The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Thursday, the Soviet Congress passed a plan to shift power from the central government to the republics. The legislators also promised to respect the republics' declarations of sovereignty and independence. In this country, seven people were indicted in the Bank of Credit & Commerce scandal. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: After the News Summary, Charlayne Hunter-Gault talks about the BCCI indictments with a Justice Department official. We get three very different views of the hot now pro Clarence Thomas TV commercials, an update on the Soviet Congress in Moscow, and we begin a series of conversations on what went wrong with Communism. Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski is the first guest. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: Soviet lawmakers today formally ended seven decades of central government rule. As the Congress of People's Deputies voted to create a temporary government shifting the Baltic power to the republics. They also overwhelmingly approved the resolution pledging to respect declarations of sovereignty and acts of independence taken by the republics. Ten of the fifteen Soviet republics have made such declarations. We have more on today's vote to transform the Soviet Union from Tim Ewart of Independent Television News in Moscow.

MR. EWART: They marked the end of an empire with a team photograph in the Kremlin, Mikhail Gorbachev celebrating a stunning political upheaval with men who have voted themselves out of a job. And Boris Yeltsin was contemplating what will undoubtedly be a leading role for him in the new power structure. Earlier Mr. Gorbachev had bullied a reluctant Congress of People's Deputies into submission. Last night, he sent them home to consider their future. This morning he warned them, "If we can't agree on this, the Congress will cease its work." In the end, only 43 voted against handing power to an interim government dominated by the republics. But the now toothless Congress will still exist. Deputies decided to keep their salaries and their travel allowances and Mr. Gorbachev remains President, albeit with diminished powers.

MR. MacNeil: The new Soviet defense minister said today he will hold talks with representatives from all 15 republics about the future of Soviet army troops on their territory. Gen. Yevgeny Shaposhnikov also said the country's nuclear weapons remain under central command. He said they were in safe hands even during last month's coup attempt. China today denied reports it is granting asylum to Soviet defectors. Two Japanese newspapers yesterday said thousands of Soviet Communist Party officials and KGB officers had fled to Northern China. A Chinese foreign ministry official called the reports "groundless." He said he was unaware of any Soviet defections to his country since the coup collapsed. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Six former officials of the Bank of Credit & Commerce International were indicted today. So was a so-called drug kingpin. All were charged with conspiracy to use BCCI to launder $14 million, some of it drug money from former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. Officials shut down BCCI in July amid allegations of criminal activity. A congressional report released today said U.S. officials knew about BCCI's corruption several years ago but did not investigate. Congressman Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, chaired the subcommittee that released that report. He said Congress must now find out why no action was taken.

REP. SCHUMER, [D] New York: Law enforcement and files dating back as far as 1983 had details of BCCI's shenanigans. BCCI was for a long time on the list of usual suspects. Senior officials of the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service, and the U.S. Customs Service had indications as early as 1986, and certainly by 1987 of widespread large scale criminal activity relating to BCCI but didn't act. It may be that this was a result of bureaucratic red tape and/or incompetence, but there's too much information flowing through the law enforcement community early on to make that conclusion without further scrutiny.

MR. LEHRER: In Miami, jury selection began today in the drug trafficking trial of Manuel Noriega. Ninety-six potential jurors have filled out a 27 page questionnaire. Both defense lawyers and prosecutors have expressed concern about finding an impartial 12 member jury. The judge said today he firmly believes it can be done. The trial is expected to last several months.

MR. MacNeil: Israeli officials said today they would go forward with the request for U.S. loan guarantees despite Sec. of State Baker's comments suggesting that request could hurt efforts to convene a Middle East peace conference. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said he saw no justification for linking the two issues. The $10 billion worth of loan guarantees would be used to help resettle a wave of Jewish immigrants to Israel from the Soviet Union. Yesterday Baker said arrangements for the peace conference were at a very delicate stage and the administration needed time to review what impact the loan guarantees might have.

MR. LEHRER: At least three more people died today in the battles in the Yugoslav republic of Croatia. The fighting was between Croatian militia and Serbian rebels aided by the federal army. The European community today said it would cancel Saturday's planned peace conference if all sides did not abide by a cease-fire ordered on Monday. Yet another cease-fire was proclaimed late today. Members of the federal army and Croatian forces signed the agreement, Serbian rebels did not, and it was unclear whether they would abide by it.

MR. MacNeil: The Department of Energy released its latest plan for cleaning up the nation's nuclear weapons plants today. It said costs will grow steadily and could total as much as $40 billion over the next five years. Energy Sec. James Watkins has set a goal of completing the clean-up within 30 years. The operation's director, Leo Duffy, said the Department has made progress in identifying the problems but not enough in finding solutions. The Environmental Protection Agency today announced it had reached an agreement with the producers of the pesticide parathion to ban most of the chemical's uses. Parathion is currently used on about 90 farm crops. It's been blamed for the deaths of at least 72 farm workers between 1965 and 1980. EPA officials said they will continue to seek a total ban on the pesticide.

MR. LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the BCCI indictments, the Clarence Thomas TV ads, a Soviet Congress update, and Zbigniew Brzezinski on what went wrong with Communism. FOCUS - TANGLED WEB

MR. LEHRER: The BCCI indictments are our lead story tonight. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has more on the day's developments. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The Bank of Credit & Commerce International or BCCI was shut down in nations around the world back in July and since then has been at the center of a web of intrigue that includes financial fraud, drug lords, terrorists and dictators. In a series of conversations on BCCI we aired last month, we heard strong criticism of U.S. officials for not acting sooner against the bank. Today a House Judiciary Subcommittee added to that course of criticism in a report that criticized federal agencies of missing many opportunities to act dating back to 1983. But also today one of those agencies, the Justice Department, did act as it announced the indictment of six former BCCI officials in a case arising out of an investigation in Tampa. We hear now about that case and a response to some of the criticism from Attorney Gen. Robert Mueller. Mr. Mueller, who did you indict today and why?

MR. MUELLER: Well, Charlayne, we indicted a number of high level officials from BCCI who were involved in money laundering on behalf of BCCI operating mostly offshore. I might also add, however, that this was not the first indictment that has been returned by the Justice Department or by federal investigators. Indeed, in 1986, we initiated investigations into BCCI's money laundering which led to the conviction of BCCI in January of last year.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. I want to get to that in a minute because there has been some criticism even of that action, but before we do, let's go back to understand what exactly happened today. Now you say these guys you indicted today were operating offshore. Who were they exactly? Because the indictment names BCCI officials and somebody in the Medillin Cartel and somebody who was doing business with Manuel Noriega. Tell me a little bit about, and exactly how the BCCI operation was set up, I gather for the most part in Tampa. How did the money laundering happen?

MR. MUELLER: Well, the principal person indicted today is one Mr. Nakfe who was a vice president, the second principal officer in BCCI, along with other top officers in BCCI. And the scheme that is alleged in the indictment alleges that those narcotics traffickers, some of whom are also indicted, would transport their cash to BCCI, BCCI operatives, who would put it in a bank account in one country and thereafter, that money would be transferred out of the country and the person who wished to launder the funds would receive a loan back of funds comparable in sums to those cash sums that had been provided to BCCI.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: This would be a perfectly legitimate business type fronting perhaps or --

MR. MUELLER: Well, it would have the appearance of being legitimate because there would be loan documents and other supporting documents so that any investigator or regulator who sought to look at what was behind the loan documents would be unable to determine that was narcotics cash money that was behind this loan and BCCI was successful in this because it had branches and operated in many many countries.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: One of which was in Tampa.

MR. MUELLER: Well, one of which was in Tampa. And I think the point should be made also that with regard to BCCI's operation in the United States, thanks to the Federal Reserve, BCCI had a very limited foothold in the United States and to the extent that it was involved in money laundering, it was involved in Florida. And the Justice Department, the Customs Service, the IRS, when we received information relating to its money laundering activities pursued it aggressively, and that led to the conviction not only of BCCI but a number of its officers again in 1988/1989.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What was the connection to the Medillin Cartel and Noriega?

MR. MUELLER: Well, as I'm sure you can understand, I really cannot discuss any of the allegations relating to Mr. Noriega inasmuch as that is in trial in Miami currently.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what about the -- but there was a person named in today's indictment who was connected with the Medillin Cartel.

MR. MUELLER: That's correct; an individual by the name of Macato who was believed to be a principal player in the Medillin Cartel who was a participant not only in the narcotics trafficking but also in the money laundering operations. And what this indictment does today is paint a fuller picture of the interrelationship of the money launderers from BCCI with principal operatives of the Medillin Cartel.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You mentioned the indictments in the Tampa case a few minutes ago and one -- Jack Blum, who was a Senate investigator for Sen. Kerry, told us when we interviewed him that what happened in this case was that the Justice Department cut a deal with the people at the top, said we're not going to pursue Mr. Abedi and Mr. Nakfe and, instead, got the people at the top to give evidence on the people at the bottom so that the people at the top got away. Is this -- why is it that the Justice Department is just now getting to Mr. Nakfe?

MR. MUELLER: I would say that's absolutely untrue. The way one builds a case -- and we after all are prosecutors and we must proceed based on evidence and evidence we haven't had, and our method of pursuing cases is to prosecute and convict those who are lower down in the organization. Once they are convicted, as they were in this case in 1990, we seek their cooperation when they face substantial periods of incarceration. We have done so here, and the result of our successful prior prosecution is seen in the indictment that was unsealed today.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you expect any of these guys to be brought to justice here in the United States? I mean, they're all abroad, are they not?

MR. MUELLER: Well, another aspect of this case is it's the international cooperation that's necessary to successfully proceed in it. Mr. Akbar, one of the defendants in the case, was arrested in Calais, France, the day before yesterday as a result of our cooperation with British authorities and the substantial cooperation we received from Scotland Yard and the serious frauds office in London. And we are seeking other individuals and we hope to have as many of the defendants that were named today back to face justice in the United States as possible as soon as possible.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. You mentioned the other indictments, but you may have heard in our brief news summary byte of Congressman Schumer a few minutes ago who said that there was evidence going back to 1983 and certainly in 1986 there was enough of a pattern there, enough information, for the Justice Department to have acted much sooner and much more definitively. What do you say to that charge that you just, in effect, dragged your feet?

MR. MUELLER: It's very hard I think to quarrel with success. In 1986, we undertook an undercover operation to disclose the money laundering activities of BCCI and that was brought to a successful conclusion. I might add we are the only prosecuting authorities that has been successful in prosecuting and convicting BCCI.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But we also -- excuse me, just on that point, we also interviewed the former head of Customs, Mr. Von Raab, who quibbles with your description of that indictment as a success because those were lower down people and that the 14 million dollar fine that was levied against those people, Mr. Von Raab says, was the government's own money, that, in effect, the bank got away scott free so that that's not the success the Justice Department claims it to be.

MR. MUELLER: Well, I would look at Congressman Schumer's report that he issued today. It is significant in three ways. No. 1, it says that and confirms that the plea agreement entered into with BCCI was absolutely appropriate under the circumstances and was a superb bargain for the government. Secondly, he has found no evidence, as he indicates in his report, of deliberate foot dragging and thirdly, he puts to rest the claims that influence peddlers in some way adversely affected or affected in any way the investigation or prosecution undertaken by the Justice Department and the Treasury Department.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But that bargain also involved the Justice Department's promising that it would not go after the bank. Why did you enter into a bargain like that?

MR. MUELLER: We had prosecuted the bank, convicted the bank in Tampa, No. 1. Secondly, it did not promise that we could not pursue the bank elsewhere and, in fact, there are investigations underway in a number of other United States cities into the activities of the bank in a variety of areas.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You issued this indictment -- the indictment that was announced today two weeks ago on August the 23rd. Was it a coincidence that you revealed that publicly today when Congressman Schumer's report was being issued or what?

MR. MUELLER: Once the indictment was returned, we sought assistance from the authorities in London to apprehend individuals we thought we could locate, arrest and bring before the court of justice in the United States. One of those individuals, Mr. Akbar, was arrested, as I indicated, the day before yesterday in Calais, France, as he sought to escape from Great Britain. His arrest and yesterday the publication of that, the publicity relating to that arrest and the necessity for our presenting papers to the French required it to be unsealed as it happens today. Had we not had an opportunity to arrest Mr. Akbar and others, in the ordinary course we would have unsealed it on the 23rd, but as you can understand, we wished to make certain that we did everything possible with our foreign counterparts to make certain that we did effectuate an arrest. And it just happens that the arrest was effectuated the day before yesterday.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And briefly, to Mr. Schumer's complaint that this was either incompetence or bureaucratic red tape in the -- on the government's part, that they didn't act sooner, you would say what?

MR. MUELLER: I'd say Mr. Schumer looks at it through -- from a politician's eye. We look through it from the perspective of investigators and prosecutors who must take hard evidence, evaluate that hard evidence, and make certain that we have adequate evidence before we proceed with charges. Whenever we have had hard evidence, we have taken it, investigated and successfully utilized it to prosecute BCCI and officers in BCCI.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Next week, Clark Clifford testifies before a congressional committee about his involvement with the secret acquisition of First American Bancshares. Just briefly, what can you tell us on that? I mean, is that where your investigation is going now?

MR. MUELLER: As I'm sure you've been told on a number of occasions by individuals such as myself, we cannot comment on ongoing investigations.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And is there any, just briefly again, any internal investigation in the Justice Department going on that maybe there was undue influence either at least attempted or actually in -- actually effectuated by BCCI in the internal investigations going on in the Justice Department to put that to rest?

MR. MUELLER: Well, I think it's put to rest by Congressman Schumer's report. He said today at the press conference, and he said in his report he has found no evidence that influence peddlers have in any way affected -- have in any way affected Justice's responsibility and role in pursuing these various allegations.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And that's not a concern of yours?

MR. MUELLER: We have cooperated fully with Congressman Schumer. That also he alluded to in his press conference.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right.

MR. MUELLER: And we have cooperated with him and he is the person who has come up with the conclusion that there is no evidence to support those allegations.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Well, Mr. Mueller, thank you for joining us.

MR. MUELLER: A pleasure to be here. Thank you.

MR. MacNeil: Still ahead on the NewsHour, the Clarence Thomas TV ads and Zbigniew Brzezinski on why Communism failed. FOCUS - FAIR OR FOUL?

MR. LEHRER: Next, those hot TV commercials supporting Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Today it was revealed White House Chief of Staff John Sununu asked the conservative sponsors to pull the toughest of those ads. He got a no for an answer. It was the latest development in the flap that features some of the standard liberal versus conservative passions, among other things. We're going to look at the ads and then sample some of those passions.

ANNOUNCER: [TV COMMERCIAL] When President Bush nominated Clarence Thomas, he chose a man who grew up poor in a one room dirt floor shack.

MR. LEHRER: This is the ad produced by two conservative groups that began airing this week in the Washington, D.C. television market.

ANNOUNCER: [TV AD] Who will judge the judge? How many of these liberal Democrats could themselves pass ethical scrutiny -- Ted Kennedy, suspended from Harvard for cheating, left the scene of the accident at Chappaquidick where Mary Jo Kopekne died, and this year Palm Beach -- Joseph Biden, found guilty of plagiarism during his Presidential campaign -- Alan Cranston, implicated in the Keating Five S&L Scandal -- whose values should be on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas's or Ted Kennedy's?

MR. LEHRER: In a written statement, Clarence Thomas said he deplored such viciousness and condemned such advertising in the strongest terms. Yesterday President Bush also spoke out against this ad.

PRES. BUSH: There was one ad that was offensive and it was promptly and quickly condemned. And then to help my view, Clarence Thomas, himself, spoke on that, spoke very clearly on that, so you see these things from time to time that are totally counterproductive on all sides of the political spectrum; that one was not a good ad.

REPORTER: Would you urge them to not run it?

PRES. BUSH: Yeah. I'd urge them to not run it.

MR. LEHRER: A second, less strident advertisement will also begin airing this week in TV markets in the South and on CNN.

ANNOUNCER: [TV AD] Judge Clarence Thomas, endorsed by the U.S. Senate as a fighter for civil rights, nominated to the Supreme Court, but who opposes Clarence Thomas? The liberal special interests and the soft on crime crowd; they call Clarence Thomas not qualified to sit on the Supreme Court just because he won't bow to their liberal litmus tests.

MR. LEHRER: Conservative activists say their adds are warnings to liberals not to politicize the Thomas nomination. Conservatives accuse the liberal group, People for the American Way, of doing exactly that in this commercial opposing the nomination of Robert Bork in 1987.

ANNOUNCER: [TV COMMERCIAL] Robert Bork wants to be a Supreme Court Justice but the record shows that he has a strange idea of what justice is. He defended poll taxes and literacy tests which kept many Americans from voting. He opposed the civil rights law that ended "whites only" signs at lunch counters. He doesn't believe the Constitution protects your right to privacy, and he thinks that freedom of speech does not apply to literature and art and music. Robert Bork could have the last word on your rights as citizens.

MR. LEHRER: Still smarting from Bork's rejection by the Senate, the creators of the pro Thomas commercials said yesterday conservatives were replying in kind.

BRENT BOZELL: This time we're here to say that conservatives aren't going to sit still. This time we're sending a clear message to the Washington establishment that if the left tries it again, if they try that character assassination against Judge Thomas, we're going to take them on personally.

MR. MacNeil: Brent Bozell is with us now. He is executive director of the Conservative Victory Committee, which created the ad attacking the Democratic Senators. Arthur Kropp is also here. He's president of the People for the American Way. Our third guest is Milton Bins, chairman of the Council of 100, a black business leaders group which does endorse the Thomas nomination. First, Mr. Bozell, you said no to Mr. Sununu, right?

MR. BOZELL: That's correct.

MR. LEHRER: Why?

MR. BOZELL: I spoke with the Governor last night and I told him that we would give him an answer today. In the statement that we released, we pointed out that this is a battle that we're going to fight if we have to fight it. In 1987, the White House believed that the Bork nomination was wrapped up. Nobody took seriously the threats of groups like People for the American Way to spend a million dollars to spend a million dollars to destroy Judge Bork. They did exactly that. This time we're not going to sit around. When the left, the same groups that destroyed Judge Bork, announced that they were going to Bork Judge Thomas and that they were going -- and the press reports came out saying that they were going to raise 3 to 5 million dollars to do this, we decided as conservatives, this time we're not sitting still. What I told the governor, what we put out in the statement this morning, was that we're not answering to the White House. The White House has its strategy, I respect its strategy, but we're doing this as conservatives independent. Someone's got to take on the left. The White House doesn't want to do it. We're going to do it.

MR. LEHRER: What do you say to President Bush's comments yesterday that what you are doing is counterproductive and is actually hurting Judge Thomas?

MR. BOZELL: Well, obviously, I disagree that it's hurting him. If I agreed, I wouldn't be doing this. But the President has his role to play. The President has got a strategy to present Judge Thomas in a positive light and he's got to deal with the Senators, he's got to win their votes. We're not playing inside the beltway politics on this one. We are going right to the source. If people like Sen. Kennedy who were so vicious against Judge Bork tries that same level of malice against Judge Thomas, this time he is going to be held accountable.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Bins, your group and you personally support Judge Thomas. What do you think of the Bozell ads?

MR. BINS: Well, Mr. Lehrer, I agree wholeheartedly with Judge Thomas. These ads are not only vicious but they are mean spirited, they are the lowest form of what I call character assassination and do nothing but distract from what ought to be the kind of information being given to the American public at this time about the character, the strength, the integrity, the qualifications, the history of this man who's about to assume a major position in terms of United States policymaking on the Supreme Court. What the American people are starved for is accurate, factual, good, sound information, not this kind of negativism. In fact, what I hear when I go around the country, Mr. Lehrer, is that basically people are saying they are fed up with this. They're asking questions. They're asking questions who is Mr. Thomas. You saw a commercial there where perhaps 90 percent of the time was spent bashing and assassinating the characters of three United States Senators who are going to be sitting in on the Judiciary Committee as a part of the process. Furthermore, this type of advertising does nothing more than continue to pollute the stream of American discourse and American discussion on major public policy issues. There is -- it's time now for us to begin to clean up the pollution particularly before we lose the 1992 election campaign. What I think you see here, Mr. Lehrer is a kind of a preview of what the upcoming election may be about.

MR. LEHRER: What about Mr. Bozell's point that it was the liberals who started this?

MR. BINS: Well, Mr. Lehrer, I can that two wrongs do not make a right in this business. I think those of us in the Republican Party -- and by the way the Council of 100 is a national organization of black Republican Leaders, Mr. Lehrer -- the Republican Party has the responsibility, first of all, we are the party in power as far as the executive branch at this time, and we have access to the President, to that single voice speaking to all of the American people, rather than 535 people in the United States Congress. We have a responsibility to help clean up the air waves and prepare the American people to begin an informed debate about major public policy issues that are going to affect the destiny of this nation in the future.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Bozell, and that's from a man who's on your side.

MR. BOZELL: Well, I respect his right to say what he says. I also wonder where he was in 1987 in the Bork campaign. Having said that, you know, who is going to stand up to the left in this country? I am frankly sick and tired -- this is much more than Judge Thomas. This is much more than Judge Bork. This is a continuation of a policy since 1980 wherein liberal special interest groups and liberal elected officials have attacked the values and the character of one conservative leader after another. It might be Ronald Reagan or Jesse Helms or Elliott Abrams, or William Casey, or Ed Meese, or Judge Bork or Judge Thomas. The line goes on and on and on. And why hasn't anyone stood up? That's another debate altogether. What we are giving the signal out now is if people try character assassination, we're going to fight in kind. And the other thing I want to point out, sir, is you mentioned something about accuracy. I challenge you to find something that's not accurate in these commercials.

MR. BINS: That is not the point. The point is --

MR. BOZELL: I just want to clarify that.

MR. BINS: The point is that you've taken small grains of truth perhaps about each of these Senators -- some of it is completely misleading -- but the way those ads have been cast and particularly related to Senator Kennedy, that case is in process of being dealt with through a legal judicial process. This is no time at this point to be casting unfavorable, unfounded, unproven accusations about any person that was involved in this.

MR. LEHRER: Let's bring Mr. Kropp into this, President of the People for the American Way. How do you respond to Mr. Bozell's basic charge that the only reason he's doing this is because you all started it? With Bork, we saw the 1987 commercial, you heard what he said.

MR. KROPP: First of all, no one in a position of responsibility said that they were going to Bork Clarence Thomas. Second of all no one talked about 3 to 5 million dollars in expenditures for this campaign. That's the figure they've been using to raise money for their television commercial. I believe that our television commercial was responsible. We dealt with Robert Bork's record as he articulated it through his writings, through his speeches, through his decisions. Their commercial did nothing, as Mr. Bins said, to tell us anything about Clarence Thomas and why he should be on the bench. The period between when a nominee is named and the confirmation process should be used to engage the public to raise the issues, to raise the concerns. That was the objective of our television commercial. That's the objective of our activity right now with the Clarence Thomas nomination. A commercial did not defeat Robert Bork. Robert Bork defeated Robert Bork. He failed in an unprecedented number of hours before the Judiciary Committee to convince the Senate that he didn't pose a risk. He failed, in fact, to convince Americans that he wasn't someone to be feared. The game is now going to be in Clarence Thomas's court. He's going to have his moment in the sun. He is going to have to carry the burden of proving that he is someone who should be on the highest court in the land well into the year 2000.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Bozell said that the purpose of this commercial was to send people like you a message, you liberals, that they're going to play rough if you all play rough. Do you intend to play rough? Do you consider you have played rough thus far on Clarence Thomas?

MR. BOZELL: Well, the conservatives always play rough. These are the very same kind of commercials that NICPAC ran when Mr. Bozell was with NICPAC and his co-sponsor ran when he ran the Willie Horton ad, when he was with Americans for Bush, so I know that they always play rough. I think we play fair and we play honestly. We raised issues. We raised concerns. We submitted those to the Judiciary Committee in a very lengthy report. We submitted them to the public. And now it's up to the Senators to ask the questions and for Judge Thomas to answer the questions.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask you another question, Mr. Kropp, and that is that somebody who was on your side was quoted in the paper this morning as saying that they wished Bozell would run these --

MR. KROPP: That was me.

MR. LEHRER: That was you.

MR. KROPP: That's right.

MR. LEHRER: That's who it was -- would run these commercials over and over again because you think they're going to hurt Clarence Thomas --

MR. KROPP: Not because they're going to hurt Clarence Thomas. It's Mr. Bin's point that Americans will reject them as sleazy politics because this is the very kind of thing that is turning Americans off.

MR. BINS: Mr. Lehrer, I think they're going to hurt Clarence Thomas, and I speak from the point of view of a person who works for an organization and represents the Council of 100. As a group of black Republicans in this country, we are not so sure that all aspects, all dimensions even within our own party, want to ensure the confirmation of Clarence Thomas. We have what we consider some healthy suspicions about various voices that are now being raised out there in the country, surrounding this candidate, this nominee for the Supreme Court, and anything that distracts the American public from what they ought to be focusing on and puts the Senate in a posture where the Senators are being presented with intimidating information and you're trying to intimidate United States Senators clearly --

MR. LEHRER: Is that what you're trying to do, Mr. Bozell?

MR. BOZELL: We -- let's -- if we want to, we can debate this all night long or --

MR. LEHRER: No, we can't, just for a few more minutes.

MR. BOZELL: We can do something else. Yesterday afternoon we issued a challenge to Mr. Kropp's organization, to the National Organization of Women, and by the way I'm glad you dismiss it, because it was Patricia Ireland of NOW who said that you were going to Bork Thomas, so if you don't consider her relevant, that's very good to hear. We sent the challenge also to NOW, all the left wing groups that went after Judge Bork. We said we will pull back, we will cancel everything that we have on the books if you agree to do the same thing. I think that's fair. I think if all of us pull out of the system, let them debate fairly under the consent, the advice and consent rules in the Senate, let them handle it, that would be the proper solution. Isn't it faster --

MR. LEHRER: You mean just television ads or --

MR. BOZELL: I'm saying all activities, all activities, all of us pull out. That's the challenge that we're --

MR. LEHRER: Let's ask what has Mr. Kropp said to that.

MR. KROPP: I said it's a publicity stunt just like the commercial was.

MR. BOZELL: You said no deal.

MR. KROPP: And we act responsibly. I said no deal. We act responsibly.

MR. BOZELL: And Ron Brown --

MR. KROPP: The American public have a stake in this.

MR. BOZELL: -- of the DNC said no deal and Patricia Ireland said no dice, and as long as they're taking that attitude where it's no deal as far as we're concerned, they're going to have to deal with us.

MR. BINS: Mr. Lehrer, look at this. We have here a clear example of the right and the left. Where's the American center? Where is the great center of this country and when is it going to stand up and demand both from the left and the right that we want to hear information that will allow us to make informed opinions, and make informed judgments and inform our Senators that they deserve that.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask Mr. Bozell a simple strategy question. Everything that I have read in the newspapers and elsewhere, in the news magazines and elsewhere, is that the deal is -- that Clarence Thomas is going to be confirmed probably by a large margin in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and then on the Senate. Do you have other information that caused you to come up with this ad?

MR. BOZELL: No. I'm cautiously optimistic. On the other hand, at this very same time in 1987, we were very optimistic about Judge Bork. You need 50 votes. I don't count 'em. I count maybe 40 and I've asked around, where are the 50 votes? Interestingly enough, a report was issued today, it was in the Washington Post, which looked at media coverage and it showed that the media coverage of Thomas, that this point is much much tougher than it was against Judge Bork. I don't think this is going to be a cake walk. It's going to be somewhere between Bork and Souter. I don't know where it's going to fall.

MR. LEHRER: What do you see -- and I want to ask Mr. Kropp the same question -- what do you see as the connection between your TV ads and any kind of publicity in how the Senators vote? Do you think that your TV ads can actually change a Senator's vote?

MR. BOZELL: I think that if a Senator tries to do it -- one very quick quote from Ted Kennedy in 1987 -- "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, robed police could break down citizens' doors in midnight rains. Schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution. Writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government." If any Senator tries that kind of vicious black balling of Judge Thomas, he's going to know that this time we're going to be responding to him.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Kropp, my question -- what do you see as a connection between the ads you ran in 1987, the ads Mr. Bozell is running this year on the other side and actually how the Senators vote?

MR. KROPP: Responsible ads shed light on the issues pertinent to in our case Robert Bork's nomination. These ads that they ran I don't think are responsible. They told us nothing about -- anything about Clarence Thomas -- they dwelled on three individuals who will never be on the Supreme Court, who don't even have a position on this nominee and who are only exercising their constitutional responsibility of advice and consent. They're duty bound to do that.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Bins, your position is that this could, in fact, cause some Senators to vote against Thomas who might not otherwise?

MR. BINS: That it is going to create a climate and Mr. Lehrer, we have to keep in mind this is a black America who's being shepherded through this process by Sen. Danforth, and we can never forget --

MR. LEHRER: The Republican Senator from Missouri.

MR. BINS: The Republican Senator from Missouri who is one of the most decent and respectable men in the United States Senate. And I know firsthand that this type of ad does nothing to inform a major segment of the American population, primarily African- Americans out there, who are starved for information, who are being led by persons who are making decisions about Judge Thomas and, in fact, being led in a way which is in opposition to how they feel. More than 58 percent of the black Americans support Judge Thomas. But we have the leadership from one organization after another voting against the man, voting against the very interests of the people they are supposed to be representing. We need to be getting -- we need to be getting accurate information out to these communities and the African-American community is an important part of the public.

MR. LEHRER: Gentlemen, I hear you all three, thank you very much. SERIES - THE LIGHT THAT FAILED

MR. MacNeil: On the day that historians may well record the old Soviet Union ended a new union began taking shape. We begin a series of occasional conversations on the question of why Communism failed. Our conversations will include those who fought Communism and those who've been sympathetic to the ideology. We begin with a report from Moscow on the Soviet Congress. The vote it took today may indeed turn out to be what one of its deputies described as the most important event in centuries of Russian history. The Correspondent is Nik Gowing of Independent Television News.

MR. GOWING: A handful of hardline Communist supporters tried a last minute lobby of deputies leaving their hotel. They warned of dictatorship ahead, but events had already overtaken them. As the 2000 deputies assembled inside the Kremlin, the framework of the new Soviet Union was a fait de complit. Last minute lobbying and phone contacts were pointless. Overnight, the framework had been stitched up behind closed doors by President Gorbachev and the 10 republican leaders. At times, procedures in the Congress were reminiscent of rubber stamping in the pre-perestroika days. President Gorbachev imposed a notional time limit to discuss each of the seven clauses. But many of the deputies, especially those with Communist credentials, sat passively, apparently numbed by the business of voting to abolish both themselves and the union they were elected to preserve. President Gorbachev's approach was uncompromising. With Boris Yeltsin silent at his side, Gorbachev was at his most assertive, confident, and some might say bossy since before the coup. "I won't yield the microphone to anyone," said Gorbachev. "You've had three or four days to discuss this. We must move on." By lunchtime, the new agreement was rammed through by an overwhelming majority. After several months to negotiate a peaceful transition, there will be a new union which newly independent and sovereign states will opt to join, a union with new economic and cooperation agreements and at least a centralized defense and nuclear policy, but still uncertainty as to whether the new union will eventually be a union, federation or confederation.

MR. GOWING: What kind of union is it now? What kind of union is it?

YEVGENY VELIKHOV, Supreme Soviet Deputy: Good union.

MR. GOWING: Is it a confederation now?

MR. VELIKHOV: If you want -- I think some sort of confederation, more or less, but with some elements of the -- it's not easy to say.

MR. GOWING: Predictably, a handful were uneasy, but there was clear relief that 15 days after a national catastrophe was averted, a consensus had been found.

ALEXANDER VLADISLAVLEV, Supreme Soviet International Affairs Committee: It's absolutely new chapter in the history of Russia. I suppose this event is the most important event in the history of that great country for centuries.

YURI SHERBAK, Ukrainian Minister: [Speaking through Interpreter] I think this agreement is the ultimate compromise. We are very glad to reach it though all the radical forces in the Ukraine will criticize it. In the situation, it was the best we could do.

MR. GOWING: Now the transitional council must decide whether this is the moment to push for the most radical economic reforms.

ALEXANDER MESHERTSKY, Russian Deputy: After the coup, the situation has changed drastically and now the interim committee on economic reform will take drastic measures to introduce at last radical reforms.

MR. GOWING: In its seven brief clauses this new law sets out the sweeping principles for the new union. But in the flimsiness of this document and the brevity of the agreement lie the problems ahead. Many key issues and details have not been addressed here, let alone resolved. And therein lie the anxieties and potential points of conflict in the winter months ahead.

HEINRICH BOROVIK, Supreme Soviet International Affairs Committee: It may lead to anything but this is now, may be the only way -- at least nobody suggested, including me, nobody suggested any other way to do this, except let me just to say this is a constitution, we have the union, and that's it, and if we don't obey these, send the troops, it doesn't work.

SERGEI STANKIEVICH, Russian Deputy: We only proceed -- we can only proceed now from one type of province to another type of province and unfortunately, it is our destiny for the foreseeable future.

MR. GOWING: And there remain doubts about the effect today's agreement will have on the nationalist issue.

VITALY KOROTICH, Russian Deputy: First of all, a lot of people in republics are now idealistic. They want to have independence, but they don't know really what independence means. And the republics want to take all their power from Gorbachev. In the same time, they really don't know what political power means.

MR. GOWING: Most conservatives who've been eclipsed just faded away today. A handful though raised once again the specter of a threat to democracy. Tonight as the Congress of People's Deputies disbanded itself, there remained uncertainties about the transitional structures to replace it and the permanent democratic framework which will emerge when the new union is finalized.

MR. MacNeil: We turn now to Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was national security adviser during the Carter administration and is currently a counselor at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. He's the author of many books about foreign policy, the latest being "The Grand Failure, the Birth and Death of Communism in the 20th Century." Dr. Brzezinski, welcome.

DR. BRZEZINSKI: It's nice to be with you.

MR. MacNeil: We heard one deputy say just then that what happened today, this event, was the most significant in hundreds of years of Russian history. What do you make of the day they apparently undid the Soviet Union?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Well, there is something to what he said because I assumed what he had in mind was the fact that this decision in many respects means the end of the Russian empire in addition to the end of the Soviet Union. The Russian empire came into being hundreds of years ago and, in effect, what the legislators today approved is the dissolution of that empire, the non-Russian nations have come into life. They have reached political maturity. And most Americans I don't think fully realize that one-half of the population of the Soviet Union represents non-Russian nations. And this is now the new reality.

MR. MacNeil: Let's turn not to the Russian empire but look back at the Soviet empire for a time. Your book title turned out to be very prescient. Why did Communism fail?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: That's a very, very good question and there are many reasons for it, but I would point to the following three or four as perhaps the most important. One, I think there was a fundamental misunderstanding inherent in Communism orMarxism of the nature of the human being. It underestimated the importance of the connection between creativity and acquisition of goods, in other words, a drive against property and trying to deprive people of their own property produced lethargy, passivity. It also underestimated the human being's need for something spiritual, its emphasis on atheism, deprived people of some transcendental believe. So one, psychology; two, I think Marxism misunderstood the nature of modern economics. It really was, after all, born in the 19th century in the early phases of the industrial revolution. It couldn't assimilate the need for complex integration but also a great deal of de-centralization inherent in the post-industrial society of mass communications and so forth. Thirdly, it underestimated the importance of nationalism, nationalism as a way for people to identify themselves in terms of larger collectivities, and, therefore, much of the resistance to Communism was also rooted in nationalism. And then finally I would place high on the list the historical accident of the connection between Communism and Russian despotism, the fact that the first Communist society in 1917 was planted on Russian soil with a strong autocratic tradition which was then reflected in Leninism and particularly in murderous Stalinism, all of which discredited Communism and ultimately led to what I call the grand failure.

MR. MacNeil: If it misunderstood human nature, it also appealed to another aspect of human nature, did it not, while it denied them the transcendental kind of idealism, it also appealed to a different kind of idealism, for instance, which early Christianity tried to perform or to live to, the sharing of goods, the working for the common good, and so on. If -- if Marxism-Leninism had been applied benignly and without the despotism, without the terror that Stalin brought, might it have had a chance?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Yes. And, in effect, it has had a chance, because that is what social democracy's about. But it was pushing the idealism to an extreme and translating it into institutionalized coercive utopia, if you will, that produced the aberrations that we saw in the Soviet Union. It was, in fact, in my judgment, the strange linkage between idealism pushed in extreme and alleged Russianality pushed to irrational extremes the notion that you could build a perfect society according to a blueprint and in the process you were then justified to eliminate anyone from society who disagreed with you. I think all of that produced the tragedy and the crimes and ultimately the failure that we have seen.

MR. MacNeil: Since democratic socialism and Marxism shared some common tenets, at least early in the development of both, does the collapse of the Communist version discredit socialism, or does it give a fresh, give it a fresh legitimacy now that the taint with Communism is going to be removed?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: I think it emphasizes the importance of the connection between socialism and democracy which is, yes, socialism in the sense of some emphasis on the welfare, on minimum standards of well being, some collective responses to injustices, but in a setting of free choice, of democratic alternatives, and therefore also of the acceptance of the notion that a society ultimately to some extent has to be imperfect because imperfection is inherent in the human condition. If we eliminate the Manichean, the utopian elements in Communism, we have social democracy and that I think is a viable alternative.

MR. MacNeil: Is it likely to make socialism any more respectable in the United States, where it has never had -- it's -- at least after the 19th century grown very strong roots?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: I would think not in the short run because in the short run, inevitably, the failures of Communism rub off negatively against even social democracy. In the longer run, I do suspect that we also come to realize that the failure of Communism doesn't mean sanctifying the notion of capitalism, pure and simple, that social responsibility, that concern for the poor, that joint collective, democratic action by society to alleviate injustice and inequality has some justification.

MR. MacNeil: When you look around the world, can you say that for all the terror and the perversions of practice in his name that Carl Marx has done humanity some positive service?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Well, that's very hard to answer without running the risk of being misquoted and distorted. I do think that in some respects Marx in a limited sense, but in a significant respect, focused attention on the need of modern society to address the problems of inequality, of poverty, of exploitation, of the unfair distribution of wealth. And in that sense, it was a positive contribution, but it wasn't his alone. But then his followers pushed it to the extremes that you and I have just talked about.

MR. MacNeil: Go back to the discussion of idealism a moment ago. If Communism suppressed, as you said, the acquisitive, competitive side of human nature and the incentives that those things carry with it, is it going to leave, and particularly among the older people of the Soviet Union, some legacy of unfulfilled idealism? After all, many of them, millions of them made enormous sacrifices in the name of this, of this ideal. What is it going to leave emotionally in the Soviet Union do you think?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Oh, I think you have raised a very substantively important issue. I think there's going to be initially a great deal of emptiness, of feeling of purposelessness, then frustration, and then I suspect intense flights perhaps towards contradictory directions. Some might take refuge in intense religiosity. Some might turn to intense nationalism translated dangerously into chauvinism. I think there is going to be a quest for some new way of defining life's meaning beyond one's self. For that role was played for many, particularly for the two believers, by Communism, particularly during its earlier phases when people really believed in it. I think we have to take into account in the latter phases of Communism in the Soviet Union most of it was really translated into hypocrisy and mendacity and this was one of its weaknesses.

MR. MacNeil: Because even in Stalin's time some of the people who were executed by Stalin went to their deaths believing they were dying for something important, even though it had been perverted. Is that not true?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: That is true, but they were the true believers and they tried to endow their deaths with some meaning by convincing themselves that even though they're dying unfairly, their deaths had some utility for this ideal to which they were committed. But that in turn I think is a legacy of the 19th century. The 19th century was a century in which humanity was dominated particularly in terms of its forefront, West Europe spreading then to Russia, by the twin notions of commitment to idealism and simultaneously to utopianism. And the Russian Communists when they're building Communism in Russia, were trying to fuse the two, and that fusion then became perversion.

MR. MacNeil: Do you see some new ideology coming along to replace Marxism-Leninism?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Not in the short run. I think that one of the characteristics of our age now is going to be a great deal of skepticism about anything that could be defined as an ideology, that is to say comprehensive blueprint for society based on some dramatic philosophical assumptions regarding human nature and the purpose of life. There may be, however, and I suspect that, in fact, there will be, great return towards some search for spiritual values, some form of modern religiosity, some attempt to endow our lives with a mission beyond ourselves.

MR. MacNeil: Did Communism -- did we defeat Communism, or did Communism defeat itself, I mean, we meaning all its opponents?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Oh, I think we can, at the risk of being immodest, take some claim for what happened, but in a limited sense. I think what defeated Communism was essentially two things. One, we did prevent its spread by force. And that was very important, containment, and you had George Kennan here on the show not long ago, and that was important. But secondly, the fact that modern democracies more or less worked well in significant portions of the world while Communism was stagnating, increasingly failing, and eventually imploding contributed to the fate of Communism, the fact that some alternative model was really preferable and increasingly knew about it.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Dr. Brzezinski, thank you very much for joining us.

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Nice to be with you. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again the major stories of this Thursday, the Soviet Congress passed President Gorbachev's plan to shift power from the Kremlin to the republics, they also approved a resolution honoring the republics' declarations of independence and sovereignty. And in Tampa, Florida, six former officials of the Bank of Credit & Commerce International and the alleged leader of a Colombian drug cartel were indicted on charges of laundering drug money. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night with a look at the deep split in the black community that's been brought to light by the Clarence Thomas nomination. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.