The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Andropov Speech; Rubinstein Dies

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Arthur Rubinstein, the Polish-born pianist, died yesterday at the age of 95. We will be looking back at the man, his music, and his extraordinary personality. But we also look at tonight's major world story -- a Soviet offer to cut back its missiles in Europe if NATO drops plans to deploy its missiles there next year. Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, in a live televised address marking the 60th anniversary of the USSR, offered to reduce medium-range missiles in Europe to the numbers deployed by Britain and France. His speech was the first confirmation from Moscow of an offer reportedly made in private to U.S. negotiators in Geneva. So tonight, memories of Arthur Rubinstein and the meaning of the Soviet missile offer. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, on the Soviet nuclear proposal, the principal players on the other side, France, Great Britain and the United States, wasted no time in saying no thanks. French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson said the idea was unacceptable and claimed Andropov is trying to divert attention from the real power imbalance in Europe which strongly favors the Soviet Union. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher told Parliament essentially the same thing, that the proposal would not result in "the essential balance which is required for our security." The official U.S. turndown came in a statement which said the offer would leave several hundred Soviet missiles intact with the West having none to deter that threat. One of the U.S. officials involved in formulating the U.S. response was Richard Perle, assistant secretary of defense for international security planning. Mr. Secretary, why has the answer been so quick and such a definite no?

RICHARD PERLE: "Quick" because we were aware of a Soviet proposal along these lines in the Geneva talks; "so definite" because the essence of the proposal would leave the United States with zero weapons of this type in Europe. It would leave the Soviets with roughly the number they had when the talks began. So it represents. I'm sorry to say, no progress at all toward the President's objective, which is to eliminate this entire category of weapons.

LEHRER: Well, how, if they are willing to reduce by one-fourth or 25% their missiles, how would that leave the same number they have there in the European theater?

Sec. PERLE: What they seem to be suggesting is that they would be prepared to move some missiles from Europe to locations east of the Ural Mountains, but they would retain those missiles. Even if they were to reduce the number of missiles in the East -- and it's not clear that their proposal involves that -- they would still have roughly 250 SS-20 missiles, which is about the number they had when the talks got underway a year ago. We, under the Soviet proposal, would not be permitted any. So the balance would remain zero on our side, roughly 250 missiles on the Soviet side.

LEHRER: In other words, from the U.S. perspective, there's nothing there to even talk about?

Sec. PERLE: I'm afraid not, and as I say, we were aware of this. It had been discussed previously with our allies in Brussels; and in Brussels in the last two weeks, defense and foreign ministers have all reaffirmed support of the proposal President Reagan has made, which would be a genuinely zero proposal on both sides.

LEHRER: In some of the things that I read today it was suggested that Andropov may have had public relations in mind as much as anything else. What's your interpretation of what's behind his statement today?

Sec. PERLE: I think it's a repackaging of a consistent Soviet proposal which would involve cancellation of Western plans to deploy systems to offset those already deployed on the Soviet side. I think he did have public relations in mind; I think he was hoping to encourage a negotiation in the editorial pages of the West.

LEHRER: And from your perspective there's absolutely nothing new in what he said?

Sec. PERLE: Technically the proposal involves a sub-limit on the number of missiles, which is something they had not discussed until recently in Geneva, but in terms of the concrete result, it would, as I said mean zero for the United States, roughly 250 SS-20s for the Soviet Union, and each of those SS-20s carries three warheads. So it would perpetuate the existing imbalance, which the NATO alliance as a whole has found unacceptable.

LEHRER: As you know, Mr. Secretary, it's often said that packaging is 90% of it. Do you believe that if what he has in mind is a public relations gesture, that in fact he may score some points on this with the -- not only in Europe but here in the United States?

Sec. PERLE: Well, the effective packaging depends partly on how shrewd the consumer is, and I'm confident that the allied governments have scrutinized this carefully and have seen through it. Hence, the immediate response in Paris and in London, and the response that we saw among foreign and defense ministers who were apprised of this proposal and who unanimously reaffirmed their support for what the President is trying to accomplish. Clearly, it would be hard to match a proposal like the President's, which would involve the total elimination of these systems on both sides. And I think the Soviets are struggling to find an alternative that will have some public appeal.

LEHRER: Finally, let me ask you this. At Geneva, was the official "no" already given to this proposal before he made it today publicly?

Sec. PERLE: Well, the Soviet proposal, as revealed in Geneva, was half-official, half-informal, but we have made very clear our insistence that a truly equitable balance can only be achieved with the elimination of these systems on both sides.

LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: We devote the rest of tonight's program to Arthur Rubinstein, the pianist, who died yesterday in Geneva. Few people in the arts have achieved the world renown that Rubinstein did in a concert career that spanned an incredible eight decades from his debut in his native Warsaw in 1893. Six years ago I interviewed Rubinstein at his home in Paris just before his 90th birthday. He was almost blind, but still showed the love and appetite for life in all its aspects that made him a legend beyond his music.

MacNEIL [Great Performances interview, 1976]: Can we talk about your music? When people say, as they do, that you are the greatest pianist of this century, do you believe them?

ARTHUR RUBINSTEIN: No, I do not believe them, but I get very angry when I hear that because it is absolute, sheer, horrible nonsense. There isn't such a thing as the greatest pianist of any time of anyone nor anything. Nothing in art can be the best. It is only different. You see, I will tell you my theory about it. I don't think that an artist -- whatever it is, a painter, sculptor, musician, performer, composer, whatever; somebody who has the title of being an artist, of having to do with art -- must have an unconfoundable personality. He must be the one and nobody else. He is Joe Smith and there is nobody else like that. For me, one says, "Oh, he plays, you know, second Liszt or second Paderewski or second --" A second is already wrong, you know. If he's a second, he's no good at all; he's an imitator. An artist in anything must be alone, a world by himself. If I had another -- if I were questioning somebody and asked you, for instance, well, who do you really think the greatest of all times? Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rafael, Titian, Velasquez, Rembrandt? What would you do?

MacNEIL: That's impossible.

Mr. RUBINSTEIN: Each one of them is a world by itself. A world. If I go to see the whole exhibition of Rembrandt that I saw in Amsterdam once -- two- or three-hundred-fifty pictures, I mean, not all, but I mean most of it, on an anniversary of him -- I assure you I thought there was nothing else in the world possible. But then a few weeks later there was a little exposition here of most works of Vermeer. I had exactly the same feeling. Then I saw an exhibition of Titian; exactly the same. They are alone; they are a world by itself. You know, that is something, that Beethoven is alone and Mozart is alone. There are no many Mozarts, some like -- like him and Mozart and others and Beethoven. No. Look here. If I am a pianist, well, I am a pianist of my kind, which pleased so many people who like the kind of my playing, who were my followers, who had enjoyed it, who might even have had a great emotion out of it and so on. But then there are others who get emotion, get very moved by other pianists, this one or that one and this one and this one. Who can say that this one's the greatest? It's a nuisance; I hate that.

What was the reason for any success I have had in my life? Because I certainly do not play the piano as well as most pianists who play. I never worked so much as they do. You know, they play the piano too perfect. And I know young people now who play the piano as one can't can't play it better. But then when I hear them play that way I have my little question for them. I ask them, "When will you start to make music?" Make music, you see. That is something which preoccupies me, that means -- make music is something metaphysical. A painting is a painting -- visible. A sculpture is visible. A poem is visible on the paper. Well, music is visible, but not audible. I mean, it exists only because there are also necessary to it the other part of musicians, the interpreters. I belong to this group, you see. I call interpreters good talents, the composers geniuses, if they are the great composers I speak of, you see. But what happened to me is something quite strange which I observe very often, you see. I observe the fact that I come on the stage for a concert as representation -- I mean as picture of what happens on the stage. It is rather ridiculous because a fat little man like me appearing there in an evening dress looks like an undertaker, you know, of funerals. And the piano has a little look of a coffin, if you like to know, you know. Well, and the public -- the public fills the hall, let's say. They come after a good dinner; the women look at each other, at other women's dresses. Men think mostly about business or some games or some sports or God knows what. And there I have this crowd, not entirely quite musical, not really knowers of music, but who like music, who love music, and that is a very difficult proposition.I have to hold them, you know, in attention by my emotion.Nothing else. I can't look at them; I can't make faces. I can't tell them, "Now comes a great moment. Now you listen. Now is the great thing for you." Nothing of the kind, huh? I have to play; look there straight in front of me. But there is a certain antenna, there is a certain secret thing; there is a thing which goes out, emanates from me -- from my emotion, not from me. From my emotion, from the feeling.You like to call it soul, if you like to. I don't know what soul means, but it is a word which one uses very much without knowing what it represents really. But this something -- which, let me call it for the moment, soul, if you like -- projects something, projects something which I do feel. I do feel that it is doing it. It suddenly puts the audience into my hands. There is a moment where I please them all here. I can do anything. I can hold them with one little note in the air, and they will not breathe because you wait what happens next, you know, what will come in the music. That is a great, great moment. Not always does it happen, but when it does happen, it is a great moment of our lives.

MacNEIL: In your book, My Young Years, you say that you adopted very early in life a motto, expressed in a Polish phrase, [unintelligible]

Mr. RUBINSTEIN: [repeats phrase] The translation is not quite easy because it is a little strong in Polish, but it means actually, "I will never give in." I will not give in. With much strength. "Give in" is something a little bit weak. There is no word for it, you know. I will fight it off. I will be brave. Well, I don't know, something like that. But strong. And I learned it because I was present in Lodz, in my birth town, to a pogrom which the Russian cossacks had made in the streets. I was very young; I was a little schoolboy of, I think, it was seven years old. We had to run away from cossacks who beat up the population and made them bleed and so on. We saw blood and we were terrified absolutely. And I learned something, that I must build up in me courage. I tried to be courageous, not to be afraid of anything. And I am not afraid of anything. I was never really afraid of anything at all. Not afraid. I suffered about it; I took it in very much; I was unhappy about this idea or that. I didn't have money; I didn't have this woman or that and love; love, music, [unintelligible] -- all you want and so on, but I was always rather courageous. And I found out that probably -- probably belongs to my race, you see.

I must tell you I have been since childhood a very proud Jew. Very proud Jew. And to remain Jew. You see, I admired their courage for the 2,000 years in exile. I admired the incredible character of the Jews to stick to their religion, to stick to their race, as they are the only old, old preserved in the world.

MacNEIL: You've often said that you are the happiest man you know. I think people would be very interested to know what are the springs of that happiness?

Mr. RUBINSTEIN: My happiness came -- a feeling of that happiness, feeling conscious of that aim, right after an attempt to take my life. I mean, I wanted to commit suicide at the ripe age of 20 because I arrived at a sort of zero hour. Well, they call it like that. You know?I mean there was nothing for me. I was stuck in Berlin on my way to Paris. I couldn't get there because I had no money. I promised to come back with some money and then give [unintelligible] and I couldn't afford it anymore. I was in a hotel in Berlin which after a few weeks I couldn't pay anymore for my room. The woman I loved very much was married and promised to divorce and marry me, didn't, and broke up with me. I didn't dare to speak about it to my parents and so I was completely cut off from them. Nobody knew where I was. Well, I tried to commit suicide and didn't. I still live. I mean I didn't go. Some things I tried to hang myself with broke and I fell on the floor, and then I wasn't unhappy and I played the piano, then I was very hungry. And when I walked into the street I was born again in a way, you know? I was giving up my life and then I came back to it. Well, this coming back was a very strange one because I suddenly realized quite clearly what a fool I was before, that life is not at all depending on things like not paying the hotel or like a woman who might leave you or like a career being stopped. Life is what it gives you. It's in front of you.

MacNEIL: Do you belive in God?

Mr. RUBINSTEIN: Of course I believe. But my God is not a gentleman with a beard.It is a power. It is an incredibly extraordinary power. I was preoccupied all my life, as I still am, with the one question which matters -- one single question matters. What are we here for? Who made it? Who started it? Nobody has ever ever had a glimpse and the slightest idea why it started. It started with laws of religion right away dominating us. You had governor telling you, "This is right, this is wrong; you must believe in this, you must believe in God." I'm glad to believe, but there must be a sign, too; there must be something to show us -- to show us why and what. Well, you cannot say that an earthquake which kills thousands of people -- children [unintelligible] is a thing which God made for the good of humanity. Somebody asked me the other day, "Do you believe in a life after you are dead?" It was a very plausible question. I said I do not think -- I don't believe in it. But if there is a life after our death, of course I will be delighted. It would be a wonderful thing. But if I believe there is a life and found that there is nothing, then I'm simply crushed and mad because I had it, my life is over altogether, and I would be very disappointed if I couldn't express it then. Well, in any case, I think that my consolation is not too wrong. I mean, I think there is something in it, don't you think? Well, that is my conception. But as I go -- come to the mid -- to the moment where I believe that what we really have got -- what we have gotten, what is ours is what we have -- life. People who think that happiness is to laugh all the time and to enjoy a good cutlet or beef steak, you know, and you go to bed nicely and sound and fine and win at a game, you know, or something? This is stupid. It is stupid. There is nothing in it. [unintelligible] they don't enjoy it. Well, I don't know. That is not life. Life is bite into it, to take absolutely as it is.

MacNEIL: Can I ask you this? What emotion do you feel when you contemplate that death is going to extinguish so rare a machine as you are, a computer with so much heart and so crammed with music and experience? What do you feel?

Mr. RUBINSTEIN: You know, I didn't give it much thought, you know. There is such a thing which I do believe. There is a word which I feel is not ever clear to anybody, you know? We use in every language the word "soul" easily, l'ame in French. Every language uses it and we don't know what it is really, where to place it. And I think this thing is in us a metaphysical power somehow which just emanates, you know?I feel it always, as I told you before, in my concerts. We don't give it much thought, but there is something floating -- there is something unknown around us in there, that is, that I think that that has no place to disappear. So after our death, if we had an amount of it in us somewhere or something, it's around. I remember once on a very rainy day in London, this great singer, [unintelligible], asked me very, well, let's say innocently, you know, how did Chopin play? Well, of course, I didn't hear Chopin play at all and so I can only imagine something. I was just going to tell her, "Oh, look here, I mean, don't ask me such silly questions." But somehow by some instinct I went to the piano, you know, and played a little piece of Chopin that I never played in concert, and it wasn't me who played. I played that piece through and we both were getting a little pale, you know? I wasn't playing it myself, you know? I felt that. I wouldn't have played it like that. Make what you want of it, you know? I give you just to say -- the moment of my life. That's it.

MacNEIL: That interview was part of a Great Performances program produced by Unitel in Europe. It included one of the last performances Rubinstein gave, and we close tonight with an excerpt from the Grieg A-Minor Concerto with Andre Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra.