The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight again the question what should be done about Saddam Hussein and Iraq; a Tom Bearden report on keeping pilots in the U.S. Air Force; the first of three David Gergen dialogues on race relations; and a look at a San Francisco revival of the American classic "A Streetcar Named Desire." It all follows our summary of the news this Veterans Day. NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The United States and Great Britain today urged the United Nations to punish Iraq. They did so in a resolution prepared for the 15-nation UN Security Council. It would prohibit foreign travel by Iraqi officials who have struck UN weapons instructors. It also continues international economic sanctions against Iraq for at least six months after it resumes complying with inspection requirements. A vote is expected tomorrow. US Ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson predicted it would pass. Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, said he saw no movement toward change from either side. He spoke to reporters in New York.

TARIQ AZIZ, Deputy Prime Minister, Iraq: I have not been given any promise, any concrete promise that there will be a change in the position of the Council, and I on my part didn't give any concrete promise for a change because if you don't have a change on the part of the Security Council, you cannot expect a change on the position of Iraq.

JIM LEHRER: In Bagdad today UN inspectors, including Americans, were turned away from a weapons site for the eighth time in nine days. President Clinton called it unacceptable and said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein should not be allowed to rebuild nuclear and biological weapons. He spoke at a Veterans Day ceremony.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I want every single American to understand what is at stake here. These inspectors since 1991 have discovered and destroyed more weapons of mass destruction potential than was destroyed in Iraq during the entire Gulf War. They are doing what they should be doing. They must get back to work, and the international community must demand it.

JIM LEHRER: Military operations are underway in the Persian Gulf in preparation for possible developments. Kevin Dunn of Independent Television News reports.

KEVIN DUNN, ITN: A hundred miles off Iraq's Southern coast the world's biggest warship is flexing its fire power. The nuclear-powered American carrier Nimitz having a seventeen-ship battle group is ready to strike at Iraq if it carries out its threat to bring down the United Nations spy flights. Fighters from the Nimitz escorted a U-2 spy plane over Iraq yesterday and returned without incident. Today the Nimitz's F-14's and F-16's were again enforcing the no-fly zone over Southern Iraq as the diplomatic deadlock continued. The giant carrier's captain told me the warplanes would not hesitate to retaliate if fired upon.

CAPT. IKE RICHARDSON, U.S. Navy: There's nothing that says we have to allow people to shoot at us and not shoot back. We always have the right of self-defense, and I would certainly envision that if our forces were fired upon that we would go ahead and shoot back.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on Iraq right after this News Summary. Eastman Kodak announced a major restructuring plan today. It will eliminate 10,000 jobs and cut costs by at least $1 billion over the next two years. Profits of the world's largest photography company have been down, mostly say analysts because of increased competition in the U.S. market from Japan's Fuji photo film company. A jury in Fairfax, Virginia, reconvened today to consider the death penalty for Amai Kazi. He's the Pakistani man convicted of murder yesterday in the shooting deaths of two CIA employees outside the agency's front gate four years ago. He was tried by the state, instead of under federal law, because of the capital punishment provision. For the record, we mistakenly reported last night that the penalty phase would not begin until next week. A new president of Ireland was sworn in today in Dublin. Mary McLeese is the country's eighth president and the first from British-ruled Northern Ireland. She's a former law professor who pledged today to do all she could to help find a solution to the conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. This is November 11th, Veterans Day, a holiday for many Americans. President Clinton placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery. In a speech that followed he praised American service men and women and said the U.S. must continue to lead for peace and freedom against aggression and tyranny. On the Mall in Washington Vietnam veterans were honored at a ceremony marking the 15th anniversary of the dedication of the Vietnam War Memorial. And in New York City veterans--some in vintage uniforms--marched in their annual parade, one of the largest in the country. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to what to do about Iraq, the Air Force's pilot program, a David Gergen dialogue on race, and a "Streetcar Named Desire." FOCUS - THE IRAQ PROBLEM

JIM LEHRER: Iraq, the problem that won't go away. Here we are, six years after Iraq's defeat by an American-led coalition in the Gulf War again asking how to handle its leader, Saddam Hussein. This time the issue is Iraq's refusal to allow U.S. personnel to be part of UN weapons inspections teams. Robert Pelletreau, a career diplomat, was Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs from 1994 to '97; Richard Haass served on the National Security Council staff under President Bush; Edward Peck was a career diplomat who served as chief of U.S. Mission in Bagdad from 1977 to '89; and Thomas Friedman is the foreign affairs columnist for the "New York Times. Tom Friedman, what should be done this time about Saddam Hussein?

THOMAS FRIEDMAN, New York Times: Jim, I think the administration is basically on the right track right now, which is to say, first of all, we've got to lay down a diplomatic case, a diplomatic predicate for him to try to keep the global alliance that we've got against Iraq, to keep Iraq from acquiring weapons of mass destruction or breaking out again, as it did against Kuwait, to try to keep that together, and they're playing that out at the UN today, and you heard now we've got a new resolution that will ban the travel of Iraqi leaders. I think that's an important step. I think we should keep ratcheting up this diplomacy to see how far we can go with our allies, and if that somehow will get Iraq to back down, but at the same time I think we have to be prepared. I think the United States is prepared; that if we need to use force and, if necessary, to do it alone.

JIM LEHRER: And you think this justifies using force; it's that serious a matter?

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Oh, I think this is the most serious matter because basically this involved weapons of mass destruction. We're talking about potential nuclear development by Iraq, germ warfare, poison gas. We're talking about things that could be totally disruptive to the security and stability of this part of the world, and I think it's essential on this issue that Iraq not be allowed to remove these inspections, to be allowed to develop these things on your own because we know who Saddam Hussein is; we know what he's about; we know what his objectives are. This is a man with absolutely no redeeming features. He's killed his relatives; he's depressed his people; he's invaded; he's attacked five different countries around him; and if he is given the wherewithal, or allowed to develop the wherewithal to acquire these weapons of mass destruction, I have no doubt he would use it.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Peck, do you see the threat the same way?

EDWARD PECK, Former State Department Official: No, not exactly. I have a feeling that in the United States today there is a kind of a national feeding frenzy in which Saddam Hussein is described as the devil incarnate and, as Mr. Friedman just said, with no redeeming values. The thing that concerns me the most is that our very open desire to get Saddam seems to overlook our key interest in the area, our overriding interest in the area, the Middle East, which is stability. And the thing that we don't want--above all else--is instability, because without stability none of the other things we want in that region can come to pass. And this idea of trying to find some way to justify knocking off Saddam seems to disregard the fact that when he goes, there's no one to take his place and that place in Iraq is going to dissolve into just a sea of chaos--which serves no one's interest.

JIM LEHRER: We'll come back to that in a moment. But what about Tom Friedman's basic point that the- -that what Iraq is doing in acquiring and developing weapons of mass destruction justify just about anything in order to stop it?

EDWARD PECK: Well, I mean, I don't know that he's doing this. The problem that Saddam Hussein faces- -and Tariq Aziz has put it rather nicely--is that, you know, when is the--when is the inspection over, at what point does somebody stand up and say I guarantee that there are no weapons of mass destruction under development or in stockpiles here--you can never get that to happen. And so how long does the embargo stay in place? Forever.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Pelletreau, where do you come down between Friedman and Peck?

ROBERT PELLETREAU, Former State Department Official: I think almost nobody would doubt that if the sanctions for some reason were lifted tomorrow the day after Saddam would be back in the rearmament game, acquiring weapons of mass destruction, rebuilding his armed forces, and it might be only a few days after that, that he was mobilized again on the Kuwaiti frontier.

JIM LEHRER: On what is that based? On what is that feeling based, that belief?

ROBERT PELLETREAU: That everything he has done over six years points to a desire to try to maintain his capability to conduct offensive actions against his neighbors.

JIM LEHRER: Against whom particularly?

ROBERT PELLETREAU: Against Kuwait, against Saudi Arabia. He has not given up his ambition to be the dominant force in the Gulf.

JIM LEHRER: Now, Mr. Peck, you don't buy that?

EDWARD PECK: No. I think that Saddam Hussein's objective, No. 1, is to remain in power. Every politician seems to suffer from that. And the second thing he probably wants is good things for Iraq, whatever those may be. You know, the man is not stupid. He's already received a rather sharp lesson in the 100 hours of the Gulf War and is unlikely to demonstrate a desire to emulate himself on the cross of going forward. He's been taught, and he can be restrained by mechanisms other than the ones we're using.

JIM LEHRER: Richard Haass, you shook your head when Mr. Peck just said that Saddam Hussein is not stupid.

RICHARD HAASS, National Security Council Staff: I don't know what planet Mr. Peck is living on. Saddam Hussein is beyond redemption. He would sacrifice Iraq down to the last Iraqi. He couldn't care less about the welfare of his people. The man is a danger, perhaps one of the greatest dangers of the 20th century.

JIM LEHRER: Greatest dangers of the 20th century?

RICHARD HAASS: Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction, do you think that somehow he would put a limit on what he would do, that he would stop invading Kuwait, that he would not want to gain control of the world's energy supply, that he would not pose a threat against Israel? This is a man who does not place limits on himself. The only people who would place limits on him are outsiders. The only area--the only area where I would take issue with Tom Friedman, who I think was 100 percent right in his analysis, Jim, was in the question of whether we should act alone. I'd rather not do that. I would say, first, let's try to get the Security Council to authorize the use of force until Saddam complies and accepts unconditional inspections. Failing that, what I would do is not act alone, but I would put together a coalition with the British, with the Kuwaitis, with anyone else, hopefully the Saudis and the Turks.

JIM LEHRER: Outside the UN, if you had to?

RICHARD HAASS: Outside the UN.

JIM LEHRER: I see.

RICHARD HAASS: We cannot give the French, the Russians, the Chinese, or anyone else in New York a veto over American foreign policy and what needs to be done.

JIM LEHRER: Tom Friedman, why are the allies, who were part of the coalition before, why are they not in the same state of rage as the U.S. is over this? THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Well, it depends which ones, Jim, and I think it's several different factors. I think the French and Russians--it's not I don't think--they've been in Iraq with their oil companies trying to sign contracts with Iraq. And Iraq's been offering French and Russian and other oil companies very attractive terms, so there is the mercantilist question. I think there is also the question of this sort of fear of American hegemony these days, resentment of American hegemony. We stand astride the world today very powerfully-- our economy, our military. A lot of people resent that. We're expanding NATO into Europe and telling the Russians, you know, be with us here but we're in your face there. The French resent this enormously, so you've got that dimension of it as well. Now, I say to all that, look, we knew with the end of the Cold War that was going to happen. We knew there was going to be sharper economic rivalry. But surely if we cannot agree--as Bob and Richard said--that this man with weapons of mass destruction is a danger to the stability that Mr. Peck referred to in the Middle East, then what can we agree on? What does it mean to have allies in a world we can't even agree that this is a menace? And with all due respect to Mr. Peck when he said, what proof do we have, as President Clinton said, the UNSCOM, the UN weapons inspectors, have found more missiles and parts of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq since the end of the Gulf War than we destroyed during the Gulf War. I'm ready to say that he has complied when the UN inspectors are ready to say that he's complied.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Peck.

EDWARD PECK: But, you know that that is never going to happen. The thing that concerns me about this is that--

JIM LEHRER: Go ahead and stick it back--that thing back in your ear.

EDWARD PECK: That there's some kind of mass hysteria here, and Mr. Haass is talking about the devil incarnate and the rest, and you, I think, Mr. Friedman, have recommended a head shot as the way to solve these problems.

JIM LEHRER: He didn't do that on the air tonight--it was the column--we'll come back to that in a moment--but he did that in the column, right.

EDWARD PECK: Yes, sir. It's the sort of thing that concerns me because there are ways to work this thing short of doing what the rest of--what our allies don't want us to do, and that is to destroy whatever fragile stability Iraq has as a nation.

JIM LEHRER: Well, what about--would you speak to the point that all these--you're three against one here on this--I'm sorry about that.

EDWARD PECK: It's all right.

JIM LEHRER: That the stability of the region is in jeopardy just by the fact of what Iraq is doing in developing these weapons.

EDWARD PECK: He doesn't have any weapons. We've got 110 inspectors who have been held back for six days. Nobody builds these things up in six days. And a moment's sober reflection leads you to the conclusion that if Saddam Hussein wants to, he can develop a bathtub full of, you know, anthrax in his apartment. So you can never be certain he's not doing this sort of thing unless you take the steps to explain to him very carefully what the costs are if he does 'em.

JIM LEHRER: What about that point, Amb. Pelletreau?

ROBERT PELLETREAU: The facts are just contrary to what Mr. Peck is describing. In Middle East terms the Iraqi army today is still a very significant force. It has about 400,000 men; it has over 3500 tanks, over 2,000 artillery pieces. This is roughly half of what it had at the beginning of the Gulf War. But, nevertheless, when you look at the region, there's no other country in the region that possesses this kind of strength. And given Saddam's unpredictability, his preference and predilection for using his military force to intimidate, to invade, to repress, I think that it's just overwhelmingly clear that the UN sanctions have to remain in place.

JIM LEHRER: What would you say to those--among the French and the Russians and elsewhere--Mr. Peck might even agree with this--who say, wait a minute, the more we demonize this man, the worst he's going to be to deal with, why don't we try another approach, which is to try to negotiate with him, come in and there and talk to him about all of this?

ROBERT PELLETREAU: Well, I think some of that other approach is starting right now. The action is with Bill Richardson up at the UN and I believe that the French and the Russians are on board for this resolution. The UN is going to be rock solid.

JIM LEHRER: Talk first, taking a step at a time?

ROBERT PELLETREAU: Lay the foundation for common international action very clearly, utilize your diplomatic options, and keep the international coalition together. Then you've laid a foundation, a good foundation, if it's necessary, if it's necessary to use military force as a follow-up action.

JIM LEHRER: Let's go to another point Mr. Peck made, Richard Haass, which is that you take out Saddam Hussein and that doesn't solve any problems; there's no infrastructure; there's no party in waiting; there's no second level who's going to come and make everything nice and tidy in Iraq.

RICHARD HAASS: It's a risk I'd be willing to take. Two things though: One, taking him out is easier said than done. If we could have done it, I assure you we would have. It's just--

JIM LEHRER: "We" meaning the Bush administration?

RICHARD HAASS: Indeed, the Bush administration or the Clinton administration. It's just easier said than done. It's very hard to get from here to there. This is one of the most insulated, protected people in the world, very tough to get at him. Secondly, Mr. Peck is right to this extent. Getting rid of Saddam does not solve the problem. Iraq still has a political culture that is filled with decades of tyranny. It would still pose a military threat, and one of the things we would have to do under a post-Saddam leadership is lay out a road map and say to the new leadership, here is what we expect from you and here is what we in return, the international community, would be willing to do for you. We would be willing to relax the sanctions; we would be willing to welcome you back as a member of the international community, as you demonstrate that you are, in fact, a changed country and a changed regime.

JIM LEHRER: But you have to first get rid of Saddam Hussein?

RICHARD HAASS: I think it's going to be necessary, but in the meantime it's a moot point. Let Saddam comply fully with all the UN resolutions. Let him work cooperatively with the weapons inspections. Then we can have that debate at the United Nations. But we're not there yet.

JIM LEHRER:Mr. Peck, what is your analysis of why Saddam Hussein will not comply with the UN resolutions on the inspections?

EDWARD PECK: You know, Saddam Hussein has a feeling somehow deep down that we don't like him very much. And you may remember that when he went North last November I think it was, he exposed to the eyes and ears of the world a shatteringly ineffective UN-funded--pardon me--US-funded CIA operation which was in the country for the express purpose of overthrowing him. That alone--

JIM LEHRER: What do you mean? You'll have to refresh my memory on that. When you say he went North, what do you mean?

EDWARD PECK: The Barzani Kurds asked him to come help him fight the Talabani Kurds, who are backed by the Iranians. And then here was this CIA operation inside the sovereign borders of his country, which was there for the express purpose of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. He may begin to suspect that we don't like him, and may begin to suspect that he really can't trust us.

JIM LEHRER: So he would be--under that scenario he would be justified in saying we'll let you in-- inspectors in here but no Americans because they're out to get me?

EDWARD PECK: Well, he certainly thinks so. Whether he's justified or not is another call. I don't think that he should be allowed to decide which inspectors come on but one of the forces that's driving him is the very distinct fear that we're out to get him. We've said as much, and I think he believes this.

JIM LEHRER: Does he have reason to believe that, Tom Friedman?

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: You know, Jim, this reminds me of a cartoon after the 1973 war of Golda Meir standing in a boxing ring over Anwar Sadat and Sadat is flat on his back and he's pointing up to Golda Meir, and he's saying, I want the ring; I want the belt; I want the prize money. There was a war. There was a war that Saddam Hussein started, a war against Kuwait in which he went in, took over their oil fields, and when it was clear he couldn't take them, he set all their oil fields ablaze, creating a huge ecological disaster there. He lost that war. The UN imposed certain conditions on him. Part of those conditions was this weapons inspection regime. Let's keep our focus on that. All right. If he is ready to comply with the weapons inspections regime, as Richard and Bob said, you know, I think then we can have a new debate, which is that this guy, okay, maybe he's had therapy, he's a new man, he's changed, he's reformed, he's ready to comply with the UN, and let's have a debate about how far we want to push him. But we're not there yet. We're not there by any stretch of the imagination according to the--you know--UN independent weapons inspectors--of which there are, what, six American teams of about 160.

JIM LEHRER: Do you dispute that, Mr. Peck?

EDWARD PECK: Well, I'm concerned about the fact that we touched on another point and went past it, and that is a lot of our alleged allies are not backing us on this, and one of the reasons I think was touched on by some of your colleagues down there, and that is that America is engaged in a very blatant exercise of selective morality in which conquests and weapons and suppressions and all of that are bad if one person does it but not if another. Surely, one of the most classic uses of the--correct uses of the word "irony" is that we base the airplanes that we use to protect the Kurds in Northern Iraq in Turkey, and we're not concerned about the Kurds there, and you can't run around making noises about how you're concerned about the Kurds if you're only concerned about some Kurds. Everybody sees that as something different than the pure morality, which we would like to profess we are following.

JIM LEHRER: Quick response?

ROBERT PELLETREAU: He's awfully articulate, but I don't know what he said.

EDWARD PECK: I'll explain it to you later.

JIM LEHRER: All right, but not here because we got to go. Thank you all four very much. FOCUS - TAKING FLIGHT

JIM LEHRER: Now, a Veterans Day look at the U.S. Air Force. It's having trouble keeping its pilots, partly because of long and, up till now, uneventful deployments to the Persian Gulf. Tom Bearden reports.

TOM BEARDEN: The Cold War may be over, but the Air Force is busier than ever. While its forces have been cut in half, its commitments worldwide have quadrupled. Transport planes fly troops and equipment to peacekeeping and humanitarian missions around the clock. Fighter pilots are deployed more frequently and for longer periods of time than ever before. All of this activity has a price. Captain Jim Lackey flies mammoth C-5 Galaxies, the largest cargo planes in the Air Force. He loves his job, but he's had enough.

CAPTAIN JIM LACKEY, U.S. Air Force Pilot: The operational needs that the Air Force is asking me to do now is get beyond what I'm willing to put into the job. Overseas deployments, a long time away from--separated from my wife and family is starting to take its toll.

TOM BEARDEN: Captain Lackey says it's a very different face from the Air Force he joined nearly 10 years ago.

CAPTAIN JIM LACKEY: I would say probably 50 percent more gone for various deployments and things for operations, and the frequency is the real key issue. I come back. I barely get time to wash my clothes. I'm back into crew rest for another mission going out, and I don't know when I'm going to be back.

TOM BEARDEN: Katja Lackey is just as tired of it as he is, particularly not knowing when he's coming home. The Air Force might tell Lackey to be gone for five days and then extend the trip at the last minute, sometimes more than once.

KATJA LACKEY, Pilot Wife: It's the add-along and tag-alongs that throw you for a loop; that they don't ever tell you about in the beginning. I mean, I can prepare myself for anything if I know what I'm looking at. But it's the unknown, it's the--you maybe go and you maybe won't--and, you know, golly-y-y--who's running the show, you know? Is there anybody in charge? And the "maybe's" and--I just am sick of that.

TOM BEARDEN: Has it threatened your marriage?

CAPTAIN JIM LACKEY: Yes. Yes. I have been gone at times where I really needed to be home .I've told my wife months in advance, yes, you will be able to do this, I'll make sure that you could do this. I've had leave canceled. I was told, I'm sorry, you can buck all you want to but you're going to have to go in and do this job, go in and fly this mission.

TOM BEARDEN: It didn't used to be that way in the Air Force. During the Cold War the principal mission of the Air Force was to deter the Soviet Union. That meant being on continual nuclear alert. It also meant that Air Force personnel will be assigned to one base for several years, their families settled in, and temporary assignments were limited. But in recent years pilots find themselves away from home much of the time. For example, members of the 94th Fighters Squadron based in Langley, Virginia, had been routinely doing three- month tours away from their families, monitoring the no-fly zone in Iraq. Instead of the comfortable accommodations Air Force personnel are accustomed to, eight Airmen have to share a 30 by 20 tent, with plastic porta-potties instead of plumbing. General Richard Hawley runs the Air Combat Command.

GENERAL RICHARD HAWLEY, Commander, Air Combat Command: Pre-Gulf War we were a garrison Air Force. We either went overseas, we lived in the states, we didn't do a lot of TDY's to tents in the desert. But since the Gulf War, that's changed. We've now got about 5,000 people in Southwest Asia, Northwest Asia, living in tents, separated from their families for two, three, four months at a time all the time. That's a dramatic change in the lifestyle for the Air Force.

TOM BEARDEN: Too dramatic for some. An unprecedented number of pilots who are completing their initial eight-year obligation to the service are opting to get out and turning down thousands of dollars in incentives in the process. Jim Wolfe is the editor of the Air Force Times.

JIM WOLFE, Editor, Air Force Times: If you'll sign on to stay through the end of your 15th year, they'll give you right now a $12,000 a year bonus. And that bonus Congress is about to--about to expand to $25,000. Now, the idea is you lock the pilots in. That's where the Air Force is seeing its problem. Last year, over 60 percent of the pilots who came up on the retention bonus decision took it. This year it's down around 30 percent.

TOM BEARDEN: There are about 700 pilots facing that decision this year, the most experienced pilots in the Air Force. Taxpayers have about $5 million worth of training invested in each of them. 70 percent of that group has decided to leave the service. One reason cited is the increase in the so-called operational tempo. What it means is that the dramatically smaller Air Force is hard-pressed to keep up with the jobs the government has committed it to do.

GENERAL RICHARD HAWLEY: In the Air Force we're about half the size that we were eight or nine years ago, but we have about four times the level of commitments around the world that we had in that day. So those things all come together, and they produce a tension in our people's, an absence from home, stresses on the family, that all come together to cause people to question whether or not they want to make a career out of service to their country.

TOM BEARDEN: Pilots are also leaving because for the first time in several years they have someplace else to go.

JIM WOLFE: There's an estimate that between the big airlines, the cargo carriers, and other smaller aircraft owners that as many as 14,000 pilots will be hired in the private sector this year. They pay a lot more money than the Air Force does, and so Air Force pilots have an option now. If they're not happy with the Air Force, they have an option that will actually pay them more.

TOM BEARDEN: Colonel Irv Halter commands the 94th Fighter Squadron.

COLONEL IRV HALTER, Commander, 94th Fighter Squadron: You don't work nearly as much as we do in the Air Force, probably about half a month, as opposed to, you know, a full sixty-hour work week like we have, and over time it can be much more lucrative. A 747 captain makes at least twice what I do, although he doesn't have nearly the same responsibilities.

TOM BEARDEN: Former F-15 Pilot David Postoll has just completed training to fly 727's for United Airlines. Besides being away from his family, Postoll said he was frustrated by the tedious patrol missions in the Middle East.

DAVID POSTOLL, Former F-15 Pilot: When we go out to Saudi, Iraq, Northern Iraq, Southern Iraq, we're just kind of drilling holes in the sky and not really practicing what we're supposedly doing.

TOM BEARDEN: And becoming less operationally ready as a result?

DAVID POSTOLL: Yes. Without a doubt.

TOM BEARDEN: Postoll says that problem has been exacerbated because the Air Force has reduced the amount of flight training time available to pilots after they come home.

DAVID POSTOLL: To think that--only getting nine to fifteen hours a month that somebody is mission ready to go out there and do what we were getting paid to do is not the way it is. Only getting nine hours a month-- there's times when you'd go out there and you would be so far behind the airplane from a mission standpoint that you would come back and, you know, you'd just be happy to land.

TOM BEARDEN: Even so, Postoll says it would take only a week for everyone to be back to full readiness in an emergency. This is not the first time the Air Force has faced a potential pilot shortage, but it is the first time that some pilots are actually asking not to be promoted so they can get out earlier.

GENERAL RICHARD HAWLEY: It is unprecedented. We've never had more than a handful of people right a promotion board and say, "I don't want to be promoted." I think it's a signal that we need to honor and we need to understand that these people are sending us a message.

TOM BEARDEN: The message seems to be that some pilots have lost confidence in their leadership. Air Force personnel surveys confirm it.

CAPTAIN JIM LACKEY: I think the senior leadership of the Air Force had no idea and is just coming to realize that this retention problem is coming about. I believe the middle level management knew that it was on the horizon but didn't want to rock the boat because you don't want to be the guy who goes to your senior commander and says, look, we can't do it because we're burning morale, we're burning out crews in order to fill these missions.

TOM BEARDEN: The Air Force is launching a number of initiatives to try to retain pilots. Persian Gulf missions have been cut from 90 to 45 days. They're asking Congress to increase the retention bonus to $25,000. And unit commanders have been ordered to provide air crews with time off to be with their families when they return home. But the Air Force concedes that it will inevitably suffer a decline in readiness as some of their most experienced pilots move on.

JIM LEHRER: And, for the record, Captain Lackey did, in fact, leave the Air Force on November 1st. Still to come on the NewsHour tonight a David Gergen dialogue on race and "A Streetcar Named Desire." DIALOGUE

JIM LEHRER: Tonight we begin a three-part series of David Gergen dialogues about race relations in America. David talks first with Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom. She's a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He's a professor of history at Harvard University. Together they wrote "American in Black and White: One Nation Indivisible.

DAVID GERGEN: Abigail and Steve, one of the most difficult subjects Americans face, it's fashionable in some quarters to say that America is as segregated and as prejudiced today as it was a half century ago when Jim Crowe seemed to rule many parts of the South. You believe that's flat wrong.

ABIGAIL THERNSTROM, Co-Author, "America in Black and White:" It's just totally wrong. I mean, by every measure almost we have--well, by every measure we have come a long way since the days of the Jim Crowe South. Now, we're not as far down the road as I would like or anybody else would like, but we are walking in the right direction, and we've been walking there for sometime now.

DAVID GERGEN: Can you be more precise about the progress?

STEPHAN THERNSTROM, Author, "America In Black and White": Let me give you a couple of figures and one example. Back in 1940, 87 percent of black families had incomes below the poverty line. Today it's 26 percent. Back in 1940, six out of ten black working women were cooks or other kinds of domestic servants, maids, cleaning women. Today it's 2.2 percent.

DAVID GERGEN: And many of those black women are now working at much more productive, better things.

STEPHAN THERNSTROM: Oh, yes. A large majority of them in some sort of white collar position, often highly educated, indeed. Or to take one example, everyone, I suppose, by now knows that blacks once in the South had to ride at the back of the bus, but few people realize the way that system worked, or at least in many Southern towns not only did you have to ride at the back of the bus, you boarded the bus in front, you paid your fare, then you went back down the stairs, walked to the rear of the bus, and re-boarded it, so that the white passengers sitting in the front wouldn't be contaminated by your brushing against them walking down the aisle. It was that extraordinary, that insane.

DAVID GERGEN: It was interesting too, just as women were once held back by refusing them education, there was a real effort made to make sure blacks did not become educated. You had a story about Richard Wright, the novelist, that just sort of jumped right off the pages.

ABIGAIL THERNSTROM: Well, Richard Wright could only go to his local public library.

STEPHAN THERNSTROM: The Memphis Public Library.

ABIGAIL THERNSTROM: The Memphis Public Library--by pretending that he was getting books out for his boss, and, indeed, he was asked, you're not getting them for--boy, you're not getting these books for yourself--"Oh, no, ma'am, I can't read," he said.

DAVID GERGEN: He was pretending he was getting them for his white boss.

ABIGAIL THERNSTROM: For his white boss. That's right. And, of course, those books made Richard Wright the great writer that he was. I mean, that was, you know, and it was just the luck of having a white boss who was willing to do that for him.

DAVID GERGEN: You challenge conventional wisdom as well when you talk about how this progress came about. It's often--many believe today that the progress we've seen comes largely from the civil rights statutes of the 1960's, and you disagree with that.

ABIGAIL THERNSTROM: We do disagree with it. We see--although we think those statutes are extremely important or were extremely important, I should say, in busting the system open, I think the 1964/1965 Acts, statutes--the Civil Rights Act of '64--Voting Rights Act of '65--were important, but we see enormous progress starting much earlier than that, and, indeed, progress in white racial attitudes that made the civil rights movement possible, a huge expansion--a drop in poverty--in starting in 1940, and the decades before the civil rights revolution--a change in white racial attitudes. Steve, why don't you say a thing more about it.

STEPHAN THERNSTROM: Yes. Well, these are really deep-rooted changes that the normal focus on politics, the Supreme Court holds this, President Truman did that, I mean, those were all steps of importance. Brown V. Board was certainly important. But what really struck is in looking at the material is how much what those political leaders, the judicial leaders were doing reflected deeper progressive changes going on within the white population and also, of course, the extent to which they reflected responses to the mobilization of black people to work and demand their rights--the Birmingham bus boycott. That couldn't have happened if Birmingham hadn't already been changing, if white attitudes in Birmingham hadn't become more positive than they were 30 years before that, so it's very--

ABIGAIL THERNSTROM: And also blacks had not been ready to mobilize. I mean, the notion of black gains as a white handout--whether it's from a white-dominated court or white-dominated Congress or a white President--I think is absolutely wrong.

DAVID GERGEN: Let me ask you--what are the applications for the debates of today if you believe as you do that we've made more progress than is widely accepted and that much of that progress has come through self-help and self-effort, as opposed to legislation, what are the implications for today?

ABIGAIL THERNSTROM: Again, I don't want to neglect the importance of that legislation. I mean, it's-- our view is that it's a mix, but the story of black progress from 1940 to 1970--that is before the affirmative action era--preferences really kick in around 1970--that story tells us that all of the progress--subsequent progress--can't simply be attributed to affirmative action policies because there's no reason to believe that the advancements that were made in the previous decades, what has suddenly come to a screaming halt, had there been no affirmative action policies instituted in 1970.

STEPHAN THERNSTROM: And, of course, we do argue there is something condescending about affirmative action that, of course, we can't hold you to the same standards as other people, your disadvantages being, of course, you need to be held to a lower standard, and it assumes in a way that blacks can't make it without changing the standards. And that is a very dismaying message, in our view.

DAVID GERGEN: You point out--one of the most disturbing things in your book comes toward the end-- and you say it's disturbing--and that is that even with the progress you find in the schools that the typical black child who's 17 years old is reading at the level of a 13 year old--a typical white child--and that, in fact, that gap has widened in the last 10 years. How do we address that issue?

ABIGAIL THERNSTROM: Well, it's a terrible story, as you say, and it is not--I would hasten to add--an outcome--a Bell curve story, an IQ story because obviously there's nothing that has changed about either white or black IQ in the last 10 years. We were wonderfully narrowing the gap in academic performance in the years 1971 to 1988, and then it started to widen again. And it's the one point in the book where we say we're stumped, we don't know why, but then we go on to talk for about 40 more pages of why that might have been.

STEPHAN THERNSTROM: But it is a very difficult problem, and we genuinely were stumped in that one might think, for example, well, this had something to do with the disintegration of the black family. That's very logical. The trouble is the black family was disintegrating during the period when the racial gap was narrowing. It has continued to disintegrate now, but you can't explain what's happened since 1988 by that because that factor doesn't hold for what was going on before 1988.

ABIGAIL THERNSTROM: And that's true of a whole bunch of other kind of logical explanations: school spending. I mean, you don't have a sudden drop in school spending--you know, et cetera. I think it's possible that the introduction of crack, the increasing violence on the streets, the increasing disorder in the schools does have something to do at least with the performance of inner-city kids, but I think it's "the" most single most troubling fact about the racial picture because it's driving everything else. I mean, kids who start institutions of higher education or go into the work force with the deck stacked against them are--

DAVID GERGEN: Do I hear the makings of another book?

ABIGAIL THERNSTROM: Yes, you do. Yes, you do.

DAVID GERGEN: Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, thank you very much.

ABIGAIL THERNSTROM: Thank you for having us. FINALLY - AN AMERICAN CLASSIC

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight the return of an American classic. Spencer Michels begins our look.

[Scene from "A Streetcar Named Desire"]

SPENCER MICHELS: It is just after World War Two in sultry New Orleans. The play is "A Streetcar Named Desire", Tennessee Williams' acclaimed melodrama that is 50 years old this fall, a play of passion and tension that builds from the first act, when Stanley Kowalski first meets Blanche DuBois.

STANLEY KOWALSKI: My clothes are sticking to me. Mind if I make my self comfortable Blanche; please, please do.

SPENCER MICHELS: San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater --ACT --is currently producing "Streetcar" --the latest of more than 20,000 productions of this classic since it opened on Broadway in 1947. That opening was a signal event in the American theater and. marked the Broadway debut of Marlon Brando. His character, Stanley, is macho, hard drinking, card-playing--"a gaudy seed-bearer," as Williams writes, who "sizes women up at a glance." Stanley is the husband of Stella--played by Kim Hunter Stella's older sister is Blanche DuBois--a delicate but fading beauty--with a penchant for lying about her not so pretty past. On Broadway, Jessica Tandy played Blanche, who is fleeing the ugly reality of her life, and finds Stanley, who eventually undresses her psychologically and otherwise. Her chances for a romance with Stanley's friend Mitch, played by Karl Malden, are ruined when Stanley warns him of Blanche's seamy history. In the last scene Blanche is defeated. Having been raped by Stanley, though no one will believe her, she is packed off to a sanitarium by a doctor and nurse, strangers on whose kindness she must depend. The play won a Pulitizer Prize for Tennessee Williams in 1948. Scholars say that the characters in Streetcar come from Williams' own dysfunctional family. Gay and alcoholic, he was a native of Mississippi, a sometimes resident of St Louis and New Orleans. And his plays are the most performed of any American playwright. He was delighted with the performance of Marlon Brando, who went on to star in the movie version of Streetcar, which came out in 1951.Vivian Leigh played Blanche on the screen and won an Academy Award.

BLANCHE: They told me to take a streetcar named Desire and then transfer to one called Cemetery and ride six blocks and then get off at Elisian Fields.

ACTOR: There's your car now.

SPENCER MICHELS: For many movie fans, Brando's portrayal of Stanley was a benchmark in American film-full of animal magnetism and power. The actual streetcar line of the play's title--which ran through the streets of New Orleans for years--was discontinued shortly after the play opened. Williams used it symbolically throughout the drama. Streetcar and its stars were so renowned that some theater companies wouldn't mount it fearing unflattering comparisons. Today, productions like ACT's look for new interpretations,

BLANCHE: You are simple, straightforward, and honest, a little bit on the primitive side, I should think. To interest you, a woman would have to--

SPENCER MICHELS: Television and film actress Sheila Kelley plays Blanche as a survivor, who holds on to her dignity.

SHEILA KELLEY: I think she's a very sensitive soul. I think she's someone that is very raw, that walks through the world, and everything affects her very deeply. It's almost as though her senses were hyper. She's hyper. She smells hyper. She sees hyper. She hears hyper. She feels. And Stanley is her complete opposite.

SPENCER MICHELS: Stanley is played by Marco Barricelli, and he admits he was worried about comparisons with Marlon Brando.

MARCO BARRICELLI: An actor's job is to find himself in that role and to use himself, so I certainly don't know what he was doing, you know, where he was emotionally, what he was thinking about when he grabbed his head and screamed "Stella" with the torn tee-shirt and all that stuff.

MARCO BARRICELLI: [in role] Stella! Stella! Stella!

SPENCER MICHELS: Barricelli almost refused the role.

MARCO BARRICELLI: It's got so much baggage, and everybody who comes to see it will come with the same sort of preconceptions that you have about it. So I didn't think it was a very good idea and then I sort of went home and I thought, "Who in their right mind turns down Stanley if it's offered to you? That's stupid. You have to do it."

SPENCER MICHELS: "A Streetcar Named Desire" runs in San Francisco through November 23rd, and audiences will have a chance to find out if and why it holds up after half a century.

JIM LEHRER: And Elizabeth Farnsworth picks up the story from the stage of the Geary Theater in San Francisco.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: For more on Tennessee Williams we turn now to Lyle Leverich, who's the author of "Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams," and to Richard Seyd, who directed the American Conservatory Theater production of "Streetcar Named Desire." Thank you both for being with us. Mr. Seyd, how do you explain the enduring appeal of this play?

RICHARD SEYD, Director: I think it has to do with both the subject matter and the theatrical style of the play, which at the time was very revolutionary, and in many ways the episodic structure of the play. But also I think it's really interesting that it was one of the first times I think in the American theater, that working class figures were put on the stage within a very strong psychological context, but so much of the time through the 30's where the working class of this culture began to appear on the American stage it was much more on the social context; it was much more in Clifford O'Dette's plays, for examples, and I think the figure of Stanley, the figure of Mitch also actually--Steve, Eunice, all of these figures, from this working class culture in New Orleans- -I think it was surprising to the American public to see these figures so respected by the writer.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: These guys that had have just come back from the war, right?

RICHARD SEYD: Yes. Just come back from the war. So they were both younger. So much of the play also-- so many of the characters are younger, inexperienced because the war pulled them out of their natural evolution in their 20's and at the same time because of the war they're older in their experience in certain regards too. I mean, the tragedy emerged. He has dealt with death for probably the last 10 years of his life--the strange girl he lost, the war, and when he comes back, his mother is dying, which, of course, is one of the things that bring him and Blanche together.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: It's interesting. The play doesn't really have a moral or a message, wouldn't you say--would you say that? It's not like the plays of the 30's, for example.

LYLE LEVERICH, Author: No, no. There's no convenient resolution, and, of course, all of the plays of the 30's and many in the 40's too, for that matter, have struggled with the need to resolve the plot and so forth. And Tennessee felt that the enigma--that people were enigmatic--and that particularly in "Streetcar" he didn't want--in fact, he was very careful to say that he did not want to side with one or the other character; he simply wanted to show which was his main point--the breakdown of communication. To him, the lack of communication in our society between people on every level is part of our tragedy as a race of people, you know; we don't communicate. So there are these different levels of meanings, yes.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What other levels would you add, Mr. Seyd?

RICHARD SEYD: One of the credos that I used for my interpretation of the play was in "Night of the Iguana" Hannah recounts a love experience in which a strange man asked for her to be able to take off her underwear so that he could touch it. And she's explaining this, and she says in it, "Nothing human disgusts me unless it is unkind or violent." And I sort of--because when I started to do "Streetcar" I read a lot of his other plays--particularly the major works--and I just found that line, and I just went that sounds like Tennessee to me because I just finished reading Tom, which was extremely helpful to me. And that I think is also one of the major themes. Blanche arrives and if only she had been given a higher level of kindness, I think there would have been a very different reality that she confronts at the end of the play.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Where would you place this work in American theater? Some people say this is the greatest American play. Where would you put it?

RICHARD SEYD: That's a hard question.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I'm sorry to put you on the spot.

RICHARD SEYD: It's fine. I don't--I just don't like to compare one play with another, particularly when I'm sort of inside it myself. All I can tell you is I think it's a flawless piece of writing. I think it is certainly up there with the top two or three American plays of the 20th century without any question. And my respect for Tennessee as a writer and my respect for him as a theatrical craftsman has increased exponentially during the process of working on this.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In what way?

RICHARD SEYD: It's exposition more than anything else. I've never come across a writer, with the possible exception of Chekhov, who weaves exposition into the psychological reality of the characters so that it is completely effortless. You never feel you're being set up for the story. You suddenly find as an audience, you suddenly find yourself in the story. And unless you're a writer or worked a lot with writers and understand what a difficult craft theatrical writing is--I mean, generally I think writing for the theater is probably the most difficult form of writing there is. And it's only when you meet a master that you really go, oh , my God, this is incredible, what he pulled off.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And what about his view that success was a catastrophe? Here he is--he was a tremendous success with this play and others, and yet he thought it was terrible for him, why?

LYLE LEVERICH: Well, it was. Elizabeth, he was not prepared for a success like that. He was--too young a man in the first place--unsophisticated, and he--all he really wanted out of life was to be able to write when he wanted to write, where he wanted to write, and what he wanted to write. And so he was always in literal flight, trying to find a corner of the universe where he could do this.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The success took away his privacy, which is what he needed to--to work, or he thought he needed that.

LYLE LEVERICH: It was difficult. And there were people who would like to take possession of him. I mean, he had this quality of vulnerability about him. I mean, you know, he would have to put his coat--help him get dressed properly. He didn't ever have matching socks and things of this sort. He--he--you know, I went to a very close friend of his and I said, look, I went into the St. Francis Hotel one day and they had the sign out front which said, "Do not Disturb," and when I opened the door, or when he opened the door--and I walked in and I could understand why no self-respecting chamber maid would go in the place. He had script all over the place--and I asked this friend about this, and he said, well, that was artist order. But the outside world and all of his trials and tribulations, which drive us all crazy, you know, from day to day, I think to catch up on the details--he just ignored them, and let somebody else worry about them.

RICHARD SEYD: I think it's an increasing problem too because celebrity, I mean, in many cases he had to flee the country, and the country was the source of his artistry, the culture in which he grew up was the source, and I think it's the hardest thing about being an artist and a celebrity is that you lose your connection to the source because people are watching you, rather than you being able to watch people, and it's true for an actor, and in Tennessee's case, as Lyle said, it's also true for him as a writer.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, thank you both very much for being with us. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, U.S. and British diplomats drifted a U.N. resolution to punish Iraq for not cooperating with weapons inspections. The Security Council is expected to vote on it tomorrow. Eastman Kodak announced it will cut 10,000 jobs to save at least a billion dollars over the next two years, and President Clinton praised U.S. service men and women as Americans celebrated Veterans Day. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.