The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MS. WOODRUFF: Good evening. I'm Judy Woodruff in Washington.

MR. LEHRER: And I'm Jim Lehrer in New York. After our summary of the news this Thursday, we have a Newsmaker interview with another potential candidate for President, H. Ross Perot, Kwame Holman reports on AIDS among blacks and other minorities, policy analyst Richard Barnet continues our conversation series on defense, and essayist Roger Rosenblatt speaks some words about a man of words, Walt Whitman. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Mike Tyson was sentenced to six years in prison today for raping an 18-year-old beauty pageant contestant. The former heavyweight boxing champion was convicted of the crime in Indianapolis in February. A judge there did the sentencing this morning. Tyson today again denied that he raped the woman while attending the Miss Black America pageant last July. He told the court, "I didn't hurt anybody, no black eyes, no broken ribs." But the judge told him, "Something needs to be done about the attitude you displayed here." In addition to six years in prison, Tyson was ordered to serve four years' probation and pay a $30,000 fine. His request for bail was denied and he was taken straight to jail. His lawyers said they would appeal. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Rockwell International Corporation today agreed to plead guilty to 10 criminal violations of hazardous waste and water pollution laws and pay a fine of $18 1/2 million. The charges stem from Rockwell's operation of the government-owned Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, which is 15 miles Northwest of Denver. It ran the plant from 1975 to 1989 under a Federal Department of Energy contract. Rockwell was charged with releasing pollutants into streams and burning hazardous waste among other things. Today's plea bargain deal is subject to final approval by a federal district court judge in Denver. If it is approved, it will be the second largest fine ever levied for environmental crimes.

MR. LEHRER: The National Guard and the Reserves got hit today by the budget. Defense Sec. Cheney announced 140,000 jobs would be eliminated this year and next, and a total of 234,000 by 1997. He said $20 billion would be saved. Joint Chiefs Chairman General Colin Powell explained the thinking behind those cuts.

GEN. COLIN POWELL, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff: I used to command the army reserve in my force combatants and monitor the Army National Guard. I'd like to keep every single one of them. But I can't make that case. The geo-strategic situation has changed in the world and the fiscal situation has changed in the world. But what we must resist is unbalancing the force by protecting capability that legitimately no longer has a proper place in the national military strategy. We're going to try to do everything we can not to break faith with the people we have contracts with, but it may be necessary.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman "Sonny" Montgomery, Democrat of Mississippi, criticized the cuts. He's a member of the House Armed Services Committee and a longtime supporter of the National Guard and Reserves. He spoke at a Capitol Hill news conference.

REP. G.V. "SONNY" MONTGOMERY, [D] Mississippi: A local armory of 150 persons has a payroll of about $2 million a year. And as we are in this recession by closing over 800 armories around the country. You're certainly not helping us get out of the recession. These armories are the community center and these armories are really the best support that the active forces have. These young men and women who wear the uniform in the National Guard Reserve in these small communities are very proud of their uniform and when the Defense Department close these armories, they lose that support.

MR. LEHRER: We'll have another of our conversations about the U.S. post cold war defense later in the program. The nation's economy grew at a .4 percent annual rate in the final three months of last year. The report today from the Commerce Department was a sharp downward revision of an earlier estimate. Also today the Labor Department reported nearly 450,000 people filed new claims for jobless benefits during the second week of March. That was up 15,000 from the previous week.

MS. WOODRUFF: America's annual science education report card was issued today. It came from the Department of Education and it said U.S. schools are not doing a very good job of teaching science courses. The report surveyed 20,000 students in the fourth, eighth, and twelfth grades during the winter and spring of 1990. Education Sec. Lamar Alexander said the situation requires a change of emphasis.

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Secretary of Education: Children love science. And when we put a priority on it, and make a commitment to it, and make it interesting, they will learn science. It's almost that simple. I think that's what comes out of this report. We have begun to put more of a priority on math and reading and we have begun to see results. We do not have a priority on science in this country and, therefore, we will not be able to reach our fourth national education goal that we would be first in the world in math and science unless we do.

MS. WOODRUFF: The federal government launched a new advertising campaign to promote AIDS awareness today. Health Secretary Dr. Louis Sullivan said too many Americans believe they are not at risk even though they engage in risky sexual behavior or drug use. He said the campaign is aimed at women, young people and those who live outside major cities. The program was criticized by AIDS advocacy groups who said the ad should be more explicit about behaviors that cause AIDS and those that prevent it. A bipartisan federal panel reported today that the U.S. ranks behind 21 other nations in the percentage of its children who died before their first birthday. The Commission also found this nation lagging in childhood immunization programs. Japan ranked best in the world in infant mortality, with less than half the U.S. rate. President Bush had his annual physical today at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center outside Washington. Afterwards, the President's physician, Dr. Burton Lee, said Mr. Bush was in perfect health. Lee said a 1990 diagnosis of early Glaucoma had turned out to be a mistake. Late today White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the President had four small non-cancerous growths removed from his face during the exam.

MR. LEHRER: Libya went to court today to keep from having to turn over two suspects in the Pan Am 103 bombing. The court was the world court in The Hague, Netherlands. We have a report from Geoffrey Archer of Independent Television News.

MR. ARCHER: Libya's appeal to the International Court of Justice in the Lockerbie affair is an attempt to upset the United Nations legal branch, the court, against its political wing, the Security Council. Fifteen judges were on the bench, including a Briton, an American, and an Egyptian. Today's court president was Japanese. Libya wants the court to rule that under the Montreal Convention it should be allowed to try the two men accused of the Lockerbie bombing. It wants the court to order Britain and America to stop pressuring Libya to hand over the two men.

MOHAMED AL-FAITOURI, Libyan Representative: [Speaking through Interpreter] If the conduct of the United Kingdom and the United States were to be endorsed by the court, a dangerous situation would arise not only for the third world but for all states, large or small.

MR. ARCHER: While the court here in The Hague listens to legal arguments, in New York today, the U.N. Security Council is debating a resolution to impose sanctions on Libya for failing to hand over the two men. British and American officials say Colonel Gadhafi's playing for time, using every ploy he can to avoid handing over the men. It's said he fears they could reveal much about his support for terrorist organizations. The World Court has never before been asked to rule against a Security Council resolution. An interim recommendation could be made within a week or two, but by then, U.N. sanctions against Libya could well be in place.

MR. LEHRER: The Security Council is expected to approve those sanctions tomorrow or early next week.

MS. WOODRUFF: A bill was introduced in Congress today to authorize the release of CIA and FBI documents related to the assassination of President John Kennedy. The proposal calls for a citizen review board to decide which of the hundreds of thousands of pages of information should be released and which should be kept secret. President Bush would have veto power over the board's decisions. The bill was introduced in the House by Congressman Louis Stokes, Democrat from Ohio, who chaired the House Assassinations Committee in the late 1970s. The Senate sponsor is David Boren, Democrat from Oklahoma, and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

SEN. DAVID BOREN, Chairman, Intelligence Committee: I think it's time to clear the air and this resolution does just that. None of us know what will be found in these files. None of knows the answers to the questions that will come from the reading and studying of these files. I have no reason to believe that the files contained in the information indicate any kind of a comprehensive participation by the government of the United States in any illegal activity. But I think it is very, very important that we have them open to the people.

MS. WOODRUFF: Former Democratic Presidential candidate Tom Harkin endorsed Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton today. Just weeks after Harkin singled out Clinton for attack on his labor and environmental records, among other areas, the Iowa Senator announced that he would not only campaign for Clinton, he would also seek support for him from organized labor. Harkin said he believed Clinton would be the best Democratic candidate to go up against George Bush. That's it for the News Summary. Now it's on to a Newsmaker interview with Ross Perot, a Kwame Holman report on AIDS in the minority community, another in our series of conversations on defending the U.S. in the post cold war world and an essay about Walt Whitman. NEWSMAKER - '92 ELECTION

MR. LEHRER: H. Ross Perot is first tonight. The Texas billionaire has been in the public and media spotlight since he said on a talk show last month that, yes, if the people wanted him to, he would run for President of the United States. He said calling. There are now 100 lines for incoming calls in Dallas, where he joins us tonight. Mr. Perot, welcome.

MR. PEROT: How are you?

MR. LEHRER: Fine. How do you enjoy -- first of all, how do you enjoy being referred to as "the Texas billionaire" all the time?

MR. PEROT: I'm stuck with that and I'm stuck with being H. Ross Perot. I never called myself H. Ross Perot once in my life, but no point in talking about it, I guess, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: But if you had to describe yourself after your name Ross Perot, what would you put in there, what three or four words would you used besides "Texas billionaire?"

MR. PEROT: I would just call myself a Texas businessman.

MR. LEHRER: I see.

MR. PEROT: But I won't have that opportunity, so I don't worry about it.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. Where are you tonight on deciding whether you're going to run for President?

MR. PEROT: It's where it was when we started. It's in the hands of the people. Thousands of people were writing me, asking me to run. I kept saying no. Finally, I said in one minute on television if all these good people want to get out in the field, get the petition signed, put me on the ballot as an independent, I will run as their servant and I won't belong to anybody but them. And then I said to Larry King, but, Larry, that won't happen, because it's too complicated. Well, the rest is history. People are in the field in all 50 states. Yesterday the phone calls coming in peaked at 90,000 an hour. And at one time yesterday, we had 18,000 in one minute. So it has very little to do with me, Jim. It has everything to do with concern on the part of everyday people in grassroots America about where our country is and where it's going.

MR. LEHRER: As a practical matter, can you get your name on the ballot in all 50 states by November?

MR. PEROT: Yes, it can be done. It's a question of whether or not the people want to do it.

MR. LEHRER: Well, do you want them to do it? Do you want them to want you to do it?

MR. PEROT: I told them if they did it, I would run as their servant. I am not personally driven to run. If they want me to run, as good as this country's been to me, and as concerned as I am personally about the country my children and our children and our grandchildren will live in, then I can't turn them down when they look me in the eye and say, Perot, you mean you're so soft you won't give a few years to work on these problems. If they want me to do it, I'll do it as their servant. If they don't want me to do it, I'm glad to just be a Texas businessman.

MR. LEHRER: Republican Senator Warren Rudman was on this program last night explaining why he was not going to run again for the Senate. And afterward we got a lot of calls from people suggesting that he run as your running mate, a Perot-Rudman ticket. Does that make any sense to you?

MR. PEROT: I would find him -- I find him -- I do find him to be a man of action. I find him to be a man of principle. So I'm a great fan of his. I hate to see him leave. Let's assume lightning struck and I wound up in the job, which is still the longest of long shots. It would be tough for him to get out of town. I'll tell you that, because you need people like that to fix the problems we're faced with.

MR. LEHRER: Well, don't you have to pick somebody to run as your running mate fairly soon?

MR. PEROT: I do.

MR. LEHRER: Are you close to doing it?

MR. PEROT: I am close. I need to do it as soon as possible because in a few states the people are all steamed up to get a petition signed and can't do it unless the Vice Presidential candidate's name is on the petition. Now, you can have a stand-in, but I'd just rather do it once, do it right, and be done.

MR. LEHRER: When are you going to do it?

MR. PEROT: As soon as I can. Very shortly, I hope.

MR. LEHRER: Shortly meaning a matter of a few days?

MR. PEROT: A few days, a few days.

MR. LEHRER: A few days. By the weekend, the first of next week?

MR. PEROT: Just as soon as I can. I'd like to have done it today?

MR. LEHRER: Going to be somebody we know?

MR. PEROT: Well, I'm not going to get into details. I'm not going to go down that kind of checklist with you, Jim. But I will make it clear as soon as I can, get the name on the petitions, and we'll be off to the races. I promise you this. It'll be someone who is fully qualified to step in in the event that I hit a tree. I will not pick an empty suit to go to funerals and play golf. So this will be a really world class person.

MR. LEHRER: Would you be a better President than George Bush is?

MR. PEROT: I don't like to compare myself to the other candidates. I think that's self-serving and I'd just really rather not do it. It's a fair question but I'm unconventional. I'm not like everybody else that's running. So I'm getting too old to change. I don't want to -- I'll leave that up to the American people.

MR. LEHRER: So you'd give me the same answer if I asked you about Bill Clinton?

MR. PEROT: I'll leave it up to the American people. They own the country. Let them pick the candidate.

MR. LEHRER: What about Jerry Brown, do you think you'd be a better President than Jerry Brown?

MR. PEROT: Same thing.

MR. LEHRER: Do you have a plan for bringing health insurance coverage to the 37 million Americans that don't have any?

MR. PEROT: We need to take a look at many of our programs, including health insurance. But I suggest we start at the top. Our basic problem is we take in a trillion dollars a year. We spend a trillion four. So we're going $400 billion into debt this year. That's like bleeding arterially. And we have a $4 trillion debt already. All of these wonderful things we'd like to do for our own people and for the rest of the world we can only do if we're financially strong. The highest priority is to stop the shrinking of the job base, because that is the tax base, stabilize the job base, turn it around, and have a growing dynamic job base so that we can pay all these bills that prior administrations have run up. Look, Jim, we're $4 trillion in debt. We ought to be utopia. And yet, when you look at the facts, public schools at the bottom of the industrialized world, the most violent crime-ridden society in the industrialized world, 5 percent of the world's population 50 percent of the cocaine use, you can make the rest of the list. We bought a front row seat to the Super Bowl and we didn't even get to see -- but that's over, don't whine about it. We're stuck with it. We did it to ourselves. We've got to stabilize that, then work our way down to these programs. You can't do these things if you don't have the money.

MR. LEHRER: All right now, are you saying that if you run for President of the United States and the people vote for you, that you will do what, you will fix the economy, you will do away with unemployment, you will, that you will balance the budget, you will do away with the debt?

MR. PEROT: I'll do what I just said. You'll have a lot of things going on in parallel, but the arterial bleeding has to do with the economy and the deficits and the debt. Few Americans know that 68 percent of the $4 trillion is due and payable in the next five years. We'd better get down on our knees and pray every night that Japanese, the Germans and the Arabs keep buying our T-bills. They're not going to do that if they question our credit ratings. So these money matters are fundamental. You can't be a super power if you're broke. If you question it,look at Russia. Let's take health care. I'm going to come back to your question now. We spend more on health care than anyone else. We don't have the finest health care system in the world. You just showed we're 21st in infant mortality, we're 16th in life expectancy. I'd stay step one -- and you can start that the day you go into office -- is bring the finest people together, study the health care systems in the world that seem to do the best job, come up with two or three pilot plans to give us the finest health care in the world. Now, one thing I do intend to do that I haven't mentioned to you is I intend to have the town hall re-established. And we will use television. It will be an electronic town hall. We will be discussing each of these issues in great depth so that the owners of the country, the people, understand them, will have a means for them to respond by congressional district. Congress will know, the White House will know. Now, we've got Congressional and White House gridlock now. If we ever put the people back in charge of this country and make sure they understand the issues, you'll see the White House and Congress like a ballet time pirouetting around the stage getting it done in unison.

MR. LEHRER: Rudman said that the public has got to share as much the blame as the Congress and the White House, that they're all interested in special interests, when you come to specific issues, he said, like capping entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, which has to be done, in his opinion, there are so many loud screams and hollers that it never gets done. And he said you can go through the issues and each one of them has a special interest behind interest behind him that keeps action from happening.

MR. PEROT: He's right. The first thing we all have to do as citizens and part owners of this country is say, who's at fault here? And my advice is, go home and look in the mirror; we're all at fault. So we've got to change that. There's a wonderful phenomena going on here around all of these special interests though. And I think there can be some good balancing out of that, specifically on the entitlements and so on and so forth. We now have a new huge groundswell coming up of the eighteen to forty year olds who are mad as the devil and are not going to take it anymore, because we're spending their money. Now, interestingly enough, if they ever get organized like some of these other groups, they have a secret weapon, Jim. They've got the most interesting secret weapon in the world. Some of the people who created this problem, by and large, are their parents. They will sit down with mom, dad, grandmother and granddad and on a private basis get a lot of this straightened out, because no mother and father can look their children in the eye and say, sure, we're taking your money and we're proud of it. That's democracy at work. But you can't sit on the sidelines. You've got to get in the ring, you meaning every one of us.

MR. LEHRER: There are a lot of issues that will face a President of the United States that don't have anything to do with economics, at least directly, for instance, the growing racial tension in this country. What would you do as President of the United States about that problem?

MR. PEROT: We would talk about it a great deal. We would spend a lot of time on the town hall about that. We would talk about the fact that divided teams lose and that there's only so much energy in this country and if we waste it hating one another, we're going to lose. The theme would be we're a melting pot. That's always been a strength. Let's turn it back into a strength. Now, Step 1 -- I have three steps I break this into -- No. 1, we ought to love one another; that takes care of most of us. Then for those who can't quite reach that, let's get along with one another so that we can team up and win. And now then for the hard core haters, my advice to you is, we're stuck with one another. Nobody's leaving. Nobody's going back home. We're all here. So get at least up into category two. We've got to really take this one head on or we'll never get into first place in economic competition. And that will affect our standard of living, all of our standards of living.

MR. LEHRER: When you think about being a candidate for President, are you concerned at all about the personal heat and scrutiny that you will get?

MR. PEROT: It's just part of the process. I consider part of it is really off the screen now. I think the tabloids are starting to look more and more respectable because of the way we tear at our public officials' lives. I have thought that through. And, again, where I have to come out, when you look at where I started in this life and when you look at where I am now, and as lucky as I've been, I have an obligation if the people want me to do this and that includes all of the stuff that goes with it.

MR. LEHRER: You have said that you will finance your campaign out of your own funds, is that right?

MR. PEROT: Basically, yes, because the reason an independent cannot succeed in his campaign is he cannot raise the money. I am in a unique position. I've asked -- now, once we get the petitions signed, I will ask every person supporting me to put a small amount of money in the game just so he has some skin in the game. But the core of the financial support I can do and I will do. And, again, that's my contribution to our children and grandchildren.

MR. LEHRER: But aren't you concerned that people might say if you won, that Ross Perot went out and bought the Presidency?

MR. PEROT: Compared to whom? I bought it for the people. If you want to say that, I will wear that as a badge of honor. But nobody bought me. Nobody got me in a dark room and made me sell my soul to the devil and all the things that you know are a part of the process. And it's an ugly process. And it ought to be changed, but that's another conversation. But with the process the way it is today, if I do it, it'll be done openly. I certainly would expect everybody to throw every stray rock they can find at it. See, in our country, we love to talk about anything but the real issues, so you're into all that, but in the final analysis, it's straight up, and that's what I had to do in order to run as an independent to serve the people. If the people don't want me to do that, they won't get the petition signed, and I can go back to a normal life here in Texas.

MR. LEHRER: What do you say to the skeptics who -- I mean, everybody wants to be drafted, everybody wants the public, the people to ask them to run for President. It's never really happened before in history. And what do you say to the skeptics who are going -- once you get -- for instance, Ed Koch, the former Mayor of New York, said it today, in fact. He was asked about you. He said, well, Perot's a folk hero now, till he starts running, and then all of that will go away.

MR. PEROT: What is your question?

MR. LEHRER: Well, the question is, that this kind of -- when you get to be a candidate for President of the United States, are you concerned at all about what this is going to do to you, what the questions are going to be asked of you and all of that, and that you are riding high now, but are you prepared for what happens at the end once you finally declare and all of that, and the questions that are even asked now that they're skeptical about the fact that this isn't your own, I mean, the idea the public is asking you and yet, wasn't it your idea to begin with?

MR. PEROT: Well, you can't stop anybody from saying anything. But if facts matter -- and they may not -- if somebody just comes out and looks at the piles of mail around my office, looks at the piles of phone calls that have been coming in month after month after month, the evidence is there. It's all over the place. If you look at the phone calls pouring in now, while my own feeling is, is this is just a deep-seated evidence of concern, the evidence is pretty stout. Now, again, in our country, we'll try to spend all of our time on the non-issues. I'll have to deal with those. Anybody that knows me and has seen me in a fight I think understands I can take care of myself. I don't wilt. So the short answer to all those questions is, it's not a pretty world, it's not a pretty world in business. I don't back off if the people want me to start.

MR. LEHRER: And are you prepared, is there going to be a Perot plan for the country, health care, how much we should do to help Russia? I mean, are you going to talk about the issues that are already on the table in the Presidential campaign?

MR. PEROT: Oh, certainly. We'll talk about the issues, but I will not put together some 10-second solution to a very complex problem. Most of these problems require very detailed answers and you never get 'em out on television, probably can't get 'em out in print. So I am not going to fall victim to that, just in terms of having sort of a quick shoot novocaine answer to try to tranquilize the voter until he gets out of the polling booth. I will be preoccupied with really trying to explain how to fix these problems to people. If they don't want to listen, fine. I'm happy here in Texas.

MR. LEHRER: Well, how are you going to do that?

MR. PEROT: Just one at a time and during the campaign in a world of sound bites it will be hard, but let's go to the real world. The real world, if lightning strikes and I'm up there, we will use the mechanism of the town hall, using television, and we will take an issue. You can pick any issue you want, take health care. We will take it apart. We will study other countries. We will put the parts under a microscope. We'll have the best people on health care on our country and from around the world working on a new plan. We will keep the people posted as we develop the plan. We will show them the alternate plans. Then we will implement pilot projects to make sure these plans work. Now there's a strange one in our country. We normally go from hot idea to mass production to dramatic cost overrun, to failure in most of our programs, particularly our social programs. Make sure it works, then show the people how it works, why it works. Explain to them what the cost to each taxpayer will be each year. And then put it in, make it work, and you've taken most of the risk out of it for the American people. You say, gee whiz, Perot, that's very detailed. Well, do you want it to work or not? Or do you just want to be a song and dance man? I'm not interested in song and dance. I'm not interested in hypnotizing people. I'm interested in fixing things. That's what I've done all my life. I'll say this. If you don't want things fixed, you don't want me. If you want Lawrence Welk music, you don't want me.

MR. LEHRER: All right. I hear you. Mr. Perot, thank you very much.

MR. PEROT: Thank you. FOCUS - EPIDEMIC PROBLEM

MS. WOODRUFF: The AIDS epidemic is our next focus tonight, specifically the growing numbers of minorities in this country who are contracting the disease. There were new announcements today from the federal government and from AIDS activists. Both reflected concern over the rise of AIDS in minority communities, as well as in other groups often not perceived as being at risk. We have a full documentary look at the issues now from Correspondent Kwame Holman. It begins with Health & Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan's news conference this morning.

DR. LOUIS SULLIVAN, Secretary, Health & Human Services: The task of controlling AIDS is an urgent one for our nation. A million Americans are currently infected with HIV. This represents one in every two hundred and fifty Americans. It means one in every one hundred adult males, and about one in every eight hundred adult females.

MR. HOLMAN: With that litany of the expanding AIDS epidemic, Sec. Sullivan presented the federal government's latest mass media campaign to educate Americans about AIDS. The new TV announcement will target non-urban white heterosexuals.

KRISTA BLAKE, Columbiana, Ohio, Population 5,000: [public service announcement] The town I live in is so small most people don't even really think about HIV or AIDS. But my old boyfriend had it and now so do I. You know, I found out that AIDS is increasing in small towns. I think it's because people here just don't think it can happen to them.

WRITING ON SCREEN IN ANNOUNCEMENT: 1 in 250 Americans has HIV. Faster than in big cities. Do you want to bet your life on that?

ANNOUNCER: [in public service announcement] Find out how you can prevent HIV. Call: 1-800-342-AIDS.

MR. HOLMAN: Although rates of AIDS infection are rising fastest among minorities, Sec. Sullivan said it was necessary to remind white heterosexuals of their risk for AIDS.

SEC. LOUIS SULLIVAN: The emphasis here is to point out, is to really break through a developing stereotype, that is, that developing stereotype is that only people living in large urban areas or inner-cities, or only minorities are getting AIDS, or only individuals who engage in, men engaging in sex with other men. But what this is emphasizing is that the rate of increase in infection rate is really occurring in smaller communities and there is heterosexual spread that's occurring.

MR. HOLMAN: Apparently by coincidence, members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the National Minority AIDS Council held a news conference yesterday in Washington. They issued a report critical of Sullivan for not keeping enough focus on preventing AIDS in minority communities. Ohio Rep. Louis Stokes said he first asked for more federal help at a meeting five years ago.

REP. LOUIS STOKES, [D] Ohio: As a result of the discussions from that meeting, my colleagues and I and the Congressional Black Caucus began to work to increase the federal response to AIDS in minority communities and to convey the need for culturally appropriate and sensitive AIDS education awareness information. Yet, while we've accomplished some major achievements on behalf of minorities with AIDS, five years after that meeting with the federal agencies, our communities are still disproportionately represented among those persons with AIDS. Despite our efforts overall, minorities have had little benefit from federal and congressional efforts in this area.

MR. HOLMAN: District of Columbia Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton called on minority leaders themselves to do more.

DEL. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, [D] District of Columbia: We know that education and prevention is effective. We have seen them stem AIDS among white homosexuals. Public officials and community leaders to whom people of color look for leadership must, of course, use this report to change government's policy, but this report must also stimulate us to take on the silent barriers in our communities, homophobia, taboos, frustration with drug addiction, and apathy.

MR. HOLMAN: Experts say those barriers have contributed to the high rate of AIDS infection in the black community. The latest figures from the federal government's Centers for Disease Control show that blacks, only 12 percent of the population, represent 31 percent of new AIDS cases. Nationwide, about 60,000 blacks have been diagnosed with AIDS. As the AIDS epidemic enters its second decade and rates of infection decline for other groups, community organizers here in Atlanta say much more needs to be done to stem the steady increase in AIDS infection among blacks. On city streets and sidewalks, they spread the message of AIDS prevention to blacks. Their work is funded in part by the federal government's Centers for Disease Control. Other volunteers circulate discreetly here, a downtown Atlanta bar that is one of the few public places where gay and bisexual black men meet comfortably. Longtime AIDS activist Duncan Teague also has run one of the federally-funded AIDS prevention programs. His was aimed at black gay and bisexual men, one of the groups at highest risk for AIDS.

DUNCAN TEAGUE, Community Organizer: The numbers started to come down about how blacks were like being affected disproportionately. There were too many of us coming out with AIDS.

MR. HOLMAN: Teague says one barrier to AIDS prevention is an historical discomfort many blacks have about homosexuality.

DUNCAN TEAGUE: It has always been a code of silence that you do not break for the sake of the race, because the primary issue was, getting the black community forward. And that meant that you didn't come out about your sexuality.

MR. HOLMAN: Another federally-funded AIDS outreach program in Atlanta tries to tap the formidable human resources of the black church.

SPOKESMAN: [church service] I hope that the black community will take the high road of compassion for those in our midst who are affected by AIDS.

MR. HOLMAN: It's operated by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a major civil rights group headed for years by Rev. Joseph Lowery.

REV. JOSEPH LOWERY, Civil Rights Activist: The church has had some difficulty. I've had preachers resist the program because they said we don't want to deal with the homosexual issue. That's very unreal, because gays exist in a church, from the pulpit to the pew, and the music department to the trustee department. And we, we cannot be judgmental. The church is not called to be judgmental. I think that there's a new awakening among the black church that this problem, we're burying those who've been victimized by AIDS. And there's no way to avoid the problem.

MR. HOLMAN: Under the federal AIDS initiative, the Centers for Disease Control fund some 350 national and community groups that focus AIDS prevention on minorities. Most target blacks and Hispanics who have the fastest growing rates of AIDS infection. Dr. William Roper is director of the Centers for Disease Control, based in Atlanta.

DR. WILLIAM ROPER, Director, Centers for Disease Control: We think it's also effective to use community-based organizations, that is, non-profit organizations who are not part of the government that have at times other credibility to offer beyond what a government agency can offer.

MR. HOLMAN: The CDC also offers public service announcements.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT SPOKESMAN: I like my body to be perfect. That's because I lead an active social life. I want to look good. But no matter what shape you're in, anyone can get the AIDS virus.

MR. HOLMAN: The organizers and the CDC hope the initiatives can match the success of groups of mostly white gay men. The CDC says over the last decade, white gays have reduced their rate of new AIDS infection dramatically.

DUNCAN TEAGUE: When AIDS hit the white gay community, it hit a community that already had established institutions, that had professional and organizations that were out, openly gay organizations, and they were ready to at least come together and then deal with the epidemic. In the black gay community, we didn't have it in place to do the same kinds of work, not to mention all the other things that all black Americans deal with. So we're faced with this epidemic and we're trying to back track and establish what the white gay and lesbian community had already in place, and deal with HIV at the same time.

"MAGIC" JOHNSON: [November 7, 1991] Because of the HIV virus that I have attained, I will have to retire from the Lakers today.

MR. HOLMAN: Star basketball player "Magic" Johnson's recent disclosure that he has the AIDS virus stunned the nation. Many of those fighting AIDS in the black community viewed his revelation as a fateful opportunity to reach more blacks with the prevention message.

STEPHEN THOMAS, Researcher: "Magic" Johnson has brought national attention to HIV infection. We don't have enough time to wait for more "Magic" Johnsons.

MR. HOLMAN: University of Maryland Public Health Researcher Stephen Thomas says it will take more than "Magic" to pierce barriers to AIDS prevention in black communities. Thomas runs seminars and advises several minority AIDS prevention groups. He recently surveyed more than 1,000 blacks in five cities. He found many had deep-seated suspicions about the origins of AIDS.

STEPHEN THOMAS: Consistently, people wanted to know was it man made, was it a form of genocide, are the numbers from the government true. We now have sufficient data to demonstrate that mistrust of government reports on AIDS is real and that the belief that AIDS is a form of genocide is real.

MR. HOLMAN: Thomas says that mistrust of government springs in part from blacks' lasting memories of incidents like the Tuskegee syphilis study undertaken by the federal government in 1932. Four hundred Alabama black men who had syphilis were studied and later deprived of penicillin decades after it became the standard treatment.

STEPHEN THOMAS: It is part of the subconscious history that all black people carry in terms of their mistrusts of those who come into their communities offering help, because that's how the Tuskegee study, its origins began, with an effort to improve health care delivery to blacks in the deep rural South.

MR. HOLMAN: Finally, Thomas says, the fear of being further stigmatized makes blacks unreceptive to AIDS prevention efforts.

STEPHEN THOMAS: That is our greatest fear as we look at the changing black face of AIDS. We already have violence and teen pregnancy and all the other problems of the society. And now the AIDS epidemic potentially will stigmatize that population. The denial in the black community is so great that we are concerned thatpeople will not need the AIDS risk reduction message.

MR. HOLMAN: All those involved say the message about reducing AIDS risk must be carefully tailored to break through to more blacks and other minorities and that, they say, will take time. So activists and researchers alike were outraged last December when the CDC cut funding to minority outreach programs by $6.7 million. The cuts were part of a congressionally-mandated $14 million reduction in CDC's overall budget.

DR. WILLIAM ROPER: We have decided to reduce slightly, 8 percent, the funding to national organizations that passed the money through to local communities and, instead, put our prime emphasis on correctly funding these 350 or so local community-based organizations that reach out to the minority community. We'd like to be able to do more. What we're seeing though is a leveling off in overall funding for the AIDS effort and then competing new demands, particularly with treatment and the high cost of treatment that comes along.

REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: We've been able to develop pilot programs in five cities. It should have been 25 cities. You can't really deal with this thing on such a piecemeal basis. You've got to have -- we could do the job. We have the grassroots machinery. We just need the resources to put people to work full-time in educating people about this.

STEPHEN THOMAS: I would be concerned if I thought that the only way of getting the American people and our federal agencies to keep AIDS on the national agenda was that if the people dying were white; I would be concerned if there was an attitude that if the disease is controlled among intravenous drug users and blacks and Hispanics that somehow it's acceptable. I don't want to accept the fact it happened, but increasingly, I am concerned that that may well be the case.

MR. HOLMAN: Amid all the problems, there's hope that the focus on the AIDS crisis ultimately may result in improved overall health care for blacks, which currently lags far behind the general population. Others are less hopeful, saying resistance to AIDS prevention will continue among blacks until large enough numbers have died to get everyone's attention, a time that according to the statistics is well on its way. CONVERSATION - PEACETIME POWER

MS. WOODRUFF: We go now to the third in our series of conversations on the defense needs of the United States in a world with no Berlin Wall, no Warsaw Pact or Soviet Union. With us is Richard Barnet, a State Department official during the Kennedy administration, founder of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, and longtime analyst, commentator, and author of several books on national security issues. Mr. Barnet, thank you for being with us.

MR. BARNET: Good to see you.

MS. WOODRUFF: Is there still a significant threat out there to the United States, now that the Soviet Union and the rest of it has all fallen away?

MR. BARNET: Well, there are all kinds of threats that face the United States. I think we saw that in some of the things which had been Ross Perot's conversation a few minutes ago. I don't think you can separate what is inside this country --

MS. WOODRUFF: You mean in this country.

MR. BARNET: Yes. But I don't think you can separate those so easily anymore, foreign and domestic. As far as the foreign threats of the sort that we had in the cold war, no; for the first time really in the century there is no great power waiting in the wings, heavily armed that represents a threat to the survival of the country, as Les Aspin put it a couple of nights ago. It's a messy, disorderly world in which there is a great deal of disorder and change and ferment, because we are in a transition from a world that was quite frozen in many ways for 40 years to a new world that we don't know. We are into a new world order. It's not going to be George Bush's world order or any world leaders. But it is a new world order that is taking shape. And there are threats. The greatest threat I think is nuclear proliferation and the spread of weapons around the world, weapons that could cause our children and grandchildren to live in a more violent, unpredictable, unstable world. And it's a problem that I think we can do something about.

MS. WOODRUFF: Nuclear proliferation, but no enemy out there that we need to be worried about; you don't mention a Gadhafi or a Saddam Hussein.

MR. BARNET: Well, there are all kinds of people in the world who have adverse interests at various times. But there are not many threats in two senses; one, they can't, they are not in a position to do great damage to the United States, nothing like the damage that we can do to ourselves by overarming, and second, it's not very clear that the military forces that we have built up during the cold war years worked in this new situation. We talked --

MS. WOODRUFF: What do you mean?

MR. BARNET: Well, in the cold war, we've built up nuclear weapons. And that was a great part of our defense. And the idea was that we were going to deter the Russians. It was almost like a two man chess game. We would keep building up to make sure that they never got the idea that they could launch a strike against us successfully. Now, we're in a different situation. Supposing a terrorist lobs a bomb somewhere, Vienna or New York, anywhere. Who is a target? Who is the object and why will having more nuclear weapons in our stockpile deter? I think we have a situation in which the fundamental notions of deterrence on which so much of our military forces were based don't make much sense now. Or, take the largest share of our military expenditures, that which goes to the defense of Europe, I think it's unconscionable that we're spending something like $122 billion this year to defend Europe.

MS. WOODRUFF: Out of our what, 260 billion, 280 billion dollar defense budget?

MR. BARNET: Eighty-five or so -- when Germany still has a modest, relatively modest military budget and there is no threat.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. So given your scenario, how do you square that with what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Colin Powell, has said? And by the way, he's going to be a guest on the program tomorrow night. He has testified, as you well know, before the Congress talked about how the United States has to stay engaged around the world. He's talked about how while the world is in transition, it's a dangerous time and we have to have, we have to continue with this so-called "base forces" strategy that the Pentagon has devised, and we have to be forward-deployed in those theaters where there are threats. How does that square with the world that you're describing?

MR. BARNET: Well, I would agree with the first three sentences of what you said. I think the United States does have to be engaged and I think the United States has to take much more international leadership than we have. In fact, the Bush administration has been extraordinarily passive in relating to these extraordinary changes of the last three years, and what I think are considerable opportunities for increasing the security of the American people and strengthening our economy over the long run. But we -- during the cold war years, we fell into the trap of equating engagement and a military presence. And they're not the same. It seems to me that the major international issues that we need to deal with, the ones that can really damage our future, have to do, one is proliferation -- we have talked about that -- the other is, the other is managing the global economy, trying to stave off this very real possibility that we're going to move to a world of rival, hostile trading blocks. Nuclear weapons or more divisions aren't going to help on that at all. And the third is the environment, probably the most important problem of all. It absolutely requires international cooperation, but it's not -- it's a non sequitur to say you go from there, therefore, we need to have a lot of troops around the world.

MS. WOODRUFF: So that's why I wanted to ask you because the administration does argue, as you know, that we need to spend a couple of hundred billion dollars a year, continue to spend that much money, because the threats are there, we need to be in position to deal with them. We can't just fight from, I think, General Powell used the term, we can't come from Kansas all the way to the Middle East.

MR. BARNET: Well, you know, I sympathize very much with General Powell's problem, because it is not easy suddenly, after building up this huge military force over more than 40 years to either adjust to a new world or to decide what their new functions are. And it's very difficult to preside over the radical reduction of those forces. People are constantly thinking about possible threats, however implausible, and in the Pentagon document that was released a few weeks ago, I had a number of scenarios that seemed extremely implausible.

MS. WOODRUFF: This was a planning document talking about what the mission of the --

MR. BARNET: Right. Right. And I think that that's -- the problem is that we're looking at the post cold war world through the lens of the cold war. It's not surprising that a military establishment would do that, but that's not what I think the political leadership can afford to do if we are going to be competitive in the world, if we are going to restore our economy, if we are going to deal with the horrendous problems that have been talked about here earlier tonight.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, the document you referred to talked, among other things, about we need to be in a position to ensure that there is no rival super power that emerges not just among our former enemies but among our current allies, one super power, and that's us. And we need to do whatever it takes to preserve our position. Is that a reasonable proposition?

MR. BARNET: No. I mean, it's a perfect example of old style thinking. It assumes that the period that we are entering is a kind of direct line continuation of the history of the 20th century, that is, one power goes down and a new power comes up, and there's a constant cycle. What is exciting and extraordinary about this period is that for the first time, maybe the first time since 1815, international politics at this moment doesn't look like that. It looks like other nations, the successful ones, Germany, Japan, have understood that the base of power in the present world is not military. It's economic strength.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. Given what you're saying, what would you have us do with our military establishment, with our defense establishment? How much smaller are you saying we should be in order to gear up for these other --

MR. BARNET: The first thing I would do is to invest in a major effort at conversion and retraining. It is irresponsible that the brunt of this transition, which is going to be painful in any case, should be borne by the people who have served in the armed forces - - that's wrong -- or the communities that have been dependent on military contracts.

MS. WOODRUFF: So train them for civilian work?

MR. BARNET: Yes, but that's a major effort. And it's one that we've put off despite some courageous people who in the Congress who've suggested it year after year. We've put it off, but ever year we put it off, it gets harder. That is investment in the future. That is investment in the reindustrialization of the United States, investment in the education system, investment in rebuilding an American community, all the things we ought to be doing in any event. Then I would -- I think the United States ought to take the lead in really trying to deal with the major fat, which is nuclear and high-technology weapons proliferation. And that is one area where we have a really an edge, because we are the most armed military power. We can take the lead in pushing for the control of proliferation. And if we don't, if we simply continue to arm, other countries, the Pakistans and the Indias, all that, they're not going to stop.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, some people would say your view is naive though, wouldn't they? They'd say, well, if the United States believes it can set an example, that sounds great, but the rest of the world isn't going to go along with that. It's an incredible source of revenue for many countries.

MR. BARNET: And for us. Well, you see, I'm not saying it's just example. There is a relationship between the military and economic power and the United States is in a position, if it made it a priority, to push. I think what's naive is the notion that we will continue to be safe in a world in which nations, including our own, are dependent for their economy on spreading a trillion dollars or more in weapons all around the world.

MS. WOODRUFF: Just quickly, neither one of those things you talk about requires large numbers of soldiers or tanks or the rest of it.

MR. BARNET: Right.

MS. WOODRUFF: How small are you saying we can afford to get and still adequately handle the defense needs of this country?

MR. BARNET: Well, before the Soviet Union collapsed, responsible former members of the Pentagon were talking about cutting the military budget 50 percent by the end of the decade. It seems to me we can go a lot faster than that now, because of the -- because of the --

MS. WOODRUFF: How much faster?

MR. BARNET: -- collapse of the Soviet Union. Well, maybe in the next -- maybe within five years, but I think the point is we need to, we need to relate the forces that we keep to the missions that they, that they are going to perform. And the question is: Who's threatening us and what do we do about it?

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, Richard Barnet, we thank you for being with us.

MR. BARNET: Thank you very much. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Thursday, former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson was sentenced to six years in prison for raping an 18-year-old beauty pageant contestant. Rockwell International Corporation pleaded guilty to illegally disposing hazardous waste at the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant and Defense Sec. Dick Cheney announced cuts of 140,000 National Guard Reserves over the next two years. Good night, Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Good night, Jim. We were unable to bring you Roger Rosenblatt's essay on Walt Whitman because of time problems. We'll have that for you another night. We'll see you tomorrow night with a defense conversation with Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell and Friday night political analysis from Gergen & Shields. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and good night.