The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Monday, Soviet Pres. Gorbachev proposed ending the Communist Party's monopoly right to power and former Pres. Reagan was ordered to testify via videotape at the Iran-Contra trial of John Poindexter. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: After the News Summary, [FOCUS - MARCHING FOR DEMOCRACY] with Soviet citizens and Mikhail Gorbachev calling for an end to the Communist power monopoly, we examine Moscow's changing political culture with a Soviet emigre, Alla Zeide, journalist Melor Sturua, policy analyst Alexei Izyumov, and writer Alexandra Costa. Then [FOCUS - GETTING OUT THE VOTE] should American voter registration be made simpler? Congressman Al Swift of Washington and Patrick Roberts of Kansas debate proposed legislation. Finally [SERIES - BLACK HISTORY MONTH] beginning a series for Black History Month, Charlayne Hunter-Gault looks at the black image in American art. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Mikhail Gorbachev today proposed an end to the Communist Party's exclusive right to power in the Soviet Union. The Soviet President made the proposal at a meeting of the Central Committee, the party's top leadership. He said the Communist Party "intends to struggle for the role of ruling party, but do it strictly in the framework of the democratic process, rejecting any kind of legal or political advantage." We have a report from Moscow by Tim Yuert of Independent Television News.

MR. YUERT: Black limousines swept Communist Party bosses into the Kremlin today for what may prove one of the most critical gatherings in the party's history. These Central Committee members are being asked to consider a multi-party system that would end their monopoly of power and with it, many of their own privileges. Most accepted the need for change although there remained fears of deep seated opposition. This Siberian party boss seemed a typical hard liner. "History has given risen to one party," he declared. "I don't think we need others." But little sign of dissent as Mikhail Gorbachev gave a one hour speech accepting the inevitability of the multi-party system. He called for the next full party congress to be brought forward to speed reforms and change the party's own power structure. State television still hasn't reported the Gorbachev speech, although the evening news aired some blunt pre-plenum comments from Muscovites. Said this man, "I think they should disband the party." That won't happen, but at the Kremlin tonight the talk was all about change, according to this official, change influenced by events in Eastern Europe.

MR. LEHRER: There was no immediate U.S. reaction to the Gorbachev speech but in Washington, State Department Spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler commented on yesterday's anti-government demonstration by more than 200,000 Soviets in the streets of Moscow. She said it was a measure of the new openness in the Soviet Union. Sec. of State Baker left Washington tonight for Moscow. He will begin a series of meetings with Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze on Wednesday. We will have more on the Soviet story right after the News Summary. In East Germany today, eight non-Communist opposition members were added to the cabinet. They now outnumber the Communists for the first time in 40 years. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: A federal judge in Washington today ordered former Pres. Reagan to testify on videotape at the Iran-Contra trial of his former National Security Adviser, John Poindexter. Judge Harold Green said, "It would be inconceivable to exempt Mr. Reagan from the duty of every citizen." Poindexter's lawyers contend that Mr. Reagan's testimony would show that their clients' actions were sanctioned from above. The judge gave the former President until Friday to decide whether to invoke executive privilege in an attempt to avoid testifying. A Reagan spokesman said today his lawyers were reviewing the order. Responding to another order from Judge Green, Mr. Reagan issued a statement today saying he would invoke a claim of constitutional confidentiality rather than turn over his Presidential diaries to Poindexter. The judge had set today as the deadline for releasing the diaries. Poindexter's trial is scheduled to begin on February 20th.

MR. LEHRER: Pres. Bush outlined his policies on global warming today. He told a group of scientists in Washington he was committed to cleaning up the environment, but he said putting strict anti- pollution controls on industry is not the answer.

PRES. BUSH: Economic growth and environmental integrity need not be contradictory priorities. One reinforces and complements the other, each a partner, both are crucial. What ever global solutions to climate change are considered. They should be as specific and as cost effective as they can possibly be. If we hope to promote environmental protection and economic growth around the world, it will be important not to work in conflict but with our industrial sectors.

MR. LEHRER: The President's remarks drew criticism from environmental groups and some members of Congress. Sen. Tim Wirth, Democrat of Colorado, had this reaction.

SEN. TIMOTHY WIRTH, [D] Colorado: I think the President's speech today was a great missed opportunity. I think the world was waiting for the United States to step up to what we'd agreed we were going to do and we did not. We did not meet our own commitments and I wish we had. We still have that opportunity. The world's waiting for our leadership and I think we have a responsibility to provide it.

MR. LEHRER: Energy Sec. James Watkins issued a report today on government owned nuclear weapons plants. It showed violations of federal worker, safety, and environmental laws. Six plants were surveyed last fall by investigators for the Energy Department.

MR. MacNeil: Egyptian police were reported to have arrested a Palestinian man in connection with yesterday's murder of nine Israeli tourists. The Israelis were killed when their bus was attacked on a desert road near Cairo. The attackers were two men using machine guns and hand grenades. The Middle East news agency said the man arrested today was believed to be one of those two attackers. The fighting in Lebanon continued today. The current battle is between two of the biggest Christian militias in the country. They're fighting for control of a Christian area near Beirut. The fighting has been going on almost non-stop for six days. At least 274 people have been killed and more than 1000 hurt.

MR. LEHRER: Two cabinet members said today South Africa remains committed to segregation in schools and neighborhoods said South Africa remains committed to segregation in schools and neighborhoods. The two ministers are in charge of those areas of government in South Africa. Also officials of the pro-apartheid conservative party called on whites to launch a freedom struggle to protect themselves from blacks. It was a reaction to reforms announced Friday by South Africa Pres. F.W. DeKlerk. In another development, police broke up a demonstration today in a black township near Johannesburg. We have a report from South Africa by Kevin Dunn of Independent Television News.

MR. DUNN: The march by the people at Pendifa Township was intended to protest at high electricity and water charges and at the demolition -- but despite DeKlerk's freeing of political activity, the state of emergency remains in force and all unauthorized marches are illegal. Though these people received a familiar police warning, then the riot police moved in, firing rubber bullets, tear gas, some reports said live ammunition. Running battles erupted across the township, within one instant police firing tear gas into a tiny house. It's not known how many people like this youth were arrested. Supporters of reform fear the up surge and unrest could delay the lifting of the state of emergency and that now seems to be a condition set by Nelson Mandela for his own release. But in Johannesburg, another small step away from apartheid, when the city formally desegregated its bus service, though at the same time as the government said that blacks and whites may share a bus, they still won't be allowed to share state schooling.

MR. LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the second Russian Revolution, voter registration and a Charlayne Hunter-Gault interview on Black History Month. FOCUS - MARCHING FOR DEMOCRACY

MR. MacNeil: First tonight the change in the Soviet Union. The change was Mikhil Gorbachev's declaration today that the Communist Party be prepared to share power in the future with other political groups. he made his remarks to the Plenum of the Party's Central Committee which is now debating just how much political reform it can swallow. The protest was the extraordinary demonstration Sunday of more than 200,000 Soviet Citizens. We begin our focus with a report on that demonstration from Tim Yuert of Independent Television News.

MR. YUERT: It was described as Moscow's biggest unofficial march since the 1920s and yet it was publized in advance on state run Moscow Radio. Little is clear in Soviet politics at the moment. The Government Newspaper Isvetia warned the Communist Party faces its darkest days ever but the message on the streets was clear enough as the massive crowd called for an end to the Communist monopoly of power. There were nationalists, democrats, Communist reformers, even some waving the pre revolutionary Russian Flag. As they streamed past the Museum of the Revolution on Gorky Street the chant was down with the KGB. There was a limit police sealing off Red Square but they could not prevent the extraordinary image of 10s of 1000s of demonstrators gathering in the shadow of the Kremlin Walls to roar their approval of such radical reformers as the former Moscow Party Chief Boris Yeltsin. It is necessary to restructure the Communist Party he declared. There must not be a party monopoly on power. There were politicians and there we poets including Russia's most popular, Yugani Yetusenko.

MR. YETUSENKO: I hope that our change will be evolution but not kind of revolution with blood any kind of massacre.

MR. MacNeil: Now we get the perspectives of four current or former Soviet Citizens. Melor Sturua is a Political Columnist for the Newspaper Isvestia. He is now on leave and is a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. Alla Zeide is an Adjunct Professor of the Russian Language and Literature at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University. She was a native of Moscow where her family still lives. She left for Israel in 72. Came to the United States in 76. Alexandra Costa was a Soviet Official who defected in 1978. She became a business woman in the United States and is also a writer. Alexi Izyumov is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of United States and Canada Studies, a principle Soviet think tank on American Affairs. He is on leave at the Harriman Institute in New York. Ms. Zeide what has changed in the USSR to bring so many people out in an open demonstration like that yesterday.

MS. ZEIDE: I think a lot of things have changed and, I think, there are two major factors that can explain 200,000 people in Moscow. The first one I think that 5 years is a long period of time for peristroika and the feeling of fear that people were gripped with some how released them. Yet at the same time there appeared I think another fear of toppling in to the abyss if peristroika does not succeed and I believe that these two things got so many people in to the streets.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Costa how do you explain so many people out in a demonstration the likes of which haven't been seen, I gather, for 70 years?

MS. COSTA: Well if there is an opportunity to reduce the power of the Communist Party. I think, most of the population of the Soviet Union would be very much for it because people are very angry. very frustrated, very much fed up with the enormous mess they have in the country and they do understand thanks to the Soviet media that has been very open about the short comings in the economy and the party and who is responsible for all of this. It is the not the last five years only it has been building up for 72 years and I think they are pointing the finger at who is at fault.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Izyumov what has changed because all these same emotions have been around for a long time?

MR. IZYUMOV: That is true but I would agree that people got fed up with slogans and they also felt frustrated about the State of the Economy but I would add to the fact that was already mentioned and that is Nationality Crisis that produced a little blood and ethnic violence.

MR. MacNeil: In Armenia and Azerbaijan?

MR. IZYUMOV: Primarily yes. So people start to realize that something like this may come to other cities as well, other Republics as well, a state of anarchy. It became a threat, a real threat people just realized that. And I would add also another factor East European revolutions. They certainly produced a psychological result on Soviet Population. So people started to think that this might be the best way to speed up peristroika is just take to the streets. As the others cousins did in East European Countries.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Sturua your paper was quoted as coming out in favor of a change in the Communist Party. Was this demonstration another example of the excellent Soviet record of being able to get a lot of people out. In other words was it staged, was it organized by the Gorbachev forces.

MR. STURUA: I don't think that this demonstration and rally were organized by Mr. Gorbachev himself but objectively this demonstration is a development which is very healthy and I think that Mr. Gorbachev can use this development to push peristroika forward. I must say that we have two type of forces one is destructive and the other one is constructive. If you believe in God and read the Bible you know that God created everything including us human beings out of chaos and I think the development in Moscow where historic changes in the Eastern Europe are the same kind of chaos.

MR. MacNeil: Does this illustrate change or does it illustrate Mr. Gorbachev's ability to control particularly the Moscow media to b build up some popular support for what he wanted to do today at the Kremlin.

MS. ZEIDE: I guess that it would be difficult to answer the question with any certainty but I think that it illustrates both.

MR. MacNeil: Do you have an idea on that?

MR. IZYUMOV: Well I think that mostly this demonstration was the result of a spontaneous movements, grass roots movements and activization of various political movements in Moscow. I don't think that it was a stage demonstration.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Costa do you have a view?

MS. COSTA: I think that the authorities did have a hand in it because it certainly reinforces Mr. Gorbachev's message that the Party has to clean up it act if that they hope to maintain the power in the country and certainly it is rather uncommon for the Soviet Radio and the Soviet Newspapers not really solicit but at least prod people a little bit by announcing what route the demonstration would go and things like that. So I think that it is both.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Sturua how is this demonstration likely to be seen outside Moscow. Is there the same kind of feeling there and the same apparent agreement on changing the Party or different feelings?

MR. STURUA: You mean outside Moscow in the Soviet Union?

MR. MacNeil: The Soviet Union yes.

MR. STURUA: I think that this demonstration which was shown on our television will be a great push not only for Gorbachev in Moscow but for everybody in the Soviet Union. The point is that, of course, Mr. Gorbachev is riding a tiger but on the other hand if you are ridding a mule you will not succeed in politics. The point is how to put this tiger in to the tent and if we succeed, I mean, if the forces of peristroika succeed to do it I will say that this demonstration was also a step toward this success.

MR. MacNeil: Same kind of feelings outside Moscow or is the Party in some places more solid with support of the people.

MR. IZYUMOV: Well I would agree with Mr. Sturua the demonstration in Moscow is very important psychologically all over the country because it showed, revolutions are made and history shows in the political centers. So the example of Moscow is important for all regions of the country and I will say that people will become more active politically in various other regions of Russia and the Ukranian Republics. So the gap between political activity in Russian Republics and other Republics will now become much more narrow or may be will disappear and that is a very positive development.

MR. MacNeil: The Communist Party still runs everything yet in the Soviet Union. A lot of people have said that peristroika has ruined the old system but hasn't introduced a new one. Is this going to make people nervous that you start calling for changes in the one institution that people have known for 70 years and to a certain degree a lot of them rely on it?

MS. ZEIDE: I think five years of perestroika were enough to let people understand how everything is interconnected in the Soviet Union and to realize if the Communist Party releases its grip on power that things might change, and there has been a lot written in Soviet press about it, so by now people are prepared, they don't think they will be frightened, they think they will encourage it, and I also, I don't think I would agree with Alexei about the capitals or major cities being the center of revolutionary changes, because it seemed that in Russia revolutionary changes started in the periphery, in the republics, which were the first to respond to Mr. Gorbachev's call for change, in various towns like Tumane, for example, and Voldegrad, which was reported in American press, for example, so Moscow in a way is a belated reaction to Mr. Gorbachev's summons?

MR. MacNeil: Can any, suppose the plenum of the party agrees reluctantly or not with Gorbachev and they bring forward their meeting to June and they make the change in the constitution that removes the automatic right of the Communist Party to hold power and it gives some legitimacy to the parties, the other political parties that are already beginning to form, can any of that happen fast enough to satisfy the frustration of the people for whom perestroika has not produced any results yet, the shortage of food, housing, all the consumer goods, can this constitutional thing in a way satisfy people enough to give him more time?

MR. IZYUMOV: Well, I think it will have this kind of effect, but not for the majority of population, because of course intellectuals and politically active minority in the population will be greatly satisfied if such measures are adopted by plenum, but for average Soviet citizen, that's nearly, that's definitely not nearly enough to satisfy the resentment accumulates in those five years.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Sturua, do you agree with that?

MR. STURUA: Well, I think that the plenum, the meeting of the central committee, is one more step toward multi-party system in the Soviet Union. I must say that the fact that we already have several parties in the Soviet Union, in some republics of the Soviet Union, more than that, I think that inside the Communist Party, we have left wing and right wing and if you compare left wing with right wing, the difference is much more deep than the difference between Republicans and Democrats in the United States. I think that it's unavoidable, the multi-party system, because a bird can't fly with just one wing. It needs at least two wings.

MR. MacNeil: But can this change, however inevitable, can it happen fast enough to produce tangible results in perestroika that will satisfy the mass of the people who want some proof that the change is going to be good for them?

MR. STURUA: Well, the point is that you can overnight abolish censorship, you can overnight introduce multi-party system, but you can't overnight rebuild the economy of a country which spreads over 1/6 of the globe and which has 300 million population. It takes time, it takes years, and of course, time is very short, it runs out.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Costa, do you think this will buy Gorbachev any time if he succeeds? The New York Times called him the political Houdini, always able today, always able to escape when he's tied up even more elaborately. Suppose he escapes again and brings this off, will it buy him time that will allay the frustrations of the people that yesterday's march demonstrated?

ALEXANDRA COSTA, Former Soviet Official: Well, I think actually he has less time than all of us are talking about. He has time until March elections in the Russian federation, which is a very critical thing, because unless the party changes, of course, you know, it's going to change substantially, but at least changes can be announced with the very serious intentions to make people believe that they will take place, the party is going to suffer an utterly crushing defeat in elections, in local elections, so Mr. Gorbachev can do several things. He can announce, and he hasn't done so, not only the abolition of Article 6, he could introduce secret ballot elections to the party organizations, and he can very quickly dismiss some of the most corrupt and most obnoxious local party officials and let less so to say smeared people run in local elections. That might buy him time. In regard to perestroika, I happen to agree with Melor, whom I used to know 12 years ago, and we just met here after so many years, that perestroika is economy, we're talking about economy, and without major changes in economic directives, such as more freedom of private enterprise, final admission that private property is not a curse word but an economic necessity, and introduction of certain measures, it's not going to go anywhere, but no matter what and how and who tries to change it, it will take a generation at least.

MR. MacNeil: In other words, Ms. Zeide, is this revolutionary move to change the assumption that the Soviet states has been based on for all these years, is it just more glasnost, more openness, more talking about change, or is it perestroika, meaning real --

ALLA ZEIDE, Soviet Emigre: I don't think you can separate the things. I mean, glasnost started perestroika, and I wouldn't agree with Alexandra that the most important thing is the perestroika of the economy in the Soviet Union. I don't think that there could be real economic changes, I mean, real changes that will yield the fruits that everyone expects without the change in politics, without the change of the system.

MR. MacNeil: Let me ask each you of you very quickly, we just have a minute left, Yevtuchenko said at the end of that little report he hoped that the change would be evolutionary and that it wouldn't end up in a massacre with violence. Are you optimistic about the way things are going now in the Soviet Union?

MS. ZEIDE: I would want very much to be optimist.

MR. MacNeil: What about you?

ALEXEI IZYUMOV, Soviet Analyst: Yes. I totally believe in the common sense of the nation and of the leaders, and I do believe that now these were to definitely the crucial stage, so people instead of even their destiny to the hands of others, to the hands of bureaucrats or whatever, now taking the power into their own hands.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Costa, are you optimistic --

MS. COSTA: Ah, I would --

MR. MacNeil: -- that it's not going to degenerate into chaos?

MS. COSTA: I would like to be optimistic, but unfortunately, I don't have much reason to be, because the people, as I said, are very angry and frustrated, very well armed. I read reports in Soviet newspapers of we subscribe to 18 publications that there are break-ins in the police stations and thefts from the army depots, and things like that, people arming themselves, and yes, Moscow is different from the rest of the Soviet Union, because they're in a much worse situation there. Some elementary things are not available. Riots can start any time and I can only pray that bloodshed can be avoided.

MR. MacNeil: I just want to ask Mr. Sturua, are you optimistic that bloodshed can be avoided?

MELOR STURUA, Soviet Journalist: Yes, I am an optimist because I have children and grandchildren and I think that perestroika belongs to the future, not to the past.

MR. MacNeil: Well, we must thank you all and move on. Thank you all very much.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the Newshour tonight, a plan to simplify registering to vote and the black image in American art. FOCUS - GETTING OUT THE VOTE

MR. LEHRER: Now a new debate about an old problem, how to get more Americans to vote. Tomorrow the House of Representatives will vote on a voter registration bill that sets uniformed national requirements for federal elections. It would among other things offer voter registration on applications for driver's licenses. Supporters say such moves to make registering easier would raise voter turnout. Opponents disagree. Barely 50 percent of the electorate voted in the 1988 Presidential election,the lowest turnout in 64 years. We preview tomorrow's debate now with the chief sponsor of the legislation, Congressman Al Swift, Democrat of Washington State, Chairman of the Election Subcommittee of the House Administration Committee, and Congressman Patrick Roberts, Republican of Kansas, who is also on that election subcommittee. Congressman Swift, what else besides the driver's license provision is in your bill?

REP. AL SWIFT, [D] Washington: Three other things. It has a postcard registration requirement, what is called an agency registration requirement, which basically means governmental agencies which deal a lot with the public would have forms available. And the fourth thing --

MR. LEHRER: All government agencies, federal, state, local?l

MR. SWIFT: Yes, and the fourth thing it does is have an address verification system called purging. The purging has grown to have a bad connotation. This is a very non-discriminatory way of getting dead wood off of the roles every four years at least.

MR. LEHRER: Now what is this bill designed to do? What do you think it will do if it is, in fact, enacted into law as far as voter registration is concerned?

MR. SWIFT: What it will do is remove government imposed barriers that today stand between the voter and the polling view. We have a not particularly auspicious history in this country of developing means of providing barriers for voter registration as ways of keeping Eastern Europeans, Southern Europeans, the Irish, black Americans away from the polls as various political structures in various parts of the country chose to exclude them. That is pretty much gone, but the barriers remain. 1/3 of Americans move every year and usually move outside of their precinct. Technically they're not eligible to vote. Sometimes we sneak back into the old precinct to vote. The idea here is to make it very very easy for people to register so that when election day comes the eligible citizen can vote without these artificial government barriers interposed.

MR. LEHRER: And under this law for the first time, these provisions would apply to every precinct in the country, would they not?

MR. SWIFT: That's right.

MR. LEHRER: In federal elections only, however, they wouldn't affect county elections, state elections?

MR. SWIFT: That's right. Congress has clear authority to legislate for federal elections, not on the others. Those states normally, rather than setting up two systems, will change their whole system to conform with the federal requirements.

MR. LEHRER: Now, Congressman Roberts, you're opposed to this. Why?

REP. PATRICK ROBERTS, [R] Kansas: I don't think anybody would disagree with the intent to get more people registered and a greater turnout at the polls. Everybody wants that. We like to think we have a better answer, if you will. This really represents what Al said is right. Once that state goes that extra mile to set up the federal system, it's going to apply for state and local as well. This is a historic intervention on the part of the federal government with our national election process which always has been handled by state and local officials. We've got a better idea, we hope, to offer a substitute, a series of amendments, to make the plan voluntary. If it's so darned good and it's going to work, why let's make it voluntary, we can go from there. Secondly, we're going to pay for it, we're going to match the mandate with money, and thirdly, we're going to give those states some discretionary authority, some flexibility, if you will, to prevent any fraud or abuse, and also to step up to this business of how many state and federal agencies will be aggressive voter registration offices. The way it is now you could go to a bait and tackle shop in Kansas and get your hunting license, fishing license, marriage license, welfare office, unemployment office, whatever, and those people are in the business of registering voters, and it's their responsibility to mail all those forms which we do not have to the county offices. I represent 58 counties. We don't have any barriers out in our country. To superimpose this federal system on the state and local system we think is unnecessary, so we're going to try to make it voluntary and pay for it.

MR. LEHRER: What would be, we'll talk about your substitute in a moment, but what would be the harm of Congressman Swift's bill being enacted into law?

REP. ROBERTS: Well, we feel it would be an intrusion, No. 1 --

MR. LEHRER: What would be the harm?

REP. ROBERTS: Let me simply quote from the letter I received from our secretary of state, Mr. Bill Graves from Topeka, who said, Pat, Al, whoever, please don't saddle me with this, we are moving to a central computerized system, we're moving to postcard registration, we have a high voter turnout, if we simply add all of this cost and this paper work and the forms to be patrolled by the way to the Federal Commission, we can't do that, you know, $1.2 million, nationally perhaps 200 million.

MR. LEHRER: $200 million to do what Congressman Swift has --

REP. ROBERTS: That's subject to a great deal of opinion, and I will certainly point out that he has first 20 million authorized and then 50 million, but we really don't know how much this is going to cost. That's what we'd like to do in the substitute. Let's pay for it. You know, the federal government is great about mandating these things under the banner of reform. What lurks under the banner of reform is an incredible problem for all sorts of county courthouses all throughout this country.

MR. LEHRER: What about his overall point? You said you agreed with the purpose of this --

REP. ROBERTS: Oh sure.

MR. LEHRER: -- which is to increase voter turnout. Do you believe it would, in fact, increase voter turnout?

REP. ROBERTS: I think it would to some degree, but that is subject to a great deal of controversy. If you do your homework, you find that 40 years ago, we had approximately 65 percent of our people that were registered to vote. Now today or in 1988 when we have the figures, that increased to 72 percent. We've gotten rid of the poll tax, the residency requirement, the property requirements, all of those kinds of things, and we should. Nobody's for that. With the increased registration, the turnout actually dropped. There are other reasons other than registration as to why people are not voting.

MR. LEHRER: What about that point, Congressman Swift?

MR. SWIFT: He's absolutely correct. There are a lot of reasons that people don't vote that you can't legislate. What we're suggesting is that one of those reasons people don't vote should not be that the government has set up huge barriers, a lot of hoops that they've got to jump through in order to vote. In a poll taken after the 1988 election, the answer given to the question why didn't you vote in this election, the one given most often, was I wasn't registered, so this isn't going to be a magic wand and make everyone vote. And it shouldn't. What it is going to say is the citizen can decide whether they want to vote without having to figure out the hoops.

MR. LEHRER: What about the cost problem that Congressman Roberts --

MR. SWIFT: Well, the Congressional Budget Office says 25 million, 20 to 25 million a year for five years, then the start up costs taper off.

MR. LEHRER: What would this money be spent on?

REP. ROBERTS: The start up costs, there's also the -- the computer forms, additional people. My secretary of state said he's going to have to have 22 additional people just to handle this, not to mention what's going to happen at the county courthouse level just to put up with this.

MR. LEHRER: And this would be true all over the country, Congressman Swift?

MR. SWIFT: No, it wouldn't be true all over the country. First of all, Nevada has a motor voter registration system right now and they figure it costs them $20,000 a year.

MR. LEHRER: Motor voters. That's the --

MR. SWIFT: That's your driver's license. There is one in Colorado. They're without a computer, they figure it costs them $160,000 a year to operate that. Those are very small figures. When someone came on to the floor and said, well, it's going to cost a hundred million in the State of New York, that was made out of a whole cloth, as far as I'm concerned. CBO is the only one who's done a thorough study where more than 30 states were specifically examined, and they say 20 to 25 million. We had 50 million in the bill authorized, which should be ample to deal with that kind of start up cost. Also most of the people who give you estimates on how high it's going to go don't talk about the things within the bill that will reduce costs. For example, in states like mine that send out a lot of information to voters, the provision that deals with getting dead wood off the list is going to save a fortune in postage that's sent to people who don't live there anymore.

MR. LEHRER: Let's talk about the politics of this. As a Republican are you concerned that this would register more Democrats?

REP. ROBERTS: No, I'm not at all, although I guess we're not telling any tales out of school that some of our colleagues the first time they hear of this, they say what's in it for our party. There are those on the Republican side quite frankly who think if we can attract more of the fundamental vote, i.e., the Pat Robertson people, we will benefit. There are those on the other side of the aisle who have told me, well, if that's the case we could certainly do a lot more registration in regards to the Rainbow Coalition and the Rev. Jackson situation. I don't think that's the point. The point is you want to increase voter turnout, but you also want to guarantee the sanctity and integrity of elections. This bill has in it state and federal agencies stepping up to be aggressive voter registration outlets. And you're talking about where you get your marriage license, your hunting license, your fishing license, the state ASCS Office out in Western Kansas, the post office, the high school. You're going to have a 16 year old kid at the 7-Eleven Store where you buy your hunting license be the county election officer. All of this material comes swooping in at the county courthouse in Ford County Kansas America to good old Rita Slattery who's my county clerk 10 days before the election. Now I don't know how we're going to do this.

MR. SWIFT: The obligation under the law as far as these other agencies are concerned is to hand the person the form. You've got to postcard registration. It is to hand the person the form. They fill it out, they mail it in. That's it.

MR. LEHRER: How do you read the politics of this? Is the reason you're supporting this because you think more Democrats --

MR. SWIFT: No, there's an enormous amount of mythology that goes on and we who serve on this committee run into it with our party professionals all the time. They both believe things on which there isn't a scintilla of evidence to support. I think what will happen is there will be some people generally considered to be likely Democratic voters, such as poorer people, minorities, who will be registered. I think possibly some of the fundamentalists. It's been suggested that there are a lot of yuppies who tend to vote Republican who are not registered, pick those up. I think when you get all done, we're both going to be about even and we can get on with some good government.

REP. ROBERTS: I think the big thing is to somehow attract the young voter, i.e., the yuppies, to the election process. Historically they are the generation that doesn't vote which leads me to my next point. There are good reasons as to why people don't vote, and it hasn't got a doggone thing to do with the election process or the registration. We're talking about the lack of good campaigns. We need campaign reform, we need a stronger two party system, and quite frankly, if Congress could get its act cleaned up, I think it would attract a lot more voters.

MR. LEHRER: What about Congressman Roberts' idea, if this is such a good idea, make it voluntary, let the states do it if they want to, if they don't want to, forget it?

MR. SWIFT: Well, first of all, there's nothing in this bill that some states don't do already and secondly, it's already voluntary. Any of them can do these things and a great many have not. The purpose of this bill is to suggest that at least for federal elections we believe all of these things should be put in place. All of these things that work other places have not increased fraud, do not cost millions and billions of dollars, and are perfectly administratable. We just simply think they should be universal.

MR. LEHRER: Have you got the votes? You've got the Democratic majority and you have some Republicans too I understand who are supporting this. Are you going to win this thing tomorrow?

MR. SWIFT: I think we will win it.

MR. LEHRER: What do you think?

REP. ROBERTS: I think we have a very good chance with our substitute which simply says it will be voluntary, if it's such a good idea, we will pay for it, 150 million by the way, Al, and OMB has agreed to it, we step up to that cost right away, then we give the states some flexibility to really do what we need to do with our local problems. This bill treats rural inner-city New York the same as say Dodge City America out in my district. That's not right. So we have a good chance with our substitute.

MR. SWIFT: The best news of the evening is that OMB has agreed to their 150 million, and they say they have no problem at all with the 50 million in the bill. It's going to pass.

MR. LEHRER: Let's leave it there, gentlemen. Thank you both very much and good luck to both of you tomorrow. SERIES - BLACK HISTORY MONTH

MR. MacNeil: Finally tonight, beginning a series marking Black History Month, Charlayne Hunter-Gault looks at a controversial exhibit in Washington.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It is called Facing History, the black image in American art, and it spans a period of 230 years. The exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., features 120 works of arts, paintings, drawings and sculpture, one of the most ambitious collections ever assembled on the subject. Many of the artists are well known, white as well as black. John Singleton Copley, Thomas Eakens, Winslow Homer, Reginald Marsh, Jacob Lawrence, others less well known, Thomas Ball, Charles Dese, Augusta Savage. One critic called it a show of beautiful paintings, but what has mostly drawn the critics' attention and sometimes ire is the exhibit's sub- theme, the subtle racism that courses through much of the work, perpetuating demeaning stereotypes of black people. What is unique about the exhibit is that it looks at the art works in a social and political context, not just for their aesthetic qualities. This perspective is being called the new scholarship, advancing the notion that art is not color blind. The New York Times called the exhibit a penetrating reading of blacks viewed by whites. Time Magazine called it highly poemical. The Washington Post wrote that it frequently bristles with accusatory edginess. The driving force behind this exhibit is Guy McElroy, a social historian and the first black curator ever to assemble an exhibit of this kind. While working on the exhibit during the past five years, McElroy was injured in an automobile exhibit that left him a paraplegic, but he was undaunted in his efforts to reveal what he views as how the majority of American society felt about its black neighbors. During a visit to the Corcoran, I asked McElroy about whether the exhibit was meant to be disturbing.

GUY C. McELROY, Curator: We didn't intend it to be disturbing, but we intended it to be provocative and thought provoking. To that extent it may, to the extent to which it brings to consciousness ideas that are not comforting or consoling or cause us to look at the American life in a new way.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What is different about the way we are being asked to look at this work?

MR. McELROY: I don't see it as different. Whenever I look at any work of art, I try to imagine the ideas that motivated the creation of this particular work of art. I think what's different here is we're having a subject that is very seldom portrayed in American art. One of the strong reactions that has been made of the show is that we were deliberately looking for racist themes. I think it wasn't so much that we were looking for racist themes as we were trying to fully explore the way the work of art expressed certain attitudes that were available to the artist at the time that the work was portrayed.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Give me some example of some of the work, of a work that you feel might not in the first instance appear racist, but really is.

MR. McELROY: We selected these works primarily for their aesthetic appeal and as works of art first, and the person who first moved me in terms of the different interpretations was William Sidney Melt, and one of the works within this exhibit which I think initially attracts because of its physical beauty is a painting done in 1856 called The Bones Player, which shows a very handsome black man playing the bones, and it's a very becomingly painted, very beautifully realized image, but when you look at the origin of this image, that from the ministerial stage and the black figure holding these bones, being cast in the role of one who entertains, rather than just in the role of a member of a particular society, then we see that in spite of the beauty of this work and in spite of the fact that we're attracted to the personality, we are made aware subtly of the fact that this person is still a black shown as an entertainment, not as a person who we look at and think what is he thinking of, what are his skills, what kind of educational background does he have, what is his standing in the community, those are not the things that come to your mind.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about Melt's other work, Farmers Nooning?

MR. McELROY: Farmers Nooning I think has been identified as one of the earliest positive portrayals of a black in the history of American painting and it is, in fact, very striking for just this reason. The black subject is the focal point of the activity in this composition. He lies fully exposing in the sunlight on a stock of hay and when you look at the composition, the first thing you note is that here this figure is the main point in the work of art. But as we think about what's going on, the black is there sleeping on his back while the whites who are portrayed are, the little white boy is tickling him so that he will awaken or the others are sharpening their saws or in other ways busying themselves, and so there's a kind of allegory of sloth and industry that's being suggested here and in this particular case then a black figure represents the allegory of sloth. There is a subtle range of expression that is available in these works of art and the fact that when we look at these works we should not take them just at superficial value but try to understand what the encoded messages might be.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: There was another one that we've talked about, that is Liberty Displaying the Arts & Sciences. Tell me a little bit about that one. That one's by Sam Jennings.

MR. McELROY: This is a work that was commissioned by the persons who were supporting the -- well, it became the Philadelphia Free Library, and in this work Liberty is portrayed as a goddess, an allegorical figure, she wears a white gown. She holds out symbols of intelligence and enlightenment to a black community and these people display themselves before her with a certain kind of awe, and in the background they engage in playing music and entertaining themselves. I think that what I noted in this painting, which is highly symbolic of the fact that the blacks are shown as passive recipients of the gifts of education, rather than as people who participate fully in the advancement of their own interest, and to this extent there was this subtle allegory which suggested that the blacks were not in the position to actually grasp their own future and to participate in forming a better life for themselves.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I know that there's no way to enter into Sam Jennings' head. When was this picture done?

MR. McELROY: This painting dates about 1790.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you think that was deliberate?

MR. McELROY: I think that many of the cases where the paintings have been realized, that the artists were not deliberately creating a piece of propaganda. In fact, I think Jennings in this particular case, if he had a propagandistic point of view, it had to do with abolition, because the group that he was working for was particularly concerned about abolition.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And these were white people, white patriots?

MR. McELROY: These were primarily white patriots. The important thing that we have to remember is that blacks were not usually in a position to purchase portraits and to perpetuate their images, themselves, therefore, the people who were able to do this happened to be from the majority culture, and their ideas concerning what blacks were are the ones that had succeeded that have survived until the present day and when we analyze the record of American art then we're actually looking at the ideas of the white middle class. As a result of that, then the idea of blacks as educators, as people who pursued the professions, et cetera, was not the one that these people were willing to buy and hang in their house.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you also have that negative subtle racism in the sculpture?

MR. McELROY: I think sculpture tends to be so idealizing and so monumental that it has a tendency to overcome that kind of trivializing. On the other hand, the Emancipation Group by Thomas Ball is very interesting in that while being a very beautiful sculpture, it still suggests a certain complexity in that Abraham Lincoln is shown standing before the kneeling slave. The slave is rising from his shackles and from a position of kneeling, which would indicate a subservience, and at the same time, if we examine the historical record, we know that Lincoln perhaps freed the slaves not out of any altruism, but out of a recognition of the fact that this was the only way to win the Civil War. So the sculpture idealizes in a way that ignores certain aspects of the truth. One of the more satisfying works politically at any rate in the exhibition is Forever Free by Edmonia Lewis. Edmonia Lewis, as we know, was a black woman who was also part Chippawe Indian, and she then shows again the black slaves freed at the moment of emancipation. The black man stands with his arms upraised, breaking the shackles that would have held him back, and the woman also reaching for freedom, and she captures them not only as slaves but also as people who are transcending the limitations of slavery.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is it satisfying at all to you that there were whites who could depict blacks in human terms and sensitively?

MR. McELROY: I think it's very satisfying to note the fact that there were artists who recognized the humanity and dignity of blacks even in the 19th century when slavery was prevalent. I think it says to us that black people even though they experienced the oppression and limitations of slavery still maintained the profound human qualities and that people who were not part of that experience were able to recognize it and transcend the separation of race and class and portray them in ways that suggested their wholeness.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: This shows, as I understand it, the first show that was curated by a black art historian, is that right, and are there many like you?

MR. McELROY: This was the first show of this particular nature that was curated by a black art historian. There are not many black art historians or black curators, but there are a number, and I think one of the points that the Corcoran made in doing this was just the fact that there are people who have the knowledge and the skill out there. They just need the opportunity to reach the major institutions to be able to bring that voice to the public.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What do you want people to take away from this?

MR. McELROY: I want people to take away from it the understanding that the visual images are extremely powerful, that we can use it to create good and we can use it to create ill, that it's very important for us to recognize how this image has affected our own lives.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Guy McElroy, thank you very much for being with us during Black History Month. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday, Soviet Pres. Gorbachev told the Communist Central Committee the Party must give up its monopoly right to power in the Soviet Union and in Washington, a federal judge ordered former Pres. Reagan to testify via videotape at the Iran-Contra trial of his former National Security Adviser, John Poindexter. Also, Mr. Reagan said he would claim constitutional confidentiality rather than complywith another order to turn over his Presidential diaries to Poindexter. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the Newshour tonight and we'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.