The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

[music] Good evening, leading the news this Thursday. East Germany opened its borders, including the Berlin Wall, to free travel by its citizens. Communist leaders called for free and democratic elections. Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping gave up his last official post. We'll have details in our new summary in a moment, Jim? - After the news summary, we look at the extraordinary announcements in East Germany with reports from there and Moscow and with reaction here from Senator Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar, former arms negotiator Paul Nitze, former national security advisor Walt Rostow, and former ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith. Then comes an analysis of Deng Xiaoping's latest going from China expert Michael Oxenberg, and we close with the Thursday night essay on modern times by Roger Rosenblatt. - Funding for the NewsHour has been provided by AT&T. AT&T connects the world, from equipment to networking, from computers to communications, AT&T, the right

choice, and by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a catalyst for change, and by PepsiCo, and made possible by the financial support of viewers like you and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. - East Germany's Communist leaders in two stunning reversals gave in to the biggest demands of the growing democracy movement: free travel and free elections. They announced that East German borders, including the Berlin Wall, would be open for their citizens to travel anywhere in the world. And the Communist leaders called for free democratic elections. President Bush heralded the new developments as a dramatic happening. At an impromptu news conference in the Oval Office. He was asked if the days of the Iron Curtain were now over. - Well, I don't think any single event is the end of what you might call the Iron Curtain. But clearly this is a long way from the harsh days of the... harshest Iron Curtain days, a long way from that. While the news was welcomed by members of both parties on Capitol Hill, there was little

praise for the East German government. The Senate's majority and minority leaders spoke on the Senate floor. - We want freedom for East Germany and its people. We want today's announcement to turn out to be the real thing. We want the Berlin Wall torn down, and all other barriers to the free flow of people removed. And we hope that East Germany's Communist clique will read the handwriting on the wall and cooperate in the transition to a new form of government as some of the recent comments suggest. - Today's decision, not an act of democracy, not an act to please or placate the West, but a desperate act of survival by the East German government to permit their people to leave, represents the symbolic destruction of the Berlin Wall. - We'll have much fuller coverage of these historic developments after the news summary, Jim? - Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping resigned his last official position today. He stepped down

as Chairman of the Military Commission. Deng is 85 years old. He has been in poor health. After announcing his resignation, he made a visit to the Communist Party Central Committee. Standing by his side was his replacement, Zhang Zemin. Zhang is Chairman of the Communist Party. He is 63 years old. The announcement came while former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was in Beijing on an unofficial visit. Kissinger met with Zhang and other Chinese leaders. Nicaraguan cease fire talks began at the United Nations today. It's the first meeting between the government and the Contras in more than a year. The Sandinista government suspended the cease fire last week, and said today it can only resume if the Contras begin turning in their arms by the end of the month. The Contras are demanding that free elections come first. In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas said that 14 more people had been killed in fighting between the two sides. - The House passed a $305 billion defense bill today. It cuts $1.1 billion from what President

Bush wanted for SDI, the Strategic Defense Initiative. The legislation also restores partial funding to two weapons programs the administration wanted eliminated. The F-14D Tomcat fighter and the Marine Corps's Osprey aircraft. The bill was the end product of a House-Senate conference committee. It now goes back to the full Senate for final approval. - In economic news, the government said that inflation at the wholesale level went up by four tenths of a percent last month. Wholesale prices were pushed up largely by higher food costs, particularly for vegetables. The rate so far this year has been 5.2 percent, compared to a 4 percent rate last year. - Philippine's president, Corazon Aquino, visited President Bush at the White House today. She told reporters she came to ask for more US aid. And Mr. Bush said she will get it. He also said he was confident about an agreement to keep U.S. military bases in the Philippines. And that's it for the news summary. Now it's on to today's remarkable developments in

East Germany, a change at the top in China, and Roger Rosenblatt on modern times. [music] - Again tonight, our major focus is the historic rush of events in East Germany. We have extended reports on today's developments and then analysis by leading American observers. First from Britain's Independent Television News, on-the-scene reports by David Smith in the Soviet Union and Nik Gowing in East Berlin. - The Berlin Wall has symbolized the divide between East and West for 27 years. Suddenly tonight, the minefield and border fortifications between East and West Germany appear to have been rendered redundant at a stroke and with immediate effect. The announcement of the decision taken at the East German Council of Ministers came within the last hour at a press conference by a leading member of the new Politburo.

- [German, voice of translator] Today we have decided to introduce measures permitting every citizen of the DDR to leave for the Federal Republic by any crossing points. - The right of East Germans to have a passport giving them free and unrestricted travel abroad was the climax to a day of fast-moving and momentous developments which began with the overnight promise of free elections. It was Günter Schabowski, Politburo member, rival to Egon Krenz and a leading reformer who flew the kite that the new East German leadership was now ready to accept free elections with all political groups being allowed to participate. So at Communist Party headquarters on day two of the Central Committee meeting, the new slimmed-down reformist Politburo arrived to confront heated debate over how to guarantee the party's supremacy in what will eventually be the first open political contest in the state's 40-year existence. Some Central Committee members had no intention of airing their view

on free elections, certainly not to a Western correspondent. Others though did have a robust view that the Communist Party would reform itself and win a majority in open elections. - "What a bad thing," said this army officer. "We are going to do everything in our decisions to win back the people's trust," said this Central Committee member. As public disillusionment with the Communist Party spreads by the hour, some faces betrayed anxiety. Others though rejected any idea that the party's supremacy was under threat. "I tell you, we don't feel threatened at all," said this member. Does the party feel under threat? Can you survive if there are free elections? - Yeah, I am quite sure. - But is everyone convinced? - But if we would say we can't, we will not succeed. - But in Poland, the Communist Party believed

they had it right and would win elections and they didn't, they were humiliated. - We have gone another way in the past. Then Poland, it's another situation. - Meanwhile, the pace of political change continued unabated. The Volkskammer, the parliament, will meet an emergency session on Monday to elect a new government. And after pressure from pro-reform Party officials, Party headquarters this afternoon announced the convening of a special congress next month. One hadn't been due until next March. But most remarkable were the shambolic events which took place in this apartment block in a rundown part of East Berlin this afternoon. Western correspondents were invited to a flat which for many years until a few days ago had been under police surveillance, the home of a painter who is the founding member of the New Forum pro-reform group. The small artist studio was bursting with television crews and it was all too much for the group's leaders who until last weekend were used to underground political activity, arrest and

harassment. So this cutting edge of democracy was forced to decamp in pandemonium to a backyard for the very first news conference by New Forum. The group's camera-shy leading figures announced that as from last night, the authorities had told them New Forum was no longer an illegal organization. Six weeks ago New Forum had just 2,000 supporters willing to brave arrest for supporting the group. Tonight they have 200,000. In a constitutional ruse designed not to antagonize the Communist Party, they said they would fight free elections as an organization, not as a political party. - We don't want to be a party and we think we have now good things for change something in the GDR for change of situation and perhaps for to say to people, please stay in the GDR, live and work here. - There is then no let up to the extraordinary

pace of change here. What has long been impossible is not just becoming possible. Within days or hours it is actually taking place sanctioned by a partially-renovated East German leadership which is racing against time to halt the refugee exodus and to preserve the viability of East Germany as a sovereign communist state. - In Moscow there has been no sense of crisis or crisis management when it comes to East Germany. Because at this stage the Soviet leadership believes the shake-up in East Berlin is a much needed change for the better. That explains why in the past 24 hours, Soviet television has reported the dramatic events in East Germany more fully than ever before. Nothing it seems has been left out: not the demonstrations, not the upheaval under Mr. Krenz in the Politburo and the East German government. Not even the reaction of Chancellor Kohl in West Germany. The clear implication is that the removal

of East Germany's old guard was discussed and agreed by President Gorbachev and Mr. Krenz when they met in Moscow last week. Certainly the East German leader did get Moscow's approval for what he's done in the days since that crucial meeting. - In general terms how concerned are you by events in East Germany? - We were watching them closely and they are improving the situation in the sense that they are moving to Perestroika on their own terms. - Do you welcome the changes that have taken place in the leadership in the Politburo? - It's Perestroika on their own terms, yes. - Little evidence there then of a sense of alarm here. Rather cautious optimism and some satisfaction that the East Germans are following Mr. Gorbachev's lead. Yet in the long term the Soviets do have their worries because they know that ultimately what's happening in East Germany raises the question of reunification and the prospect of irreparable damage to the Warsaw Pact to communism as a political philosophy. The Soviets have nearly 400,000 troops in East Germany because unlike Poland or Hungary

it's the front line with NATO. And while Mr. Gorbachev would not use them as his predecessors did in Czechoslovakia, he cannot tolerate anything that might have East Germany leaving the Warsaw Pact. [German] That's why the Kremlin has to back Mr. Krenz from now. He's seen as the best hope here of preventing East Germany slipping away from socialism, because if it did it would have lost its reason to exist and there'd be nothing to stop the reunification of the two Germanies. [German, voice of translator] The very life of East Germany is socialism. Without it, it will lose its national identity and become part of West Germany. It would be inevitable. - Seen from Moscow then, East Germany is not like Poland or Hungary. And already the future dilemma for the Soviets is becoming obvious. Tonight for example, spokesman Gennady Gerasimov said

East Germany could go the way of Poland and elect a non-communist government. - It's their decision, just like in Poland or Frank Sinatra... "He had it his way," so Poland has it its way. - But then he categorically ruled out what a non-communist government might mean: reunification. - No, nobody. Even in Bundesrepublik, even then the Federal Republic of Germany discusses seriously this question of reunification of two Germanies. They drifted too much apart. - Tonight as they were dismantling at the end of this week's anniversary celebrations, the choice for the Soviets seemed clear. They can reconstruct the Eastern bloc. They can open up the Berlin Wall as they've done tonight. But they may ultimately have to draw one line for some like Poland, and quite a different one for others like East Germany. - When he met with reporters in the Oval Office this afternoon, President Bush called today's development a dramatic happening for East

Germany and for the course of freedom. - It is a very good development. Our objective is a Europe, whole and free. And is it a step towards that? I would say yes. Gorbachev talks about a common home. Is it a step towards that? Probably so. - What's the danger here of it just spinning out of control. Secretary Baker commented earlier about how rapid the pace of change has been in Eastern Europe. Nobody's really expected this to happen as quickly as it did. Is there a danger here that things are accelerating too quickly? - Well, I wouldn't want to say this kind of development makes things move... to be moving too quickly at all. It's the kind of development that we would... we have long encouraged by our strong support for the Helsinki Final Act. So I'm not going to hypothicate that it may... anything goes too fast. But we are handling it in a way where we are

not trying to give anybody a hard time. We are saluting those who can move forward with democracy. We are encouraging the concept of a Europe, whole and free. And so we just welcome it. - Did you ever imagine anything like this happening... - On your watch? - We've imagined it, but I can't say that I foresaw this development at this state. Now I didn't foresee it, but imagining it, yes. When I talk about a Europe whole and free, we're talking about this kind of freedom to come and go. - Is your second thought, what are we going to do if it really does explode over there, coming into play? I mean, obviously if they just flood into West Germany, they're handling it now, but they've only gotten 200,000. What if they get a million? What if they get two million? - Well, what I'd like

to think is that the political change in the GDR would catch up right, would catch up very fast with this liberation, if you will. You may remember that before I went to Poland, I think, I don't know whether Jim Baker was sitting next to me, I know Brent was there and John Sununu, and I was asked by a Polish journalist if I were a young Pole, what would my advice be? And what I said is, I think you ought to stay there and participate in this dramatic change in your country. You ought to feel the surge of freedom, feel the move toward democracy and be a part of it. And these are Germans, and Germans love their country. And at some point, I think a lot of Germans who have felt hemmed in and unable to move are going to say, look, we can move, but wouldn't it be better to participate in the reforms that are taking place in our own country? So I think it's too early to predict it because these openings

are there that that means the whole everybody is going to take off. - We get further American reaction now to these extraordinary events in East Germany. It comes from two Senators, Sam Nunn, Democrat of Georgia, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, former arms negotiator Paul Nitze, who held national security positions in government since the end of World War II, and Walt W. Rostow, a State Department official in the Kennedy administration, President Johnson's National Security Advisor. He's now a professor of political economy at the University of Texas. He joins us from public station KLRU in Austin. And John Kenneth Galbraith, he served as U.S. Ambassador to India during the Kennedy administration, he's now a professor at Harvard University, and has written widely on political and economic issues. He's with us from public station WGBH in Boston. Mr. Nitze, words like "remarkable, extraordinary" have been used by us and others to describe what happened

today, what words would you use? - Even more extreme words, to me totally surprising, the fulfillment of a dream of a long time. - Senator Nunn? - Yes. I would say that this is the dream that we in the West have had for many years, Jim. We have thirsted for freedom of the people of Eastern Europe, and of course they've thirsted for that freedom too. We did not expect, though, to be fed through a fire hose, and we are now getting things that are happening very rapidly, whether we are ready or not. And so this is terrific news that we can only greet with a sense that optimism, hope, and expectations that these commitments will be carried out. - Senator Lugar? Well, the situation sets up some entirely new choices for Germans. The choices are to leave, if they want to leave and perhaps if the election idea proceeds with New Forum and others to have selection of their leadership. And I suppose this is an opportunity on the

part of East Germany to see whether in a free and fair election route, if they go that route, people will choose socialism, choose a separate sort of Germany. So the situation is pregnant with possibilities for choice. - Mr. Rostow in Austin, you once described the East German government as "the dirty rat of Eastern Europe." What does it look like to you tonight? - I don't believe I ever said that... - I'm sorry, I was told you said that, sorry. - Well, people say a lot of things, but I share, of course, like all my colleagues, this feeling that a dream is coming true. What I would underline, though, is that it's a task now before us, when I say us, I mean United States, Western Europe, people of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. It's a task before all of us to convert this revolution from the bottom into a new structure for Europe. And that's a very big job, and I'm not sure we've all given enough thought to the challenges that that represents for us.

- All right, I want to come back to that very point in a moment, Mr. Rostow, but I want to go get first a reaction from Ambassador Galbraith in Boston. What does it look like to you, sir? - Well, I've just been lecturing at the University of Leipzig for the first time, and I guess the first time in three decades that they risked having an economist. And, of course, I agree with my colleagues, my friends, what enormously dramatic thing this is. But I would also sense that it arises not from economics. After all, East Germany is the most prosperous country of the Eastern bloc. I would sense that it comes out of the enormous desire of people to be heard and to participate. And we're seeing that this is a stronger motivation than many of us have in the past imagined. - Mr. Nitze, Senator Mitchell on the floor of the Senate today said that following up on what the ambassador just said that this was a desperate act of survival of the government of East

Germany, that they really had no choice. Do you agree? - I believe that to be true. I think the problems, of course, that one can foresee are numerous. Can the German, the Federal Democratic Republic, absorb rapidly enough all the people who may take advantage of this open door to leave. I certainly would hope that the Germans in the GDR will follow the advice of the opponents we just heard to the government in the GDR to stay there and to participate in converting that government, in creating a new government in the GDR, which will be one, which they will participate in and which will be a true good successor to this existing government. That's the real task. - Senator Nunn, do you think that the government in East Germany has now gotten ahead of its own revolution to where the people might take the advice of President Bush, Mr. Nitze, and others to stay put and see this thing through? - Well, I think that's good advice, and I agree with that advice. I believe, though, that

the government here has pledged for free elections. If they carry that pledge out, and I hope they will, then if those free elections result in a non-communist regime, we have to ask the question, will the Communist Party abide by that? We also have to ask the question, what is the Soviet Union's bottom line? Mr. Gorbachev has tolerated things in the last year that caused the Soviet Union to invade in 1956 Hungary, and in 1968 Czechoslovakia. So it seems that the spokesman for the Soviet Union today said perhaps the bottom line was the Warsaw Pact membership. We have to ask the question, what if that freely elected government, if and when it happens, and we pray that it does, decides they don't want to be part of the Warsaw Pact. So we're in a period of great hope, but we also have a great deal of instability here, and we have to be both cautious as well as hopeful, and we have to exercise some vision in determining what kind of Europe is going to emerge. This means that the Common Market, I believe, has to be a little different instrument than was envisioned

as recently as several months ago. It has to open itself up to trade with the East in a way that gives these regimes and opportunities to make progress economically. That's going to be, I think, a key. - Mr. Rostow, that's your point about the U.S. and the West faces some challenges here. You heard what Senator Nunn just said. What do you think? How should we play this thing now to make this thing work? - In the midst of this kaleidoscopic set of changes, I think we do well to try to come clearly into our own minds and work with others to establish a consensus on the principles that should govern the making of this new Europe. I think there are three. The first is, of course, the principle of self-determination for Eastern Europe and the right to make their own politics and their own economic arrangements. The second is that I think NATO and the Warsaw Pact should convert themselves into arms control and negotiating and control agencies that would bring down the level of arms in Europe

in ways that would be reassuring to the Soviet Union, to the people of Europe themselves, and to us, where we have gone through two major wars as a result of European instability. That means that I'd put it another way and on this occasion, put it bluntly. The Soviet Union and the United States have an abiding and legitimate interest in the security structure of Europe. And I do believe that we should remain active in NATO, and NATO, perhaps, converted into an arms control negotiating instrument. The third principle is the relationship between this process that's going on and German unity. None of us can predict when that issue will come to the front. Ideally, it should come to the front after the 1992 arrangements for tightening the unity of Western Europe of taking place, but history is not really that

amenable to orderly staff work, and it may come at any time. I would suggest that what we want to talk over with everyone concerned is that the unity of Germany not be permitted to obstruct the movement towards the tightening up of the West. Both the German President and Chancellor have asserted that no arrangements that they now envisage in the future would detach them from the West, but that is the operational meaning. In the meanwhile, Senator Nunn has correctly pointed out a whole new set of arrangements with Eastern Europe might open up, and they are not now in a position to join the European communities, and they may not wish to. - Let me ask Senator, excuse me, let me ask Senator Lugar a question about this whole issue of whether the United States and the West with

a vision, with some leadership, I mean all of the events that are happening in Eastern Europe and the communist world have been happening day after day after day with absolutely, it seems like not only is the United States not playing a role, I mean, we don't even know anything about it, obviously, until they happen. Is there some major role? Could we start now to influence events from this point on? - Well, we've been influencing events for 40 years. The stage has been set for these events to occur with the strength of NATO, the encouragement we've given to democratic forces seems to me that clearly the President's counsel today is right that we want people to have free and fair elections. We encourage that. We want free access, and that is happening because our presence, our leadership. Seems to me that in this current situation, the President suggests that the Germans may want to follow this, to have free and fair elections, and if there are democrats that come out of that, to negotiate the security with the Soviets at the same time that NATO and the Warsaw Pact nations are negotiating in Vienna for a total removal of a lot of Soviet troops

from all of Eastern Europe with that overlay, and then to consider has been suggested by colleagues in this program. The economic situation, if East Germany turns out to want free market economics and democracy, then it's very likely to see unity. If they don't want that, they're probably not going to be unified, but they still might get rid of the Soviet security apparatus. That has been our policy, our encouragement, and we're right behind it this evening. - Ambassador Galbraith, what's your view of what the U.S. can and should do to influence events from this point on? - Well, I was rather... I must say I've been very much impressed by this discussion, and I was very much impressed by the proposals that my old friend, Walt Rostow, offered, with which I would strongly associate myself. I would make two further points. One is that let us be a little restrained in the advice that we offer in these next few weeks. Let us be a little bit restrained about any hopes for the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, for

example. I'm not... I'm not at all sure that the official or unofficial advice streaming from the United States at the present moment is entirely useful or will be much affect events. The other thing is that we must recognize that there are some economic problems here. East Germany is losing workers, losing particularly its younger workers. The older people will not go, because they will not be able to find housing in West Germany, and their discomfort isn't all that great. But the loss of these young people, plus the problem that that creates for West Germany, is something on which, through the international agencies, through the bank, and perhaps by direct assistance to the extent that we can afford it, we should support. It should be known that we are in that respect in an entirely helpful

mood. - What do you think of Walt Rostow's idea of turning with the Warsaw Pact and NATO into arms control organizations? - I think it's premature that suggestion. I think we're going to have a role of providing the basic defense for the future, not only for the United States, but for everybody else. There are, what, 40,000 nuclear weapons in the USSR today. One doesn't know what the structure is going to be, the political structure there. We don't know what's going to happen to those nuclear weapons. Until those nuclear weapons are in secure hands, do we know they're going to be in secure hands? Do we know that we, I think it's necessary for us to maintain the capability to provide the deterrence we have in the past, and it'd be outrageous if suddenly things were to fall apart and we were to not be in a position to do that. I think further that we need NATO in order to have the group that we need to consult with in connection with what we do with our nuclear weapons, how we handle them. So I believe

one of the key things should be that we maintain NATO, that we will not change it. With respect to the Warsaw Pact, it would seem to me, you know, having talked to the Poles and the Hungarians, they want to maintain their membership in the Warsaw Pact. They don't want to irritate the Russians. They don't want to do anything which might damage Soviets' legitimate security interests, and I don't see why we shouldn't agree to that if that's what they want to do. - Yeah. Senator Nunn, you obviously, you follow the affairs of NATO and the Warsaw Pact very closely. What's your opinion of this? - I subscribe to what Paul Nitze has just said. I don't believe that's inconsistent however with what Mr. Rostow also said, because we are indeed negotiating with the Warsaw Pact on conventional force reductions. We're talking about equal ceilings for the first time since World War II. If we make that agreement next year, which would be a dramatic breakthrough, then we can talk about further reductions. So we are indeed engaged in those arms control negotiations, and I think we have great hope in the success of those. So we're moving

in that direction. These events should not interfere with our determination to see a successful conclusion to those talks, as well as the START talks, and I would certainly subscribe to the notion that NATO should remain intact and unified. That's the forum in which I think we can produce the accountability that is so desperately needed in this situation of perhaps growing instability. - Mr. Rostow, on the question that President Bush was asked today about our events moving too fast, are they going to get out of control? Are you concerned about that at all? - Well, as a former State Department planner and a historian, I don't think we're all that capable of controlling history. What you want to do is to have certain principles and objectives and be capable of making the adjustments to unfolding events. We're seeing an enormous historical process here. It may go very swiftly. It may be held up for a while, but we ought to have a sense of the principles that are going to govern our action as we not only see

freedom triumph in Eastern Europe, as I do believe it will, but we remake, along with the Europeans, a new Europe. - Senator Lugar, what does happen next? If all of these events, as everybody has said, were kind of unexpected and extraordinary, I mean, what can we expect to be the headline tomorrow and the day after? What is still to happen in Eastern Europe? - Well, we're going to record tomorrow whether more East Germans decide to come through the wall, and that will have some effect, of course, on West Germany has been pointed out. I would hope we're going to be seeing an election in East Germany, some decisions as far as the politics and economics of the country, and some further negotiations by East Germans with the Soviets as to troop reductions there, even before we negotiate as Sam Nunn has pointed out, this flat level of troops in Europe generally, in tanks that we're going to see destroyed. I think we're in progress with the strength of NATO, and this clearly

is a victory for NATO, for the solidarity, and for our own leadership, to see these changes, to witness them, to work with the parties. Hopefully, they will choose our way, at least in terms of free market economics and democracy. These Germans could strike a great blow for themselves, and it seems to me offer an inspiration for the rest of Eastern Europe. Ambassador Galbraith, you heard what Senator Nunn said a few moments ago. He's concerned that we still don't know how the Soviets might react down the line, at where they may draw the line in the sand if they in fact draw it. How much credit would you give Gorbachev, and things that are happening in the Soviet Union to what happened today in Eastern Germany, in Eastern Germany? - Oh, I certainly agree that Mikhail Gorbachev is one of the singular figures of our time, but I've also long had the feeling that there are certain underlying events that perhaps are in as much control as or more in control than he is. One of them being the nuclear

terror under which we have lived for these last years, and I would be much more willing than Paul Nitze to take advantage of the moment and try to press much harder on arms control than we have in the past. And there is also, we cannot escape the fact that in East Germany and Soviet Union, the bureaucratic apparatus of comprehensive socialism, communism as it is more commonly called, has been a stultifying factor and that there is a great desire to escape from that, that is beyond the power of any single individual. In other words, Mr. Gorbachev is in some respects moving with a greater tide, a greater force of circumstance than anyone could control.

- Mr. Nitze, what's your view of that? Would this have happened today in East Germany, if there were no Mikhail Gorbachev? - I believe not. I believe Mr. Gorbachev has, in fact, created ideas and forces in that part of the world, which have contributed to the developments in the GDR as well as in the rest of central Europe, so that I'm not at all sure that this would have happened under different circumstances. I think it all stems from the fact that eventually the Soviets did begin to look inward rather than outward in their foreign policy and their ambitions for what communism, they began to see what was happening to them. I think that was the turning point when they began to look inward. And I think that this took place perhaps five years ago, it began seven years ago, I believe, that's what Mr. Gorbachev told us. But it's that looking inward and seeing what their internal problems were, which were much more serious than any threat they had from abroad. - Mr. Rostow, you have a view of that? I have a view that has a good deal of sympathy for

what Professor Galbraith said and also Paul Nitze. I think there are very strong forces operating, which have led to the general position of Mr. Gorbachev, the stagnation of their economy since 1980, the new technologies which their whole apparatus finds great difficulty getting hold of, and the frustrations they found in the world in which they found nationalism a much more resistant force and very expensive for them to carry on their adventures. On the other hand, there's a place for individuals in history, and although I believe Mr. Gorbachev is positioned as built on very hard facts and a consensus among a large number of leaders, he is a remarkable personality, and there is a role for personality even within the framework of big forces, of the kind I've ticked off. So I think that there are very strong forces at work moving us in certain directions, but Mr. Gorbachev is quite a character.

- Senator Nunn, you agree? Jim, I can't add much to what's been said. I believe that these events were inevitable at some point in time, but I believe that Gorbachev's leadership has greatly accelerated the timetable for all of this. - And today, in East Germany, Senator Lugar? - Well, let me just say that, giving Gorbachev is due, I think we all look back even to how much Schmidt and the London talk in which he called for the two-track strategy, that led to NATO coming together, the cruise missiles and the Pershings that led to the INF Treaty. We all look at Lech Walesa and Solidarity in Poland, a core of leadership that showed another path there. These were forerunners likewise of a very strong push that led to circumstances today. - I'd add to that, the people power in the Philippines, President Aquino is here, that was the display of what the people of a country can do when they join together in a peaceful movement, but a movement that demands freedom.

- Well, gentlemen, thank you all for being with us. And as Senator Lugar said, we will see what happens at the Berlin Wall tomorrow. That will be the next step. Thank you all for being with us. - For a counterpoint to the events in Eastern Europe, we turn to China, which, of course, dealt with popular demands for democracy and political reform in a very different way last June. Today, China's supreme leader, Deng Xiaoping, gave up his last formal post and paved the way for his successor, Jiang Zemin. Last week, Deng paid host to an old American friend, Richard Nixon, the architect of the 1972 U.S. opening to China. Nixon exchanged some frank words with his hosts about the effect on American public opinion of the military repression on Tiananmen Square in June. With us now to talk of these developments is Michael Oxenberg, a former national security staff member in the Carter years, who traveled with Mr. Nixon last week and was at the White

House when Mr. Nixon briefed President Bush. He's now a professor of political science at the University of Michigan and joins us from PBS station WTVS in Detroit. Mr. Oxenberg, first, what are all these rapid changes in Eastern Europe we've been discussing? What effect, if any, are they likely to have on China? - My sense is that, unfortunately, these events are likely to make the leaders of China more cautious, probably more determined to pursue the path that they began to pursue on June 2nd when they cracked down on the demonstrators in China. They are concerned that the events may escape their own control in China as well. - And would that apply to younger people, younger men, at more junior stage levels in the Chinese hierarchy, would they not be enormously excited by these events? Are they so held down by the lid of the old leadership that they would not dare express themselves at all?

- Well, I think that that octogenarian generation, the Long March generation, is still there. Obviously, what happened today, Deng Xiaoping's resignation from position as chairman of the Military Affairs Commission, is a step of older people beginning to move away from power, but those elders have now intervened to upset two succession arrangements, and I don't think any younger generation can feel totally confident until that older generation has left the scene. - So how significant is Deng's resignation today? - Well, I think it's an effort by him to place Jiang Zemin more firmly as his successor. It's one of three general measures that Deng and his cohorts are attempting to pursue in the wake of the June tragedy. The first is a very tight repression in Beijing on the people who are involved in the demonstrations, on the intellectual world. That continues. The second is to address the economic problems that confront China and that helped bring on

the demonstrations of April and May. There's a major effort to reduce the rate of inflation, to tighten money supply. The main effect of this Central Committee meeting now has been to reaffirm that set of policies of economic retrenchment. And then the third thing that Deng is trying to do is arrange an orderly succession. But I was very struck by this earlier discussion about the momentous developments in East Germany today. What we're seeing is really a worldwide and particularly a current in the communist world of people everywhere seeking to be more involved in their governance. And I think that the yearning of many Chinese to participate in their own political affairs is still there. What we're seeing is a interim measure by the leaders of China to get back on top of things. But one senses that there are still difficulties ahead. - This man, Jiang Zemin, who's named the head of the military commission to secede Deng

today, does that mean that he's now it and he's going to be the supreme leader and the one who'll be running things for now on or are there other people who want that position? - I think that this is an interim measure. He clearly now holds a number of positions, General Secretary of the Party, Chairman the Military Affairs Commission, which gives him some advantage. But there are other contenders as well. There's the President and the number two man in the Military Affairs Commission, Yang Shangkun, 82 years old, who nonetheless may seek to play a role in the succession. There's the Premier Li Peng, who is very committed to a more doctrinaire socialism in my view. He's someone to be taken seriously. Succession in any authoritarian regime, as you well know, is the Achilles' heel of those systems. And I would suspect that it's going to take a year or two more before this thing is really sorted out.

- What did you find that was most interesting to you on your trip with Richard Nixon? - I think by far what I found was a leadership that is somewhat isolated from the currents of world affairs. One senses the tremendous insularity of China. Directors are not present, high-level officials are no longer traveling to China one after another, engaging in dialogue with the leaders of China about world affairs. And I sensed in the conversations with them that they were grappling with the outside world, but that their ideas at this point were not what I would say particularly powerful or totally germane to the challenges that confront them. - Excuse me. Go ahead. - They're wrestling with enormous problems. First of all, how to deal with their economy, whether to pursue economic reform in bold fashion and deal with the problems that inescapably come with that. Secondly, they're dealing with political reform. And if they have economic reform, must political reform come with it?

Not all the leaders have the same views on that subject, in my opinion. Some are determined to move ahead on political reform. Others not. Making that the communique that was just issued makes no mention of political reform. Yet it's hard to see how China can rest content with a political system of the 1950s and '60s when they have an economic system of the '70s and '80s. So they're grappling. - Is reform frozen for now? I mean, is it a deep freeze and no progress towards reform, political reform, for the same two or three years you just mentioned? - My sense is that it will take a while to get these leaders to confront the issue of political reform again. The events that they saw in the streets of Beijing traumatized them, it's as if they're coming out of a bunker. They feel that their whole regime was threatened by what was going on in the streets. I, of course, am not convinced that that's accurate. But I do not believe that for this particular leadership in the immediate future we can

see political reform. And that, of course, means the pressures below may be welling up. - Do they all believe all these officials and people you met and talk to them? - Do they all believe with the same conviction that what they did in Tiananmen Square was the right thing to do? - I wouldn't care to make a judgment on that in seeing them. Briefly, I do think that they describe those events not totally in the same terms. Some are totally convinced, I think, that what happened was correct. I think others would choose to use more moderate language in describing what happened and have a sense that what happened was a tragedy. And I think some of the leaders, the younger leaders, are more inclined in that direction. - What has happened to all the pro-democracy students who survived the Tiananmen Square? After the sort of initial wave of executions, which mostly were on criminal charges, and the jailings and all that, what's happened to all those people? - Well, let us remember that Beijing is not all of China.

In Beijing, on the university campuses now, and particularly at Peking University or Beijing University, the climate is a harsh one, grim political repression as the order of the day. In the rest of the country, my sense is that the mood is somewhat more relaxed. The yearning for contact with the outside world is still there. And I think that many provincial officials are proving to be a little bit reluctant to enforce the directives that are coming out of Beijing with vigor and with the harshness that some of the people in Beijing seek. - What did you and Mr. Nixon discover the Chinese want from the United States now? Well, I believe that their main desire is to restore a relationship. But obviously, that is going to require mutual efforts. They obviously would like to see the sanctions removed. They feel that they are being isolated in the world, that they have been singled out

for undue punishment. They see a return in the United States to the mood of the 1950s to isolate China, apply harsh sanctions, make moral judgments. We, of course, speaking of the American people as a whole, I certainly have a somewhat different view of what the United States has done. Each side is now looking for the other to make some first steps. But there is one very important point. It is certainly the case that we are now unable to have sustained high-level discussions with the Chinese. President Bush, as you know, and very appropriately in the immediate aftermath of the crackdown, said that we could not have high-level contacts with the Chinese, more precisely at the Assistant Secretary level and above. I believe that perhaps the time is coming where it would be useful for both sides to begin to talk to each other to explore ways of moving out of this impasse, and partly to reach into China and draw those leaders once again out of their isolation, out of their fright,

so that when they begin to confront situations as the Eastern Europeans are now confronting, they will act not out of fright, but with courage and a willingness to move on with political reform. - Well, Michael Oxenberg, thank you very much for joining us. [music] - Finally, tonight, our regular Thursday night essay. The essayist is Roger Rosenblatt, his subject, modern times, then and now. [music] Of the 25 films designated for preservation by the Library of Congress, Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times may be the most appropriate. For a century and a half, the world has been characterized by modern times, and those times are going to be with us forever. Like the not-quite-hapless Chaplin tramp of the film, we are at once enthralled and overwhelmed

by the rate of the world's progress and the rapidity of its changes. Like the tramp, too, we protest modernity by assertions of humanity. But even that protest is modern. Defiance is modern. Outrage against a prevailing style or idea is modern. And when the established order is modernity itself, then the effort to change a condition of change is as modern as one can get. In order to alter the direction of the times, an idea that occurs as the world approaches the end of one age and the beginning of another, events would either have to revert dramatically to some ancient state of being, or freeze themselves solid. Neither will happen. Even the Soviet Union, which may be said to have held modernity's clocked motionless for 70 years, has now roused itself from hibernation with one hell of a yawp. Eastern Europe is going so modern so fast, it looks tipsy.

The West is both surprised and not surprised, being accustomed to a kind of life where revolution is normality. One hurried glance at a week's news shows the vanquished Japan of World War II buying up Columbia Pictures. A new South African president, sounding strangely conciliatory. A Black Miss America alongside an Asian runner-up. The fact is we are mired in modernity. We could not escape if we tried, so nothing really shocks us anymore. The now famous Robert Mapplethorpe, exhibit of homoerotic photographs, canceled by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, for which cancellation the Corcoran has now apologized, evoked the predictable range of responses, as did the censorship issues it raised. The same reactions attended another work that raised national hackles because it was funded by federal money. Andres Serrano's photograph of a crucifix emerged in urine. Such work may be upsetting, but people expect to be upset by modern art.

No change in art, politics or custom, no matter how drastic, can do anything but confirm us in the regularity of our disruptions. It is one thing to say that change is normal, quite another to say that all change is valuable. One of the characteristics of modern times is that they place the burdens of discrimination squarely on the individual. There being no governing universal philosophy or theology to direct one's mind. In modern times, for better and worse, it's every man for himself. That can make for feelings of angry alienation, scary isolation and unfathomable loneliness. On the more satisfying side, modern individual responsibility can also create the need to establish personal honor and stability within the continuous blizzard of events. To be modern entails acknowledging that the world will be modern forever, that change is our tradition, and that there is no choice but to make the most of it. Looking toward the 1990s, one sees a certain practicality and balance of thought beginning

to take root in the world. At last, we may be learning to live in modern times. That was the odyssey of Chaplin's movie. Knocked for a loop by modernity, Chaplin's tramp concocted fantasies to help him escape the threatening machinery of modern times. Along the way, he fell in love, implying that love is a way of holding modernity at bay. Of course, it isn't. Love simply offering a means of living in the world as it is, as well as one can. At the end of the picture, he and his girl join hands, head down the road and say, we'll get along. We do the same. - Again the major stories today, East Germany's Communist leaders bowed to two of the biggest demands of the pro-democracy demonstrations.

They said East Germans could travel anywhere, even across the Berlin Wall, and they promised free elections. President Bush welcomed the open borders, but said it did not mean the end of Iron Curtain policies. China's supreme leader, Deng Xiaoping, resigned his last official post, paving the way for a successor. Good night, Jim. Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night. Funding for the NewsHour has been provided by AT&T. AT&T has supported the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour since 1983, because quality information and quality communications is our idea of a good connection. AT&T. The right choice. And by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a catalyst for change. And by PepsiCo. And made possible by the financial support of viewers like you. And the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. [music] [music] This is PBS.