The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. The crisis in China again dominates the news this Thursday. Hundreds of foreigners continued to flee Beijing, as fresh troops arrived in the capital. Authorities demanded the surrender of democracy movement leaders and Pres. Bush is expected to address the crisis at a prime time news conference later this evening. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Judy Woodruff is in Washington tonight. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: After the News Summary, China is our lead focus. We get one view of the chaos there from an eye witness who was in Beijing, when soldiers started firing. Jing Huang is a student at Harvard. We also talk with Ming Hsu of the New Jersey Department of International Trade on what's happening to American businesses in China. Then a look at the growing communications empire of entrepreneur Christopher Whittle, and finally, fallout from a GOP attack on the new Democratic House Speaker Tom Foley. Democratic Party Chief Ron Brown and Republican Congressional Committee Chief Ed Rollins square off.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: China's hard-line Premier, Li Peng, reasserted his authority today. He appeared in public for the first time since last weekend's crackdown on pro democracy demonstrators. He called the protestors counterrevolutionaries and asked the Chinese people to turn them over to authorities. This came as hundreds of foreigners continued to leave the country and new troops moved into the capital. We have a report from David Rose of Independent Television News in Beijing.

DAVID ROSE, ITN: This is the first time a member of China's leadership has been seen since Sunday's massacres. The government controlled Chinese television showed the Prime Minister, Li Peng, in Beijing's Great Hall of the People. Grinning broadly, Li Peng thanked soldiers for their sterling work in suppressing what the government now calls the counterrevolutionary rebellion. And it's very clear from the prominence given these pictures that Li Peng, a hard-line conservative, was among those who ordered the troops to crack down on Sunday and is among those who control China today. The government propaganda machine has been hard at work today showing the Chinese army cleaning up the capital as well as protecting it. A cheerful officer described his men's pride in clearing the streets and restoring traffic. Behind him, troops marched past with brooms on their shoulders. Beijing has been relatively quiet today and there were clearly more people on the street, many returning nervously to work for the first time since Sunday's massacres. There are continuing poignant reminders of the people's sadness and anger at Sunday's events. This statue carried a placard saying, "In memory of those who died on June the 4th.". Whoever made and decorated the memorial, made their feelings clear, leaving the shoes of those who were killed among flowers at the base.

MR. LEHRER: Pres. Bush will answer questions about the China situation at his first prime time news conference later this evening. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: It may appear in Beijing as if the hard-liners have won, but Secretary of State James Baker avoided saying so today when reporters asked him who was in charge in China. Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, the Secretary said the Bush administration has seen a variety of reports about who's running things.

JAMES BAKER, Secretary of State: I think it's too soon and the situation is too clouded now for us to answer that definitively by suggesting names, throwing names out there for you. The Chinese, themselves, at this point in time are not shedding a lot of light on this which I think is another indication of the fact that there is a power struggle going on in China.

MS. WOODRUFF: In Iran, the speaker of the parliament, Hashami Rafsanjani, said today, that Iran would help free American hostages in Lebanon if the U.S. tries to help Iran win freedom for Iranians held by Christian forces in Lebanon. It was the first time a top Iranian leader commented on the hostages since the death of the Ayatollah Khomeini over the weekend. At his news conference today, Secretary Baker said the U.S. had already given Iran all the information it had on Iranian hostages. He said conditions between the two countries would only improve if Iran helps win the release of U.S. hostages.

MR. LEHRER: Back in this country, a series of tornadoes touched down this morning near Baton Rouge, Louisiana. One of them leveled a square mile area of homes and trailers killing two people. At least 24 others were injured. Other tornadoes destroyed or damaged almost 100 homes in Baton Rouge.

MS. WOODRUFF: In the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev called a closed session of the parliament this evening. The move was a surprise after two weeks of open coverage and a promise from Gorbachev that all proceedings would be televised. One of the participants told the Reuters News Agency that the subject of the meeting was the recent ethnic rioting in the Southern Republic of Uzbekistan, where the official death toll after five days of violence was put at at least 77 people. Today thousands of rioters attacked government offices and a police station trying to find weapons.

MR. LEHRER: There was a spectacular crash today of a Soviet fighter plane at the annual Paris air show. Lawrence McGinny of Independent Television News has this report.

LAWRENCE McGINNY, ITN: Today's flying at Paris began with an astonishing display by the Soviet's Suco 27 fighter. Western experts have said the interceptor's performance surpasses imagination and it proved it today. Some maneuvers were described by pilots looking on as aerodynamically impossible, but barely an hour later, disaster smashed Soviet pride in their fighters. A Mig 29 Fulcrom performing a very difficult maneuver at almost full power seemed to hit engine trouble. Almost imperceptibly at first, it slid into a vertical dive. The pilot ejected. He seemed he could have no chance of survival, but medics who reached him almost immediately said the pilot, Anatole Corture, was conscious and able to speak.

MS. WOODRUFF: That wraps up our summary of the day's news. Just ahead on the Newshour, two Chinese on the situation in their home country, a look at Christopher Whittle's communications empire, and Ron Brown and Ed Rollins face off over Republican smear tactics. FOCUS - CHINA IN CRISIS

MR. LEHRER: We begin again tonight with the China story. In Beijing, there was new concern over reports of a crackdown or even a roundup of students and other anti-government activists. So far these reports have not been confirmed. But there was less fear about civil war between military units in Beijing, as we hear in this update from David Smith of Britain's Independent Television News.

DAVID SMITH, ITN: For once, Chinese propaganda bore some, if limited, resemblance to the truth. Tonight's news from state television showed us pictures of soldiers out on the streets of Beijing, clearing up the debris from last weekend's massacre of the students, helping the injured get out of what has been a war zone for the past few days, and even soldiers greeting the civilian population as if they were friends, rather than enemies. It was all carefully designed to make the nation believe that everything is getting back to normal. The stage managed as it was, Western reporters had been threatened at gunpoint for trying to take their own pictures of troops here. It did reflect to an extent what we've witnessed for ourselves today. That's a capital returning to everyday life after the carnage, an army that no longer feels under any immediate threat of attack from rival soldiers and the prospects of civil war receding as the politicians try to impose themselves on this crisis. The people here may still be in mourning, laying wreaths and flowers at makeshift memorials, but they welcome the respite. Elsewhere, in the southern capital of Kantan, there have been strikes, demonstrations and riots. Even the Chinese admitted by showing these pictures tonight from there that hundreds have been arrested. By all accounts, there's a wholesale purge of the middle class and the intelligentsia, as well as militant workers who've joined the democracy movement. In Beijing as well, there are reports tonight of mass arrests among the city's large student population. Given that, what happened today on the political front is highly significant. Prime Minister Li Peng, the man who ordered the army into Beijing, and who sanctioned the slaughter of the demonstrators, appeared in public for the first time since then. Not by chance, one suspects, was he wearing Chairman Mao's style uniform. His message to troops who carried out his orders is straight out of the little red book, no compromise, no mercy for what he called "counterrevolutionaries". By storming Beijing, he said the troops had carried out a brilliant act. Those were his words. The government supported them. After days of confusion, here was evidence that the hard-liners remain in control and that they're determined to keep it that way. Only in China perhaps would you find foreign students arriving on bicycle to check in with their embassies. These three, two of them British, had been cycling around the country for the past six weeks, visiting the main trouble spots, Cheng-du, Kantan. From them, rare eye witness accounts of what's been happening and a taste of the mood outside Beijing.

FOREIGN STUDENT: -- Cheng-du about two weeks ago -- there's big demonstrations around the statue there and there's probably over 100,000 people.

FOREIGN STUDENT: A lot of people are against the government, really everywhere. You can only speak for the people who speak English, but they're against government.

MR. SMITH: Tonight state television showed extraordinary scenes from China's biggest city, Shanghai. Thousands of students had besieged the main railway station yesterday. Some had tried to block the line and had been run over. By all accounts, many died. Within minutes, the train was set alight by the demonstrators. This shouldn't be mistaken for candor on the part of the authorities. Instead, it shows how this country's leaders could yet use anarchy as an excuse for cracking down on all opposition, whatever the human cost, and it suggests that those leaders are still confident of their own survival.

MR. LEHRER: We get more updating from the China story from two vantage points now. The first is from Jing Huang, a Chinese student now studying at Harvard. He went to Beijing two weeks ago as an interpreter for two American scholars doing a research project on non-violent student protest. He was in Tiananmen Square just two hours before the army moved in Saturday night. He left China Tuesday. The second perspective is that of American companies doing business in China. It comes from Ming Hsu. She grew up in Beijing, then went to the United States, where she went to work for RCA. She returned to China for them in the early '70s. She is now in chargeof international trade for the state government of New Jersey, and advises companies there on how to do business with China. She also represents smaller companies at Chinese trade fairs. Mr. Huang, to you first. How do you read the significance of Li Peng showing himself in public today?

JING HUANG, Student: I think Li Peng's appearance just have two messages to us. No. 1, that he want to tell us that he's still in power, he's still in, and No. 2, that he and his followers or hard- liners will continue as a policy to crack down on people, any kind of resistance of people. But we have to read behind these messages. I mean that from this propaganda, you have to read something behind it, because No. 1, tomorrow you still have trouble, the power struggle has not been over yet, and No. 2 is that the people's resistance is much more serious than what they expected.

MR. LEHRER: What is the evidence that you have that the power struggle is not over?

JING HUANG: Yes. Because the appearance of Li Peng in public, itself, suggested that he not perfectly control the situation. If he did, then he would denounce Zhao Ziyang as anti-political, any other kind of crimes but it appears -- and he said nothing about the power struggle, itself, is the evidence that the power struggle is not over yet.

MR. LEHRER: What do you read about the fact that Deng Xiaoping has not been seen?

JING HUANG: I think it might be true that Deng Xiaoping has been out, because several days ago my friend and I created a rumor that Li Peng got shot by his body guard, and just two days later --

MR. LEHRER: You created the rumor?

JING HUANG: Yes, exactly. Just two days later, a spokesman of state council said Li Peng's okay and now he appeared. But the rumor, we also created a rumor about Deng Xiaoping, partly by us and partly by some other people, that Deng Xiaoping has been sick or has been killed or so on and so forth, but so far there is no response from government where he is. According to my information, some military leaders and some provincial party secretaries had made many many calls to Deng Xiaoping's office. Usually, at least Deng Xiaoping's secretary should answer the phone. But in the past few days -- in the past two weeks, nobody answers the phone in his office. That's why I believe that he has been out, at least as of this moment.

MR. LEHRER: He's not running the show right now.

JING HUANG: No.

MR. LEHRER: This idea of starting rumors, we reported both stories that you just said you were involved in starting rumors on back here in this country, this program and other programs actually reported those as developments. Are you taking credit for that?

JING HUANG, Student: Yes, because sometimes people also learn how to play games. They learn it from the Communist Party. Because, you know, for the past seven days I think, from 24th to 29th -- no, from 24th to the 3rd, Li Peng disappeared, nobody knows where he is, so people worried that he is still part of hard-liners, so my friends start this and make rumors that he got shot by body guard, because people really hate him.

MR. LEHRER: I see.

JING HUANG: And after that, we passed this rumor out by various connections. Only two or three days later, we got response from the government.

MR. LEHRER: What were the circumstances of your leaving China, particularly after Saturday night? What happened to you Saturday night and how did you get back here and why?

JING HUANG: Yes, because I think my life has been in danger because I noticed, and some other people also noticed that I've been followed in China, and my friends who called me suggested that I should use public phone to call them because they sense that my phone is being listened. That's why I moved up my schedule. We were scheduled to return on 13th. And actually, my ticket, my round trip ticket is open for the back, and so that I moved up the schedule and I returned on 7th of this month.

MR. LEHRER: You left Tiananmen Square before the shooting began, is that correct?

JING HUANG: Actually, we left Tiananmen Square when shooting began.

MR. LEHRER: When it began?

JING HUANG: Yes. Because I have two American friends and people just urged us -- you're foreigners, don't make trouble here -- so we left through the alleys and small street and went back to hotel.

MR. LEHRER: Ms. Hsu, to you. Let's talk for a minute about American businesses in China. What's the status of doing business in China right now?

MING HSU, New Jersey Trade Office: Well, obviously, given the conditions of the past few weeks, especially over the weekend, and even developments today, American businesses are very concerned and somewhat confused and uncertain about what the future means to them. Those companies -- I've received a lot of calls, especially the last few days -- and up to today until I left my office earlier. I've got calls from larger companies who have a major investment in China, in the sense that they have plant and investment, plant and capital equipment and more important, they have U.S. nationals as well, and their dependents as well. They are, most of them are pulling American nationals out of the country, especially dependents.

MR. LEHRER: Are they doing so in a kind of spirit of pessimism on the idea that they probably will never go back?

MING HSU: I think that it is that. I think they probably are pessimistic, but it's also that they're really uncertain. I think one of the things about American business people is really their lack of attention to politics and political situations. I mean, they're great at making, you know, the quotas and the bottom line, and all that, but when it comes to this kind of a political upheaval, which is such a dramatic change -- you know, it's just been unbelievable -- is -- you know, they're really concerned. The top CEOs back here are concerned. They want to make sure that it's not too late to get their people out. So it's partly pessimism and partly, you know, not knowing what's going to happen.

MR. LEHRER: Was American business doing pretty well in China? Was it a growth industry and everything coming up roses until all of this came out of the blue?

MING HSU: I wouldn't say that it was coming up roses, but it has, you know, been improving. First of all, I'd like to say that it was the American business people that went into China after the Nixon visit, because it was a period of seven years between the Nixon visit and the normalization of relations between the two countries under President Carter. And during this seven year period, it was the American businessmen who went in there and nurtured the relationship and so forth. And it hasn't been easy for them. You know, there was euphoria on our part. We just think, oh my goodness, we're going to go in there, 1 billion people, we're going to do well, so it took a long long time, years for American businesses to learn how to operate there and for them to know how to operate with us. And I think in the last three years especially there's been tremendous progress, especially in the area of investment by foreign companies and more and more for New Jersey companies or for example small companies are selling China. So I wouldn't think that everything is roses, but I think we are finally sort of on the right track and moving in the right direction.

MR. LEHRER: That track is in very sad shape tonight, is it not?

MING HSU: It certainly is. It certainly is. I think -- I can't be optimistic as of today. Certainly we have heard no words of reassurances from the Chinese leaders even though I think some of them have emerged in the last 24 or 48 hours that they are still committed to the program of modernization and openness with the West. And I think short of that kind of assurance or commitment or announcement, obviously, U.S. businesses are going to be terribly anxious and pessimistic.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Huang, speaking of pessimistic, being pessimistic the word from the government of China today calling on the people of China to turn in what they call counterrevolutionary leaders into authorities, specifically the student leaders, do you expect that to happen?

JING HUANG: No. I don't think student leaders will turn themselves in because if the people die to stand in front of machine guns, they will not turn themselves in just because of a few words of Li Peng, no way.

MR. LEHRER: Well, what do you think is going to be the result of this call today? Not only a call for them to turn themselves in, it called for neighbors, and you heard what the overall thing is, how do you feel about that?

JING HUANG: I don't think that will happen, because there is no way that people will forgive them. Everybody knows what happened on Sunday, so there's no way that people will forgive them and people will try as hard as possible, try everything they can to help the student leaders and other leaders like workers unions and so on and so forth so this sounds to me like nonsense. It just means to me that they've got so much trouble, so many resistance from the people, so they just try to, you know, threaten the people to turn those leaders in, but I don't think that will happen.

MR. LEHRER: Ms. Hsu, how about the Chinese people that you deal with through American business contacts and all of that, what are they going to make of this call today from the leadership?

MING HSU, New Jersey Trade Office: Well, I think that they will be discouraged because I think those who have been dealing with American companies, even though they are part of government agencies, have been very happy with the development of relations with the West and they think it's good for their country and for the economy and I can't see them wanting to see any setback in this development of openness with the West. I think they're going to be pretty discouraged.

MR. LEHRER: Ms. Hsu and Mr. Huang, thank you both very much for being with us tonight.

MS. WOODRUFF: Still ahead on the Newshour, a look at a controversial communications empire and Ron Brown and Ed Rollins debate GOP attacks on Democrats. FOCUS - COMMERCIALS IN THE CLASSROOM?

MS. WOODRUFF: Next tonight a look at media entrepreneur Christopher Whittle and his controversial efforts to bring television and print advertising into public schools. Today Whittle announced plans to distribute his youth-oriented news television program called Channel One to high schools all over the country. As an experiment, the program was broadcast in six schools this spring. Channel One has been criticized by some leading educators because it carries commercials. It has thrust Whittle Communications into the national spotlight. Correspondent Jeffrey Kaye of station KCET-Los Angeles has our story.

JEFFREY KAYE: GarrHigh School in the South Los Angeles suburb of Cerritos was one of six high schools nationally that tested Channel One in March and April. [HIGH SCHOOL ANNOUNCER]

MR. KAYE: Each morning in home room after the school news was read out on the public address system, the 12 minute Channel One newscast transmitted by satellite went on the air. [CHANNEL ONE NEWS]

MR. KAYE: It was a fast paced digest of current affairs presented by young anchors. Slick graphics accompanied the stories, which on this day began with news about urban violence. What really got this class's attention was a feature on a rap group with an anti- violence message. When youth-oriented commercials came on, one for Gillette, another a public service message from Ford, the class seemed distracted. The newscast resumed with a story on Japanese home life, a quiz, then more commercials, one for gum, one for corn chips, the answer to the pop quiz, then a short feature on high school locker searches, in all ten minutes of editorial content, two minutes of commercials, and the reviews from these students overwhelmingly positive.

STUDENT: I mean, this is the most that I've ever watched the news.

MR. KAYE: Is that right?

STUDENT: Yes. Because I sit at home and my parents, they watch the news every night, and I sit there like, okay, you know, turn to another channel, but this keeps me interested. If we had this on regular television, I would watch it definitely.

MR. KAYE: As for the commercials, the kids say they ignore them but the messages are getting through.

MR. KAYE: What products have been shown on the commercials in the last --

STUDENTS SHOUTING: Levis -- a drug commercial --

MR. KAYE: You don't watch, but you sure as hell know what's been advertised.

MR. KAYE: To many educators, programs with commercials have no place in the school's. California's influential superintendent of public instruction, Bill Honig, hopes to keep Channel One out of the state's classrooms. He intends to withhold state payments to schools for the time students spend watching the commercially- sponsored programs.

BILL HONIG, California Superintendent of Instruction: We're not in the commercial business. We can't sell access to kids' minds, it violates our laws, it's not right, and we're not going to allow it to happen.

MR. KAYE: But other educators say there's a legitimate trade-off. In return for showing Channel One, schools received free equipment, satellite dishes, television monitors in every classroom. At Garr High School, the librarian became the telecommunications expert and her boss, the principal, said she found Whittle's offer of $50,000 worth of free equipment too good to pass up.

NADINE BARRETO, Garr High School Principal: And I'm real honest about the fact that the equipment was very enticing between Garr in our general fund budget would never been able to do what Whittle has done for us in terms of the equipment. We have 91 TV monitors, that's at every teaching station. We received a master VCR and a satellite dish. Plus, they did the installation for us.

MR. KAYE: Channel One's producers say a couple of minutes of commercials is a small price to pay for the benefits received. They say their research shows students who watched the programs knew more about current events than those who didn't. So they're declaring victory and pressing on. Whittle Communications plans to air Channel One in a thousand schools by next March, eight thousand by the fall of 1990. Company Chairman Chris Whittle says he plans to sweeten the package by offering two additional programs of non- commercial programming, one for teachers, one for students.

MR. KAYE: Is that your intention, to offer so many goodies that that could override the objections to Channel One commercials?

CHRISTOPHER WHITTLE: Our intention is and has been from the beginning severalfold. One is we want to provide a service to America's schools, to both the teachers and the students. Secondly, we as a business want to make a profit. Third, we want to provide a service to the people paying for this, which are the advertisers that will be part of Channel One.

MR. KAYE: Herbert Christopher Whittle has been carefully matching advertisers and audiences ever since his days at the University of Tennessee, where in 1970, he was student body president. He co- founded magazines luring advertisers looking for youthful buyers. Later, he and his partner bought and turned around ailing Esquire Magazine which they no longer own. Today Whittle operates out of a home base in Knoxville and commutes weekly in a leased jet to his apartment and offices in New York City. He runs a private company that has shown a 1/3 annual growth rate for the past 11 years. The firm impressed Time Incorporated Magazine so much that last year, Time purchased 50 percent of Whittle Communications for $185 million. The 41 year old bachelor is among Knoxville's power elite, a major contributor to the University of Tennessee, and a man who makes no secret of his aspirations to seek a statewide political office in the future. Now, Whittle oversees more than 1,000 employees at a company that he predicts will have revenues of $150 million this year. The business owns some 40 media properties, mostly magazines and other periodicals, which like Channel One are aimed at specific consumer groups.

CHRISTOPHER WHITTLE: If you look at a typical media property, which would be a television program, or a magazine, they would go - - we target this group, while they, in fact, reach also all these people and reach all these people. We don't think that's targeting. The way we would do it is go -- we target that and there's nothing on either side.

MR. KAYE: A very narrow audience.

CHRISTOPHER WHITTLE: Yeah. And narrow doesn't mean small.

MR. KAYE: For example, Johnson & Johnson targets new parents, a specific but large audience, by sponsoring a magazine published by Whittle with a direct commercial thrust. It's packaged along with sample products. The Whittle formula is simple and successful. An informative wall poster on pet care goes to vets' offices each month. Its sponsor is Ralston Purina, the pet food company. Health Digest is distributed to internists' offices. It has one sponsor. So does a poster that hangs in laundromats. Around the country, Whittle representatives like Robert Thornton of Knoxville constantly restock Whittle publications, often marketed to captive audiences. In doctors' offices, they distribute quarterly magazines. The periodicals and the bookcases are provided free as long as doctors pledge to exclude all but two rival publications from their waiting rooms. Part of Thornton's job is to police the magazines.

ROBERT THORNTON: [Talking to Receptionist] You had two other magazines other than the two that you're allowed per contract.

MR. KAYE: Whittle is constantly arranging marriages between editorial products and directed advertising. [WHITTLE STAFF MEETING]

MR. KAYE: For example, he's in the process of signing up prominent authors for book deals. In one, Federal Express is putting up $20 million to sponsor a series of short books, each 100 pages long, each containing 20 pages of ads. Initially, the books will be given away to corporate leaders. Advertisers see Whittle as an innovative pioneer in a world packed with commercial clutter. His critics regard him in a similar light, but feel Whittle represents the increasing influence of commercial interests on what people watch and read. Author Mark Crispin Miller, who studies and lectures on the effects of advertising at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University, says Whittle represents the avant garde of a global phenomenon.

MARK MILLER, Johns Hopkins University: That phenomenon is the triumph of advertising so that the very world we move through is comprised of ads upon ads within ads, you see, and it is kind of a frightening development if we believe in democracy. If we believe that the participants in a democracy are obliged to be well informed about the world around them, it's impossible to be well informed if special interests completely control the flow of information, you see, and I think that's what Whittle, among others, is all about.

MR. KAYE: Critics like Miller bristle at Whittle's success in penetrating the youth market in the schools even before he created Channel One. Whittle distributes wall posters with ads to 5,000 high schools and to 4,000 elementary schools. At Beardin Elementary School in Knoxville, kids enjoy the editorial matter.

STUDENT: I like the way they have stars and how they let them express their feelings about not dropping out of school and things like that.

MR. KAYE: And do you read the ads?

LITTLE GIRL: Yeah.

MR. KAYE: Do you like the ads?

STUDENTS: Yeah.

MR. KAYE: What ads do they generally have on?

LITTLE GIRL: For M&Ms and Crayolas.

STUDENTS: Yeah. And Jello and Lucky Charms.

MR. KAYE: For many of the elementary school students, particularly the smaller ones, the advertising material is easier to read than the editorial content.

STUDENT: When you walk by, you can see it real easily because you have to kind of look up to see this --

MR. KAYE: You have to look up to see this?

STUDENT: Not a lot, but you just --

MR. KAYE: But you don't have to look up to see this.

MR. KAYE: Why don't you put the whole poster further down on the wall?

MR. THORNTON: The reason being --

MR. KAYE: Is that your decision?

MR. THORNTON: No, that's not my decision. The boards are installed at a set height.

MR. KAYE: A set height.

MR. THORNTON: A set height.

MR. KAYE: Whittle Communications tells you exactly how high off the ground the boards should be, is that what you're saying?

MR. THORNTON: Yes, sir.

MR. KAYE: Advertisers like General Foods, a big Whittle client, have a growing interest in selling to children. Marketing Vice President David Hurwitt says Whittle's elementary school posters called the Big Picture deliver the message.

DAVID HURWITT, General Foods: What is on the posters is directed at kids. It's meant to be educational, interesting and fun for kids to read. If it's not all of those things, either kids won't read it, or the schools won't let it be there. And our advertising is focused on delivering a message to children also, so they go together.

MARK MILLER, Johns Hopkins University: Whittle is not a fool. He's successful at what he does precisely because he knows that the advertising images, the advertising words are of paramount importance and everything else is simply a kind of setting for that material.

MR. KAYE: So are you about journalism, or are you about selling?

CHRISTOPHER WHITTLE: We're about both. And that's the case with every commercial media company in America, and anyone to say other than that is either denying it or kidding you.

MR. KAYE: By continuing to find targeted audiences, Chris Whittle hopes to make an important impact on the media world. Just as he is changing the landscape of downtown Knoxville with the construction of a new corporate headquarters, he predicts his company will more than triple its sales in the next four years, in part by building what, in effect, will be a new television network in the nation's high schools. FOCUS - ALL'S FAIR?

MS. WOODRUFF: We turn next to the latest political uproar in Washington. It has to do with the Republican attack on the new Democratic Speaker of the House Tom Foley. Last Thursday, the Director of Communications for the Republican National Committee, Mark Goodin, wrote a memo titled "Tom Foley: Out of the Liberal Closet". The memo compared the Speaker's voting record with that of Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, an avowed homosexual. The memo was viewed by many on Capitol Hill and elsewhere as an attempt to link Foley and homosexuality.

REP. BARNEY FRANK, [D] Massachusetts: [Tuesday] Am I going to spell out their implications for them? No. I don't think that they had the luxury of having other people do their dirty work for them. I think it's very clear what they're getting at and no one who reads that doubts that these are people engaged in extraordinarily scurrilous business.

SEN. ROBERT DOLE, Minority Leader: [Wednesday] This is not politics. This is garbage and we're disgusted by it. It doesn't do much for any of us in our party, except bring discredit.

MS. WOODRUFF: On Monday, GOP Chairman Lee Atwater had a different view of the memo. He told the Wall Street Journal: "I don't disapprove of it. I am not disavowing it.". But Tuesday evening, Atwater phoned House Speaker Foley to apologize for the memo. Yesterday President Bush called the memo disgusting and said such tactics should not be repeated. A short while later, Mark Goodin resigned from his post at the Republican National Committee, but the debate over the memo and what it says about the new political atmosphere in Washington is far from ended. We join it now with Ron Brown, the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Ed Rollins, Co-Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. I should also add that we asked Lee Atwater, the Chairman of the Republican Party, to join us this evening, but he declined. Ron Brown, is it enough for Mark Goodin to have stepped aside, to step down from his job? Does that end this particular affair?

RON BROWN, Chairman, Democratic National Committee: It certainly does not. It seems to me that the President of the United States has to take responsibility. He is the leader of his party. Lee Atwater is his hand chosen Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Lee Atwater was his campaign chairman. The President has said he wants to reach out and be bipartisan and reach out to Democrats and get on with the people's business. He ought to show that by doing it. The way you do it is to clean house at the RNC. It's not just a question of this Tom Foley matter. It's a question of a cynical matter about government and our institutions. It's an attitude of disrespect. It's an attitude which lowers politics to its lowest common denominator. We need to get on with the people's business, but there is a pattern and practice here that has been exhibited for years by the Republicans. This is a continuation of the despicable 1988 Presidential campaign and the kinds of explanations you get are just totally unacceptable.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. I want to get into some of that in just a moment, but let's just go back to this memo specifically. What is so bad about this memo? I mean, we are in a period of very tough campaign tactics. Why are the Democrats and others so exercised over this?

MR. BROWN: It's not just the Democrats. The President of the United States said he was disgusted. Sen. Dole said he was disgusted.

MS. WOODRUFF: What is it about this memo?

MR. BROWN: What is it? It is character assassination at its worst, but it is not an isolated example. It's typical of the kind of tactics that have been used that we need to get away from. The Republican Party seems to have a view that selling candidates and dealing with politicians is like selling detergent and toothpaste. We have much broader goals. We have a lot of problems in our country that we need to get on with solving. The Democratic members of Congress have said they want to get on with it. Speaker Wright, very graciously, when he said he was going to step down, indicated that we ought to put this behind us. Tom Foley, our new Speaker, has indicated he wants to put this behind us. Pres. Bush indicated he wants it behind us, but yet it continues. Who is leading the Republican Party?

MS. WOODRUFF: Ed Rollins, who is responsible for this? Mark Goodin has stepped aside. In your mind, should that be the end of this?

ED ROLLINS, Co-Chair, National GOP Congressional Committee: I think it should certainly be the end of it. I in no way, shape or form condone what they did. I think we're in a very poisonous environment in this town and when you look, a week ago, the story of this town was the Speaker, Speaker Wright, Tony Coelho, the two top Democrats, were driven from office in disgrace for ethical problems. This is a very poisonous environment and this thing has been blown out of proportion. It should not have happened. It's outrageous. Tom Foley is a very fine decent human being, who's going to be an outstanding Speaker. but a lot of it's the environment, a lot of it's the press attention, a lot of it's things that I think are just different, and I think the key thing that I'd like to just distinguish for my friend, Ron Brown, who I have the greatest respect for -- I think his party is very lucky to have him as a leader -- is it always seems the Democrats complain about the kinds of campaigns we run when we win. They're despicable campaigns when we win. When we win five out of six Presidencies, it's the campaign tactics. Unfortunately, when they win 260 House seats, it's never the campaign tactics. I think that we ought to basically run campaigns in this country on three things. We ought to run them on the issues, we ought to run them on the integrity of the candidate and the incumbent and we basically ought to run them on ideology, and all of that ought to be backed up by facts.

MS. WOODRUFF: But back to Ron Brown's point that it isn't enough for Mark Goodin to step down, that the responsibility goes higher than that, that he said Pres. Bush ought to clean house at the RNC.

MR. ROLLINS: This is Pres. Bush's team. Lee Atwater ran his campaign. He is one of the most effective campaign managers in the country. If I was sitting in Ron's place, I'd want Lee Atwater out of there too. My challenge to Ron is let the Democrats clean up their problems, let the Democrats take up the challenge against other Democrats who have ethical problems. We'll take care of our own.

MS. WOODRUFF: But, again, specifically on Lee Atwater's responsibility, he was defending this memo on Monday evening of this week. Twenty-four hours later, he was calling Tom Foley to apologize. Do you know what happened in that interim period?

MR. ROLLINS: Lee Atwater had an interpretation of what the memo was that was a mistake. He was misled and certainly an injustice was done by his staff, the man has lost his job over it and obviously maybe his career. And I don't think that's still enough. I mean, obviously, Lee Atwater, the Republican Party is going to pay a price. We were on top of the ethics issue and now we're sitting here tonight debating our morality versus their immorality. And I think the critical thing is let's get us behind us, we apologize. We certainly didn't mean to insult the Speaker. We think he's a very fine man. Let's move forward.

MS. WOODRUFF: Why isn't that enough?

MR. BROWN: These day late apologies are never enough when you're involved in the kind of conduct that the Republican Party has been involved with. Lee Atwater apologized about Willie Horton six months late. He apologized for Willie Horton being the figure that was used in the 1988 campaign, which was very divisive, created some racial divisions in this country. He said that he was going to try to make him Michael Dukakis's running mate and he almost succeeded. So there's a pattern --

MS. WOODRUFF: You're saying Atwater, you're referring to Lee Atwater.

MR. BROWN: Absolutely. There's a pattern of conduct here which I think the President of the United States has to put a stop to. If he says enough is enough, let's get on with the business of governing this nation, it could stop. I think the President of the United States has a responsibility tonight when he talks to the American people to apologize to the American people for the conduct of his party and to fire Lee Atwater from his position.

MS. WOODRUFF: Ed Rollins, why is it not the President's responsibility? After all, it was Lee Atwater who ran his campaign last year, Lee Atwater who's running the Republican Party at the President's request.

MR. ROLLINS: The President obviously said that it was a mistake, that he didn't basically go by these kinds of tactics. Lee Atwater has apologized. This is a tough business, Ron. We all make mistakes in it and obviously this is an inexcusable mistake. But let's move on and I think the critical thing that we've got to debate from here on out is issues. Mike Dukakis never apologized for ever letting Willie Horton out on a furlough, and the issue was not using Willie Horton as an example; the issue was this guy tough on crime, was he tough enough to be President of the United States, and obviously, the American public found the answer --

MR. BROWN: Here's the problem. It's an attitude about government. The Republican National Committee says with some pride that they have 40 investigators being paid a million dollars a year in the basement of the RNC in what they call a secured room looking for information on Democrats. Now is that the way we ought to be running our country? Again, in pattern and practice, it's always a basement operation. In Watergate, it was the plumbers in the basement, Irangate it was Ollie North in the basement. Yesterday and the day before it was some communications in the basement. The Justice Department says, well, if there were leaks from the Justice Department, they weren't at this level, so they were at some lower level of the Justice Department, therefore that is all right. And that is the kind of attitude about government that we resent and resist.

MR. ROLLINS: Ron, you know, it's very interesting now that the shoe is on the other foot in the sense that it's your leaders having the ethical problems, that it was your own members basically found serious ethical debate, when it was Ed Meese and when it was others, the Ray Donovans of the world, I mean, all of your members were running around talking about sleaze, talking about things that certainly were never proven either in a court of law by any special prosecutor. This is a tough business. It's an unfortunate business that we just can't go out and debate issues and talk about ideology and maybe that's what you and I have to do.

MR. BROWN: Let's talk about that. Let's talk about what the Democrats did. It's been the Democratic Party year after year who has fought for tough ethics legislation, fought for full disclosure legislation, fought in every way to clean up government. It's always been the Republican Party that has opposed that kind of legislation. It was two weeks ago the Republican Party, or two months ago, was complaining about this Democratic counsel for the Ethics Committee. It was that Democratic counsel that pursued the investigation. It was a Democratic --

MS. WOODRUFF: Mr. Phelan.

MR. BROWN: It was a Democratic Chairman of the Ethics Committee who pursued the investigation. It was six Democrats on the Ethics Committee who in the first stage of the investigation voted against the Speaker of their own party so Democrats are pursuing it.

MR. ROLLINS: Right. But, Ron, it was also Democrat friends of Jim Wright, Democrat members of Congress, Jack Brooks and others, who threatened the Democratic members, saying they had better pray. It was also 109 Democrats who signed a report basically saying don't release the Phelan report, let's cover this thing up. If the thing hadn't been as bad as it was, Jim Wright would have run through the process and basically had his hearing in the House of Representatives. He and Tony Coelho both knew what they had been charged with, both chose not to run it through the judicial process. If they were innocent, there's 260 members of the House, 175 Republicans they would have gotten off.

MR. BROWN: Ed, would you run the RNC the way it's being run now, if you were Chairman of the Republican National Committee, would you run it the way it's being run now?

MR. ROLLINS: Ron, I'm not going to secondguess what Lee Atwater is doing. My committee is a separate committee. My committee obviously today is going to run clean campaigns, tough campaigns, and I think that's the way Lee Atwater is going to run it.

MR. BROWN: I hope the rest of the Republican Party will commit to doing that.

MR. ROLLINS: I commit to it for my committee and I think in all honesty I have the greatest respect in the world for you. I do think we have to raise the level of debate in this country. As we watch battles for democracy going on in another country like China, I think it's just critical that we as Republicans and Democrats alike really go out and try and move this to a higher plane.

MS. WOODRUFF: Ed Rollins, a commentator I heard this morning, and I've heard this before today, said that what's really going on among a number of Republicans in the Congress is that they really want war, that they figure there is no way they can ever have any hope of becoming a majority in the Congress unless they take on the Democrats and take them on in a serious and tough and aggressive way and with the occasionally smear sorts of tactics that we've seen.

MR. ROLLINS: I don't approve of smears. I don't dispute the fact that we've got to do things differently. We've been a minority for 35 years in the House of Representatives. We win at all other levels, but we don't win at that level. We've got to go out and defeat 50 Democrats. In order to defeat 50 Democrats, you've got to run tough, hard, aggressive campaigns but fair campaigns and I think it's got to be ideology and issues. We've got to go out and debate issues. This is a party that chose not to debate issues in 1988. It didn't want to have a platform. It didn't write a platform. We've got to go out in 1990 and debate the issues of the Republican platform versus whatever your candidates want to run on.

MS. WOODRUFF: Let me ask you about a memo that your own committee put out a number of weeks ago about Tony Coelho, when he came out and made a statement that had to do with John Mack, who was former Speaker --

MR. ROLLINS: Tony Coelho came to the defense of an attempted murderer and a murderer in his own district, and what we were doing was raising the issue why is he so quick to go out and defend murderers and attempted murderers. I think that's a legitimate issue.

MR. BROWN: Didn't you withdraw that and apologize for it?

MR. ROLLINS: We apologized. There was a mistake in there. And we did apologize for it. But the bottom line, it was a factual memo, and it had Tony Coelho's own statements in it. The difference in this memo that came out yesterday, it was rumors, it was innuendos, it was rumors, it was allegations, and that has no business in politics.

MS. WOODRUFF: What about another point that's been raised, that there's the sort of a good cop, bad cop routine going on here?

MR. BROWN: I think that's clear. The President talks about kinder and gentler and his henchmen go about a very despicable negative kind of campaigning and a negative kind of approach to our institutions and our leaders.

MR. ROLLINS: Unfortunately, the way you run campaigns is you always try and portray your own candidate in the most positive manner and you always try and portray the opponent in a negative manner. That's the way politics have been run for 200 years in the history of this country. Politics have gotten much tougher. People pay little attention and those who do are getting more and more turned off. I think that with this able man running his committee and us running our committees, we need to raise this to a higher plane, debate issues.

MS. WOODRUFF: Ron Brown, just quickly, I've heard it said by some Republicans that the Democrats are really jealous, that they don't have the resources that the Republicans do, that they can't do the sort of intensive research about the backgrounds of the candidates.

MR. BROWN: I might say we'd use it a little differently if we had it. I can assure you that we would not be engaged in that kind of activity, investigations of the personal lives of elected officials and leaders. We would be talking about issues. I agree with Ed on that. We should be talking about issues. The debate ought to be focused on issues and not on extraneous matters.

MS. WOODRUFF: But are the Republicans, Ed Rollins, are the Republicans spending a lot of the money that they raise investigating the personal lives of Democrats?

MR. ROLLINS: No. The same thing that was raised by Ron earlier about a million dollar operation is totally inaccurate, and that was something that was put out by Mark Goodin a few weeks ago being very bravado. It was inaccurate, it's not happening. The only thing that we do is we gather information. I mean, if we put together a whole series of clippings that have been done all over the country on stories on Tony Coelho and circulate them to our members with talking points or circulate them to the press, that's not dirty politics; that's basically going out and trying to promote and push something that's already -- we can't afford to do the investigatory work that is done by the American news media today.

MS. WOODRUFF: What about that, Ron Brown?

MR. BROWN: Well, Ed Rollins, himself, has said in the past that anything goes. I'm concerned about it, Ed.

MS. WOODRUFF: He said it in this context?

MR. BROWN: Well, you talk about --

MR. ROLLINS: Well, first of all, Ron, put --

MR. BROWN: I'll let you take it back.

MR. ROLLINS: I said, I will not lie, cheat, murder, commit mayhem and --

MR. BROWN: Are you sure?

MR. ROLLINS: -- other than that in politics today, anything goes. I mean, it's a tough game.

MR. BROWN: But are we to believe -- here's the Communications Director of the RNC who says I have 40 people in the basement in a secured room investigating Democrats and now we have Ed Rollins getting on, saying that's not true.

MR. ROLLINS: First of all, the basement of our building is a garage and we've got about 20 cars in there.

MS. WOODRUFF: But you're not answering for the RNC?

MR. ROLLINS: I'm not answering for the RNC, but I do know my building is the same building as his is. There's not that kind of operation going on, Ron. What we are, we're in this age of bogeymen. I mean, here I am, I was the guy who was criticized for running Ronald Reagan's campaign, morning again in America, a nice campaign. The last 90 days I've become this big heavy bogeyman. That's not my reputation in any campaign I've ever been in. We're in this environment today in which we're all dumping over everybody else.

MR. BROWN: That's why I'm suggesting that you take over the RNC.

MS. WOODRUFF: Thank you, gentlemen. That'll have to be the last word. Ron Brown, Ed Rollins, thank you both for being with us. ESSAY - WHAT'S IN VOGUE?

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, Washington Author Susan Shreve looks at the way we look and what may lie behind it.

SUSAN SHREVE: Style for this child of the '50s was pouring through Vogue Magazine, fascinated by those brightly colored creatures who looked very much like tropical birds recently imported, wonderful to look at but they had nothing to do with the way real people looked. There was in those days an implied relationship between form and substance. The way you looked and spoke had something to do with the person you were. Style belonged to the slick picture books like Vogue. But for the decade of the '80s, style has been all. This has been a decade of style for style's sake. Whoever we are beneath the costume, beneath the presentation we make, may be a stranger even to ourselves. Look at the way our children dress, not just the teenagers for whom conformity is a matter of military protection, but so many of or children in sweat suits and Adidas, mock sportsmen, or punk and bomber jackets, tight jeans, skin heads or multicolored brillo pads in the place of hair, or primary colored Benetons, Calvin Klein designer jeans, and it's not the clothes, themselves, I'm talking about, but what they say about us. Every generation has its style of course, but generally the relationship between style and substance is integral. There was the upright, up tight '50s, scrubbed and freckled bobbie soxers, rocking and rolling away for good clean, for example. And the earnest '60s, when Jesus Christ lookalikes wandered the streets with their flower brides, assuming the posture and demeanor of Mahatma Gandhi. In the '80s, however, the style has been style. Is that to suggest a certain absence today, a certain emptiness? Have we lost sight of who we are as a country and as individuals? We know the bad news about the time we live in, without heroes, without a sense of history, without a common cultural language, with too much money unevenly distributed, all of this on top of the collective disappointment of the '60s. And it's possible that style is an end in itself as a disguise, a kind of natural defense mechanism against the transition from a country on top of the world to a country a part of it. We remember who we were, but we don't exactly know who we are now and so we have camouflaged our unsettlement about change with style. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major story of the day remained the crisis in China, hard-line Premier Li Peng appeared in public for the first time since the crackdown began, new troops moved into Beijing, as hundreds of foreigners continued to flee the capital. And authorities issued new orders demanding the surrender of the leaders of the pro democracy movement. Good night, Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Good night, Jim. That's our Newshour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and good night.