The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight the President's speech on China and our regional commentators' reaction to it; political analysis by Mark Shields & Paul Gigot; a look back at the Hollywood blacklist of the 1950's, and a David Gergen dialogue about some big trouble in the West. It all follows our summary of the news this Friday. NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton spoke optimistically today about next week's summit with the president of China. In a speech at the Boys of America in Washington he said contentious issues, such as nuclear proliferation, human rights, and the environment, must be addressed, but progress will be made only if both sides listen to each other. President Jiang Zemin's week-long visit begins Sunday in Hawaii. It's the first by a Chinese leader in 12 years. We'll have more from and about the President's speech right after this News Summary. President Clinton has no plans to testify at the Senate fund-raising hearings according to his press secretary, Mike McCurry. The President was formally invited by Sen. Fred Thompson late today. The 1996 Republican presidential candidate, Bob Dole, offered to testify yesterday and suggested President Clinton do the same. Dole said he did not break any laws but he wanted to set the record straight. McCurry spoke to reporters about it at his regular briefing today.

MIKE McCURRY: I can't imagine--given the general performance of the committee in recent days--that any President of the United States would attend and participate in their proceedings. This has become, I think, not an exercise of getting at the truth that will lead people to understand that will lead to wisdom, that will lead to more of campaign finance reform. It's become an exercise of partisan warfare. And it doesn't have much do to with reform and campaign finance laws.

JIM LEHRER: Dole's campaign turned over documents to the committee last week. Democratic Senators charged the material showed the Republican Party steered funds to special interest groups for ads supporting Dole's campaign. U.S. stock markets took another fall today. On Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 132 points at 7715.41. It lost 187 points yesterday. Other markets also had a down day today, including London and Paris, but Hong Kong's stock market, which triggered the decline yesterday, rebounded from its 10 percent plunge and closed up nearly 7 percent today. A national advertising campaign for food safety was launched today. It's a joint effort of the federal government and the food industry and features a green germ cartoon. Agriculture Secretary Glickman and Health & Human Services Secretary Shalala introduced the character named "Bac" as in Bacteria and "Fight Bac." It represents e-coli, listeria, salmonella, and other germs blamed for 9,000 deaths and 33 million illnesses a year. Shalala urged Americans to refrigerate and cook food quickly and properly and to wash their hands often.

SEC. DONNA SHALALA, Health & Human Services: The issue here is for everyone to do their part: the industry, the government, and consumers. This is the consumer part of what Secretary Glickman described as a seamless system of protection for the American people. We're going to hold industry to very high standards and accountable. We're holding ourselves to high standards and accountability. And we're asking consumers to do their part at the end of the chain.

JIM LEHRER: Last summer 25 million pounds of ground beef were recalled on suspicions it was tainted with e-coli bacteria. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the President and our regional commentators on China, Shields & Gigot, the Hollywood blacklist, and a David Gergen dialogue. FOCUS - CHINA POLICY

JIM LEHRER: Some preview thoughts about the visit next week of the president of China. President Clinton talked of his expectations and policies in a Washington speech today. Here is part of what he said.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: The emergence of a China as a power that is stable, open, and non-aggressive; that embraces free markets, political pluralism, and the rule of law; that works with us to build a secure international order. That kind of China, rather than a China turned inward and confrontational, is deeply in the interests of the American people. Of course, China will choose its own destiny. Yet, by working with China and expanding areas of cooperation, dealing forthrightly with our differences, we can advance fundamental American interests and values. One of the great questions before the community of democracies is how to pursue the broad and complex range of our interests with China, while urging and supporting China to move politically, as well as economically, into the 21st century. The great question for China is how to preserve stability, promote growth, and increase its influence in the world, while making room for the debate and the dissent that are a part of the fabric of all truly free and vibrant societies. Our belief that over time growing inter-dependence will have a liberalizing effect on China does not mean in the meantime we should or we can ignore abuses in China of human rights or religious freedom. Nor does it mean that there is nothing we can do to speed the process of liberalization. Americans share a fundamental conviction that people everywhere have the right to be treated with dignity, to give voice to their opinions, to choose their own leaders, to worship as they please. The United States, therefore, must and will continue to stand up for human rights, to speak out against their abuse in China or anywhere else in the world. To do otherwise would run counter to everything we stand for as Americans. This pragmatic policy of engagement, of expanding our areas of cooperation with China, while confronting our differences openly and respectfully--this is the best way to advance our fundamental interest and our values and to promote a more open and free China. I know there are those who disagree. They insist that China's interest and America's are inexorably in conflict. They do not believe that the Chinese system will continue to evolve in a way that elevates not only human material condition but the human spirit. They, therefore, believe we should be working harder to contain or even to confront China before it becomes even stronger. I believe this view is wrong. Isolation of China is unworkable, counterproductive, and potentially dangerous. Military, political, and economic measures to do such a thing would find little support among our allies around the world, and, more importantly, even among Chinese, themselves, working for greater liberty. Isolation would encourage the Chinese to become hostile and to adopt policies of conflict with our own interests and values. It would eliminate, not facilitate, cooperation on weapons proliferation. It would hinder, not help, our efforts to foster stability in Asia. It would exacerbate, not ameliorate, the plight of dissidents. It would close off, not open up, one of the world's most important markets. It would make China less, not more, likely to play by the rules of international conduct, and to be part of an emerging international consensus. As always, America must be prepared to live and flourish in a world in which we were at odds with China. But that is not the world we want. Our objective is not containment in conflict. It is cooperation. We will far better serve our interests and our principles if we work with a China that shares that objective with us.

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner takes it from there out into the country.

MARGARET WARNER: And to our regional commentator: Robert Kittle of the San Diego Union Tribune; Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Constitution; Mike Barnicle of the Boston Globe; Lee Cullum of the Dallas Morning News; and Patrick McGuigan of the Daily Oklahoman. Bob Kittle, what did you make of the President's speech and the basic approach he's taking?

ROBERT KITTLE, San Diego Union Tribune: Well, I think the President has set the right tone here. The whole idea of pragmatic engagement is what we need to promote a relationship with China that will serve U.S. interests in the next century. What we have to bear in mind is that China has one quarter of the world's population, $1.2 billion--1.2 billion people rather. It is rapidly industrializing, and its economy is growing very rapidly. Very early in the next century it's going to emerge as a superpower, and we have a historic opportunity right now to develop a cooperative relationship with China and avoid the mistake that we made after World War II, when the world was divided over a confrontation with the Soviet Union between the United States and the Soviet Union. So I think the idea of pragmatic engagement with China--while bearing in mind that human rights and free trade and fair trade are very important elements of that--is the right way to go.

MARGARET WARNER: Lee Cullum, how do you see it? Is this the right approach?

LEE CULLUM, Dallas Morning News: Margaret, I tend to agree with Bob Kittle. I think it is. I thought the President was very persuasive today when he said that an isolated China is a dangerous China. An isolated China cannot be pressed to stop abusing its people on political and religious grounds, or stop selling weapons to Iran. On a practical level, we really can't afford to be isolated from this great market that's emerging--that has emerged--and we can't afford to have that market isolated from us either. I share the President's hope that through economic growth and technology, cell phones, the Internet, computers, and the rest, the Chinese people will be exposed to new ideas and will demand the right to think for themselves, and the necessary government changes will follow. It's a long-range view of China, but to me it's the right view.

MARGARET WARNER: Pat McGuigan, how did you see the President's speech today?

PATRICK McGUIGAN, Daily Oklahoman: Well, I'm troubled by some of the rhetoric that seems to me to propose kind of a moral equivalence between China and the United States in the upcoming discussions. And I just simply don't believe that's true. I think that the division between the United States and its allies and Russia in the aftermath of World War II was difficult for everyone concerned, but it was the right thing to do. I certainly favor attempts at peaceful relations with the mainland government, but I believe the primary concern of the United States in that relationship has to be our own security, the security of our allies, people that have stuck by us through thick and thin, and that traditionally we've been close to. And then at a second level, I would put commerce and democratic values, democratic and moral values, coequal. And we need to try to advance all of those in the upcoming discussions. I am much more critical of the mainland government and I think the President should be willing to state some of the problems in pubic, much like Ronald Reagan did. I think the model here is Reagan and not the low-balling, if you will, the vast differences between their government and ours.

MARGARET WARNER: And you mean Reagan with the Soviet Union. Lee Cullum, what was your assessment of the President's--I'm sorry--Cynthia--forgive me--Cynthia Tucker, what was your assessment of the President's speech today?

CYNTHIA TUCKER, Atlanta Constitution: Well, Margaret, I think he probably laid out the best course among the terrible choices available to the United States. When I was a Nieman fellow at Harvard in 1989, I had a Chinese classmate. His name is Lou Bin Yan. He was a very distinguished Chinese journalist and a well- known critic of the Chinese government. And before he joined us many years ago, he had been imprisoned in one of those terrible Chinese re-education camps for the simple crime of criticizing his government. And he has not been able to return to China for fear of imprisonment or worse. It troubles me terribly to think that my government is engaged in this constructive engagement, as it were, with a nation that practices that kind of oppression of its own citizens. On the other hand, I think the alternatives are worse. I think that if we isolate China, what we'd have on our hands is a very huge North Korea. And I don't think that anybody thinks that that's a good idea either.

MARGARET WARNER: And Mike Barnicle, what was your view of what the President said?

MIKE BARNICLE, Boston Globe: Well, Margaret, it struck me on the way over here to the TV studio, listening to the news on National Public Radio, that they played the story of the sentencing of Marv Albert today well above this major China initiative or speech by the President of the United States. I think there's a huge education gap in this country about China. I don't think grammar school children and high school children and even college age students in this country know much about China. I think children in Shanghai and Beijing know far more about the United States than we do about their country. And I think that ignorance spills over into the Congress, and that when large portions of the American public look at China or think about China, they think about it and look at it in terms of movies about Gen. Shanalt and the Flying Tigers or the Chinese spilling over the borders in Korea in the early 1950's, or Tiananmen Square. And our knowledge of China is rooted in a basic fear of the country, rather than the idea that if we sit down and talk with this country, the largest economy in the world, the largest military in the world, we're going to be far ahead of the game as we head into the next century. American businessmen today know far more about this country than American political leaders do.

MARGARET WARNER: So did you see the President's speech today as being a first step in trying to talk to the American public about it, beyond the foreign policy elites, beyond the members of Congress that have been preoccupied with this, and do you think he can sell it?

MIKE BARNICLE: I don't know whether he can sell it, but I think it was a tremendous first step. I think any time we talk about this country and the threat or the promise that it poses for the next century we are well ahead of the game. We're always better off talking because as long as we're talking we're not fighting.

MARGARET WARNER: Pat McGuigan, you said you thought that the President should speak up more publicly about the problems he saw in the Chinese way. I mean, did you think he did that enough today on human rights?

PATRICK McGUIGAN: No. I don't. You know, there is another group, other than American business leaders, who know a lot about what is actually going on in China today and in the whole Asian continent. And those are religious people who have been attempting at least to take the gospel into the mainland. There's already millions of Chinese who are Christians, and they are suffering tremendous persecution. The Cardinal Kuhn Foundation and the Cardinal Menzetti Foundation are two sources of a great deal of information about oppression of Catholics alone on the mainland. Roman Catholics faithful to the Vatican, that is, to the Pope, have to worship in secret. This is true across the board for many of the denominations. They have to worship legally. You have to belong to what's called these patriotic churches. I believe it would be a singular moment of honor for Bill Clinton if he focused popular and international attention on these issues during his discussions next week.

MARGARET WARNER: Lee Cullum, do you think that's the approach he should take?

LEE CULLUM: Margaret, I think that it's an approach that has to be taken to some extent because I think that the situation that Pat McGuigan was describing is a matter of great concern to many, many Americans. You know, Americans long supported missionaries in China through the Christian churches, and they remain interested in the religious life of that nation. I do think that it has to be admitted that the current regime is capable of great cruelty. But we also have to notice and acknowledge that it's not a circumstance compared to the cruelty of previous regimes. Just look at the Cultural Revolution of the late 60's and the early 70's. And I think that more people in China are living better today than they have in centuries, certainly this century. So I think that the administration's idea of the rule of law, trying to attack this problem through the rule of law, persuade the Chinese to pass laws and live by them, might be a good way to approach this problem, but it has to be approached, and it has to be approached next week by the President.

MARGARET WARNER: And Cynthia, your view on how the President should address human rights and whether he went far enough today?

CYNTHIA TUCKER: I wouldexpect him to take up those issues quietly with the president of China. The speech he gave to me sounded like the kind of speech you would give to welcome a guest with whom you have had a contentious difficult relationship and whom you're trying to put at ease. I certainly didn't expect him today to stress human rights issues more publicly and more openly, but I certainly expect that the President will--he's not trying to embarrass the man, after all, publicly on the eve of his visit. I do expect that the President will raise those issues with him quietly behind closed doors when he comes.

MARGARET WARNER: And, Bob Kittle, do you think it should be done privately, or more publicly, or both?

ROBERT KITTLE: No. I think it has to be done publicly. The President can't mince words on this. This is an honest difference of opinion, but it's very fundamental to American values that would stress the importance of human rights. And so I think it has to be done publicly. And I think the hopeful thing is that as we push ahead in a cooperative way to encourage economic liberalization in China, human rights will improve as a consequence of that and political openness will follow. I think one of the things we learned from the collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe is that where there is economic liberalization, there are huge demands for political liberalization. And of course, that means an improvement in human rights.

MARGARET WARNER: And Mike--I'm sorry--just quickly before we go, Mike, do you think--even though the Chinese have said they would take great offense, that they regard this as an internal matter, do you agree that the President should speak out very publicly on human rights?

MIKE BARNICLE: Oh, sure. Lay it on the table for them, but they know he's going to do that. But nothing is as powerful as ideas, the ideas of liberty, the ideas of personal profit, as we saw. All we have to do is look to history to see what's going to happen with the Chinese, hopefully, and we don't have to look that far back in history--about seven or eight years ago--when that wall fell in Berlin. That's going to happen in China. It's inevitable.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Well, thank you all very much. FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

JIM LEHRER: Some weekly political analysis now by Shields & Gigot, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, "Wall Street Journal" columnist Paul Gigot. Mark, is there a domestic political angle to the China issue and the visit of the president of China next week?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: I think there is, Jim. I think there's a couple of aspects to it. I mean, this is a country that's producing lethal weapons, selling them, that outlaw states, put 8 million of own people in jail in slave labor camps. It's persecuting religious people, as Patrick said. So that--the fact that Bill Clinton has to address that is the first element, but beyond that, there's a fascinating coalition that's developing, and the coalition really is, I think, a threat to both the Republican and the Democratic base, but particularly the Republican base. But it splits the pro-business conservatives with the religious and cultural traditionalists who have spoken on this issue and--

JIM LEHRER: Pro business people say, hey, we want to do business with these folks, and the others--

MARK SHIELDS: That's right. There was any argument that we engage them and--whereas on the other side you've got not only American labor with the cultural and religious conservatives; you have human rights people; you have the environmentalists. So it's an interesting course, which threatens both parties but particularly--I think to the Republicans.

JIM LEHRER: How do you see it, Paul?

PAUL GIGOT, Syndicated Columnist: I think Mark's got the distinction right. And that's the difference that has developed. Interestingly, though, when these two sides joined in this debate over most favored nation status toward China earlier this year, despite an awful lot of debate within the Republican Party, only 27 votes changed, and the most favored nation status still passed overwhelmingly.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree with Mark Barnicle that it still hasn't touched the body politic yet?

PAUL GIGOT: No. Although I'll tell you nationwide there is a tape about religious persecution in China that's been making the rounds on the religious right and within conservative circles. And it's very powerful and it's had a very big effect on an awful lot of people within the Republican coalition. And that is resonating somewhat on a religious persecution bill that's moving towards--through Congress. So there is some effect. I still think that there is a bipartisan coalition in the middle, and that's for dealing with China on economic issues and other things in the hope of bringing further political liberty later.

MARK SHIELDS: What's exposed here is a certain hypocrisy in American policy, and we're great for imposing sanctions, economic sanctions upon little countries. There's no threat to us. On Haiti--on Cuba--on Burma--but you talk about what's going on in China--which is South Africa--which is far beyond anything that Cuba's ever thought of doing--well, no, no, no. I mean, this is too big, too big. We can't do it--and what really is driving this debate in the country is what I call a Q-tip syndrome, Jim. The Q-tip syndrome--

JIM LEHRER: Q-tip syndrome?

MARK SHIELDS: Q-tip syndrome. That is, American business looks at China and they say 1.3 billion Chinese. That--give or take--is 2.6 million years. If you had to sell 1 Q-tip to each of those Chinese, I could retire in perpetuity, and I think there's--almost their eyes glaze over--

JIM LEHRER: Let's move on to another matter. The IRS reform. Everyone, including the President, House Democratic leader, Dick Gephardt jumped to support the Republican plan. What happened, Paul?

PAUL GIGOT: There has never been a politician in my experience--maybe not in history--who cuts his losses faster than the President of the United States, Bill Clinton. When he sees it going the wrong direction, he can change from opposing it for months to taking credit for having thought of it. That's pretty much what happened here. The Republicans did a very smart thing, and they're beginning to understand, I think, what the IRS issue is--at least showing--how to use the institutional powers of Congress. And that, what I mean, is you have you the power of hearings. You have the power to shape public opinion.

JIM LEHRER: The Senate hearings were dramatic.

PAUL GIGOT: They were dramatic.

JIM LEHRER: People screens and all that, remember?

PAUL GIGOT: Absolutely. And they brought in individual people telling real life stories, and that created an awful lot of political pressure, and you began to see Democrats like Ben Cardin of Maryland get behind this, and finally the pressure built where Dick Gephardt, the Minority Leader in the House, got behind it, and the one person still standing was the Treasury Secretary saying, no, no, never, and I think the President of the United States said to him, yes, now.

JIM LEHRER: Maybe.

MARK SHIELDS: I think Paul is right on the hearings. I think that's what many of us hoped would happen with the campaign finance hearings It puts a face on the problem. The case is made. There's no question that that's--before the Senate Finance Committee, employers coming and saying they objected to the bullying tactics that citizens were subjected to, the sense of rage that did build and the need for legislation. What was most surprising is you get the feeling the President was distracted because Bill Clinton, I think, has a greater grasp of detail, political and substantive, as any chief executive in my lifetime, and he missed this one. And I don't know if he was distracted by the South American trip, distracted by the hearings, or whatever, but he didn't see it coming. I mean, this was something that came--Bob Kerrey, who's chairman of the Senate Campaign Committee on the Democratic side--this wasn't simply a Republican idea. He should have been aware of it, and he just did scramble to get on board before that bus bailed out.

PAUL GIGOT: If he ever talks to Bob Kerrey, I don't know--

JIM LEHRER: Kerrey may run for president. Look, you mentioned the campaign finance hearings. It's a big event this week with these dueling videotapes from the Democratic campaign and then there was a Republican campaign. Who won?

PAUL GIGOT: Well, it was a draw. I don't think either side won. What happened was the Republicans, what they're trying to do was to see if they could make some traction explaining why it took six months to get these tapes delivered, so they had brought up a few witnesses, and it was like so much else in this whole investigation. It frustrated the Republicans because there's never any absolute proof of what happened. We know it took six months delay. We know there was some funny business but they can't really prove that anybody said, yes, just don't--

JIM LEHRER: Don't send 'em. Get 'em lost.

PAUL GIGOT: So in the end tantalizing, obnoxious behavior, but it's not something that you can nail down and prove in a criminal way.

MARK SHIELDS: Simple answer, just extend the life of the Thompson committee. It wasn't the Democrats who wanted to limit the Thompson committee to one year. It was Trent Lott, the Senate Majority Leader. If you extend that, I think you can make a case that the White House had been slow because they know the Thompson committee is supposed to go out of business the end of this year. Extend it for another year and being slow and dragging your feet isn't going to pay off. I thought--I think it hurts, Jim, for the President any time you see any candidate, whether it's the lieutenant governor of Wyoming--raising money, it is not a particularly appealing aspect. It's not stuff that qualifies for Mt. Rushmore. I mean, they flatter the givers. They pretend what they're saying is interesting--their theory that left-handed Unitarians have taken over the world or whatever else, and you say--just give me the money, give me the money.

JIM LEHRER: That's when they're left handed--

MARK SHIELDS: Exactly. Exactly. And he's with a lot of people who are now missing--I mean, either taking the 5th or taken flight or on the other side of the international date line. So I don't think it was helpful.

JIM LEHRER: What do you make of Sen. Dole's volunteering to come and testify before this committee and then the--he said the President should do it. Sen. Thompson invited the President today. McCurry said no way, Jose.

PAUL GIGOT: First step in Campaign 2000, Jim, I think Bob Dole--

MARK SHIELDS: He's coming back.

PAUL GIGOT: Rested and ready.

MARK SHIELDS: You heard it here first.

PAUL GIGOT: He's going to announce Elizabeth is running. I think he got tired. Sen. Dole got tired of reading that somehow his campaign had done exactly what Bill Clinton's had done, and I think--

JIM LEHRER: And that's what the Democrats have been saying day after day after day.

PAUL GIGOT: That's right. And, in fact, I don't believe that for a second. If he'd have done as well as Bill Clinton did, he might be president today, if he'd have thought of the ways in which you can raise money and carve loopholes and do all that. But I think he wants to go up there and say look, I didn't sit down and write these ads, I didn't start running them in August of 1995, and I didn't sit down with Charlie Trie and John Huang and all these people, who are on the other side of the international date line, and he wants to defend his reputation and defend his campaign.

MARK SHIELDS: It'll be patty cake. There's not going to be a tough session. Republicans will be nice to Bob Dole; the Democrats will be nice to Bob Dole. I mean, anybody who's expecting a scoop, they ought to try something else next Tuesday. But it'll be interesting.

JIM LEHRER: It's been scheduled Tuesday.

MARK SHIELDS: That's right.

JIM LEHRER: You're right.

MARK SHIELDS: It'll get attraction. It'll get some focus back on the issue. Was soft money misused? Yes. Did the Democrats do more misuse of soft money than Republicans? Yes. Did the Republicans misuse soft money? You'd better believe it. Are the Republicans now spending $800,000 in soft money in a special House election in Staten Island--in total evasion of what the law should be--this is not independent spending.

PAUL GIGOT: Oh, wait a minute.

MARK SHIELDS: This is not independent spending, Paul.

PAUL GIGOT: Unlike the presidential campaign, there aren't any public finance--

JIM LEHRER: What I'm talking about, that's another time now. Thank you both very much. FOCUS - BLACKLISTED - HOLLYWOOD

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the Hollywood blacklist and a David Gergen dialogue. Elizabeth Farnsworth in San Francisco has the blacklist story.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: On Monday in a gala hosted by the Writers Guild of America and three other entertainment guilds Hollywood will commemorate the opening of the House Un-American Activities Committee Investigation of Communist activity in the film industry. Our coverage begins with excerpts from the documentary "The Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist," which first aired on PBS in 1987. The documentary is narrated by Burt Lancaster.

BURT LANCASTER: In 1947 the House Un-American Activities Committee, or HUAC as it was called, began its investigation of communism in the motion picture industry. The Committee, including Chairman J. Parnell Thomas and a young Congressman from California, Richard M. Nixon, gained instant publicity for itself by calling up celebrities to testify and capitalizing on the public's never-ending fascination with Hollywood.

J. PARNELL THOMAS: This committee under its mandate from the House of Representatives had the responsibility of exposing and spotlighting subversive ailments wherever they may exist. It is only to be expected that Communists would strive desperately to gain entry to the motion picture industry simply because the industry offers such a tremendous weapon for education and propaganda,

BURT LANCASTER: First to be called before HUAC were well known film stars: Men like Robert Taylor, Ronald Reagan, Robert Montgomery, men who would not only bring widespread publicity to the hearings, but would answer the committees questions in a friendly manner.

SPOKESMAN: Do you believe as a prominent person in your field that it would be wise for us to, for the Congress, to pass legislation to outlaw the Communist Party of the United States?

GARY COOPER: I think it would be a good idea, although I don't know, I have never read Karl Marx, and I don't know the basis of Communism, beyond what I have picked up from hearsay--and what I have heard, I don't like it because it isn't on the level.

BURT LANCASTER: Many studio moguls fearing a financial loss were also eager to cooperate with the committee, but the most damaging testimony was the actual naming of names.

SPOKESMAN: Do you recall the names of any of the actors in the Guild who participate in such activities?

ROBERT TAYLOR, Actor: Well, the one chap I am thinking of currently is Mr. Howard DeSilva--that always has something to say at the wrong time. Karen Morley also usually appears at the guild meetings.

SPOKESMAN: That's K-a-r-e-n M-o-r--

ROBERT TAYLOR: I believe so, yes.

BURT LANCASTER: After the big stars and studio bosses made their appearance, seven writers two directors and one producer were called before HUAC. They were to be questioned about membership in the Communist Party. They challenged the committee's right to probe their personal beliefs. They became known as the "Hollywood ten."

SPOKESMAN: Are you a member of the Screen Writers Guild?

SAM ORNITZ, Screenwriter: I wish to reply to that question by saying that this involves a serious question of conscience.

SPOKESMAN: Conscience?

SAM ORNITZ: Conscience. I say you do raise a serious question of conscience for me when you ask me to act in concert with you to override the Constitution--

SPOKESMAN: Mr. Chairman.

SAM ORNITZ: Wait a minute -- asking me to violate the constitutional guarantee of-

SPOKESMAN: The witness is through. stand away!

BURT LANCASTER: While some left Hollywood the ten would not. They were engaged in an uphill battle against the rising tide of anti-Communist sentiment. In 1950, their final options ran out. All ten said goodbye to their families and went to spend one year terms in the federal penitentiary. In l951, while the ten were still in prison, HUAC began a second wave of hearings both in Washington and in Hollywood. Over 100 people were called to testify. Like the ten, many refused to cooperate with the committee. But some of those called to testify did cooperate with the committee, talking about themselves and incriminating others. Writers like Martin Berkeley and Leo Townsend named literally hundreds of people

JOURNALIST: Edward G. Robinson would fall in that category. Ten year ago or more he started joining one Communist front after another.

BURT LANCASTER: Soon hundreds of people found their names appearing on lists as indiscriminate blacklisting became a full-time pursuit. Having completed its work the Un-American Activities Committee left Hollywood in 1952, leaving in its wake over 300 people condemned by blacklisting and unable to work in the motion picture industry. Barred from working in the studios, a small group of blacklisted Hollywood artists responded by forming their own production company and making an independent film " Salt of the Earth."

[FILM SCENE]

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: This year the Writers Guild of America has corrected the screen credits on many new prints and home videos of films written by blacklisted writers using pseudonyms. For more on all this we're joined now by Paul Jarrico, who has helpedlead that effort. He co-wrote "Song of Russia" and produced "Salt of the Earth," and by Marsha Hunt, an actress who appeared in more than 50 films before she was blacklisted, including the 1940 version of "Pride and Prejudice." Thank you both for being with us. Paul Jarrico, tell us how you came to be blacklisted.

PAUL JARRICO, Blacklisted Writer/Producer: Well, I was pretty well known as left of center, considerably left of center. There was no secret about my political orientation, and I, in fact, produced a film about the "Hollywood Ten," called the "Hollywood Ten" in the summer of 1950, on the eve of their going to prison. So I was not at all surprised when the committee began its new hearings in the spring of '51 as the ten were, in fact, coming up to be called.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So you were called and then were you automatically blacklisted? How did you know? When was the moment you knew you'd been blacklisted?

PAUL JARRICO: Well, I knew I was blacklisted the moment I arrived at Archeo Studio in my car and was barred from the lot, but that was before I testified. That was the morning after I had been served a subpoena and had said to some of the reporters who accompanied the marshal and who asked me what stand I would take, I had said I wasn't sure but if I had to choose between crawling in the mud with Larry Parks or going to prison like my courageous friends, the Hollywood Ten, you might--you could be sure I would choose the latter. And that was in the papers the following morning, and I was barred from the lot within an hour or two of that.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Marsha Hunt, tell us how you came to be blacklisted and how you first learned about it.

MARSHA HUNT, Blacklisted Actress: It was a gradual process with me, I think. I had been on that chartered plane that a number of us--close to 30 of us--film makers, actors, directors, writers, and even Ira Gershwin, to protest what was happening at the HUAC hearings in Washington.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: This was in 1947?

MARSHA HUNT: It was October 27, 1947, fifty years ago. And we went there to try to counter these terribly frightening headlines that were covering the country, scaring moviegoers about the safety of seeing movies, lest their loyalty be subverted with all this secret propaganda that was said to be in there, and we felt that the positive needed to be accented and to protest the treatment of those 19 who were being examined as witnesses. We went back for two days of attending the hearings and on the return the climate in Hollywood had already changed, and I think in my own case I was told that this was years later, that the only way I might be able to work in films again would be to denounce that flight as a serious error that had been masterminded by Communists. I knew quite to the contrary, and of course I couldn't say or swear to such nonsense. I had to declare my undying opposition to Communism. I didn't know or care about Communism. I was terribly worried about what we were doing to democracy. The actual blacklist in my case I think didn't come into force until a publication called "Red Channels." That was a private pamphlet issued in New York about the broadcast industries, radio and television, and it listed with activities under each name that were found to be suspect people who performed on broadcast media who the editors of "Red Channels" felt did not deserve to work because they were either Communists or fellow travelers or pinkos. There were many ugly terms then. I was included in that list.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Ms. Hunt, I want to come back to you about that one second. Paul Jarrico, once you found out you were blacklisted, once you could no longer work in Hollywood, what did you do? How did you manage to produce "Salt of the Earth," which we just saw a little bit of?

PAUL JARRICO: The hard way. I and Herbert Biverman and Adrian Scott, both of whom were--had been members of the Hollywood Ten and were blacklisted, of course, formed a company to try to use the growing pool of talent of the blacklistees. And we had several projects underway with--that is to say being written and came across--I came across by coincidence--this strike and in New Mexico in which Mexican-American zinc miners were on strike, the company got an injunction, saying that company--that striking miners may not picket--the wives said the injunction doesn't say about their wives--we'll take over your picket line, and the men were reluctant to, as they put it hide behind women's skirts. But there really was no other alternative. The women found themselves on the picket line being attacked by force, arrested in droves--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And did people try to stop you from making this film?

PAUL JARRICO: Well, of course. There was a concerted effort to stop the making of the film after it became known that we were making the film. We had started the film in quite a normal fashion with contracts with Pate Lab to develop our film and rental of the equipment from Hollywood, people who supplied such things. A whistle was blown by Walter Pigeon, the then president of the Actors Guild, and the FBI swung into action and movie industries swung into action and we found ourselves barred from laboratories, barred from sound studios, barred from any of the normal facilities available to film makers, and we found ourselves hounded by all kinds of denunciations on the floor of Congress and in--by columnists--we were--the public was told that we were making a new weapon for Russia, that since we were shooting in New Mexico, where you find atom bombs, you find Communists, and every kind of scurrilous attack--vigilante attacks--on us while we were still shooting developed. Our star, who had come up from Mexico to star in the film--LeSoro Regueltos--was arrested and deported before we were finished shooting her role. We had difficulty getting permission to shoot the remaining scenes with her in Mexico, which we absolutely had to have, and so on.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. And Marsha Hunt, what happened to you in the years after you were blacklisted? What happened to your career?

MARSHA HUNT: Well, it really was ended. There were occasional film jobs but they came really in the mid 50's--Stanley Kramer engaged me for the "Happy Time," which was a major film and should have been a happy time, but I was asked repeatedly, executive officers, to take out ads of my non-Communism in order to fend off the threats of picketing of the film if I remained in it. This was only done by little groups in the country. Generally, the public didn't know that I had a problem with work, and I think I made perhaps three films in all of the 1950's.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But you were able to work in theater?

MARSHA HUNT: Theater, blessedly, was never touched by blacklisting, and I did plays all over the country. I've done six plays on Broadway, and there's never been any hint of a problem with who was able to work and who was not.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Are you angry now when you look back at this period? Is it hard to forgive people?

MARSHA HUNT: It was a terribly, terribly painful time. It was shameful. Well,it spread across the nation, as you know. It started with Hollywood, because that's an easy way to get headlines, but it spread to the broadcast media, to education, to even religion, and for well over a decade this was no longer the land of the free, nor the home of the brave.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Paul Jarrico, we don't have much time left. You've been so active in getting the screen credits restored for writers like yourself who had to write under a pseudonym once the blacklist got going. Does that--does that bring you any feeling that the past is past and does it end some of the anger you feel?

PAUL JARRICO: Well, of course. It's very rewarding to see how pleased people who are who get their names back on the screen or the right to have their names on the screen, or if they have gone how pleased their widows or their children are.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Does this somehow make you feel less angry?

PAUL JARRICO: Well, you're assuming that I felt angry.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Yes, I am. You didn't?

PAUL JARRICO: Yes. I felt righteous anger, but it was not--it was mostly a determination to try to fight back. It was not just they can't do this to me.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Well, thank you both very much for being with us.

MARSHA HUNT: Thank you for having us.

PAUL JARRICO: It was a pleasure to be here. DIALOGUE

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, a Gergen dialogue. David Gergen, editor-at-large of "U.S. News & World Report," engages Alan Brinkley about "Big Trouble," by the late Pulitzer-Prize-Winning Correspondent J. Anthony Lukas. Brinkley is a professor of history at Columbia University.

DAVID GERGEN: Alan, Tony Lukas spent eight years researching and then writing this epic book--sadly took his own life. Tell us, if you will, about the context of the book and why you, along with some of his other friends, have volunteered to step forward.

ALAN BRINKLEY, For "Big Trouble" by Anthony Lucas: Well, Tony started this book in the aftermath of having published his celebrated book on bussing in Boston common ground. And he started it, in part, because he discovered in that book that what he thought was an issue of race was also an issue of class; that in Boston it was working class people, black and white, who bore the brunt of bussing, and that was part of what the issue so difficult. And so he set out to explore in more detail the history of class in America. And he settled on the story of the early 20th century, which reveals in stunning detail I think one of the most explosive moments in the history of class tension and class warfare, if you will, in the United States. I'm here today, of course, because Tony can't be, and because I and others of his friends who admire this book and think it's important have volunteered to speak for it in a way that the author, of course, cannot. I'm also here because I'm an historian, and I think this is a very important work of history.

DAVID GERGEN: Well, thank you for coming. Let's talk a moment about this book because, as you say, it focuses on this explosive moment and really the most celebrated trial in early 20th century history in America. Tell us a bit about what was going on here, so we all understand it.

ALAN BRINKLEY: Well, in 1905, a former governor of Idaho named Frank Steunenberg was killed when a bomb exploded as he was entering the front gate of his home in Caldwell, Idaho. And it soon became clear that the bomb had been planted by someone from the Western Federation of Miners, a very militant union in the West. And it was planted as retribution for aseries of events that had happened at the Coeur D'Alene Mines in Idaho some years earlier when Steunenberg had been governor and when troops had been sent in during a very violent strike, and a lot of miners had been incarcerated under retched conditions for some time. And what transpired in the aftermath of this assassination was an effort to find out who had ordered it. It was clear very quickly that the man who had planted it, a man named Harry Orchard, that was a pseudonym, but was a Western Federation of Miners operative of some sort. And he said that he had been put up to it by Hill Haywood, who was the secretary-treasurer of the union, "Big Bill Haywood," as he's known to history, and by two other officers of the organization--Charles Moyer, who was the president, and George Pettibone. They were arrested. They were abducted, quite literally abducted from Denver by the Pinkerton Detective Agency because there was not enough evidence for legal extradition, carried back to Idaho in an unscheduled night train, and put on trial in Boise. And it was, as you say, a sensational trial of its time--in the media, in politics. It attracted the attention of almost everyone in the United States who had any interest in public events, including Peter Roosevelt. And it's since been largely forgotten. And one of the achievements of this book is to bring back to us the issues that revolved around this quite sensational trial.

DAVID GERGEN: What struck me was how vicious each side was to the other, the employers, the mine owners, to their employees, and, in turn, the miners with regard to the employers. The class warfare became a very murderous, venomous kind of battle.

ALAN BRINKLEY: And I think that's--class warfare is the word because both sides in this dispute really did believe they were engaged in a kind of war, almost a holy war. The mine owners and the business community of Idaho and much of the West saw the Western Federation of Miners--a quite militant union--as the devil incarnate, as did Theodore Roosevelt. And they saw this trial as a way of discrediting the union and even destroying it by destroying its leadership. And the miners, on the other hand, militant labor leaders that they were, also saw themselves as engaged in a kind of holy war to defend their interests against what they saw as rapacious, unbridled capitalists who were exploiting workers unconscionably. And so both sides could justify the most extraordinary tactics to achieve their ends.

DAVID GERGEN: You wrote a piece in the "New Republic" recently in which you said about the book "It is a fitting legacy for a brilliant writer, who loved to tell stories but who believes that those stories should tell us something important about ourselves." What do you think this told us important about ourselves?

ALAN BRINKLEY: Well, I think what Tony Lukas wanted to say in this book was not--wanted to do in this book was not just to tell the story of an important moment in American history, although he certainly wanted to do that, but also to illuminate the issue of class and inequality in American history at a time when he and most other people are aware that inequality is once again an important issue in our society. The late 19th/early 20thcentury was a time of rapidly rising inequality in the midst of a great epical change in the nature of the American economy, and so was our time. And this book shows, I think, the dangers to democracy of rapidly increasing inequality that goes unaddressed for too long.

DAVID GERGEN: It also helps to demolish the myth that America has always been a society without class.

ALAN BRINKLEY: Well, that's a very hardy myth that very few historians have ever believed but that still survives, I think, in our popular culture, that we don't have classes in the United States. But of course, we do. We don't have them in quite the same way that England does, or other older societies do, but we do have class divisions, very severe class divisions in the United States. We always have, and we still do.

DAVID GERGEN: One of the things the book does not address but you as a historian have thought about a great deal is how we went on from this kind of trial, this kind of class warfare, to resolve these differences, so that, in fact, we did not have continuing class warfare in this country, and, indeed, we never had a Socialist Party, a robust Socialist Party of the kind we've seen in Europe. What happened? How did we resolve it, and what lesson is there in that for today in this growing inequality?

ALAN BRINKLEY: Well, I'm not sure we resolved it so much as learned to manage it in a somewhat less divisive way than it was managed at around the turn of the century and a number of things happened. One was increasing prosperity, which began to raise the working standards--or the living standards of workers. Another was over time--although not really until the 1930--the emergence of a new and more vigorous form of labor movement that represented the aspirations of ordinary workers in the way that the Western Federation of Miners have tried but failed ultimately to do. Partly it was employers beginning to understand that workers were an asset and not simply fodder to be exploited in the way that many employers believed at the turn of the century. So there were a number of changes that, you know, to some degree ameliorated labor- management relations, although never eliminated the tensions between labor and employers entirely.

DAVID GERGEN: But still hold lessons for today.

ALAN BRINKLEY: Yes, they do, and of course, we're working through another set of labor-management problems today as the economy changes again. I am--we're seeing once again a resurgence--maybe a modest resurgence--but a sort of resurgence of the labor movement, and we have to hope that we'll be able to manage these changes in our economy at least as well as our ancestors did a century ago.

DAVID GERGEN: Alan Brinkley, thank you for coming and thank you for standing in for your friend and your colleague, Tony Lukas.

ALAN BRINKLEY: Glad to be able to do it. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday President Clinton said he was optimistic about next week's summit with the president of China and his spokesman said Mr. Clinton would not testify before the Senate Committee investigating campaign fund-raising. The U.S. stock markets dropped for a second day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 132 points, following yesterday's decline of 187. We'll see you on-line and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.