The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

it most be a nice boy good evening i'm elizabeth warren's with jim lehrer is away on the newshour tonight on day three of president clinton's visit a look at the shape of democracy and central america a report on how the computer industry is changing the way it operates and a conversation with playwright and screenwriter tom stop mark yudof well as our summary of the news this wednesday i wrote to an atm fee to the world is the biggest challenge of the new century because by the time this baby is

old enough to vote the world will have nearly two billion dollars to the world and by travelers who was invested in the natural gas company into their business is really really good and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by the annual financial support from viewers like you us envoy richard holbrooke held crisis talks today on kosovo which yugoslav president milosevic holbrooke was trying to convince milosevic to accept a peace agreement which provides for nato led troops in kosovo ethnic albanian rebels had agreed to sign but now say they won't do so until fighting in kosovo stops and it showed no sign of letting up serb forces bombarded a string of villages in a daylong attacked tanks painted buildings soldiers fired on suspension doubles both sides have failed to observe the cease fire agreed to wendy's talks recess

last month secretary of state albright urged congress today not to debate and vote on principle policy yet she said vocal opposition to deploy us troops as part of a nato force might complicate peace talks she testified before a house committee a vote anytime to oppose an authorization would be taken by both sides as a green light to resume fighting there is no question that kosovo present some very difficult problems for the international community in that the administration's approach is not free from risk we believe however that the greater risk would be to permit the situation there too wrapped into a new round of large scale fighting with potentially devastating consequences for the entire region and today and yesterday they're actually has been a return to or some skirmishes the full house is to take up a nonbinding resolution tomorrow on whether american soldiers should be sent to kosovo in el salvador this morning president clinton shifted the focus of his forte central american trip from hurricane relief to promoting peace and

democracy el salvador elected a new president on sunday francisco boys defeated a former guerrilla commander in a speech to the legislative assembly president clinton said no other nation has traveled a greater distance to overcome deeper wounds in shorter time in el salvador it was the country's second presidential election since a thirteen year civil war ended in nineteen ninety two president clinton flew to guatemala this afternoon he's expected to discuss the end of its thirty years civil war including claims the us supported directly and indirectly military governments which have been charged with large scale human rights abuses will have more on that summary right after the news summary and i'm sorry we're more on that story right after the news summary and on wall street today the stock market reached another high the dow jones industrial average rose seventy nine points to close at a record ninety seven seventy three republicans in congress presented their plan today to preserve social security for future return retirees

they used a bank safe deposit box to illustrate how their legislation will put serve glasses of social security revenue off limits for other uses such as tax cuts senate majority leader lott spoke at a news conference with other republicans we will work with administratively wanna see if we can get so scared for but they're indications that they're certain elements of the administration supporters or a warning against genuine soul spirit for global be easy but if we say there's money aside and say this is all the money and the interest and it will be there for the reform or an oregon the panda bear or which appears in if passed into law the republican plan would be affective in the next fiscal year midwestern mid atlantic states shovel them plowed out of yesterday's huge snowstorm schools businesses and governments closed snow and ice caused fatal auto wrecks and traffic backups in states from minnesota maryland

and washington dc almost a foot of snow fell nearly three hundred thousand federal workers took the day off more snow showers and flurries are expected in parts of the ohio valley and eastern great lakes a study published today is found no evidence a high fat diet causes breast cancer or low fat one prevents at the findings contradict her medical theory researchers in boston follow the eating habits of nearly eighty nine thousand women over fourteen years the work appeared in the journal of the american medical association the pentagon said today it will review safety procedures for military training flights over italy the reviews will be conducted jointly with the italian military the aim is to prevent accidents like the one in which a us marine jet sliced an italian ski gondola line last year twenty people were killed and that's it for the new segment tonight now it's on to truth and democracy and central america customize new computers and playwright tom stopper very well

and then in the past and central america phil ponce has that story president clinton wound up his four day four nation to work with a stop in guatemala city this afternoon the trip had been long planned comes just two weeks after an explosive report from an international truth commission that implicated american security agency's thousands of killings in guatemala's long civil war a commission created by a german journalist who said as many as two hundred thousand guatemalans most of the mayan indians may have died in the country's thirty year conflict the commission blame the guatemalan government and army for ninety three percent off forty two thousand human rights violations and investigated blame marxist guerrillas for another three percent most of the blame was placed on the top levels of the guatemalan government and army and not and lower ranking officers are officials but the commission said the government of the united states through various agencies including the

cia provided direct and indirect support for some state operations the report also criticize the us government and some corporations for supporting what it called guatemala's archaic an unjust economic structure guatemala's president of the car so the government commissioned the report had no immediate comment your defense minister the us government which on classified thousands of secret documents for the commission said through its ambassador to guatemala the reports focus is appropriate that these were abuses committed by guatemalans against other guatemalans the result of an internal conflict the international commission was the second inning here to investigate controversies of guatemala's pass a similar investigation also took place in el salvador these efforts at investigation and reconciliation are part of the move to democratization that president clinton saw in all four countries he visited in central america sought el salvador and nicaragua emerged from civil wars in the nineteen eighties and i know governed by

competitive re elected presidents and parliaments both had peaceful transitions of political power hunter is also has a democratic government after years of military rule but even as they experiment with democratic reforms before nations are trying to revitalize their impoverished economies and at the same time all are fighting a common natural disaster the after effects of hurricane mitch president clinton was scheduled to address some of these issues at a town meeting this afternoon in guatemala city tomorrow the president told a joint meeting with central american leaders and then returns to washington for more we're joined by two veteran latin america analyst mark the cough is a resident scholar at the american enterprise institute a washington based research organization and george vickers is executive director of the washington office on latin america which promotes democracy and human rights in the region general comes to vickers let's begin with guatemala

and the un truth commission report as you read the report how would you characterize the extent of us involvement in the abuses that took place in guatemala the report says that the united states had an important role in establishing the doctor an international stability and security that the guatemalan army used in the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies which didn't distinguish between sort of formal communists and others were non communists who were opposed to this system argue who created turmoil in guatemala make them all internal enemies in subjects to elimination secondly united states played an important role in establishing intelligence agencies and some other agencies that that were themselves important instruments of the repression however i think it's important that as well but the week that the report said that more than ninety percent of the actual abuses that it talks about in the report took place between nineteen seventy eight nineteen eighty

four which are the periods when the united states was policed and least directly involved with one mr alcock opposite as unfair inaccurate the summary of us involvement and i think it's a reasonably fair the only on probably the only difference i would have is that really the doctor national security and the whole concept of anti communism which was introduced into guatemala in the fifties and forties is simply put an ideological pretty enough on a war that have been going on in guatemala for a lot longer than that guatemala's civil wars have a deep wrought in the nation's past as a country has been deeply divided ethnically and by clash though that's the only difference is they only additional point that was for the krishna do you agree with the general proposition that the united states was involved in creating what the structure of the government then be used as part of its so as part of the oasis part of a system by which are abuses took place is that a fair character no i think that

greatly overstates the cage first twelve structures of military repression have existed in guatemala long before the coup of nineteen fifty four which is usually the date that the united states is always identified as having played an active role which we did we helped overthrow an elected government which was of the left hand but but the the structures of repression did not require a doctrine and were there long before what happened was the united states and got involved in an ongoing civil war and from the united states some elements of the civil war dr doctrines derived weaponry divide raw derived advice but the daughter was a coarseness in our advice it's a very complicated story and i don't think the newspapers at least in summarizing finding truth commission have given that the new wall street and the desert he's the rigors of a fair assessment of the connection between what the us might have done and i would happen when i'm all like i think the report itself said very clearly that there was a long history before the united states

played any role in guatemala of creating inequities that themselves generated social conflicts in guatemala but i do think that the report noted and incorrectly on the basis of the classified nsa documents that and creating key intelligence agencies that were principal instruments of love identifying who was going to be killed and turning those names over to units to be killed but in the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies that and these were consequences of them and part of a process of assistance provided by the united states to the guatemalan army and to the astronomer your presidency out of the blood which is a an intelligence unit connected to the presidency there it's a drop off is a uc useful purpose for a truth commission with truth commission say help promote democracy now baumohl well i'm not so sure truth commissions are substitutes for judicial review judicial sanctioned for human rights violations

committed by the military and other authoritarian regimes that we've had in argentina we've had been in in el salvador we've had them in they exist because there is no recourse to judicial review and judicial saif show the question of of clarifying the truth is like the minimal that can be a cop tj and many political well presumably there police identified the names of victims the nature of their suffering whether it's deft it's apparent torture whatever sometimes it presumably identified police agencies if not individuals that are responsible but again they're pressed lactic of sorts because they date are a substitute for the nuremberg type proceedings that some people like you're saying there are limited use i think the women's records of limited use i think they're beginning they're not into the process and i think again the commission's report said very clearly that reconciliation is a long term process

and make a series of recommendations in fact about education and other sorts of things that need to happen over the next decade if a culture of mutual respect among guatemalans is going to be developed and there's going to be real reconciliation but i think that the flag and i agree with mark year that the i think that that by establishing the facts the truth if you will of the situation to provide the basics much depends on what happens it's to that fact those facts and whether they're agreed upon by the key actors in the case if you take a look at the salvadoran truth commission for example the commission named a number of people made a number of judgments about the war in that country and work both sides essentially rejected the report passed an amnesty within a week and the report was stuck in a drawer and forgotten forever after that it did not have a new long term impact i think what happens in guatemala will depend very much on what president are soooo ultimately says about it and whether the government and the parties to the conflict take responsibility accept the findings of the commission and

decide to use it as a base for beginning to build reconciliation in the country talk off what sold for back for a moment away from guatemala look it the status of democracy the state of democracy throughout central america how do censor our democracy doing rules for countries i think that we'll have to look at the history of the region and by historical standards of the global country should do very well maybe it's a modest advance by our standards we think democracy is huge but when you consider that most of these countries had almost no experience of civilian government elected civilian government in the twentieth century to see not only governments installed one spot have alternative power successive elections small pi parti participation including the participation of former rulers as we just have seen a horse elder i think this is an enormous advance it obviously not enough but it's a start and i don't believe frankly that the victory of the guerrillas for example dental celebre would have

gotten out there any faster than we are today which is the implicit critique that many people make of american policy these listeners your assessment how the markets to do in social well mark's right there's been there's been real progress in its important progress i think what we have is elected democracies in central america we don't yet have democratic societies in central north america the question is whether the key institutions that you have to have to make a democracy work in the long term really are to become consolidated and by that i mean affected civilian control of the military whether you get civilian police forces that are really key a bubble of combating crime at the same time respecting the rights of citizens with it a judicial systems that can become affected that's where a long way from seeing that consolidated susan thing that the arab enough really competitive elections but there the test now is how well the supporting institutions of democracy that one test is that building up the supporting institutions the other test is that i think that was my fear here is that there's a

lot there's a window of opportunity people have to decide the citizens of some of the central american countries have to feel that democracy makes a difference in their lives and i don't think that that's happening if it's not the fault of the oven what's been tried in establishing in building democratic institutions in this country the problem is that for most people weight has gotten worse not better sense the civil wars ended the more people i work inequality is worse they haven't seen the benefits of democracy and if if they don't see that soon they will lose faith that democracy is an answer to their problem capaldi agree that there's limited window of opportunity and it had the moxie they call now that what other countries could revert to dictatorships military contends that something like the windows a little bigger than george h i think but many people in central america and really appreciate what might be called a growing civility of political discourse bring civility of individual

rights and i think that the texture of public life inside the market is so much better today than it was fifteen twenty years ago i think that has to be a positive benefit some of the economic problems are related to hurricane mitch some of them to the legacy of the civil war one benefit that these societies have received economically from the civil war has been the flight of refugees to the united states in the remittances that those refugees son back at the benefit isn't about a billion a year for el salvador not sure about you cannot sell the door makes more from the remittances that they ever made in us aid at the height of the war and it was people from el salvador come to united states they send back money to relatives spot delegates hard currency and some of them are also helping relative set up micro enterprises small businesses small business sector and sell the roses really feeding those remittances so it's set at the picture it is certainly not wonderful but it is so much better than what we

could have expected in nineteen seventy nine and eighty i can't help but be optimistic mr vickers wasn't due to the region to have the president visit at this time during this window is you think it's important for two reasons i mean i think given the us is history and central america it's an important statement they were really trying to do something different that we're really trying to see not not impose our will on the countries that really be of help and providing in helping organize reconstruction assistance it's also just a sign of support for people who needed the devastation of hurricane mitch is beyond anything we've can imagine in honduras and two to a somewhat lesser extent in nicaragua but it's a very important statement that we are we care are we paying attention to them do what we can to help <unk> the midst of our prof wachter what specific kinds of things can the united states do to help besides the symbolism an implicit a presidential visit wallow papa congress could for one thing both the president's proposals for aid to victims of the

hurricane the second thing that they could do if the fifth furiously about factory in the country's five into laughter there are probably some immigration issues which could sit down and think about again the stability of these countries depends as i told you earlier on remittances as complicated bout between the need to have a population in the united states and the need to maintain stability in these countries are complicated so that it's not just a black and white issue of immigration issue immigration balancing again stability of more instability you have a lack of economic opportunity in the morning the uncontrolled flows of immigration show itself it's a nice full list of items that the president and congress one of the ones to vote was written for this so then we have i think both the computer industry is changing the way it does

business time bearden reports henry ford revolutionized manufacturing when he invented the assembly line historians may eventually put michael dell in the same class of innovators he's turned the assembly line it on its ear and parlayed into a host of factories like this one all over the world the story goes that in henry ford's factory you could have any color model t you wanted as long as it was black if you want a dell computer it's custom built to your specifications they call this the direct model of manufacturing and it's the hottest it in computers since the microprocessor michael dell got into making computers as a student at the university of texas in the early eighties he took orders from fellow students bought all computers in an upgraded and customize them though reportedly made a hundred eighty thousand dollars in his sophomore year and promptly left school to start his own company when i was in college and i

saw that the computer distribution system in this country was really very efficient you would buy a computer for three thousand dollars that consisted of about six hundred auto parts and there were you know several different steps along the way that were really needed so i saw that by having a direct relationship the customer you could only provide better mobile service but do so much better cost and that was the basis of a cellular company girls dorm room idea has grown into a company with nearly eighteen thousand employees in forty two countries dell computers are built in texas ireland malaysia and china and another plant will open later this year in brazil it's the fastest growing computer company in the world and they still build them to order just ask thirty four year old dell says the direct sales model is the key to his success says he's just more waiting by the park we hire local servers if you have any questions just

said it all begins with an order is placed by telephone or increasingly via the internet dell is the largest online seller of computers each day moving five million dollars worth on the map the bulk of their customers are businesses and manufacturing director lois god showed us how the customer specifications are printed on a piece of paper called the traveller that's right workers use the traveler to pluck the appropriate parts from bins and put them all in a box which then goes to an assembly area every column but unlike ford's assembly line were product traveled on a conveyor belt and many people were bothered construction here is done by teams known as cells into the entire assembly they still operating

if it works three hours of rack testing follow to make sure all the components and software operating the whole process from the initial received the order to send in the finished computer out the door takes just four hours but that's still too long for guards this is my life if all this looks easy it's not according to keith maxwell the man who designed the system if you look at it the same process looks like a watermelon you look at the people below honorable it looks beautiful on top of her things orchestrated you look underneath the water in the lake to distraction like raised that's what happens below the surface there's a huge amount of activity going on to go drive to demand the global supply and continually be evolving the supply base to be of meet the flexibility we need

to go to do things in time and you're dancing as artistic dance and soar is making the biggest advantage of direct sales is inventory control most manufacturers forecast the man construct the machines and shipped them to retailers the problem is that the forecasters wrong they're stuck with a lot of machines they have to dump at a steep discount on top of that computer sitting on shelves lose their value as newer and faster machines enter the pipeline if bill doesn't build a computer until its border and therefore has no inventory problem john schreiber a financial analyst with janice mutual fund says that gives delta huge pricing event dell carries roughly seventy eight days of inventories which turning its inventory roughly fifty times a year if you look at competitors like compact hewlett packard ibm they're really dealing with a three to four weeks of an inventory in the channel add to that three to four weeks roughly how within the factory walls and talking about sixty eight weeks of inventory as comparative bills one week that alone gives till you know five seven percent pricing

advantage and when you add on top of that the margin that the reseller is taking to stay in business don't really enjoys a ten to fifteen percent price advantage of an issue if there's any cloud on dell's horizon it's the prospect of facing its own weapon in the marketplace the number one computer maker compaq announced recently it will begin selling computers directly to consumers the of the phone and the internet moving toward direct sales is a tricky business for a company whose dealers still sell most of its products but comeback vice president mike widmer says comebacks retailers understand the computer business is undergoing a fundamental change what they have recognized is that their business model was change over time as well that they must be less dependent on hardware and more on software support services and consulting with the customer and and that's what they're starting to do now and were helping them in that way but trying to push business their way that enables them to get this higher margin

services business that we believe more than compensates the loss in some of the harbor exactly despite the advantages of direct sales of compact is not deserving retailers assuming there will always be customers who prefer that way of doing business part of it is a white what i call a single throat to choke they won a single point accountability for the success of the installation with your where people like my dad i can hear with intel pentium processor and unlimited internet access but just forty nine ninety five executives at gateway the company that sells computers and those quirky cowhide looking boxes agree about that single point of accountability when a college when you're in your line the south dakota based manufacturer has been selling computers directly primarily to home users for about as long as dale but two years ago gateway began building what they call country stores to sell their products they now have a hundred fifty of them places where customers can

try out various models and then order a computer to be built just for them gateway believe this combines the best of both retailing and direct sales job work is in charge of the gateway country stores actually about twenty five percent of all theses sold in the us are in the retail channel and unless and until we participated in that you know we were going to serving us customers when we came up with the model for gateway country we took a look at what was wrong with pc buying experience and tried to address all of those issues when you walk in from the environment to store looks somewhat engaging looks different it's not a typical warehouse or grocery store set up its it's rather engaging you can get hands on a live demo of every piece of technology here in the store several giant retailers have also started to see the direct handwriting on the wall it's really very simple cells couser determines your net comes up to the kiosk here seventy one penny into four hundred places like compusa and circuit city and install kiosks where customers can order directly from a

variety of computer manufacturers mike ryan is in charge of computer sales for circuit city manufacturers realized that this is what we needed to do to serve the customer better and optimize what we call supply chain management or the amount of inventory that some stores we wanted balance because we know there was some stuff to give one order directed some stuff in the store so this gives you access to market didn't have before getting faster i think the direct customer wanted certain choices that we were unable to offer them on the fly they wanted to have a better video card they want that mix of small business edition so that they have the right software loaded so yes absolutely it's increased our assortment not decreased ryan says although ordering directly from the manufacturer is becoming more and more common he doesn't think it poses any real threat to retailers who still sell computers the old fashioned way still adel things in the near future all manufacturers will adopt a direct sales model in spite of

the difficulties that poses were essentially to do that they have to go into competition with the people who sell virtually all their products today so it's a fairly monumental transition for them but still ahead on the house so we're focused on how we can take our business won't the next level using things like internet talk on expansion and driving for efficiencies through for a bus still critics this new way of manufacturing may well eliminate the middleman retailers one simple still to come on the newshour tonight a conversation with playwright tom staar card but first this pledge week on public television were taking a short break now so your public television station can ask for your support that support helps keep programs like ours on the ear our conversations not taking a pledge break the newshour continues now with a

report on the latest congressional battle over education the reporter is betty and barrister when the impeachment trial ended last month republicans and democrats on capitol hill said they would come together to pass education legislation instead promises turned into a political tug of war at a time when polls show that voters overwhelmingly want you politicians to improve schools and student performance republicans have put forth a bill which would give local school officials more control over how they spend federal dollars the legislation called head flex for education flexibility would let states obtained waivers for some federal requirements for education money the idea has already been tested in twelve states in massachusetts for example and flex has been used to integrate some disadvantages didn't win the title one programmed into regular classrooms the students used to be taught

in separate self contained classes as a result so officials say they're able to spread federal money out over entire schools improving programs for all students in texas where at lax has been used more broadly than in any other state education officials a disadvantaged students are achieving higher math and reading scores and let's bring lions are education process it cuts through red tape it allowed states greater flexibility the republican proposal to extend the waivers to all states and has broad bipartisan support in both houses as well as support from all fifty governors and the president by all accounts it should have more quickly through both the house and the senate but senate democrats held up a bill this week they want to amend to include some of the centerpieces of the president's education agenda including a provision to reduce class sizes by hiring more teachers i pledge allegiance

that on monday republicans took their education agenda on the road at a town meeting in philadelphia they talked about uniforms computers school construction and who should make decisions are individuals education must be controlled at the local level by their parents by the people in the community by the teachers by the administrative by the student's not control but some nameless faces bureaucrat in washington but are the arguments against it but sad about it on the senate floor though much of the time was spent debating what to do when republicans moved to cut off all amendments and limit debate to their proposal democrats reject that i'd known as a gaggle with the president and we had that kind of a problem in the last session of the dead ruler minimum wage could debate that issue of the day right now we got to start off this congress we gotta get through on education republicans argued it was democrats who were playing politics

education i find it really does start with the members of the other side of the side lose this bill which was bipartisan support and supported by the president nor make political points not substantive points the political battle for control of the education debate continued in the house republicans refuse to permit and then finding for more teachers unfortunately the leadership of this house when it comes time to provide for the remaining six years of class size reduction is leaving school districts and education courts across america in budgetary limbo they engage in the politics of parliamentary maneuver rather than passing this urgent priority they employ the tactics of obstruction read in the heat the healing of true bipartisanship in tourism or teachers yes that's a discussion that we should have i frankly don't think it should be on this bill originally is not germane to this simple bill that everybody was an impasse

has really nothing to do with us and the victor acevedo the education sure what it will do that on an appropriation bill or on the elementary secondary education act this afternoon in the senate legislate yours reached an agreement to debate some democratic amendments including one on class size clearing the way for a final vote on the bill passes are expected to approve the head flex legislation later this week in an air raid finally tonight a british writer success onstage and onscreen spencer michaels begins our report sixty one year old tom stop was in the limelight season as co writer of the film shakespeare in la which has earned him an academy award nomination he came to san francisco

last month to work with the director on the american premier of his it inhumane the work is set in india where the czech born stop are spent part of his childhood indian ink on stage at the american conservatory theater that place mostly during the last time a british rule like many starboard plays this one probes multiple think love and art history and culture and the rice itself or they are character in iraq does is an indian pager much taken the floor a group of witty me and british poet visiting india in nineteen thirty four her health it's not words dialogue is witty and provocative complex

ideas not always easy to absorb one first hearing that presents a challenge for actor art malik and director kerry displays are always a tapestry of many many different threats and with breathtaking about them is that the threat actually collapsed they're quite remarkably complicated and quite remarkably hilarious and i don't really think there is anybody quite like him i think certainly help injuries as great a playwright a totally different place malik says actor difficult yet fulfilled you do look at it is that way beyond not intelligent enough to understand what this line means when he says the guard says yes and he's actually meaning maybe or is it no more is it in yes yes or is it a yes yes yes here we don't know so so as an actor you stop investing more into that and that's part of the joy of view imbued to invest more and more of your time on this pop up i have your thing in

shakespeare in love star parts of like a sparkling dialogue that punctuated highly charged romance between struggling playwrights will shakespeare and high born would be acts that even amid the fraught them fashionable love story stop barge tows his fascination with ideas at the games playing queen elizabeth ii how the stop bard's own curiosity over whether drama can accurately portray last major defeat for the enemies of play acting which in my family actually here because you have non gmo and they won't take you away you know they wear the sound of a weapon yesterday to the nature of life or stop barred questions like that may be more important than the answers for over thirty years stop guard drew his characters has wrestled intellectually with a long list of big issues and especially with language itself in

rosenkrantz and tilden sterner dead based on two minor characters from hamlet gilden sternbach claims words words they're all we have to go on and in the hit play arcadia stop or delves into questions of horticulture academics love and surprisingly chaos theory and mathematics we might mathematicians at berkeley research institute was so impressed they invited stop part of the campus for a chat this isn't that the numbers have a kind of social

behavior with that that they're not simply too is a description once the bard doesn't pretend to be an expert just a well informed curious a playwright as such he insists on getting involved in minute details about the production and squirt of indiana it is the new businesses than us as a dramatic crafts the partisan republican ideas you more than ever as indian a place in san francisco his latest play the invention of love runs in london shakespeare in love and feels since i spoke with tom stop martin offended indian ink in san francisco just before opening night last month the play opens tonight a nervous oh that's the good news about getting older have no longer been like that for slightly used to be terrified because less than half of them at the magic of night live this is an anything can

happen and nowadays i think well lettuce and usually works out fine when do you think you'd just gotten used to it already think it's actually something about growing older there's the matter is there something deeper and the zen like about my call and my face of islam when i was hurt starting out it seemed to be terribly important that these two hours that particular moment and this important than the quite different way that important to do that kind of professionalism and the delight in things happening well and that is that is seen to be important about the rest of my life and that's an important for that moment why do you like so much in your place and to juxtapose the presenter almost the present with the past what does it allow you to do that you like so much i think the authority to be theatrical and i like the

theatricality all of that world you know shuffling the pack in different ways so that it's because there's always some kind of ambush involved in experience you've been ambushed by an unexpected word or by an elephant falling out of the cupboard whatever it is the thing about the shopping between time periods i think that and they see a vital form of life situations which you know perhaps we would we be not that interesting if they were not in counterpoint to another perspective what does come to your mind and how did this play come to your mind and what form that one image come to you what to begin with i spent four years the child in india so i've always had that in my luggage i'm not the sort of writer whose of

the bureau's stuffed with wonderful ideas for plays i just have to use in some way what i've got an interview with one of the things i got to do you have to wait for these ideas or devalue the city don't have a drawer full of them are you like every couple of years to get a really good idea for a play if i think that somehow gets some juice from the enormous waits sure which all of your so for dissatisfaction and not having spotted something eighteen months after i finished the last thing you watch where we are now in the finished late twenty months ago and feeling kind of edgy i don't know why why should i write they didn't have to wreck to play do it but somehow i think that's what i'm here for so i better do it and you get blocked the way shakespeare was blocked and shakespeare and i just have this huge wasn't like the chinese wall between me and the next day and it's just

getting it was getting to the top of page one that's hard for me when i'm there i begin to feel okay are you surprised are you surprised by the tremendous success of shakespeare well it'll be nice to be very wise after the event and i said i didn't think it would be anything but his success on some scale so i think we're really talking about the scale of the cities who your fault this is a very nice movie you do well people will like that very very good idea so popular among so many many people with very romantic and emotional deal that citi think that's key you think it's more the love of the romance with a love of words that has brought people together i think the scale of the success of the film is rather more to do with the way that the director responded to the romantic

possibilities of those voices are highly romantic well sexy story and the words are really working towards that but we're working hard but i think so this is how do i know what we go there because anything you were criticized early on for not writing characters that had more emotional depth in and you tell the critic kenneth tynan that you were waiting quote i'm waiting until i can do what well if you can do it well now what i can do it well now what is that for me to say i mean the whole excitement of writing anything is quite intense and them they'll kill you think is that a thing extremely well for themselves on the third decade continues for the rest of your life and i said it's no it's good or as bad as you think that's a good that's a very different markets knows that those bad as you think what is your response

to that criticism that your plays or superficially brilliant witty full of wonderful report hate but lacking in emotional depth i think that that's that it is a reasonable thing to say about them except insofar as it doesn't question the premise of emotion is better not to mention i don't really understand the preakness it was precisely that question of the author of the importance of being earnest and the right right quite surprised to be off and you might be quite surprised if it is or was it that is a it's a work of genius that way i've written stuff funny enough i'm a political choices which witcher cannibalize is part of the important biggest of which one would say exactly that you know it's too small for its own good school felt really emotional heart and i'm not quite interested by the premise that

some nestle was good is making people weep and i think well all right that's that's actually quite a intangible criticism because that's what the show's best that's to true to just gets fruity old in a most parts of this exposes the moment looking back to an earlier point you made i think that shakespeare in love this is successful as it is because it is capable of bringing it here more than force capability of bringing a chuckle what do you think her legacy will be to the theater if you got hit by a bus out here on kerry street tomorrow or weird like what would you like see the web like to think that at least some of the players will continue to be performed when you know when i'm long that and bear it i'm quite shy about saying that listens to it

this is war does posterity ever done for me but i think that i'm not doing it for that it used to be a journalist i loved the indigenous i think journalism is important that those important for now and i think you can change things probably more violently and more quickly through jet journalism especially through television jon jones and others but i think a lot but the matrix of all moore sensibilities is in the office and that's what like to be invented a fun remember the toll of all be remembered by my family than by visitors thank you very much for being with us and just outside into an hour again the major stories of this wednesday us envoy richard holbrooke said there

was no change in yugoslav president milosevic is opposition to a possible peace plan the two met for eight hours today holbrooke will return to washington tomorrow secretary state albright urge congress not to debate and vote yet on whether to send us troops there and the dow jones industrial average closed up close to a record high up seventy nine points at ninety seven seventy three will be with you online and again here tomorrow evening i'm elizabeth farnsworth thank you and goodnight due in part by eight feet in the movie is the biggest challenge of the new century ad and is promoting soil conservation so history doesn't repeat itself again and by simon smith barney and by the corporation for public broadcasting

and by the annual financial support from viewers like you many thanks video cassettes of the newshour with jim lehrer are available from pbs video call one eight hundred three to eight pbs one per barrel fb is