The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight a Paul Solman look at the slowdown in the economy; the 50th anniversary of the military desegregation order as seen by Johnson, Beschloss, and Goodwin, plus General Julius Becton, some weekly political analysis by Paul Gigot and Tom Oliphant, substituting for Mark Shields, and a Jim Fisher essay about a summer camp. It all follows our summary of the news this Friday.% ? NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton faced a barrage of questions today about his upcoming Monica Lewinsky testimony. This was his response to reporters gathered in the White House Rose Garden.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Everybody got a question. But let me give you the answer to all of them. I know-yes, I did. I heard all of you shouting about it. No one wants to get this matter behind us more than I do, except maybe all the rest of the American people. I am looking forward to the opportunity in the next few days of testifying. I will do so completely and truthfully. I am anxious to do it, but I hope you can understand why in the interim I can and should have no further comment on these matters. Thank you very much.

JIM LEHRER: The president is to give video-taped testimony before the grand jury on August 17th. He was in the Rose Garden to talk about new economic figures. They show U.S. production of goods and services increased at an annual rate of 1.4 percent during the second quarter of this year. That's the slowest growth in three years. Mr. Clinton said the slowdown was due in large part to the Asian financial crisis.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Simply put, the health of the Asian economy affects the health of our own. Just with our feed grain, our grain crops-excuse me-about half of that crop is exported and about 40 percent of the exports go to Asia. We have seen, therefore, this impact already in our rural communities. And I talked about that quite a bit in the last couple of weeks. The Asian financial crisis has literally led to a 30 percent decline in farm exports to Asia.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on the economy right after this News Summary. Some General Motors assembly line workers went back to work today. Plants in Janesville, Wisconsin, and Lansing and Detroit, Michigan reopened. GM said all its major lines would be running by next Wednesday. They shut down after strikes at two Flint, Michigan plants led to parts shortages. The walkout by United Auto Workers was settled on Tuesday. Talks between India and Pakistan broke down today. Officials of the two countries met in Sri Lanka, where they tried to restart negotiations over the disputed Himalayan territory, Kashmir. They have fought two wars over Kashmir in the past 50 years. The meeting was their first since each conducted nuclear tests in May. Pakistan said it saw no basis for resuming discussions. India accused Pakistan of focusing too much on Kashmir. Vice President Gore announced the drafting of an electronic bill of rights today. It would keep anyone from collecting personal information from children using on-line web sites, chat rooms, and E-mail, without parents' permission. He also urged Congress to pass new Internet privacy protection laws. He spoke at a Federal Trade Commission event about the weakness of current protections.

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: In the course of an average day you may use a credit card to buy groceries; you may visit a doctor and have your health information punched into a database; your child may innocently punch in personal information on a web site designed for children. And at every step along the way you may be leaving a trail of personal data that can be used or abused by people you have never met in places you have never been.

JIM LEHRER: The Senate today confirmed Bill Richardson to be Energy Secretary. He's the former Ambassador to the United Nations and Congressman from New Mexico. He replaces Federico Pena. The second Capitol police officer killed last week was buried today. Policemen on motorcycles and in cruisers led the long funeral procession for J. J. Chestnut. It went by the Capitol and across the bridge to Arlington National Cemetery. Mourners saluted the passing hearse. Chestnut was laid to rest with full military honors. Yesterday the other officer killed, Detective John Gibson, was buried in a similar service. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the economic slowdown, a major desegregation anniversary, Gigot & Oliphant, and a Jim Fisher essay.% ? FOCUS - SLOWING DOWN

JIM LEHRER: Our economics correspondent, Paul Solman, of WGBH-Boston has the economy story.

PAUL SOLMAN: A firm like many others, tucked away in a leafy industrial park just off Route 128, the road that rings Boston. This is Robotic Vision Systems, high-tech, high concept, and up until very recently high rolling. The high concept is making machines that can see and inspect everything from product bar codes to flaws on the outside of computer chips. And the chip business especially has been booming. CEO Pat Costa.

PAT COSTA, CEO, Robotic Vision Systems: The dramatic growth of the semiconductor industry is driven by the fact that in our daily lives there are tremendous numbers of chips being used, and, you know, the average consumer may not realize this, but in their home they may own as many as 50 micro processors or controllers. I mean, it's more than just what's in their personal computer. It's refrigerators and appliances. In fact, I saw in the store yesterday a toaster that has a micro processor controller.

PAUL SOLMAN: Now as chip makershave prospered, so has the chip inspection division of Robotic Vision, fueling the firm's growth from 30 employees in the early 80's to a thousand by the start of this year. But such growth brings with it vulnerability to a slowdown after the fast times, a potential post boom bust. Robotic Vision had been selling most of its inspection machines to chip makers in Asia. So, last summer, when Asian economies wobbled, Pat Costa began to worry.

PAT COSTA: The first thing we did was speak to our customers and ask them, the manufacturers of semiconductor chips, whether they thought the impact would be great on them. And the answers we got mostly were no. And this might have been a little whistling by the graveyard, but certainly we weren't hearing from our customers any signs of distress until early this year.

PAUL SOLMAN: At the start, that is, most people wanted to believe the Asian plunge was simply a dip. That optimism may help explain why there was so little immediate damage to the U.S. economy, and, indeed, even though by some estimates Asian consumers buy 25 percent of the world's computers these days right through last winter. Orders were humming throughout the industry. Chief Financial Officer John Acari.

JOHN ACARI, Chief Financial Officer: It was the most dramatic downturn I've seen in my 16-year career. Essentially, we came through the first two months of the year thinking that we would have a record quarter in the quarter ended March, and the surprise to ourselves and across the industry, as we found out in the month of April, nobody bought any equipment in the month of March; they just stopped buying.

PAUL SOLMAN: Were you shocked by it?

JOHN ACARI: Not only was RVSI shocked by it but virtually the total semiconductor capital equipment industry.

PAUL SOLMAN: After the shock came the layoffs. At RVSI there was a first round in April, some 10 percent of the work force cut, largely at a plant in Long Island, New York. At another one in New Hampshire manufacturing VP Al Hubbard had to let some of his people go as well. Then in June a further 15 percent had to be downsized, including Hubbard, himself.

PAUL SOLMAN: When you laid people off, yourself, the first round, did you anticipate that you, yourself, would be on the receiving end?

AL HUBBARD, Former VP of Manufacturing: I didn't anticipate it. It's always a possibility. But-

PAUL SOLMAN: What odds would you have given?

AL HUBBARD: Oh, they would have been slim.

PAUL SOLMAN: When did you begin to think that maybe it was going to be you too?

AL HUBBARD: The day I found out.

PAUL SOLMAN: So you were really-

AL HUBBARD: When my boss told me that he and I no longer had jobs.

PAUL SOLMAN: Now Hubbard says he's sure he'll find other work. Several workers he laid off already have. His former firm, meanwhile, says it will find other work too, even though the chips are down, by diversifying into other lines of business. And RVSI has diversified before. In fact, it started like making solid photographs, scanning the head of a celebrity like actor Red Buttons to make the perfect bust. But the secret to the firm's future fortunes may be a new scan technology for identifying products. Instead of the bar code supermarket scan, RVSI has developed a more complex code that captures far more data. Senior VP Earl Rideout.

EARL RIDEOUT, Senior Vice President: Standard bar code uses a line or a laser. This uses the CCD camera, which means it takes an image, and that image can be on anything from a business card.

PAUL SOLMAN: This is John Acari's-he's the chief financial officer-card.

EARL RIDEOUT: That's correct.

PAUL SOLMAN: And here it is. I see, and here it's coming out on the screen.

EARL RIDEOUT: Right out on the screen. This is a good example of the difference in the size between today's bar code and bar codes of the past.

PAUL SOLMAN: This is just Mennen Speedstick Deodorant.

EARL RIDEOUT: That's correct. When you look at the bar code, it's this size versus the large bar code that we're all familiar with at the supermarket. Maybe the most potent advantage is the fact that you could put it directly on a part. The Army is interested in marking every single part, from a bullet to a tank.

PAUL SOLMAN: Well, maybe the 2-D Matrix will revive RVSI. But what about firms without radical new technologies, or those not yet affected by events in Asia?

PAT COSTA, CEO, Robotic Vision Systems: It seems that the semiconductor industry is the front end of high-tech, which, in turn, is the front end of the general economy. And it's as if we're at the prow of the ship, and we were hit first by this storm.

PAUL SOLMAN: It was time for top management to head for New York to meet with the investment community and try to reassure it that RVSI is adapting to the Asia downturn. The question we were left with: How is the rest of the economy responding?

PAUL SOLMAN: Well, as already reported, the economy has slowed significantly of late, according to today's data. And joining us now to discuss the current slowdown and the economic future are David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor's DRI, an economic forecasting firm, and Jim Wilcox, economics and finance professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Both are former staff economists at the Federal Reserve Board, and, gentlemen, welcome to you both. Professor Wilcox, how real a slowdown is this?

JIM WILCOX, University of California, Berkeley: Well, the slowdown is real. We had expected the economy not to grow at the very rapid pace that it grew during the first quarter, but it's still growing along, though not nearly as quickly.

PAUL SOLMAN: So, David Wyss, what are the factors, I mean, the major factors?

DAVID WYSS, Standard and Poor's DRI: Well, the second quarter had a couple of special factors in it. No. 1, the General Motors strike took about a percentage point out of growth during the quarter.

PAUL SOLMAN: Now, when we're talking about second quarters, it's the last three months.

DAVID WYSS: Right. And that was June really. It all came out in June, but it was a percent off the quarter as a whole. And the other point is we had a big inventory correction. Inventories were accumulated a record pace in the first quarter. But the shelves are full. And in the second quarter the accumulation of new inventory slowed down to about half the pace of the first quarter.

PAUL SOLMAN: Can you explain, Professor Wilcox, what it means to have an inventory slowdown, then we'll get right to Asia.

JIM WILCOX: Certainly in the first quarter businesses really add a lot to their warehouses and to their store shelves. During their second quarter they also added a lot to their inventories. They just didn't add as many more. Presumably, they were adding these inventories because they were quite confident that, in fact, there would be businesses and consumers there to buy those goods in the upcoming quarters.

PAUL SOLMAN: But doesn't that mean that they lost confidence, then, if they're not adding more inventories, David Wyss?

DAVID WYSS: No, they still have-even in the second quarter they have more inventories than they had in the first quarter. They are still adding inventories. So it's not a sign that they are less confidence.

JIM WILCOX: In general, in order to maintain the ratio of inventories to sales at a constant level, a constant ratio, the companies need to add about 35 to 40 billion dollars. Even in the second quarter they added more than that. Plus, in the second quarter a lot of the inventory reduction was actually reduction in the number of cars sitting on dealers' lots, because General Motors wasn't producing them.

PAUL SOLMAN: That I understand. What about Asia? We just heard President Clinton talk about Asia, the agricultural imports are down-exports from this country are down to Asia because they haven't got the buying power anymore.

JIM WILCOX: Well, total exports were down 8 percent at an annual rate in the second quarter. We're shipping out a lot fewer goods because nobody has any money to buy. And that's what scares me about the future. The long-term deterioration and the longer-term slowdown over the course of the next year depends on what happens in Asia much more than it depends on what happens in the United States.

PAUL SOLMAN: You know, we heard that CEO, Pat Costa, Prof. Wilcox, talk about his company being and high-tech in general being the prow of the boat and that the rest of the boat is going to begin to feel the effect of Asia. Do you think that's true?

JIM WILCOX: I don't know that I would say that they are necessarily the leading indicator for the economy as a whole. Remember, if we were to look at consumers, which really comprise about 2/3 of the total economy, consumers feel very good about their current condition. They feel good about the upcoming conditions. They're spending a lot, and they have good reason to spend a lot. Business spending here at home is still very strong, so it's still the case that the economy has a lot of forward momentum in it.

PAUL SOLMAN: Well, isn't consumer confidence down? You're talking about U.S. consumers, I assume.

JIM WILCOX: Yes.

PAUL SOLMAN: So isn't consumer confidence down somewhat?

JIM WILCOX: The most recent reading was, but still it remains at a very high level and throughout most of 1998 it has risen. So consumers are still, I think, frankly, happy about their current conditions and they're very hopeful and reasonably confident about their future conditions.

PAUL SOLMAN: So, David Wyss, the American consumer is going to bail us out, according to Prof. Wilcox?

DAVID WYSS: I'm not convinced the consumer can continue to spend at this pace, because they're spending great, but they're spending more money than they've got. Consumer borrowing is hitting record levels and consumer bankruptcies last year hit a new record.

PAUL SOLMAN: Consumer bankruptcies hit a new record?

DAVID WYSS: We had almost 1.4 million bankruptcies in 1997. That's a record level of bankruptcies for the consumer sector. Credit card defaults are hitting new records.

PAUL SOLMAN: But this is during a time of boom. I thought bankruptcies usually come when there's a recession.

DAVID WYSS: Yes, and that's what scares me. What happens if we do have a recession?

PAUL SOLMAN: Professor Wilcox.

JIM WILCOX: Nonetheless, the job market remains very strong. We've had an unemployment rate below 5 percent for a number of months. It's around 4 1/2 percent now. Wages and salaries are growing very nicely. Consumers are doing very well to the extent that they own stocks and bonds. Interest rates are very low. We've had a very, very strong home building and home buying and selling period. So it seems to me that we can imagine that consumers would reasonablyspend very strongly over the next couple of quarters.

PAUL SOLMAN: So, Professor Wilcox, you're not worried about exports going down, the way the president suggested.

JIM WILCOX: Oh, I think it's possible exports will remain very weak. Certainly, the weakness and the sluggish performance for a number of years in the Japanese economy and of all the economies that depend a lot on Japan is a worrisome prospect. I think that's exactly right.

PAUL SOLMAN: But what about bankruptcies? David Wyss has been talking about, bankruptcies even in the time of boom we have more bankruptcies than we've ever had, that doesn't bother you?

JIM WILCOX: Well-

PAUL SOLMAN: I don't mean-I'm not trying to personalize this. I just mean bother you theoretically.

JIM WILCOX: Well, bankruptcies have been high. In fact, I think to some extent they've been inexplicably high. A number of financial institutions have talked about how consumers who have never missed a single payment and don't even have a past due payment, who might have even made a full payment say a couple of weeks earlier, all of a sudden send in a letter that says I just went bankrupt. So it seems as if to some extent we're observing some consumers declaring bankruptcy when it's not obvious that they're having job troubles, particularly, or that they even have particularly onerous debt levels.

PAUL SOLMAN: So it's the bankruptcy scam, is it, David Wyss?

DAVID WYSS: I'm not sure it's a scam. I don't think the courts are quite that easy in letting people go bankrupt. The blunt fact is it's easy to explain because household debt is now running about 95 percent of the average household's income.

PAUL SOLMAN: 95 percent of the-

DAVID WYSS: The average household owes 95 percent of its annual take home pay.

PAUL SOLMAN: Compared to what in the past?

DAVID WYSS: That's up-it's been going up about a percentage point a year for the last 20 years.

JIM WILCOX: It is true that there are very-there are high consumer debt levels, but partly that just reflects the consumer's confidence in the current position and the outlook for the future. One reason people are willing to take out 30-year mortgages to buy homes is because of their confidence that they will have the jobs and the salaries to repay those mortgages.

PAUL SOLMAN: David Wyss, you're shrugging here.

DAVID WYSS: Well, the problem is that based on the bankruptcy rate the confidence is sadly misplaced.

PAUL SOLMAN: You know, David Wyss, you've referred to this as an awfully old expansion. Expand on that point, if you would.

DAVID WYSS: This is now the third longest expansion in post war history. Now there's nothing that says that expansions die of old age. They don't. They die because somebody makes the mistake or there's a policy error, or there's an external shock. Well, we're getting that external shock now.

PAUL SOLMAN: Asia.

DAVID WYSS: From Asia. And is that going to be the shock that during this negative-the way that for example the invasion of Kuwait turned the 1980's into recession?

PAUL SOLMAN: Well, but it didn't turn it into recession for long.

DAVID WYSS: Well, it didn't, and typically the long expansions have ended in mild recessions, not in deep recessions.

PAUL SOLMAN: Now let's get Prof. Wilcox in on this. What about the notion that it's an awfully old expansion, meaning it's got to come-at some point.

JIM WILCOX: Eventually I suppose there will be a recession but I would actually call this a wonderfully long expansion. I don't see-I think to the extent that David does-clouds that are quite as dark on the horizon. I think, for example, for one thing most of the usual conditions that we would be concerned about don't seem to be as worrisome this time. For example, the inflation rate seems to be very low and very well behaved. Policies, both fiscal policy, the government's tax-and-spend policy, as well as interest rate policies by the Federal Reserve, leave us in a good position to respond if the economy should weaken. It is true, if things should turn decidedly worse in East Asia and in Japan, this will be a serious drag on the economy, should that happen, and that's why we're so interested in Japan doing the right thing for their own economy.

PAUL SOLMAN: Are we bailing East Asia out at this point, David Wyss?

DAVID WYSS: Well, we're helping Asia because Asia is relying on exports to get out of this mess, and we're about the only ones left to buy, and our problem is-

PAUL SOLMAN: With all these credit cards that you're talking about?

DAVID WYSS: We're already running a deficit of $16 billion in May alone. How big can we run a deficit? How much more deficit can we run? How many more imports can we absorb before our economy hits a downturn?

PAUL SOLMAN: You know, what about the stock market? We don't have much time left, but does the stock market going down in the last few weeks indicate to you that there's a general malaise or-

DAVID WYSS: I think the market's overvalued and I think what's happening in the market now is that the companies are seeing the earnings hit because of a loss of exports to Asia, and on the currency translation from overseas, and that's beginning to be reflected in the stock prices. I think the market's overvalued. I think it's due for a correction, and my guess is we'll see that correction-a good guess October.

PAUL SOLMAN: Jim Wilcox, last word, very briefly, to you. Correction in October?

JIM WILCOX: I don't know when or if-

PAUL SOLMAN: You're a finance professor.

JIM WILCOX: --we'll have a correction, but I think people are getting some very sobering news out of Japan, in particular, and this is, I think, why, in fact, we can help Japan to some extent by buying some other goods that really Japan has to help itself, and that's really what the world economy needs at this point.

PAUL SOLMAN: Okay, gentlemen, we'll have to leave it there. Thank you both very much.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the 50th anniversary of the desegregation of the armed services, Gigot & Oliphant, and a Jim Fisher essay.% ? FOCUS - 50 YEARS OF INTEGRATION

JIM LEHRER: Kwame Holman begins our desegregation report.

KWAME HOLMAN: Fifty years ago President Harry Truman signed an executive order effectively integrating the United States armed forces. The order declared "There shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin," and it established a presidential committee to implement the policy. Black soldiers had fought for this country since the American Revolution, but, as in other aspects of society, black servicemen were segregated in the armed forces. They were assigned to all-black, mostly non-combat units. Blacks lived in separate barracks and ate in separate dining halls. Still, there remained one constant in every major U.S. conflict through World War II: When manpower shortages arose, blacks were enlisted.Early in World War II the Navy relegated blacks to service in the mess halls. The Army and the Air Force--then an Army subdivision-restricted black enlistment to 10 percent. But as the war continued, the Army faced a shortage of ground combat troops. So when black soldiers volunteered, they were permitted to fight alongside white soldiers for the first time in America's history. After the allied victory, three Army generals conducted a study aimed at forming the army's post-war policy on race. Their report concluded the army should "eliminate, at the earliest practical moment, any special consideration based on race." But the report did not specifically question segregation. Meanwhile, outside the military, civil rights leaders pushed for equality for black servicemen. In 1947, President Truman's Committee on Civil Rights issued a report titled "To Secure These Rights", which condemned segregation generally and specifically criticized segregation in the armed forces. Eight months later, in 1948, President Truman officially ended segregation in the armed forces with his executive order.

PRESIDENT TRUMAN: I realized that I could take the first step. It came to me that I was commander and chief of the armed forces, and that I could order them to integrate as their commander in chief, and they would have to do it.

KWAME HOLMAN: Truman's order set the stage for integration in the armed forces. But it was the need for soldiers to fight the Korean War five years later that hastened integration into a reality. By the end of the war in 1953, 90-percent of military units were integrated. By the Vietnam War, the army was 10.5 percent black and blacks were 13 percent of those killed and wounded. In the early 1990's, more than a quarter of the troops serving in the Gulf War were black. But despite the progress, the military still is making up for past mistakes. Last year, President Clinton drew attention to the role of black servicemen. He presented the military's highest decoration--the Medal of Honor-to seven black soldiers whose heroism in World War II had gone unrecognized. Vernon Baker was lone survivor and received his medal at the White House .

PRESIDENT CLINTON: [January 13, 1997] The men we honor here today, helped to make their historic progress possible. They were denied their nation's highest honor, but their deeds could not be denied, and they cleared the way to a better world.

JIM LEHRER: Phil Ponce takes it from there.

PHIL PONCE: More now from NewsHour regulars Presidential Historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael Beschloss, and Journalist and Author Haynes Johnson. Joining them is Retired Lt. General Julius Becton. He served in the Army for more than 40 years before retiring in 1983. He's held several posts since then, most recently as the chief executive officer of the District of Columbia Public Schools. Welcome everybody.General Becton, tell us what life was like for the-day-to-day life was like for the black serviceman or woman before this order was issued.

LT. GEN. JULIUS BECTON [Ret.], U.S. Army: Well, it was, as most people might suspect, being segregated you had views that the grass was always greener on the other side. You get next to the second hand in equipment and back in the 40's, we had white officers who were in the leadership position. But there is an interesting anomaly there. When I went to officer candidate school at Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1944, the school, itself, was integrated. Yet, when we walked outside of the camp area where we were, we were back in segregation area. And it was very strict in those days in Georgia.

PHIL PONCE: What did that mean to be in a segregated status like that, I mean, as far as accommodations, as far as equipment?

LT. GEN. JULIUS BECTON: You were given the responsibility to do what was expected of all soldiers. But, at the same time, you realized that you could not do what all the soldiers could do. You couldn't go into town with them, as an example. When we left the post at Fort Benning, Georgia, we got on separate buses. When we went downtown, we were treated a certain way by the local police, by the military police. Back in training-

PHIL PONCE: When you say a certain way, what do you mean?

LT. GEN. JULIUS BECTON: We were hustled around. We were asked for identification. You always had to wear a uniform in those days. We're talking about in World War II. You were-interesting story. When I was at McDill Field, we had an all black unit, and the shoe repair, the service areas, and the PX were run by Italian prisoners of war. We were given second class treatment to them. I could walk into a shoe repair place and I'd be the last person served, even though I may have been there first, because the fellow behind the counter, although he was a POW, he was white.

PHIL PONCE: And General Becton, the day the order was issued, tell us about it. I understand-you remember that day.

LT. GEN. JULIUS BECTON [Ret.]: I certainly do. I was on reserve duty from college at Aberdeen Proving Ground. The commander had assembled all of the officers. He read the order, as directed, I presume, by Washington, and then he said something which I'll never forget-"As long I'm here, there'll be no change." Clearly, he meant that the officer club would be number one, number two; swing pool, number one, number two; NCO club, number one, number two, number two being black.

PHIL PONCE: Doris, we heard in Kwame's report that the order was issued in 1948, and, yet it wasn't completely implemented until five or six years later. Why the delay? If a President issues an executive order, why isn't it implemented?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, Presidential Historian: All of this takes time, and you've got people inside who are resisting against it. I mean, it's really interesting to look at the course and the journey that this whole situation took at the beginning of World War II. There was a real movement on the part of A. Philip Randolph and black leaders that the right to fight has to be one of the symbolic importances of the whole Civil Rights movement during the 40's. And as a result of that combination of leadership on the black side and the courage of individual soldiers, there were a group of mess men in the Navy in 1941, who could only be servants, essentially, the only job available to them was to do the laundry, clean the shoes of officers. They actually put out a statement to a black newspaper saying don't ever come in the Navy, young black soldiers, you'll think, young black sailors, you'll think it's a great thing, but it won't be. They were put in the brig. They were dishonorably discharged, but almost like a rock tumbling over a mountain, their courage encouraged others, and eventually A. Philip Randolph went to FDR and they started making changes even during World War II. As was just described, some of these camps, themselves, were integrated even when the society outside was segregated. Eventually by the end of World War II the buses had to accommodate equally blacks and whites alike if they were government buses, but still it was a Jim Crow army, and it took A. Philip Randolph again in 1948, when there was a draft about to come out to threaten civil disobedience on the part of blacks, and that helped to push Truman, I think, to do this. But even once the order came you still had southern commanders; you'll have people against it; you'll have prejudice in the North. So it took fighting side by side first in the World War II Battle of the Bulge, then in Korea to convince people that, of course, this can work. Reality in the situation made it work, but people's fears had to be overcome.

PHIL PONCE: Haynes, how about that, do the fears that Doris is talking about and the pressure, is that what is-is that what prompted Truman? What motivated him to?

HAYNES JOHNSON, Journalist/Author: You know, the thing that I look back in awe now, it's 50 years ago, think about 1948, what that time was. Harry Truman is regarded today as the icons of American History, this strong, courageous president, properly so. But in 1948, in the summer of 1948, his Democratic Party was falling apart, the Dixiecrat wing led by Strom Thurmond, the old solid South, which was the basis of the Democratic Party, which has elected Franklin Roosevelt for four times, had helped to put him in office, Harry Truman as vice president was gone. The progressive wing, or the left wing, on Henry Wallace was gone. Truman was left in the center an unpopular president. Tom Dewey was already anointed as president. The Civil Rights laws couldn't pass the Congress, not a one had passed the Congress, Southern-in Washington the Southerners block controlled this place lock, stock, and barrel. It wasn't just Fort Benning and down in the South. It was Washington, D.C., was a totally-as you remember, a totally segregated society-and here Harry Truman, by executive order, did something that couldn't have been popular. He knew you were going to have these segregationists and these people who found even in the military is not going to change, no matter what that president says, and I think that the country changed-and I think it was a great moment in our history.

PHIL PONCE: Michael, a lack of courage on the part of the president?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: I think it wasn't so courageous. I'm tougher on Truman, I guess, than Haynes is, because here we thought this World War II, which was above all a war against racism and Fascism. We were full of that, and what we said to the world while fighting that war, then our armed forces came back to the United States and it was exactly the situation that existed before Pearl Harbor. Even Harry Truman said that he was sickened when he heard about black troops who had fought heroically in Europe, came back to Mississippi, they were dumped off an army truck, and then beaten. Truman said his stomach turned over when he heard that, but he didn't do very much. There were executive orders. There were mild things, but nothing that was really extreme in getting the armed forces desegregated pronto. And it took until this election year-1948-for Truman to begin to act. He said that this should be done in a speech to Congress. But even at the Democratic convention of 1948, as Haynes has described, there was a plank that was for a very fast desegregation of the armed forces proposed by Hubert Humphrey, the mayor of Minneapolis. Truman opposed it. Truman said we should do it more slowly. He said, I am for legal equality; I'm not for social equality. The plank was passed against his opposition, and it was only because, as Haynes has suggested in the fall of '48, Truman needed that black vote, that he finally came around to this achievement that belatedly he did, and we now remember him for.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Well, that's why--

PHIL PONCE: General Becton, you talked to-excuse me, Doris, I'll get right back to you.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Sure.

PHIL PONCE: Gen. Becton, you talked to President Truman about this. What did you ask him and what did he say?

LT. GEN. JULIUS BECTON [Ret.]: I was in a group of students at the commanding general staff college at Ft. Leavenworth in 1960/61. He spoke to the students. And then a few of us had a chance to talk with him afterwards. And we asked him to talk a little bit more about what went through his mind, why did he do it, and he frankly said it was the right thing to do. Now, this is what? Twelve years after he did it, but the right thing to do, and when you think about that, the Army, as an example, published a publication-"Leadership and the Negro Soldier"-1944-a whole pamphlet on what it would take to lead Negro soldiers.

PHIL PONCE: You mean different standards for leading black soldiers, as opposed to white soldiers?

LT. GEN. JULIUS BECTON [Ret.]: It points out what I knew as a black man, but it points out to white leaders what they must do to lead Negro soldiers.

PHIL PONCE: Give us an example of what the manual says.

LT. GEN. JULIUS BECTON [Ret.]: It talks about tips on rumors, fact-it talks about health in the Negro soldier-vocational experience in a Negro soldier-educational background of the Negro soldier-community-life of the Negro soldier-and talks about the history of the Negro soldier. I'm reading what it says here. In 1944-that's-when you think about that and then what Truman did four years later and then where we are today, you're almost talking about day and night.

PHIL PONCE: Doris I wanted to get back to you.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Well, what I wanted to say was what I think is so relevant about in a certain sense celebrating this anniversary of the desegregation order is that it's the way change occurs in the most positive way when it comes about in our society. You had a lot of those obstacles, as we've all pointed out, to making that change happen. But you had courage and leadership on the part of the black community that cannot be overestimated. It seems to me had A. Philip Randolph not once again come out, as I said, and organize the blacks to a potential civil disobedience in 1948, Truman might not have had to worry about the blacks, but he had to worry about that response-had the blacks not gone-refused to go to the back of the bus time and again during World War II-some blacks were shot. There were people killed standing up for their right to be at the right part of a government-owned bus during the military service. All of those individual acts of courage came together, I think, to produce a momentum that Truman had to respond to. And what you see in America over and over again is when you've got that coming up from the citizens at large and leadership does open the door, that's when change takes place. And now it turns out that the military is so far ahead of most other institutions in the way blacks are used and leaders are able to be mobilized into action.

PHIL PONCE: Haynes, how do you assess what this led to?

HAYNES JOHNSON: Well, it's changed our country. I mean, the military took the lead in integration. Don't forget, this was before schools' desegregations, the situation in the 1950's, before public accommodations, before the right to vote-I mean, we had-as I say again-a totally segregated society. I want to say something about Michael's point. He's absolutely correct about all the things that you said. My point is that politics is often so timid and leadership, and that was what I was trying to say about Harry Truman. You remember when Jack Kennedy came in and he wouldn't sign an executive order on-

LT. GEN. JULIUS BECTON [Ret.]: Two and a half years.

HAYNES JOHNSON: Two and a half years. That was 1960/61/62. So I think that the politics and the act of presidential leadership, that's why I credit Mr. Truman, because it did change the country, and he did the right thing.

PHIL PONCE: Michael, how would you assess how it changed the country?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Well, it changed the country, but, as Haynes was saying, the armed forces were the forcing house of change. And there's a difference of opinion about that even nowadays. There are many people who feel that the armed forces should mirror social changes within the society, others who feel that it should be the leading edge. After Truman put out this executive order in 1948, one of the amazing things to me is that his own Army chief of staff-the World War II hero-Omar Bradley-and his Army Secretary Kenneth Royal, rather loudly opposed the order and said, you know, the President has put this out, but we don't agree with it, and they were essentially suggesting that people should drag their heels, and that makes it all the more miraculous that within about four years the job was done.

PHIL PONCE: Gen. Becton, how would you assess where the military is now?

LT. GEN. JULIUS BECTON [Ret.]: I think that we're leaders in many areas, but certainly we're leaders in the equal opportunity, we're leaders in giving all minorities an opportunity to demonstrate what they can do. A point that we oftentimes are prone to forget, the order of 9981 did not just help the blacks.

PHIL PONCE: That was an executive order-

LT. GEN. JULIUS BECTON [Ret.]: That order of 9981 helped the entire Army, because it enhanced combat effectiveness. We don't have separate this, separate that, but when you are training together, you're going to be a better Army. We've proven that time and time again.

PHIL PONCE: Why is it-and I'll ask any of you-why is it that this is a landmark-landmark event happen-50 years ago-and yet, it doesn't get the same kind of recognition say that Brown V. Board in 1954? Doris, your thoughts.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Well, obviously, I suppose the differences that Brown V. Board affected the school system where so many people in their daily lives were affected by whether or not their children would be integrated in schools, whereas the military still is a relatively small number, compared to the number who are affected by the school desegregation decision. But I think the overall point that it made, which is that when blacks and whites can fight side by side, it can work out more productively, more effectively, more efficiently, is one that should be used for any institution in our society at large.

PHIL PONCE: Well, thank you all. That's all the time we have. Thank you for being here.% ? FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

JIM LEHRER: Now some end-of-the-week political analysis from Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot and Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant. Mark Shields is off tonight.Tom, first, on what the President said today, which was, among other things, that he would have nothing more to say publicly about the Monica Lewinsky affair until after he has given his grand jury testimony. How do you read that?TOM OLIPHANT, Boston Globe: Well, I'm sure the president's most diehard supporters would like to be then reassured that what he said in January is what he will say on August 17th, and I don't think they're going to be very happy. As near as I can pin it down, as authoritatively as possible, the only interpretation I can find is he's agreed to testify on the 17th; he's going to answer every question completely and truthfully; and can we all please wait until then? And so I know what's not being said in that kind of a comment. And some are going to say, well, that means his position is about to change. Others may say he's holding his best card until the end. But there isn't any definitive statement of reassurance tonight that the-that what the President said in January is what he will say on the 17th of August.

JIM LEHRER: You don't believe that that's what he says.TOM OLIPHANT: The only worthwhile experience in this story is-I would take the facts one inch further than-

JIM LEHRER: Where would you take it, Paul?

PAUL GIGOT, Wall Street Journal: Well, that's news from Brother Oliphant here, if, in fact, there is some hint that the President would change his story, that would be news. But I was interested in what he said was nobody wants this-

JIM LEHRER: All right. That was the other line, right?

PAUL GIGOT: --over more quickly than me, except maybe the American people. And I think that that's reading the polls-would suggest that so far there's a kind of national embarrassment about this whole story. And it comes through the polls, and you can hear people say I just want it over. We have to read all this stuff. I have to explain this to my kids, and for a lot of the public they've been blaming Ken Starr and us, the media. There's a danger for the President. They're beginning to blame him. And I think that's one of the reasons he felt obliged to answer the subpoena and respond, and it means there's some urgency here for him to fish or cut bait on his real story.

JIM LEHRER: Fish or cut bait on his real story-I mean, there are only three options, are there not, on the 17th and then if he does add something to that publicly, is, hey, I said I didn't do it in January, and that's still my story-well, that wasn't quite right, and I'm very sorry, and here's the reason I said what I said in January or something in-between.

TOM OLIPHANT: Well, that's it. There are no others. Though, it might-it might help to have to go a little beyond that. The President is in a position where he's facing a case now that is all about impeachment. And he has raised the stakes for the 17th tremendously by what he said today, I think so much so that telling-as he put it-the truth accurately, fully, completely-is essential or not telling the truth on this day might even become grounds for the Republicans on the Hill to want to move forward with impeachment. Until now I think they've made it clear to the leadership, for example, they have no interest in a sex case, as far as impeachment is concerned--perjury not really-if it's just about sex-but August the 17th now has the highest stakes you can imagine-

JIM LEHRER: Because-

TOM OLIPHANT: Because of what the President said.

JIM LEHRER: I raised my hand before a federal grand jury essentially and that opens up the possibility of a whole other set of crimes, you mean, or perjury?

TOM OLIPHANT: It's more than that. It's the president, himself, has called attention to this date. I mean, part of that statement, its importance was to raise the importance of that testimony, and so therefore that only makes the stakes about what he has to say that much higher.

JIM LEHRER: Meaning, would you agree with that, Paul, that if he had said today, hey, look, if he just expanded a little bit on the statement, that he would have taken the edge off the 17th?

PAUL GIGOT: I think no matter what happened, what he said-the 17th would be extremely important because a grand jury would be compounding the felony, if you will, if he lied, that is, saying it in a deposition is one thing, but if you say it again before twenty-two or twenty-three Americans, in what everybody understands as a decisive moment, you really laid it all on the table.

JIM LEHRER: Now, let's say just overall now-this has been a very busy week-we have this particular event not only today but the basic event where it was announced that he, in fact, going to do this on the 17th-there was the deal with Monica Lewinsky to get her testimony in exchange for transactional immunity, and then there's the Linda Tripp statement that she's been maligned the first time she has talked. Where are we now, Paul?

PAUL GIGOT: I think we're at a moment of decision for the President and really how he handles this-these next few weeks and this issue may determine whether he goes down in history as the Democratic Warren Harding, that is, a president defined by scandal, or whether he can get it behind him and then have some other presidency-the rest of his presidency to really do much. It's that important, it seems to me, because if he-if he can't somehow convince people that he's telling the truth here and he gets into an extended trench warfare with Ken Starr and goes on and on and there is a damaging report, I think his presidency is-in most respects-except for time-over.TOM OLIPHANT: However, there's a flip side to what I just said a second ago about what at least I don't think I'm hearing tonight, because I am hearing some other things that issues that have been very prominent for six months have seemed to vanish into thin air this week. The White House has said for six months that no one there had anything to do with the drafting of those famous talking points, and that apparently turns out to be the case. The White House has said for six months that no one there had anything to do with any job search for Monica Lewinsky, whose purpose was to suborn her perjury and the comments relating to Vernon Jordan that we've read about that appear to me to be authentic seem to bear that out, and furthermore, they have said over and over again that the president was not making any agreement encouraging anybody to do anything but tell the truth. And that is appears to be the presentation that Ms. Lewinsky is offering to Ken Starr. So behind that is the assertion that our track record on these very important matters in this inquiry has been pretty good so far.

JIM LEHRER: And that means-

TOM OLIPHANT: Why can't you wait for 16 days?

PAUL GIGOT: Well, I think we'll all wait for 16 days. And we'll see what happens.

JIM LEHRER: What about the possibility that people were talking about today that what Kenneth Starr now will do is continue to write his report and then just tack on what the president says at the end of it but not judge it, in other words, just say here's what we gather, here's what the president says about it, the Congress of the United States, you decide?

PAUL GIGOT: I don't know enough myself about the eternal-

JIM LEHRER: You're not going to let that stand in your way, are you?

PAUL GIGOT: No, I usually don't. [laughter among group] To say exactly how-I would say there's still the possibility of some indictments here, not necessarily the President but of other people. And I do know that the Starr report, when it comes out, is not going to be focused on merely the Lewinsky matter. It's going to be much bigger than that, and that might be even just 5 or 10 percent of it. So it's going to be about a lot more of the behavior of the-over the course of the presidency. This happens to be the real political linchpin of the moment, so-and there's a lot more focus on it-so it still could-the report still could do some damage to the president, quite apart from the Lewinsky case.

TOM OLIPHANT: Yes. But I still think the basic thing that we have learned this week is that this is fundamentally an impeachment inquiry that hasn't gotten to the Hill yet and that-

JIM LEHRER: Now why do you say that?

TOM OLIPHANT: I'm not so sure as a factual matter I can agree with Paul on the basis of anything I know that there are any pending criminal matters before the grand jury, and some very big ones seem to go away this week, and-

JIM LEHRER: In other words, they're not going to indict Monica Lewinsky; they've given her-

TOM OLIPHANT: And her mother.

JIM LEHRER: And her mother-they're obviously not going to indict Linda Tripp. She's the key witness. If you're saying Vernon Jordan is off the table, then who does that-

TOM OLIPHANT: Her first lawyer-second, there's no indication that there was ever a targeting-I've never heard of anybody casting such aspersions on Betty Currie that she was considered in some jeopardy, and, again, on the talking point, there was an awful lot in our business about Bruce Lindsey's alleged role in those things and no one is making that assertion anymore either, so I don't know who it could be.

PAUL GIGOT: Look, I don't want to implicate anybody in the White House and say that there is a pending indictment because I don't know. All I'm saying is I wouldn't rule that off-put that off the table right now, because I don't know enough about the-about their thinking in this case. They're going through an awful lot of information and people and who knows who said what to the grand jury that might have been false?

JIM LEHRER: So put all that aside. Then that only leaves an impeachment process against the President of the United States.

TOM OLIPHANT: I think that's why the grand jury matter has to wind up rapidly, because the report won't be important; the evidence will be important to the Congressmen. They'll probably want see transcripts of the entire grand jury proceeding and will probably have a right to.

JIM LEHRER: They would be less interested then in what Kenneth Starr says about it.

TOM OLIPHANT: That's right. Any inference that's drawn would not really be important. What would matter would be what was said before the grand jury or is said in any subsequent hearing on the Hill.

PAUL GIGOT: I think one of the fascinating things that's happened this week, Jim, is to watch parts of the Democratic establishment-even in the media and privately on Capitol Hill-some of the members of Congress say to the President, Mr. President, why not try the big apology press conference? Usually, it's the other side, the other team that says, Mr. President, you have to tell the truth. But these are his own allies, people who wish him well: Leon Panetta, George Stephanopolous, David Gergen, a lot of people who say, look, please, here's your moment, you've got a chance to do it, and, if you don't, I think the subtle message is that your own your own.

JIM LEHRER: Our moment's just passed, gentlemen. Thank you both.% ? ESSAY - CAMP MEMORIES

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight essayist Jim Fisher of the "Kansas City Star" remembers a summer camp.

JIM FISHER: Summer and summer camp, kids roughing it for two weeks. New friends, hikes and swimming, stuff to do. Part of the American scene. But then there's this-a ghost camp in the Missouri Ozarks. Camp Gravois was a booming YMCA camp for 65 years until it shut down in 1988. Thousands of children once filled it with raucous noise, ghost stories, and belly buster dives! All gone. Replaced by weeds and empty cabins, a rotting dock and trash, a deserted mess hall and old bed frames, even moss on the roof. When it closed, the camp joined hundreds of other traditional summer camps around the country, which over the past two decades have shut their gates for a myriad of reasons-fear of liability suits, financial losses, competition from church camps. There's been a move to urban day camping, where kids learn sports or dance, or explore the world around it through science experiments. And there's been a sea change in attitude. "Camping has an image of being just too much work," a Y official wrote just before this camp closed. "Not so," says R. J. Walker, who, when he has the chance, drives 150 miles from Kansas City, walks the hills and hollers and remembers all the fun. He can even recall the camp song.

R. J. WALKER: [singing] The biscuits here at Gravois, they say are mighty fine. One fell off the table and killed a friend of mine.

JIM FISHER: When he was nine, Walker arrived as a virtual poster boy, all that camps like Gravois were aiming at. A minority-he's part American-Indian-from a broken home-a boy on the edge of his teenage years lacing that one prerequisite-confidence-but camp changed all that.

R. J. WALKER: It builds your self-esteem. There's no doubt about it. You come down here; you're meeting a lot of people; it helps you gain confidence. There's arts and crafts. You're learning. You're learning riflery-there's drama-and whenever you're learning anything like this on a daily basis, it helps you have more confidence; you always go home from camp with more confidence.

JIM FISHER: Corny as it sounds, Walker bought into the camp philosophy--the last line of which is still on the mess hall wall-"I am third." The first two lines are "God is first, the other fellow is second."

R. J. WALKER: You remember the first time we were here there was water.

JIM FISHER: It worked for Walker. He had his wild years, but he's settled down. These days he's married, has a young child, and owns a home in the suburbs. But a couple of years ago he stopped by Camp Gravois to visit.

R. J. WALKER: I just dropped in thinking that a camp would be in session. It was heartbreaking just to come in and see a place that used to be so alive, not be what it was. This camp should be open, more than at this time than ever, since it began in 1923.

JIM FISHER: Unlike most of us, who'd probably just shake our heads, Walker never has forgotten the "I am third" admonition. Believe it or not, he's trying to reclaim the land from the developer who bought it from the Y a couple of years ago. Walker admits he's probably spitting in the wind.

R .J. WALKER: My objective is to see the camp put in the hands of someone that's going to keep it a camp for kids.

JIM FISHER: But he's made his own fund-raising deal. He's sent it to people whose names he's called from old attendance lists at the camp, some of whom are now movers and shakers, and have big bucks. He's gotten some publicity. One woman from California who heard about him sent along 50 bucks.

R. J. WALKER: With all the violence and stuff going on with kids, why wouldn't this camp be something special to help kids?

JIM FISHER: Who knows? In fact, who knows how that old sign on the mess hall wall managed to survive all these years? I'm Jim Fisher.% ? RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday, President Clinton told reporters he was looking forward to testifying completely and truthfully in the Monica Lewinsky investigation, and the Commerce Department reported U.S. production of goods and services at its slowest growth in three years. We'll see on-line and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.