The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Tuesday, the president of Czechoslovakia said there will eventually be no need for U.S. troops in Europe. Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan said the economy may be past the danger of recession and mine workers agreed to end their strike against Pittston Coal. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: After the News Summary, we have a News Maker interview with Czech President Vaclav Havel [NEWS MAKER] and then should tobacco companies be able to target young women [FOCUS - SMOKE & HEAT] for cigarette ads? We have a debate between John O'Toole, president of the Association of American Advertising Agencies, and Anne Marie O'Keefe of Women Versus Smoking, and we close with an essay by Penny Stallings on the message in rock lyrics [ESSAY - ROCKING SOCIETY]. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Czechoslovakia's new president came to Washington today. He said in a Newshour interview the new world order meant there would soon be no need for U.S. troops in Europe. Vaclav Havel raised the same issue with Pres. Bush during a White House meeting. Mr. Bush told him the United States would continue to maintain a strong military presence in Europe for security reasons. Havel also requested a new trade relationship with the U.S. Afterward, Mr. Bush announced the easing of trade restrictions as a first step to granting most favored nation status.

PRES. BUSH: Mr. President, you've not asked for American aid, economic aid, and you made it clear that democratic Czechoslovakia wants the opportunity to do business on an equal footing. And in that regard, I am pleased to announce that I signed today letters notifying our Congress that I am waiving the Jackson-Vannic Amendment for Czechoslovakia. Pending passage by your parliament of new liberal immigration legislation, these measures will permit us to extend the most favored nation status to Czechoslovakia without the requirement of an annual waiver granting your country the most liberal access to the American market possible under United States law.

MR. LEHRER: We will have our News Maker interview with Pres. Havel right after this News Summary. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: There were several developments in the move towards German reunification today. East and West German cabinet ministers began their first joint talks on creating an economic union which would be a major step towards reunification. And in another sign of the increasing integration of the two Germanies, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl spent the day campaigning for an East German political party. Roderick Pratt of Worldwide Television News narrates this report.

MR. PRATT: Pre-election campaigning in East Germany reached fever pitch when the West German chancellor joined the political band wagon. Helmut Kohl spoke at a rally in support of an alliance group which opposes the governing party of Prime Minister Hans Modrow. It was Chancellor Kohl's first contribution to the election campaign in the East. He promised the crowd they would get economic aid, but only at a price. Just a few days earlier, Chancellor Kohl had refused a request from the East German premier for an immediate $9 billion to help his struggling economy. Kohl promised the crowd that eventual investment would be jointly agreed upon by both the Germanies. Meanwhile, Hans Modrow addressed the East German parliament and called for immediate talks with West Germany on reunification. He said experts from the two states should begin preparations as soon as possible.

MR. MacNeil: Earlier in his address to parliament, Modrow appealed to East Germans not to horde food. The government recently announced it would soon end subsidies which have kept food prices low. Modrow said he had heard that many East Germans had made runs on grocery stores in order to stockpile food.

MR. LEHRER: The U.S. Economy is showing signs of strengthening. That news came today from the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan. He told a House committee, the economy was not immediate danger of recession. He pointed to January reports on the housing industry and housing starts.

ALAN GREENSPAN, Chairman, Federal Reserve Board: While we cannot be certain that we are as yet out of the recessionary woods, such evidence warrants at least guarded optimism. There are, however, other under currents that continued to signal caution. One that could disturb the sustainability of the current economic expansion has been the recent substantial deterioration in profit margins. However, if current signs of an upturn in economic activity broaden, profit margins can be expected to stabilize.

MR. LEHRER: In another economic story, the big coal miners strike ended today. Miners in Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky, voted to end their walkout against the Pittston Coal Group. The strike began 10 months ago, the vote was nearly 2 to 1 to return to work. Among the terms of the agreement, the company agreed to continue to pay 100 percent of the miners' health coverage and the company won the right to operate round the clock shifts.

MR. MacNeil: A new government report on smoking in the United States says the habit costs $52 billion a year. A study by the Department of Health & Human Services said most of the cost results from healthcare expenses. Department Sec. Dr. Louis Sullivan told a Senate committee today he was particularly concerned that information about the dangers of smoking was not getting to young people, women, minorities, and blue collar workers.

DR. LOUIS SULLIVAN, Secretary, Health & Human Services: The glamorization of smoking must end. The real story must be heard and heeded, the serious personal health risk confronting the smoker and those who passively inhale the fumes of deadly smokers, the hidden personal tax that each American has to pay for the consequences of smoking, and the cumulative and devastating impact on our economy.

MR. MacNeil: At the same hearing, Dr. Sullivan criticized the cigarette industry for their advertising techniques, and we'll have more on that controversy later in the program.

MR. LEHRER: There is a search underway for the bodies of seven people in a frozen California lake. So far one body has been recovered. Yesterday three teen-agers fell through the thin ice of Convict Lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Four adults then fell through the ice one by one in successive attempts to rescue the youngsters and each other. This morning divers began searching beneath the ice. Rescue workers said they did not believe anyone could have survived.

MR. MacNeil: In Colombia, an American priest kidnapped last week by leftist guerrillas has been released. Father Francisco Amico Ferari brought with him a message from his captors. They said they have some new American targets, including the U.S. ambassador and American oil executives in Colombia. Two other Americans are still being held hostage. The guerrillas also blew up power lines and attacked a police station in Cartagena last night, and also in Colombia today, police displayed 10 shoulder fired missiles they said were seized from drug traffickers. The missiles are capable of shooting down planes. The White House said it had received reports that drug traffickers had such missiles before President Bush went to Colombia last week for the drug summit, but Press Sec. Marlin Fitzwater said there was no hard evidence to confirm the reports.

MR. LEHRER: The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a child abuse decision today. It ruled 7 to 2 against a Maryland woman who has been in jail for nearly two years because she won't tell police where her young son is. Police think she may have killed him. She says her imprisonment violates her right against self- incrimination. The Justices said that right is generally outweighed by society's need to protect children.

MR. MacNeil: That's our News Summary. Now it's on to Czech President Vaclav Havel, cigarette marketing, and a Penny Stallings essay. NEWS MAKER

MR. LEHRER: First tonight a Playwright named Havel. Vaclav Havel the President of Czechoslovakia. He met with President Bush at the White House and he came by our studio right afterward for a newsmaker interview. A year ago he was still a playwright whose work was banned in his own country because he criticized communist rule in Prague. He was arrested for speaking to this group of Government opponents and was sentenced to nine months in prison. But by the end of last year he and other dissidents celebrated the fall of Communist Government. In a short time later he was chosen President of Czechoslovakia. Here is our interview with him conducted this afternoon. Mr. President welcome. What was accomplished at your luncheon meeting with President Bush today?

PRESIDENT VACLAV HAVEL, Czechoslovakia: We discussed many different topics and it lasted three quarters of an hour more than was planned and I was happy that our welcome was so warn and friendly, that we had an understanding. It was a very meaningful discussion for us and let's hope that it was meaningful for the other side as well. we hope that the American officials headed by President Bush learned more about our country about our views, about the conditions in Czechoslovakia. I was very satisfied with the meeting.

MR. LEHRER: Did you come to the meeting with an agenda carrying various points or requests that you wanted to make?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: Of course we had an agenda both in general and specific terms but I wouldn't dare to call them requests or even demands. These were just topics just to deliberate on, to discuss the possibilities of a real cooperation and of really friendly ties between our two countries because the previous government did not have such friendly relations.

MR. LEHRER: You said understanding, you wanted the President to understand more about your country. What is it that you want the American people to know about what is happening in Czechoslovakia right now?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: I wouldn't dare to formulate it that they should understand better because I was surprised how well they understood. before the start of the talks I mentioned this in relation of our wanting to contribute to this understanding and finally we did in many things. And I was surprised the knowledge that they had about our situation and the significance they attached to our country and to our present leadership.

MR. LEHRER: When you spoke to President Bush did you speak to him as the leader of a country that you saw as a friend, as a neutral, as an enemy, as country of great power that could influence events, that is some kind of leadership role? What is the country that President Bush represents?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: Naturally I came there with certain qualms because I realized how small and relatively undeveloped State in represented but after two or three minutes I calmed down because I talked to President Bush as man to man and after a while we did not realize that one of them is the head of a super power and the other one the head of a small country. At least I didn't realize it after a while.

MR. LEHRER: Do you see the United States as being a Super power still?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: It is certainly a big State a strong State with lot of vitality and energy. It is not the only powerful State in the World and in the future it will not be the only powerful country in the World because I think we are entering a period of multi polarity when the World will not be divided any more into super powers and satellites.

MR. LEHRER: What kind of role do you think that the United States should play in the new Europe?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: Certainly at this moment the United States are still a guarantor of stability in Europe, guarantor of freedom on that continent but this position is bound the change and transform in the future because Europe is transforming as well.

MR. LEHRER: That transformation do you think will include a lack of need for the United States to have troops in Europe?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: How long troops stay there depends on how long the Americans want them to stay there and how long the Europeans will need them but I don't think they will stay there forever.

MR.LEHRER: Do you see a Europe that will have no foreign troops, no U.S. troops, no Soviet troops any time in the near future?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: I can't estimate what will happen in the near future but I feel that Europe is beginning to tear down walls that divided it but it is starting to form itself as a comprehensive community of friendly democratic states. And of course this will effect the security system because so far the security system was based in two conflicting blocks and this era is soon to be over.

MR. LEHRER: So there are no more enemies?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: There are always a lot of enemies. Each one of us has many enemies inside him in the form of their bad qualities.

MR. LEHRER: But no external enemies. As the President of Czechoslovakia you are no longer afraid of an invasion from a foreign power?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: I would be a bad President if I were afraid.

MR. LEHRER: But who would these enemies be now? I Mean do you think that the World is changing to a point where it is possible for a nation like Czechoslovakia where you are located in Europe not to have potential enemies?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: At this moment is it not quite clear to me who could be a potential enemy of Czechoslovakia but in any case Czechoslovakia will be ready to defend itself against any potential enemy.

MR. LEHRER: Where to matters stand now about getting the Soviet troops out of your country?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: We are having intensive talks with the Soviet Union about the withdrawal of the troops. The withdrawal is in the interest of stability in our country and in the whole Central Europe and they know that very well. They don't want to stay but they have certain important reasons why it can't be so fast as we would like it to be but we hope soon the talks will end successfully.

MR. LEHRER: There is no problem on this, I mean, the Soviets have agreed to remove the troops correct?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: Soviets today have no reason to stay in our country. They have problem with moving the troops back home and that is because of domestic reasons in the Soviet Union. There are problems like that the troops are much better off in Czechoslovakia them they would in the Soviet Union when they have no where to live and nothing to eat.

MR. LEHRER: Did you talk to President Bush today about a new unified Germany?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: Yes of course that subject was discussed.

MR. LEHRER: Do you share some of the concerns that the Polish officials and others do about this unified Germany?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: I can understand very well the Polish misgivings. I went to Poland and talked about that to many Polish Officials. After many bitter experiences they had these misgivings must be strong but still I have to admit in our Country we do not have strong misgivings like that and neither do I personally and I believe that sooner or later Germany will be unified in a way that will be acceptable to all its neighbors, in a way that will confirm its existing frontiers and in a way that will be the beginning of a new European order.

MR. LEHRER: And it can be done in a way that Europe is not dominated by this new all powerful Germany?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: What is to dominate. There is always some state which is bigger than the others and that doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't have friendly and equal relationships with other States. It is not a matter of size. It is a matter of the character of the system and of its ties with its neighbors.

MR. LEHRER: What do you say to those who suggest that may be NATO and the West should keep some troops in Germany thus to maintain some stability as a kind of insurance policy against the possibility of a strong Germany getting to powerful and to rambunctious in the future?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: It is a matter of talks for building a new security European system, I mentioned. How it will develop it is hard to tell at this point. I may have my ideas but it doesn't depend on me. So I would be afraid to make any predictions but I think the best guarantee against possible threat or aggressivity is democracy and if Europe consists of really democratic states this would be the best guarantee against any aggressor.

MR. LEHRER: Why did it take 40 years for your country to return to democracy?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: You will have to ask history that. It is not my fault that it took so long. Of course our modern history was very much effected by the Soviet Union with its aggressive policy which started to dominate Czechoslovakia at one time but that was not the only historic factor but the important thing is that it is now over.

MR. LEHRER: Why is it over now. What is happening now or what happened now to cause the people in your country to say enough, this is it, it is over?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: Well there must be an end to everything.

MR. LEHRER: What about the young people in your Country who were involved in your velvet revolution. How did they know what freedom was? How did they know what they were fighting for they have never had it?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: Young people were mostly born around 1968. They were not effected as the generation of the fathers was by the Soviet invasion of 1968. By the purges, by the persecutions. They were less afraid and they had a kind of hope which belongs to young people. So they started it all and this may have to do with the fact there seemed to be periods of twenty years in each nation when history starts to be shaped again a new.

MR. LEHRER: Do you believe that there is something basic in all human beings that relates to freedom. They know what freedom is even though they have never lived through it, even though they may not have even read about it?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: I have no doubt about it. I think that this is the part of the nature of man the desire for freedom, for a dignified life. Of course man is also a weak creature with many bad qualities and it depends on which of his qualities will in certain social situation and in a certain climate will prevail, which qualities will awaken. The totalitarian system was masterful in how it managed to mobilize all the bad qualities.

MR. LEHRER: What has been the damage of the mobilization of the bad qualities of your people for forty years?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: The damages are enormous, spiritual, material environmental, cultural, political.

MR. LEHRER: What about on the psyche of the people?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: This is naturally the most important thing. The dark traces left by the era of totalitarianism in the human mind is more difficult to do away with and this is a very demanding job.

MR. LEHRER: Many Americans, most Americans who are honest at least, have to admit that they did not realize how fragile the whole communist system was. It seemed like a couple of huffs and couple puffs boom like a house of cards it went down. Why was it that was so misunderstood by us and by others in the rest of the World?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: None of knew that. It was clear to me that this couldn't last forever that it has to collapse one day but that it will happen so fast and so easy as it did in our country I didn't know. And no one else did in my country.

MR. LEHRER: Where was the failure in the Communist system. Why are there no believers out there. Why did it not take through all these years?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: For a time when the Communist ideas had certain social backing and important backing these ideas gave hope to workers but this time has long since been over.

MR. LEHRER: Were you ever a Communist?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: No. never.

MR. LEHRER: Never tempted. Nothing about it attracted you personally?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: I have had never anything in common with Communism in my life but I have to admit that many people consider me a leftist.

MR. LEHRER: Are you comfortable with the title, with the position Mr. President?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: To tell the truth I hope that I won't be President for very long because it is a very demanding job. In this situation when I have to solve in days and weeks problems that accumulated in our country not only for the forty years of the totalitarian regime but in some cases for 70 years or even longer and it is a lot of work. So I am quite looking forward to the time when I won't be President any more.

MR. LEHRER: Are you not then going to run for Office in June?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: I certainly won't run myself. If any one wants to run me I will have to decide whether I accept it or not.

MR. LEHRER: Whether you run for Office or not whether you remain President after June or not do you have in your mind a goal or a dream for your country like say a year from now you would like your country to be here, 5 years from now you would like it to be there, 10 there, 50 or whatever. When you see Czechoslovakia in the future what do you see?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: My dream doesn't belong to me only. It is a dream of our two nations that we shall be a democratic country, a prosperous country, a socially just country, a human Republic which does not know careers between masters and slaves, between socially weak people and socially strong people which doesn't know humiliation. This is a common dream of us all. Of course for each one us this dream has specific features and what these features are in my case you can read about in some of my books.

MR. LEHRER: Have you been able to do any writing at all since the revolution began and you became President?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: Of course, I have no time for writing plays or articles or essays. The only thing I have written lately are speeches which I wrote either before I became President or after I became President. I write only the most important speeches and most of the less important speeches I just extemporize.

MR. LEHRER: Is there a play in this, that has happened to your country in the last few months?

PRESIDENT HAVEL: It is a great drama with features of all dramatic genre from Greek tragedy to absurdist drama but it is a play so thrilling and so peculiar that no earthling could have invented it and written it.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. President thank you for being with us.

PRESIDENT HAVEL: Thank you.

MR. MacNeil: Still to come on the Newshour targeting cigarette ads and the message in rock and roll. FOCUS - SMOKE & HEAT

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight selling cigarettes. Specifically, we examine a growing debate over how cigarette companies target customers in their advertising and marketing campaigns. As more and more Americans give up smoking, cigarette makers are trying to appeal to sharply defined audiences. Cigarette companies have always promoted specific images like the Marlboro Man and the Virginia Slims Woman, but in recent months, strategies have become pointed and more controversial. RJ Reynolds started to market a new brand called Up Town Cigarettes targeted to blacks. The company cancelled the project after Sec. of Health & Human Services Louis Sullivan sharply criticized the plan. This weekend the Washington Post reported that Reynolds was developing a new brand called Dakota, targeted to young white women with a high school education. The newspaper printed what it claimed were internal memos from Reynolds' marketing firm profiling what they called the "virile female". A spokesman for RJ Reynolds told the Newshour that the documents were illegally obtained and that while some of the elements were adopted, they were significantly altered to market the Dakota brand to both men and women. At a Senate hearing today, Sec. Sullivan returned to the attack and Charles Whitley of the Tobacco Institute defended the cigarette companies.

DR. LOUIS SULLIVAN, Secretary, Health and Human Services: A cigarette is the only legal product that when used as intended causes death. Advertisers who disproportionately target women, minorities or young Americans have gone too far. They must stop their irresponsibility. It is morally wrong to promote a product which when used as intended causes death, trading death for corporate profits. This is a difference which I will not let the industry spokespeople obfuscate.

CHARLES WHITLEY, Tobacco Institute: Now let me address that just a minute. We have always advertised just like every other industry advertises, particularly for a mature product, a product that's been out there for a long time, not a brand new product that we're trying to inform people about for the first time, and that is our individual companies which are highly competitive. And they're out there fighting for market share. They're out there fighting to induce people who smoke to smoke their brand, to induce those who already smoke their brand to retain that brand loyalty, and that's the purpose of the advertising.

MR. MacNeil: Is selling cigarettes different from selling other products? We ask that question now of two people with different views. John O'Toole is the president of the American Association of Advertising Agencies. Anne Marie O'Keefe is a member of the Executive Committee of Women Versus Smoking Network, a Washington- based coalition of women's groups against smoking. Mr. O'Toole, what do you think of Sec. Sullivan's campaign?

JOHN O'TOOLE, Advertising Trade Association: Well, I think Sec. Sullivan confused two issues. One is tobacco, cigarettes, and the other is the marketing and advertising of tobacco and cigarettes. It was evident in his statements that he was blaming advertising for some of the things that excessive smoking or continued smoking might do. As far as targeting specific markets, it only makes sense when you are involved in a product in a market that is shrinking, and the consumption of tobacco products has shrunk about 6 percent in the last year, despite a lot of advertising to promote those products, it only makes sense to try to divide that market up into segments that smoke a lot and segments that don't smoke or are ceasing to smoke and go after those that are heavy users, heavy consumers.

MR. MacNeil: So you see no moral difference between segmenting the cigarette audience consuming group and other products?

MR. O'TOOLE: Well, I think there is a distinction to be made. If it is a moral distinction, perhaps it's between selling cigarettes and advertising cigarettes. It is perfectly legal to sell cigarettes. It, therefore, becomes somewhat hypocritical to condemn those who sell them through normal marketingtechniques for doing so.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. O'Keefe, how do you see the Secretary's campaign?

ANNE MARIE O'KEEFE, Anti-Smoking Advocate: Well, you know, it's actually quite insidious to target such a vulnerable population that kills so many of their users. In fact, some 25 to 30 percent of my sisters who will become addicted to this new product, Dakota Cigarettes, will die from exactly that habit. A lot of products in this country are legal and yet have severe restrictions on their advertising. Stocks and bonds, for example, can't be directly advertised, and prescription drugs can't be directly advertised to consumers, and neither of those are killing almost 400,000 Americans each year.

MR. MacNeil: Well, let's separate those two. First of all, it's insidious, Ms. O'Keefe says, to target vulnerable groups.

MR. O'TOOLE: I think Ms. O'Keefe is making a statement that some of her sisters might not agree with, that they are less capable of making their own judgments as to whether to buy a product to not than the society at large. The distinction here is between products that are perfectly legal to sell and available almost everywhere and stocks and bonds and prescription drugs. No effort has been made to make cigarettes prescription products. Therefore, they can be purchased anywhere and normal marketing techniques can be used to sell them.

MR. MacNeil: There are restrictions on age groups in some places that can buy them.

MR. O'TOOLE: Yes, recognizing the fact that you're supposed to be 18 before you can purchase them.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. O'Keefe, what about the answer that your sisters, as Mr. O'Toole puts it, are capable of making their own minds up?

MS. O'KEEFE: You know it's ironic that RJ Reynolds has segmented and targeted exactly the population who are least prepared to make up their minds. Eighteen year old women are certainly old enough to want to assert their independence and their freedom, which is what the Dakota marketing plan promises they can do if they smoke that cigarette, but they aren't old enough to appreciate such abstract concepts as chronic disease and death or addiction. They think they'll be able to stop, but it's literally the most lethal and addictive drug we know.

MR. O'TOOLE: Well, Ms. O'Keefe continues to confuse advertising with product, and I do find it difficult to believe that 18 year old women are unable to make that judgment for themselves when the awareness of the dangers of smoking as a result of the Surgeon General's warning on the product as well as the advertising, that awareness is up in the 95 percent level. I mean, that's more people than who can identify the Vice President of the United States or their own Senator.

MR. MacNeil: Well, let's go to the regulation point here. Do you, Ms. O'Keefe, feel that what Mr. Sullivan is doing, Sec. Sullivan, by exhortation, is a form of regulation?

MS. O'KEEFE: Oh, no, it's much different from regulation. Sec. Sullivan much to his credit is engaging in a massive public education campaign which is exactly why certain segments of our society, mostly educated white males, have stopped smoking in droves.

MR. O'TOOLE: I agree completely. I think that what the Secretary is doing is the right way to do it. I think education, more information rather than less information is the way to approach this problem.

MR. MacNeil: Well, then if he's performing an education function, and yet you would maintain that what RJ Reynolds has been doing is perfectly legitimate advertising practice for a legal product, why does RJ Reynolds cave in when the Secretary criticizes them, for instance, on the Up Town product?

MR. O'TOOLE: I find it difficult to answer that question. I think that RJ Reynolds should have responded with their own arguments and let the public, let the distributors, let the entire distribution chain make its own decision.

MR. MacNeil: What do you think Ms. O'Keefe?

MS. O'KEEFE: Well, I have to say that unfortunately tobacco is hurting members of the under educated and under employed classes more than it is others. It is particularly harmful to women who suffer not only from all of the harmful tobacco-induced diseases that men suffer from, that is strokes and heart attacks, lung cancer, and chronic lung diseases, but who also suffer the additional health effects that are related to the female hormone system, for example, osteoporosis, and to the reproductive system, for example, infertility. As a matter of fact, in this country, each year it's estimated that 4,000 infants die simply because their mothers smoke.

MR. MacNeil: Those warnings exist on the cigarette packages. But back to the business of regulation here, you say that what Mr. Sullivan is doing is education, but if the RJ Reynolds Company takes his criticisms and caves in on a marketing plan, doesn't that amount to sort of regulation by intimidation?

MS. O'KEEFE: RJ Reynolds got caught. They got caught targeting a very vulnerable population. Their public image is extremely important to them and so they caved in. The fact that we were able to get ahold of these marketing plans which was going after another very vulnerable population clearly defined as minors with no more than a high school education means hopefully that they'll cave in on this one. Certainly the women's community, the Women Versus Smoking Network in particular, is going to make exactly that demand, that they stop Dakota in its tracks.

MR. O'TOOLE: No matter who is caving in to whom, the fact remains and empirical knowledge shows us, that ceasing to market or advertise these cigarettes is not going to diminish those markets that have decided they're going to smoke. The general population is smoking less. There are bound to be pockets there where people have not caught up yet. The ability of an advertiser to sell his product to those people who are smoking more is guaranteed by the First Amendment, for one thing, and by common sense. The problem that Ms. O'Keefe has is with the product, not with the advertising. It is the product that is resulting in health problems in this country, not the advertising.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. O'Keefe.

MS. O'KEEFE: Well, Mr. O'Toole is confusing the First Amendment, which does, indeed, protect our individual rights to political free speech, which does not, by any stretch, give equal protection to a corporation's right to commercially advertise a lethal and addictive product.

MR. O'TOOLE: I'm afraid it does. The First Amendment as interpreted by the Supreme Court in 1976 and '80 again does guarantee the right of commercial speech except when it is false and misleading.

MS. O'KEEFE: No. The Supreme Court has given very limited recognition only as late as the late 1970s to the limited rights of commercial free speech, and the Supreme Court has specifically used the advertising of cigarettes as an example of what could be banned because there is a just cause for it. See, the tobacco industry knows that it has to replace 5,000 smokers each day, 1,000 smokers who die from tobacco-induced diseases, and 4,000 others who die from either other diseases or who are able to quit. The tobacco industry knows better than anyone that if you make it to adulthood, your chances of starting to smoke are very small, therefore, they're targeting children. It's children we're trying to protect here.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. O'Toole.

MR. O'TOOLE: Children in every survey that I have seen cite parental influence or peer group influence as the reason for starting to smoke. Again, I am not here to defend tobacco. I don't smoke, I don't like it, and I'm happy that my family doesn't smoke. The right, however, to market and to advertise a product that however hypocritical is still legally sold in this country is an inalienable right.

MR. MacNeil: Where is the hypocrisy, Mr. O'Toole?

MR. O'TOOLE: Well, the argument seems to really be with the presence of cigarettes. As long as cigarettes are there, these sub- groups of the culture are going to purchase them. It is possible to ban such a product. I doubt that it would work any more than it did in prohibition, but it's possible. I suppose it's also possible to stop subsidies to tobacco farmers. The same legislators who talk about banning tobacco advertising are voting for subsidies to tobacco farmers.

MR. MacNeil: It's being raised increasingly not only by Ms. O'Keefe, but by others, including the Secretary, as a moral argument now. It is legal to buy, to market cigarettes, and it is legal, as you pointed out, to advertise them at the moment. Do you sense though that this growing, if it is growing, moral argument will more and more and more push the tobacco companies into a corner where they will just not be able to do this, they will just feel, they will feel frozen out for the same reason that RJ Reynolds backed off on the Up Town ad?

MR. O'TOOLE: No, I don't think that is going to be the consequence. I think what the consequence will be is another piece of information presented to the public to make them think about cigarette smoking, just as the label warnings, the warnings on the advertising, the many statements by the Surgeon General, all of these have resulted in 95 percent of the population knowing that cigarette smoking is hazardous.

MR. MacNeil: How do you feel about that, Ms. O'Keefe? If 95 percent of the population know it's hazardous, they include the people you're worried about.

MS. O'KEEFE: Yes, but they haven't got any idea exactly how hazardous. They certainly don't have a true appreciation for how addictive it is. The hypocrisy here is really an industry that makes $35 billion a year selling this product spending $2.6 billion each year to hook new addicts to their product. That's the hypocrisy.

MR. MacNeil: To hook new addicts, the tobacco industry spokesman on the clip we showed earlier said the purpose was to make them to switch to another product. Do you really believe that, Mr. O'Toole?

MR. O'TOOLE: I have to believe it. It's the marketing primer. When you have a mature product or category and it's shrinking every year, it is economic folly to try to bring more people into it.

MR. MacNeil: But the advertising, promoting all sorts of healthy and happy occasions, or sexy occasions, or whatever, is not intended to attract new young people to smoking?

MR. O'TOOLE: It is intended to attract, it's much more economic to attract somebody who is smoking a cigarette with a different kind of image to this one that says, look, this one's for you for some reason, this reflects your way of life, and yes, they are attractive, healthy people because it doesn't make much sense to use old sick people.

MR. MacNeil: That's it. Thank you, Ms. O'Keefe and thank you, Mr. O'Toole. ESSAY - ROCKING SOCIETY

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight our Tuesday night essay. Penny Stallings looks at today's world as reflected in rock music.

MS. STALLINGS: Rock'n roll has always been message music. Chuck Barry, Elvis, Little Richard, now they were saying something, and even if they didn't know exactly what it was, we got the message loud and clear. In the '60s, overt political opinion began to make its way into pop music, first through button down folkies Peter, Paul and Mary -- [Singing Blowin' in the Wind] -- then most significantly through Bob Dillan. Dillan was rock's first angry young man who ranted, who railed, and whose tantrums became anthems that moved -- [Rock Music in Background] -- these songs were so closely associated with youthful rebellion of the '60s that they were destined to become dated and later coopted as elevator music. Now after a 20 year absence, social comment has returned to pop music, but this time around it's strikingly different in tone. There are no solutions, no goals, no uplifting slogans blowin' in the wind, only grim, unavoidable realities. Tracy Chapman paints a desolate scenario of poverty and homelessness in Fast Car. [Song Segment] Chapman's is one of the few younger voices to warn of impending disaster. Oddly enough, the most pessimistic sentiment is coming from veteran rockers, in some cases fabulously wealthy stars who you'd think would be content to rest on their royalties, but who are opting instead to shake up the complacent. Billy Joel's new album warns of treacherous weather ahead and his No. 1 hit single, "We Didn't Start the Fire", pulls a fatalistic refrain into a bouncy chronology of baby boomer history. [Song Segment] Dan Hemley who spent the '70s living it up at the Hotel California isn't quite as mellow about the toll exacted by life in the fast lane. [Song Segment] The normally upbeat Phil Collins takes a hard look at the desperation that's taken root in paradise. [Song Segment] And almost 20 years after mourning the Kent State massacre in Ohio, Neil Young has created the most bitingly work of his career. [Song Segment] In cut after cut on freedom, Young blasts blistering rock and roll onto a backdrop of the most mercative images he can find in American society. Is anyone listening? Underneath the synthesizers and the multiple tracking, the message is bleak in the world according to pop, but at least it has a good beat and you can dance to it all the way to the apocalypse. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Once again, Tuesday's main stories, Pres. Bush offered economic aid and trade support to visiting Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel. On the Newshour Havel said there eventually may be no need for U.S. troops in Europe. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the U.S. economy may have escaped the near-term danger of a recession and a new government reports said smoking costs America more than $52 billion a year, mostly in extra healthcare and insurance expenses. Good night, Jim.

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