The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MS. WARNER: Good evening on this Christmas Eve. I'm Margaret Warner in Washington.

MR. MacNeil: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After the News Summary tonight, Mark Shields and others analyze the politics of the week before Christmas. Correspondent Tom Bearden reports on the political fallout from the NAFTA vote, our team of editors around the country look back at 1993, and we close with an essay by Amei Wallach. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: A hostage drama in Russia entered its second day today. Five schoolgirls seized by armed gunmen yesterday were released and returned for a ransom of $10 million. Several others were released earlier but four boys and three adults remain captive. The four gunmen and the hostages are on a helicopter packed with explosives which is now in a southern resort town. The gunmen have been demanding safe passage to Iran. Adrian Britton of Independent Television News has more in this report.

MR. BRITTON: The schoolgirls who'd been held at gunpoint in this Russian military helicopter were freed nearly 30 hours after their kidnap from school. Soldiers from the elite Alpha Commandos had surrounded the airport at Mineralnye Vody, ready to storm the aircraft if the gunmen had carried out their threat to kill a hostage every 15 minutes. According to Russian television, this girl was freed along with two other children because the helicopter was overloaded. But the message to negotiators from the terrorists was menacingly blunt; they had suit cases packed with explosives and would blow up the other children unless a ransom demand of $10 million was met. Russia's defense minister, Pavel Grachev, cut short a summit meeting to flow to Moscow to personally take charge of the military operation. It's thought there are still four schoolboys being held on board. The terrorists say they'll be freed when they reach Azerbaijan. Officials believe the gunmen will then try to escape over the board into Iran.

MR. MacNeil: There was more shelling today in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. Reports said at least two people died and thirty-four were wounded. A Christmas ceasep-fire had been scheduled to take effect yesterday. there were also reports of fighting in parts of western and central Bosnia. A spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Sarajevo said, "On the ground the Christmas spirit is singularly missing." Margaret.

MS. WARNER: It's going to be a wet and miserable Christmas for thousands of families in Europe. Riverfront towns in France and Germany remain underwater today after some of the worst flooding of the century there, and tens of thousands of people are stranded in evacuation shelters throughout Northwestern Europe. The floodwaters were receding along the Rhine River in Germany this afternoon, but the water was still rising in the Netherlands. The flooding which began Monday was triggered by torrential rains, and at least seven people are known to have died in the flooding so far.

MR. MacNeil: The United Nations Secretary General went to North Korea today for talks on its suspected nuclear weapons program. Boutros Boutros-Ghali was the first secretary general allowed to cross the border from the democratic South to the communist North. The North Koreans have been accused of trying to build a nuclear weapon and have closed their nuclear facilities to international inspections. U.N. officials said later the North Koreans told Boutros-Ghali they did not need his mediation, and they criticized U.N. intervention in Korean affairs.

MS. WARNER: There's more violence in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip. A senior Israeli military commander was the victim today when Palestinian gunmen ambushed an Israeli army jeep. The Islamic resistance movement Hamas claimed responsibility. In Bethlehem, meanwhile, the city held its first full Christmas celebration since the Palestinian uprising began six years ago. Our report comes from Robert Moore of Independent Television News.

MR. MOORE: Through the dark years of the Palestinian uprising, Christmas celebrations were banished from Bethlehem. This morning it was different, Arab Christians openly celebrating, blending their religion with their pride in being Palestinian. The Israeli army still occupies here, had said the Palestinian flag would not be allowed in the main square. And so, of course, this morning up it went in defiance, another token gesture, another symbol of resistance to Israeli rule. They chanted for Arafat and spoke of why the flag had to be raised.

PALESTINIAN: It must be here because this peace, this Christmas, a Palestinian Christmas, and we consider the Christ as the first Palestinian martyr, so let him celebrate with us under our flag!

MR. MOORE: It wasn't all hostility and provocation. An Israeli police band was performing, watched with curiosity by Arab youngsters, hinting at a reconciliation that still lies far in the distance.

MS. WARNER: Some 10,000 Christians, both Palestinians and foreigners, passed through metal detectors today to reach Bethlehem's Manger Square where Christ is believed to have been born. Security was also heavy this evening for the traditional midnight Mass at the Church of the Nativity.

MR. MacNeil: That's our summary of the news this Christmas Eve. Now it's on to the week's politics, NAFTA fallout, our editors' view of the year, and an Amei Wallach essay. FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

MS. WARNER: Up first tonight is our regular political analysis of the week's news. Earlier this afternoon, our syndicated columnist, Mark Shields, was joined by Ann Lewis, a Democratic political consultant, and Paul Gigot, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Paul spoke with us from Green Bay, Wisconsin. Welcome all of you. Welcome, Paul.

MR. GIGOT: Welcome.

MS. WARNER: Well, Mark, it's been a real rollercoaster week for President Clinton clearly. He began the week riding polls, showing up stronger maybe than any point in his presidency, and then there were these allegations, of coruse, of sexual indiscretion by these Arkansas state troopers and new questions about this failed real estate deal in Arkansas. At the week's end, waht do you make of the way the White House, the President, and the First Lady handled this?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, they answered with massive retaliation, bringing out Mrs. Clinton, who is probably the most credible witness the President has in charges such as those involving the Arkansas troopers, was, was really formidable. There's no question about it. I mean, it raised the visibility. The New York Times, which has not covered the news or the allegations at all, was forced to put it on the front page because Mrs. Clinton, herself, had, had done it. I think they followed the traditional pattern which is to attack your, your allegers and go after them, and that, it seemed to ahve worked, or I think it was really an advantage they had, Margaret. It is Christmas, and people really didn't want to be bothered with it. I think quite frankly the Whitewater is the most serious problem, the real estate venture in Arkansas, there are just to many loose ends, and it's one where his political opponents are a lot more comfortable. Political opponents are not comfortable on the "character issue." They like to have it raised independently by press or whatever. They don't like to be involved because it is a problem of being free from sin, casting the first stone. So I think it's been a rollercoaster week. I think they've probably done a pretty good job of answering the state troopers but the, the Whitewater, S&L, Madison, Arkansas land deal remains.

MS. WARNER: Do you agree, Ann?

MS. LEWIS: Yeah. I'd say it's been a rock and roll week at the White House. In the beginning of the week I think they were rocked by some of these charges -- the state troopers coming forward, the question of the Whitewater deal, which I must say I think genuinely takes the Clintons by surprise because they feel it's been investigated and nothing was shown, ohwever, by the end of the week, I think they'd regained the initiative. Bill Clinton says he's going to release the files. I think they're about to be exhaustively examined.

MS. WARNER: In Whitewater.

MS. LEWIS: He'll release the files on Whitewater, and there will not be any problems remaining once people see it, and the other is that the troopers who in the beginning of the week were raising such really scurrilous charges, and were all over the television, have turned out to be pretty unreliable characters. So I'd say the White House is back on the initiative this week, and end up almost where they began.

MS. WARNER: Paul, do you agree, the White House is on the initiative again?

MR. GIGOT: Well, no, I don't. I mean, I think that they did do a reasonable job of, of taking onthe troopers' allegations with the First Lady, but at the same time in that same interview she kind of tried to cast aside, dismiss the much bigger issue which is I think Whitewater, and the financial problems that it underscores. And they did an inept job of taking that on. In fact, the whole handling of this has a kind of Ziegleresque quality. Remember him, Ron Ziegler, the Nixon press aide who created the non-denial denial? We had a Whitewater with a kind of full and complete disclosure that really didn't turn out to be full and complete. And tehre are some serious issues there, and I think that to dismiss them and say they're old, we didn't need to deal with them, was not the way to handle it. They should have at the beginning of the week -- actually weeks ago -- released those files, and now that they are going to release some of the files at least, that's going to help them, but I still think there are a lot of questions on this Whitewater subject that haven't been answered.

MS. WARNER: Paul, explain for us really what, very simply, how yous ee the Clintons' political exposure on this Whitewater deal. It's so confusing. It's such a financial tangle. Where may they be culpable, or where do their enemies and opponents think they are culpable?

MR. GIGOT: Well, I think the fundamental suspicion -- and at this stage you have to say there's only a suspicion -- is this, that as governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton did for James MacDougal, his friend, more or less what five Senators did for Charlie Keating in the Lincoln Savings Loan, i.e., he used his political influence in return for, for political favors and perhaps paying a campaign debt. He used his influence to keep a savings and loan afloat, and ultimately it had to be bailed out anyway to the tune of about $60 million from the taxpayers. That's the suspicion. That's the fundamental issue here that they're going to have to confront.

MS. WARNER: But, Mark, how does Whitewater then get in this, this real estate deal that the Clintons were involved in with MacDougal?

MR. SHIELDS: Jim MacDougal has been around Arkansas politics for a long time, and Bill Clinton knew him there. The Clintons and the MacDougals went into a partnership together where in spite of the fact, I think about 60 percent of the money was put up by the MacDougals, they were 50 percent coequal partners. What Paul has questioned is the appointment of the regulator of the savings institutions in Arkansas, whether, in fact, that regulator was showing favorable treatment to the MacDougal-Madison Savings & Loan, while MacDougal, himself, was using the money, the allegations are that the evidence is he was using money from the Madison S&L -- this is what federal investigators are alleging -- turned up supposedly -- to keep alive his other real estate ventures, including Whitewater. So that's, that's the problem and that's the, that's the complication. I mean, you can charge your alleged when it's the state troopers or whatever, whom people don't know. I do disagree with Ann. I don't think they've been shown to be tawdry characters. I think they've been shown to be state troopers. I guess all of us, there's something in our background that we probably wouldn't like to have come out, but I think it has been effective. But with MacDougal, this is someone you've known for a long time, this is someone who's been around. It's tough you can't say it's a reasonably close association, somebody you embarked upon a partnership with. So the relationship is such you can't, you can't now criticize his character or raise questions about him because those have already been raised through the failure of the savings and loan, itself.

MS. LEWIS: I'd have to say I think what we've seen this week, Margaret, is almost a familiar, what's getting to be a familiar Washington ritual in which an object, a document is filed, a text of some kind becomes highly desirable just because it is not available, and in direct proportion to its unavailability, it becomes more and more desirable. I think we can now establish as a political rule of thumb that when such an object appears on the front page above the fold three times in a row in the newspapers as being a subject about which the public is entitled to know, then it's going to be made available and, in fact, is what we saw at the end of the week. So we will now see the files of Whitewater, but I've got to say when I consider the allegations -- and I know what Paul has said -- those are exactly the questions that Bill Clinton's political enemies have been raising -- I'm convinced having looked at what we know now that if you look at the way Whitewater was run, like a lot of other speculative real estate ventures, it does seem we're going to find incomplete documentation, papers were moved around, checks were written, but Bill and Hillary Clinton were not officers of this corporation, they were not executives, and they were not beneficiaries. They're the people who lost money. So this will be, I think, the third investigation of Whitewater. There was one during the campaign in 1992. People looked at it closely. There was a second earlier this year, the RTC, the Resolution Trust Company asked the professionals at Justice to take a look. They found no reason to go further. We will now have a third. Again, I don't think it's going to cause any problem for the Clintons.

MS. WARNER: Paul, going back to the trooper allegations now from Whitewater, do you agree with Ann that basically because these troopers are now revealed to have indulged in a -- colluded in a campaign to lie to defraud an insurance company in the past that somehow the credibility of their stories has been completely obliterated?

MR. GIGOT: Well, it certainly doesn't make them the best witnesses that have ever existed. That's for sure. And their credibility is tarnished because of that, however, this is not -- their accusations here have nothing to do with that episode, and I think they have to stand or fall based on, on how factual they actually are and how credible they are in this case. One thing that I found troubling was that you had the White House earlier in the week telling that these charges were ridiculous, but, on the other hand, you had the White House basically forced to acknowledge that the President of the United States had been calling down to Arkansas to inquire about charges that were supposed to be ridiculous. If they were ridiculous, what is the President of the United States doing spending his valuable time calling down to Arkansas to deal with this? And then you have the episode where Bruce Lindsay was seen on a camera with ABC talking to Buddy Young down there, one of the people who got a federal job from this administration, basically saying, look, we need you for some CNN interviews to stomp all this out. There did seem to be a kind of orchestrated effort here to, to damage their credibility, and if the charges had no substance, why spend the time?

MS. WARNER: Well, Mark, of course the White House's attitude seems to be that Bill Clinton's personal, private, sexual life or personal life is his own business and that if these charges that he somehow offered a job or abused his office, if those can be dispatched with, that the voters really don't care about his personal life. Do you think that's true?

MR. SHIELDS: I don't think it's true. I think that, Margaret, quite frankly, the vote for President is the most personal vote that any citizen casts. I mean, we have a -- we're eitehr victims or beneficiaries of an information overload. We know -- we learn all about these people, and Americans are very reluctant to vote for someone they're not comfortable with in a whole host. That isn't simply monogamy. But it, it's reliability. It's integrity. It's judgment. If you recall the Democrats' campaign against Ronald Reagan in 1980 was based upon that Ronald Reagan was reckless, Ronald Reagan, that somehow this was a man that his private positions reflected a certain, a public attitude which probably wasn't comfortable in a President. Jimmy Carter was seen as a far more honorable and honest person. He lost 44 states. So it is important to voters, especially in a process such as ours, as Walter Mondale points out, where it's an all volunteer activity, running for President. We don't have a peer review system. You don't gloat over it with people. I say I'm going to run for President. I go to New Hampshire. And so there's got to be some examination of the character as well as the intellect and the record of these people. It does matter to people, and anytime a major public figure is -- has a public position which is divergent with is personal behavior -- for example, the liberal who endorses school busing sends his or her children to an all white, private school is open to charges of hypocrisy.

MS. WARNER: Let me give Ann the very last, short word. Do you think this has any lasting impact on the President?

MS. LEWIS: I don't think what happened this week has a lasting impact on Bill Clinton. I agree that character is an issue. I don't think these charges of recycled gossip, which again were put forward by Bill Clinton's political enemies, are going to have a lasting stain. I am only troubled -- as Paul says, why did he make the phone calls -- when you're in a position in which you were attacked very personally, and then if you try to fight back, they say, ah, ha, there must be something to it. I think Bill Clinton's out of that trap.

MS. WARNER: Well, I'm afraid we'll have to leave it there. Thank you, Ann Lewis, Mark, as always, and Paul. Merry Christmas!

MR. MacNeil: Still to come on the NewsHour, the NAFTA fallout, assessing 1993, and an Amei Wallach essay. FOCUS - POLITICAL FALLOUT

MR. MacNeil: Now a look at the fallout from one of the biggest political battles of the year, the NAFTA Treaty. After Congress approved the treaty last month over the strong objections of organized labor, outraged labor leaders vowed to get even in the next election. The question is: Can they deliver on that threat? To sample the reaction, Correspondent Tom Bearden visited a traditional labor stronghold, Akron, Ohio, shortly after its congressman voted for NAFTA.

MR. BEARDEN: Akron is a union town, has been since the Depression when the United Rubber Workers organized the great tire factories that defined the region's economy. At the United Auto Workers Local 856, members say that for all those years labor could depend on the Democrats and the Democrats could depend on them.

MR. BEARDEN: In the past, has labor been the dominant political force in this area?

GROUP OF MEN: Absolutely, yes.

MR. BEARDEN: And you could count on your Congressman to support your interests.

MAN IN GROUP: 99 percnet of the time.

MR. BEARDEN: And then came the North American Free Trade Agreement. It was clear how the union wanted local Congressman Tom Sawyer to vote. They even held a rally outside his office to remind him.

[ANTI-NAFTA RALLY]

MR. BEARDEN: But the night before the vote, Ken Coss, the head of the United Rubber Workers, got a call from Sawyer that disturbed him.

KEN COSS, President, United Rubber Workers: He called me and told me that he was changing his vote; he would vote for it the following day. And he apologized for any problems that it would create and hoped that we might still understand that he thought it was for the best of the working people or he wouldn't do it.

CHAIRPERSON: The gentlemen from Ohio is recognized for one minute.

REP. THOMAS SAWYER, [D] Ohio: Madame Chairman, I rise in support today, and in all honesty, a decision of this kind has been a tough call for someone from my region of the country.

MR. BEARDEN: The next day Congressman Sawyer not only voted for NAFTA, he even spoke on its behalf. The following day, labor leaders vowed revenge against all Democratic congressmen who voted like Sawyer.

WILLIAM BYWATER, President, Union of Electronic Workers: We will not forget those Congressmen, and I guarantee in November my union and my other unions that feel as I do, we're going to make sure we get even at the polls.

MR. BEARDEN: The cry for revenge was even louder in Akron.

YOY HODOH, UAW Member: Labor will not forget what Tom Sawyer did to him. They will not forget this.

AL CANFORA, UAW Member: I'm sure that we'll come up with a Democrat that will beat him in the primary because we're going after him.

RON GREENLEAF, UAW Member: To defeat Tom Sawyer we should start as of tomorrow morning. Don't wait until election time.

DAVE TERRY, UAW Member: We had one of the biggest rallies for Clinton down here, so they remember to work for us as far as the hourly workers at the time they need your support, as far as when they know it's close, and they need that extra push, which they know this area gave to them. I mean, that's why Clinton came to this town. Now, after he's done, along with Sawyer, they forget who put 'em there. I mean, Tom Sawyer was supposed to come to this very union hall. Did he come? No. He sent his aides.

MR. BEARDEN: When Congressman Sawyer returned to his district, instead of going to the union halls to mend fences, he had a series of meetings with pro-NAFTA constituents like Stan Gault, the head of Goodyear. And Sawyer met with executives from Babcock & Wilcox, a company which does defense work and has high hopes for developing more business with Mexico.

REP. TOM SAWYER: Clearly, this is a Mexican government that is going to have to come to grips with new, higher environmental standards.

MR. BEARDEN: Congressman, I gather this was a pretty tough vote for you on NAFTA.

REP. TOM SAWYER: I'm not sure I've ever had a tougher single decision to make in public life.

MR. BEARDEN: Did you jeopardize your seat by voting yes?

REP. TOM SAWYER: I think any time you make a difficult decision, you run the risk of doing that. I've also come to the conclusion a long time ago that if you are afraid of a vote, then perhaps you're in the wrong business.

MR. BEARDEN: But the political reality is that going against the unions isn't as much of a risk as it used to be. Sawyer's NAFTA vote is a clear signal that Akron and its voter base have changed. Akron, like other towns, once dependent on blue collar jobs, is much less of a union town today than it waseven ten years ago. There's just one rubber factory left, a Goodyear plant that makes only racing tires. All the other factories like this old B.F. Goodrich plant have closed down. The production lines moved South to Tennessee, Alabama, and some, like this general tire facility, to Mexico. The United Rubber Workers have lost 65,000 members nationwide since 1979.

MR. BEARDEN: When you lose sixty, sixty-five thousand members, that's sixty, sixty-five thousand votes, isn't it? Isn't that, in itself, an illustration of a loss of political influence simply by the sheer numbers?

KEN COSS: Probably, yes. It would be by the sheer numbers certainly, certainly.

MR. BEARDEN: David Meyer, an expert on organized labor, says the decline is more than numerical.

DAVID MEYER, University of Akron: Political influence has dropped along with the membership. Alienating the URW is not as dangerous as it once was. At one time, the votes and the money being pulled was a death nill for a politician.

MR. BEARDEN: How would you characterize their specific influence in this specific town?

DAVID MEYER: Dropping and not quite nil but closing in on nil.

MR. BEARDEN: According to Victor Fingerhut, as the union loses power, so may the Democrats. Fingerhut is a Washington pollster and consultant with close ties to the labor movement.

VICTOR FINGERHUT, Political Consultant: Every time we lose a million members of organized labor, the Democrats lose seven hundred thousand votes. If the American work force was 1 percent less organized in 1960 than it was, John Kennedy would have not been elected President. If the American work force was 1 percent less organized than it was in 1976, Jimmy Carter would not have been elected President. Before people, conservative Democrats, before they jump with too much joy about the decline of the American labor movement, they ought to remember how much the total Democrat vote is contributed by the American labor movement.

MR. BEARDEN: In Akron, the big question is whether or not labor will line up for Tom Sawyer in next fall's election. Despite labor's threats, even Republicans like Alex Arshinkoff, head of the party's organization in Akron. Big labor has no real choice but to back Sawyer.

ALEX ARSHINKOFF, Chairman, Akron Republican Party: What are their options? Are they going to recruit a candidate? If organized labor recruits a candidate, where do they file 'em? Do they file 'em in a Democratic primary, where Tom Sawyer will have $1/2 million in PAC money and local contributions and, and what -- who's their challenger? There's nobody of any stature, of any name idea that can do this. Now, are they going to file an independent in a general election so the Republican wins? I don't think that's going to happen.

MR. BEARDEN: And the URW's Coss admits that his union is not ready to abandon Sawyer just yet.

KEN COSS: I do know that as far as our organization is concerned, there will be a very responsible response. We aren't going to react and hurt ourselves as a result of something that's been done by someone else to hurt us.

MR. BEARDEN: You think Sawyer can redeem himself, in other words?

KEN COSS: Yes, at this point.

MR. BEARDEN: And Congressman Sawyer certainly has not given up on his labor constituency.

REP. TOM SAWYER: My job is to, is to make the case that the vote that I cast is in the immediate and longer-term interests of the people that I represent.

MR. BEARDEN: What makes you think they're going to listen to that?

REP. TOM SAWYER: Because there are an awful lot of smart people who belong to, to organized labor not only in this community but across the country. I understand the concern that they're expressing. I understand the anxiety that their very strong position on this, on this issue represents. But I think that the opportunity to share and explain the benefits that can accrue to them directly and in an even larger sense to their children is an important part of the kind of job that I do.

MR. BEARDEN: In fact, despite labor's decline in voting power, no politician is ready yet to completely write off labor's strength.

SEN. HOWARD METZENBAUM, [D] Ohio: Labor can do one hell of a lot for a candidate. They can provide the manpower, the woman power to handle the telephones, to work the neighborhoods, passing out literature, to stand in front of the voting booth.

ALEX ARSHINKOFF: We had our phone bank in the gubernatorial election in the basement of a building across the street -- on a side street across from the International Chemical Workers Union. We had 10 phones with volunteers who'd come in and every night make phone calls. And you'd look up on that International Chemical Workers building and at night their floors would be all lit up because in Ohio, it is legal for union officials to use union lines and union employees on union time to campaign. It's soft money, and, and that's what we face. That's the power of organized labor.

MR. BEARDEN: One top union leader told us union members are motivated by emotion. Sen. Metzenbaum thinks the anger over NAFTA might arouse those emotions for the first time in years, that after NAFTA, labor might actually find a new stride.

SEN. HOWARD METZENBAUM: The NAFTA battle is one place where working people could understand why they need a union because it was the labor unions that led the opposition to NAFTA, and when people are in jeopardy of losing their jobs, or actually lose their jobs, they've turned to that group which has been on their side, and so I think from the standpoint of organized labor, although it was a bad loss for them, I think it actually helps them in many ways as far as being the one place, the one group in the country that's stood up against NAFTA.

MR. BEARDEN: Sawyer isn't the only Democratic Congressman from a labor district up for reelection next fall. How they fare will say a great deal about labor's ability to rebound from a major defeat like NAFTA and shore up their traditionally powerful influence on Capitol Hill. FOCUS - FINAL EDITION

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight, the year in review as seen by our regular panel of regional editors and writers. Jim Lehrer spoke with them earlier this week.

MR. LEHRER: Our panel of regional editors and writers are Ed Baumeister of the Trenton, New Jersey Times, Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Constitution, Lee Cullum of the Dallas Morning News, Erwin Knoll of the Progressive Magazine published in Madison, Wisconsin, Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune, and Gerald Warren of the San Diego Union-Tribune. Ed Baumeister, has this been a good year for America and Americans?

MR. BAUMEISTER: I think objectively it has been but the Americans that I know don't believe it. If you look at all the -- I guess you'd call it good news we publish, economic, statistics and so forth -- it's been a good year, but I don't remember a time during which people have worried in the teeth of good news so much as they do right now.

MR. LEHRER: Lee, how do you read that? Are people worried in Dallas, Texas, about their country and themselves right now?

MS. CULLUM: Yes, Jim, I think they are worrying, and I would have to take issue with Ed a little bit. I, I don't think it's been a very good year. It hasn't been a terribly bad year. It hasn't been a terribly good year, and maybe all midling years are midling in the same way to, to paraphrase Tolstoy in a somewhat garbled manner. I think that we have continuing problems with the economy. I know that there is news of recovery. I know there is news of unemployment being slightly down, though the Californians wouldn't know that or believe it, but we still have this intractible fact of companies laying people off because they're producing more procucts with fewer people, and that seems to be the trend. We've had great gains in productivity but at great human cost, and so there is reason for sobriety and worry.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree, Cynthia, legitimate reason for sobriety and worry, or do you agree with Ed?

MS. TUCKER: Well, yes, I think there's a reason for worry, Jim. I think that among other things Americans are worrying about the continuing decay in the social fabric. And it's not just the economy. It is issues that are more difficult than that for government to tackle. The issue of violence in America, for example, which is not a new one, has been dramatically brought home this year, and Americans are very, very worried about their own personal safety, among other things.

MR. LEHRER: Erwin Knoll, is that a legitimate -- I mean, is that true in Madison, Wisconsin, that people are worried about violence and their own personal safety, and that overrides a lot of other things that might even look better to them?

MR. KNOLL: Yes, it is true here too, that people are very worried about violence, but I think there's something going on here that deserves a little closer look because we hear from official statistics that violence is actually down, violent crime, despite these well publicized incidents we've been reading about and hearing about. I think people are almost obsessed with violence these days because there's a lot of guilt around. I think many people understand that this society is becoming less and less fair, less and less just, that the gap is widening between rich and poor, and I think people feel that those who are disadvantaged in this society aren't going to take it lying down forever. They're going to be more and more violent. They're going to rise up against the injustices in their own lives, and I think that's why there's this great push to build more prisons, put more people behind bars, put -- crack down on lawlessness because people sense that there is more lawlessness coming because the society has been less and less just.

MR. LEHRER: Gerry Warren, would your analysis coincide with that?

MR. WARREN: No, I don't think so.

MR. LEHRER: Surprise, surprise.

MR. WARREN: I -- I believe there is a, a fear of violent behavior but I don't think it overrides everything else. And I don't think it's the down and out who are being violent. I think it's the criminal who is being violent. And, you know, throughout all of this bad year, and we've had some bad things happen this year, I see glimmers of hope. I see people taking steps to change things in their neighborhoods. I see more and more people taking responsibility for themselves, and that's a good sign.

MR. LEHRER: Clarence, how do you things look to you overall?

MR. PAGE: I certainly agree that, that rumbling sound we hear in the background this year is a great seismic shift in America, the American way of life, the world's way of life in the post Cold War era, in an era that is seeing a, a definite division between haves and have nots, not only that, a division between the college educated and those who are not college educated, something that Bill Clinton's been trying to come to grips with and Robert Reich as Secretary of Labor. I think Clinton was coming to grips with it enough to win election, although I don't know if he will come to grips with it enough to win a reelection, but it's certainly happening out there. Our two big series this year in the Chicago Tribune were, one, a series called "Killing Our Kids" about -- in which we profiled every single child under 14 who was killed by violence or by abuse or neglect in Chicago this year, not knowing what was going to happen, whether it was going to make the city look better or look worse, but we wanted to draw some attention to this finally because we've become so desensitized to this vilence in everyday life in our cities. The other one was on why people are leaving the city and found that while traditionally we've always thought people left the city mostly because of schools, they're leaving because of fear of crime now more than anything else. Erwin Knoll is right. Statistically, violent crime has either leveled off or gone down in some instances like in New York. It didn't save David Dinkins because the perception is up. Now I think it's indicative of a great national fear and loathing going on right now across the country that we're just coming to grips with.

MR. LEHRER: Well, in coming to grips with this, there's a fine line, as everybody will say, between fear and hope when things are down, that it can cause you to be more fearful that things are going to get worse, or it can cause you to do something, and out of that comes hope that things are going to get better. Do you think that we're at that kind of magic moment for America?

MR. BAUMEISTER: No, I don't think we're at a magic moment at all. We've got a hangover, it seems to me, caused by several excesses. One I think was the political excess of the Cold War, where we chose to see the world almost in black and white terms until November 9, 1989, when we discovered that it was nothing but gray. It caused, of course, our Republicans to lose, lose a star in the night, but it also caused I think a lot of us who grew up, you know, my age, 50 or so, to lose faith in, in the system because the system was designed for something else, and it now seemed so confusing. We're also, I think, hung over because of the financial excesses of the 1980s. We're not out of that. I mean, companies around Trenton are not hiring back. We have a long memory. I think our excesses -- we're remembering our excesses more than we ever have before, and I think because of these excesses and our memory of them, we're not at the point of gathering hope.

MR. LEHRER: Lee, how do yu feel about that? Do you feel that -- you've laid out what you consider to be some, some sad state of affairs right now -- do you think there is an acceptance in the country, in the leadership of the country that, that much has to be done, and the acknowledgement is not going to lead to action?

MS. CULLUM: I think there is an acceptance, Jim, and I think it's occurring on a deeper level than we might realize. I interviewed Carlos Fuentes, the Mexican diplomat and novelist, earlier this year, and on the subject of violence, he said Americans have an unnatural relationship with death. Where in Mexico, they celebrate the day of the dead, the human skull appears in their art, we have deep denial in this country, and that denial, that repression erupts in violence and intolerance for violence. So it may be, I think, that we're having a real change of American culture. We are no longer willing to tolerate violence, even if it means facing down the gun lobby, and on a deeper level, I think it may mean coming to terms with death in a new way, and I think that if health care reform succeeds, and it's properly conceived, it may help bring about exactly that sort of acceptance, and I think it could mean a substantial change in the culture.

MR. LEHRER: Well, where is this change coming from, Lee? Is it coming from the top down or the bottom up?

MS. CULLUM: It's coming from the bottom up, without question. It's happening in the everyday lives of everyday people of all of us.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree with that, Erwin?

MR. KNOLL: It certainly isn't happening from the top down. In this week before Christmas, the Office of Management & Budget and the White House have been trying toi figure out how to cut nutrition programs for poor people, how to cut winter fuel help for opoor people, how to cut mass transit funds for the cities. I thik we're going in exactly the opposite direction, instead of caring more about people, we care less, instead of doing more to alleviate the suffering of those who don't share in the affluence of this affluent society, we're looking for ways to punish them, to chase them off welfare, to take away the pittance they have, and to make their lives more miserable. That is not, to me, a cheering prognosis.

MR. LEHRER: Cynthia, you heard -- what do you think of Lee's point about violence, that the population of the United States of America, each and everybody's piece in it is saying, no more, we're going to stop this. Do you agree with her? Do you feel that?

MS. TUCKER: Yes, I do. I think it represents a sea change in the culture, and I don't think that things are nearly as hopeless as Erwin Knoll describes them. I think that Bill Clinton, while he may not be initiating as much of the change as he needs to, certainly senses the fact that the American public is willing and ready to move foward on a couple of fronts. Gun control and stopping violence is one of them. He senses the mood and is trying to capture that to move forward on crime legislation and gun control. He senses that he ran on the issue of health care, of course. He understands that the American public is ready and willing to move forward on that issue, and he also senses that the American public, including many members of the working poor, are ready to move forward on welfare reform. They understand that we have unintentionally created a cycle of dependency and that we need to change that.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Gerry, I take it from what you said earlier that you see hope rather than hopelessness right now?

MR. WARREN: Oh, I do see hope. I think Mr. Clinton did his part to depoliticize this whole issue of, of values in rebuilding the family in a wonderful stirring speech in Memphis, another speech in Los Angeles, and, indeed, a, a very gracious comment he made about former Vice President Quayle. He understands -- and I'm sure the First Lady does to -- the need for change in the government approach to this, not in a, in a more encompassing, let's do it for you way, but let us get out of the way, let us set up mechanisms whereby the neighborhoods can rebuild themselves. I think if he has half a chance, he will do that.

MR. LEHRER: But can a President of the United States, can a Senate of the United States, can a governor of California, can a mayor of San Diego, affect values and all of those things as well?

MR. WARREN: I think they can if they change their patronizing laws in ways that people take greater pride in themselves, take greater pride in bearing the responsibility for their own actions, and really value work. They can set the table for that.

MR. LEHRER: Set the -- can they set the table, Clarence? Is the table being set, I guess is even a better question.

MR. PAGE: Leadership sets a tone, and it's been said before, I'll say it again, Richard Nixon opened the door to China, and maybe Bill Clinton can open the door to the inner city. One of the big values issues that we're not really getting at is that let's face it, the question of race, a very important one, my quarrel with Bill Clinton's speech in Memphis was that it kind of perpetuated this notion that crime is a black problem. Ronald Reagan, one of my big complaints about him was that he put a black face on what are essentially white problems, poverty, crime, lack of opportunity. Today lack of opportunity is being felt worse by the white suburban middle class of America. That is who Bill Clinton campaigned to. David Gergen on this very program back before he joined the Clinton administration said that's where the motherload of votes is. He's absolutely right. In 1990, as my colleague, Ed Baumeister, knows very well, America -- more Americans were suburbanites than, than rural or urban dwellers. That's a first for American society. Suburban values are permeating American society today, and that means --

MR. LEHRER: What is a suburban value?

MR. PAGE: Well, that's a question people are going to have to talk about. I've been thinking a lot about thaqt. One of them is what we've been talksing about already; the idea that government isn't the answer. People move to the suburbs to get away from big government, the idea of big city machines, et cetera. They want city manager kind of, or village manager kind of government, which is "hands off" government. Tehy're very much attached to their property. They tend to be homeowners as opposed to renters. They're --

MR. LEHRER: It's not as ideological as it used to be, you mean. I mean, it's more just the real world kind of change?

MR. PAGE: There's a new ideology. If William Jennings Bryan was the leader of rural populism and Jesse Jackson was the leader of urban populism, Ross Perot may be the spokesman from suburban populism.

MR. LEHRER: Is there suburban populism in New Jersey yet?

MR. BAUMEISTER: Yes, very much so.

MR. LEHRER: Does it fit the definition that Clarence just laid out?

MR. BAUMEISTER: It does. I'd add to those values though family values. I know that's a term that is almost meaningless now. People move to the suburbs so they can raise families. I maen, the suburbs are plagued with divorce and other ills that afflict us all. The thing about the suburbs though is the suburbs did elect Bill Clinton, and, and I think that Erwin would agree that the suburbs didn't vote for Bill Clinton for social justice; they voted for middle class tax cut, they voted because they thought they would have a better life with their property, with their families, under Bill Clinton, and that's sad. I consider myself a city kid at heart, but I think that's happened, and I think this away from government, government won't do it all, we'll take care of us, we're the ones who make the country, I think that's a big element in the national politics now, and I don't know where that heads us.

MR. LEHRER: Do you go into '94 with hope in your heart?

MR. BAUMEISTER: I go sillily into 1994 with hope in my heart. I think we in our business tend to, usefully, but -- usefully point out the many problems we have. I don't think that things are as bad as we analyze 'em to be all the time. I think people act very independently of us and of our analysis. I think 1994 might be a year where we get over our hangovers. I think it won't be a government that cheers us on. I think it will be what we will probably analyze as accident. I think there's a good possibility of a growth of hope next year.

MR. LEHRER: Do you feel cheers coming on, Lee, in '94?

MS. CULLUM: Yes, I do, Jim. You know, there's a wonderful play called "Perestroika" by Tony Kushner in wihch a young says, "I can't soar. My heart is an anchor." Another wife, a Mormon wife, who's in a wagon trekking across the West says, "Well, leave it then. You can't have no extra weight." I think this is the year Americans are going to toughen up and stop being spoiled, and they're going to let go of the emotion of fear, and let go of the emotion of resentment, set it all aside, and I think their spirits will soar, will soar as a nation, and I think we'll save ourselves as a nation.

MR. LEHRER: Do you see a soaring coming, Cythnia?

MS. TUCKER: Well, I think there will be some uplift. At least I think there will be more optimism. I think the economy will continue to improve, which will certainly improve all of our spirits. I think that we will begin to make headway on all these tough issues of violence and crime and welfare reform, and taking back our neighborhoods, and taking back our public schools. So, yes, I have some confidence. I think that Bill Clinton has had the courage to raise some difficult issues. I think he does set a tone that has inspired other Americans to thik about those same issues, and so, yes, I think that 1994 will be a better year.

MR. LEHRER: What's it going to take to lift your spirits, Erwin?

MR. KNOLL: Well, I'm not exactly aglow with optimism. But I don't want to be recorded as the Scrooge of the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. I -- I appreciated the President's Memphis speech. I appreciated his wonderful speech on health care. I think he said the right things on all of these issues. The problem I have is the gap between promise and performance. I think I heard on the NewsHour the other night that we have a million homeless people in America. They're not going to find homes because we embrace a new set of family values. They're not going to find homes because we say the right thing. They're going to find the right things when we're ready to pay the price to make the sacrifice to build a fair and just and decent society in which all people can enjoy the fruits of, of the affluence of this country. I can't say with any kind of cheer that I see us moving very rapidly toward that goal at the end of this year or in the year to come. I hope I'm wrong. That's as optimistic as I can get.

MR. LEHRER: How optimistic will you go, Gerry?

MR. WARREN: Well, somewhere between, between Erwin and Lee. I think we'll make progress in '94. I think people are beginning to realize that, that they do have a power. I think we'll begin to chip away at this damaging cynicism that I see where government is concerned, the people cynical about government. I think we will begin to repair the welfare system that has locked so many people into deprivation. So I think we'll make progress in '94. We won't solve all the problems but it'll be in the right direction.

MR. LEHRER: Are you prepared to cheer, Clarence?

MR. PAGE: I'll feel better about this decade when we find a name for it, you know, I mean, the '70s was the "Me Decade," the '80s was the "Greed Decade," maybe the '90s will be the "Needs Decade." Maybe we'll figure out, get a better focus on these needs we've been discussing for the last few minutes, and, and start talking about some remedies, both individual action, and collective action. There are limits to both, but right now I don't think we really know exactly what the problem is well enough to work on a remedy.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. Well, we'll leave it there, and, my personal best wishes to all six of you, and my hope goes that all is well for you all in the next year. Thank you very much for this one. ESSAY - SIMPLE GIFTS

MS. WARNER: We close tonight with some thoughts on a very special Christmas tradition from essayist Amei Wallach of New York Newsday.

AMEI WALLACH: This is the season for tradition, plastic candles in the window, electric reindeer on the lawn, carols in the stores. We go through the motions even when we can't remember why. But it took the town of Southold, and one of its people in particular, to rememind me that sometimes the real magic is in a new tradition created by a simple act of faith. Southold takes traditional seriously. The first British settlers arrived here on the Eastern end of Long Island from New Haven Colony in 1640. The families of those early European settlers have grown and often prospered, and so have the descendants of the slaves who have recorded in Southold as far back as the first census in 1686. Most of the African- Americans who live in Southold today though traveled North for the hard life of farm work in the great migration from the South between the world wars. George Thomas Morris arrived from Virginia with his wife, Anna, in 1920. A year later, he helped found Shiloh Baptist Church, one of the many churches that nourishes the rich gospel tradition around here. [gospel music] His daughter, Eleanor Morris -- she's Eleanor Lingo now -- used to walk to Southold High School down Main Street, past the cemetery of the old Presbyterian Church. And it was back then that the seeds of Southold's newest tradition were sown.

ELEANOR LINGO: One day as I was walking by the fence in the cemetery I noticed -- I was reading these little engravings on the tombstone, and I saw "Negro Slave Lady," and of course, that grabbed my attention, and I stopped and read it, and started to wondering about, oh, gee, there must have been negro people here before I got here.

AMEI WALLACH: She never forgot that grave. She graduated from high school in 1944 and moved to Connecticut and then Brooklyn to work in accounting because she didn't want to stay and be a domestic or a farm hand. Then just before the Christmas of 1954, Eleanor Lingo's mother died, and in the tradition of her family, Eleanor went to lay a wreath on her mother's grave.

ELEANOR LINGO: And the first year I thought, oh, that's right, that little slave lady is in the cemetery, and as I'll make my mother's wreath, I'll make a little one to put on her grave. I figured that there was no one left or no one even knew about her, and I thought that she was a forgotten person, and as long as I was making a wreath, why shouldn't I make one for her, and I got self- satisfaction out of doing it.

AMEI WALLACH: She couldn't find a grave that said "Negro Slave Lady," but under the tree where she remembered it, she found a grave marked simply, "Bloom," and every year since 1954, Eleanor Lingo has been making two wreaths and decorating two graves in Southold Presbyterian Church Cemetery. She'd been doing it for 25 years and had moved back to Southold in 1979 when she came across an article in the Peconic Bay Shopper. It quoted a letter by a Miss Kathryn Mitchell remembering a family story about her great grandfather Abram Mulford, Jr., and how a British frigate had fired upon his farm in 1808. The story said that British marauders abandoned a deaf and dumb black child on the beach and that the Mulfords named her Bloom and took her in until her death two years later.

ELEANOR LINGO: It was like I had just found a lost friend when I read the article, and of course, I just couldn't get home to my family fast enough to tell them, to show them the article that was in this little magazine. And they were just as excited as I was.

AMEI WALLACH: It wasn't until last year that a friend of Eleanor Lingo's decided to dig out the earth around Bloom's grave. The gravestone revealed said, "Bloom, Negro Woman, Died 1810." Out of faith and love, Eleanor Lingo has created a new Christmas tradition in the way of the best traditions, and so far, it has lasted 39 years. I'm Amei Wallach. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the main stories of this Christmas Eve: Hostage takers in Russia continued to hold four boys and three adults aboard a helicopter filled with explosives. Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem were the largest since the Palestinian uprising began six years ago. Merry Christmas, Margaret.

MS. WARNER: Merry Christmas, Robin. That's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back on Monday with a look at the nation's economy and the start of a series of documentary reports on modern China. I'm Margaret Warner. Have a happy Christmas weekend. Good night.