The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

TJIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, should the accused assassin of Martin Luther King have another day in court? We have a report and a discussion among Michael Beschloss, Haynes Johnson, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Jesse Jackson, plus an interview with AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, and a debate about capitalism between George Soros and Bill Emmott. It all follows our summary of the news this Thursday.NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: New tests would prove James Earl Ray did not assassinate Martin Luther King 29 years ago. Ray's lawyers made that claim today in a Memphis court hearing. Ray confessed to killing King in 1968 but later recanted. He's seeking a trial on the issue. King's widow and son testified in support of Ray's request today. Investigators never matched the bullet that killed King with the rifle that bears Ray's fingerprints according to a firearms expert who also spoke today. Ray has terminal liver disease. He was sentenced to 99 years in prison. We'll have more on the story right after this News Summary. In Washington today President Clinton said the recent arrest of Mexico's drug czar on bribery charges was a troubling revelation, but he said he was pleased the Mexican government had acted quickly to address the problem. General Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo was picked up by police February 6th, then confronted with charges he took money to protect a top drug lord. Mr. Clinton spoke at a White House news conference this morning.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: They're obviously saying to the world and to the people of Mexico we will not tolerate corruption if we can find it and root it out, even if it's at the highest level. So I'm troubled by it, but I'm also encouraged by the strong action President Zedillo's taken, and you may be sure that this will continue to be at the top of our agenda. And when we meet in the not too distant future, we will talk more about it.

JIM LEHRER: The "New York Times" reported today Gutierrez had recently been given U.S. intelligence on Mexico's cocaine cartels. Attorney General Janet Reno said officials were trying to determine if that information put any U.S. agents in danger. In China today the government announced a six-day period of mourning for Deng Xiaoping, who died yesterday. Ten thousand people have been invited to a memorial meeting for Deng at Beijing's Great Hall of People. We have more in this report from Mark Austin of Independent Television News.

MARK AUSTIN, ITN: At dawn this morning in Tiananmen Square the red flag of China was flown at half mast. In the same square almost 50 years ago Chairman Mao proclaimed the founding of his Communist state. New Deng Xiaoping, one of its most revered leaders, will be finally laid to rest. The wreaths were being placed in his honor, and in the streets nearby the government-run press was devoting pages to his life and achievements. "A Beloved and Immortal Leader," says the headline, but these are the scenes that will taint his legacy forever. It's widely believed he played a role in ordering the crackdown in Tiananmen Square, the great reformer but also an uncompromising enforcer of repression. The last pictures to be shown of an enfeebled Deng, who it's reported today is to donate his organs to medicine and have his ashes scattered in the sea. President Jiang Zemin, who effectively succeeded Deng years ago, is the man in charge of arrangements for his funeral next week and the man who in the short-term at least is assured of the most powerful role in China.

JIM LEHRER: Secretary of State Albright today scaled back her visit to China next week because of Deng's funeral. She'll now stop for one day in Beijing on the last leg of her nine-nation tour. Albright arrived in Russia today, where she talked with Prime Minister Chernomyrdin and other Russian officials about NATO expansion. Albright is to meet with President Yeltsin tomorrow. John Glenn announced his retirement today. He said he will not seek re-election to the United States Senate in 1998. The 75-year-old Ohio Democrat and former astronaut came to the Senate in 1975. Today marks the 35th anniversary of his 1962 space mission. He spoke at Muskegum College in his hometown of Concord, Ohio.

SEN. JOHN GLENN, [D] Ohio: There is nothing I might wish for more fervently than to declare my candidacy for a fifth term in the United States Senate, but for all the advances in science and medicine that I have supported that have occurred in the last 35 years since my orbital flight there is one immutable fact that remains. No matter how much research we have done there is still no cure for the common birthday. Another term in the Senate would take me at the end of that term to the age of 83. And for that reason and for that reason alone, no other reason, I have decided I will be a candidate for re-election to the Senate in 1998.

JIM LEHRER: A diplomat from the republic of Georgia was charged in Washington today with involuntary manslaughter. Gueorgui Makharadze surrendered to D.C. police after his government waived diplomatic immunity in the case. He stands accused of driving a car that triggered a January 3rd accident in which a 16-year-old girl was killed. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the James Earl Ray case, AFL-CIO President Sweeney, and a debate about capitalism. FOCUS - FINAL PLEA

JIM LEHRER: We do go first tonight to the James Earl Ray story. In a Memphis court today the family of Martin Luther King called for the trial that did not happen 29 years ago. Tom Bearden reports.

TOM BEARDEN: On April 4, 1968, a gunman shot and killed the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis Tennessee.

ANNOUNCER: Dr. King was standing here on this motel balcony yesterday afternoon when he was struck down by an assassin's bullet.

TOM BEARDEN: Within two months an out-of-work drifter with a criminal record, James Earl Ray, was captured in England and arrested for the murder. Facing a possible death sentence Ray pleaded "guilty" in exchange for life imprisonment. But just days later he recanted his confession, saying it had been coerced. The court, however, refused to grant him a trial. Since then in interviews and parole hearings Ray has repeatedly asked for the trial he never got.

JAMES EARL RAY: Well, first, I didn't kill Dr. King.

TOM BEARDEN: Now dying of liver disease James Earl Ray is asking for a liver transplant and for one last chance to tell his story before a judge. In 1979 a House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that Ray was the triggerman but indicated there may have been co-conspirators. In the 29 years since King's death his followers have speculated that those co-conspirators could be anyone from government agents to organized crime figures, to white supremacists. But the King family remained silent on the issues until last week. Dexter King, who was just seven years old when his father was killed, said a trial could shed light on some lingering questions the family has.

DEXTER KING: [February 13] The lack of a satisfactory resolution to questions surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., has been a source of continuing pain and hardship to our family. Every effort must be made to determine truth. We feel strongly that this can only be accomplished in a court of law.

TOM BEARDEN: At today's court hearing in Memphis, Ray's attorney asked for permission to conduct ballistic tests on the rifle Ray allegedly used. His attorney believes those tests will prove it was not the murder weapon.

WILLIAM PEPPER, Attorney for James Earl Ray: As to this petition, Your Honor, and this effort, Your Honor will recall that as long ago as June 6, 1994, Your Honor ordered that the petition be allowed to inspect and test fire the rifle in evidence. In this case petitioner has always alleged that the rifle in evidence is not the murder weapon but a throw-down gun. And in the 28-year history of this case the petitioner forced the defendant and now the petitioner has never had the right to test this right. The defense has never had the right to have access to FBI test fire worksheet reports, nor House Select Committee test fire worksheet reports. So what we are seeking here for the first time once again, Your Honor, is an opportunity to test this rifle in an effort to exclude it for all time as the murder weapon.

TOM BEARDEN: Coretta Scott King, Rev. Martin Luther King's widow, took the stand to testify in favor of a trial.

CORETTA SCOTT KING: Martin Luther King, Jr. believed very deeply in civil rights and justice even for his most violent and hate- filled adversaries. It would be a tragic irony, therefore, if the man accused of assassinating my husband is denied his day in court. Conversely, if you will set a trial for Mr. Ray, history will record that his rights were fully respected, and the legal system made every effort to find out the truth about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr..

TOM BEARDEN: Dexter King told the court his family wanted an answer as to who killed his father.

DEXTER KING: The question is asked on many occasions why now, why 30 years later, 29 years later, why are you bringing this forth? To my knowledge, there is no statute of limitations on murder. The fact of the matter is, is that until we address this injustice, my father often said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." And my conviction has always been and that of my siblings that if this case is such an open and shut case, why are we still being asked the question: Do you believe Mr. Ray killed your father?. So I think it all speaks for itself; that we are still dealing with a very perplexing question that challenges all of us to do what is right. I'm often reminded of my favorite statement that my father would make, and that is, if I may quote him, the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy. Politics ask the question: Is it expedient? He went on to say, "Vanity asks the question: Is it popular?". The conscience, and I repeat, conscience asks the question: Is it right?. And I believe today, Your Honor, that it is right for the sake of truth and justice that there be a trial, a trial to get to the truth. The whole truth, nothing but the truth will set us free.

TOM BEARDEN: Shelby County prosecutors argued against a ballistics test or having a trial.

JOHN CAMPBELL, Prosecutor: The history of this rifle testing and the barrel in this case has shown that it doesn't mark the bullet the same way every time it's fired. There's no way to be able to say within a scientific certainty that whatever result is obtained would be equal to the result the rifle would have given April 4, 1968. So based on the--on the testimonies before Your Honor, the petitioner hasn't proven this new scientific technology and, furthermore, really hasn't shown that this technology would, in fact, change the results that have already been testified to before Congress and what the FBI found, an inconclusive result. This bullet, for whatever, has never been able to be actually matched to this gun. That's the way it's been now for almost 30 years. We're very aware of the family's desire to get more information out about this case. But we're also aware that to say that the only way to do that is through a re-trial of James Earl Ray, to set aside what the state would submit, is a valid conviction. Just for the opportunity to go out and set that aside and try this case to see if other involved, and as Your Honor is well aware, if Mr. Ray was actually retried, the only issue that the jury would be considering is the proof as to Mr. Ray. And to come in and say we're going to bring in all this other evidence to try to paint this huge picture involving all these other people would very probably not even be relevant in a trial of Mr. Ray. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that Mr. Ray would ever have to get up and testify and say anything in his trial. He has the right to remain silent. So we're talking about a complete gamble to see if anything extra can come out of a trial with Mr. Ray. What, in fact, we have is a valid conviction that has been affirmed seven times by two different court systems.

JIM LEHRER: Late this afternoon the judge ruled new technology did exist that could determine if Ray's rifle actually killed Dr. King. The Tennessee Court of Appeals must now review that ruling before ballistic tests can be conducted and a trial considered. Now four perspectives on this situation from NewsHour regulars, Presidential Historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael Beschloss and journalist and author Haynes Johnson, joined tonight by Jesse Jackson, a former aide to Dr. King. Rev. Jackson, you share the desire of the King family for there to be a trial, is that right, sir?

JESSE JACKSON, Former King Aide: Indeed, I do. There needs to be a trial. I am convinced that James Earl Ray stalked Dr. King, was a factor in his killing if not, in fact, the trigger man. My concern is that James Earl Ray did not act alone. He had neither the money, the motive, nor the mobility to have done all that happened by himself. And so the challenge it seems for me and for those of us who want the trial is to find out who all was involved in the conspiracy to kill Dr. King.

JIM LEHRER: Is this a gut feeling on your part, Rev. Jackson, or is there evidence that has led you to believe there were other people involved?

JESSE JACKSON: We know the climate, if you recall, during that period where the FBI memo said it was their role to disrupt, discredit, destroy the black leadership to neutralize the rise of the black messiah. Hoover had this obsession that Dr. King posed a threat to national security. That was a piece of that. Then these well-funded right wing forces who saw his pulling down the curtain of racial segregation as a threat to the old order. So there were these elements out there. Now, James Earl Ray we know he stalked Dr. King; we know he was in Memphis; we know he got around the world. Somebody financed him. Somebody sponsored him. Who are all the forces involved in the conspiracy unfortunately remain unanswered.

JIM LEHRER: What about the prosecutor's point that we just saw on the tape that there's no assurance that any of that would come out in the trial?

JESSE JACKSON: Well, I'll tell you what. If there is a trial, we may not know. If there is no trial, we're guaranteed not to know. And we deserve the right to know what all James Earl Ray does know, indeed, if he's terminally ill, before he dies.

JIM LEHRER: Why does is still matter after 29 years?

JESSE JACKSON: Well, the pain of it all matters very much, and if, in fact, there were forces sinister enough in our government and in the private sector, a part of such a conspiracy, they may still be alive; they may still be blowing up government buildings. We don't know what they're doing. We have a right to know, and we have a need to know.

JIM LEHRER: Doris, what's your view on this, not necessarily on the specifics of this case, but the whole idea of conspiracies and how that has--what has that done through our history, and how does the Martin Luther King thing fit into that?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, Presidential Historian: Well, I think what's happened is that without a trial, there's just not a closure to the Martin Luther King case, but there's two deeper reasons why I think we just don't want to let it go, and we still feel the need to answer unanswered questions. One is this deep perception that the whole tide of the country turned as a result of the combination of King's assassination, Kennedy's prior to that, and then Bobby Kennedy's shortly after that; that in the 1960's when King was still alive we were a more optimistic society, we were fighting for racial justice. The big public events of lives cut through everybody's private lives, and they were out there marching on behalf of justice, and then when these people died, somehow the country took a turn. The War in Vietnam got uglier. The anti-war movement got uglier. Black power replaced the civil rights movement, and the concern with poverty in cities lessened in a certain sense. Now to be sure some of those things were changing even before King's death, but I think we--in the haze of memory, we think it might have been different. And I think also there's a psychological thing. When somebody dies at the height of vitality, as such a young man as King was and as the Kennedys were, you want to believe somehow that it's more than a random act. We never can believe that Amelia Earhardt died because her plane ran out of gas, so it seems more comforting in a weird way to imagine some big conspiracy about her that somehow she was a spy for the United States and then she got captured by the Japanese, and then Hirohito became her mistress master, et cetera. So I think somehow that's here too, that it gives greater weight to the depth if you think some big forces are behind it, all of which means there's no closure yet in our country about the events as well as the man.

JIM LEHRER: And Haynes, the three assassinations that Doris just mentioned, each one was resolved by certain fissile bodies as if they were committed--I'm talking about the two Kennedy assassinations and the assassination of Martin Luther King--by lone gunmen, and what do you think of Doris's theory? That's just hard to accept, is--

HAYNES JOHNSON, Journalist Author: The fact that we're talking about this now, 29 years later, within the space of less than five years, these three young leaders all died of gunshot wounds--bang, gone forever. It changed the history of America. We still don't know the truth. The conspiracy theories about the two Kennedy brothers, whatever the--investigations have gone on and on and on, and all the books in the cottage industry, and it sowed a distrust about leaders and institutions. After that came the horrible sort of problems of the war, which was already happening then. Then we had the riots in the cities, and we've had this sort of--Watergate, disillusionment. We've talked about it so many times on this program. But of those three losses I think the one that hurt the most was probably King. You can't equate the loss of one over another, and I don't mean to do it that way, but King was in a very special way the one that really touched the conscience of the country.

JIM LEHRER: And he was leading a revolution, was he not?

HAYNES JOHNSON: And leading a moral revolution, a non-violent revolution. So if the person who was leading the non-violent revolution at the age of 38, I believe he was only 38 years old-- it's hard to realize how young these people were with all of that time ahead of them, and to be removed. And the fact is we still don't know. And in the case of King's death we really--there are many, many unanswered questions. Whether a trial occurs or not, whether we even know may not be the final closure. I agree with Doris. We need closure. I don't know that we're going to get it.

JIM LEHRER: Can there ever be closure in these things, Michael?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: There really can't unless you're going to get someone who say I did it and give conclusive evidence that he did.

JIM LEHRER: He has to prove his or her guilt.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Absolutely.

JIM LEHRER: Beyond a shadow--not just a reasonable but a shadow of a doubt.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Absolutely. And that's very much in the American tradition. We like to see these things definitively answered. I think you can say that Europeans are much more accustomed to the idea that there are certain mysteries in life that will never be answered. And this all really connects to, I think, the yearning answers to questions like this through American history. A couple of years ago the remains of President Zachary Taylor were exhumed. He died in 1850 of a very sudden stomach illness, and his death, just like Martin Luther King's, had a very big impact on history because when Taylor died, his successor, Millard Fillmore, signed the Fugitive Slave Act, which really heated up the controversy that led to the Civil War just as when John Kennedy in 1963 died, many people feel that the succession of Lyndon Johnson caused us to be much more likely to plunge into the War in Vietnam. So the death of Martin Luther King has that element both of mystery and also of great historical change, and you sort of ponder what would have happened had King lived. The civil rights leadership might have remained united, rather than fractured. How might King himself have changed? He was not given the opportunity to evolve, as we all have, in the last 30 years. And more than anything else, it just, you know, it's just so poignant to imagine that if Martin Luther King had lived, we might have achieved that dream of his of one America, which have gone very much in the other direction of.

JIM LEHRER: Rev. Jackson, do you have thoughts like that? Do you find yourself occasionally, like on a day like today, when it's very much in the news and we're talking about it here on television, do you think, my goodness, what might have happened had Martin Luther King not been assassinated--

JESSE JACKSON: No doubt about it. His sense of choosing healing and hope over hurt and hate, his willingness to embrace non- violence, which was counter culture to our culture of violence, the ability to penetrate deep across these lines of race, sex, and class, was the great moral force of this century. We miss that very much. I do not believe that John Kennedy and Dr. King and Robert Kennedy were killed by these lone, crazy gunmen. I'm not inclined to being paranoid, but I tell you, as my wife often says, just because I'm paranoid does not mean that somebody is not following me. I think there are legitimate unanswered questions, and those of us who ask those questions need not have a complex about it.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah. Doris, what is your analysis of the--of why-- well, you touched on it earlier, but the lone--we just cannot accept that--and Rev. Jackson just said--if I hear you correctly, Rev. Jackson, it doesn't really matter what happens in this trial, if there is a trial, you will never believe that James Earl Ray did this by himself, right? There is no evidence--

JESSE JACKSON: I went to Brusher Mountain to talk with him, and I left convinced that--he was absolutely involved. We know he stalked Dr. King, but for James Earl Ray to have the money to travel as he did, the political motive and the mobility, he just could not have done that by himself.

JIM LEHRER: Doris, let me ask you another question. Is there any precedent for this in history, 30 years later, that there's even a possibility that there might be a trial to resolve a crime like this?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Well, I'm not sure that I know that there is such a precedent. I mean, clearly, the Kennedy assassination still lives on in people's mind, and there were calls even after Oliver Stone's movie to reignite the hearings, the talk about it, and the Congress got back into it. I think when there is no closure, as we've been saying, unlike, for example, the McKinley and Garfield assassinations, which took place in open light, they actually had their guns behind a bandage on a receiving line or right behind them in a railroad station, they were arrested on the scene. They found notes that implicated them. They were hung or put to the electric chair within a month. It was over, but the Lincoln assassination, still there remained years and years after it for the same combination of reasons we're talking for today, everyone knew Booth was there; there were four other conspirators who were hanged; there was a question whether the fourth one had really been involved, Mary Seurat, so that lingered on for years and years and years. And I think it's because the same thing, people thought if Lincoln had lived, the mood, the turn, the whole tide of the country might have been different. People can't let it go somehow.

JESSE JACKSON: I'm glad that Merilee Evers did not give up on pursuing the killer of Medgar Evers, that she was persistent, and 20 odd years it finally happened.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Right.

JESSE JACKSON: And so I think there's a great burden now on James Earl Ray beyond the forensic evidence theory. He must take us beyond--and tell us something we really don't know. He really has that burden, and he has that opportunity. Perhaps James Earl Ray alone has that power.

JIM LEHRER: Haynes, the lack of closure in these kinds of matters, doesn't that run counter to the entire basis of our democratic system and our system of justice; that we do bring things to a closure, and yet we can't bring the most heinous crimes to a closure?

HAYNES JOHNSON: Right. And that's what--that may be what's different about this, what we're talking about right now. It's not just the one death of Martin Luther King but all these events that happen so quickly together. And we still don't know the answers to them, and the fact is that we used to have a great deal more belief that we would find the truth through judicial process, through investigations, whether it's the Congress or the process of the courts. And in these cases it's not true. We wouldn't have believed that the FBI might have been involved, and as we now know they were doing in shadowing King and trying to destroy him. Jesse Jackson is correct. That's not fiction. That's a fact. We now know there were conspiracy theories that we--

JIM LEHRER: There's a leap, there's a leap to say that--

HAYNES JOHNSON: Absolutely.

JIM LEHRER: --that was part of the assassination of Martin Luther King.

LARRY JOHNSON: It doesn't mean that that happened at all.

JIM LEHRER: Right.

HAYNES JOHNSON: But it means that the corrosive sort of disbelief and lack of trust in all of our leaders is spun by this kind of terrible unknown fact.

JESSE JACKSON: But it's not a leap if the FBI memo says it was their mission to disrupt, discredit and destroy black leadership and to neutralize the rise of a black messiah. Neutralize is not exactly a neutral term.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: One more point, and that is that Americans always like to feel that this is a country of institutions and movements; that they're not dependent on one leader, but the fact is that Americans really have to develop and understand that that is really human life; that sometimes these things are dependent. It was the death of Lincoln that caused a much harsher attitude toward the South at the end of the Civil War.

JIM LEHRER: And that of course was a real conspiracy.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: A real conspiracy.

JIM LEHRER: That wasn't a lone actor jumping off the stage.

HAYNES JOHNSON: Booth had allies.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: And they knew that by murdering Lincoln, they could change history, and so the fascinating thing will be to discover whether the rather large number of people in 1968 in America who sadly would have liked to see Martin Luther King dead were able to change history by essentially causing this assassination to occur.

JIM LEHRER: Refresh our memories here, Michael. In addition to the Lincoln assassination, have there been any other major proved conspiracies like that in our history?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Very few in American life, and that's the great irony, and you have sort of little examples, such as Warren Harding died in 1923. There was a great suggestion that he might have been poisoned perhaps by some group of conspirators, but that didn't change history, and people sort of went on. Even FDR, when Roosevelt died in 1945 of a cerebral hemorrhage, Josef Stalin till the moment of his death was absolutely convinced that Roosevelt had been poisoned by people who were against good relations with the Soviet Union. So when you do have mystery around the death of a leader and also when it changes history, this is almost inevitable.

JESSE JACKSON: Can you say this, that the tragic irony of all of this is that those who hated him the most have been the prime beneficiaries of his work--because of Dr. King, the cotton curtain came down. We ended apartheid in our country as a matter of law; we regained our moral authority. Now you can have the Olympics in Atlanta, the Super Bowl in New Orleans. You can now have the professional teams in the South. This new America that allows us to challenge the moral authority of South Africa or China, all this somewhat emanates from Martin Luther King, Jr. more than any other single image; because he's bigger than life and because that's so real, we still miss him very much.

HAYNES JOHNSON: You asked Doris whether other historical--times like this in our history--it isn't the history books that tell us; it's Shakespeare. This is our Shakespearean tragedy. That's what it really is. It's now in the midst of--and look at the Shakespeare--Richard III--I'm serious.

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

HAYNES JOHNSON: We still don't know. We will be playing off this tragedy; that it still affects us powerfully as we watch those scenes today 30 years later, and maybe a hundred years from now.

JIM LEHRER: And to listen to Rev. Jackson, you hear it even stronger.

HAYNES JOHNSON: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: Well, thank you, Doris, gentlemen, all of you very much for being with us. FOCUS - WORKING ISSUES

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight a labor story and a debate on capitalism. Our labor story is from Los Angeles, where the AFL-CIO leadership meeting has just concluded. It includes a Newsmaker interview with president. Jeffrey Kaye of KCET-Los Angeles is in charge.

JEFFREY KAYE: Labor leaders ended their annual winter meeting today vowing to boost the declining ranks of America's unions. It was unusual for the AFL-CIO's 45-member executive council to meet in Los Angeles. For 72 years the four-day meeting took place in a Florida resort. But this time the labor officials chose an area that has become a hotbed of union organizing, symbolic, they say, of labor's resurgence. John Sweeney, the man behind the crusade for union members, is in his 16th month as president of the labor federation. He came to power promising aggressive organizing campaigns, but union membership continued its downward trend last year. Only 14 + percent of American workers belong to labor unions, compared to 35 percent in the 1950's. Under Sweeney a streamlined federation pumped up its organizing budget and it spent some $35 million in the last election supporting pro- labor candidates. This week Vice President Al Gore thanked labor leaders for their support, and he announced a new federal policy that would deny federal contracts to companies that violate labor laws.

VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE: If you want to do business with the federal government, you had better maintain a safe workplace and respect civil, human, and yes, union rights. That will be taken into account in decisions on federal contracting.

JEFFREY KAYE: Also at the meeting the AFL-CIO vowed to step up advertising campaigns, to recruit more women, and to support organizing drives among low-paid immigrant workers in the fields, in construction, and in service industries.

MARIA ELENA DURAZO, Hotel Workers Union: We're here to say that workers have to be respected; Latinos and immigrant workers, and people of all color have to be respected by corporations, no matter how big they are.

JEFFREY KAYE: Labor organizers have been frustrated by companies which have moved production and cheap labor abroad. This week union leaders pledged to strengthen international alliances with workers. They also announced plans to unionize welfare recipients who under the new welfare law will have to work for their benefits.

JOHN SWEENEY, President, AFL-CIO: The implications of welfare reform potentially extend to every workplace in America, and our organizing initiative is just one of our plans to ensure that the 2 million welfare recipients who will be required to participate in work activities have the same rights as other American workers.

JEFFREY KAYE: The pressure to make all this succeed falls on Sweeney, who has had long experience representing low wage employees, first with government workers, later as president of the Service Employees International Union.

JEFFREY KAYE: Joining us now for an interview is John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO. Mr. Sweeney, welcome.

JOHN SWEENEY, President, AFL-CIO: Thank you.

JEFFREY KAYE: Why is union membership still declining?

JOHN SWEENEY: I think it reflects a number of different things in terms of the changes that have taken place in our economy, the growth of the new work force, the growth of the service sector of the economy, decline in basic industry jobs which were highly organized and high paid skill jobs, and all of those changes that have taken place have not so much been reflected in a decline in the numbers as a decline in the percentage of the work force as the work force has grown.

JEFFREY KAYE: What do you think that--how do you think you'll be able to reverse this trend?

JOHN SWEENEY: Well, I believe that we can recommit ourselves to more aggressive organizing. I think that workers are hurting, and they're anxious to be organized, but they want to be organized around the issues that they considered their priorities. And we have to make sure that we interconnect with grassroots activists and reach out to workers; that we make better use of focus groups, and polling to find out what their real issues are. I think that the decline in wages in relation to the standard of living over the past 20 years reflects the fact that we need a stronger labor movement, and that's what this is all about.

JEFFREY KAYE: But what you're talking about, in large part, reflects an economy that is beyond the ability of labor unions to change, one might think. How do you change or fix an economy?

JOHN SWEENEY: Oh, I think that we have to capitalize on the fact that we have a very successful economy. Profits are up; productivity is up. Stock market prices are soaring. CEO compensation is at its highest levels. Workers are the only ones that aren't getting their fair share of this very successful economy. It wasn't always this way. We had an economy in the past, and we've had periods of time when there was a greater respect for workers and for the jobs that they do, and a greater value in terms of the importance of our work force. We have the most skilled work force in the world. We have the best economy in the world. It's high time that we pay more attention to the people who contribute to the success of our economy and that we give them a little bit better share of the profits; that they can keep up with the standard of living, and that they can raise their families in dignity, and that they don't have to be working two and three jobs to keep up with things.

JEFFREY KAYE: But if the economy is in good shape, and what you're saying is workers just need to share in it, what then--what steps do you take as organized labor to turn that around?

JOHN SWEENEY: We build a stronger labor movement. A stronger labor movement makes us stronger at the bargaining table, builds a stronger political voice to elect people to office who want to address the issues of working families and not cut back on programs that workers consider necessary. We put more money into education and training. Those are the kinds of programs that we should be doing in terms of respecting the workers and the jobs that they perform.

JEFFREY KAYE: But let's look at one of the areas that I know you're concerned about, and that's the loss of jobs to international, cheaper labor. What is the labor union in this country--labor movement in this country doing about that?

JOHN SWEENEY: The labor movement in this country recognizes the fact that it is good for our country to have good trading partners. It is good for our country to have good globalization policies, but to have some consideration for workers not only in our own country but in other countries. And all of our trade agreements should provide stronger work standards and human rights protections, as well as environmental protections. The human being has to play a bigger role in terms of these agreements.

JEFFREY KAYE: So how would you prevent company A, let's say, from going to Mexico, where they can find workers for $7 a day?

JOHN SWEENEY: I'm not saying that we have to prevent the company from going to Mexico. We have to have a better sense of values in terms of how we treat workers in our own country, and we have to have a greater concern for workers in other countries. And I think that we can do both and still have a good economy, good productivity, good profits. There's a corporate greed out there that loses sight of the human resource that goes into the success of our economy, and it's about time that corporations realized workers, the value of workers not only in our own country but in other countries.

JEFFREY KAYE: What about the role of the government? President Clinton recently blocked the American Airlines pilots' strike. Were you disappointed? Was that a big blow for labor?

JOHN SWEENEY: I was hopeful that the collective bargaining process would have continued and that the right of these pilots to negotiate a contract would have been protected. I'm still hopeful that the management of American Airlines willcome to the bargaining table and negotiate a fair contract. These pilots made concessions when American Airlines was in trouble, and now that American Airlines is much more successful with their profits, they had better take a look at the role that their pilots play.

JEFFREY KAYE: Organized labor put a lot of money into supporting Democrats and to President Clinton. Were you disappointed by what he did?

JOHN SWEENEY: Oh, we have supported the President, as we've said, after his first term. We didn't always agree with the President on every single issue. But the President is basically concerned about America's working families and their issues. I think that the programs that he advanced during his election campaign are programs that we're very supportive of, and I believe that the President will be a good pro-American working family President.

JEFFREY KAYE: Does that mean that you're going to be urging him, as you indicated earlier in this discussion, to change American trade policy to the benefit of American workers?

JOHN SWEENEY: Oh, our position is very similar to what we stated during our opposition to the NAFTA agreement. We're concerned about workers' standards and human rights and environmental protection. And we think that the NAFTA agreement should have been stronger on these issues. We believe that it was wrong to include with the NAFTA that we did. We will be raising this again in the extension debate of NAFTA and then any other trade agreement.

JEFFREY KAYE: Finally, I gather what you're saying is you would like to see some sort of wholesale change in attitude in the way American business conducts itself. Do you think that's going to come about by threats, by force, and ways that labor has traditionally implemented strikes, boycotts, or in other ways?

JOHN SWEENEY: Oh, no. I think that the program that's going to be necessary is to build a stronger labor movement. It's not about threatening. It's about building an organization of workers in this country, convincing workers that the only way they can solve the problems that affect their lives and their families is by joining together and bargaining together. And I believe that the work that you see the unions and the AFL-CIO doing now and organizing is an indication that we're going to turn the numbers around and the-- you will see a steady building of a stronger labor movement.

JEFFREY KAYE: All right, Mr. Sweeney. Thank you very much.

JOHN SWEENEY: Thank you. Nice to be with you. FOCUS - CAPITALISM CONSIDERED

JIM LEHRER: Now a debate about capitalism and to our economics correspondent, Paul Solman of WGBH-Boston.

PAUL SOLMAN: The debate over capitalism, dormant in the mainstream media these last few years, is showing new signs of life. The latest spark comes from an unlikely source: George Soros, one of the most successful capitalists the world has ever known. In the February issue of the "Atlantic Monthly," Soros, a billionaire financier and philanthropist, argues that free-market fundamentalism has gone too far. "The untrammeled intensification of laissez-faire capitalism is endangering our open and democratic society," Soros writes. "Too much competition and too little cooperation can cause intolerable inequities and instability." "Preposterous," harumphs an editorial in the "Economist" Magazine, responding that governments almost everywhere in the world are playing a major role in their economies. "Mr. Soros can only be hallucinating to portray a world in which laissez-faire doctrine rules supreme," says the "Economist." "No such place exists, and very few, people would wish it." So, has capitalism gone too far? Joining us to discuss that are the men behind the war of words: George Soros, international investor and philanthropist, and Bill Emmott, editor of the "Economist" Magazine. Gentlemen, thanks for coming. Mr. Soros, would you spell out your argument for us?

GEORGE SOROS, International Investor: Well, you actually did.

PAUL SOLMAN: Well, why don't you--

GEORGE SOROS: I have no quarrel with the market mechanism as such. It is, of course, superior to central planning. But I do take issue with the laissez-faire ideology which I think is based on the misunderstanding of how the market works and particularly financial markets, and pushes the--the reliance on the market too far, wants to use the market instead of let's say fundamental, social values.

PAUL SOLMAN: So give us some examples of what you've seen that make you feel that laissez-faire is headed too far down the path.

GEORGE SOROS: Well, I think generally in America, there has become--it has been a cult of success, of money as the ultimate value, instead of the social values which hold society together. And lately we've been say resisting any kind of social redistribution of wealth because we are arguing that the government ought to stay out of the economy.

PAUL SOLMAN: So let's take the U.S. as an example, for a minute, Mr. Emmott. So what's wrong with what Mr. Soros is saying? Hasn't the U.S. gone too far?

BILL EMMOTT, The Economist: I think if you look at the role of government in the U.S. and the way in which it's increased and decreased over the past 50 years, it seems to me that the role of government and of redistribution and of welfarism and all of that peaked in around 1980 and has been declining since then.

PAUL SOLMAN: As Mr. Soros suggests.

BILL EMMOTT: As Mr. Soros suggests. But it hasn't declined very far, it seems to me. It seems to me that if you look at the cycle, peaking in 1980, and declining since, we are somewhere around 1975. We are far from the position that Mr. Soros suggests of there being a real sustained movement against even redistribution but certainly against welfare and the role of government altogether. The government plays an enormous role in our economy, as does regulation of all kinds at state and federal levels.

PAUL SOLMAN: But many people would agree with Mr. Soros, that we've lost values, that the free market has become the be all and end all, wouldn't they? Are they just wrong?

BILL EMMOTT: Well, I would disagree with that. If that was the case, then I would agree with Mr. Soros that that state of affairs would be bad. I would not want money to be the ruling thing in life. I don't think that knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing is a good state of affairs. But that is not where we are now.

PAUL SOLMAN: Well, convince Mr. Emmott, if you would, Mr. Soros, that you're right and he's wrong. I mean, to what extent has the love of money taken hold?

GEORGE SOROS: Take an issue where let's say professions like medicine or law have become businesses. Even politics is all a matter of money now. It's you know how much money can you raise, so I think these are excesses of the market mentality.

PAUL SOLMAN: You don't find rampant commercialism, for example? We often talk about that in this country obviously.

BILL EMMOTT: I don't feel that it is excessive. I look at my own country in Britain, and I find our degree of commercialism inadequate. I look at America and look at Bill Gates and look at the entrepreneuralism of Silicon Valley and of Intel and of all the companies that are created, all the jobs that are created in the U.S., and I--it lights my heart. It seems to me that it's terrific. And at the same time in America, looked at from outside compared with my own country, spiritual values are very important and are, indeed, to my mind are on the rise. In my country spiritual values are declining.

PAUL SOLMAN: Mr. Soros, you don't see this? I mean, are you just looking at the world in completely different ways, or in the United States in this case?

GEORGE SOROS: Well, obviously we have different views, but take another very important issue, which I'm stressing, and that is that markets are inherently unstable, particularly financial markets, and maintaining stability ought to be an objective of government policy. And that is to some extent recognized now internally in the domestic economy, but you now have a global economy and there is no global supervision of markets, and I'm afraid that this is a very unstable and dangerous situation. What do you think of that, Mr. Emmott?

BILL EMMOTT: Well, I agree with you that stability is an important value, and I think that the important role of governments, particularly central banks, but other elements of government, should be to try to achieve stability and try to modulate fluctuations. Markets can easily overshoot.

GEORGE SOROS: Right. Now you see the theory, the underlying theory doesn't recognize this. The prevailing wisdom is that markets tend towards equilibrium, and that's a dangerous fallacy.

PAUL SOLMAN: What he's saying, for those of us who don't understand that term, is that markets are very imperfect, right, Mr. Soros? You know, economists tend to think of them as, you know, the be all and end all is the term again, and, in fact, they have all kinds of imperfections. That is what you're saying, isn't it?

GEORGE SOROS: I'm being more specific. I'm talking particularly of the financial markets which are so important in allocating resources, and I maintain that they are inherently unstable; that the theory underlying our interpretation of financial markets is actually false because it is based on a non-existent world, based on certain assumptions which are necessary to make the theory work. But they are not corresponding to what happens in the real world.

PAUL SOLMAN: But I want to ask just--but I mean, what happens? We have a worldwide crash, or something, is that what you're worried about?

GEORGE SOROS: Well, you have markets are in a boom/bust mode.

PAUL SOLMAN: Cycle.

GEORGE SOROS: And unless you recognize that you have to take action to prevent them from overshooting, they will, in fact, overshoot, and this wonderful global economy which I admire and enjoy would be destroyed. It has been destroyed in the past. And I'm afraid that it might happen again unless we recognize, you see, that markets are not perfect.

BILL EMMOTT: My feeling, Mr. Soros, is that you and I agree about what problems need solutions, but I think we disagree on what economists and other commentators are actually thinking because the economics that I read does not assume that markets are stable; it does not assume that everything comes to a balance in a neat way. Extreme economic theory--let me finish--extreme economic theory used only to radically simplify the world and produce an utterly artificial picture in order to demonstrate theoretical points, that does assume that. But no practicing policy maker, Alan Greenspan or anybody else, believes that markets are inherently stable.

PAUL SOLMAN: Let's get back to--

BILL EMMOTT: They think economics is about instability.

PAUL SOLMAN: Gentlemen, let me back to a sort of a more mundane case, if you will. Mr. Soros, you've done a lot of work in Russia, and one of the things you wrote about in your Atlantic article is when you looked at Russia, that's when you began to discover that you thought laissez-faire was going too far. Could you explain the problem of Russia in terms of what you're talking about.

GEORGE SOROS: Well, this is a very big problem that there was a central plan--centrally planned economy which collapsed, and the infrastructure of a market economy which requires laws and institutions were not introduced. So you have the most rampant robber capitalism which currently prevails, and that is a rather- -let's say unpleasant, intolerable situation, and people in Russia are very disappointed. People who were opposed to Communism are now disillusioned with robber capitalism which prevails there.

BILL EMMOTT: Here I agree 100 percent with Mr. Soros on this. I think that Russia currently is a case in which free market ideology has gone too far if it's really ideologically driven. I think there is a kind of robber capitalism of a very 19th century almost Wild West capitalism sort in Russia.

PAUL SOLMAN: That's what we've been calling "laissez-faire," that is you let people do whatever they want.

BILL EMMOTT: Yes. And it's essentially theft as much as capitalism. And I think that there is a risk in Russia that the whole market idea, the whole idea of individual freedom that's associated with capitalism gets discredited because basically there are some thieves there who are essentially--it's like having the Mafia run your entire economy, and I think that in Russia, as with other countries like Albania in a similar circumstance with very unstable capitalism, absolutely I agree with Mr. Soros; it's the United States I don't think that's this.

PAUL SOLMAN: But it's a tremendous worry, is it not? I mean, Russia, if Russia were to go in a totalitarian direction say because free market capitalism seemed to have failed, that is the kind of thing you're worried about, is it not, Mr. Soros?

GEORGE SOROS: That is right. And I think we could have--we could have helped. Had we had a different frame of mind, I mean, we had a Marshal Plan after the Second World War that could have been a similar kind of assistance provided to Russia to help with the transition but we were not in a helping mode because we believed that everybody is out for himself; that we are in a competitive world; that, you know, pursuing your self interest is enough, and this is where I think that our values have gotten screwed because of the way the--we have become the slaves of the market, if you look, if I may say that.

PAUL SOLMAN: Screwed up, you mean?

GEORGE SOROS: Yes.

PAUL SOLMAN: The values. The free market ideology, he says. Okay. Then the free market ideology didn't help Russia, and it's a perfect example of the problem he started out talking about. I leave you to respond to that.

BILL EMMOTT: I disagree with that as a piece of history. I think the reason that the U.S. and Europe didn't send billions of dollars to Russia, although we sent a lot of money, but we didn't send billions and billions of dollars in a Marshal Plan sort of way, was because we felt that it was like piling up dollars in the street and setting fire to them. We thought it would be a waste of money because what Russia needed was institutions, the rule of law. It needed a functioning democracy, things you can't easily buy. Russia had hyperinflation, rapidly rising prices, chaos, and we thought that actually it would be a waste of money. I don't think that ideology really prevented the money going there. This was under several different administrations that that reluctance came, took place. The reluctance was held by governments of the left in Europe and of the right. This isn't an ideological question in my opinion.

PAUL SOLMAN: All right. Well, gentlemen, I think we're going to have to leave it there. This is a conversation that will probably continue for another couple of centuries, as it has for a couple of centuries already. Thanks very much. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Thursday lawyers for James Earl Ray and the family of Martin Luther King asked that Ray be given a trial. Ray pled "guilty" 29 years ago to killing Martin Luther King but later recanted, and he was never tried. President Clinton said the arrest of Mexico's drug czar on bribery charges was troubling, but he said he was pleased the Mexican government took quick legal action. And Democratic Senator John Glenn of Ohio announced he will not seek re-election in 1998 after 24 years in the Senate. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with Shields & Gigot, among other things. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.