The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

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

MR. MacNeil: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After tonight's News Summary we have excerpts from the President's statements on what U.S. cities need. Correspondent Jeffrey Kaye hears from LA teenagers, wecover Mikhail Gorbachev's speech at Fulton, Missouri, we have a documentary profile of the new Ukrainian nation, and a look back at Marlene Dietrich. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: President Bush today answered questions about his administration's handling of the Los Angeles riots. He responded to criticisms of his spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater, who said on Monday that the riots resulted from the failure of social programs in the 1960s and '70s. Mr. Bush said the remarks had been grossly misinterpreted. At a White House news conference, a reporter asked how he would respond to critics who say that Reagan-Bush policies, not so-called "great society" programs have led to the current situation.

PRES. BUSH: I say that we're not trying to assign blame. There's no point in emphasizing programs that haven't worked, however. We want new programs. We want new ideas. We've put forward some. We may have others to put forward. But there's no point trying to convince the American people that programs that have not worked is the answer to this problem. It isn't. And I don't believe -- and what I'm trying to do is heal and bring the people together and I will go forward with ideas that have not been tried, emphasizing that it's far more important to give people a piece of the action than it is to have the federal government simply dump a largess on them. We've tried it the other way. And now this gives us an opportunity, an excellent opportunity to try some new ideas. And that's all. It's not a question of assigning blame. It's a question of realistic assessment. Have we as a country done everything we can to help those people that have been left behind? And I am not satisfied. We need to do more. And we are trying to do more.

MR. MacNeil: On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Tom Foley and Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell responded to the President's comments.

SEN. GEORGE MITCHELL, Majority Leader: Earlier the President said today, "This is no time to play the blame game." Yet, as we all know, that is precisely what the President's spokesman has done. It is one more example of an administration that says one thing and does another.

REP. TOM FOLEY, Speaker of the House: There hasn't been a single program identified in this general sweeping criticism of the legislation of the '60s, Medicare, aid to education, WIC, the food stamp program, Head Start, College Alone programs, I mean, we can go through a long list that has made a very positive contribution to the fairness and justice of our society.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Bush travels to Los Angeles tonight. We'll have more on that story right after the News Summary. Reverberations from Los Angeles were felt in Miami today. A judge there decided not to move the trial of a Miami policeman accused of killing two black men to Orlando, which has a smaller black population. The killings led to three nights of racial violence in Miami in January 1989. The officer had been convicted of manslaughter, but was granted a retrial on the grounds that the local jury may have been swayed by fear of renewed violence. Judge Thomas Spencer said the retrial would take place in Tallahassee which, like Miami, has a 20 percent black population. He said the court could not ignore the lessons of the Los Angeles police trial. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: President Bush and Bill Clinton won easy victories in yesterday's Presidential primaries in North Carolina, Indiana, and the District of Columbia. Clinton has more than 80 percent of the delegates needed for the Democratic nomination. Mr. Bush already has enough for the Republican nomination. The economy showed signs of improvement in late April, according to the Federal Reserve Board. A survey by the Fed's 12 regional banks released today showed growth in manufacturing, retail sales, and home construction. Commercial construction, oil drilling and defense manufacturing remained soft, and recovery in the Northeast and West Coast regions lagged behind the rest of the country.

MR. MacNeil: President Bush welcomed Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk to the White House today. The two men signed a number of economic and trade agreements. Kravchuk assured the U.S. that his country was willing to sign another, the strategic arms reduction treaty to limit long range nuclear weapons, but he differed with a report from Moscow that the last of Ukraine's tactical weapons had been turned over to Russia today.

PRESIDENT LEONID KRAVCHUK, Ukraine: [Speaking through Interpreter] On the 16th of April, President Yeltsin and I signed an agreement which formed the joint commission which is now verifying the process of removal of tactical weapons from Ukraine. Soon as the document was signed, and the verification control groups were created, the removal was resumed and it is going on according to the schedule which we have and we will move all of the tactical weapons by the 1st of July. This is where Ukraine stands. The weapons were not taken yet as whole.

MR. MacNeil: Mikhail Gorbachev today declared a symbolic end to the cold war. He called the arms race between West and Moscow "a fateful error." The former Soviet President did it at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, the site of Winston Churchill's famous Iron Curtain speech in 1946. He warned Western democracies not to interpret victory in the cold war narrowly as a victory only for themselves, and he called for an expanded and strengthened United Nations, with Germany and Japan as new Security Council members. We'll have more on the Gorbachev speech and Ukraine later in the program.

MR. LEHRER: Ethnic battles raged on in Bosnia Herzegovina today. A truce signed yesterday was all but ignored by the warring parties. Most of the fighting continued to be between the Serbian Yugoslav army and Bosnia's Muslim militia. Both a United Nations envoy and the Bosnian president were fired upon in the capital. Terry Lloyd of Independent Television News has more.

MR. LLOYD: Mr. Golding was touring the badly shelled Muslim Old Town with the Bosnian president as part of his fact finding visit to Sarajevo. It was as he returned to his car that his escort party came under fire. Serbs fighting using automatic rifles were firing into the streets around them. Muslim military men and UN troops ran forward to protect the dignitaries, but Mr. Golding remained calm and composed throughout.

SPOKESMAN: We went into Belgrade -- and then we came back --

MR. LLOYD: The party was trapped at the street corner until their VIP car could reach them. Meanwhile, the following press corps dashed across the street for cover. This is one result of the war Mr. Golding did not see, scores of many without names being taken away for burial. Meanwhile, relatives who've been parted from loved ones by the fighting scoured notice boards hoping and praying their kin were not amongst the dead. "What are they doing? We are brothers and sisters!" cried this old woman as she emerged from a shelter to see the devastation around the historic Market Square. Half a mile away the first of the funerals were taking place. And with the sound of shelling in the background, there was little time for mourners to linger and pay respects. Officially, a cease-fire still exists and yet, the killing continues.

MR. LEHRER: U.N. envoy Golding ruled out any immediate deployment of U.N. peacekeeping troops in Bosnia.

MR. MacNeil: The film legend Marlene Dietrich died today at her home in Paris. She was 90 years old. Dietrich's husky voice and undeniable sex appeal as Lola in the 1930 film "The Blue Angel" quickly won her international fame. Soon after, she left her native Germany and went to Hollywood, where she made a series of now classic films, including, "Blonde Venus," and "Shanghai Express." During that time she spurned a call from Hitler to return to Germany and instead became a U.S. citizen in 1937. We'll have more now on Marlene Dietrich later in the program. But first, President Bush on city needs, teenagers in LA, burying the cold war, and the new Ukraine. FOCUS - URBAN AGENDA

MR. LEHRER: Los Angeles remained the major business of Washington today. House Speaker Tom Foley said he wanted to move on an urban aid package within a month. President Bush spent the day in briefings and a cabinet meeting about the riots and their aftermath. He does fly to Los Angeles later this evening for a firsthand look. At a teleconference with newspaper publishers earlier that day, he tried to downplay the partisan wrangling over assigning blame for the riots.

PRES. BUSH: Let me say this about the desire that all Americans share to see that what happened in Los Angeles never happens again. We all want to solve the problems. This is no time to play the blame game. It is time for honest talk. And the fact is that in the past decade spending is up, a number of programs are up. And yet, let's face it. That has not solved many of the fundamental problems that plague our cities. We need an honest, open, national discussion about family, about values, about public policy, and about race. That's the only way forward. And that's what I intend to do in the days ahead.

MR. LEHRER: But the blame game is what White House reporters wanted to talk with Mr. Bush about. After a treaty signing ceremony with Ukraine President Kravchuk, reporters pressed the President about remarks he and other administration officials had made.

JOHN COCHRAN, NBC News: You say you're not interested in the politics or blame, assigning blame. In fact, starting this Monday, you blamed Congress for not passing some of your domestic programs for the inner cities. Marlin Fitzwater attacked the great society. Vice President Quayle yesterday also attacked Lyndon Johnson's programs. A year ago at Michigan you said that the great society programs actually exacerbated racial animosity. You actually used the words "racial animosity." We still are unable to get a specific list out of the White House as to which programs have done this.

PRES. BUSH: John, I think this is an inappropriate time to try to divide. I think it's a very appropriate time to rethink whether we've done it just exactly right in the past, whether it's the great society, or all the way up to our administration. I cannot certify to the American people that we have tried the new ideas. It might make urban America better, might give better opportunity for everybody. So there is no point trying to go into your question answering the specifics, trying to assign blame. I don't think that's what the country needs right now. I think it needs to come together. And if I have my fights with Congress on getting some proposals through, some of which I've been proposing for three years, that's another matter. But this isn't the time to go out and try to divide the country. This is the time to bring it together. Now we've started on that. We started to bring it together by doing everything we could to assist the local law enforcement people because the American people are outraged by the violence. Secondly, we started to bring it together by providing every asset we could to the local people out there, the mayor and Peter Ueberroth and the localities to have the federal government assist, whether it's the Department of Labor, whether it's HUD, whether it's HHS. And we've got a good program moving forward right now to do that. Then I owe it to the American people to say, here's what I think is the longer range answer, can help right now if we can get some of these things through, and if I can convince the American people that this is what we ought to do. And I'll have some proposals to that effect. Yeah.

MIKE McKEE, Conus Communications: Mr. President, you and your predecessor, Ronald Reagan, came to office 12 years ago under an economic system that promised a rising tide would lift all boats. During both of your terms in office we had the longest post war peacetime recovery and economic expansion in history and yet, the conditions that produced the riots in Los Angeles still existed. Are you now, as part of your effort to look at whether everything has worked, reassessing your economic programs and the role of the federal government in providing help to the cities, states, and social classes of the country?

PRES. BUSH: Yes. I think we ought to look at everything. I'm not satisfied and I think we ought to look at everything and we ought to move forward on these three tracks: One, the question of restoration of law; American citizens should not be asked to put up with wanton looting and pillaging, secondly, short-term answers to assist the city and the state in the cleanup and in the restoration of things in Los Angeles; and then, three, proposals that would really assist in rebuilding and in harmonizing this country. And that's the way I'm going to approach it. And I'll look at what we've done and what we've tried to do, what others have done, but not with the question of blaming. I really don't think that's what's wanted. And if we point out differences, if I point out a program that I think has failed, it's not to blame. It is simply to say I'm not satisfied with the tensions that I see and want to try to do something about it.

REPORTER: If I may ask a specific, sir, to follow up, revenue sharing, a program started by a Republican President, was also ended by your predecessor. A lot of people who've been studying the Los Angeles riot say that may have, the cities may be overburdened now, that because of the new federalism shifting the programs to the cities, they may not have been able to provide. Is that a specific area, federal aid to the cities, that you're willing to reconsider?

PRES. BUSH: If I can find some revenue to share. We are operating at unacceptably high levels of deficit and everyone knows that. And what I think we also need to do is consider that a vigorous economy with job creation as its goal or as its hallmark is the best poverty program. And so we've got -- we've proposed, instead, as you know, a rather substantial block grant, but we've not gotten that through, but we'll try again. It's very close to revenue sharing, as a matter of fact. It's no strings attached and it is something that we think is a good approach. But I think we should look at all of this.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Bush will meet in Los Angeles tonight with community officials andhe will visit some of the areas hardest hit by the violence. Yesterday, Correspondent Jeffrey Kaye of public station KCET-Los Angeles went to a high school in the riot area to get a damage assessment from the students there. FOCUS - INNER CITY VOICES

MR. KAYE: These are among the sights students at Crenshaw High see every day on their way to school. Only blocks away from the campus, these charred buildings are vivid reminders of the looting and arson that devastated the area and other parts of Los Angeles last week. Much of the surrounding South Los Angeles neighborhood looks like a typical middle class community, but this graffiti is one indication that street gangs have carved up the turf. One new addition, an X through the word "police." In gang parlance, that means war. The majority of the students here is black; one-third is Latino. The 10th graders in Jerome Evans' honors English class were among those who witnessed the carnage firsthand.

MR. KAYE: [talking to class] Was anyone surprised by the reaction? What do you see?

MARCUS KING: There was this black man in his car, a black male, and he got out of his car and there was this Caucasian male driving by and he reached in, picked up his gun and shot him three times, and twice in the head.

MR. KAYE: He killed him.

MARCUS KING: Killed him. And the car kept on going and hit a pole.

MR. KAYE: And where were you when this was happening?

MARCUS KING: I was riding my bike.

MR. KAYE: Were you afraid?

MARCUS KING: Yes, I was afraid. When I heard the first gunshot, I was real surprised and they kind -- it kind -- I kind of jumped and then I turned around and I saw.

MR. KAYE: Does anyone understand the reaction? Can anyone explain the rage, the fury, why that exists, someone who hasn't spoken?

WILLIAM HOWZE: Well, I think at first it was like anger, but then after it started goin' on for a day and everything, they was just doin' it to be doin' it. They just started doin' it because it was free, so then after the day went by, the anger like settled, people just started doin' it to be doin' it, because it was there.

MR. KAYE: Do you know people who were involved in this?

WILLIAM HOWZE: Yeah.

MR. KAYE: And have you talked to them?

WILLIAM HOWZE: Yeah.

MR. KAYE: And what did they say?

WILLIAM HOWZE: They said, I did it to be doin' it. They were smilin' about it and everything.

MR. KAYE: And who are they? Who are these people? I don't need their names, but are they gang bangers?

WILLIAM HOWZE: No. They're some decent people.

MR. KAYE: What do you mean, decent people?

WILLIAM HOWZE: You know, they're regular students. They don't go here though.

MR. KAYE: Yeah.

WILLIAM HOWZE: They go to schools out in the valley and stuff and they go to church and everything just like the next person, but I guess since they saw an opportunity, they took it.

KENYA JOHNSON: My friend was telling me the reason -- she said the reason she went to the stores and started lootin' and stuff because they were burnin' stuff in our community and we didn't have -- we don't have nowhere to shop or nothin' and they need diapers and milk and stuff and her mother has a car but she has to work so how else would her brother and sister get milk and diapers and everything, so she was doin' what everybody else was doin' -- I have to get somethin' for my little brother and sister to survive.

MR. KAYE: So you're saying that your friend went in to loot a store because she was afraid that she wouldn't be able to get that stuff anywhere else?

KENYA JOHNSON: Umm hmm.

KIM REDD: I don't think it was nothin' for Rodney King. It was probably a little piece of it started, but, you know, 'cause my friends and all, they were tryin' to say, let's go do that stuff.

MR. KAYE: Your friends wanted to do it and you said no?

KIM REDD: Basically my mom wouldn't let me go, but you know --

MR. KAYE: And if your mom had let you go, would you?

KIM REDD: I admit, I would have.

MR. KAYE: You didn't go out there because your mom said no, but you would have anyway?

KIM REDD: Yes.

MR. KAYE: Why? Why would you have gone into someone else's store and stolen stuff?

KIM REDD: Because this is what I'm sayin'. If it's going to burn down, all that good stuff is in it, it would be better off in somebody's house. I'm serious. I know, we don't let that stuff go to waste. Here is a hundred, three hundred dollar items, and it's about to get burnt to the ground.

MR. KAYE: What kind of weapons did you see on the streets?

CLARENCE LAVAN: Really, you didn't have to see; you could just hear 'em. You'd hear like a certain pop. You'd hear pop, pop. Then you'd hear like a whole bunch of pops together.

MR. KAYE: And what were they?

CLARENCE LAVAN: Shotguns, some of 'em had firecrackers like M- 80s.

MR. KAYE: M-80s, Uzies, what else?

CLARENCE LAVAN: -- 38's.

MR. KAYE: 38's. And do you know the difference in the sounds that each of these guns make?

CLARENCE LAVAN: If I listen to 'em, I can.

MR. KAYE: How do you know the difference?

CLARENCE LAVAN: Like when you hear a shotgun, it's more just like one thing. When you hear a Uzie, it's sort of a rapid -- it's like a rapid sound.

MR. KAYE: Right. And the 38.

CLARENCE LAVAN: It sounds uncontrollable.

MR. KAYE: And what does a 38 sound like?

CLARENCE LAVAN: It's like a crackle. It's like when you boom -- it's like a crackling.

MR. KAYE: Yeah. Do you realize how shocked many people around this country will be to know that you can tell me the difference between the sounds that these weapons make?

CLARENCE LAVAN: Why would they be shocked?

MR. KAYE: Why would they be shocked?

CLARENCE LAVAN: Why would they be shocked?

MR. KAYE: Because not every young person, unless they're in a hunting club or shooting club -- you're --

CLARENCE LAVAN: -- in a danger zone.

MR. KAYE: -- can describe the way a weapon sounds. Can others of you distinguish between weapons?

STUDENT: Yeah.

STUDENT: Some kids can --

MR. KAYE: Some kids can what?

CLARENCE LAVAN: Distinguish the sound. I know a guy that can actually distinguish the gun -- they can look at the gun and tell you the price it goes for, the ammo it needs, they can tell you all of that.

MR. KAYE: Does this upset you, what you see happening around you?

FEMALE STUDENT: Well, if you grew up in it --

MALE STUDENT: I'm used to it.

MR. KAYE: You're used to it. Does that mean you're used to it, so it's no big deal,or --

CLARENCE LAVAN: It's not no big deal -- it's just that you're immune to it.

MR. KAYE: You're immune to it?

CLARENCE LAVAN: Yes.

MR. KAYE: Is that one of the reasons that this thing could get so violent so quickly, is that kind of numbness?

CLASS: Yes.

MR. KAYE: What do you think about what the sociologists have to say, about lack of opportunities? Did that lead to the rage, to the anger, or does that have anything to do with it?

WILLIAM HOWZE: Well, I think the sociologists, whatever you said, I don't think they know what they're talking about, because they don't live here.

ANGELA MOODY: It's about respect. If policemen wanted the black people to respect them, then they had no business disrespecting that man, beatin' him. Nobody had no right to put their hands on him. And if they wanted -- and how can you lead somebody -- how can you solve a problem when you haven't been part of it to know what's wrong?

MR. KAYE: Is that what it's all about, respect? You were telling me about what happens in some stores. Tell me that.

MARY WALDEN: When they follow you down the aisles -- I mean, I'm not saying -- I'm not going to make a generalization and say all Korean Americans do that, but I have been in a store before where I have been followed up and down the aisles. And haven't ever been in a store where you pick somethin' up to analyze it? You're not going to necessarily buy it, but you just want to see if it's somethin' you may want to come back to get, and then, you know, the Korean will say, that's this price, $5.99, or whatever, stuff like that, and then they come up to you, and then, are you going to buy it or not, and then, you know, it's not -- I don't need that. I need respect when I come in your store. You should respect me, because if you want my business, then you'll respect me enough to leave me alone.

MR. KAYE: Was that a big part of this, the Korean merchants, in your mind?

STUDENTS: Yes.

MR. KAYE: Yes?

MONIQUE ROBINGSON: The little Chinese people might be following you down the aisle because they want you to buy something. They feel like they had a good sellin' day or whatever. You know, I guess it's part of their culture and other people just don't understand.

MR. KAYE: Yeah. Do you think the police are going to change -- [ALL STUDENTS TALKING AT ONCE]

MR. KAYE: Who here has had an encounter with the police?

WILLIAM HOWZE: For no reason!

MR. KAYE: For no reason?

WILLIAM HOWZE: Yeah. One time I was goin' to the movies and the police just stopped me -- no, they didn't stop me -- it was right in front of my house. I was gettin' into the car, so they said, get up against the car for no reason. I'm not doin' nothin' illegal. It's about 9 o'clock at night. So they're talkin' about, let me search your car, do you have a license? They just stopped me for no reason. It's not like I was dressed like a thug or nothin'.

MR. KAYE: What's going to happen when the National Guard leave? [ALL STUDENTS TALKING AT ONCE]

MARY WALDEN: But they don't realize who -- they aren't after the National Guard. They want the police.

STUDENT: They want the LAPD.

MR. KAYE: That's the police issue. What about the other stuff, bringing jobs into this community, providing hope, is that going to happen?

CLARENCE LAVAN: There was already 9 to 5's when you started.

MR. KAYE: What?

CLARENCE LAVAN: They already had lousy jobs when they started. It's just going to be rebuilding some of these lousy jobs.

MR. KAYE: There doesn't seem to be much hope in this classroom, does there?

SONAY WASHINGTON: It's reality. We had so much hope. For all of this time we thought all this prejudiceness and stuff was goin' to change but this trial, it just shows that nothin' has changed. We free and everything but nothin' has changed. You know, as long as a black person stay in their place, then hey, that's it. But if you overstep your bounds, what they sayin' is, hey, you know, Rodney King, what happened with Rodney King. I guess they think he overstepped his bounds so he got beat. You know, a black person, it just never change, you know.

MR. KAYE: Not all the students at Crenshaw feel the hopelessness these 10th graders share, but their views do represent a deep- seated despair woven throughout the community. FOCUS - BURYING THE COLD WAR

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight, we turn to the historic moment today at Fulton, Missouri, where Mikhail Gorbachev spoke about the end of the cold war on the spot where rhetorically the cold war begin. Calling the cold war arms race "a fateful error," the former Soviet leader warned of dangers of new nationalism and gave his vision of a new world order, dominated by no nation by led by a strengthened United Nations. Correspondent Charles Krause reports on Gorbachev's speech today and its historic context.

MR. KRAUSE: It was exactly 46 years ago that Winston Churchill traveled to Fulton, Missouri, where he would warn that an iron curtain was descending across the face of Eastern Europe. Accompanied by President Truman, Churchill chose tiny Westminster College in Fulton to give a speech that would galvanize public opinion and define the cold war era. At the time of the speech, just a year after the end of World War II, Britain's great wartime leader seemed to be a prophet in the wilderness. Like Mikhail Gorbachev today, Churchill was out of power, defeated by his political opponents, a has been who seemed to have no future in his own country. Yet, Churchill, again like Gorbachev, was greatly admired in the United States.

SPOKESMAN: Mr. Churchill sees how the people of Missouri respect him for his wartime leadership.

MR. KRAUSE: After lunch, with the Westminster faculty and other dignitaries, Churchill proceeded to the college gymnasium. His appearance had been arranged by Truman's military aide, General Harry Vaughan, a Westminster alumnus who promised the college he'd find an important speaker. Despite the remote and even incongruous setting, Churchill's powerful warning would soon reverberate around the world.

WINSTON CHURCHILL: From Stepine in the Baltic to Treasc in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line, lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organization intend to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and prosteletizing tendencies. I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrine.

ESTHER RANDOLPH: At the conclusion of his speech, he was quite emotional and I was close enough that I could see that tears were in his eyes.

MR. KRAUSE: In the gymnasium that day listening to Churchill were two young Westminster faculty members, Esther Randolph, of the English Department, and Robert Carsh, a political science professor.

ROBERT CARSH: The Churchill platform was over on that wall. It came out maybe 10 feet or so, and then a few feet in front of that, there were chairs, folding chairs, four or five, or six rows maybe that the faculty used. And I was a little bit to left of center. I forget where you were.

MS. RANDOLPH: I was about in the fifth row or so.

MR. KRAUSE: What was your reaction to the speech?

MS. RANDOLPH: I and really a number of other people had the same feeling of rather shock and disappointment to have these things said about what's going on in the Soviet Union. It was so close to the end of the war and the siege of Stalingrad had made such an impression on the suffering of the people. But of course, Mr. Churchill was more knowledgeable than those of us here, and within a year or so, or even less than that, it became apparent.

MR. KRAUSE: Looking ahead, do you think it's important that Mr. Gorbachev is going to speak here today?

MR. CARSH: Yes, it's a very remarkable coming around full course here, the same college, the same little town.

MS. RANDOLPH: It is.

MR. CARSH: The same little state of Missouri.

MR. KRAUSE: Fulton, Missouri, is still a sleepy little town, but not quite as unknown as it was when Churchill was here 46 years ago. The iron curtain speech has put both Fulton and Westminster College on the map. Today there's a Churchill Museum and memorial on the college campus. And since 1946, Westminster has attracted leading diplomats and statesman, from Lord Mountbatten of Burma, to Avril Harriman of New York, and George Bush of Texas, to speak on West-East relations. Two years ago, it was Ronald Reagan here to dedicate a chunk of the Berlin Wall made into a sculpture piece by Edwina Sandese, Churchill's granddaughter.

RONALD REAGAN: Fifty years after Winston Churchill rallied his people in the Battle of Britain, the world is a very different place. Soviet Russia is coming out of the dark to join the family of nations. Central and Eastern Europe struggle to create both freedom and prosperity through market economies. How pleased Sir Winston must be.

MR. KRAUSE: No Soviet or Russian government official has ever before spoken at Westminster, but college president J. Harvey Saunders told us that now that the iron curtain has been lifted, it seemed only fitting to invite the man most responsible.

MR. KRAUSE: Mr. Gorbachev has hundreds of invitations all over the time to speak all over the world. Why do you think he chose to speak here in a place so closely linked to the cold war?

HARVEY SAUNDERS: Well, I think he chose it because he wants to say something significant and he sees the symbolism, the importance of the place in history, and what was said here so many years ago. We think that a Gorbachev speech here will be truly significant if after announcing the end of the cold war, if, indeed, he does it in that sense, that he goes on to call for some kind of specific action. The title of the speech leads us to believe that he may do just that.

MR. KRAUSE: Instead of speaking inside the gymnasium where Churchill spoke, Gorbachev spoke outside in front of the Berlin Wall Memorial, where he was awarded a Doctor of Laws Degree by President Saunders before the speech. Although Gorbachev did not explicitly say the cold war is over, it was implied throughout his address, titled "The River of Time and the Imperative of Action." Gorbachev's underlying message, an eloquent plead for global cooperation in government to replace the bitter years of cold war rivalry and super power confrontation.

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV: [Speaking through Interpreter] Today democracy must prove that it can exist not only as the antithesis of totalitarianism. This means that it must move from the national arena into the international arena. On today's agenda is not just a union of democratic states, but also a democratically organized world community. [applause] It is clear that the 20th century has nurtured immense opportunities, but from it, we are inheriting frightful, apocalyptic threats. But we have at our disposal a great science, one which will help us avoid crude miscalculations. Moral values have survived in this frightful century, and these will assist and support us in this, the most difficult transition in the history of humanity, from one qualitative state to another. In concluding, I would like to return to my starting point. From this rostrum, Churchill appealed to the United Nations to rescue peace and progress. But he appealed primarily to Anglo saxon unity as a nucleus to which others could adhere. In the achievement of this goal, the decisive role in his view was to be played by force, above all, by armed force. It even entitled his speech the sinews of peace. The goal today has not changed, peace and progress for all. But now we have the capacity to approach it without paying the heavy price we've been paying these past 50 years or so, without to resort to means which put the very goal, itself, in doubt, which even constitutes a threat to civilization, itself. [applause] And while, as before, recognizing the outstanding role of the United States and today of other rich and highly developed countries, we must not limit our appeal to the elect but call upon the whole world community. In a qualitatively new and different world situation, the overwhelming majority of the United Nations will, I hope, be capable of organizing themselves and acting in concert on the principles of democracy, equality of rights, balance of interests, common sense, freedom of choice, and willingness to cooperate. Made wise by bitter experience, they will I think be capable of dispensing when necessary with egoistic considerations in order to arrive at the exalted goal which is man's destiny on earth. Thank you. FOCUS - LIFTING THE VEIL

MR. MacNeil: Now we turn to another aspect of the former Soviet story, the republics of Ukraine and Belarus. They become independent in December, when the empire dissolved. Ukraine's President Kravchuk today assured President Bush that his country will transfer its share of the former Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal to the Russia republic for disposal. At a White House signing of a trade agreement, President Bush welcomed the move but stopped short of agreeing to guarantee Ukraine's borders, something President Kravchuk is seeking from the United States and the international community. Kravchuk told the President, "Some of our neighbors, such as Russia, have political forces which would like to make territorial claims as to Ukraine, and that certainly worries us." As Charlayne Hunter-Gault reports in her continuing series on the former Soviet republics, that concern about Russia's intentions is an old one for Ukrainians and their Slavic neighbors in Belarus.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: When the two Western most republics of the former Soviet Union declared their independence, they changed their Russian name. Byelorussia, which means "White Russia," became Belarus, and the Ukraine, literally "The Border Land," is now called simply Ukraine, a name that sounds more like a nation in its own right, rather than somebody else's province. Ukraine and Belarus are famous for their folk cultures. For centuries, peasants there have formed land that ranks among the world's most fertile. Under the Soviets, Ukrainians grew nearly half of the union's sugar beets and produced a fourth of its meat and dairy products, all this on only 3 percent of the Soviet Union's total territory. And with their neighbors in Belarus, they raised wheat and other grains. Communist bosses cultivated the image of the happy peasant. But the swords wield by these dancers tell a different tale.

ROMAN SZPORLUK, Historian: The story throughout centuries is a truly tragic story.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Prof. Roman Szporluk teaches Ukrainian history at Harvard University.

PROF. ROMAN SZPORLUK: This is an area where people were killed, plundered, robbed, made into slaves, deported, arrested, and this really continued to a very short interval until the middle of the 20th century.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: For all their differences, the Ukrainians, Byelorussians, and Russians all traced their history to a common ancestor, a group of Vikings, called the Rus, who moved into the area in the 9th century, settling along the trade routes between the Baltic and Black Seas. They made their headquarters on the Dnieper River in Kiev, the modern day capital of Ukraine. In the year 988, the Rus leader, Vladimir, ordered his people into the Dnieper for mass baptism into orthodox Christianity. His son, Yaroslav, ruled during Kiev's peak in the 11th century and built the cathedral of St. Sophia, the mother church of Ukraine. Orthodox Christianity remained the official religion of those Ruse descendants who eventually became the Russians, but in Ukraine and Belarus the church had stiff competition from Roman Catholicism. That was the state religion in neighboring Lithuania and Poland, which took control of the region in the 14th century.

PROF. ROMAN SZPORLUK: Many of Ukrainians and Byelorussians became Catholic, even though under a very special term. The Pope allowed them to retain their own ritual, their own language, which was not Latin, and their clergy were allowed to marry. Now, this kind of a hybrid church created a certain distinctive mark for Ukrainians because this was something which made them neither Polish, because the Poles were Latin, nor Russian, because the Russians did not recognize the Pope, so at the same time, of course, these religious arrangements split Ukrainians from some other Ukrainians and you had very bloody religious wars in Ukraine in 17th century.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: A time historians call the period of the Ruin with a capital "R," and a time Hollywood had a field day with films like "Taurus Bulba." Poland had established serfdom in Ukraine. A military force of runaway serfs led the peasants in brutal warfare against their landlords. They were called the Cossacks.

PROF. SZPORLUK: The Cossack experience is one of the formative components, ingredients, of a modern Ukrainian identity, because they became idealized as a force which knew how to answer back the Poles when they were in their view pushy too much, and in the story of the Ukrainian and Russian relationship, these Cossacks came to be seen as a democratic element, spontaneous, people's force versus the souless or ruthless bureaucratic, imperial Moscow in St. Petersburg.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The Cossacks abolished serfdom, but ironically, in seeking protection from Poland in 1654, it was the Cossacks who struck a deal with Imperial Russia.

PROF. SZPORLUK: And then they entered into a relationship with Russia, which has been ever since a matter of controversy. The Russians thought that Ukrainians, or as they called them at the time, little Russians, were becoming part of Russia, were becoming a regular normal part of the larger Russia, even though the Russians were willing to grant them certain special rights. The Ukrainians thought and continue to think that they were really an independent nation which established something more than an alliance, but certainly less than a union.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So they didn't like the term "little Russians."

PROF. SZPORLUK: Indeed, they found it even insulting that the Russians, that Moscow called them "little Russians." They thought that this was a denigrating term.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Firmly in control of Eastern Ukraine, Russia steadily expanded Westward into Poland and South to the Black Sea. Russia's czars restored serfdom and banned the non-Russian languages of their new subjects. No doubt, they wanted to suppress writings like those of Ukrainian poet, Tarus Chevchenko, who railed against Russian oppression.

SPOKESMAN: Why do you boast your sons of a destitute Ukraine that you walk well in -- even better than your fathers did?

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The czars also barred the region's large population of Jews from moving closer to Moscow, confining them to an area known as the pail of settlement.

PROF. SZPORLUK: Ukrainian peasants perceived the Jews as an element of existing social structure which oppressed the Ukrainian peasant. The Jew became in the imagination of a Ukrainian peasant who lived, after all, in a very complicated and difficult situation. He was one of the elements of this alien world of the city of capitalism, market, industry.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Serfdom was finally abolished in 1861, but most peasants remained yoked to the land. By century's end, they retaliated with pogroms against the Jews.

PROF. SZPORLUK: It is important to acknowledge that the history of the Ukrainian people contains events of which they should be ashamed, which they should regret.

TATYANA TOLSTAYA, Writer: It was a country which was unbelievably difficult to live in.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Tatyana Tolstaya is a Russian writer and great grand niece of Leo Tolstoy.

TATYANA TOLSTAYA: There was a great, great oppression. What happens when people experience such a heavy pressure? What happens with their souls, with their minds, with their characters? So when the lid is lifted, the worst that was accumulated in these souls, it bursts out and you get what you got in the 20th century.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The epic film "Battleship Potemkin" memorialized the discontent of Ukraine's peasants and workers. As early as 1905, 12 years before the czar was finally ousted, they rose up against him in Odessa, only to be shot down. By 1917, Ukrainians were pressing for independent statehood, but then came the Russian Revolution in total chaos as six armies stormed the land.

PROF. SZPORLUK: By 1920/21, when finally things settled down, the formerly Russian part of Ukraine was under the Soviet Union, under the Soviet regime, and those Western territories were in Poland, or Czechoslovakia, Romania.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Eastern Ukraine and Belarus became charter republics of the new Soviet Union. By some accounts, they fared well in the 1920s. Native language and culture were promoted, even celebrated for their differences from the Russian.

SPOKESMAN: The customs, language and appearance of the Ukrainians are different from the greater part of Russia. They are a tall and powerful group, and one of the handsomest of the Slavic races. Their women are considered particularly attractive.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The sons and daughters of peasants went to school and left the farm for jobs in the city. Industrialization proceeded rapidly, exploiting the rich iron and coal deposits of the Donetz Basin in Eastern Ukraine. The huge new factories consumed vast amounts of power so the Soviets build the largest dam and hydroelectric plant in the world, harnessing the rapids of the Lower Npier River where a Cossack fortress once stood. But many resisted the rush to industry and collectivization and were punished by Stalin. Among his main targets, the Kulocks, Ukrainian peasants who refused to give up this small kind of farm. Beginning in 1929, hundreds of thousands were exiled to Siberia or Central Asia. A devastating famine ensued.

PROF. SZPORLUK: Scholars still debate whether it was 4 million or 7 million people who died but there is no question that they died, because the government took away whatever food was left in the country. It was a very traumatic experience for the Ukrainians, as you can imagine, and in many ways, has colored their perception of the Soviet state.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Less than a decade after the famine came World War II. The Soviet Union's Western republics bore the brunt of the Nazi invasion and the Red Army counter offensive. Millions of Ukrainians and Byelorussians died, including hundreds of thousands of Jews, thirty-three thousand in one mass execution at Bobiar, a ravine outside Kiev. Moscow built a memorial there to Soviet victims of the Nazis, but for decades the Soviet government refused to acknowledged the Jewish deaths.

PROF. SZPORLUK: The Soviets carried a very peculiar policy towards the Jews. Before the outside world, they presented themselves as the first government in Russian history which banned prejudice, which banned anti-Semitism, which granted to the Jews full civil rights. But then Stalin became quite anti-Jewish, and insisted on denying that of all of the people in the Soviet Union, the Jews had been treated by the Nazis in an exceptional manner.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: World War II once again shifted the borders in this border land. At the historic Yalta Conference in 1945, Stalin made a deal that gave Ukraine and Belarus their own seats in the United Nations. In 1954, in a move that set the stage for today's disputed claims, the Kremlin transferred control of Crimea from Russia to Ukraine. At the time, it was an act meant to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Cossacks turning to Russia for help. Throughout the 1950s and '60s, whole cities destroyed during the war were rebuilt in social realist style. New mega factories and mines were opened and used ever increasing amounts of energy. The 1970s saw intensive development of nuclear power, but without safeguards required in the West. In April 1986, a reactor at Chernobyl exploded, by far the worst nuclear accident ever reported. Thirty-one people died instantly in the blast, which sent up a plume of radiation three miles high.

PROF. SZPORLUK: This was an enormous nuclear disaster whose repercussions would not be removed for generations. If we want to know what it is that is driving the people to want to be independent, I would say that Chernobyl became this formative experience.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Belarus received even more radioactive fallout than Ukraine and on the heels of Chernobyl, this republic experienced another galvanizing event, the 1988 discovery of mass graves in the forests around Minsk, graves holding the bodies of hundreds of thousands of victims of Stalin's terror, who had disappeared in the years before World War II.

PROF. SZPORLUK: This would be inexcusable under any circumstances, this kind of mass murder, but it was done by a government which was not at war with anybody and the government, which claimed to be also the government of those people. Things fall into a pattern, just as the Ukrainians say, so all of this adds up and the moment comes, people say, let's stop it.

LEONID KRAVCHUK, President, Ukraine: [Speaking through Interpreter] The patience of Ukrainian people is wearing thin, so thin that the slightest pin prick could lead to an explosion of discontent.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Leonid Kravchuk was a hardline Communist until the botched military coup. He then transformed himself into a nationalist and easily won election as Ukraine's president in December. Almost immediately, he and Russian President Boris Yeltsin began dueling over control of military units and nuclear weapons based on Ukrainian territory. The territory, itself, became a matter of dispute as Russia laid claim once again to the Crimean Peninsula and the Black Sea Fleet.

PROF. SZPORLUK: I believe that the Black Sea conflict symbolizes much more the issue who will take this or that obsolete vessel or ship. It puts on the table the issue whether Russia as a state is willing to accept that, in fact, Ukraine is going to be a country of its own.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The standoff with Russia, though tense, has so far remained non-violent. Given the region's history of bloodshed, some observers marvel that Ukraine and Belarus have managed a more peaceful transition to independence than all the other non-Russian republics. FINALLY - SIREN OF THE SCREEN

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, a remembrance of Marlene Dietrich, who died today at the age of 90. She began her film career in her native Germany. The 1930 film, "The Blue Angel," was the movie that caught the attention of Hollywood, where she went on to make over three dozen films. In "The Blue Angel," she seduced Emile Yonings with a song that charmed audiences around the world. Here's a scene from that movie.

[SCENE FROM "THE BLUE ANGEL" WITH MARLENE DIETRICH SINGING] RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the other main stories of this Wednesday, President Bush said his spokesman's remarks that the Los Angeles riots resulted from failed social programs of the '60s and '70s had been greatly misinterpreted. Mr. Bush travels to Los Angeles this evening. Mikhail Gorbachev called for a strengthened United Nations, with Security Council membership for Japan and Germany. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.