The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Monday, in the Salman Rushdie case, Britain ordered home its five remaining diplomats in Iran, and the other European common market countries said they would withdraw their ambassadors, and in Cairo, the Soviet foreign minister pushed for a Middle East conference. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: After the News Summary, we look first at how some Americans, politicians, writers, book sellers, have reacted to the threats against the writer Salman Rushdie, with Leon Wieseltier of the New Republic, New York Post Columnist Pete Hamill, Edward Morrow of the American Book Sellers Association and Washington book seller Bill Kramer. Next, the move to ban assault weapons like the AK-47 used in the recent schoolyard massacre in Stockton, we have a report from California, and a debate between New Orleans City Councilwoman Dorothy Mae Taylor and Warren Cassidy of the National Rifle Association. We close with another of Charlayne Hunter-Gault's conversations for Black History Month. Tonight, the artist Lois Mailou Jones.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: The foreign ministers of the 12 nation European community today agreed to recall their ambassadors from Tehran to protest Iranian death threats against British author Salman Rushdie. Britain said it was pulling out its entire embassy staff headed by a Charge D'Affairs. Over the weekend, Iran's spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, renewed his call for the murder of Rushdie, whose novel "The Satanic Verses" he considers blasphemous to Muslims. In Brussels, British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe explained today's action.

SIR GEOFFREY HOWE, British Foreign Secretary: All 12 members of the community have made plain that the use of violence, the threat of violence, above all the incitement to murder in a country outside Iran is an intolerable breach of international law and they've made plain that if Iran wants to have normal relations with the rest of the world, then that kind of conduct has to be renounced.

MR. MacNeil: Yugoslavia's official newspaper, Borba, today began printing excerpts from the Rushdie novel as Iranian President Ali Khomeini arrived for a three day state visit. Several Belgrade publishers were reported bidding for rights to print "The Satanic Verses" in Sibra Croation. Libya's population includes several million Muslims. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze continued his Middle East peace mission today. He met in Cairo with Egyptian President Mubarak. Shevardnadze is trying on his five day mission to organize an international conference on the Middle East. He met Saturday with the leaders of Syria and King Hussein of Jordan on Sunday. He will speak with PLO Leader Yasser Arafat later in the week, with Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Arens Wednesday. Arens arrived in Cairo today and met with Mubarak for 90 minutes. There were more clashes today between Israeli troops and Arab protesters in the occupied territories. Wire service reports said at least 20 Palestinians were wounded.

MR. MacNeil: The Immigration Service announced today that it's sending 500 agents into Southern Texas to speed up the processing of applications for political asylum. INS Commissioner Alan Nelson said unsuccessful applicants will be arrested and detained for deportation proceedings or returned immediately to their homelands if they're willing. Nelson told a news conference in Brownsville, the newrules were designed to stop abuse of the system.

ALAN NELSON, I.N.S.: We fully intend to send a strong signal to those people who have the mistaken idea that by merely filing a frivolous asylum claim they may stay in the United States. This willful manipulation of America's generosity must and will stop.

MR. MacNeil: Lawyers and advocates for asylum seekers from Central America criticized the new rule. One immigration lawyer said it was an attempt to discourage refugees from pursuing their legal right to a fair hearing.

MR. LEHRER: Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee took delivery today of another FBI report on John Tower. There was no word on the contents, but an Assistant White House Press Secretary told reporters there was nothing in it that would preclude Tower's nomination for Defense Secretary from going forward. Committee Chairman Sen. Sam Nunn said a vote was near.

SEN. SAM NUNN, [D] Georgia: Well, we're going to vote in committee this week if I have my way, and I know Sen. Warner feels exactly the same way. We're going to vote. We think we have had a very thorough investigation. We're not completed with it yet, but we will be this week, and if there are new allegations that come after that, then we'll just have to deal with them as we go, but we're not going to hold up the vote in the committee any longer.

MR. LEHRER: Former Ku Klux Klan Leader David Duke says it would be unAmerican to kick him out of the Republican Party. Voters in a suburban New Orleans District Saturday elected Duke to the Louisiana State Legislature. National Republican Chairman Lee Atwater said he would ask the Republican National Committee Wednesday to, in effect, Duke from the party.

MR. MacNeil: In Southern California, searchers today found the wreckage of a private twin engine plane which crashed yesterday in the Santa Ana Mountains Southeast of Los Angeles. The Cessna was believed to have been carrying a family from Los Vegas to Disneyland. There were reports that 10 people were on board. Authorities said at least nine bodies were found at the crash site. That's our News Summary. Now it's on to the U.S. reaction to the Rushdie death threats, the move to ban assault weapons, and the artist Lois Mailou Jones. FOCUS - SILENT VERSES

MR. LEHRER: We go first again tonight to the Salman Rushdie story, the story of "The Satanic Verses", a novel that has enraged followers of Islam, caused Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini to order Rushdie's murder and triggered intense debate in the United States about the way bookstore chains, writers' organizations and other Americans have reacted. Rushdie remains in hiding somewhere in Britain. Today in protest of Khomeini's continued threat, the British Government summoned home its five remaining diplomats in Iran, the 12 other nations of the European common market announced the recall of their ambassadors. It is the American reaction debate that we explore tonight with a literary editor, a writer and two book sellers. The editor is Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic, a board member of Pen, a writers' rights organization. The writer is Pete Hamill, also a member of Pen and a columnist with the New York Post. The book sellers are William Kramer, owner of Sidney Kramer Books in Washington, and Edward Morrow, owner of the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont, and the current president of the industry's trade association, The American Book Sellers Association. He joins us from the public television's New York Network Studio in Albany. Mr. Wieseltier, to you first. You said over the weekend in the Washington Post you could count the number of writers who have spoken out on the fingers of one trembling hand on this issue. Why did so many run for cover?

LEON WIESELTIER, The New Republic: I think they were afraid. I'm afraid that history will show that in the first week of Rushdie's persecution, the American literary community by and large did not behave terribly honorably. I think they've been roused or perhaps shamed into speaking out this week. The real culprits to my mind now are the book chains, the Satanic book chains.

MR. LEHRER: We'll get to those in a minute. Let me ask you, Pete Hamill, what happened to the writers? Why didn't they speak out? Why did they run for cover? Do you agree with Leon?

PETE HAMILL, New York Post: Well, I think at the beginning, the first couple of days, people were stunned at the audacity of the situation, a murder contract actually being let out on a writer, so beyond the experience of most writers in this world that it was hard to understand it. The second part though might have been a failure of journalism, that journalism, itself, television and newspapers, did not seem to bother so much about the problem of calling up writers, the duty to call them up and say what do you think. It's hard for a writer, or Dr. Owen Mailer, who now are by the way going to speak publicly about this, but it's hard for them to go out, set up a soap box on a corner and begin to make a statement.

MR. WIESELTIER: I have to disagree with that. I think that writers of such prominence have a soap box already waiting for them in the American media and each one of them has the Pen office number in New York, and in the first week when Rushdie was in dire trouble and there seemed to be a threat of real danger, there were writers, there were writers who did call Pen and did offer to help out in any way they can.

MR. LEHRER: I know in our case just for the record we going through the Pen office could not get during the first week any prominent writers to come on and talk about the issue, and I understand some other television organizations had that, but for whatever reason, I mean, what was the problem? I mean, you've obviously talked to people since then, Pete. What was the reluctance?

MR. HAMILL: Well, I think part of it is probably simple running, belly quivering fear. People are afraid that out of the darkness someone will arrive with a pistol and blow them into eternity. I think that's a legitimate fear. The other part though is a failure to remember history. Anyone who remembers what happened during the French Resistance when silence was collaboration in many cases should have known that this was a moment in which the printed word and the freedom to express that word had to be stated clearly and powerfully, and it is a combination of writers, editors, publishers, and book seller that failed the first week after this. I think that's one reason why Rushdie, himself, felt that he had to go into writing, that there was no visible support from even his own peers at that moment.

MR. LEHRER: Did it surprise you, Leon, that the American literary community reacted the way it did? Did you expect them to do differently?

MR. WIESELTIER: Yeah, I did. Yeah, I did. I think that these are writer who generally spend a good deal of their time protesting quite correctly all kinds of violations of the freedom of expression and the freedom to write in situations in which there was no personal danger to themselves. And I have to say perhaps I was naive or the scales were ripped from my eyes, but I fully expected the American literary community to speak out, really to make a din almost as soon as the Ayatollah's death threat was made.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Let's move on now to the book sellers. You said you hold your highest disregard for them. Why?

MR. WIESELTIER: Jim, the book business is not just the business. The book business is not the shoe business. A book in a free society is sort of a sacred object and the book business is not involved only in commerce. Every time you sell a book you do not only make a profit, you reaffirm a philosophical premise about the society in which you live, which is that any book that any writer writes and publishes you are prepared to sell. Now I understand that some of these book chains may fear for their employees, but again it is part of the job description of a book seller, just as it is part of the job description of a publisher, to understand that at some point the written word will be controversial, even very controversial, even very controversial. And every writer must be able to expect in a free society that if his book is published, it will be sold.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Hamill, anything you want to add to that?

MR. HAMILL: I agree with that, because I think the right to sell even books that offend large numbers of people is basic. I went to B. Dalton's today in New York in Greenwich Village, and among other things I found Ezra Pound whose presence might offend somebody, I found hard cover and paperback editions of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler. I found no book by Salman Rushdie in the store. If that's the situation, something is peculiar. I would fight to the death the right for a book seller to sell Mein Kampf and for our freedom to be able to examine it. But once somebody decides to intellectually mutilate the ability to pass books on, then we're leaving ourselves open to a kind of intellectual Munich. You can never satisfy people who say under the power of my gun, I am going to make you do this. Once you let them have some of that, they will take everything.

MR. WIESELTIER: Jim, I could --

MR. LEHRER: Yes.

MR. WIESELTIER: Could I just add that it is no wonder that this is being done precisely by the chains. I mean, if anyone needs any proof about what the impact of the advanced corporate mentality on American book publishing has been, about the weakening of the moral spine of American book publishing by the corporate influence, the proof is here.

MR. LEHRER: All right we could -- we were talking about the chains, just to bring people up to date on that. The first chain that decided not to sell the book was Walden Books and then B. Dalton and Barnes & Noble.

MR. WIESELTIER: And Coles in Canada.

MR. LEHRER: And none of those folks would send representatives here, but we do have, as we've said, two book sellers who are with us. Mr. Kramer, to you first, now your bookstore here in Washington did not take the book off the shelves.

MR. KRAMER: No, we did not.

MR. LEHRER: Why not?

WILLIAM KRAMER, Sidney Kramer Books: Well, we do believe as book sellers in the freedom of expression and the right to sell any material no matter if it is offensive. I would, however, come to the defense of the chains in this regard. We as book sellers do have the obligation to uphold rights under the first amendment. But the question is who might pay for upholding those rights. I don't think that any four, five or six dollar an hour bookstore clerk signed on to potential physical danger to support that right. I think it is the obligation of the owners to take that into consideration and to protect their people. If the authors of the United States want to make their position well known, I'm delighted to take them on as clerks for the next few weeks and let them sell if they think that the principle is drawn at that point. I, myself, do not think that the principle is drawn at that particular point.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Morrow, how do you feel about it?

EDWARD MORROW, American Booksellers Association: Well, I have to agree with Mr. Kramer. Mr. Wieseltier made a comment about the job description of book sellers and I think he's right. I think he accurately described the job description, but this particular part of the job description has not been an element that's been visible. We're now all in the book community having to deal with the feeling of terror that goes with the word terrorism. It's a new thing to us to have to experience this directly, and we're all coping with this experience and developing our own approach to it each individually as we can. I don't know of any independent book seller who has actually pulled a book off sale. Independent book sellers are a very independent lot and feel very strongly about the principle of free expression, but I agree with Bill that the chain executives have a different dynamic working that they also have to consider and that is the other employees in the chain. I know both executives, top executives at the two chains mentioned, and if they were running their own bookstore, my conviction is that they would not have pulled it out from their own store.

MR. LEHRER: I'm sorry, I don't follow the difference. In other words, if you own five bookstores, or if you own fifty-five bookstores, the threat is the same, is it not, sir, in the five and the fifty-five?

MR. MORROW: Well, certainly the threat's the same but there's another level of consideration I think that has to go on. As I make the decision not to pull the book in my store, I have the sense of consensus of my fellow employees and how we feel about this and how important it is to us. When you're talking about the employees, the four, or five, six dollar an hour clerks who are staffing 1200 different bookstores throughout the country and you make a decision to quietly, and this was not a public announcement, to quietly tell each one of them that they may take the books out of the windows, put them in the back room and choose to sell them if they feel comfortable doing that, that shares the burden and gives a little discretion to employees who may be very nervous and who are questioning the dangers involved in this.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask Mr. Kramer a question. What about those people who have suggested to the book chains or any book store that if there was danger considered why not call the local police or ask the President to call out the National Guard to protect the sale of the book, rather than to put it on the monkey, put it on your own back of the bookstores?

MR. KRAMER: Well, clearly, this is, there aren't sufficient numbers of police or National Guard to do that. So I think the question really is, that is irrelevant. The question is who might pay the price for protecting the freedoms. It does seem to me that the book selling and the authorial community do have an obligation to extend the debate and the debate should not really be focused on whether the book is sold or not sold. I think by and large the book is available and will continue to be available. The publisher no longer has copies to sell. When there are copies to be, when they have reprinted, they will be shipped to book sellers and they will be available again. I think that we do have a responsibility to extend the debate and to talk about what in this particular book is causing such a furor and to lend our skills and our abilities to fully explore why this particular book is causing such a furor and to bring the debate to a more rational non-violent level and to see if we as book sellers and publishers can add positively to the debate, not to be fearful about it.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Wieseltier.

MR. WIESELTIER: Jim, the arguments I hear against selling this book would serve very handily also as arguments against publishing the book. Rushdie's publisher is a very large organization. There is not a chance in hell that every clerk or worker in that organization was asked whether or not he would be prepared to take the heat for a controversial book that is published by that firm. One has to assume in the book business that everyone involved in the writing, editing, production and selling of books understands that there is a basic sort of philosophical honor in what they do and in the event that there will be trouble, they will be in some way, if only inwardly, prepared for it.

MR. LEHRER: Pete Hamill, let me ask you, how do you feel about Mr. Kramer's point that it's just not right to draw the line at the bookstore counter? That's what Mr. Morrow says as well.

MR. HAMILL: Well, I think you have to put it again in a larger context. I think this is not just a simple issue about this book. This is about the notion of intellectual freedom. Nobody wants a $5 an hour clerk to die for the freedom to publish books in this country, but a lot of guys making less than $1 an hour died in Normandie, in Anzio, and a lot of other places for the right of us to publish freely and that right is being abridged here under the power, under the pressure of someone who's offering a murder contract on a writer. It seems to me even if it means management takes over all those bookstores that they have a sacred duty to the writers that they sell to keep the printed word free. Freedom is the issue, not religion, not blasphemy, freedom. And that freedom can't be tampered with. We have to stand up to this, or we're going to all perish.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Morrow, is he right?

MR. MORROW: Well, I think he's right, of course. The point is though that I don't think it's fair to Monday morning quarterback the decisions made in the heat of a spur of the moment developing situation. This dialogue that we're having now is part of the process of coming to terms with terrorism in our own home towns and how we deal with it and deal with the fear. I agree that book sellers have an obligation to fight for the principles of free expression and I think that the discussion that's going on now is what's going to help to make it possible for both chain and independent book sellers to decide upon a clear job description that fits the principle of free expression into it in the defense of it.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Kramer, do you think it would have mattered any if the writer involved in this book had been an American writer?

MR. KRAMER: Oh, I suspect that there would have been a much larger and more immediate outcry if the writer had been American. I don't think that going down the line it's going to make too much --

MR. LEHRER: I'm talking about the reaction of the book sellers. If the threat, the threat had been the same, the perception of the threat had been the same and yet there had been an American writer involved, would the issue have been different do you think to the books? I know that's a hard question to answer.

MR. KRAMER: At the bookstore counter, no, I don't think that the question would have been any different. I think that we all as book sellers have a sense that any author has the right to be sold, and I don't think that it would have made a difference.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Wieseltier, Mr. Hamill said in his column in the New York Post the other day, on this issue said, and I paraphrased a little bit, but he said all Americans should be saying I am Rushdie, you are Rushdie, we are all Rushdie. Why did Americans no do that, not just the literary community and the book sellers, but where was the outrage here?

MR. WIESELTIER: Because American writers are lucky to live in this country. Their own experience has not prepared them for the kind of terror or the kind of intimidation, or the kind of emotional and political difficulty that their vocation as writers would have created for them in other societies and in other countries. This is the down side of our good fortune as Americans.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Morrow, do you think because of this case that the book selling industry is going to handle -- let me start the question all over again. Has this set a precedent that's going to be difficult for you and your industry from this point on?

MR. MORROW: Do you mean the withdrawal of the books from the stores?

MR. LEHRER: Yes, the withdrawal of the books.

MR. MORROW: Well, I think it's an unfortunate kind of precedent. I think it can be redressed. It's an invitation to other groups to make this kind of threat because they feel that some idea that they do not want to gain currency can be bottled up by the same methods. I think that's to be regretted, but I think it's going to be helpful in that we now see an example and we're able to examine each one of us and discuss in our community what the right and honorable reaction is to things like this and how we go about dealing with it. It's unfortunate that these kind of things have finally reached our shores and we're dealing with it intimately now.

MR. LEHRER: Are you concerned at all about a precedent, Pete Hamill?

MR. HAMILL: I think that's the heart of the matter. I think if you give in on this one, you'll have to give in to any zealot who comes down the line, whether it's a right wing Christian, a left wing, an intolerant leftie who doesn't want some right wing author in a bookstore, I think that's the line that must be drawn, that a bookstore is a bazaar, everything is there, we're allowed to pick and choose and the choice is ours, not some zealot's choice, not some board of censors, not some politician, ours, individual citizens. That's what really the fight is all about.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Mr. Hamill, Mr. Morrow, Mr. Kramer, Mr. Wieseltier, thank you all four very much. Again, for the record, we invited B. Dalton, Barnes & Noble, and Viking Penguin to participate in tonight's discussion. They along with several others declined. The corporate headquarters of Walden Books was closed today. We weren't able to raise anybody. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Still to come on the Newshour, should assault rifles be banned and a conversation with black artist Lois Mailou Jones. FOCUS - ASSAULT ON SOCIETY

MR. MacNeil: We turn next to the growing controversy over the sale and use of semiautomatic firearms, the so-called "assault weapons", such as the Chinese built AK-47, the Colt AR-15, or the Israeli made Uzie submachine gun. After a gunman killed five schoolchildren with an AK-47 last month in Stockton, California, several state legislatures and many city councils across the country have considered banning these weapons. We'll hear from a New Orleans City Council member who wants such a ban and from the National Rifle Association. First we have a background report from California by Liz Gonzales of KPIX in San Francisco.

LIZ GONZALES: Assault weapons were designed by the military for war. They are more powerful than civilian firearms, easily capable of piercing just about anything and quickly. Buying an assault weapon is easier than buying a handgun in California. Assault weapons are classified as rifles and not subject to handgun requirements. Smaller, less powerful handguns require a 15 day waiting period and a criminal background check. The buyer of an assault weapon fills out a form which is rarely checked and never leaves the store. Many California police believe they are outgunned by criminals who prefer assault weapons because they are so powerful and easy to get.

OFFICER EARL SHERMAN: Mostly automatic assault rifles are Uzie type weapons, nine millimeter automatics.

MS. GONZALES: If officers like Earl Sherman of the Oakland Police Department feel at a disadvantage, listen to the unarmed residents of urban war zones.

RESIDENT: I can't take no more. Get 'em away from here, please. I don't know what to do no more -- I'd rather die than live in this stuff anymore. I can't live like this --

MS. GONZALES: The cry for protection from gun wielding maniacs was amplified on January 17th, the day of the Stockton schoolyard massacre, 30 children shot, 5 students killed by a man using an AK-47, a popular assault weapon. The tragedy breeds new life into legislative attempts to ban or restrict the sale of assault weapons. California Attorney General John Van De Kamp walked into the state capital with an AK-47 to illustrate the weapon's deadly potential.

JOHN VAN DE KAMP, California Attorney General: I could shoot every member of this assembly by the time I finish this sentence, just about 20 seconds.

MS. GONZALES: It is a visual and emotional issue and that worries the National Rifle Association's State Liaison David Marshall.

DAVID MARSHALL, National Rifle Association: You can't expect to pass legislation on an emotional basis without realizing its real impact on real people throughout California.

MS. GONZALES: One impact already being felt in the state is in the sale of assault weapons. Gun dealer Richard Bash says after the Stockton massacre sales went up as people feared a ban was imminent.

RICHARD BASH, Bay Area Gun Dealer: There was a customer earlier who purchased a product who really shouldn't have purchased the product and he wouldn't have if all of this media had not been brought to his attention.

MS. GONZALES: The highly organized and financed NRA is campaigning against proposed controls, blaming the problem on people, not guns. Stockton schoolyard killer Patrick Purdy had a history of mental problems and run-ins with the law. Gun groups say the fact that he slipped through the cracks of society is an indictment of the system, not the weapon.

DAVID MARSHALL, National Rifle Association: We think that the concern here is not the firearm, but the criminal justice system, and people are starting to look at the failed system we have here in California. We have done a poor job at administering criminal justice in this state.

MS. GONZALES: The NRA believes money and attention should go to upholding current laws, not creating new paper work for police, but police departments in most major California metropolitan areas are backing the state attorney general and state legislators favoring controls. Even the state's most popular Republicans, Gov. George Dukmajian and former President Ronald Reagan have expressed support for some restrictions and that has director of handgun control Luis Tolley optimistic.

LUIS TOLLEY, Handgun Control: But we're seeing at all levels a change in posture and we're hoping that the National Rifle Association also will start being a little more reasonable and come to the table with us and work out a way to prevent criminals from getting their hands on things like AK-47s.

LIZ GONZALES, KPIX-TV: Supporters of controls on assault weapons say they have a 50/50 chance at winning. Those odds may not sound promising but considering the power of the National Rifle Association and its members, the odds have never been closer. State Sen. David Roberti of Los Angeles and sponsor of a gun control bill says the vote is so close the NRA and the country is watching.

DAVID ROBERTI, State Senator: California is at the cutting edge. They're very concerned and they're sending out their most experienced people to fight this legislation and we just need an uproar from the public second to none to be able to win.

MS. GONZALES: But it's a no win situation for the residents who see the death toll climb and time slipping by. This woman who fears for her life says her neighbors can't wait for legislators rescue them.

RESIDENT: We can't afford to have our families killed; we can't afford to have bullets coming through our, you know, windows, and walls, and so forth, so you know, if we see them out there, we're going to kill them.

MS. GONZALES: Vigilantism is a last resort in a state where legislators have been accused of being pushovers for the NRA. Now the theory over assault weapons has put politicians in the driver's seat with tough obstacles on the political road ahead.

MR. MacNeil: One political obstacle on the national level is the President, himself. Last week during an informal press conference with a small group of reporters, the President was asked if he would take the lead in pushing for a ban on semiautomatic weapons.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Do you know that there are laws on the book outlining the import of AK-47's, automatic --

REPORTER: No, I didn't.

PRESIDENT BUSH: So, see there's a fact. Where does that leave you? You already have laws that prohibit the import of automatic fully automated AK-47's. That law's on the books, so are we talking about law enforcement, or are we talking about --

REPORTER: We're talking about semiautomatic AK-47's, sir, we're talking about semiautomatic.

MR. MacNeil: Now what do you mean by semi?

REPORTER: I mean, no cocking, pull the trigger, the gun fires each time you pull the trigger.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Look. You're suggesting that every pistol that can do that or every rifle should be banned. I would strongly oppose that. I would strongly go after the criminals who use these guns, but I'm not about to suggest that a semiautomated hunting rifle be banned, absolutely not. Am I opposed to AK-47's fully automated, am I in favor of supporting the law that says they shouldn't come in here, yes.

MR. MacNeil: President Bush went on to say that the answer was for states to enforce existing laws. In New Orleans, an effort is now being made to get such laws on the books. Joining us from the studios of public station WLAE in New Orleans is Dorothy Mae Taylor, a city councilwoman and sponsor of legislation that would prohibit the sale and use of assault weapons in New Orleans. The other side of the debate comes from the National Rifle Association. Warren Cassidy is the NRA's executive vice president. Mr. Cassidy, going after the criminals, not the guns, that was really the NRA position that Mr. Bush has taken there, is that correct?

WARREN CASSIDY, National Rifle Association: Yes, Robin, and it has been. And I'd like to ask our viewers a question tonight, the second amendment following the first amendment on the first part of your show, I wonder if the viewers think that Salman Rushdie or the publishers or the book sellers or any of the employees of the book sellers should have to undergo 15 day waiting periods or have their arms declared illegal by a city counselor in England. I think it's most important that Mr. Kramer also suggested in response to a question there are not enough police or National Guardsmen to protect everyone involved.

MR. MacNeil: Well, you raise a different question, which is the use of weapons for self-protection. Let me just go, as I wanted to do, and ask Ms. Taylor, what do you think of the President's position, which Mr. Cassidy says is the NRA position on this issue?

DOROTHY MAE TAYLOR, City Councilwoman: Well, Robin, we tend to differ with the President's position. The city council in New Orleans, especially the co-author and myself, we tend to go after the criminal and the weapon. We feel that they go two together, that the accessibilities of being able to purchase an assault weapon in the hand of the criminal is not just what society needs today.

MR. MacNeil: What exactly would the legislation you are backing do?

MS. TAYLOR: Well, we have two pieces of legislation. One is a resolution asking the state legislature and the governor to consider a ban on the possession and the sale of assault weapons. Now seemingly the NRA took care of the homework back in 1985, when they lobbied the Louisiana legislature in what's considered preemption of law, which would prohibit a political subdivision from amending state law. But the city council members at the request of its constituency, we are going ahead, introducing an ordinance also calling for the ban on assault weapons. We cannot understand or reasonably accept any reasons why a gun should be in the hands of a person that at just the touch of a trigger 20 pellets can be fired, at the touch twice maybe 40 pellets available. The criminals have access to weapons that the police department doesn't.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Cassidy, what is the reasonable use, a legitimate reason why a person should possess such a gun?

MR. CASSIDY: I suppose the initial reason, Robin, is simply that by due process of law, by constitutional requirement, by inherent freedoms, that individual until proven not to be fit to purchase their own private property should have it. I could not agree with the councilwoman more that the criminal is the one that should be gone after, but in every fair test of waiting periods throughout this country, they have simply failed to work. I think you realize that Patrick Purdy, the Stockton killer, purchased five handguns through the fifteen day waiting period of California. The reason he was successful in doing so was that he had never been adjudicated a felon, even though he had committed, been arrested for seven serious crimes, drugs and sexual harassment, robberies, dealing in stolen firearms, he had never once had a felony, so when the police in California ran his name through the national criminal information center nothing came up on him. It is the system that is failing and failed those children in California, not any single firearm.

MR. MacNeil: To come back to the question, apart from the constitutional right, as you interpret it, what legitimate use does a citizen of this country have with an automatic weapon or semiautomatic weapon, depending on which it is, like an AK-47? What legitimate use does he have with a weapon that is designed and made to kill people?

MR. CASSIDY: Well, I think you can say that about any firearm but what about collectors, for example, who have been collecting so- called "assault rifles" since the Brown Bess was considered an assault rifle in the Revolutionary War and the Mouser and the Springfields and the N-Fields and the M-1s of World War II and the M-16s of Vietnam? I think the problem here is that the burden of proof should rest upon those individuals like the councilwoman who would deprive us in any way, shape or form of our personal property or our civil liberties. Eminent domain demands a heavy burden of proof from those officials who would deprive us of civil rights or our homes and the proof must be that it is in the public good. We ask that the opposition, the councilwoman and others, prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that waiting periods banning assault rifles or any other kind of firearm is in the public good.

MR. MacNeil: How do you respond to that, Ms. Taylor? How is it in the public good?

MS. TAYLOR: First I'd like to respond to an isolated case in California. Normally we can always single out one case to our advantage, but I do believe a ban on the assault weapons certainly would prevent many other recurrences as the one in California. The gentleman refers to what about collectors and museums? The ordinance that we are proposing excludes collectors, museums, television stations, and others who would use such weapons for display purposes or as a collection item, so we have taken care of that part. I still did not hear the gentleman say for what good and humankind could a semiautomatic weapon be used in peace time and in neighborhoods and communities. I did not hear a response to that.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Cassidy.

MR. CASSIDY: I'll be happy to answer that. Part of the second amendment, of course, is that the civilian army of the United States be trained in the use of firearms that are used by the National Guard and by the military. Semiautomatic rifles are used by the military of this country. If we are engaged in another or to be engaged in another war, our civilians will be called to active duty and they should be aware and familiar with the use of those firearms under the conditions of law.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Taylor.

MS. TAYLOR: Yes. I'd like to respond to that. There have been many persons unaware who have been called to the military who have had no experience with guns at all. It is my understanding that there is a training period in the military to educate one to the parts and to the use of a gun. I don't think the answer given just now is one that's justifiable.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Cassidy if the tide of opposition to these particular weapons rose to a point where the NRA's opposition looked like going down, would the NRA accept a regulation just on these particular weapons?

MR. CASSIDY: The NRA is, of course, a law abiding organization, Robin, and so are our 3 million members. We will do our best to prove to the nation, and thanks to you to give us an opportunity to have a national dialogue, that the facts presented by the other side are not true facts, that the support for waiting periods or bans are not correct and will not reduce crime one iota. We will do our best in that area. We will use every legal method available to us and to our membership to make this point. What happens then we will have to see when the time arrives.

MR. MacNeil: You say the facts are on the other side, on your side, but what do you say to the organization, the national associations, police organizations representing 90,000 policemen on the beat in this country who have come out strongly endorsing a ban on such weapons?

MR. CASSIDY: Some individuals in leadership positions have come out for a ban in some weapons, but I would ask if some day you would have some law enforcement officials on the program. They will tell you that the major problems, as I said earlier, that the national criminal information center does not have adequate information, that U.S. attorneys, assistant U.S. attorneys are not prosecuting felons in possessions of firearms, that the plea bargainings that plea bargaining people like Patrick Purdy out of felonies for which there could be time served are plea bargained now to misdemeanors. NRA has a program and I hope in the course of the national dialogue we will be able to put forth a program we presented to the Congressional Committee just a week or two ago.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Taylor, what is the position of the police in New Orleans on your legislation, proposed legislation?

MS. TAYLOR: Well, I spoke with the Superintendent of Police, Chief Warren Woodfog who certainly endorses and supports the ban on assault weapons so that seems to be in support of what you just stated nationally. I would like to just add that I certainly support the gentleman where he says the criminal justice system has failed to a great extent. We're not just stopping with the ban on the sale and possession of assault weapons. We're also looking at the total criminal justice system. In some courts, the sentence is lighter than the others. We're looking at possibly mandatory sentences in some instances where weapons are being used, so we're not just looking for control of guns. We're looking at the total criminal justice system. And I'd like to say at this time in terms of the support I've had approximately 10 calls for the ban on the assault weapons to every 1 call I have received opposing it.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Cassidy, the report, our report from California said that the NRA there and you nationally, because you're sending in people nationally to help out with the argument, is concerned that there is such a head of steam behind this proposed ban that you're going to lose this one. Are you concerned?

MR. CASSIDY: We're concerned, Robin, of course. Not long ago, the Los Angeles City Council in our opinion conducted an illegal act by banning assault rifles, so-called "assault rifles", in the City of Los Angeles. That's against California law. We are going to the state Supreme Court to prove it. What they passed was an ordinance that declared people who went to bed that night as law abiding citizens to be felons and the products and firearms that they had purchased legally, paid taxes on, are now contraband. They have a few days to get rid of them and that's the end of it. We think due process, we think open hearings, we think a fair adjudication of it, we will be successful, but we are concerned over the catchy slogans, the emotional rhetoric, Cleveland, Stockton, Los Angeles, now New Orleans, we hear --

MR. MacNeil: We've run out of time. Have to leave it there. Thank you, Mr. Cassidy, and Ms. Taylor, for joining us from New Orleans.

MS. TAYLOR: You're quite welcome. SERIES [Black History Month]

MR. LEHRER: Next we continue our series of Black History Month conversations. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in charge.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: She's been called the grand dame of African American Art, a title Lois Mailou Jones earned in her almost half century of painting and teaching art. Her long career as an artist spans many different styles and cultures, blending Western and non-Western esthetic traditions. As a young woman studying in Paris in the '30s, critics said Lois was in the tradition but not an imitation of Cezanne. It was during that time that her discovery of African masks in the Parisian art galleries inspired her first affirmation of her heritage. She called it Lez Fetishe. It was also in the '30s that she expanded her pallet from water color to oil. Back in America in the '40s, Lois Jones' work reflected the influence of Elaine Loch, the poet laureate of the so called new Negro movement and an early advocate of black consciousness. In the '50s, Lois Jones' marriage to noted Haitian graphic artist Louis Vernio Pierre Noel added still another dimension to Jones' work as the vibrant culture of Haiti touched her palette. The ensuing years witnessed greater expansion if the artist's work shown in galleries all over the world as well as at Howard University, where her students included some of the best known black artists alive today. But today at 83 years old, Lois Mailou Jones still remembers how hard it was for a woman who was black to make a mark in the field where her talents led her. It started in the '20s just as she graduated from the Boston Museum Fine Arts School as one of its first two black students. She was turned down for a job at the school and advised instead to go South and help her people.

LOIS MAILOU JONES: that was sort of a blow, because there I was, Lois Jones in Boston, exposed to Radcliffe, that is, all of those Harvard Universities, Simmons College, and I was being advised to go South to help my people, so that it was quite quite shocking.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But I also read that in addition to being turned down by the institute, you also had an organization take a prize back once they learned that you were black.

LOIS MAILOU JONES: I remember submitting a water color to the National Museum and I had a friend who was working there, a gentleman of color, who called me after the jury had met, and said that, Lois, I just want to tell you that your water color got the first award, but some one of the members of the organization stood up and said, you know, she's that colored artist, and they took the prize away from you, but I'm going to hang it in a very conspicuous place so's that when you come to the exhibit you'll know that you did get the first award.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How did that make you feel?

LOIS MAILOU JONES: Well, you can imagine. I was really hurt to think that color played a part in something that shouldn't have been considered. After all, art should be above the color of one's skin, and to have my work turned down because of color, that was pretty hard to take.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You also had to sneak a painting into an exhibit once, didn't you?

LOIS MAILOU JONES: Well, I had a white friend who would take my friends into the exhibits, because if I had taken a painting in some cases, even the guards, you know, the persons who were placing the paintings alphabetically for the jury, would see me putting a painting and they would put it in the rejects. I mean, really it was very very tough in those days, so that this friend of mine would take the paintings and they wouldn't know, and that was in one instance when I won the Robert Woods Bliss Award for an oil painting that I did up at Marcus Vineyard Island of a scene at Gayhead, it was quite a stunning painting done in the impressionist style the way I worked in Paris during the Paris period, and it got the first award in painting, but I didn't go to pick up the award. I felt that I'd receive it in the mail and get to the place to hold my niche before I would let them know who I was, and so that went on for many years even to the extent of way back when I returned to France from that first period, '37, of sending my paintings to the National Academy of Design, the Philadelphia Academy of Design, and shipping things. Invariably, they were selected and hung and they never knew that the artist was black. That goes way way back.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Did you find the reception in France any different than in America?

LOIS MAILOU JONES: Oh, yes. It was just shackle free. I was able to live freely, to go to any restaurant, to go to any theater, all of the galleries, and to exhibit in the museums, the leading galleries. I recall my first exhibit in Paris, which was a painting, Les Palmes Verte, which was exhibited at the Salon Des Artists Francais, and I remember walking through the gallery and seeing it hung with paintings by leading artists from all over France, just to have my painting hung was such an inspiration and it did give me my stability. It gave me the strength to feel that I should make it. And when I came back to the states, I met Elaine Loch, the great philosopher, you know, professor at Howard University, who said that he liked my Paris paintings very very much but he said that Lois, I wish you black artists, all of you black artists, would do more of the black subject; think of your background, your heritage, do paintings that really stem from those sources. Look at Picasso and Matiste and so many of the others, Modigbiani, they're all getting famous on using the inspiration from Africa, and you people must make use of it. And that fired me very much. I mean, it gave me an idea that I will do something with the black subject and as a result, one of the paintings that I did called Jenny of a black girl cleaning fish was one of the first paintings that I did in which Elaine Loch used in an exhibit which he organized for the museum in Albany, one of my first important works. Then followed Mob Victim. I was very very much moved by the lynchings in 1940 and I felt that I had to make a statement on canvas as to how I felt about what was happening. And so I needed a model. And I recall working on U Street and seeing this tall, black man with two guitars over his shoulder and he was sort of a Cocharde type, wearing sort of a long black shabby looking overcoat and a slouched black hat, but under the hat, I got the expression of his eyes and his face and I said he's just the type I need for Mob Victim so I went up to him and I asked him, has anyone ever made a sketch of you, a picture of you, and he looked down at me because he was very tall and he said, he didn't quite understand what it was all about, but I said, this is my address, if you come to this address, I'll pay you, because I want to make a picture of you, and in two days he came. And I explained, I said, I want to do a picture of you as a man about to be lynched, and he looked at me rather strangely and he said, well, you know, I lived on a plantation in the South and he said that our master took me and my other workers to see one of or brothers lynched. And I said, well, tell me about it. What happened? He said, well, they put us all in the wagon and they tied his hands. And I said, how did he look? He said, he just fastened his eyes on the heavens, and Isaid, that's just the pose. I said, it's perfect, that's just the way I want you to pose, and so he turned out to be one of my best models.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: At what point did museums begin to show your work? It took a long time.

LOIS MAILOU JONES: A long time and it's still not what it should be. Black artists are not represented in museums to the extent of which we deserve to be shown in permanent collections.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: If you had the power to change things, what would you change for the next generation?

LOIS MAILOU JONES: If I had been born white, it wouldn't have been so hard. I probably would have gone right up to the top, but because of this, it's been really a hard hard road. So that in answer to your question in thinking of the artists who are coming along, the younger generation, they're going to have to know that it's going to be twice as hard. I mean, you're going to have to work much harder than the other artists because of your color. I mean, it still exists and much improvement is coming, but as I say, in my particular instance, it's been very late and I just hope that I'll have time enough to do some of the creative things that I must do. That's my biggest thought now.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How do you think you would like to be remembered by history?

LOIS MAILOU JONES: Certainly as a person who has dedicated her life really to helping the younger generation of our blacks, especially, to achieve as artists those who have talent do as much possible, and I have done that, to guide them, to lead them. In history, the paintings that I leave behind I hope will find their place as a contribution to American art in the broadest vein of it, and to really go down in history as an American artist who has made a mark in life, who has achieved. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Once again, Monday's top story, there was more diplomatic fallout from the Ayatollah Khomeini's death threat against Salman Rushdie, author of "The Satanic Verses". Britain announced that it's recalling all of its embassy staff from Tehran three months after the two countries restored diplomatic relations, and the other European community nations agreed to recall their ambassadors from Tehran in protest. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.