The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MS. WOODRUFF: And I'm Judy Woodruff in Washington. After the News Summary this Tuesday, we devote most of the program to questions about Bill Clinton and the Vietnam War draft. What are the real issues, and how do they affect his qualifications to be President? We get six views. Then Jeff Kaye reports on jobs leaving Los Angeles. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: President Bush and Bill Clinton both spoke to the National Guard Association today in what had been expected to be a showdown on Clinton's draft record. Mr. Bush told the audience he had not come to attack Clinton, but said the draft question was important because Presidents must decide when to order other people's children into battle. Clinton said he appreciated the gravity of that responsibility. He said as President he would ensure the military always had the strength and support to win any conflict it might face. We'll have more on the story right after the News Summary. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Consumer prices rose a modest 0.3 percent in August. The Labor Department said the increase was mainly due to sharply higher food costs. Inflation so far this year is running at an annual rate of less than 3 percent. In a separate report, the Commerce Department said retail sales fell 1/2 percent in August. The poor performance was attributed to weak demand for so-called big ticket items like cars and furniture. The government also reported that the nation's overall trade deficit jumped to its highest level in a year and a half. It said the trade gap was 17.8 billion dollars in the April to June quarter, about triple that of the previous quarter. Hearings were held on Capitol Hill today about the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement. Bush administration officials testified for it. They were challenged by Democrats like House Ways & Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski.

LYNN MARTIN, Secretary of Labor: The plain truth is that trade with Mexico provides substantially more and better jobs for Americans than it takes away. A fully implemented North American Free Trade Agreement will create more export and job opportunities, not fewer. Our task, Mr. Chairman, is to assure that each and every American has an opportunity to share in these benefits.

REP. DAN ROSTENKOWSKI, [D] Illinois: What I think visibly pains most of us is that it is the lower echelon job that is the -- that is possibly going to move. We don't envision how much in the technical area we're going to increase in employment, but -- but I just hope that -- that the politics diminishes in this negotiation and that we aren't going to be in any hurry to sign an agreement that ultimately we'll be sorry for.

MS. WOODRUFF: Stocks on Wall Street fell sharply today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost nearly 49 points, erasing most of the previous day's gain. Stocks took their biggest jump of the year yesterday after Germany eased key interest rates.

MR. MacNeil: At the Mideast peace talks today, Palestinian negotiators demanded an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories as part of an overall settlement. Israeli negotiators dismissed the demand as a diversion, but it could slow consideration of their proposal for Palestinian limited self-rule in the territories. No progress was reported in separate Israeli- Syrian talks. Syria wants the return of the Golan Heights. Israel has offered only a partial withdrawal from the Heights which it captured in the 1967 War.

MS. WOODRUFF: Congressman Walter Jones, a Democrat from North Carolina, died today. He was 79-years-old. Jones served in Congress for 26 years and was chairman of the House Merchant Marine & Fisheries Committee. He died in a Norfolk, Virginia hospital of complications from pneumonia. That's it for the News Summary. Just ahead, Bill Clinton, the Vietnam War draft, and the Presidential campaign. Then Los Angeles faces an economic crisis. FOCUS - '92 - THE DRAFT ISSUE

MS. WOODRUFF: We do go first tonight to the continuing political legacy of the Vietnam War. We'll get six different views on what that legacy means today for a generation of young men now in their forties who are of draft age in the Vietnam era. It's been an issue swirling around this year's presidential campaign. It surfaced again today when both candidates addressed the convention of the National Guard Association in Salt Lake City. President Bush spoke first.

PRESIDENT BUSH: I hope that when evaluating the two men who want this job Americans will not ignore the President's role as commander in chief. There's been a lot of controversy swirling around about service to country, about using influence to avoid the military. And I've read a great deal of speculation saying that I was going to come out here and use this forum to attack -- attack Gov. Clinton. I want to tell you, I do feel very strongly about certain aspects of the controversy swirling around Gov. Clinton. But I didn't come here to attack him. I came to defend and support the National Guard and those who serve him. [applause] But why do these questions even matter? Why are they part of our national debate? They matter because despite all our problems at home, we can never forget that we ask our Presidents to lead the military, to bear the awful authority of deciding to send your sons and daughters in harm's way. Sending a son or daughter into combat, believe me, is the toughest part of the presidency. And most presidents never learn that lesson, because, thank God, most don't have to ask others to put their lives on the line. But every president might. And does this mean that if you've never seen the awful horror of battle that you can never be commander in chief? Of course not. Not at all. But it does mean that we must hold our presidents to the highest standard because they might have to decide if our sons and daughters should knock early on death's door.

MS. WOODRUFF: Two hours later, Gov. Bill Clinton addressed the same National Guard Convention.

BILL CLINTON: When the American people choose a President, they want someone they can trust to act in moments of crisis. Every President in the last half century has had to confront the fateful decision to put some Americans in harm's way. I do not relish this prospect, but neither do I shrink from it. If elected, I will ensure that we have the resolve and the strength constantly to deter, sometimes to fight, and when we fight, always to win. I will fight to ensure that the troops we send into battle are the best in the world. This nation has been around for more than 200 years because whenever we had to do so, the people of the country fought to keep it alive, fought to protect it from its enemies. It also had the courage to make the changes that were needed to make to keep America going. Today everywhere I go, I find people full of cynicism about whether government can be made to work for them again, except when something bad happens and they see somebody like the guard. Then they know government works. And they're proud their tax dollars are going to you. But I ask you to think about this. Think about the history of your country. Can we really say that the crisis we face today is too great to be solved? My fellow Americans, what is killing this country today is not the size of our challenge, but the dimension of our disbelief. And we need faith and conviction that we can confront these problems in an American way that goes beyond the kind of paralysis we've had at home for the last 10 years that reflects the same sort of spirit and determination and commitment of resources that we saw in Desert Storm. If we do it, we will once again make America young again. And we will be faithful to the traditions of the founders. And we will do our job in this generation as Americans. That is what I ask you to ponder for the next seven weeks. So that we can be strong abroad, we must again be strong at home. Thank you very much.

MR. MacNeil: We get six perspectives now. James Webb, a Marine Corps officer in Vietnam, a best selling author, and a Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration, is currently a fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government. He's in Boston tonight. Joining us in Washington are Leroy Bell, a retired brigadier general, who served tours of duty in Vietnam, later was adjutant general of the DC National Guard. James Fallows is Washington editor of the Atlantic Magazine. He received a student, as well as a medical, draft deferment during Vietnam. Rep. Patricia Schroeder, a Colorado Democrat, is chairwoman of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Installations and Facilities. On Capitol Hill, we're joined by Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, a Naval aviator during Vietnam. His plane was shot down in 1976, and he spent five and a half years as a prisoner of war. And Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a Navy swift boat commander in Vietnam, later active in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He's a member of the National Veterans Committee for Clinton/Gore. Starting with you, James Fallows, today in the Washington Post you call on President Bush to call off the attack on Clinton's Vietnam draft record. Why should he?

MR. FALLOWS: The strategy before the speech the President gave at noon today was I thought bringing out some of the most lamentable leftover memories of the Vietnam era; that certainly there is a case that the President made in admirable fashion in his speech I thought to -- to -- for people to judge who is best equipped to lead a nation. He has a case to make. He can even make the case that because he's been in combat, he has a certain perspective that Bill Clinton might not have. What's different from that and the tone had gone through a lot of the comments from the Bush campaign was -- was sort of reopening the festering wound of the Vietnam years, of redividing people who are now in their forties, were then in their teens or twenties, who had enough bad feeling between themselves that they didn't seem to need to be exploited in a bloody shirt fashion again.

MR. MacNeil: James Webb, do you think the Bush campaign should stop using this issue?

MR. WEBB: I think the President has every right to raise this issue. It is one among many that relate to Gov. Clinton's confidence and trust worthiness to be President. And I must say that I -- I found a lot of Jim Fallows' article today to be waving a different kind of bloody shirt.

MR. MacNeil: We'll come back to these points. Gen. Bell, should a man have served in the military to be President?

GEN. BELL: It is not necessary for an individual to have served in the military to be President. I would think, however, that if one were eligible to serve that one should serve. The experience gained, the ramifications of leading a nation also would point to the highest office having had prior service in the military.

MR. MacNeil: Congresswoman Schroeder, if a man were eligible, as the general just said, should he have served in order to be President?

REP. SCHROEDER: I think that there are different times and different issues. If you have a war in which the whole country feels threatened and there's tremendous consensus, of course. And I must say in the Vietnam War, I was one of the people who had a lot of trouble with the selective service process that gave people all sorts of ways to get out of the draft. And basically it tended to be more affluent people who did. Now, we can quarrel with that. That was the law at the time, and many people used that because the war was so controversial. So I think you have different times and different measurements. But, clearly, if your country really needed you and there's a tremendous consensus, that's a very different case. I only point out that President Bush was a member of Congress at the time that that selective service law was drawn up, allowing his different loopholes and things that people are now crying about.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. McCain, is the issue here whether Clinton served in Vietnam, or what he said about it?

SEN. McCAIN: I think you put your finger on it, Robin. Six months ago, Jim Fallows and Jim Webb and I were on this program. And at that time, I said that I didn't feel that the issue of whether someone served or not served in the Vietnam War was essential as far as the Presidential campaign is concerned, that there were other qualifications that the American people should use to judge a candidate for the presidency. And I still stoutly maintain that because we have to revisit those years and the agony that afflicted so many young men as they -- as they -- as they had that terrible decision to make. But now the question is -- is whether Gov. Clinton did certain things and what he didn't do. He has got to, in my view, hold a press conference, reveal all the details as he knows them, and then I think the issue is largely put to rest in the minds of most Americans. Remember, in Watergate, it wasn't a break-in that caused us a long national nightmare. It was the events following it. And I would suggest that Gov. Clinton can put this issue to rest if he would resolve the contradictions in his record which are obviously in the misstatements that he has made or contradictory statements he's made over the past several months.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Kerry, what is the issue as you see it?

SEN. KERRY: Well, I'm glad you asked that, because I think that this whole exercise is precisely what the Bush camp wants. President Bush promised not to raise taxes. He raised taxes. President Bush promised to be the environment President. He was dragged, kicking and screaming, to the greatest environmental forum in world history. President Bush promised in his inaugural address to put Vietnam behind us. Now he's dragging Vietnam up. President Bush promised he'd be the education President. Our education system is worse than it's ever been. President Bush promised 30 million new jobs. And we're only 29 million short. These are the real issues of today. President Bush does not want to talk about them.

MR. MacNeil: So you're suggesting he's --

SEN. KERRY: So he and surrogates -- he and surrogates have decided to make the issue this question of service. Now, assume that you accept what John McCain said and what President Bush said. You do not have to have served. And that is not the issue. So if the issue is one of credibility, then make a judgment about that, about an issue 22 years ago, and move onto the future. I think if you look at the facts, Bill Clinton has been clear. He said, I was opposed to the war. There was no mystery about that. He said, I did not want to go to Vietnam, I wanted to end the war. There is no mystery about that. He said he used his deferments. He did. He was eligible for them. Millions of Americans did. There is no mystery about that. He then had a change of heart. He's acknowledged that. It's evidenced in letters to friends, in the testimony of friends, and there is no mystery about that. He relinquished the deferment. And in 1969, remember, 1969 -- I remember it because it was the year I got back from Vietnam -- and the war continued into '70, '71, '72, '73 -- but in 1969, Bill Clinton's name was put in the draft, he was drawn in the lottery, and he was lucky, by grace of God, not by a draft assistant or not by some special favor, by grace of God, he drew number 311. Had he drawn number 120, he would have had a different life. Now, lots of young Americans drew low numbers in the very same draft that Bill Clinton's name was placed. Some of them went to Vietnam and died. And their names are on the wall. So as far as I am concerned as a veteran, Bill Clinton's name was put at risk because he made a decision to put it there. Whether it was a lottery, whether he had benefit of deferments or not, he's acknowledged all that. And George Bush is using this to obfuscate the critical issues of our time which ought to be the center of debate.

MR. MacNeil: Well, now there are many issues been raised. Let's try and go through them one at a time. Back to you, James Webb. Is there an issue of credibility, of truth and credibility in what Clinton did, or has, as Sen. Kerry says, Clinton satisfied and explained himself?

MR. WEBB: If I was ever facing jail, I think I'd want John Kerry to make my case. I don't think we need -- personally, I don't want to go through, you know, every nit by pick of this. I think we've pretty clearly established that Gov. Clinton did not want to go in the military. He used a number of means. When you get to 1969, that was the sixth year of his continuing draft deferments. He's exactly the same age that I am. What I see basically are three important issues here at this point. The first is people are going to have to make a judgment about his moral authority to order other people into combat. I don't see how anyone who doesn't want to go into combat can be ordered into combat by President Clinton and not have this issue resurface as a very divisive issue in the future. The second issue that people are going to have to measure -- and it is a generational issue -- unfortunately it is on the table not because President Bush raised it, but because Gov. Clinton decided to run for President. And that is that the people who went to Vietnam were in many ways abandoned by the elite elements of our society. Harvard graduated 12,565 people from 1962 to 1972, and they lost 12 in the military. This is an issue when it goes to someone running for President, not if you want to be a doctor, not even if you want to be a governor, but if you want to be commander in chief, this issue goes to whether or not you had a sense of elitism about other people in their age group who are in dire straights. Well, if you're leader, you're going to take care of your people first. The third issue which I would really like to see this debate move to is the issue of what -- how does Gov. Clinton feel about what happened in Vietnam after 1975? How does he feel the naivete of such a large number of elites in our age group regarding the so-called benign intentions of Hanoi. I will say one thing in defense of John Kerry, with whom I've had a number of political disagreements over the year, he has spoken out this year strongly in favor of democracy in Vietnam. Now this is not a dead issue until we resolve the Vietnam issue.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. Congresswoman Schroeder, would Clinton as President have the moral authority, given his history, to order Americans into combat?

REP. SCHROEDER: Oh, absolutely. He is the commander in chief. And I think he will be using that judgment very, very judiciously. I want to say if you want to open that up, let's look at President Bush and why did he get into trouble with Iraq Gate? I mean, could he have avoided sending people into combat if he had understood what Saddam Hussein was earlier on? I think we can play these kind of games on and on. And I think to the average American person, their eyes glaze over as we go back through history, each with our own little glasses, and try and interpret it in our own little partisan way. The issue in front of this country is we're all going to live in the future. That's where we're going to. And I think there isn't one thing here that Clinton did that was illegal. No one's ever said that. The law that was drafted that he was operating under was written when President Bush was in the House and he didn't even show up for the debate that day. He didn't vote on it. So, I mean, you've got to ask that question. How did he allow the draft law, the most important thing, how did he miss that debate that day if it's now become such an issue as he is President and trying to run it? Those are the things I think that are front and center. And let me add one more thing. When I was running for President, a lot of people said, well, look, when she pulled out, she cried, and we don't want anybody's finger on the button that cried. Let me tell you, I don't want anybody's finger on the button that doesn't cry. And I think we ought to talk about that. You can certainly have compassion, but a lot of this is also about independent judgment, trying to keep your country out of those situations. And I think he's got the intellectual ability and the compassion to make him an excellent commander in chief.

MR. MacNeil: Gen. Bell, on the moral authority to order men into combat, which James Webb says Clinton mightn't have and Congresswoman Schroeder says he would have, how much -- is it a fact of having served, or is it the quality of service that would give you that authority? For instance, the man who ordered most men into combat in Vietnam, President Lyndon Johnson, had a very thin military record his new biographies reveal and certainly no distinguished military record and wasn't anywhere near combat. What -- does the fact of service give you moral authority, or how you behaved in the service?

GEN. BELL: Certainly as the President, he will have the authority and to my belief all those persons in uniform would respond to that commander in chief appropriately. The thing that drives to it is as he taken the time to explain to that perspective group, whether they're in uniform now or out in the civilian populous, what his position was and the full story. I come from the African American community. And it would seem to me that here we are, a group of people who at the height of battle, there was some question as to the number of servicemen and why they were in Vietnam. African Americans have fought from the beginning of time to serve this country. There were obstacles put up in there to preclude the numbers or to control it, but they've always tried to go out and do that. And I believe that anyone who is eligible to serve should serve. Now, if they have some valid reason for not, then stand up and tell the American public that that's the case.

MR. MacNeil: James Fallows, does the -- does Clinton's experience impair his moral authority to order other people into battle?

MR. FALLOWS: Not in my view. And I think it's a matter for the electorate to judge. For example, our greatest military commander of all, Franklin Roosevelt, was certainly not a combat veteran. I'd like to go back, if I could, to a point that James Webb was making. I agree with him it would be good to have Bill Clinton talk about Indochina after 1975 and before 1975, and to have George Bush also talk about America's commitment of force in Indochina when he was a congressman and what lessons he has drawn from that. I agree with him on that point, but there's a crucial point that he raises where I think I disagree. It's this one of generational equity and the generational division, the betrayal by the elite. As he well knows, I have written about this for 20 years now. And I agree with him this is an important moral issue for the generation. But it's important to keep two points in mind in judging Clinton about this. One is that he and all the other members of our generation were kids when this was going on. Most of us could not vote when these decisions were coming up. It was not we who made the laws, we who made the policy. And people failed various standards of honor in different ways, but they were children on the whole. And that needs to be born in mind. The other point to be born in mind here is that Clinton more than most people of his class and of his era had some awareness of this. The famous letter he wrote to his ROTC commander showed some -- some awareness of the inequity of what was going on. That is in his favor.

MR. MacNeil: Do you think that's in his favor, Sen. McCain?

SEN. McCAIN: Well, I was disturbed by some passages in the letter, including in order to preserve his political viability was the reason why he decided to register for the draft. That's very disturbing, and also a statement about loathing of the military obviously I find a little bit personally objectionable. But, again, I'd like to go back to the previous point. Despite what my friend, John Kerry, said in such an eloquent fashion, Gov. Clinton has not answered all the questions. If he did answer all the questions, we would not have these continuous questions going on and on, and on a weekly basis almost some new bit of information surfacing, and that being ventilated about his uncle or his cousin or the Navy ROTC or the Air Force ROTC or the Army, whatever it is, whether he got one draft deferment or two, or whether he got one draft notice or another, I even get confused by all of it. And I strongly disagree with Ms. Schroeder. People's eyes don't glaze over. The people in my state are very concerned. They want to know the story. And I believe that if Mr. Clinton, Gov. Clinton would come out, and hold a press conference, answer all the questions that the reporters have, I think he could get this behind him and move on to, as all of us have agreed, much more important issues affecting this nation.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Kerry, should he do that?

SEN. KERRY: Well, you know, I think he's got to do whatever it takes to try to get on to real issues that are in this country. I think he's done it. I think the issues have been answered. If it takes more, it's because the media, frankly, is asking a kind of repetitious "when did you stop beating your wife" series of questions. I mean, who's going to answer ultimately the issue of his uncle having helped. His uncle's dead. This issue only surfaced for the first time in history after all his campaigns this year suddenly, and his uncle conveniently is dead when it first surfaces. Now, he says, I have no recollection of my uncle doing it. Somebody says his uncle did it. You're never going to resolve that. So the point is Bill Clinton didn't want to go. He was opposed to the war like a lot of people and he wanted to end the war. But then he put his name in the draft. So you can't say that somebody whose name was drawn in the draft is a draft dodger, at least not ultimately. Now, the fact is that there are much more important issues facing this nation. And as to the question of moral leadership, I mean, you know, this was a very different war by 1969. Bobby Kennedy had been killed. Martin Luther King had been killed. The country was torn apart. Richard Nixon ran as a peace candidate in 1968. The nation knew that it was going to end this war somehow. Nixon was elected promising to do that. Are we to suggest that now in 1992, we're going to re-debate whether or not young men should have just willfully gone off when the nations fundamentally said we think this is a mistake? But, you know, Abraham Lincoln didn't serve, but he saved this nation and sent men into combat with moral authority. Ronald Reagan certainly was never in combat. I mean, many of his movies depicted him there. And he may have believed he was, but he never was. And the fact is that he sent Americans off to die. Bill Clinton I believe because of his experience, because of the agony he went through facing this kind of dilemma will understand the consensus that you need in this nation, the fact that you need a winning strategy, the fact that you do not send young people, young Americans off to war, unless you are committed to win it, and I think Bill Clinton would come to the Presidency equally as aware of those principles we learn in that agony as anybody else.

MR. MacNeil: James Webb, Sen. Kerry said earlier that the Bush campaign was using this to obfuscate other issues, divert attention. If Clinton does hold a press conference to answer all the questions that you and Sen. McCain have suggested and Gen. Bell have suggested, does he just play into the hands of his opponents?

MR. WEBB: First of all, historical correction. Abraham Lincoln did serve. He was in the militia and he fought in some of the Indian wars in the Midwest. As to your question, as I said earlier, I'll stipulate, I think we all should stipulate Bill Clinton didn't want to go. And holding a press conference, going through this nit by pick, I'm not sure is really going to answer that. The things that I -- the points that I was making were, No. 1, people are going to have to make a value judgment about this issue of moral authority. It's there. There are other -- there are a number of important issues in this campaign. That is clearly one of them. The facts are on the table on that. What I would like to see Gov. Clinton talk about is the issue that I mentioned before. How does he feel about this post 1975? How does he feel about the democracy in the region today? And for that matter, I agree with Jim Fallows. That would be a useful issue for President Bush to address. We have not heard the Bush administration utter the "d" word with respect to East Asia. We'll talk about democracy in Europe till the sun goes down, but no one is mentioning it with respect to Asia.

MR. MacNeil: Congresswoman Schroeder, if Clinton had said at the beginning of this campaign I was against the war and I did everything legal to stay out of it, would this be an issue now, and could he, in effect, still do that? Does it -- and does he owe the voters a further explanation?

REP. SCHROEDER: Well, in essence, I think that that probably wouldn't be an accurate position for him to say, because if you listen to him, he's talking about a young man that was in debate with himself throughout this. I think he clearly started out being very concerned about the war, but feeling he should do his part. He talked about seeing his school mates going off, wondering what he should do. I thought his letter showed incredible agony over this, and I think that's what he is trying to say. His feelings on the war differed at different periods. And by -- I think it's so important to point out that Nixon did say he was going to end the war and that was a different time. I remember that time. I was in law school. You would sit there. You would watch on television. You literally could see your friends being shot down on TV. It was terribly painful, and I remember even waking up at night dreaming I had been drafted because everyone around me lived with that fear 24 hours a day. So if he came out and he said, look, I -- I didn't believe in the war and I didn't want to go, and I did everything legally not to do it, I think people would say, that wasn't real either, because I don't think there was a young man or a young woman who had questions about that war in my generation that didn't also worry about the fact that they should still be there because it was their country. This was a nation that's heart was being pulled apart. And that's what he's saying, and he's very honest. And I honestly think the real issue today is what do we do for jobs in the future, how do we keep this good, strong economy going, and how do we get the debates going, rather than all this distraction about on what day how did he feel and were people around him with his knowledge or maybe without his knowledge, doing something in his name? That was happening everywhere in America that I know about.

MR. MacNeil: Gen. Bell, you also said a moment ago that he hasn't given the full story. What do you want him to say? What do you think he needs to say that would be the full story?

GEN. BELL: I would tie into a previous statement. War is painful, but anyone who is going to direct that war should give the full story, the good, the bad, not hold back any information because the troop when he gets on the ground or she gets on the ground expects that the information they have been provided is accurate, is good information, is credible, and that's what we need, the full explanation of the situation.

MR. MacNeil: James Fallows, do you think there is a fuller explanation that Clinton could give that hasn't given, could give?

MR. FALLOWS: At this stage I think not, and I think that if he had life to live over again, he would have started out saying everything he possibly knew. And I agree with Congressman Schroeder that it is a difficult and tortured process that anybody went through at that point. Let me try, surprisingly, to make a positive point here, which is that while I am not in all things an admirer of President Bush and while I hope that Bill Clinton wins this election, I thought that the President put things on exactly the right plane this afternoon when he gave a speech saying, here's my view of defense, here is my view of my record, and he didn't personalize and make it divisive as so much of his campaign had before. The test will be whether his campaign can maintain that tone in its advertisements and its other statements over the next month or so, but he did the nation a service in the tone of his speech today.

MR. MacNeil: Gen. Bell, back to you a moment. You mentioned that you come, of course, from the African American community, and it suffered, some would argue, disproportionately in Vietnam. But it's also suffering disproportionately on the question of jobs and economic prosperity at the moment. Is this, to you as a citizen, as well as a former general, and you heard Sen. Kerry and Congresswoman Schroeder say this is just a distraction from the real issues of the campaign -- is this draft issue more important to you than these -- these other economic issues?

GEN. BELL: No. I would also kind of draw a parallel between the two. When we talk about the disproportionate number of African Americans that might have been serving during the Vietnam era, we have to recognize first that we put regular troops in, there was a large number of African Americans involved in these elite type units. We did not call up our guard elements. We had limit participation by the African American community and our draft boards at that time. And the number of African Americans that could have acquired deferments was somewhat limited. If we have those same type rules in the workplace today, then we're going to end up with the same type of results.

MR. MacNeil: Yeah. But what about the -- what about the issue that bring -- continuing to harp on the draft -- Clinton's draft issue distracts attention from the economy and how to create jobs and all that kind of thing? Where do you come down on that?

GEN. BELL: Well, it's not a matter of distraction. That's all inclusive in trying to determine the qualification of individuals to lead this nation.

MR. MacNeil: Yeah. Do you see it that way, Sen. Kerry, that this is a legitimate piece of determining the qualifications of a man to lead the nation?

SEN. KERRY: If it is raised in the way in which George Bush raised it today, I would agree with Jim Fallows. I think it was a legitimate statement of what he viewed as his assets and it was not personalized. And Americans are clearly wise enough, and I might add thirsty enough for that kind of dialogue that that's permissible. But when it becomes, as it has been over the last couple of weeks, a personal diatribe doubting credibility and raised in very personal terms, I don't think it does anybody a service, and all it does is require that you apply a standard across-the-board. Ask Dick Cheney why he didn't serve. Ask Pat Buchanan why he is now miraculously such a good jogger, but his knees kept him out of the service. Ask Newt Gingrich and ask so many others. Ask about President Bush's own sons. There was no way that somebody who wanted to go to Vietnam could not really have gone. And I just think this country is not served by going back there, which is where we have been in these recent days. Now, I think Americans are prepared to make a judgment whether they trust this nation's future to someone who in the agony of that period made a different choice, but I might add a choice of conscience. I would rather have a President who comes out of that kind of tug of war, if you will, and who ultimately resolves it one way or the other, no matter what it looks like years later.

MR. MacNeil: You're saying that makes a better President, to have gone through that --

SEN. KERRY: I'm saying that --

MR. MacNeil: -- exercise of conscience?

SEN. KERRY: I'm saying it has the potential to do so. And people will have to judge by all the other things that Bill Clinton has done. I think he's been a tremendous governor. He's been a public servant. He has a record on education, a record on job creation, a record on welfare reform, all the issues that really matter to people. And so does George Bush. And I might add when you look at those two records, that is really where the balance begins to fall I think heavily in favor of Bill Clinton.

MR. MacNeil: James Webb, in addition to being a war hero, yourself, and a writer and former Secretary of the Navy, you are also a citizen. How do you feel about this issue that by harping on -- perhaps I'm using the wrong word -- by continuing to dwell on the -- the draft issue as the Democrats here are saying, the President and his campaign are just diverting attention from the real -- the really crucial issue facing the country in the future?

MR. WEBB: I don't agree that that's true. And I think that the speech that the President made today was one of his best speeches in the entire campaign, the tone of it. But the issue, itself, is an important issue. We don't know -- you know, by saying that we're going to these other issues, we don't know that one side or the other is going to be more palatable to the American people. They are issues that are being discussed. There have been many, many speeches. What I see happening is a lot of people who made different decisions during the Vietnam War want this issue to be repressed so that it's not considered as important as it is. A lot of people care about the issue. It's been discussed. And as I said before, I don't know how many other facts on the table would make it clearer to the American people. It's there. They should take it into consideration, along with these other issues, and make their own determination.

MR. MacNeil: Is that right, Congresswoman Schroeder, a lot of people who were on the other side, either had deferments or against the war, would just like to see the issue suppressed?

REP. SCHROEDER: No, absolutely not. I do not want to suppress it or repress it or anything else, but I would make the argument that anyone in my generation that lived through that war and lived through the agony that this population went through is going to be an excellent President and an excellent commander in chief, because they will know that when you commit troops, when you make that decision no one ever wants to have to make, but if you get to the point you decide you have to make it, you go in understanding that if it is not a well-grounded war that the people understand and the people support and if you don't go into win, you have got a tremendous problem on your hands. And I think Bill Clinton has given us a window into his soul by what he's been talking about here, about what a difficult, difficult decision this was. And I think anyone honest that went through our generation says that we all went through that and we may have come down on different sides and we may have come down on different sides on different days, but basically what every American wants to know is if the commander in chief sends their child to war, that commander in chief will have some understanding of the pain and agony and the kind of commitment that they will follow through with that young person.

MR. MacNeil: How do you feel --

REP. SCHROEDER: And I think he's shown it.

MR. MacNeil: How do you feel about that, Sen. McCain?

SEN. McCAIN: I think it's an issue. I think it's important, but I'd like to go back to a question you asked earlier, if I might. You said, would this issue be resolved if Gov. Clinton had said at the beginning, I did everything I could legally to avoid the draft and I didn't serve, I think it would have been resolved then. And I think that he's got himself into this trap. And by the way, those that avoided -- you know, that was not without cost to someone. There was not a vacancy in Vietnam. That vacancy was filled by someone usually on the lower end of our economic ladder, which meant African Americans, Hispanics or very poor white individuals. So, you know, when we talk about the agony of this decision, when the decision was made not to serve, then someone else went in their place, usually someone who didn't know how to avoid the draft as those on a higher level were able to do so. Finally, just because President Nixon said he was going to end the war I don't think gave someone a license, therefore, not to serve. I think that we all had an obligation under the law, even if it was flawed. But I want to get back finally again, because I know we're nearing the end, I think a press conference there -- his statements are rife with contradictions for the last six months. And I think the American people deserve a full and thorough explanation. And I still think we can then move on to more important issues.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Kerry, briefly, how would you respond to that?

SEN. KERRY: Well, John McCain, my good friend, is contradicting himself. At the beginning he said you don't have to serve to be President and now he said --

MR. MacNeil: No. I mean, quickly on the issue of the record is full of contradictions, he says, and he needs to hold a press conference.

SEN. KERRY: I think that the essential facts are clear. And he put his name into the draft. People keep forgetting that. He made it very clear --

MR. MacNeil: So you're saying -- we just have a few seconds -- you're saying no purpose served.

SEN. KERRY: I'm saying that there are -- I'm saying that there are some contradictions, but that they're not really relevant in terms of what the -- the steps he took. There's a contradiction about when he remembers getting a draft service, but he's acknowledged that he got it. And so those have to be put aside, measured against the real facts. The real facts are he said he didn't want to go; he then changed his mind and made himself available to the draft. He wound up benefiting by what millions of Americans benefited by.

MR. MacNeil: Okay.

SEN. KERRY: And he wound up being lucky.

MR. MacNeil: We have to leave it there. Gentlemen all and Congresswoman Schroeder, thank you all for joining us. FOCUS - HARD TIMES

MS. WOODRUFF: We turn now to California, where polls show a sizable majority planning to vote for Gov. Clinton, largely because they blame President Bush for the state's sour economy. Correspondent Jeffrey Kaye of public station KCET-Los Angeles has a report on some of the factors behind the stubborn recession in California, where the unemployment rate is more than 2 percentage points higher than the national average.

MR. KAYE: Bobbie Ruffin's Los Angeles workshop is a symbol of decaying industry. Located in what used to be the maintenance department of a long gone factory, Ruffin reclaims industrial flotsam and jetsam. He strips foam rubber from defective new car seats and sells the foam rubber for carpet padding and he mines discarded computers for valuable metals.

BOBBIE RUFFIN: This is an allotment of surplus computer equipment that I bought from Hughes Aircraft to be resold or stripped down for the metal, the metal contents. This represents people that have lost their job and they're no longer needed.

MR. KAYE: But Bobbie Ruffin, himself, has become a casualty of the deteriorating manufacturing sector. The 45-year-old single father of three depended on one firm for his main source of income, the Allen Foam Rubber Corporation. Ten years ago, 15 full-time employees worked with Ruffin to strip off the foam so Allen Foam could reuse the metal frames. But Ruffin's business dwindled as Allen Foam went downhill. And when Allen Foam announced it was going out of business in August, what was left of Ruffin's income evaporated.

BOBBIE RUFFIN: I have to move. The loan companies, they don't know anything about or care anything about you not having work.

MR. KAYE: What's your mortgage?

BOBBIE RUFFIN: I pay 898 a month.

MR. KAYE: 898 a month?

BOBBIE RUFFIN: Yeah.

MR. KAYE: And once Allen goes --

BOBBIE RUFFIN: Once Allen goes, then I can't pay.

MR. KAYE: And you're not eligible for unemployment?

BOBBIE RUFFIN: Not any at all.

MR. KAYE: Because you're a self-employed businessman?

BOBBIE RUFFIN: That's right.

MR. KAYE: Allen Foam was in existence for 28 years. In August, it employed 43 people. But at its height, there were 10 times as many, working three shifts a day, six and seven days a week, supplying seats to five automobile plants. Bennie James remembers.

BENNIE JAMES: It was fun. You know, you have fun when you're making money.

MR. KAYE: When you're making money.

BENNIE JAMES: You have fun. You have friends, lots to talk about. It's fun.

MR. KAYE: Like Bobbie Ruffin, Allen Foam was a victim of the domino effect. It had to go out of business because its biggest customer, a General Motors assembly plant in nearby Van Nuys, California, was also slated to shut down. On August 27th, the last car made in Los Angeles rolled off the assembly line. This factory had been in operation 45 years. Twenty-six hundred auto workers lost their jobs. And although the employees will receive generous benefits for at least a year, the home of Pontiac Firebirds and Chevy Camaros will move to Beau Brian, a sprawling factory just outside Montreal, in Quebec, Canada.

EDMOND OILWORTH, JR.: The business case just favored Beau Brian over Van Nuys, when it was all said and done.

MR. KAYE: GM spokesman Edmond Oilworth, Jr. was evasive when pressed for reasons for the plant closure.

EDMOND OILWORTH, JR.: In one sense, it's fairly simple. We have more assembly capacity in the United States than there is demand and you have to balance the assembly capacity with the demand obviously.

MR. KAYE: But the closure of this plant is part of GM's plan to cut back 74,000 jobs and close 21 plants in North America by 1995. The automaker lost 4 1/2 billion dollars in 1991. Moving this production line may save some money. For example, most of the parts assembled here were shipped in from the Midwest. Then the vast majority of the finished Camaros and Firebirds, 72 percent, were shipped back across the Rockies for sale. So GM will save on freight costs. The move may also have a lot to do with government policies in the U.S. and Canada. Because of Canadian national health insurance, GM will save an estimated $700 per car, even though auto workers in Montreal and LA earn about the same hourly wage. And there was direct government involvement as well. The governments of Canada and Quebec made GM interest free loans of 110 million Canadian dollars each to rebuild this paint shop. Canadian auto workers official Claude Ducharme said it was a good investment.

CLAUDE DUCHARME, Canadian Auto Workers Union: It's a loan.

MR. KAYE: An interest free --

CLAUDE DUCHARME: Free interest for 30 years. We did some calculation at the time and we have realized that in six months, you see, of operation of that plant, both government was receiving in tax, income tax, more than 110 millions. Then we said it's not a bad deal.

MR. KAYE: Not only is GM moving its production line, so is Allen Foam. While some of the factory's equipment will be scrapped, a portion will be sold to a Taiwanese company and the work done by Allen Foam employees will also be exported to Canada to a plant owned by Allen's Canadian parent, the Woodbridge Group. This factory is located in Woodbridge, Ontario, just outside Toronto. Robert Magee is vice president of the Woodbridge Group. He says his firm had no choice but to close Allen Foam.

ROBERT MAGEE, The Woodbridge Group: GM was the last assembly plant that we were able to serve in California, and really to be economically viable in that location with the size of facility we had, you really do need a couple of customers. And we were really depending on General Motors for whatever business that we had left.

MR. KAYE: In addition to car seats, Woodbridge Foam makes carpet padding and bedding. Company officials tried to find other customers to save Allen Foam, but couldn't drum up enough business to keep the Los Angeles factory open. Woodbridge did have the wherewithal to fund a farewell gathering. Allen Foam workers here faced unemployment at the very time others spoke of rebuilding Los Angeles after the riots. Jobs are always cited as a key component of rebuilding, but LA is losing its manufacturing base. Tim Jones works for the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, the union that represents Allen Foam employees.

MR. KAYE: How many of these last suppers have you attended?

TIM JONES, Union Official: Oh, I would imagine in the last three years this is my fifth. They're all manufacturing and businesses that pay a decent wage and have outstanding benefits. And I'm finding in Los Angeles today that those kind of jobs are disappearing.

MR. KAYE: LA's lost factories are not being rebuilt. As Bobbie Ruffin hauled one of the last shipments of defective foam rubber seats to his workshop, he drove up Alameda Street, once a thriving hub of manufacturing activity. It is now dotted with warehouses and disused factories. On one corner a field marks the former site of the Southgate GM plant which shut down in 1982. Many of the employees laid off then found work at other General Motors plants, including Van Nuys. But the closer of the Van Nuys factory, according to former workers, has a far worse impact.

KERMIT HADLEY, Former Auto Worker: I was at Southgate in '82. I was there when they ran the last car. It was devastating. But let me tell you -- you multiply this by 100 and you'll be somewhere in the ball park.

MR. KAYE: Why is this worse?

KERMIT HADLEY: Because in '82, General Motors just has built a new plant in Oklahoma. Okay? We had Lockheed. We had Douglas. We had aircraft companies --

MR. KAYE: In Southern California.

KERMIT HADLEY: In Southern California. It was jobs.

MR. KAYE: Yeah.

KERMIT HADLEY: Okay? And now there's no hope. There's no jobs that make this kind of money that General Motors paid.

MR. KAYE: At Allen Foam, the remaining workers averaged 24 years at the factory. Some like forklift driver Allen Butts, a 27-year veteran, doubted he could find a job that pays the $9 an hour he earned at Allen.

ALLEN BUTTS: I'm worried. You know, I've got to try and feed the family. I've got to try and pay my rent and meet my bills and if I ain't got no job, how you going to do it? And all I get is $149 a week unemployment and that's -- that's chicken feed.

MR. KAYE: So far, LA's rebuilding effort has been unable to replace well paying manufacturing jobs. There's been a focus on bringing back businesses destroyed in the riots, particularly supermarkets, which pay much less than factories.

BERNARD KINSEY, Co-Chair, Rebuild LA: We had already announced 25 supermarkets, major supermarkets that are going to go back into the impacted area.

MR. KAYE: Bernard Kinsey is co-chair of Rebuild LA.

BERNARD KINSEY: It means higher quality food items, better service, and lower prices. And it also means some 4,000 permanent jobs that were not in the community that will be in the community.

SPOKESMAN: If you put in a store, if there's no one makin' money, who's gonna buy their goods that's in the store? You got to have some manufacturing. That's the only way you're gonna make it.

BERNARD KINSEY: I agree with that. I mean, how could you disagree with manufacturing? I mean, the problem is that the manufacturing issue is a bigger issue, is a bigger issue than can be solved in the city or county alone. We have to have an industrial policy in this country that begins to say that we cannot export engineering and design to other countries.

MR. KAYE: On the day that the General Motors Van Nuys plant shut down a lone mariachi trumpeter, a retired GM employee, serenaded workers as they left the factory. The earning power of these men and women, 136 million dollars a year, will be that much less pumped into the LA economy. For every job lost here, it's estimated that one to three more workers will be displaced. Add to this the likely effect of job losses in aerospace and other manufacturing occupations and the outlook for LA seems anything but melodious. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the main stories of this Tuesday, President Bush said Bill Clinton's draft record matters because a President might have to commit troops to combat. Bill Clinton steered clear of the draft issue but later told the same National Guard Association he would not shrink from difficult decisions that confront a commander in chief. This evening, the Senate passed a bill authorizing $10.5 billion in relief aid for victims of Hurricanes Andrew and Iniki. Good night, Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Good night, Robin. We'll be back tomorrow night with a look at the candidates' positions on national defense. Before we go, a final note. Last night, former Senator Paul Tsongas listed a phone number viewers could call to join the anti-deficit group called the Concord Coalition. That number is: 1-800-231-6800. Unfortunately, many viewers have been calling wrong numbers today. Again, the correct number is: 1-800-231-6800. And that is our NewsHour for tonight. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and good night.