, it's going to be a marvelous world for all of us.

MR. MAC NEIL: Haynes Johnson, you told me today your dad was in that scene.

HAYNES JOHNSON, Journalist: I just saw a picture of him on the No. 2 gun when the cameras floated over, so I had this incredible flashback, unbelievably so, and I reread the story he wrote.

MR. MAC NEIL: He was a war correspondent.

MR. JOHNSON: He was a war correspondent for the "New York Sun" in those days, and there he was on the decks of the Missouri, and he said almost what Teddy White said, this moment when those planes flew over, there was dead silence, and everyone looked up, and there was the symbol, as you said, of American might and the world and the possibilities. We were then not the new Romans, but we were unexcelled, and this was America fully stepping onto the stage of the world. I don't think we've ever probably in our history felt so united and powerful and proud, but not in the hubris sense, I don't think, so much as Mr. Ambrose says, it was a sense that something had happened, and now what can you make of the world that comes beyond it.

MR. MAC NEIL: How did you feel about that symbolism, Bob Donovan?

ROBERT DONOVAN, Truman Biographer: Well, you know, the--I--

MR. MAC NEIL: Was it a hubris or--which carries with it a certain amount of pride that may be leading to a later fall, or just a healthy sense of American power?

MR. DONOVAN: My recollection is that the American people came out of the Second World War with a vast amount more energy than they went in. The--what is remembered now is all the effort that went into the building planes and ships and tanks to fight a two-ocean war. What happened after the war is long forgotten, and that is demobilizing. The--I'm not staying this well, but it was an enormous, it was an enormous task to get back to normal in the United States. I think that the years that we've seen now with President Clinton and his problems were dwarfed by what Harry Truman went through. We had labor against industry, liberals against conservatives, Republicans against Democrats. It was just an enormous job. We didn't--we talk now about many of the things that the atomic bomb did and didn't do. One of the curious things is that the atomic bomb had an effect on how we--how we got back to normal, because the people who were studying, and it began under Roosevelt, how we would--how we would get back to normal, get back to normal business and so forth, knew nothing about the atomic bomb. They were all of the opinion that--they were all of the opinion that the war would last at least until 1946, the war in Japan.

MR. MAC NEIL: So you're saying--

MR. DONOVAN: Suddenly the bomb, suddenly the bomb is dropped, and we have no plans whatever.

MR. MAC NEIL: It's an interesting idea, Doris Kearns Goodwin that Bob Donovan expressed, that we came out of the war with more energy than we went into it.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, President Historian: Oh, I think there's no question. I think the vitality that was created--think about where we were at the start of the war, still in a depression, 17 percent unemployed, our whole system had broken down, and so had our energy and our faith in ourselves. And somehow, the government entered into a partnership with its people and said, we've got to catch up to Hitler, we've got to create a whole military establishment. These American people went 24 hours a day, three shifts, into the factories. They joined the army and all these numbers from an army that only had 500,000 people at the beginning. They could feel a rightful pride at the end of that war, of the accomplishment they had made. They had produced more weapons than all of the axis powers, all the allied powers combined. It was a remarkable achievement by any measure, and I think they carried that feeling of accomplishment with them almost for a generation. Despite the tensions the leaders were aware of, that World War II generation knew what they had done in their souls, I think.

MR. MAC NEIL: Bob Johnson [Donovan] just said that the, the concentration was to get back to normal, but Haynes, you wrote recently that World War II was the crucible that forged modern America, that it wasn't getting back to normal, it was creating something quite different. It forced the country to create quite a different country.

MR. JOHNSON: I think that's right, and what Doris said about the energy that was unleashed, if you go back just five years before World War II ended that day on the Missouri's decks--I mean, this country, as you said, 17 percent unemployment, we were locked in the past, we were an isolationist nation, we were 18th in the world military. We came out of this thing this engine of enormous energy. The Civil War was the same way. Out of that came the spinning wheel, you know--and all of these things in oil, industrial age, this was something America was going to be made new, not only as a world power but the United States, the suburbs were being spawned. The GI Bill that said half theveterans who served in World War II went to college or to technical schools on the GI Bill, an amazing transformation of society racially, socially,--

MS. GOODWIN: It lifted the whole horizon.

MR. JOHNSON: --intellectually, in every possible way. It seems to me we came out of this with a burst forward. That's my sense of it.

MR. MAC NEIL: Stephen Ambrose, would you agree, so the war was not--the Second World War was not an interruption in American society but a defining moment, I mean, as Haynes Johnson says, a crucible for the future? Would you agree with that?

MR. AMBROSE: Yes, I agree with that, and I agree with his general point. That war changed America more than any event, except the Civil War, and before that, the Revolutionary War. We were a whole new nation as we came out of World War II. We were proud, boastful, confident, productive beyond anything anybody had remotely imagined possible in 1939 or 1940. We were also worried. There was great fear of depression. When you bring these 12 million young men back home, where the hell are you going to find jobs for them? And what's going to happen to all the women that have gone into the labor force in the course of the war, most of whom had not joined unions? The fight that Bob Donovan talked about between labor and capital was very intense, more strikes in 1946 than in any other year in American history. When they took wage and price controls off, we had more inflation in 1946 than in any other year in American history, 20 percent. And it was a very worrisome time, as well as a very boastful time. But there was that spirit that, that Doris and Haynes have talked about, among the servicemen, themselves. They had been part of a team, and they knew what they could do, and they went out to college and then on to their careers, and they did it. They built the suburbs. They built the superhighways. They built modern America.

MR. MAC NEIL: And, Bob Donovan, do you--do you agree that far from getting back to normal what was created wasn't normal at all?

MR. DONOVAN: Well, getting back to--getting back to, more or less, the life we knew, but coming back to this energy, professors, scholars, who, who were teaching the, the young men and women who had come back from the war and had the GI Bill to get them into college, found that they were so much better students, so much more eager, than the students they had known before the war. And it wasn't only in college. I remember the city editor of the "New York Herald-Tribune" telling me in some amazement how much better, how much better the work was done by some of the reporters who had been drafted than they had done when they were there before.

MR. MAC NEIL: How do you explain that? How do you explain that?

MR. DONOVAN: Well, it's energy; it's maturing. To those who were in the war, it was a pretty serious business. We were awfully eager to get back to our families, and the GI Bill of Rights really was a great gift to the veterans, especially because not only of schools but because of housing. Everyone who came back from the war had--could get a house with a $15,000 mortgage. In other words, you were--the government guaranteed a $15,000 mortgage. I know in my case we finally found a house that we could use, that we liked, and could buy, and paid very little each month for, because the mortgage was $15,000, but that--this was never planned, I'm sure, but that, that expanded. For instance, as my family grew, we needed a larger house. So I bought a--I bought a larger house, you know, drawing, of course, on the house that I had bought. Then later on in years, as times changed, I bought another one. That $15,000 through no one's planning, I own a house now in Bethesda that would sell for around thirty-five--around $350,000 or so. That all grows out of $15,000. [laughter in room]

MR. MAC NEIL: Michael Beschloss, describing the changes that the post war situation created, the GI Bill we've heard put a lot of- -millions of American veterans through college. What effect did it have on the housing industry, for example?

MR. BESCHLOSS: Well, this was one example of, I think, an enormous surprise after the war, because one of the things that Franklin Roosevelt said in private throughout the war was that once this war is ended, the Democratic Party and liberalism are going to have a very hard time, because the United States, the American people, would be exhausted after the years of the Depression and social reform in the 30's, exhausted from fighting a global war. The GI Bill is an example of the fact that exactly the opposite happened, because Harry Truman and the Congress were able to say you've got all these veterans of World War coming back, they had made sacrifices, government has to help them not only with the GI Bill and education but also in housing, health, loans, all sorts of other ways. So the result was that the first couple of years after World War II were a very rich period for liberalism and social legislation in a way that never could have been anticipated.

MR. MAC NEIL: Doris, how did World War II shape American politics and feelings about the role of government, do you think?

MS. GOODWIN: Well, I think there's no question that because during the war, itself, government had managed to share the benefits of the war with the majority of the people--I mean, it's a cautionary lesson for us today, which is just the opposite, it seems to me in many ways of what's going on. Wages went up during the war. Unions were strong, so they were able to get for their workers what they needed during the war. There was a partnership with business during the war, but it wasn't at the expense of labor. The GI Bill came along and brought working class people into college for the first time. People had been rationed during the war, so they had nothing to do but save their money. They had all this pent-up money, and then after the war, they had places to put it--into education, into appliances, into the suburbs, into their houses. So it showed that when a system works--progressive taxation was created during the war, so that the benefits of a productive economy go to the majority of the people. In fact, there was a redistribution of income during the war for one of the few times in our history, so that the majority got more out of the benefits of the war. The top people got less. We're getting just the opposite today, and that's what showed. That's why the Depression didn't occur after the war. People panicked. Their collective memory had been a recession after World War I, and, of course, the primary experience of their lives had been the Depression of the 30's. And they worried that as soon as the war was over, this artificial productivity would end, but it didn't, because there had been a base, a consumer base built by the policies, the social policies of the war. That's what Roosevelt fought for. Even though he made his partnership with business, he would not do it at the expense of labor, so it showed that sometimes that partnership between business, labor, and government can really work.

MR. MAC NEIL: Have we worn out that feeling that the war created aboutgovernment and its role?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, we're playing off the entire opposite of it now, because it's all at the end of the period. As we've talked before on these programs, we're now at a new phase where there's no Depression, there's no war, there's no common enemy, we're looking at ourselves, we don't know what we want, and there isn't sort of a unifying, cohesive theme. But, you know, Robin, you talk about political leadership. Think about this. We've only had 41 men who sat in the White House in American history, and 10 of them, up until Bill Clinton, were all shaped by the Depression and World War II. Eight of those in a row wore the uniform in World War II. So they came out of this war, starting with Eisenhower, the great commander, Steve Ambrose is the great expert on this--I mean, if you take Eisenhower--every one of them all the way up to George Bush wore the uniform in the war, and all of a sudden, you're now in this new phase where there's a new generation come to power-- Bill Clinton.

MR. MAC NEIL: Except one who is running in this election, who will probably be the last one.

MR. JOHNSON: That's Bob Dole--

MR. MAC NEIL: Bob Dole.

MR. JOHNSON: --is in a way going back and saying, look, I can recapture that period; I was tested and tried in that period of time.

MR. MAC NEIL: How do you feel, Stephen Ambrose, about what World War II did in, in shaping American attitudes about government and leadership?

MR. AMBROSE: Well, the people became much more accustomed to a benevolent federal government. There were day care centers set up by the government in the course of World War II. The GI Bill, most obviously--the money for wives and for children of servicemen, but I'd like to turn to this comparison, if I may, between the political scene post World War II and the political scene post the Cold War. In '46, the Republicans won control of Congress. In the period between '46 and '48, politics degenerated in this country to a very bitter and divisive situation. Harry Truman won the election in 1948, but he did it with a minority of the vote. In the period after that election, the Republicans were calling--Joe McCarthy was calling Harry Truman a traitor. Dick Nixon was charging that the State Department knowingly kept a traitor at work at high levels in the State Department, namely Alger Hiss. The Democrats were charging, and the Republicans wanted to do away with the whole New Deal, including Social Security. It was a very divisive time, and the people were looking for, yearning for that sense of unity we had had during the war and looking for a hero who could take us to that point. And they found him in Dwight Eisenhower. In the '52 campaign, the Republican professionals didn't want Eisenhower; they wanted Bob Taft, but the people wanted Eisenhower, and the people prevailed, barely, in the Republican convention, and then Eisenhower won a sweeping victory, of course, in the general election.

MR. MAC NEIL: You--

MR. AMBROSE: And if I may say so, I think we're in a very similar situation today, and I think the people are turning to Colin Powell--people are now talking about Powell mania--for the same reasons.

MR. MAC NEIL: We should declare your interest, sir. You are leading a campaign--

MR. AMBROSE: I am. That's correct.

MR. MAC NEIL: --to draft Gen. Powell, right?

MR. AMBROSE: That's correct, yes.

MR. MAC NEIL: Do you--

MR. AMBROSE: That's why I snuck that in.

MR. MAC NEIL: Do you--Bob Donovan, do you see parallels between the hunger for Eisenhower then and the hunger by some for Powell now?

MR. DONOVAN: Yes, I do, but I don't think the two men are at all alike. I don't think that Gen. Powell had anything like the accomplishment that President Eisenhower had, Gen. Eisenhower had. Eisenhower had a great deal of experience in Washington before he ever went abroad. He represented the Pentagon before the various committees of Congress. He knew how Congress worked. He really knew how Washington worked. He was well known, and I think, as someone wrote the other day, he was much more the man on the white horse than Gen. Powell is. I don't think people really know what Gen. Powell stands for, other than being a fine man.

MR. MAC NEIL: Anybody else want to come in on this, the parallel of the mood of the politics and the search for something that isn't there?

MR. JOHNSON: I do think that the parallel, whatever it may be, does fit where we are now in it, and the fact that people don't know what he stands for--they didn't know what Eisenhower--Truman wanted, I believe--Bob was--Truman wanted Eisenhower to run as a Democrat, and he becomes the Republican President for eight years. But the sense of someone above politics, who can unify, can heal the country, can bring the bitter divisions together, was the reason, I think, people turned to Eisenhower and maybe looked for someone like Powell or someone else.

MR. MAC NEIL: Did you want to add to that?

MS. GOODWIN: I just wanted to say that sometimes I think the hunger for a leader is misplaced, that what really happened during World War II was the fact that the civil rights movement got started, the women's movement in some ways got started. It was bubbling up from below, so there was a lot of pressure from the society. Unions were strong. What we really need are those social forces. The leaders can do only so much. This country has to get active itself, from the bottom up, before we can hope that somebody is going to turn us around.

MR. MAC NEIL: Michael Beschloss, on another parallel with this moment, or a reflection on where we are right now, we've described how the Second World War created a huge pent-up demand and that, together with the new productivity of industry, created the huge boom that went for a long time. Did that create expectations in the American psyche of a boom that would continue, and how has that failed expectation--if that's it--fed the mood today?

MR. BESCHLOSS: I think that's perfectly said, Robin. You know, we were in the situation after 1945 no American really knew what to expect, whether there would be a depression, what kind of a role the United States would have in the world. To our great, enormous surprise, within a couple of years, there was great economic prosperity that was increasing largely because the other great potential powers in the world--Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, China--had been devastated from the experience of World War II. We were atop the world--as Steve Ambrose has said--like a colossus. That really extended through the 1950's and into the 1960's. We were talking earlier about the shortcomings of our leaders. I think one place where the Presidents--beginning with Harry Truman--did fall a little bit short--was not to explain to Americans that this was not a situation that would last forever. This was a somewhat artificial result, the fact that our great competitors were very much crippled by war, thus, when you get to the 1970's, when Germany and Japan are once again operating, competing with the United States very effectively, people got very disillusioned.

MR. MAC NEIL: Do you--what is your observation on that? Did theboom after the war create expectations which have become part of the political mythology of this country?

MS. GOODWIN: You know, it's interesting, I hadn't even thought about it till I was just listening to Michael talk, but I think the boom created what we keep hearing today over and over again, that each generation thought the next generation was going to do better; their kids would do better than they would. I've always thought that was always true, but now that I think about that, of course, that wasn't always true. The people who grew up in the 30's-- they weren't doing better than their parents had in the 20's. So it's really only since World War II that each child did better than the parent, and we now think of that as a birthright of Americans, and our politicians are saying today, we've lost that birthright. It's only something that's happened really in the last- -in that period, from '45 to '75.

MR. MAC NEIL: What's your observation on that, Stephen Ambrose?

MR. AMBROSE: Oh, I don't believe for a minute that we've lost that birthright. I think that the American dream is still very much alive. I think we are going to go forward. If I may go back for minute to where we were earlier in this conversation, one of the things those GI's brought home with them was a sense of discipline and a sense of responsibility. They also came home in much better health than they went into the army, if they weren't wounded in the course of the war. And these were the building blocks for the suburbs, the super highways, the great corporations that have made modern America. If we can restore that sense of discipline and that sense of responsibility in this country, we'll get moving forward again. I'm a great believer in America.

MR. MAC NEIL: What are the lessons, Haynes Johnson, that World War II taught, if any, that are pertinent today?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, it seems to me everything we've said tonight, Robin. The country was unified. If you're unified, you can solve almost any problems. This is a dynamic society. It's a society that progresses forward. It will tear itself apart if it's not united. The war gave a crystallizing force. It said this is a way we can move. After the war, there was for a long time that sense of unity of purpose. I'm not sure we have it now. I agree with Steve Ambrose--I don't think it's gone, but that sense of what you can do together--and this is not a foolish, Ross Perot kind of speech, but that's the--that's the lesson, it seems to me, of the war, when you can harness all of the energies and passions of the country and put it into common purpose.

MR. MAC NEIL: Bob Donovan, do you have an observation on that?

MR. DONOVAN: Not on that, but an earlier point we made about the war--one of the curious situations that caused so much disturbances in the United States after the war was that people had more money than they've ever had before, in war bonds mostly, and yet, there was nothing to buy with it. It was absolutely frustrating. When I came home from the army, my family lived in Buffalo, I went home in uniform, and I used to walk up and down the run-down commercial areas trying to buy secondhand clothes. This had a real political effect, when you came to 1946. People were starving for meat. Food had been rationed, and they couldn't buy meat. There was just no meat on the shelves. I think Sam Rayburn called it the Beef Steak Election. And what did it do but put the Republicans in full control of the 80th Congress, and they were there when Harry Truman decided to run against him.

MR. MAC NEIL: Steve--sorry, Michael Beschloss, what do you think is the--a lesson of the war that is still pertinent today?

MR. BESCHLOSS: Well, I think one thing is at a time of great disillusionment and worry, there are inexhaustible reserves in the American people. I think any of us, if we were sitting around in 1940 and talked about the chances that Franklin Roosevelt could get the United States mobilized and to fight a war like this, and even more difficult, after the war that Americans would agree to maintain a permanent presence around the world with a lot of sacrifices to be a superpower, I think we would have thought that was very doubtful. I think when we talk about counting the American people out sometimes nowadays, we should remember that.

MR. MAC NEIL: Well, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and gentlemen, thank you all. FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

MS. FARNSWORTH: It's Friday, and that means it's time for some end-of-the week political analysis. Paul Gigot is on vacation, but Mark Shields is here. Tonight, he's joined by Linda Chavez, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a Washington-based conservative research organization. Linda, let's start with Sen. Packwood. He's not only said he doesn't want public hearings, reversing his prior stand, but in the last couple of days, he's kind of gone on the offensive and called some of the women who have made charges against him liars. What do you think is happening here?

LINDA CHAVEZ, Republican Analyst: Well, I think what's happening is desperation, and I think it's, quite frankly, going to be not just bad for Bob Packwood, it's going to be very bad for the Congress, and not just for the Republican Party. I mean, the whole institution of Congress looks very bad in this process, and I think public hearings will be a travesty. I think you'll have exactly what happened four years ago when you had the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill debacle. This issue sort of dragged out, will, I think, end up making the O.J. Simpson trial look good by comparison. I think this is not what America needs right now, is this is kind of an escapade.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Why do you think that Sen. Packwood wants public hearings now?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: I think Sen. Packwood is fighting to hold onto his chairmanship. This postpones the hearings, obviously.

MS. FARNSWORTH: The chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee.

MR. SHIELDS: The chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee, which is a critically important committee not only to him, to the Republicans, as they try and make the cuts necessary.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Excuse me for interrupting, but you think this is a way of prolonging the process.

MR. SHIELDS: I think--well, the process which was set to begin- -now, if they're going to go to open hearings, the committee has to meet on that. I think Mitch McConnell, the chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee, Republican from Kentucky, who's been a stalwart defender of Bob Packwood's, who's appeared on this show in defense of closed hearings, I mean, how he must feel at this point with Bob Packwood, whom he's defended, now calling for open hearings and putting him out on the limb. I think--I don't disagree with what Linda said--it's just that Packwood has changed his position repeatedly. He was for opening hearings in the beginning. He was then for closed hearings. Now he's for open hearings again. Originally, he apologized to all the women involved. Then he blamed it on demon rum. Now he's back to what I call the "Mark Fuhrman defense," which is to attack, just as the O.J. defense team is attacking the, theoutrageous statements and unacceptable statements and trying to discredit the case against him, of a Los Angeles police detective; they've now got to go after the character or personas of the accusers. I remember Charlie Wilson, a colorful Democratic Congressman from Texas, once was unfairly accused of using cocaine. He was investigated by the House Ethics Committee, and he made a statement at the time which I'll always cherish. He said, "I could tell you I didn't do it, but I want to tell you one thing." He said, "I won't blame it on booze, and I won't turn to Jesus." You know, the usual pattern is to blame drinking and then make a religious conversion, and maybe that's--

MS. CHAVEZ: But don't you think, Mark, that what's going to happen here is that the Republicans are going to flee from Packwood, that, you know, there they were, sort of out there, the vote was demanded, the Republicans stuck their neck out and voted to protect Bob Packwood, and now he's pulled the rug back and, after all, this looks very different today than it did before the November election. Bob Packwood, and particularly since there are so many Democrats who've decided that they're going to resign their posts, they don't--the Republicans don't necessarily need Bob Packwood in order to keep control of the Senate.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Do you think he should resign?

MS. CHAVEZ: I think that a gentleman would have done that a long time ago. Of course, I guess a gentleman wouldn't be in this position to begin with. I think he is a real--I think he really is harming the party, and I think he's harming some of the important things the Republicans have to accomplish like welfare reform, if they're going to make any kind of a showing next year in the election.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Do you think he should resign?

MR. SHIELDS: I think they need Bob Packwood desperately. Whatever else he has done, he is an enormously gifted legislator. There is nobody on that committee to take his position, to take his place. I mean, as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, they need his skill. Bill Roth, who's behind him, does not have either the experience or the credibility, as a legislator, I'm talking about, that Bob Dole--

MS. CHAVEZ: But don't you think he's been hurt?

MR. SHIELDS: --that Bob Packwood has. And I think Bob Dole's presidential candidacy may be resting on it as well. Yes, has he been hurt? Sure, no question about it, and the point's right, but I think what it comes down to, it isn't a matter of numbers that they have. They don't have the quality; they don't have the bench to take over the Senate Finance Committee chairmanship.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Okay. Let's move on. It's the beginning of the Labor Day Weekend, and traditionally, this is the time next week that the presidential campaign sort of begins, the campaign that will really go full force next year. Let's talk just briefly about the Iowa straw vote. What conclusions do you think the respective campaigns are drawing from that vote, where Sen. Gramm and Sen. Dole basically tied? Linda.

MS. CHAVEZ: Well, I think for one thing, Phil Gramm has been revived. I was out of the country in the month of August. When I left, Phil Gramm was looking like a footnote in the presidential election, and lo and behold, I think Iowa, the straw poll there has really revived his campaign, and I think it makes it look like a much more interesting horse race now.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Mark, what do you think about it?

MR. SHIELDS: It's helped Phil Gramm, no question. He was more-- he was being written off. And this has revitalizedand kind of re- energized his troops, but I think Bob Dole is the story. Bob Dole was shocked by it. He leads in all the polls, and he was so shocked and so spooked--and that's the only way to put it--by the right, the cultural right of the Republican Party, that he did the absolutely undone this week; he returned a $1,000 check from a group called the Log Cabin Republicans, who are an established, reputable group of gay Republicans. They have been--they've got 45 chapters, they're in full embrace--

MS. FARNSWORTH: They had made a $1,000 donation to the Dole campaign.

MR. SHIELDS: A $1,000 contribution to Dole, and Dole returned it.

MS. CHAVEZ: Dole had solicited that.

MR. SHIELDS: Dole had solicited it, had been in constant communication with them, urging their involvement in the campaign. Now he returns it on the statement that he says, I--we can't accept money from people whose public agenda is different from ours. Now, does that mean that Bob Dole is going to have to say to the National Rifle Association, whose money he's taken, that--who called federal law enforcement officers "jack- booted thugs"--he certainly doesn't agree with that--is he going to have to return that? I mean, he is in a terrible, terrible position. I think he overreacted, and I think he picked up nothing by doing it, other than showing a lack of conviction, a lack of strength, and a sense of panic.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What do you think about that, Linda?

MS. CHAVEZ: Well, I think the real problem for Bob Dole is the problem that George Bush faced in 1988. Whenever you run as someone that you're really not--and in this case Bob Dole trying very hard to win the votes of the right wing of the Republican Party--you're going to have to pay for it later. And what happened with George Bush in 1988 is he ran as a conservative Republican in the mold of Ronald Reagan. He got elected on that basis, and then he just disappointed everybody. And I think Bob Dole will do the same thing if he continues to try and reshape his image. He ought to run as who he is. He has a record to stand on. I think it's a very good record. He's got a lot of appeal, and there's certainly a lot of appeal for people out there who don't find themselves at either end of the spectrum politically, and those are the people he ought to be reaching out to.

MR. SHIELDS: He would do well to follow--he said at the Republican National Committee meeting in Philadelphia, if you want Ronald Reagan, I'll be Ronald Reagan, said Bob Dole, and it's just one of the appealing qualities of Bob Dole. He is sort of self- effacing, but Ronald Reagan in 1966, when he first ran for governor, was accused by critics of having John Birch Society support, and he said, look, he said, anybody in a certain Birch Society who supports me, it means they're buying my philosophy; it doesn't mean I'm buying theirs. And that just absolutely routed his critics at the time. And Dole ought to have said the same thing about any group that's supporting him, that they're obviously seeing something in him. He's not endorsing people who endorse him.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Do you think he's going to lose support from GOP moderates because of this?

MR. SHIELDS: I think--I think if I were Phil Gramm and Pat Buchanan and Pete Wilson, I'd be putting together a group right now of 15 Republicans to call a committee to retain the, the assault weapon ban, or to preserve abortion rights for Republicans, and I'd make a little check on account--and I'd send $250 to Bob Dole and see what Bob Dole does then and ask him who's going to take that money, and he--it doesn't look strong--what did he come in this race with--he came in as a leader, as a strong, effective, decisive leader, and that--this erodes that in a sense.

MS. CHAVEZ: And I think he has another problem, and that is, you know, that he's the one who launched the attack on the media with Time Warner. Of course, he didn't return Time Warner's check, and I think then it makes it also look--

MR. SHIELDS: Good point.

MS. CHAVEZ: --look like inconsistency, and he looks like he's pandering, when he doesn't need to do that.

MR. SHIELDS: Yes.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Well, speaking of Gov. Wilson, he's entered the primary race officially. And he said in the speech when he announced his official candidacy. "I'm the candidate Bill Clinton fears the most." Do you think that's true, Linda?

MS. CHAVEZ: Well, I think there is a modicum of truth in that, in the sense that obviously the American public is very turned off by Washington. They don't like politicians. Bill Clinton now represents Washington, and to the extent that Pete Wilson, because he's a governor, because he's out there, he's running the largest state in the country, he can, I think, reach out and look like somebody outside Washington. Until he got in the race, it was really former Gov. Lamar Alexander who had that mantle. In fact, Alexander is so upset about it apparently he's running ads against Pete Wilson in New Hampshire. So I think that in that sense that he does have some appeal.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What do you think about that?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, I think it's great, it's a great selling point. I mean, the candidate whom the Clinton White House fears most--Republican--but it doesn't measure up in any polls. I mean, in California, he is running far behind--he, the governor, is running far behind Bob Dole among California Republicans, and he's badly trailing the President among all voters in California.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Of course, he has had the throat problems and other problems. Could that change?

MR. SHIELDS: The problem that he has--people of California--I mean, there's only been one Republican elected to the Senate from California since 1976--that's Pete Wilson. He's been twice elected governor of California, in 1990 and 1994, so the very strengths-- they know him, they're comfortable with him, the fact that he is trailing probably doesn't have much to do with Bill Clinton as it does with Pete Wilson. But I think there's no question--he is a winner. He's been a winner for a long time. He's been consistently underestimated by his opponents, and you know, I think--I think they do that at their peril. He was 23 points behind Kathleen Brown in California in 1994 and did beat her. But I, I think he's starting off at an enormous disadvantage this time.

MS. CHAVEZ: But he also has some issues that I think are not being talked about that much, except out there where people live, issues like immigration, issues like affirmative action. I think he's going to go far on those kinds of issues. The immigration issue handed him the governorship by--by, you know, every other poll before he started talking about immigration, he would not have been reelected governor of California, but this is a very hot button issue. It's an issue where there's a lot of appeal, right or wrong. And I think he's going to be able to take those kinds of issues and talk about them in a way that's going to have some credibility, given his record in California.

MR. SHIELDS: Concord and Nashua are really at the points of entry of a lot of immigrants in the United States.

MS. CHAVEZ: It doesn't much matter though, you know. That's the sort of funny thing about the immigration issue. It doesn't--but you don't have--

MR. SHIELDS: It has a relevance in California, I think, that it does--and the saliency that it doesn't have in New Hampshire.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Okay. In our remaining few minutes, what are the domestic politics of what's happening in Bosnia, do you think. Linda?

MS. CHAVEZ: I think Bill Clinton has gotten a big boost out of the bombings that the NATO forces are doing. I think that he started to look presidential. I mean, it's amazing what the grand Tetons will do to increase your stature, and, and I think he is looking like he's taking a forceful role, and quite frankly, I think as a matter of policy, it's long overdue, and now he looks a little bit more like he's in charge.

MS. FARNSWORTH: What do you think, Mark? How important is Bosnia right now, politically, domestically?

MR. SHIELDS: Politically, domestically, it--I think Linda's right. The President has looked forceful. There's going to be the inevitable second guessing. Why did it take so long, or why was it- -and the options were pretty limited, and they were pretty unappealing, and the application of enormous force, if it does have the desired results, I think, will give the President a boost and probably help him politically, but the race in 1996 is not going to be decided on foreign policy.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Well, Mark and Linda, thank you for being with us. RECAP

MR. MAC NEIL: Again, the major stories of this Friday, Bosnia, Croatia, and the Yugoslav Republic will meet in Geneva next week to discuss the principles for a Bosnian peace plan. President Clinton called the announcement a positive step forward. The President was in Hawaii for three days of celebrations to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Japanese surrender that ended World War II. Good night, Elizabeth.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Good night, Robin. We'll be back Monday evening. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Have a nice Labor Day Weekend.