The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault in New York. After the News Summary, we have a Newsmaker interview with Sec. of State James Baker, then another in our series of occasional conversations on race, "Can We All Get Along?" Tonight's answer comes from actress Anna Deavere Smith. And finally, essayist Clarence Page has some thoughts for Father's Day. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The House of Representatives passed a $1 billion emergency urban aid bill today. It provides summer jobs for inner city teenagers and money to rebuild riot damaged Los Angeles, and parts of Chicago hurt by a recent flood. The Senate passed a $2 billion package four weeks ago, but President Bush threatened to veto it on grounds it was too expensive. The House version cut several social and law enforcement programs. Today's vote was 249 to 168. Here's a sample of the debate.

REP. CRAIG JAMES, [R] Florida: I'm simply astonished that this bill is being considered today, should not be astonished though. The same members voting against the balanced budget amendment will support this bill's fiscal irresponsibility. Think about it. We're discussing a gift of hundreds of millions of dollars to Chicago. No one seems to mind that this is plainly and simply a war for local government incompetence. We're also talking about getting millions of dollars to Los Angeles. Has anyone asked why we're rewarding the negligence of the state of California and the local police department and their inadequate response to the crisis?

REP. MAXINE WATERS, [D] California: Over in the Banking Committee, they're going to vote for $12 billion to go to Russia, to support Russia, by way of the IMF. I wish we could get $12 billion for our cities. They're going to pass that legislation out and I guess they're going to reward Russia for not being at war with us. Let's do something for our cities. Support this, but ask for more.

MR. LEHRER: The Senate is expected to pass the scaled down version and a White House spokeswoman said the President will sign it. Last night, the House voted to scrap federal funding at the Energy Department's super collider project in Texas. The vote was 232 to 181. Many said they were opposing it because of budget constraints. The $8.24 billion project was designed to study how particles behave when hurled against each other at high speeds. About $1 billion has already been spent. The Senate has yet to vote on the matter. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The Supreme Court today upheld California's controversial property tax system. In an 8 to 1 ruling, the High Court struck down a constitutional challenge to the system which taxes new homeowners at sharply higher rates than those who bought before 1978. That was the year the system was imposed by the state's Proposition 13. The Court said buyers know beforehand what their taxes will be and can choose not to go ahead with the deal. The ruling could encourage similar tax systems in other states. The court also extended a ban today on excluding potential jurors from trials simply because of their race. The seven to two vote applied to both criminal and civil trials.

MR. LEHRER: Tornadoes and violent thunder storms battered the Midwest last night for a third night in a row. They were blamed for at least seven deaths in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. In Illinois, dozens of homes were destroyed, trees were blown over, and electricity was knocked out in many areas. There were similar reports from Indiana, where at least 10 tornadoes were sighted. Heavy rain caused flooding in parts of Indianapolis. The same storm system caused 60 tornadoes Monday and more than 50 Tuesday in the central plain states.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Iran-contra prosecutors have concluded that from the start Ronald Reagan knew about the arms for hostages deal and that he and his top aides conspired to cover up his knowledge, that is, according to an article in today's Washington Post. It says the special prosecutors plan to use the trial of former Defense Sec. Caspar Weinberger to prove the Reagan cover-up. Weinberger has been charged with lying about the scandal. According to the Post, his indictment says that in 1985, he twice told President Reagan that the arms shipments would be illegal, but later went along with the plan not to reveal that information. Weinberger has said he is innocent of any wrongdoing. Mr. Reagan has frequently said he cannot recall details of the covert operation.

MR. LEHRER: Boris Yeltsin went to Kansas today, but before leaving Washington, the Russian President met with Democratic Presidential Candidate Bill Clinton. Clinton praised Yeltsin's courage and called for Congress to pass the Russian aid bill. Clinton said he agreed with President Bush that the money would benefit the United States in the long run. Yeltsin then flew to Kansas, where he toured a meatpacking plant and a farm. He spoke to students and faculty at Wichita State University.

PRESIDENT BORIS YELTSIN, Russia: [speaking through interpreter] I'm afraid that my task here is really to say that what I want is greater contacts and greater friendship with the United States, just to make sure that neither you, nor your children or grandchildren, have the fear of war or hostility between our two countries. Now, what we want is cooperation and friendship, friendship between our Presidents, between our parliaments, between our students, and between Russian and American families.

MR. LEHRER: U.S. investigators visited a prison camp in Northern Russia today, searching for information on a missing American pilot. Officials and prisoners at the camp said they had heard rumors, but they had not seen any Americans there. The investigators plan to investigate other camps tomorrow. Former Soviet President Gorbachev, who is visiting Israel, denied Yeltsin's accusation that he knew about the U.S. war prisoners being held in his country. He accused Yeltsin of trying to defame him.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The U.S. trade deficit jumped 25 percent in April. The Commerce Department said the nearly $7 billion imbalance was the largest since November 1990. More costly oil imports and a sharp drop in U.S. exports were the main factors. The Federal Communications Commission today ruled that television networks can own and operate cable systems. The action ends a 20-year ban and was taken to help the networks stay competitive. Today's ruling limits the ownership interests a single company can take nationwide.

MR. LEHRER: An armed mob attacked a black squatter's camp in South Africa today. At least 39 people were killed. The violence came in the midst of an African National Congress campaign to protest stalled talks on black power sharing. Jeremy Thompson of Independent Television News reports from Johannesburg.

MR. THOMPSON: Beneath the blanket, the tiny body of nine-month- old Erin Matope, stabbed in the head; his mother had been hacked to death beside him. Nearby, a priest read the last rights over Maria Manglene. The young woman, expecting her first child next month, had been speared in the stomach. The squatter camp was littered with bodies, an old woman shot as she ran away, parents and children slaughtered in their beds, the aftermath of an orgy of killing. Survivors told us 200 Zulu-speaking Inkatha members had rampaged through Boypatong, cutting down anyone they saw. Residents had warned the police of this impending raid, but claimed police had merely assisted the attackers. So far, the government's only response has been to accuse the ANC, saying their mass action campaign has raised the temperature of political violence. But after visiting this scene of carnage, ANC General Secretary Cyril Ramaphosa laid the blame firmly on the government.

CYRIL RAMAPHOSA, ANC: We charge DeKlerk and his government for complicity in the slaughter that has taken place.

MR. THOMPSON: This latest explosion of violence has now put South Africa's Constitutional negotiations in jeopardy. Tonight, the retaliations had already begun, with houses torched and opponents set alight.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In London, two sons of the late media mogul Robert Maxwell were arrested today. Kevin and Ivan Maxwell were charged with fraud in the disappearance of millions of dollars in pension funds from the failed Maxwell empire. An American adviser to Maxwell's companies was also charged. Investigators say that more than $800 million disappeared after Maxwell's death at sea last November. The three men were freed on bail. Kevin Maxwell said he would fight the charges. That's it for the News Summary. Just ahead, the Secretary of State, a "Can We All Get Along" conversation and a Clarence Page essay on fatherhood. NEWSMAKER

MR. LEHRER: We go first tonight to a Newsmaker interview with the Secretary of State, James Baker. He joins us from the State Department. Mr. Secretary, welcome.

SEC. BAKER: Thank you, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: From your point of view, did the summit turn out the way you wanted it to?

SEC. BAKER: I think the summit turned out very, very well, Jim, for the United States, for Russia, and indeed, for the world, if you take a look at the significance of the arms reduction agreement that was concluded.

MR. LEHRER: The arms reduction agreement was drastic, down to three thousand or around the area, three thousand, thirty-five hundred nuclear warheads on each side, but the threat of nuclear war was already pretty much behind us, was it not?

SEC. BAKER: Well, I think the threat was behind us as a political matter, but, of course, you never know how the political situation is going to change from time to time and from country to country. And as long as you have these arsenals, I suppose there will always be some temptation perhaps to use them for improper purposes. So I think it's very significant that we've had these kinds of reductions at least negotiated. Now, of course, it'll take seven to eight to ten years to get the reductions actually implemented.

MR. LEHRER: Why is it going to take that long?

SEC. BAKER: Well, it's very, very expensive. It was expensive to build all these weapons in the first place and it's going to be incredibly expensive to reduce them. And, in fact, the agreement that we've just negotiated with Russia provides that we will get down to that level of roughly three thousand to thirty-five hundred on each side by the year 2003. But we can move that up to the year 2000 if the United States can help finance some of the destruction that Russia will be called upon to undertake. So it just takes a long time and it's very, very expensive to accomplish.

MR. LEHRER: Are there going to be conversations either after the year 2000 or the year 2003, or between now and then, to try and reduce it even more, or is this where it's going to stay for awhile, the 3,000 area?

SEC. BAKER: Well, my sense is that we have a treaty now negotiated over 15 years, the START Treaty, which is yet to be ratified by Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Kazakhstan and the United States. We must get that ratified and we must get all of those reductions accomplished over seven years. We then must get the first phase reductions in the new agreement we'vejust negotiated accomplished and then we've got to get the second phase reductions accomplished. So we've got a lot to do by way of implementation. And I would not anticipate that there would be a lot of -- that there would be substantial negotiations. Certainly within the START period over the next five to six years, I think we will be very busy implementing the agreements we've already negotiated.

MR. LEHRER: Right before the summit, you met with the Soviet foreign minister in London and you said then, after one of those meetings, that there were some really severe problems still to be resolved before this agreement that the President signed yesterday could be reached. What were those severe problems? Everything seemed like a piece of cake yesterday.

SEC. BAKER: Well it wasn't a piece of cake. We had a lot of differences of opinion and, in fact, we had some differences that cropped up even after the Russians arrived here for the summit. I don't know how well known this is, but we worked until midnight the night that they arrived and we began work again at 8:30 the next morning, but it really was not until we were actually in the Oval Office with the two Presidents that we finally resolved everything. Now, one of those major problems was that heretofore there's always been this insistence on the part of both sides on absolute parity or the idea that each side had to have pretty much exactly the same numbers as the other side. It was finally agreed that this is a new day politically, that we're in a new era, we are no longer adversaries, that we are, in fact, partners. We've moved from confrontation to cooperation and now to partnership and there shouldn't be any reason why we had to maintain parity. So we were able to break that -- break that link, if you will. That was one of the --

MR. LEHRER: How was that broken? What were the specifics of that?

SEC. BAKER: Frankly, President Yeltsin made the suggestion, a very good one that we picked up on. We had not heard it prior to that morning in the Oval Office. I don't think that his negotiators had been given the latitude to do this. I think he probably was reserving that for himself, thinking that he would -- that he would suggest it when he and President Bush got together. What he suggested was that we couch this agreement in terms of ranges. So we have ranges. In the first phase of this agreement, we say that the warheads, total number of warheads on each side will be something between thirty-eight hundred and forty-two fifty. And we say each nation will determine exactly where it comes out on that as a matter of force structure planning. It will make its own determination. In the second phase, the concluding phase, the total number of warheads will be between three thousand and three thousands, five hundred. It happens to be the plan of the United States, I think, to end up with 3,500. It's possible that Russia will decide to go down to 3,000. That remains to be seen, but we've stated this in ranges. And that's the first time that's been done before in these arms control agreements.

MR. LEHRER: And just based on the many programs we have done on that subject, I realize, as you described it, that is a huge breakthrough, because those years of arms control negotiations have been with people sitting down with numbers and comparing all that and that went out the window yesterday, right?

SEC. BAKER: Well, in effect, to some extent you could say that. I don't know either whether people have focused on the significance of this agreement from the standpoint that the START Treaty,which takes us down from -- takes us down from a total of 21,500 warheads on both sides to about 15,000 warheads on both sides -- that reduction took us 15 years to negotiate and it was negotiated in large part in Geneva, with huge delegations on both sides, and as I say, took 15 years. This agreement takes us from that 15,000 level that we would be -- where we will be at the end of the START seven year period, at the end of the next seven years, and moves us down to 6,000 or 6,500. That agreement was negotiated over five months and it was negotiated entirely through communications between either foreign ministers or Presidents. It was never put into that great big arms control environment that took so long and was so agonizingly painful. So I think it's testimony to the fact that there is, indeed, a new day politically. And I think it's important that we go forward quickly and ratify these agreements so that we can lock in these changes and lock in these reductions.

MR. LEHRER: This MIA issue that President Yeltsin revealed as he got here, did you know about that beforehand?

SEC. BAKER: Well, we did not know that he was going to say what he said when he arrived. He was very forthcoming. I think it's an indication of the fact that we now have a true democrat and reformer heading the government in Russia. We had been -- as you may know, we had a joint United States/Russian POW/MIA Commission that was just set up within the last four to five months. They have been working jointly. They are continuing to work. And, in fact, there are people up in the Ural Mountains today in Petchura running down some of the -- some of the information that President Yeltsin alluded to.

MR. LEHRER: Can you add anything to that report we had in the News Summary a moment ago, that the U.S. investigators went to this one prison camp, couldn't find any Americans, and then were going to some others? Is there anything you can --

SEC. BAKER: No. That's exactly where it is and nothing, nothing different from that has been reported to our embassy in Moscow. And I checked just before I came down here. But I think the real significance here is that we now have a government in Russia that is cooperating with us in a very open and frank and honest way in order to try and resolve this, this problem that is so understandably very emotional here in the United States. I might also say that we for our part, going back maybe a year or eighteen months, have been trying to help where we could the Russian -- first the Soviets and then the Russians with their prisoners of war and missing in action problem in Afghanistan. On one of my early trips to the Soviet Union, a delegation of deputies from I think the Supreme Soviet or the Congress of People's Deputies came to me and asked if we would do what we could in Afghanistan. And we have tried through our contacts with Pakistan and with some of the Mujahadeen to be helpful there. So there has been some cooperation, but now with these democrats and reformers in power in Russia, we have, I think, much better opportunities for much more comprehensive cooperation in this regard. And I think we will be able to run down a lot of these rumors, although we should not -- we should be very careful not to create false hopes, because so far, at least, we have not found any solid evidence that there are either live Americans there, or that there have been, for instance, Americans from the Vietnam War. We just don't know, but we're in a much better position now I think to find out and we are actively working on it.

MR. LEHRER: Back before the days of cooperation, while the Cold War was still on, did the United States government know that some U.S. prisoners of war were being held in the Soviet Union?

SEC. BAKER: Well, I was asked that question at a press briefing the other day and I can't answer it for you, because I do not know. This is a vast government of ours and I don't know what they might have known back in those days. I just can't answer that question.

MR. LEHRER: When did you find out about it?

SEC. BAKER: About what?

MR. LEHRER: About the fact that the Soviet Union held U.S. prisoners of war?

SEC. BAKER: Well, I don't know. I think that there may have been some references to it in connection with Amb. Toon's first trip over there, which occurred within the last thirty, to forty-five or sixty days, something like that.

MR. LEHRER: He's the U.S. --

SEC. BAKER: He's the U.S. Representative. Yes. I can't pinpoint it.

MR. LEHRER: What I'm getting at is this.

SEC. BAKER: I can't pinpoint a date for you, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: What I'm getting at is this, Mr. Secretary. A lot of people are wondering why in the world the government of the United States hasn't been raising hell about this for the last 15 years or so, or even before that.

SEC. BAKER: I do not know that we haven't been back there 15 years ago.

MR. LEHRER: I mean publicly. I mean publicly.

SEC. BAKER: Well, it may have been that the decision was made that if we were going to do any good, particularly with the U.S.- Soviet relationship being what it was, it might have been better to do it privately than to try and do it publicly. I just don't know though, because I do not know the facts.

MR. LEHRER: Are you convinced now that Yeltsin his going to get the facts, I mean, there's no question about that?

SEC. BAKER: No. I don't know that -- I'm not sure that all the facts will ever be ascertained as much as we would like or as satisfactorily as we would like, but I am convinced of one thing. We are so much better off now to have people there who believe in candor and honesty and laying out what they, what they know to be there or believe to be there, that I think it presents us with some opportunities that we haven't had before. And we certainly intend to follow up on those opportunities. That's the reason we created the joint POW/MIA Commission with Russia, with General Volkonograv, I think it is, representing the Russian side, and Amb. Toon representing the U.S. side. That commission has only been in place I think a couple of months, Jim. But they've been active and now they will be, of course, much more active.

MR. LEHRER: On the Russian aid package, our reports say that President Yeltsin certainly did himself some good in that speech to Congress yesterday. Do you agree with that?

SEC. BAKER: I would think that he did. I noted that a number of Congressmen and Senators said that he was very persuasive as far as they were concerned. Sen. John McCain, for instance, who had had reservations because of the POW/MIA question said he was, that he was convinced. I saw Congressman Bob Dornan, who had been -- who had suggested beforehand that maybe we ought to hold up the legislation until there was a complete resolution of some of these questions. And he said, look, the guy sure convinced me. He said, I think we're much better off having him in there working with us to try and resolve these problems. And he said he was sold. So I would think that he has done himself some good.

MR. LEHRER: What would be the impact of the Congress failing to pass this legislation?

SEC. BAKER: I think it would be an extraordinarily serious mistake. I've said that this is a once in a century opportunity. We have now democrats and reformers in power in Russia. It is important that we demonstrate our political and our economic support for that. It is important to us, each and every American as a matter of national security. It is in America's interest to do so. And I have to tell you, Jim, I just think that if we do not do this, history will judge us very harshly if the experiment for democracy and freedom and free markets fails in Russia. And who knows what's going to happen? But now is the time for the United States and for the West to stand up and say, we know you are taking courageous actions and we're going to support you.

MR. LEHRER: $24 billion package. How much of that is ours?

SEC. BAKER: About $6 billion of the 24 billion. Of course, that's not what the legislation covers, Jim. That package is going to be there, frankly, whether the legislation is passed or not, because it's going to be provided from sources that have already been appropriated and voted. This legislation will make it possible for us to do -- this is just -- my point is this is not a normal foreign aid bill.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

SEC. BAKER: The legislation is a political statement of support. It will make it possible for us to do many, many other things than just provide economic support. It will make it possible for us to have people to people exchanges, to encourage private investment, set up Eurasia foundations and institute a Peace Corps program there, and a whole host of other things that are so very important in helping them in their courageous efforts to achieve democracy and free markets. So it is not your run of the mill foreign aid or foreign assistance bill, and that is why it is a free standing piece of legislation in the form of an authorization. And I cannot stress how important it is that that legislation be passed. President Yeltsin will go back to Russia now and if shortly thereafter we are not able to demonstrate support for democracy and for freedom and for free markets, and for the courage that these people have shown in trying to turn a system totally around after 70 years, I think it will be a serious mistake for the United States; it will be a serious mistake for the American people.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, you said awhile ago that we are now partners, I think is the word you used to describe the relationship with Russia.

SEC. BAKER: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: Do you mean that literally, that we, the American people, the American people that are listening to you now should say, should consider Russia an ally in the same way they consider Great Britain and France and Italy and Japan and Germany and all the other countries?

SEC. BAKER: Well, these -- no, I'm not suggesting that because these are allies of much longer standing. What I'm really saying is we've seen the relationship between the United States and first the Soviet Union and now Russia transform from one of confrontation, first to one of cooperation, and now to one really of partnership. We were partners in the Gulf War. We are partners in many, many things that are happening around the world politically. We are partners in United Nations sanctions against the humanitarian nightmare taking place in Yugoslavia. And that could never have happened without Russia. We've been partners in sanctions against Libya, relating to Pan Am 103. And that could never have happened with Russia. We are about to be partners in some space -- a cooperation in outer space. And there are a whole host of other examples that I could give you.

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

SEC. BAKER: So I really do mean partners. Now that's not to say that the relationship goes back as far or is necessarily as close as our relationship, for instance, with the United Kingdom.

MR. LEHRER: What is still on the table out there between the United States and Russia to be resolved?

SEC. BAKER: Well, you mean --

MR. LEHRER: Problem areas. You as Secretary of State and if you're meeting with the foreign minister of Russia, what are you saying that you want him to do now to move this partnership on to another step?

SEC. BAKER: Well, he's telling me about a few things he'd like us to do for one thing.

MR. LEHRER: I see.

SEC. BAKER: And there are some differences. We've got some differences with them in some areas. I'll give you one example. They entered into an agreement sometime back to sell some technology to another country that we think violates the Missile Technology Control Regime, which is an organization that Russia has decided they want to join. Under our law, we must sanction them for that and we have done so. So even though we had this wonderful progression with respect to the relationship in many areas, there are still some areas of roughness. And we'll work through those though.

MR. LEHRER: Somebody handed me a piece of wire copy a few moments ago. It quotes a U.S. official as saying, "The United States has agreed to drop claims totalling $30 million against the former Soviet Union for bugging our new embassy in Moscow." Can you confirm that? Is that --

SEC. BAKER: I can't confirm that, no.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. It says it was part of the accord reached with Russia yesterday.

SEC. BAKER: Well, we have discussed with them how we are going to handle the matter of our embassy in Moscow and their moving into their new embassy here. And we have reached an agreement, but I cannot confirm for you that that was a part of it. I can't deny it, but I can't confirm to you that that was a part of it.

MR. LEHRER: What's the latest -- you mentioned Yugoslavia -- Mr. Secretary, what's the latest on the prospects for that thing having a peaceful resolution?

SEC. BAKER: Well, a peaceful resolution is going to be extraordinarily difficult because we now have -- we really have all out war there, something frankly that the United States said it feared would happen if certain actions were taken. This was almost a year ago. Those actions were taken and now we see a full fledged civil war, much as we had feared. But the first thing we need to do I think is to deal with this humanitarian nightmare that is taking place there, where people are being starved and where there are shortages of drinking water and not to mention the killing that's going on. Now, there have been many cease-fires. A cease- fire was broken yesterday. We now understand within the last few hours there has been a lull in the fighting and some U.N. relief personnel have gotten through to Sarajevo, that we are continuing to work in the United Nations with other countries in order to try and secure the airport in Sarajevo and open up some humanitarian assistance possibilities both on the ground and in the air. We will continue to do that. And we've indicated that we would make available for that whatever assets the United States can make available.

MR. LEHRER: Military assets?

SEC. BAKER: Well, yes, we have military planners who have gone to New York to discuss this with the United Nations and we have indicated a willingness to participate in an airlift. As I've said before, the U.N. plan calls for this to be done pursuant to a cease-fire or under a cease-fire and it's been tough getting cease- fires to hold. But now there have been some people who've just gotten through. So we're a little bit more optimistic tonight than we were this morning, but it's a very changing situation.

MR. LEHRER: All right, Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for being with us.

SEC. BAKER: Thank you, Jim.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Still ahead, a "Can We All Get Along" conversation and an essay on fathers. CONVERSATION - CAN WE ALL GET ALONG?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Next tonight, we continue our occasional series of conversations on race in America. It's called "Can We All Get Along?", the question raised by black motorist Rodney King as riots raised in Los Angeles over the acquittal of the four white policemen who beat him. Tonight we get an answer from someone who has made a career out of asking questions and using the answers in a revealing way.

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: [acting] So my friends say, well, hey, you know, Mo, since you're so stuff and so bad, how come you won't say nothin' about Two Live Crew?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Strictly speaking, Anna Deavere Smith is an actress.

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: [acting] Talk about people demeaning rap, I don't even mention them, because they do not understand the fundamentals of rap.

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: [playing other role] I don't love my neighbors. I don't know my black neighbors. There is a lady on President Street. Clear, I adore her.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But more than one critic has described Smith as one of the best reporters of the social scene in America.

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: [still playing other role] But I don't know them. I told you, we don't mingle socially. They say that the Puerto Ricans are stuck up and everything, you know --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Since 1983, the 41-year-old drama professor has been presenting a series of works that she describes as a search for the American character. Each performance is scripted dialogue from interviews Smith conducted, and each is drawn from a real and usually controversial event.

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: [acting] Our black parents packed onto slave ships like cattle, like sardines.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The latest piece is called "Fires in the Mirror." Using verbatim interviews and 29 voices, Smith chronicles a series of tragic events in Brooklyn's Crown Heights section last summer, starting with the death of a seven-year-old black boy struck and killed by a car driven by a Hasidic jew. Rioting and a payback murder of an innocent Jewish bystander rocked the neighborhood of blacks and jews for days. Here, the voice of the brother of the murdered man.

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: [playing brother] My brother's blood cries out from the ground. In August of 1991, as you have all heard before today, my brother was stabbed in the streets of Crown Heights for no other reason than he was a jew!

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Smith also gives voice to the voiceless.

ANONYMOUS YOUNG MAN #2: [played by Anna Deavere Smith] that 16- year-old didn't stab that jew. He wanted to be a athlete. He wanted to be a professional baseball player. A bad boy stabbed the man.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Smith explores differences in perceptions between blacks and jews arising out of the accident.

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: [playing role] That's the way it is in Crown Heights and I've been living in Crown Heights for most of my life.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Black community activist Al Sharpton.

REV. AL SHARPTON: [played by Smith] If I was a rabbi, I am a minister, and my driver hit a kid, I would not let the driver leave and I certainly would give my condolences to the family or do whatever else I could. I don't care what race they are. To this day, the grand rabbi has not uttered a word or sent a card or a flower or nothin', so we are being dealt with with contempt! And I don't care how controversial it makes us. If you piss in my face, I'm going to call it piss. I'm not going to call it rain!

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Rabbi Shea Hecht.

RABBI SHEA HECHT: [played by Smith] The respect that my religion teaches me has nothing to do with understanding you. If the only way I'm going to respect you is to understand you, we've got a problem. We are different. We believe we should be different. Now, when the rabbi said to the mayor we're all one people, I think what he meant was the respect that we give each other under the banner of being the children of God, but that does not mean that I have to invite you to my house for dinner, because I can't go back to your house for dinner, because you're not going to give me kosher food. And I had one black say, well, I'll bring in kosher food. I can't use your ovens. I can't use your dishes. It's not a matter of buying the food. It's buying the food and preparing it a certain way. I can't use your dishes. I can't use your ovens.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But Smith's search for the American character goes beyond Crown Heights.

ANGELA DAVIS: [played by Smith] And so I am beginning to think that race is an increasingly obsolete way to construct community, because it is based on very immutable, unchangeable biological facts in a very pseudo scientific way. And so when I use the word "race" now, I put it in quotations, because I am interested in community that is not static in that way. You know, they say that the eskimos have 70 words for snow. We probably have 70 different kinds of bias, prejudice, racism, and discrimination. But we are not of a mind set to be clear about it. And so I think we have sort of lousy language on the subject, which is in part reflective of our unwillingness to deal with it honestly and sort it out. I think we have very, very bad language.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: We spoke with Anna Deavere Smith in New York City at the Joseph Papp Public Theater between performances of "Fires." In general, how wide do you think the racial divide is?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: I think it's pretty wide. And I guess to answer your first question another way, we've been getting calls from all over the country for people who are interested in seeing the show. So in that way it must be speaking to something that's happening elsewhere. But I think across the country the divide is quite large.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Have you had any breakthroughs in your work?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: One of the most popular characters that I do is a Rubovich woman called Roz Malamuth. And when I called Roz up to get an interview, she literally yelled at me on the phone. This was also the same week that the big story was the cover story in the New York Times Magazine about the Rubovich community with a picture of the grand rabbi on the cover. And so I told her that I needed to come back to Crown Heights and wanted to interview some people. She's yelling at me about what did I want and she was sick of people coming in and looking at them like they were in a fish tank and blah, blah, blah, and then even, you know, about me, are you married, you know, do you have any children, and you know, to the Rubovich women, that's the most important thing, and she just started already, I'll tell you one thing about us, we don't have any of our kids on drugs and blah, blah, blah, blah, and so forth and so on. But she agreed to meet with me at any rate. And so I arrived at her house and we had this interview and it's, you know, this wonderful interview that led to a really important moment in my play. But at the end of it, when I was leaving her house, she said, now, where are you going next, I'm not going to mimic her but that would be part of it, where are you going next -- you know, I told her where I was going, and she said, you know, that's great, you know, come back, come back, I want to show you around, show you around the neighborhood. And I loved that because that was a bridging of the divide. I mean, she had suspicions and assumptions about me, and I probably had some about her, but in the end of it, I felt welcomed by her.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What do you think accounted for the breakthrough?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: I don't know.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Talking?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: Talking, probably talking. And that's what keeps me going is that I get to be close to strangers quickly.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you find that black people and white people hold back, that that's why they're not communicating?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: I don't think we have the language that we need to talk about these things.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Meaning --

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: Let me put it this way. I'll quote another person, Mary Schmidt Candle. She talks about --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: A black woman.

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: A black woman who was the commissioner of cultural affairs, who is now the dean of the Tish School of the Arts at NYU. She said it's really dangerous to use the word "racism" when you're trying to change things. I mean, she doesn't really know what that word means anymore, to say this institution is racist or that's a racist statement, because the word pushes buttons and puts people on the defensive, it begins to blur really what you really want to know, and she gives the example in arts institutions that what it really means, what you really might be meaning to say is in this museum there is nobody black who works here, other than the guard or the people who serve the food. Right. So it's like don't cop out on the language. You know, and I think sometimes we get so nervous about the discussion that we don't, we don't think clearly to say what we really mean, to get to the images that will have resonance, to be specific.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is this true of whites and blacks?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: I would say that's true on both sides, definitely, definitely, true on both sides. I mean, in my own life, being who I am has been a long process of finding out, you know, what my five foot nine and a half black, light-skinned black presence meant somewhere, and negotiating that and trying to still be who I was at the same time that I had to -- I mean, it's not just simply -- it's just coming in and being who you are. You know what I mean, because again you have these perceptions that you have to deal with and that you have to adjust, so there's this constant dialogue that's going on and sometimes it's painful, but don't give up the fight is what I would say.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: With the experience of the reporting that you've done on people around the country, let me ask you the Rodney King question. Do you think we can all get along?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: I think it's going to be a long battle. I don't know if we can or not. I hope we can. But I don't know if we can. I don't know if it's all up to individuals. It's like again back to this whole melting pot analogy. Your interview with Christopher Jencks wants me to make a whole, makes me want to make a piece about that. Does the melting pot exist? Did it exist? Because he said to you also that what whites think is, well, I'm quoting him badly I'm sure, but what whites think is, why don't you act like us, everybody else did, the Italians did, the Poles did, and so forth, why don't you act like us, why don't you participate in other words, and you said something like, well, why not, and he said, because the whites won't let them. It's kind of crazy. You know what I'm saying? How can you really negotiate that? And I think many of us in our whole lives, if we're black, have tried to negotiate that double message, try to figure it out. I mean, come here, take this job. We really are looking for women of color here. We've got to do something about this. And then when you get there, whoa, when you're in the flesh and you're not an abstract, then you have to do all this work to stay there if you want to stay to stay there.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Because they don't understand you?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: Not just that they don't understand you, they don't really want you there. And they don't know what you're doing, I would say, or don't know necessarily what I'm doing, you know, or what some of my friends are doing. And a lot of us get -- whenever I've gotten a good job, white people sort of say to me things like, well, you surely landed on your feet, or well, you know what that's all about, I mean, meaning that it's affirmative action. And I used to waste time thinking about that and being hurt by that, and now I really think so what, race is my work.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But I can imagine some people looking at you and saying you're attractive, you're bright, you're successful. Do you still have problems, race problems?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: I haven't met a black person in my going about that is without these problems.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How much does popular culture perpetuate the racial divide?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: Well, I think that popular culture participates in that divide, and I think many people try very hard in their work to make the divide less by questioning popular culture's participation, you know, when they can, when they have enough power to question it, they do, they try.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: There's been a lot of debate within recent weeks inside and outside the political arena about some comments alleged to have been made by this rap singer, Sister Solejah, in which she said, something to the effect if black people killed black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people, so if you're a gang member and you normally would be killing somebody, why not kill a white person, this has caused a lot of talk. What's your reaction to all of that?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: Well, let's say that if I were to make a play about it, I would use that quote and twenty-nine other quotes. I would say the way to respond is to get a lot of other quotes, you know. I think one lesson that we learned this year between the Clarence Thomas hearings and even the Mike Tyson case is that we as black people are becoming less and less monolithic. I mean, we have a variety of points of view and I think that because Sister Solejah is an important figure in, you know, in popular culture, that people would be concerned about her remark because they know the kind of power that she has. But many rap musicians have been saying those kinds of things and have had as much power as Sister Solejah. So my question would be: Why is it at this -- why is it being heard right now? I mean, maybe I'm asking a silly question, but what's more remarkable to me is that it's heard right now.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How do we respond?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: I think you respond from your heart. You say what you think is true about that and try to get it heard the way that she was heard.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Black people, if they condemn Sister Solejah, if she said that, would be condemned, would they not?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: By other black people you mean?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mmm hmm.

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: See that's what I mean by, you know, this year has been a year where, I mean, I think black people have said a multitude of things, and if anything, our challenge as black people is to be able to tolerate more points of view than any one point of view, and that people should speak to Sister Solejah, not just about her, but to engage her in dialogue.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You mean black people?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: Yeah.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And what about white people when they hear that?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: Same thing, talk to her.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Does this help the divide in the way -- is it constructive to have an honest --

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: I'm not just talking about her honesty or not honesty. The fact is that she's a young artist who is a part of this culture and how this debate around her remark goes down will also influence what she contributes next. She's in the beginning of a process of the development of our own voice, as we all are every day.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How would black people expect society to act if a white person had said that?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: Probably to condemn them, probably.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But you think this is good for the dialogue, for the --

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: I don't want to use the word "good." That's not what I'm really indicating. It's more than I'm saying. I think how she is spoken to is as important as how she is spoken about. And I really called for the speaking to and not just the speaking about.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You get people to talk to you, to reveal themselves, because you sit and you listen and you peel away their layers of defense. How do we get this to happen in a society where there's almost no social interaction between blacks and whites?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: We might not be ready for harmony yet. But racial discussion, people who will be rewarded for taking the chance to have the discussion, rewarded for making a mistake again, right, maybe want to say that there are mistakes made in trying, in the pursuit for integration, but people who will be rewarded for the next experiment, if there's going to be one. I don't know if there is going to be one.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I've heard it said that you are reporting on the social situation in America better than most reporters in the media. Do you see the media as a part of this problem, this continuing racial divide that we have?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: It's not unlike the question you asked me before about popular culture. I, you know, want to participate with both of those to get my message out, so it's not a matter of are they to blame, it's, again, you know, how are people who are part of popular culture, or a part of the media using the good things that those entities have to offer to help bridge the divide? Obviously, you are right now. Do you know what I'm saying?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is there enough of this though? Is there enough?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: No, absolutely not, absolutely not.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Are you at all optimistic about the future of race relations in this country?

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: I have to be optimistic because all of my work is about dialogue and many voices, and if I weren't optimistic, it would be ultimately to believe that there was the impossibility of dialogue and many voices. So I am optimistic. And I have real faith in human potential. I just feel that we never know what's around the corner, you know. We never know. In academia even, people are rethinking race in all kinds of ways. We never know what that's going to end up being. It might be something really, really beautiful and glorious.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Anna Deavere Smith, thank you.

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH: Thank you very much. ESSAY - FATHER KNOWS BEST

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, essayist Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune has some thoughts about being a father.

MR. PAGE: Just wait until you have children of your own, my mother used to say. Yeah, just wait. That fateful day finally came about three years ago. Look closely. Can you see the joy and fatherly pride in my eyes? Look closer still. Can you see the fear? Can you see me silently asking myself what do I do now? On becoming a father, you realize what Arnold Toynby meant when he said, "Man was the most complex mechanism to be created entirely by unskilled labor." Sure. Lamaze classes prepared me for delivery. Mostly they prepared me to hold my wife's hand and offer comfort to her while she screamed and cursed at me. But neither Lamaze nor anything else prepared me for what came later -- parenthood. So, like countless dads before me, I found myself turning to the tried and true. I tried to remember what my father did. Most of us learn about parenting from our parents, but I suddenly realized I hadn't really learned all that much. Girls tend to spend a lot more time learning about how to be mothers than boys spend learning how to be fathers. Babies seem to know the difference right away. To babies, mama's more than special, mom is God. Dad is okay too once in a while. He's sort of God's helper, nice to have around, but no replacement for the real thing. It's a mommy fixation and it stays with us throughout life. Just watch the crowds at a public event. When television cameras swing around, what does everybody shout? [people shouting, "Hi, Mom!"] Does anybody ever shout, hi, Dad? Anybody? Poor Dad. How often we feel left out. How often we get these little signals that tell us, yeah, we count, but not as much. Well, maybe society is beginning to realize something these days. A good dad is something special too, and unfortunately, a good dad nowadays is getting harder to find. [segment from Ozzie & Harriet] The American family has gone through a lot of changes in recent years, most of them for the worst. The nuclear Ozzie & Harriet family we used to know in the fifties applies to barely a third of today's families.

OZZIE: [Ozzie & Harriet] Harriet, Harriet.

MR. PAGE: Half of our marriages end in divorce. We also have a soaring out-of-wedlock birthrate, not just in big cities, but also in the small towns of our heartland. Of course, some single mothers get along just fine. They work hard, raise their children, sacrifice, and the kids turn out okay. But what's hard for two parents is doubly hard for single parent, and it's getting harder.

MILES SILVERBERG: [Murphy Brown Show] Murphy, I'm serious about this.

MR. PAGE: Very few single moms can afford the glamorous independence of sitcom figure Murphy Brown, whose unplanned child arrived without a husband last season. Absentee fathers are no comedy for real life moms, or for that matter, for the Vice President.

VICE PRES. QUAYLE: It doesn't help matters when prime time TV has Murphy Brown, a character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent, highly paid professional woman, mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice.

MR. PAGE: No, the Vice President wasn't wrong to call for stronger families, but neither did he go far enough in placing the blame. The problem didn't begin with Murphy Brown. In fact, American families suffered some of their greatest declines during the Reagan and Bush years. If anything, the problem began with the disappearance of inner city jobs. Without jobs, we had fewer marriageable men, fewer men able to support families, and more women ending up on welfare. But it's not just a ghetto problem. A lot of middle class white dads screw up too. The pathologies may be less visible, or publicized than those in the ghetto, but they're not less tragic. We're talking child abuse, learning disabilities, psychiatric traumas, alcoholism, drug dependency, depression, just to name a few. It's more than just a question of personal values. It's a question of community values. As Jesse Jackson once said, "A boy can make a baby. It takes a man to raise one." He's right. But it doesn't end there. An old African proverb says it takes an entire village to raise a child. When modern Americans left the village, we sacrificed our sense of community responsibility on the altar of rugged individualism. So maybe that too is what Father's Day is about. It's a time to think about the larger role of fatherhood as the social glue that holds the village together. I'm Clarence Page. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Thursday, the House of Representatives passed a $1 billion bill to provide summer jobs for teenagers and money to rebuild riot-damaged Los Angeles, and on the NewsHour tonight, Sec. of State Baker said he did not want to raise false hopes about finding U.S. prisoners of war in the former Soviet Union. He said there was no solid evidence any were being held. Good night, Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Jim. We'll be back tomorrow night with a Newsmaker interview with Vice President Dan Quayle. I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Good night.