The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Thanksgiving day, pro democracy demonstrations grew larger in Czechoslovakia, Moscow praised Pres. Bush's approach to the summit with Gorbachev, Israeli planes raided Palestinian bases as Lebanon mourned its assassinated president. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. After the News Summary we update the swelling pro-democracy demonstrations in Czechoslovakia. Then Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg explains the Illinois abortion case settled before it got to the Supreme Court. Judy Woodruff discusses labeling foods for their effect on your heart with Dr. Virgil Brown of the American Hearth Association and John Cady of National Food Processors. Business Affairs Correspondent Paul Solman explains why collective farming failed in the Plymouth Plantation. Finally we have a conversation with author Calvin Trillin. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: In Prague today the demonstrations grew larger and the demands for an end to Communist rule more insistent. There was also an anti-government rally in the hometown of the man whose attempt to reform the country in 1968 was ended by a Soviet invasion. We have a report narrated by Louise Bates of Worldwide Television News.

MS. BATES: The people of Bretislava turned out not just to add their voice to the chorus of anti-Communist protest. The city is also home to Alexander Dubcek, hero of 1968, and a man who may now be forgiven for feeling vindicated. His audience shouted for the resignation of the very man who succeeded him as party leader 20 years, Gustav Husek, but Dubcek, ever cautious, warned people not to make extreme demands that could have tragic consequences. By night fall, the Slovak capital had become a human sea. It was the seventh straight day of anti-government protest in Czechoslovakia, and with every demonstration a new record is set for the number of people taking part. It all has the momentum of a wave that never breaks, and the wave of protest rolled on in Prague too. At least 3000 people jammed the city's Winseslaw Square. As they did so, the party was still wavering between concessions and threats. Senior officials indicated there might be leadership changes later in the week.

MR. MacNeil: We will have more on the Czechoslovak story after the News Summary. In East Germany, the Communist Party announced an investigation of Eric Honecker, the aging leader forced out of office when the pro-democracy movement there caught fires. The Soviets today welcomed last night's pre summit statement by Pres. Bush. Foreign Ministry Spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov singled out Mr. Bush's appeal to Pres. Gorbachev to use the summit to take the super powers beyond the strategy of containment. Lebanon's parliament is expected to meet tomorrow at a guarded air base to select a successor to Pres. Rene Mouawad. He was assassinated yesterday when a car bomb blew up his car just 17 days after the president took office. To mourn the assassination, a general strike was held in parts of Beirut controlled by Syrian forces. The mourning was not observed in Christian areas controlled by Gen. Michele Aoun who opposed the peace plan that brought Mouawad to power. Four Israeli jets raided Palestinian guerrilla bases in Eastern Lebanon. Police reported one guerrilla killed at bases of the Syrian backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Two U.S. Marine fliers were lost when their helicopter went down late yesterday in the Mediterranean off the Coast of Spain. The Marine AHT Cobra was operating from the carrier U.S.S. Iwojima on a routine training mission when it crashed and sank. A 20 hour search for the two men was called off today. Machinists for Eastern Airlines vowed to continue their eight month old strike today and expressed anger at the Eastern pilots and flight attendants who decided yesterday to go back to work. Machinists voiced their feelings at Atlanta Airport today. It was the first White Thanksgiving in 51 years for New Yorkers, the first in 18 years for Baltimore residents. Three to eight inches of snow began falling in the mid Atlantic and Northeastern states last night. It caused major headaches for holiday travelers, but a beautiful backdrop for those who stayed in town. The snow did not stop the delivery of thousands of traditional Thanksgiving meals to the poor and homeless. Turkey dinners were served by volunteers throughout the country with 13 distribution sites set up for the South Carolina victims of Hurricane Hugo. There were also big parades in some major cities. New York's annual Macy's parade took place despite more than four inches of snow. However, high winds grounded some of the larger helium filled balloons. That's our News Summary. Now it's on to the latest from Czechoslovakia, the Illinois abortion settlement, heart labels for food, collective farming in Plymouth, and the conversation with Calvin Trillin. UPDATE - MARCHING FOR DEMOCRACY

MR. MacNeil: First tonight a more extensive report on the swelling democracy movement that has seized the political momentum in Czechoslovakia. We have a report by Nik Gowing of Britain's Independent Television News.

MR. GOWING: In their tens of thousands workers and students streamed into the Center of Prague tonight. Many marching across bridges from their schools, colleges and factories in the suburbs. There remained a virtual silence from the Communist leadership, but whatever they do exacerbates resentment against them and brings increasing numbers on to the streets. Last Friday it was police brutality in Wensleses Square. Tonight it was the events at the studios in Czechoslovak television until now the heart of the Communist Parties propaganda machine. Which for years has only transmitted Party ideologist allowed. With this deployment of equipment last night television workers and the new Civic Forum opposition movement expected full live coverage of the demonstration in Wensles Square plus unedited interviews. But Party propagandists stopped transmission. Last night television workers lodged a fierce protest. In response the workers militia were this morning ordered to increase security at the television station with some 50 armed police stationed inside.

MARTIN MATOVSEK: There is a police in TV They are all important broadcasting places are occupied by the secret police, so it means there are no more of our TV crew, TV people.

MR. GOWING: Within hours the strike committee claimed to have forced the resignation of the head of television. They said government ministers now controlled the station directly. By lunchtime students and workers had heard the news. They began descending on the station to hear for themselves. At stake was the principle of who controls the flow of information to the Czechoslovak population at this critical time. Reformers want full and uncensored transmissions, but the party leadership know that in the vital days before next Monday's general strike such a decision would destroy any chance for them to influence hearts and minds at this time of revolution. Rapidly the hardline near Stalinist leadership bunkered in Communist Party Headquarters is losing any chance they may have had to win over those hearts and minds with sweeping and with sweeping and inspired moves towards democratic reform. For example, we know nothing of what happened at last nights Polite Bureau meeting. We know nothing of the outcome of a meeting between the Soviet Ambassador and Communist Party leader Yakash. And then there's concern as to why efforts by these two mediators to broker a planned meeting between the Prime Minister and leading reformers failed today without explanation. With so few signs coming from the party leadership, Wensles Square was once again jammed with reform supporter reinforcing the clamor for change. Speakers from Civic Forum said 500 factories had now expressed support for the movement and a general strike next Monday. Playwright Have said there was now no going back. He reminded the security forces they are first human beings and second servants of the political leadership. And from that political leadership came only one safe and coded signal of the Communist Party's future role here.

MIROSLAV PAVEL: The present constitutions makes clear the leading role of the Communist Party. Personally I don't think such a statement is necessary now. It doesn't have to be included inthe new Constitution.

MR. GOWING: Tonight pro reform demonstrators swayed with delight and hope in Wensleses Square as less than a mile away the party leadership and officials prepared for a central committee meeting which will either keep the current party leadership in power or approve a wholesale clear out. FOCUS - LEGAL BRIEFING

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight we look at the unusual settlement of a Supreme Court Abortion case. The case came from Illinois where state regulations would have required abortion clinics to be equipped and operated like hospitals. Today opponents of abortion criticized the settlement while abortion rights supporters said that it would remove the threat of the high court using the case to reverse its 1973 ruling legalizing abortion. Here to tell us more is National Public Radio Legal Affairs Correspondent, Nina Totenberg. Nina put simply what was the issue for the Supreme Court in this case?

NINA TOTENBERG, National Public Radio: The issue in this case was whether a state had the power to impose broad regulations on abortion clinics when abortion clinics do all most of all of the first trimester abortion in this country. And if the court had upheld these regulations it would have at minimum gutted the legal frame worker of Roe vs. Wade and at maximum the court might had outright reversed Roe versus Wade. This was the best vehicle for reversing Roe.

MR. MacNeil: Just go a little further in to that. Why would requiring the abortion clinics to have certain standards why would that have had such a sweeping effect.

MS. TOTENBERG: Well because these were regulations that did things like require corridors to be 8 feet wide, require operating rooms to certain kinds of equipment. Planned Parenthood in Chicago did a survey to see if it could meet those regulations, looked at a 110 sights and found that it could not. A recent survey of all the abortion clinics throughout this country showed that 98 percent of them would violate at least one of the Illinois regulations. Three quarters of them would have to shut down or move. So if these kinds of regulations would have been upheld and become a model for other states and been adopted you can see that that could have had a devastating effect on the availability of abortions.

MR. MacNeil: I see. By settling this case did the State of Illinois which had brought the suit, did they get anything or did they simply back down?

MS. TOTENBERG: Well, they backed down, but they also got at least a concession that abortion clinics can be inspected, that they have to meeting certain minimal standards for the safety of women using them and that was something the abortion clinics were happy to cede. What they didn't want said the abortion clinics were sham regulations that were really aimed at eliminating abortions.

MR. MacNeil: This is pretty unusual isn't it to do something like this for a state Government to settle a case two weeks before it goes to the Supreme Court.

MS. TOTENBERG: It's wildly unusual. I have been covering the Supreme Court I am sorry to say for more than 20 years. That reveals something about my age, but I have never seen a major case settled out of court, out of the Supreme Court. In essence to grab it away from the Justices so they wouldn't do what every body was expecting them to do.

MR. MacNeil: So why did they do it?

MS. TOTENBERG: This is a very political story really. The Attorney General of Illinois is Neil Hardigan. He's a Democrat. All his life he's been an anti- abortion candidate for office. He changed his position in the last year. As near as 8 months ago the American's United for Life were using Neil Hardigan in their literature against abortion but he was told apparently by the establishment, the Democratic establishment I am told in Illinois that if he wanted to win and he wanted to raise money he couldn't have a pro life stance and he changed his position and that really was the seed that made this come to fruition. The initial approach was made by the American Civil Liberties Union which represented the Abortion clinics but Hardigan finally ran with it.

MR. MacNeil: Now what does the Supreme Court do? Having presumably done a lot of work on this and everything it now has this particular vehicle for reconsidering Roe vs. Wade snatched away from it. What does it do, does it just say yes?

MS. TOTENBERG: Basically it's going to say yes. It has two other abortion cases in front of it. They are rather peripheral issues involving parental notification for a minor to get abortions. I would doubt very much that the court would use those as a vehicle for overturning Roe. Although it is always possible. But you can be sure there are going to be other cases that come along. There are going to other cases in pipeline. This just puts off the day of reckoning. It puts off it is not going to happen in this term in all likelihood but it is going to happen.

MR. MacNeil: But this was, this case, if it had gone to the court, it was in the eyes of abortion rights supporters, it was the biggest threat to Roe versus Wade in this session of the court. Is that correct?

MS. TOTENBERG: Absolutely. Without a doubt. This was the big abortion case and because of the nature of the case it gave the court its best opportunity for reversing Roe if it wanted to.

MR. MacNeil: Can one infer from that that it is very unlikely that Roe versus Wade will be over turned in this session of the Supreme Court?

MS. TOTENBERG: I think one can infer that. In these other cases the states have not even asked the Court to reverse Roe. Although the Bush Administration has. I would hate to be sitting here and say it is not going to happen this year and have it happen but I think it really diminishes the likelihood enormously.

MR. MacNeil: But there would have to be another case that was a good vehicle on the docket and is it correct that there is not such a case?

MS. TOTENBERG: As far as I know and I did come checking in the last few weeks. There is nothing immediately pending in the Supreme Court. The cases are further down the line in the lower courts. Louisiana is for example is trying to reinstate its criminal laws that would make abortion a crime. Pennsylvania has just passed a fairly stringent anti abortion law but those cases are going to take a year or two or even three to get to the Supreme Court.

MR. MacNeil: So the political raucous created by the Supreme Court decision earlier this year sending these things back to the States has already had a swift effect?

MS. TOTENBERG: It's had an enormous effect and demonstrably in this case. And it is really worth noting also, Robin, that not only is this a political story and a legal story but it's also a religious story. Some of the pro life activists today were calling on the Catholic Church to deny communion to Neil Hardigan and to other people who had participated in this settlement. And I'm told by people at the bargaining table and most of them were Catholic that there was a lot of gallows humor about how some of them might be excommunicated or at minimum denied communion. I think at the time they were joking, but it was kind of, as I said, a gallows joke.

MR. MacNeil: So at this particular case it wouldn't be overstating it to say what happened yesterday in Illinois was a significant victory for the abortion rights side of the battle?

MS. TOTENBERG: I think it definitely was and obviously the pro life folks think that too. They have been making statements very much to the effect that they feel betrayed, that it was a back room deal, that this is not the way things are supposed to happen in a democratic society. There's no question that the won the abortion rights activists won the day when this was settled out of court and the other side was lost.

MR. MacNeil: Well Nina Totenberg, one again thank you very much for joining us.

MS. TOTENBERG: Thank you, Robin

MR. MacNeil: Still to come on the Newshour Heart labels for food, collective farming, and author Calvin Trillin. FOCUS - TAKE HEART

MR. MacNeil: As millions of American's celebrate Thanksgiving with traditional holiday dinners. We curmudgeons who have to work today bring you a reminder that there is a connection between good health and good food. Recently, Judy Woodruff conducted a debate about a plan designed to make the connection clearer to shoppers.

MS. WOODRUFF: The American Heart Association says it hopes to take some of the guess work out of choosing food at the supermarket. The plan calls for putting the seal of approval on foods that the Heart Association has tested. The criteria for getting the seal on a product are secret, but the Heart Association says it considers the amount of fat, cholesterol and sodium content in deciding which foods are eligible. In addition, the companies that want to apply for the seal will be charged from $15,000 to $640,000 per year. This plan has been sharply criticized by food manufacturers and we take up that debate now with Dr. Virgil Brown, President of the Mid Atlantic Research Foundation in Washington D.C. and a Member of the Board of Directors of the American Heart Association, and John Cady, President of the National Food Processors Association, representing some 600 Food companies nationwide. Dr. Brown, let me begin with you. What does the American Heart Association hope to accomplish with this program.

VIRGIL BROWN, American Heart Association: Well, Judy the major purpose of this program is to educate the consumer as to the essential ingredients in a food that may effect their risk of a heart attack and those include saturated fats, cholesterol, sodium and the total fat content of food.

MS. WOODRUFF: So exactly how exactly will the program work?

DR. BROWN: The program will work first as a cooperative effort with manufacturers who make the food item in the first place. Those manufacturers who wish to participate with the American Heart Association will be able to have their product examined and then put on the shelf with a specific recommendations, labeled that reveals the content in those food substances of saturated fat, cholesterol and so forth. But the more important part of the program is that the good manufacturer will be able to participate in an education program that will help the consumer develop a much broader concept about good nutrition.

MS. WOODRUFF: What does the label mean? The label will simply say approved by the American Heart Association. What exactly does that mean about the product?

DR. BROWN: No, the label will mean more than that. It will also give a bar graph which will show the relative amount of saturated cholesterol and sodium and total fat relative to the recommendations of the American Heart Association so that that product will be shown to fit in to an over all balanced diet that is heart healthy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Is that something that consumers will easily understand?

DR. BROWN: Yes market testing of this bar graph is indicated that do understand and can use this in helping them purchase their foods.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right, Mr. Cady what is wrong with the program that seeks to educate consumers and seeks to encourage them buy foods that are healthier for them.

MR. CADY: Judy the food industry has no problems with the goals of the American Heart Association particularly its traditional goals of research and education. But in this particular program we feel that they have stepped into the market place and they have established a program that is based in advertisements. is based also on product endorsements and having to pay to use their seal on a particular product. We feel that the program does not address total nutrition, total health or total diet and it certainly is not in concert with the U.S. Department of Agricultural and the Department of Health and Human Services guild lines for American's, dietary guild lines for Americans.

MS. WOODRUFF: What do you mean it's not in consort with the guild lines.

MR. CADY: The dietary guild lines talk about total diet and we are concerned that the American population, the American consumer see the heart stamp on a particular product and feel these are "safe products" can be eaten in quantities can be eaten frequently and not look at a total well balanced varied diet that the Government and the agencies that I spoke of had endorsed.

MS. WOODRUFF: What about that, Dr. Brown?

DR. BROWN: That was also one of our concerns also when we designed the program that the consumer might view this product as something that was heart healthy and therefore should eat as much as possible of this. In fact, the consumer clearly understands that this is not the case that a food product with this label on is going to be part of an overall healthy balanced diet.

MS. WOODRUFF: How do you know the consumer will know that?

DR. BROWN: Because we've done direct marketing studies to find out if a consumer can interpret this label in a meaningful way, in a healthful way.

MS. WOODRUFF: What about that Mr. Cady.

MR. CADY: The American Heart Association own research found that a consumer would more likely purchase a product with a heart check on it then they would a product that didn't have . And our concern is that this is a voluntary program on a pay as you go labeling basis and there will be many products and many brands that don't participate in this particular program who may be sitting on the shelf that are either as nutritious or more nutritious than the product with the heart check on it.

MS. WOODRUFF: What about that, Dr. Brown, are you discriminating against those companies for whatever reason can't afford to or decide not to pay this amount of money?

DR. BROWN: Let me point out that every food manufacturer will have an opportunity to participate in this program. We've kept the cost as low as we could. The American Heart Association will not make one dime from this program. It is a totally self supporting program. Every dollar that goes into with will be an education dollar for the American consumer. No dollars will flow into current programs of the American Heart Association. So the program will stand alone separate from the American Heart Association. There's no question that the consumer can benefit from it

MS. WOODRUFF: But what about Mr. Cady's point that there may be another product sitting next to the product with a health guide check on it that may have the same nutritional value but it hasn't for whatever reason been through your program?

DR. BROWN: Well, the only reason that it wouldn't have been through our program is that manufacturer chose not to participate in the program. That is a marketing decision. It is the same type of decision he has to make when he decides whether to advertise in one newspaper or television or by some other means. If he chooses to participate in the education program he is free to do so.

MS. WOODRUFF: Mr. Cady.

MR. CADY: Judy, we're talking about dollars per brand, and if a smaller private company may be produces 20 to 25 brands of let's say margarine for private label in the food stores those are an average price of perhaps sixty-five or seventy thousand dollars a product times 25 and 30 brands that they would have to pay for and it's an awful impact big impact on small private companies.

DR. BROWN: Let me speak to this issue of price. The price for a small manufacturer who has a very small share of the market for his particular brand would be $15,000. $10,000 for the administrative costs of running the program.

MS. WOODRUFF: Per brand?

DR. BROWN: Per brand. There is $5,000 for the education program. We think that is tremendous bargain for the small manufacturer who is going to get a great deal of positive press from that.

MS. WOODRUFF: Tremendous bargain, Mr. Cady?

MR. CADY: I think it's a bargain in the American Heart Association's eyes, but certainly not ours. And I don't think, if I can continue, that it is appropriate for a private association to be in to the labeling business when they are not regulated and there is no oversight to their programs.

MS. WOODRUFF: What about that?

DR. BROWN: This is a problem of the American consumer understanding what is in a product on the Grocery store shelf. For the last 15 years the American Heart Association has been attempting to get the Government to provide better labeling so that the consumer can understand what was in the product. This is an attempt to directly do that. We have comparative rating for the Federal Government or other Governments to deal with a problem that directly affects the No. 1 cause of death in America and we feel that it is time to act. Now I hope the program is so positive that other people get involved but the people that we would really love to have involved is the FDA.

MS. WOODRUFF: The Food & Drug Administration.

DR. BROWN: Exactly. A label the consumer can understand. If they were to do that the American Association would back away from this program tomorrow.

MS. WOODRUFF: What about that Mr. Cady?

JOHN CADY, National Food Processors Association: The food industry in conjunction with the United States Congress is heavily involved in that issue right now which you know. We're participating in it. We want a new labeling system and we want a mandatory labeling system that covers the areas that Dr. brown has discussed but we want it on a uniform basis across this country so that there will be one set of rules for everybody to follow and one education program for the consumer to become aware of.

DR. BROWN: We've heard that for years and nothing has happened.

MR. CADY: But let me just add if I could please. The FDA and the USDA have both come out expressing their extreme concern about this program and have not allowed it to be used in the Department of Agricultural.

MS. WOODRUFF: I want to ask Dr. Brown about that. The Department of Agriculture for example said in astatement that the program fails to convey the importance of the total diet some thing that Mr. Cady mentioned earlier, misleading to consumers and so forth How do you respond to that?

DR. BROWN: Well, the Department of Agriculture of Agricultural actually on regulates poultry and beef products that would have been a part of this original group of foods that will be approved. Now the Department of Agriculture actually has approved some of the labeling processes by individual manufacturers. So I think number one they have already approved a similar program.

MS. WOODRUFF: But they didn't approve this one.

DR. BROWN: They did not approve this one. That is correct. It is impossible for a complete information program to be put on a label.One has to focus on important issues first. Now the second part I think we should not forget is that this is a total education program but it's built on to education through a different set of avenues.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well let me ask you this. If it's an education program Dr. Brown why are the criteria for a participating for being eligible for the seal of approval being kept a secret.

DR. BROWN: The criteria will be released on the day that the first group of foods are ready for the shelf. And the reason that is has not been released before hand is because we were concerned that the manufacturer would chose one of the criteria and say the American Heart Association is X for total fat our product meets that standard. In fact, we want the whole set of major risk factors for nutrition for heart disease to be approved together and presented together to the consumer.

MS. WOODRUFF: Is that a satisfactory explanation for you?

MR. CADY: Not really. I think, that our concern about the secret criteria is that we believe that it ought to be made know to the consumer right off the bat , know that the basis is for this heart check.

MS. WOODRUFF: Meaning now or when?

MR. CADY: Why shouldn't it be now? And also the industry should have it and also the Government should look at it from a regulatory perspective. I think there's more to what Dr. Brown has said and that is during this process while they are trying to get manufacturers to join this program, I think, that they do not want the criteria out because it keeps one competitor thinking that his competitor is going to take the program on and therefore it is kind of a secret way of getting people to sign up for the program.

MS. WOODRUFF: Is that what is going on?

DR. BROWN: Not at all. if you are a manufacturer and you want to know what those criteria are all you have to do is write the American Heart Association and they will be sent to you immediately. All you have to do is agree not to make them public. They will be made public as soon as the first product hits the shelf so the consumer will have that information as soon he is able to use it. Thirdly it has been made available to the Department of Agriculture to the Federal Trade Commission and to the FDA. So the Government knows exactly what those criteria are.

MS. WOODRUFF: This is clearly something we are going to be watching. Gentleman once again, Dr. Brown when is this program going to kick in to effect for the public in the grocery stores?

DR. BROWN: We expect the first group of food to be on the shelf in February or March.

MS. WOODRUFF: And there's no reason why that date would change?

DR. BROWN: Not at the moment.

MS. WOODRUFF: Dr. Virgil Brown, Mr. John Cady we thank you both for begin with us. FOCUS - PLYMOUTH'S PLANTATION

MR. MacNeil: Our next story is from Plymouth, Massachusetts, where by tradition the pilgrims celebrated their first Thanksgiving. Today there's a living history museum in Plymouth called the Plymouth Plantation. The museum faithfully recreates life as it was lived in 1627 complete with museum personnel playing the roles of pilgrims like John Alden and William Bradford. They even speak with 17th century English accidents. When Business Correspondent Paul Solman recently visited there, however, he found a surprisingly contemporary tale to tell.

MR. SOLMAN: The world economy at Thanksgiving time 1989. One of the places they seem to be giving economic thanks is Eastern Europe, as they move away from Soviet style Communism. Down on the collective farm, for example, they're becoming more productive, as they farm their own individual plots benefit from their own individual labor. Now this has happened before throughout history and fittingly enough, given that it's Thanksgiving, it happened here. Dramatic recreations are very much in vogue on TV these days, but since we don't believe in them, we've actually traveled back in time to the 1620s to see how our forefathers and mothers at the Plymouth Plantation dealt with the conflict between collective effort and individual gain. When the pilgrims first came to Plymouth, they worked together as a team, building their homes, raising their livestock, farming their land collectively. In the beginning collective effort seemed to make sense here, given the harsh environment, the cold winters, the unforgiving land. Understandingly the first pilgrims felt that it was swim together or sink alone. Even the young salts who ferried them over on the Mayflower couldn't see an alternative to the collective approach.

YOUNG SALT: If they split up, there is just a small number as it is, I think they will be dead otherwise. It is not a matter of deciding this is the best way to do it. Right now I think it is the only way.

MR. SOLMAN: What do the think of the people who came over on this ship?

PILGRIM: In truth, they be a bit daft to come a thousand leagues across the ocean to a great wilderness like this. Myself, I would prefer to stay to England.

MR. SOLMAN: But the pilgrims weren't quite as daft as some might have thought. Many made the decision to go West for the same reason later pioneers would to have their own land, to earn their own living. But ocean passage on a boat like the Mayflower plus the supplies needed for survival in the new world cost a bloody fortune. The pilgrims didn't have it. Some English investors did. So the investors formed a company to bank roll the venture and profit thereby. The man responsible for looking after the interests of the investors, Gov. William Bradford.

GOV. BRADFORD: Well, for the first seven years of this company, we were obliged to use all of our efforts to pay back the debts that we had incurred in coming here. So in order to discourage anyone from going his own way, which of course would have been to the corporate hurt, we instead had every man to labor then for the common so that our debts might be the more sooner discharged.

MR. SOLMAN: However, after only their second harvest, productivity was so low that the debts mounted, the pilgrims went hungry. The collective approach was seen as the reason. And so in 1623, the pilgrims switched to a system wherein each family farmed its own land. We asked speak for yourself John Alden and good wife, Priscilla, about the change.

MR. SOLMAN: Did some people work less hard than others under the old system?

JOHN ALDEN: I think that is true of man's corrupt nature, that some will look better to the gain of themselves and others will not.

PRISCILLA: There were single men who are hearty and their carriage what could labor very hard and so much of their labor's going to feed a man goodly number of who were beset with a goodly number of childer a man, and wherein you see not to the fruits of your own profit, you should not be so well favored of it.

MR. SOLMAN: The problem, in short, was that younger colonists thought their elders were doing too little of the dirty work while they labored long and hard. The switch to private enterprise made the colonists feel better and work even hard. Even Gov. Bradford concedes that the change was for the better, although originally he opposed it.

GOV. BRADFORD: When the change was made, then there was a greater willingness of all, and the women even took their little ones into the field to set corn because every family did see that they would then be at their own charge and discretion, and if they fudged well it was their own labors and the providence of God that allowed it, and those that fudged not so well have only themselves to blame.

MR. SOLMAN: Collectivism, especially modern Communism, Soviet style, is usually bureaucratic, even tyrannical and certainly godless. But Communism or originally communism and God have teamed up in the past. Some historians claimed that the original Christians were Communists, and collectivism has been a goal of religious and utopian thinkers from Plato to Thomas Moore. You'd think that if any group could make a collective economy work, it would be an other worldly bunch of homogeneous pilgrims. But even here settlers such as the Aldens and Steven Hopkins had come to Plymouth to prosper, to save shillings not just their souls.

MR. HOPKINS: I come here for the land and to become prosperous, as you say, and to do God's work as well. There are some here that would cast an eye to me, think that perhaps I'm not as godly a man as they but that ain't the truth.

MR. SOLMAN: Can you imagine a situation in which a group of people all believing in the same thing pull together and therefore are more productive working as a group than individually?

MR. HOPKINS: I believe in paradise, if that's what you're asking me. And I believe that my Redeemer liveth.

MR. SOLMAN: But not on earth?

MR. HOPKINS: To make heaven here on earth, nay, you'll never find it, nay, not till the last coming.

MR. SOLMAN: Collectivism may not have worked in Plymouth, but then, and here's our second key point, neither did corporate capitalism. We doubt that colonists had quite this negative a view of their capitalist backers, but the corporation that bank rolled and ran Plymouth was owned by investors an ocean away from the action. Colonists like Steven Hopkins were essentially wage slaves and very resentful of their absentee stockholders.

MR. HOPKINS: Well, the difficulty here is they ain't here, they can't see it. They don't realize what the conditions are here. Now that first year that I come over here, the very next year we got a letter back from 'em; they were demanding a profit. Well, you did not expect to get, oh, fruit from a cherry tree before it blossoms. You've got to give it time and that's what the merchants are always, they're after that quick profit.

MR. SOLMAN: But while the original 70 stockholders in Plymouth looked to short-term profit, none was forthcoming. By 1624, all but five of those stockholders had unloaded their shares at a large loss. A fatal flaw of the Plymouth Corporation seems to have been its failure to align the interests of its managers and workers with those of its owners. It's a classic case of what can go wrong when investors and employees go their separate ways, and in a sense it's the same problem collectivism has. People just can't see what they're working for.

MR. HOPKINS: If they give out the land, if they leave us to farm it the way we intend, we'll make a profit for them, and the more we'll profit ourselves, the more we'll profit them as well.

MR. SOLMAN: Update the language and Steven Hopkins could be talking about today's trend toward worker and management buyouts and ESOPs, Employee Stock Ownership Plans. In fact, back in 1627, you could say the pilgrims had one of the world's first ESOPs as each pilgrim family received 100 acres to till on its own. The plantation soon turned a profit and everyone prospered, including the five stockholders who had hung in there for the long-term. It was Thanksgiving time here at last in Plymouth. Prosperity, of course, brought problems of its own. Once an economic system enables people to profit from their efforts inequalities of wealth soon appear. Atop the Forbes list of America's richest families back in 1627 would have been this man, Isaac Allerton. Allerton was the official liaison between the London investors and the colonists here in Plymouth. When we talked to him, Allerton, well heeled and well connected was planning to expand the lucrative fur trade to the North.

MR. ALLERTON: There's the Kennybeck that's about 30 leagues north of here I'd say, perhaps more. We hope to get a charter for that particular river. I've been led to understand that it would be quite possible. Some of us know how to open certain doors that need be opened in London, but some other folk of this town have not had such good fortune and perhaps we might be able to purchase this particular river. As much money as you make in a year, I'd carry under my arm like that in beaver fur, probably a fair bit more than you make by the way you're dressed today.

MR. SOLMAN: Master Allerton is better dressed than most of course, because the pursuit of private gain rewards some of us more than others. In short, as the pilgrims and the rest of us have learned, private enterprise is far from perfect. But then as they discovered here three centuries ago, and as economies both East and West keep having to rediscover, when folks work for themselves instead of others, there's a lot more to be thankful for. CONVERSATION

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight we have a conversation with author Calvin Trillin whose columns on food, travel, politics and murder appear in the New Yorker and the Nation Magazines. His most recent book, "Travels with Alice", published by Tickner and Fields, is about trips he's taken with his wife and daughters. I spoke to him recently about his new book and his varied interests. Calvin Trillin, it seems to me, and there's a good deal of envy in it, that you have the perfect job. You write whatever you want to write about for what many people still consider the best magazine in the country and then they turn that into literature or you do periodically by publishing it as books. You're interested in food. You can go anywhere you like to eat and write about that. You're interest in murders or killings, which most of us are, you can go anywhere and write about that. You can make fun of whatever you write. You obviously have the perfect life. Now what is wrong with it?

CALVIN TRILLIN, Author: Well, I'd like to tell you that I'm very tortured about all this but I'm really not. I mean, we can't all cover wars. There wouldn't be any room for the soldiers if we all went down there on the battlefield. So it has been fortunate for me being at the New Yorker for so long in that the New Yorker is a good forum for writing for the very things that it doesn't have. It doesn't have pictures, an enemy of writing, so that something has to be described, and say for writing a murder story, it doesn't have captions under the pictures, headlines, letters from the publisher telling you what's going to be on Page 61, or a slash line on the cover saying see Trillin on Emporia Murder, so you don't even have to know that anybody got killed until I'm ready to tell you so it's a good forum for that. And it also, I suppose travel writing is a good way to combine what you hope you'd be doing anyway with --

MR. MacNeil: I left out travel writing.

MR. TRILLIN: -- which is kind of allegedly working. It's actually even nicer because it gives you a little structure around the trip, find out what's going on.

MR. MacNeil: Let's talk about killing, murders. This is a line of yours, one of your sort of sub-interests. It might be said that in a lot of your pieces on killings which have been collected on books that it's hard almost to know that there's been a murder. I mean, you record the fact that somebody's killed. But you don't go very much into the macabre or the horror or the fear, the sort of crime part of the murder.

MR. TRILLIN: It's probably because that part doesn't really interest me very much. I mean, you can do endless stories about people who got killed during holdups of convenience stores, which is of course one of the major categories of murder. But I don't think they'd be terribly interesting. What I'm always looking for is a kind of a window into a community, a way of looking at people who may not ordinarily be in the newspaper and the violence of the crime really isn't the part that's of interest to me. It's the kind of echoes of it in the community and the way people live in America.

MR. MacNeil: And portraits of people and places that emerge out of the --

MR. TRILLIN: Yeah, I think --

MR. MacNeil: -- the fact that somebody is dead.

MR. TRILLIN: Which is an important enough fact to take notice of, I mean, so that people hold inquiries and trials and provide transcripts. My wife used to say when I was doing pieces for the New Yorker every three weeks around the country that I'd go anywhere where there's a transcript. It's not quite true, but it certainly helps.

MR. MacNeil: How do you choose a murder? There are many many murders in this country every day. How do you choose them? And do you look at a great many before you decide one you really want to go and write about?

MR. TRILLIN: I don't really now. Often somebody will send me a clipping and it seems very obvious, I realized when I was trying to write an introduction for that collection of killings that I couldn't describe it very well, except that it sounds interesting to me, that I have a lot of questions about it. I did a piece once on a high school student in the suburbs of Knoxville who came home late, she was, all I read was about an inch AP story on it, she came home late from the library and then got into another car, left the family car, and rode off, and her father gave chase down these winding country roads and the car she was in trying to escape from him or going too fast for no reason at all crashed and he went and pulled out her body, she was dead. It was about an inch and a half story but I realized I had so many questions, how did he feel, what was their life like, what was their relationship, but when I got down there, I met a local reporter at the trial. He was astonished anybody would care about this, because an awful lot of American journalism is based on how important the subject is, and it's assumed that maybe if the mayor gets involved in something like that that you should come from New York, but this man was a junior high school principal, there wasn't any reason to get excited about that. I think an awful lot of reporting in America is partly based on upward mobility of the reporter, so they judge their importance by the importance of the people they write about. You see this when they write their memoirs. He hob knobbed with five Presidents, that sort of thing. I don't hob knob with any Presidents, I guess. Now that I've got the column I guess I wouldn't be let in.

MR. MacNeil: Your latest murder, if it really was a murder, the Johnny Jenkins story in Texas, that really emerges as just what would be described otherwise in the business as a profile of this really extraordinary man --

MR. TRILLIN: Right.

MR. MacNeil: -- whom you wouldn't have profiled probably if he hadn't been killed.

MR. TRILLIN: That's true. And I think I probably would have had trouble writing about him.

MR. MacNeil: A rare book dealer.

MR. TRILLIN: He was a rare book dealer who was a rather flamboyant rare book dealer which particularly stood out in the rare book trade, which you think of as rather cautious and meticulous people and he was not that way at all. I think I wouldn't have done a profile of him but partly I have difficulty writing profiles because there's not exactly any movement in just meeting --

MR. MacNeil: And because unless the person is very famous, you have to explain why you're doing the profile.

MR. TRILLIN: That's right.

MR. MacNeil: Whereas, if he's died under odd circumstances, that explains itself.

MR. TRILLIN: That's right. And also the fact that he was such a controversial character, I think I would have had trouble doing a profile when he was still alive, but as you say, if he's dead, there's a kind of context that you can talk about his life. And of course what people thought about what happened to him had partly to do with what they thought about him when he was alive, and so there was a kind of a resonance there.

MR. MacNeil: You are probably most celebrated for your writing about food, travel and food, books like "Alice, Let's Eat", Alice being your wife, and now "Travels With Alice".

MR. TRILLIN: That's right.

MR. MacNeil: Is there any territory, sort of gastronomic territory you have to explore, I mean, is there terra incognito?

MR. TRILLIN: Oh, yes, I think so. It's just that I don't know what it is in this country because you're constantly being surprised. I was with somebody the other day in Minneapolis, and I said, did you grow up here, and she said, no, I'm from Saganaw, Michigan, and I said, God, you must miss those chopped peanut sandwiches from Saganaw, and she said, how did you know we had chopped peanut sandwiches in Saganaw, but there's something like that in a lot of places. I would have never thought until I went to Pittsburgh that there was a place that had near the market in Pittsburgh, what I think they called "The Strip" that has a sign saying all the above sandwiches with coleslaw and french fries, and the coleslaw and the french fries are inside the sandwich. Well, it was actually a surprise to me to find that. So I think there's a lot of surprises out there I just haven't gotten to.

MR. MacNeil: Is the new concern about health and cholesterol and all that sort of thing, do you see that having any discernable effect on the kind of food that you find going around?

MR. TRILLIN: Oh, I think it has a packaging effect, if nothing else. I was in an airport the other day and I saw a popcorn machine and on it it said no cholesterol and it seemed to me just odd that anybody who was eating popcorn would think of that. And a lot of these things come on as matters of packaging concern. But it is a lot easier now to eat that way with the concern. So if someone tries to say, for instance, have a low cholesterol diet, it's an awful lot easier now than it would be five or ten years ago, but in most parts of the country if you go out to eat, I met yesterday a man who is by background, religion, commitment a vegetarian, he's from India, and his wife is from Kansas City, my home town, and he says when they go out to dinner, he has a little problem in Kansas City, spends an awful lot of time at the salad bar. That's about all there is for him to eat.

MR. MacNeil: Are you having an impact on American dining, American eating?

MR. TRILLIN: I hope not. No, I don't think so. I'm not sure that anybody has exactly had an impact except say Julia Childs, who at least changed the way at least part of the American population thinks of food. I think the biggest impact on restaurants in America was the change in the immigration laws in 1965, not anything having to do with American cooking. We were in a position in 1965 of basically excluding Chinese, letting in a handful of Italians and Greeks, and letting in more English people than actually wanted to come, which if you think of it in terms of restaurants is a suicidal policy. And I think for instance after the war, after the war in Vietnam, food for a traveling person improved greatly in a number of places that truly needed it. I think what happened is that God saw this great big country losing a war to this little bitty country and saying, well, at least I'll give them some restaurants where they need them.

MR. MacNeil: Do you think this should be a guiding principle in American foreign policy?

MR. TRILLIN: If you think about it, we won the war in Korea and so for that we got all these guys to bribe our Congressmen. We don't have to worry about that from Vietnam. All we have is the restaurants.

MR. MacNeil: And good vegetable stores.

MR. TRILLIN: Excellent vegetable stores. I knew this when it happened, when the embassy fell in Saigon and the helicopters were hovering above and people were trying to scramble aboard, I was in front of the television set yelling get the chefs, get the chefs, and they did, and a lot of them are places that needed them the worst, Washington, D.C., for instance, Portland, Oregon, Minneapolis, Minnesota, places where you wouldn't think you'd get a great oriental meal, but now you can.

MR. MacNeil: I'm intrigued in your latest book, "Travels with Alice", the couple of chapters involving the Caribbean where you have the fantasy of finding or creating an Italian Caribbean Island.

MR. TRILLIN: That's right.

MR. MacNeil: Could you --

MR. TRILLIN: The Italian West Indies.

MR. MacNeil: The Italian West Indies.

MR. TRILLIN: Yes. It has, I have a very clear picture of it in my mind. I've had it for years, because it's really totally unfair that people like Denmark had Caribbean Islands but no Italian Caribbean Islands, and I think of it as the Italian West Indies, and the hills are green with garlic plants, and the chef is humming an aria while he grills your lungastine, and the waiter approaches with that question that really sums up what I love about the Italian view of wine. He says, you want red or white? We call it santa pacuto.

MR. MacNeil: Santa pacuto. If you had your druthers, which cuisine would you most often indulge yourself in? What kind of food would you eat most?

MR. TRILLIN: I think Chinese probably, but I live very close to Chinatown.

MR. MacNeil: And you have welcomed jury duty in New York for the opportunities it gives you.

MR. TRILLIN: Yes. In fact, when I'm on jury duty, my own strategy, other people are trying to either get off or get on juries, I'm kind of trying to sidle up to the Chinese man or woman on the panel to find out where they really eat. And I sit there wondering. You spend a lot of time in a New York jury, I suppose everywhere, not on a jury but sitting in that room with 212 angry men, and I don't what the other people are thinking, but I'm just thinking, I wonder what they do in cities where the courts are not next to Chinatown, it must be a real scramble to get out of jury duty in places like that. This way you have the silver lining of Chinatown.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Calvin Trillin, thank you very much for joining us.

MR. TRILLIN: Thank you. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the main stories today, bigger and bigger crowds demanded an end to Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, Moscow said it was happy with George Bush's attitude to the forthcoming summit with Gorbachev, Israeli planes raided Palestinian based in Lebanon as that country mourned its assassinated president and prepared to elect another. That's the Newshour for tonight and we'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Happy Thanksgiving and good night.