The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Good evening. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Jim Lehrer is away tonight. On the NewsHour the tobacco concession; we'll look at Liggett-Meyers' decision to settle a major lawsuit; then how best to expand NATO, former Senator Sam Nunn and former State Department Counselor Robert Zoellick debate that; and a David Gergen dialogue with historian Garry Wills about John Wayne's America. It all follows our summary of the news this Thursday. NEWS SUMMARY

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Smoking cigarettes is addictive and can cause cancer. That new warning label will go on L&M and Chesterfield cigarette packages under an agreement announced today by the Liggett Group, the smallest of the five major U.S. tobacco companies. Liggett reached an historic settlement with 22 state attorneys general. The states are suing tobacco companies to recover state Medicaid funds spent to treat patients with smoking- related illnesses. In the settlement Liggett agreed to pay $25 million in penalties and made the following admissions described by Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods at a Washington news conference.

ATTORNEY GENERAL GRANT WOODS, [R] Arizona: Liggett has made the following admissions publicly: Cigarettes and cigarette smoking cause lung cancer, heart disease, and emphysema. Liggett admits and acknowledges that nicotine is addictive. Liggett admits and acknowledges that the tobacco industry markets actively towards young people.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Liggett also agreed to turn over internal company documents sought in the 22-state lawsuits. But that part of the settlement was blocked today by a North Carolina state court. We'll have more on the story right after this News Summary. President Clinton met with Russian President Yeltsin in Helsinki, Finland, today for the start of a two-day summit. The leaders are expected to discuss the issue of NATO expansion. Mr. Clinton wants to extend NATO eastward to include former Warsaw Pact countries. President Yeltsin has said he fears such a move would isolate Russia. But today he told reporters he is optimistic a compromise will be reached. President Clinton also expressed optimism about the summit outcome. The two presidents attended an informal dinner tonight. Formal talks will begin tomorrow. We'll have more on the subject of NATO expansion later in the program. Back in this country the highest ranking officer in the army sex scandal at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland was sentenced today. Captain Derek Robertson pleaded guilty to adultery and other charges for having sexual relations with a female trainee under his command. He was dismissed from the army and will serve four months in prison. As part of a plea bargain he was cleared of rape and other charges. The House today approved the same late-term abortion bill vetoed by President Clinton last year. The vote was 295 to 136, enough to override a veto, as the House voted to do last year. The bill outlaws a procedure used in second and third trimester abortions. Opponents of the method call it partial birth abortion.

REP. TIM ROEMER, [D] Indiana: Today we must vote on this particular issue. And I would hope my colleagues, Democrat and Republican, conservative and liberal, would vote to brand this brutal, gruesome, and inhumane procedure.

REP. JOHN CONYERS, [D] Michigan: I don't care how many congresses we use, how many times we reintroduce this bill, how many times the House Judiciary Committee votes this to the floor, it is unconstitutional.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The bill now goes to the Senate, which fell eight votes short of overriding the presidential veto last year. The House also debated today an appropriation of $3.8 million to conduct an investigation of President Clinton's re-election campaign fund-raising. Democrats argue the Republican-sponsored probe would be "blatantly partisan" if it were not widened to include Republicans and members of Congress. A vote is expected later this evening. On the Senate floor today members approved a resolution upholding President Clinton's decision to certify Mexico as a cooperative ally in the war against drugs. The vote was ninety-four to five. The bill gained bipartisan support following negotiations with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. It criticizes Mexico's current anti-drug efforts but blocks the resolution passed by the House to decertify Mexico. Decertification would make Mexico ineligible for financial aid to fight illicit drug trafficking. The compromise Senate resolution also calls for a progress report in five months. Also in Washington today negotiators for American Airlines and its pilots union kept talking details after announcing late yesterday they had reached a tentative contract agreement. The proposal was expected to be presented to the pilots union board tomorrow. If the board approves, it will be submitted to American's 9,300 union pilots for a vote. The major dispute is over who will fly American Airlines' growing fleet of small jets. The airline wants to lower-paid pilots who now fly its turbo prop commuter planes. The union has insisted its members fly the jets. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan urged continuing vigilance against inflation again today. His comments before a congressional committee were interpreted as signaling a possible interest rate hike. The Federal Reserve's rate setting Open Market Committee meets next Tuesday. Greenspan's remarks sent the stock market into a morning tailspin, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day down 57 points. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the tobacco concession, expanding NATO, and a David Gergen dialogue. FOCUS - TOBACCO CONCESSIONS

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The big tobacco settlement is first tonight. Charlayne Hunter-Gault begins our coverage.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: For the first time ever a cigarette maker has admitted that smoking is hazardous to your health. Today the smallest of the big five cigarette companies, the Liggett Group, agreed to a landmark settlement with 22 states. The remaining tobacco companies have not agreed to any settlements with the states. They are Philip Morris, R. J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, and Lorillard. The settlement stems from a series of lawsuits brought by states beginning in 1994. The states demanded that the tobacco industry foot the bill for costs incurred for treating patients with smoke-related illnesses. According to the government about 46 million people smoke and smoking kills almost 400,000 people a year. Today's settlement is not Liggett's first. Last March, the company reached an agreement on a class action suit, agreeing to donate 5 percent of its pre-tax income for 25 years to study nicotine addiction and fund smoking cessation programs. That same month Liggett agreed to give five state Medicaid programs a total of $5 million plus 2 to 7 percent of his pre-tax income for 24 years. In both instances Liggett did not admit to any wrongdoing. But in today's settlement Liggett acknowledges that cigarettes are addictive, cause lung cancer, and are marketed specifically to minors. The company will put warnings that smoking is addictive on its cigarette packages. They will also pay $25 million up front and then pay to the states 25 percent of their pre-tax income for 25 years. Liggett also promises to turn over thousands of potentially incriminating documents to the states and help them prosecute other tobacco companies. Further, Liggett is dropping all confidentiality agreements so that its employees can testify against other tobacco makers. Today, however, attorneys for the four remaining tobacco companies still facing lawsuits want a temporary restraining order that blocks Liggett from turning over confidential documents. The four companies released a joint statement saying the only ones who potentially benefit from Liggett's latest shenanigans are plaintiffs' lawyers and some seed money for their illegitimate assault on the remainder of the tobacco industry.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: We're joined now by attorneys general who settled with Liggett today. She is Christine Gregoire of Washington State. Thank you for joining us. I want to get some of the details in a moment, but what exactly do you think is the significance of this settlement?

CHRISTINE GREGOIRE, Washington State Attorney General: Well, we've had a history in this country of the tobacco industry--you may recall the image of all of the CEO's standing before Congress, swearing to tell the truth, and then proceeding to say that there were no health side effects and that the product wasn't addictive. Today for the first time in the history of this industry we have a CEO of one of the five largest tobacco companies in our country admitting that it predicted, admitting that it causes the kinds of health care problems we have thought all the way along, and admitting that they're targeting minors in their advertising.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: What do you think you've achieved with this?

CHRISTINE GREGOIRE: Well, I think some of that's yet to be seen. The documents that we expect to have turned over come in two parts: one where Liggett clearly has the right to waive any privilege, and those we have begun to look at today after the agreement was signed. And they've got some fairly powerful information in there that I think any court and any jury is going to want to see.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Like maybe what, for example?

CHRISTINE GREGOIRE: Very clear admissions not just by Liggett but by the--what we alleged in our case the conspiracy of these five companies to keep the truth from the American consumer; that they could produce a safe cigarette; that they, in fact, are targeting "youth." And youth specifically is described as those under the age of 18 and over 14 in this country, in other words, our teen-agers. Now, the second set of documents are the ones that I think they're trying to keep us from getting and why they ran into court, and those we have been told by Liggett--obviously we have not seen them--that they can come within the crime fraud exception. So--

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: What does that mean exactly?

CHRISTINE GREGOIRE: We may find in those documents--a court may find upon review of them that criminal acts have been committed; that there's been fraud perpetrated upon the American consumer in which case if they do, those documents have to be made public.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So what do you think--all things being equal--what do you think overall impacts of just the Liggett settlements, for example, will be on the public at large?

CHRISTINE GREGOIRE: Well, I think there's been some skepticism. People who are long-term smokers haven't wanted to accept that, in fact, a company would lie to them. We haven't wanted to accept as an American people that, in fact, they would advertise to our kids with the intent to bring about the addiction. These admissions today I think put that to rest. In fact, it says that they have liked the American public and that they are, in fact, targeting our children and with good reason. They know full well that children are more susceptible to addiction between the ages of 14 and 18 than they are afterwards. And that's the future of the industry.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Why do you think Liggett agreed to such a far-reaching even damning settlement?

CHRISTINE GREGOIRE: We've speculated as attorneys general why would the company want to do that, and everybody I think has their own theory. But in the end we concluded we didn't much care the why behind it. My personal theory is they saw the writing on the wall, and they knew that beginning in June in Mississippi, attorneys general around this country are going to start winning these lawsuits. And so if they want to get on with business--and we're saying they can--we're not saying that they can't continue to run their business in a lawful way--that they can put this behind them and get on with business in a lawful manner.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Today several of the remaining--there were four remaining companies and Philip Morris was among those who issued a statement saying that this--this was a merit-less case, merit-less settlement, and that it means absolutely nothing. They're going to defend against it, and it's not going to make any difference. They're going to keep doing what they do.

CHRISTINE GREGOIRE: Well, I'm disappointed that they're going to say they're going to continue what they do because I think this agreement shows that they're lying to the public. But, you know, I find it interesting that they immediately ran into North Carolina and asked for a restraining order against the Liggett company. If they have nothing to hide from the American people, why is it they immediately ran in before a document was even signed to restrain Liggett from turning over documents to the American people? If they have nothing to hide, then come forward. Let the American people see those, and let them decide for themselves whether these companies have been honest and fair with the American consumer.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: They also say that they're going to defend vigorously against this, but I noticed in the press conference today one of the--one of your colleagues, one of the attorneys generals said they were going to bring these other four companies to their knees. How are you going to do that?

CHRISTINE GREGOIRE: Well, again, assuming the documents are as incriminating as what we've been told they are, they may very well kind of put the death knell to these lawsuits. And I don't think it'll take very many of these lawsuits to result in a decision in favor of the states, and they're going to have to see the writing on the wall as well. I remember when I filed my case in June of 1996. I said, as I do in any case, I'm open to settlement. They immediately sent a team out to do a press conference in my state in which they pounded on the table and said they'd never settle. You've seen it yourself over the last few months. One by one every one of the major companies is saying, well, they might consider settlement. I think they too are beginning to see the writing on the wall, but we as attorneys general will settle for nothing less in any settlement than they stop praying on kids; they have got to be regulated by the FDA regs and others; they have got to tell the American consumers the truth; and they've got to pay and reimburse consumers for the Medicaid costs incurred because of the health-care related issues that they've created.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: So what happens next? I mean, do you as attorneys general in all these 22 states go forward as a group to take on the big--the four remaining companies, all of which are bigger than Liggett? I mean, is it going to be a bigger--how is it going to work?

CHRISTINE GREGOIRE: Well, the first thing we want to do is get at the documents that are privileged. And those will be in each of our respective states. We will ask our judges that have been assigned to our cases to review the documents in private. I will not see them. I will not have access to them under my ethics rules, but to review those documents. And if they conclude a crime has been committed or fraud has been committed, then open up those documents to the American people. That's first on our agenda. The first case to go to trial is in Mississippi in June. That will be a real test for the tobacco companies. We think that they are going to be running to Congress for some kind of resolution, but we're going to hold strong what we want out of these cases.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Well, thank you very much for being with us.

CHRISTINE GREGOIRE: Thank you.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: We invited representatives tonight from the four major tobacco companies who did not join today's settlement. They either refused our request to be on the show or did not return our calls.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: For more perspective on today's developments we're joined by Paul Raeburn, who's covered the tobacco industry as a senior editor for "Business Week" Magazine. Paul, why do you think--what's your personal theory about why Liggett agreed to this settlement?

PAUL RAEBURN, Business Week: It's very difficult to say. He hasn't said anything today about it. Last year he was involved-- you remember, it was almost a year ago to the day last year that he--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You're talking about "he," the head of Liggett.

PAUL RAEBURN: I'm sorry. Bennett LeBow, the head of Liggett, who initiated the first proposed settlement with the attorneys general, at that time only five or six, now the twenty-two that we have now. And in that period he was involved in a very nasty fight with R. J. Reynolds in which he was trying some complicated maneuvers to try to ultimately take over the company, have R. J. Reynolds acquire Liggett, some stock swaps, and somehow arrange to be in charge of the resulting consolidation. That didn't work. The plan there was to offer R. J. Reynolds stockholders a legal out from the lawsuits by making the settlement. What happened, in fact, was tobacco shares, with the exception of Liggett's, were battered. Stockholders were very angry and decided not to deal with LeBow. Why he's continuing and why this latest settlement? It may be that as the very smallest tobacco company he feels he has the least to lose and may somehow profit through the visibility and the initiative that he's taking. It's not clear. We can only speculate.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The documents seem to be one of the most important elements of all this. Give us some--put this in perspective. What documents are we talking about? Where do they come from? Why are they so important?

PAUL RAEBURN: There's a large series of documents that are--will reveal many of the industry's practices over the past few decades. These can be important not only in the state attorneys general suits but in various individual liability suits, product liability suits, that is, suits where people are suing for recovery of damages after they have personally developed a smoking-related disease. But the key documents are something called committee of council documents, very interesting group that's been operated by the tobacco industry for sometime, this committee of council, which is a group in which lawyers from all of the tobacco companies met regularly to plan a joint litigation strategy. The idea was that they would move absolutely in lockstep. And this has in general been a very effective strategy. It has kept a stone wall in front of them and really prevented any significant legal victories on the other side. However, now what's happened with LeBow's break from that fortress, is that these documents have been requested by the attorneys General. And it may be that they'll--that they will be turned over. That's what the lawsuit, or the temporary restraining order in North Carolina is all about to prevent the release of those documents.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But won't they have a pretty compelling argument? I know that Attorney General Gregoire said that the Liggett documents that have been turned over are really revealing, but the documents that involved the other four companies, won't they have a pretty compelling argument saying that they are; they should be protected because they were attorney client--these are attorneys that we're meeting, after all.

PAUL RAEBURN: That's right. The argument on one side is that this is a legal confidentiality and that's generally held quite sacred by the courts. As Attorney General Gregoire pointed out, the argument on the other side is that there may have been a fraud and committees committed. And if these documents are judged to be evidence of fraud crimes then a judge can decide to violate the normal rules of confidentiality and make those things public.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Paul, Liggett's admitting that tobacco is addictive and that it can cause cancer. How significant is this, given the fact that there's already a little statement on every cigarette box saying smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and may complicate pregnancy. That's the warning from the surgeon general.

PAUL RAEBURN: Surgeon general, right. There are a couple of points to make here, I think. No. 1, the main effect of the warnings that are now on the packages has been to give the tobacco companies some insulation against product liability suits. They were intended initially to try to persuade smokers to quit. Studies have shown, however, that they just cannot compete with the images and the glowing full color advertisements that tobacco companies produce, so the warnings have been judged to be not very effective at alerting smokers to the dangers. Now, to add warnings that say cigarettes are addictive is certainly a victory for the industry's opponents. It's not likely to have a major effect on whether people decide to smoke. The admission that tobacco is--that nicotine is addictive is particularly significant in light of what Attorney General Gregoire mentioned that dramatic moment a couple of years ago when the tobacco CEO's swore that they believed it was not. So that is a more interesting admission of the two. The admission that cigarettes cause cancer is certainly an important symbolic step, but there has been no scientific debate on that question for several decades. So it's symbolic. It's not substantive.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And what is the current evidence showing, all of this publicity about cigarettes, is it cutting down on smokingin this country, or not?

PAUL RAEBURN: Smoking in this country has been slightly on the decline. The most effective means of encouraging the decline of smoking was a program that has been operated off and on for some years in California which involved very, very sharp television ads and also involved in a very extensive monitoring and survey program that judged the effectiveness of those ads. And for a period when those ads were running at full steam the rate of smoking in California was declining at twice the rate of decline in the rest of the country. Now, that program in California has taken some political shots, and it's not quite as effective now as it was. But it seems that directed messages to young people in particular do seem to cut the rate of smoking. Publicity about trials, warnings on cigarette packages, there the evidence that they do anything to cut smoking is unclear.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, Paul Raeburn, thanks for being with us.

PAUL RAEBURN: Thank you.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, expanding NATO and a David Gergen dialogue. FOCUS - FRIENDLY PERSUASION

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Next, the key issue at the Clinton-Yeltsin summit, bringing new members into NATO. We start with a background report from Charles Krause.

CHARLES KRAUSE: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed at the height of the Cold War in 1949; its aim, to protect Western Europe from Soviet expansion. In addition to the United States and Canada, NATO is composed of 14 of Western Europe's largest countries, from Iceland in the West to Turkey in the Southeast. To counter NATO the Soviet Union created the Warsaw Pact, along with its Central European satellites: Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. Except for East Germany, which no longer exists, all the former Soviet satellites now want to join NATO. But Russian President Boris Yeltsin has vigorously and repeatedly objected to expanding the alliance. Expansion, he said, would threaten Russia's security, harm U.S.- Russian relations, and create new divisions in Europe. In Finland, a spokesman for the Russian government said Yeltsin would defend Moscow's interests as never before. But on his arrival in Helsinki this morning Yeltsin struck a more moderate tone.

BORIS YELTSIN, Russian President: [speaking through interpreter] Difficult and serious talks between myself and Bill Clinton lie ahead. The most important thing is that we have to remember that our decisions do not only concern us but concern Europe and the whole world. We must work to keep the partnership between Russia and the United States on track.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Earlier this week in Washington President Clinton's national security team said Russia has nothing to fear from an expanded NATO.

SAMUEL R. BERGER, National Security Advisor: NATO no longer is directed towards Russia. There's a new NATO. It's changed in its force structure. It's adapted dramatically. It's changed in its mission in many respects. And it's no longer the NATO that is a threat to Russia that was just during the Cold War.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, Secretary of State: The Cold War is over. Russia is not our enemy. Russia is our friend, and we want to work with Russia cooperatively to create a new structure.

CHARLES KRAUSE: That new structure is at least partly contained in the new charter between Russia and the alliance which Clinton hopes to work out with Yeltsin during the summit. Among the issues still to be negotiated is Yeltsin's demand that NATO pledge to never locate nuclearweapons, nor station American or Western European troops in any of the new NATO countries. Before leaving for the summit yesterday Clinton sought to reassure Russia.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: We're adapting NATO to take on new missions, enlarge NATO to take on new members, strengthening NATO's partnership with non-members, and seeking to build a robust partnership between NATO and Russia, a relationship that makes Russia a true partner of the alliance.

CHARLES KRAUSE: President Clinton and Yeltsin met for a phot op and dinner this evening. Their bilateral talks will take place tomorrow. But whatever happens at the summit administration officials have said that with or without Russia's approval NATO will announce which new countries it will invite to join the alliance at a NATO summit scheduled for Madrid in July. Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic are expected to be among the first new members.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, two American perspectives on expanding NATO and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: Since the President and other NATO leaders seem determined to proceed with NATO expansion this year, debate in this country is shifting to how best to go about it. We get two perspectives on that issue from two former government officials who've had extensive dealings with the Russians and NATO governments: former Democratic Senator Sam Nunn, who chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1987 to 1995, and Robert Zoellick, former State Department counselor and Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs during the Bush administration. Senator Nunn, first to you, before we talk about what to do about Russia's concerns, tell us briefly, do you think NATO expansion is a good idea this year?

SAM NUNN, Former Democratic Senator: Margaret, I'll start with the question, what are the greatest threats to the United States? Clearly, the No. 1 threat in the United States today is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, whether chemical or biological or nuclear. Then my question would be: Does NATO expansion help in the fight against proliferation these weapons getting to third world rogue countries or terrorist groups? And my answer to that is, no, it makes the cooperation that we have underway with Russia more difficult, perhaps not impossible, but more difficult. The second question I ask is about nuclear threats. Does NATO expansion help us in terms of easing the nuclear trigger, which Russia still has thousands and thousands of nuclear weapons, or is it harmful? And I think the answer to that is it makes it more difficult because it puts enormous pressure on the Russian military. They're extremely weak, conventionally now. They're not threat to the countries we're taking in, but their reaction is likely to be a reliance, a heavy reliance on nuclear weapons. So the answer that I have to both of those key questions relating to the threat is that it makes it--NATO expansion makes our security problems more difficult. The third question is the question of Russia, itself. The greatest change we've had in the threat to the United States has been the break-up of the Soviet empire, the break-up of the Warsaw Pact, and the movement towards the democracy and market reform in Russia. That has a long way to go. But the question I ask, is NATO expansion going to make democracy and market reform more likely in Russia or less likely? I think it makes it more difficult because it puts pressure on our friends, the democrats in Russia, and it gives a great political issue to the demagogues there and the people on the extreme left and the extreme right.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Bob Zoellick, make the case for it. I know you're a supporter.

ROBERT ZOELLICK, Former State Department Counselor: Well, I frequently agree with Sen. Nunn but not on this one. And I think there are three counter-points. The first is that this is one of those important times of history where after an end of one era and the beginning of another we have to get the structure right. And after working for the freedom of the people of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary for 45 years, this would be an unfortunate time to leave them in the lurch. And these countries are still going through some difficult times. Not long ago we learned that a Polish prime minister just had ties with Russian intelligence. So there's a key part of our bringing them into the western community. Second, the relations with one another. One of the wonderful aspects of NATO enlargement has been that a lot of these countries in Eastern Europe have started to resolve their disputes so that they can come into NATO just like for 40 years the French and the Germans and others resolved it. So we see, for example, the Romanians and the Hungarians ending a dispute, the Czechs and the Germans. It's another part of civility. And the third and last one is Russia because frankly we don't know what direction Russia will still go. The Russians killed thousands of people in Chechnya. They're still trying to shake down the Estonians. They tried to put a couple of divisions in Georgia. And if you're sitting in Poland or in Prague or in Hungary these days, you want some reassurance. And frankly, it's not very believable to me that NATO is a serious threat to Russia. And the Russians know that.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let's turn now--given the fact that the President is determined to go ahead and other NATO leaders seem to be--Senator Nunn back to you. Turning to the first issue or the first demand that the Russians seem to be making has to do with whether we would promise never to station any NATO, foreign NATO troops in any of these countries or deploy nuclear weapons there. What is your view of how far, if at all, the West or NATO should go on that front?

SAM NUNN: I think it's difficult to go very far if we're still going to think of NATO as a military alliance. My disagreement with my good friend, Bob, is not whether these countries need to be part of the West; they do. But the right instrument for that is the instrument of trade in economic integration with the European community. We're using a military instrument for psychological and political purposes, and there will be military repercussions. I'm hopeful that President Yeltsin and President Clinton will make progress towards some agreement, but that does not change the military equation if the Russians are moving tactical air and infrastructure and other instruments of quick strike capability toward our nuclear deterrent and making it more vulnerable, we would react in a way of adjusting our nuclear policy, and they will do the same thing, in my view.

MARGARET WARNER: But what are you saying on this issue about whether we should give the Russians any assurances about our own plans of what we're going to do in these new countries?

SAM NUNN: Well, Margaret, what bothers me is that we have the political leaders basically again using a military tool here by treating it as a political tool. We've heard over and over again that we're not going to put nuclear weapons in those countries. I happen to agree with that. We don't need to now, but I don't think we can make apermanent pledge in that regard. We've said we aren't going to station our troops close to their borders. I agree that we don't need to do that now, because there's no threat. But in the future we have to reserve the right to do that because that connects the whole nuclear deterrent. So the answer is we can't go too far in making these assurances; otherwise, the NATO military guarantee will mean nothing to the countries we're taking in.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree with that? Can we give any assurances in that regard?

ROBERT ZOELLICK: Well, sure. I think it is an important piece of this whole effort, and the President is trying to do this just this very week, is to try to show the Russians that NATO is not a threat to them, and that there's a place for Russia in the Euro Atlantic community. Now, there's different elements of that. Some of them can be trade. Some of them you'll see in the G-7 context, but on the issues particularly that you mentioned NATO said in December that at this point unilaterally it saw no need and no purpose to have nuclear weapons in those countries. And I think that's right. In terms of troops, I think we have to be careful. I think again unilaterally one can say we don't see the need for large scale station forces, but we want to have some people there because we do want to start to integrate 'em into our military system. But the key element for anything we do with Russia should be reciprocity. And that's why if we start to deal with bigger issues here, it's important that the Russians do things that show they're willing to cooperate and become part of this system.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Now staying with you, Bob Zoellick, for a moment, both sides have been talking about this charter. We saw it referred to in the piece. And Secretary of State Albright has said we want to give the Russians a voice but not a veto over NATO decisions. What does that mean in practical terms? What would this or should this charter say?

ROBERT ZOELLICK: Well, that's a question that a lot of people are asking, including a lot of people in the Senate, because they're a little concerned about if the administration goes too far on that. As you know, NATO is not an organization where you stand up and vote. So the whole concept of a veto is a little bit of an awkward one in this context. But what I think they're trying to say is that on issues of proliferation, on issues of security of nuclear materials, on issues of peacekeeping, as in Bosnia, if the Russians want to agree and cooperate with us, then we should try to create mechanisms with NATO to do that. Where it gets a little bit more dangerous is if they try to create a general mechanism so that Russia has an extra seat at the table. And the reason that worries people is they don't want to make the Poles, the Czechs, and the Hungarians, and others second class citizens, and create an implicit damper on any discussion. And that's the part they have to be careful about.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree with his analysis, Senator?

SAM NUNN: Bob and I are not far apart on that, that question. If President Clinton goes too far in assuring President Yeltsin, then he could run into real problems back here in terms of getting the votes he needs to move forward with this treaty amendment. If President Clinton does not give Yeltsin some cover, then President Yeltsin is going to be in difficulty back home. That's why this move at this time is extremely hard to handle because President Yeltsin, himself, is under great pressure economically to continue to cooperate with the West. And that means he is probably going to have to make some agreement, but that will give his opponents, the Communists and the extremists in Russia, a real lever over the movement toward market reform and the movement toward democracy. That's why when there is no military threat, using a military tool for what is a psychological and political problem and, in effect, letting the West Europeans off the hook where they can basically not have tomatoes sold into their markets, we're giving a nuclear guarantee instead of opening the market for tomatoes. That's a pretty serious kind of trade-off in my view.

ROBERT ZOELLICK: Just one other thought on this. I think what's very important to recognize is that insofar as we have polling data on the Russian public, they're not all that agitated on this, and I think one of the important messages that we have to convey and that the President is going to have to convey is Russia needs to get really serious about what its real security interests are. Gen. Lebed was in town not long ago, and I had a chance to talk to him, and he's a senior military officer that was a former commander of Russian forces and a number of important areas, and he said, look, I'm not worried about NATO; you're not the threat; the threat that he fears is to his East in China, or to his South. Now, in the long run, the Chinese--the Russians should be trying to work with us on that. And that's the sort of thing that we should be offering the Russians, is to develop a partnership for the real threats and get beyond the psychological thing frankly left over by some of the old Soviets on their side.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, well, thank you both, gentlemen, very much. DIALOGUE

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Finally tonight a Gergen dialogue. David Gergen, editor at large of "U.S. News & World Report," engages Garry Wills, Professor of History at Northwestern University and author of "John Wayne's America: The Politics of Celebrity."

DAVID GERGEN: Garry, you write in your book that in 1995 a survey of Americans asking who their favorite movie star is had John Wayne at the top, 17 years after he died. How do you explain his hold upon the American imagination?

GARRY WILLS, Author, "John Wayne's America": Well, it's not something that he could do just in terms of himself. Obviously, we were conditioned to receive some extraordinary jolt from him. What conditioned us, I think, is our deepest myth, our frontier myth. We were taught in the 19th century especially that the frontier defined us. We were different from all other countries because we had space; we had freedom; we had an opening into nature. And by going West, by going out, we would become ourselves. And we couldn't really be free if we stayed clustered together in the Eastern cities. And so we had all this transcendentalist literature, all these people saying, go West, that's how you become an American, escape the lettered littleness of the past in Europe. You know, from Jefferson on, Jefferson said, pose a moral question to a professor and a plow man, and the farmer will answer as well or better because he's in touch with the earth. Well, Wayne is that. He doesn't know books. He doesn't know cities. He doesn't know that, but he's in touch with nature. And he is a kind of force of nature, himself.

DAVID GERGEN: You call him an American Adam.

GARRY WILLS: Yeah. Herman Melville said the American Adam is like the original Adam. He comes out of the earth at God's call. He's not brought from any previous descendants. Well, that was what the idea was of America. Here wehad this great continent. It was a clean slate, a fresh start. We were not going to be like any other country, and so this Adam, who is naive in some ways, not learned in the ways of the world, has an earthy wisdom from contact with the great outdoors, and, you know, Wayne just breathes that, moves that, walks that.

DAVID GERGEN: Does he embody manliness then for us as well?

GARRY WILLS: Certainly, one ideal of manliness and a very powerful one. It's interesting, women are not nearly as great fans as men. Men--

DAVID GERGEN: So it's not a sex appeal?

GARRY WILLS: It's an odd kind of sex appeal. You know, his major influence in the big roles was as a very mature, responsible man. He was not the young flirty lover, except in some of his earlier, not very influential movies. He's the solid, dependable person who can hold together a wagon train or a cavalry unit, or Marine detachment. And young men look up to him. In his most influential movies there's a two-generation plot in which he's the man in his 40's who has--is burdened by these tremendous responsibilities, and there's a younger generation, and the love interest is down there, of a young man in his 20's who rebels against him and doesn't like his strong ways. He feels he's going to be swallowed up by this strength. And then, of course, as the movie goes on, he sees that there is a kind of tenderness underneath it all; there's a tough love, and surrogate father is forgiven by the young rebel. Well, that had tremendous appeal to young boys and lots of old men. You've got lots of stories now of people who were influenced by that. Newt Gingrich was bowled over when he was a little kid by this, and it's still with him. He closed down the government, and Elizabeth Drew, the reporter, went to him and said, some of your own followers are saying you've gone too far; that this is extreme, you should back off. And he said, "I learned from Sgt. Striker," hero, "Sands of Iwo Jima," " that you have to be tough on your own for their own good." And he said, "That was the formative movie in my life." And it was a formative movie in a lot of people's lives. And it is to this day. I lectured at the Naval Academy on John Ford, who's a big naval figure. And a midshipman came up to me and said, every Saturday I play "Sands of Iwo Jima" in my room and a bunch of my friends come in, and every time John Wayne dies, I break up. So here's a kid, 20 years from now he and his friends are going to be admirals, and they will have had the same training that Newt Gingrich had.

DAVID GERGEN: I was interested in how much of an emphasis you placed upon the way he moved in his body, his body movements. In fact, your book has pictures comparing the way he stood and looking at Michelangelo's "David" and Donatello's "David." They were, very similar poses.

GARRY WILLS: Well, Raoul Walsh, the director who discovered him when he was 22 years old, sawing him moving furniture around. He was a prop man at Fox, and he said, "My God, this guy is just so rhythmic and graceful and ease." He had tremendous strength. He was very well coordinated. He was slow. That's why he wasn't great at football. But he used his body with tremendous economy. So even though he was slow he got things done because he went right to the point in all of his movements and gestures. And he was very conscious of that. Richard Widmark was directed by him in the "Alamo," and he said, "He would crack me up because he would say, 'Goddamn it, be graceful like me!'"

DAVID GERGEN: Well, you had written an earlier biography of George Washington.

GARRY WILLS: That's right.

DAVID GERGEN: And I wonder whether there's a comparison because Washington's stature, his physical stature, gave him so--

GARRY WILLS: Yes. You know, Washington was a very good horseman, and so he could ride fast to where he wanted to go when he was working, could ride all night and be fresh in the morning. And, of course, that kind of physical indomitability is what Wayne conveys, among other things.

DAVID GERGEN: And yet in the end the idea of John Wayne was really a myth. You say that he hated horses, a man--

GARRY WILLS: Hated horses. Never rode except on the set, and never rode when he didn't have to.

DAVID GERGEN: And you told a tale that I had never seen described this way before about World War II and how he and Ronald Reagan were on parallel paths in Hollywood and yet, they very different ways in World War II.

GARRY WILLS: Yes. Both in 1939 had a breakthrough movie. And the breakthrough movie made it possible that they were going to move up. But then along came the war. Reagan could have stayed out because he was practically blind, but he went in, and when he came back, he was over the hill because his appeal was of the young, light friend of the hero type. And when he came back, he was a little too old for that, so he never quite regained his--Wayne was afraid that was going to happen to him. He had just made "Stagecoach," and he thought, if I leave, all these young folks are going to come up behind me; they'll be in place by the time I come back, and all this nine years of waiting will be wasted. So even though his friends went in, John Ford kept saying, why aren't you coming in? He kept writing letters to him, saying, oh, I'm coming in, I'm coming in, I've got to do one more movie. He got an exemption because he had four children, though he wasn't living with them. He was living with another woman, not his wife. And then later on when the criteria changed and he didn't have that family exemption, he was made 1A, and the studio begged to keep him, as it could have begged for the big stars and who had a much stronger case, and he took the opportunity. So he never served.

DAVID GERGEN: Final question then. So in the end did you emerge from this book admiring John Wayne?

GARRY WILLS: I admire the artist. You know, it's funny. People say he just played himself. No. There's a tremendous difference. The man doesn't interest me very much because he was not interested in much outside of making movies. But he was a wonderful professional, very hard working and skilled person who worked with the highest talents in Hollywood and made six or seven best movies made in those decades. And aside from that, of course, the movies were of the kind that created the super human, this larger than life image which is still ranging across the imaginations of people to this minute. So I admire that. And I admire all the other people who contributed to making that, that image, that confection, that creation. The man, himself, doesn't interest me much.

DAVID GERGEN: Gary Wills, thank you very much. RECAP

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Again, the major stories of this Thursday, the maker of L&M and Chesterfield Cigarettes agreed to put addiction and cancer warnings on all packages. The agreement was part of a deal to end lawsuits against the Liggett Tobacco Company by 22 states to recover public health costs of treating sick smokers. Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin spoke of overcoming their differences at the beginning of their two-day summit in Helsinki, and the House voted against appropriating $3.8 millionto investigate President Clinton's re-election campaign fund-raising. We'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening with Shields & Gigot and more. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Thank you and good night.