The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening and Merry Christmas! I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. The legacy of Mikhail Gorbachev leads the NewsHour tonight. We have full coverage and reaction from Moscow, plus a conversation with former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. Then Spencer Michels reports from San Francisco on a new life for Vietnamese children with American fathers and we close with words from Roger Rosenblatt about the First Amendment. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Mikhail Gorbachev bowed to the obvious and the inevitable today. He resigned as president of the Soviet Union, a union of republics that had already ceased to exist. He relinquished power to the new commonwealth set up by 11 of the 12 former Soviet republics. He made his announcement on national television.

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV: [Speaking through Interpreter] My dear fellow countrymen, fellow citizens, because of the situation which has emerged in connection with the creation of the commonwealth of independent states, I am now concluding my activity as president of the U.S.S.R. I'm taking this decision for reasons of principle. I was firmly for independence of the peoples and for the sovereignty of the republics, but at the same time, I was for retaining the union state in its integrity. Events have taken a different course. Those who wanted to divide the country up have prevailed and this is something I cannot agree with.

MR. LEHRER: Gorbachev telephoned President Bush shortly before the speech. White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said Mr. Bush praised Gorbachev for his personal courage and leadership in reforming his country. Mr. Bush returns from Camp David this evening to address the American people at 9 PM Eastern Time on the Gorbachev resignation. Control of the Soviet nuclear weapons went to Boris Yeltsin, the president of a Russian republic and the major power behind the establishment of the new commonwealth. Yeltsin said the international community should not worry about security of those weapons. He said it in an interview with Cable News Network.

BORIS YELTSIN: [Speaking through Interpreter] The commonwealth is going to abide by the commitments taken by the Soviet Union in terms of nonproliferating the nuclear weapons and ensuring international security. Russia, the Ukraine, Kazhakstan and Byelorussia guarantee reliable control over the nuclear potential of the former U.S.S.R. The nuclear button today will be passed over to the president of Russia and we will do all we can to prevent this nuclear button from being used ever.

MR. LEHRER: The Soviet red flag with its hammer and sickle was lowered for the last time over the Kremlin tonight. In its place went up a white, blue and red flag of the Russian republic. All of the dramatic political change happened peacefully today in Moscow, but there was not peace everywhere. Violence continued in the old Soviet republic of Georgia, the only republic not joining the new commonwealth. We have a report narrated by Alex Winter of Worldwide Television News.

MR. WINTER: It is the fourth day of heavy fighting in the Georgian capital. Rebel forces have pulled back slightly in the city center but was still pounding the parliament building where Pres. Gamsahurdia and about a thousand loyal troops are holed up. The clashes continued with heavy casualties. At least 37 people have been killed and some 250 wounded since fighting erupted on Sunday. Opposition forces have persistently bombarded the parliament building and some former members of Gamsahurdia's national guard have been patrolling roof tops to pick off soldiers loyal to the president. With scenes of increasing devastation in the Georgian capital, the main opposition leader, Tengu Zigwa, gave Gamsahurdia a deadline to surrender. Zigwa resigned as prime minister in August, accusing the president of running a dictatorship. The ultimatum was ignored and as a wounded tank gunner loyal to the president was carried out of the parliament bunker, it was clear Gamsahurdia was digging in. Two buildings close to the parliament were set on fire by opposition forces and armored personnel carriers blocked the street leading to it. Some signs of everyday life remain but the violence is spreading to other parts of the city.

MR. LEHRER: The Georgian president said today his supporters were well armed and he would never give in to the opposition. He said he would hold out in the parliament building until death if necessary. But in a telephone interview with the Associated Press, he called for a dialogue to end the fighting. FOCUS - FINAL DAY

MR. LEHRER: The almost seven years of Mikhail Gorbachev's reign as leader of the Soviet Union were sevenmomentous years. We begin our look at them with a political biography of the man, himself, reported now by Robert MacNeil.

MR. MacNeil: He came to power, the leadership of the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R., in 1985, the first Soviet leader since Lenin with a college education, the first from the post World War II generation who came of age in Kruschev's thaw of Stalinism. Many distinguished Soviet watchers were amazed that a system that placed such a premium on conformity could produce a Gorbachev.

GEORGE KENNAN, Soviet Expert: Numbers of us who have known that country for a long time simply stand without explanation as to how a man with these qualities could have emerged from a provincial party apparatus in the North Caucus. I have asked this question of people in the Soviet Union. One thing that they said was that you must remember that he was a student of law at the Moscow University. And they told me, to my surprise, because I had never known it, that that law school had retained certain types of teaching and training and training also in the mannerisms of the law which existed on almost no other place of legal instruction in Russia and that may have had something to do with it.

MR. MacNeil: Within months, he'd put two Russian words into the international vocabulary, perestroika, or restructuring, and glasnost, which means openness. He went out among his people and the people suddenly began feeling freer to speak their minds, to write and publish what they wished. And he released from internal exile Andrei Sakharov, the human rights activist and physicist. The first foreign leader who met him, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, said, "This is a man we can do business with." And he did much business on arms control and regional conflict with Ronald Reagan at five summits. Early on at Reykavich, the mood between the two men was as frigid as the Iceland weather. But two years later in Red Square it was obvious the relationship had warmed considerably.

RONALD REAGAN: [May 1988] [talking to Gorbachev] Before things get too far out of hand, we find ourselves standing like this.

MR. MacNeil: Gorbachev's summits with President Bush became so frequent as to be routine news events. Gorbachev managed to convince most of his foreign doubters that the Soviets were on a new foreign course when he ended Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. But the event or chain of events that probably will be most remembered by Europeans and Americans came in 1989 in Eastern Europe. That spring the Polls ousted the ruling Communists in the first free election since World War II. Later, East Germany began hemorrhaging people after the Hungarian border was open and thousands of jubilant refugees fled through Hungary to the West. Soviet military might stood quiet as Communist regimes toppled from Germany to Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. The Berlin Wall came down and a united Germany joined NATO, reversing Soviet policy since World War II. Gorbachev became a near legendary figure in the West. For his role in ending the cold war, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But while his stature abroad increased, his position at home gradually eroded. Glasnost made the people and politicians free to organize and demonstrate against him and in the republics against Soviet or Russian domination. He made democracy possible but was afraid of it himself. He would not submit himself to the voters as did his one time nemesis Boris Yeltsin. As perestroika failed to bring economic renewal and the shelves grew barer, Gorbachev seemed to temporize every time he was faced with a prospect of bringing in market economy reforms. In August 1991, Soviet hardliners tried to mount a coup against him. It failed within three days but eroded Gorbachev's power even further. Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian republic, who had rallied opposition to the coup, emerged as the people's champion. By the end of that week, a Communist Soviet Union had virtually ceased to exist and its formal demise became a matter of time. As Gorbachev held on to scraps of power, Yeltsin had no qualms about publicly embarrassing him. By the end, he returned frequently to one phrase, "I did all I could."

MR. LEHRER: And that message was included in his final words to the Soviet people today as President of their once powerful nation.

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV: [Speaking through Interpreter] Fate has determined that the time when I became head of this state it was clear that things were going badly. We have much land, much oil, much gas, many other natural resources and wealth, and God has not been stingy with us in giving our people intellect and ability but, nonetheless, we were living worse and worse than all of the other developed countries. The reason for this was obvious at the time. Society was being suffocated in the clutches of the bureaucratic command system. The condemned who serve an ideology and who bear an enormous birth of armaments led us to the edge of collapse. All the efforts at partial reform, and many of these were made, were all failures, one after the other. The country lost its faith in the future and we could not live that way any longer. I understood that to start reforms of this scale and in such a society as ours is extremely difficult and even dangerous. But still today I am convinced of the historic correctness of the democratic reforms which were started in the spring of 1985. The process of renovation of the country and of the radical changes in the world community have turned out to be much more difficult than we could have known at the time, however, everything done should be correctly understood. Society has achieved its freedom. We have ceased being political and moral serfs and this is the greatest achievement which no one can fail to recognize. And something else, we have learned how to make use of this freedom. Nonetheless, and however you look at it, the work we have done is historically of great significance. We have eliminated the totalitarian system which for so long prevented our country from flourishing. We have steadily aimed our efforts at democratic transformations, freedom of elections have become a reality, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and we have a multiparty system. And human rights have been recognized as the supreme principle. We have started a movement to renovation of our economy and for giving equality of rights to all levels of society. All of these changes demanded enormous effort on our part and they were carried out in intense struggle and against the increasing resistance on the part of the old reactionary forces, the former party organizations and structures and the economic apparatus, and our own attempts, our own ideological prejudices, our own dislike of other success, our own parasitism, our own intolerance, our own low level of political culture, our own fear of change. This is why we lost so much time. The old system collapsed before we were able to put another in its place and the crisis of our society became worse and worse. I am leaving my position with a feeling of anxiety but also with a feeling of hope and a belief in you, in your wisdom, and in your fortitude. We are the inheritors of a great civilization and now it depends upon all of us to ensure that it be transformed into a new and worthy life for all. I thank from all of my heart those who all these years have worked for the good cause. Without any doubt, some errors could have been avoided. Many things could have been done better, but I am convinced that sooner or later by our common efforts we will achieve what we are striving for, namely a flourishing democratic society. I want to wish all of you the very best.

MR. LEHRER: Our Correspondent, Charles Krause, was in Moscow today when Gorbachev spoke those words. He heard them with a group of journalism students at Moscow University. Here's his report.

MR. KRAUSE: The Moscow State University School of Journalism is located in an old palace across Minon Square from the Kremlin. Its location, so close to Mikhail Gorbachev's office, is a sign of the importance the old system attached to journalism and of maintaining control over public opinion. But in the end, it was graduates of the journalism school working at newspapers like Moscow News and the Independent, in radio and television, who were instrumental in bringing down the system that trained them. Tonight we watched Gorbachev's speech with a group of future reporters and editors, journalism students who will help mold public opinion in the post Gorbachev era. Thank you for joining us. Let me begin by asking a very simple question. What was your reaction to the speech tonight? Was there anything in it that surprised you? Nadia.

NADIA KHROMOCHENKO, Graduate Student: Well, I was surprised. I just expected at least for the last speech he would be more distinct. You know, I think this was his major mistake over the last five years that he was always very vague and unclear in his declarations, you know. And I hoped that the last speech he would say something like, you know, down, but he never did. I'm disappointed.

MR. KRAUSE: Ilya.

ILYA BEZOUGLYI, Senior Student: Well, I'm not disappointed. He did exactly what I expected for him to do. He was as usual. That's exactly what he was. This is his nature, you know. He couldn't do better. That's it.

MR. KRAUSE: The main reason Gorbachev said he resigned tonight was because he simply disagreed with the commonwealth that was created last weekend. Do you all think it's going to work?

MS. KHROMOCHENKO: Again, as always, he was very vague and he was trying to sit on two chairs at the same time because in his speech he said that I was always promoting the sovereignty of the republic and at the same time the Soviet Union and this cannot be. You know, that's the paradox. It cannot go because it's either one or another and this is I think the main point about Gorbachev. He never made his own mind clear, what exactly he wants, you know.

ILYA BEZOUGLYI: Probably he was too afraid to show what he decided for himself.

MS. KHROMOCHENKO: If he's afraid then he shouldn't be president.

MR. BEZOUGLYI: And probably he feel the pressure.

DENIS MOLCHANOV, Senior Student: If you remember how Shevardnadze resigned, Shevardnadze said, I resign but I'll be in a position because I am against the tyranny --

MS. KHROMOCHENKO: Dictatorship.

MR. MOLCHANOV: Yes, dictatorship. Gorbachev, that's why I'm not satisfied, I'm not disappointed, but I am not satisfied with his speech because he didn't define anything. He didn't define the government. He didn't define the commonwealth. He didn't define his own position.

MS. KHROMOCHENKO: Well, he didn't say I am resigning. He said I am leaving the post of the president. This is no resignation.

MR. KRAUSE: Does any one of you think that Gorbachev should have stayed in some position or at least Yeltsin should have found some way to keep him in a prominent position in this country?

DENIS TROUNOV, Senior Student: I suppose it's impossible because republic leader, I mean, Kravchuk, Chukes, and Yeltsin, are not respectable for Gorbachev. I remember that Kravchuk said, we will not discuss Gorbachev's future; we have no interest for it.

MR. KRAUSE: What was his biggest mistake.

MS. KHROMOCHENKO: He was always too slow. He was always behind them. You know, instead of being ahead of them, he was always kind of converging, after something has happening, after something has already happened, you know, then he would say, yes, I think this and we should do this. It was already there. He was always late.

MR. KRAUSE: Maxim, do you agree with that?

MAXIM ARTAMONOV, Senior Student: Yes, probably, but there is one important point for let's say American people because they judge mostly Gorbachev for his national position. And I have to say that in international policy he was probably one of the pioneers, but we Russians judge him for his domestic policy and in domestic policy he was all the time too late. That's true.

MR. KRAUSE: Tonight in his speech, he clearly appealed to you to remember that it was Gorbachev who started all of this when he came into power seven years ago. To what extent do you think he does? Do you appreciate the role that he has played?

MR. KRAUSE: Of course we do.

ILYA BEZOUGLYI: Definitely, I do, because he is absolutely right that he could do nothing about it and he would be fine. He would be the general secretary of the Communist Party, the leader of the state and the world and he would be fine and all his family would be fine, his grandchildren would be fine and no problem for him at all, but he started it. But I don't think that if he would know the result of his activity, he would have started it five years ago, seven years ago, because I think what he was going to do was he tried to change the system a little bit, just a little bit, just make it a little bit better.

MS. KHROMOCHENKO: Just to polish it.

MR. BEZOUGLYI: Yeah, okay, and the result was dramatic. The country's destroyed, the economy's destroyed, the Communist Party is destroyed and he didn't want this result. That's what I think.

GLEB BRYANSKY, Senior Student: There are many pragmatic reasons. I appreciate what Gorbachev did, military service, the ability to cross the country borders, to go and study abroad, and at least I can feel free in my own country, you know. And for example, let's just imagine what would happen if for example Gorbachev a few years ago wouldn't start his reforms. We would sit here and talk about, I don't know, victory of Communist Party and communist future. We just wouldn't sit here, you know. And it started to change my life and I appreciate what he did, you know. And probably all I have now I'm thankful to Mr. Gorbachev. In my position, he is a great man.

MR. KRAUSE: Do you think Yeltsin, who will now take over the nuclear weapons and also governing Russia, what is now Russia, is he a man equal to Gorbachev in your view?

DENIS MOLCHANOV, Senior Student: Not at all. He's different. Look at the freedom of speech. Gorbachev talked today about the freedom of speech, but now practically all the biggest newspapers in Moscow, central newspapers, are very closed because they don't have money and Yeltsin's government don't give money to them.They're going to give money only to the newspapers which support this government.

MR. KRAUSE: So you're saying that you're afraid anyway that Yeltsin won't be anymore democratic in a sense?

MR. MOLCHANOV: I think we'll remember the five years as the years of the great democracy because compare them with the years we are facing, these years were a real democracy.

MR. KRAUSE: Do you think that Gorbachev will make a political comeback like Yeltsin, himself, did? Do you expect one of these days that Gorbachev will be back?

MR. MOLCHANOV: No way that he will.

GLEB BRYANSKY: Absolutely no way.

MAXIM ARTAMONOV: Gorbachev may be good foundation leader but no president of Soviet Union.

MR. KRAUSE: Thank you.

MR. LEHRER: Now an American perspective on the times and impact of Mikhail Gorbachev. It is that of Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Adviser to President Carter, now at the Center for Strategic & International Studies as well as professor at the Johns-Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He's the author of several books, his latest, "The Grand Failure, the Birth and Death of Communism in the 20th Century." Dr. Brzezinski, welcome, and Merry Christmas to you, sir.

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Nice to be with you on this historic day.

MR. LEHRER: One of the young men told Charles Krause at the end that Mikhail Gorbachev was, in fact, a great man. Do you consider him a great man of history?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Yes, I do. I think his greatest historical triumph, however, was his personal tragedy and that's the paradox of Gorbachev. His greatest historical triumph was that he achieved something he did not intend but which was very important, the peaceful dismantling of the Soviet empire, the peaceful dismantling of Soviet totalitarian system, the peaceful end of the Soviet Union. These are enormous historical accomplishments and these wonderful young people you have just showed are in a way compliments to him because he made them possible. They were there, the potential for them was there, but he let them blossom. But this is something he did not intend.

MR. LEHRER: So you agree with the one student who said he just wanted to change things around the edges a little bit now?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Yes. I think the great difference between Gorbachev and Yeltsin is that Gorbachev throughout was a reformer. He wanted to reform the system, improve it, make it more decent, more humane, more palatable, and the efforts to do so drove him towards more and more ambitious reforms. But it was still reforms of the system. Yeltsin somewhere, at some point, recognized that the system could not be reformed, it had to be transformed fundamentally, completely, and I think this is why Yeltsin today is on top and Gorbachev is out because, as one of the young ladies on the program said, he was always a little too late. In driving down to your program today, I asked myself, what would be my epitaph for Gorbachev, and I came up with, too little, too late, just as one of your young people said.

MR. LEHRER: But an awful lot at the beginning, would you not agree, I mean, do you agree that the Berlin Wall would not have come down, that all of the changes in Eastern Europe would not have happened if it had not been for Mikhail Gorbachev?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Oh, absolutely, but here too I think we have to understand what he intended, which is not exactly the result that we have today in Eastern Europe. Gorbachev hoped to have an Eastern Europe moderate, decent, more open-minded Communist regimes. He hoped that the compromise in Poland between Yurezelsky and solidarity in which solidarity would help Yurezelsky govern while dealing with economic problems, with work. He hoped that a more open East German regime would make East Germany more palatable. He pressed for changes like this in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. And what he underestimated and didn't expect was that the dynamic of change would assume a strongly anti-Communist character and sweep away the regime.

MR. LEHRER: So he thought that if you gave people democracy they would go vote as they were supposed to do, but they would continue to empower the Communist regime, in other words, legitimize the Communist regimes that were already there.

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Yes, but it was a form of guided democracy. He wasn't prepared to accept multiparty systems. He basically wanted more liberally minded Communist Party regimes. It was only under the pressure of domestic events, for example, in the Soviet Union that he accepted a multiparty system, but very reluctantly. And the overthrow of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe was made possible by his forbearance and toleration and willingness to experiment, but it wasn't something that he had planned or deliberately set in motion.

MR. LEHRER: What would you say to those who say, okay, he was too little, too late, but when he got confronted with new situations that came along one after another that he did not expect at least he had the wisdom to give in each time and let it go and let it play itself out naturally?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Absolutely. And this is why he survived for seven years. This is why his accomplishments are really of enormous historical importance. This is why we all owe a debt to him. But he was increasingly a person responding to events rather than controlling them. And I think as I'm doing illustrates that. The Soviet Union was an empire. It was a great Russian empire. But in the age of nationalism, the non-Russians became nationally awakened. They really wanted something fundamentally different. Gorbachev at first failed to recognize it altogether. He even denied it. He, himself, later on said, I was blind to this phenomenon. Then when he recognized it, he wanted to preserve a union, albeit a somewhat more federal one, somewhat more decentralized one, underestimating the fact that by then national aspirations had become so strong that the union couldn't be preserved and the undoing of the union in the end was his own undoing.

MR. LEHRER: What about his record in the international area, was he, did he lead there, or did he also follow?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Well, he didn't know. He recognized that the Soviet Union was overextended. He certainly did take the initiative in dealing with the Afghan War, although the resistance of the Afghans was really what forced him to recognize them. He had to do something about it. I think on the East-West issue, he was far more forthcoming and much more willing to accommodate and I suspect that was driven in part by his very intelligent understanding of the fact that the Soviet Union couldn't at the same time wage a cold war, compete with us ideologically and in the arms race, and at the same time reform itself. I underline the word reform, reform itself as he wished to reform it. And he was prepared to make the strategic force, namely, let's disengage, let's cut back on the intensity of the confrontation and thereby gain a freer hand for reform. But here again he underestimated that it did power the forces that the reforms were unleashing within the Soviet Union. These young people are an example of that. Underneath the surface of a Soviet state, there was mushrooming, a whole new generation, a whole new awareness, a greater sensitivity to the fact that the Soviet Union was really a criminal state. It was one of the two truly evil states of the 20th century, it and Nazi Germany, and that the time for it to end its existence had come and that younger generation desired that.

MR. LEHRER: He must have known this.

DR. BRZEZINSKI: I don't think he knew that. I don't think he sensed that. This is why I think the events even the last few weeks were so painful and so surprising to him. Look at the gap between him and the young people who watched. Every one of the young people is a beneficiary of what he did. None of them really felt any gratitude. All of them felt that he was behind the curve of history.

MR. LEHRER: Charles had to kind of pull the words of gratitude out of them.

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that also suggests to us that we have to make more of an effort to strike a genuine balance in our estimate. We are overly sort of positive, maybe even enthusiastic, about Gorbachev. The people over there are overly critical. I think we ought to adjust our own perspective and take into account the reasons why they are critical and they at the same time ought to acknowledge the fact that their very criticism, the freedom to express it they owe to Gorbachev.

MR. LEHRER: One of the kids did say that if -- that Gorbachev, he could, he didn't have to do anything, he could have remained general secretary of the Communist Party, his family would still have been in great shape, and nothing would have happened. He did not have to do this. You don't quite agree with that, do you, that the events forced him to do as much as he did on his own?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Well, he inherited a Soviet Union that was stagnant and decaying, corrupt, weak from within, one of the reasons that I felt that the Soviet Union would collapse and I said some years ago was that I was sensitive to its inner weakness. I called it a giant with powerful arms but rotten innards. And they knew that. And I think Gorbachev being a very intelligent man sensed that too and felt that he had to reform the system in order to make it survive. But what he didn't realize was that his system was not reformable. It really had to be transformed totally.

MR. LEHRER: Is it possible to imagine what would have happened had there been no Gorbachev, in other words, the same set of facts that you just outlined existed in 1985, when he took over, and yet, let's say one of the old guard, out of the old mold had taken over instead of Gorbachev, what would we be talking about here tonight?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Probably the system would still be here and we wouldn't be seeing this historic moment of the flag being lowered from the roof of the Kremlin, a moment which I think is a wonderful moment in human history because it ends a very ugly chapter. So that system would still be here. And in the end, however, it would erupt in an explosion. I think Gorbachev's greatest achievement is that without intending to do so he opened up a lot of safety valves, he released a lot of pressure. He accustomed the people to debate and even his peaceful form of departure, his resignation, is a testimony to what he achieved, namely the peaceful transformation, not reform, but transformation of the system he wanted to save and which he helped to bury.

MR. LEHRER: Do you feel any sadness for him, this man who was considered, as Robin said in his biography, won the Nobel Peace Prize, in this country is considered,as you said, you know, almost in heroic terms as essentially pushed out and has been humiliated publicly?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Yes, I do. You know, I've spent my whole life in a sense not only observing but in a sense fighting that system because I've always felt that it epitomized evil. Gorbachev was the first Soviet leader who had no blood on his hands, no blood on his hands, but every one of the preceding leaders had their hands covered with blood. He was basically a decent man.

MR. LEHRER: You mean that the things that they did in earlier - -

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Incarnations or while at the top contributed to the death of a lot of people. Gorbachev was not. George Kennan speculated on why he was different. He suggested it might have had something to do with his law school education. Maybe. I also think it had a lot to do with his childhood. He came from a part of Russia which had never known slavery, which had always free peasantry, where people were more open-minded, more sure of themselves, a very remote and unusual part of Russia, and I think this shaped a man who was slightly more open-ended, open-minded, more willing to experiment, and then in the final analysis all great people are mysteries. We don't know why they're great. And I don't think we can ascribe it to a school or a training course. It's something in them. He had the greatness but his greatness was tragic. In that sense, yes, I do feel sorry for him.

MR. LEHRER: Where would you put him, on what kind of list would you put him of the great men and women of history? Who would be on that list, right before him or right after him?

DR. BRZEZINSKI: I think that chapter is yet to be written and we all rewrite our histories, we reevaluate our presidents, we think of them one way five years later, differently. I think a great deal depends on what happens in Russia and in the former Soviet Union from now on. If the change continues to be peaceful, he could well go down in history as a very great figure, in some respects let's say comparable to Lincoln, who died shortly after civil war which was fought for something very fundamentally important, but if the Soviet Union slides into an abyss, the former Soviet Union, we will have to get accustomed to that --

MR. LEHRER: I'm not sure what we're supposed to call it.

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Exactly. CIS, I guess.

MR. LEHRER: That's right.

DR. BRZEZINSKI: If it slides into an abyss, if it becomes dominated by violence, if there's a massive social implosion, then Gorbachev will be seen more as a fighter, as the man who opened the doors but didn't know what to do once the threshold has been crossed.

MR. LEHRER: And even though he not only is no longer in control of events, he can't even influence events anymore from this point on.

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Well, I suppose he can be helpful in trying to stimulate Western assistance to the former Soviet Union, and I think we have to now really start thinking very seriously how we deal with that enormous region, the former Soviet Union, and I think we have to become much more energetic now and getting involved on the republican level, on the regional level. We have to make haste in getting missions into all of the different portions of the former Soviet Union, into the new capitals, establish relationships with the new elite and try to rebuild the infrastructure of their societies, because the real problem is not the short range problem of food or medicines. The real problem is a fundamental reconstruction of society, both institutionally and philosophically. And for this we have very few remedies, few models, no concepts. That is the challenge we now face.

MR. LEHRER: Dr. Brzezinski, thank you very much for being with us, and again, Merry Christmas to you, sir.

DR. BRZEZINSKI: Merry Christmas to you. FOCUS - NEW BEGINNINGS

MR. LEHRER: Next, finishing the unfinished business of the Vietnam War. By next year, the U.S. government expects to have processed and brought to America all children of American servicemen and Vietnamese women who want to come to this country. The total number of these Amerasians is about 70,000. When they come here, they face a country to which they are connected but about which they know almost nothing. Spencer Michels of public station KQED San Francisco reports.

MR. MICHELS: They act like Americans. They dress like Americans. They eat like Americans and they look like Americans. In fact, their fathers as far as they know are Americans. These immigrants are trying hard to be Americans, but it is not easy.

IMMIGRANT: Hi. My name Kim. I am American. Everybody say my pronunciation don't correct. I wish all of you pardon me.

MR. MICHELS: 19 year old Kim Win has been in the United States two months. He is an Amerasian born of a Vietnamese mother and an American father during the Vietnam War. He spends most of his time learning English from tapes and a book. [KIM LISTENING TO BOOK ON TAPE AND REPEATING THE WORDS OUT LOUD]

MR. MICHELS: Kim and other Amerasians are here as the result of a law passed by Congress in 1987 allowing them and their families into the United States. Currently, they are arriving at the rate of 2500 a month. Their life is a struggle in America as it was in Vietnam. They grew up mostly poor and despised, of mixed race, some looking white, some black, some Hispanic. The Vietnamese shunned and taunted them as half-breeds, unwanted in a racially pure society. For more than a decade, the plight of Amerasians was mostly ignored by all but a few Americans, and with no diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the United States, arranging for immigration was complicated and slow. Now, under the Amerasian Homecoming Act, the government is funding resettlement programs like this one near San Jose, California, which is directed by Sister Marilyn Lacey of Catholic Charities.

SISTER MARILYN LACEY, Catholic Charities: They're really our kids and it's a tragedy that we forgot them for as long as we did and didn't bring them over here when they were young children and could easily have been adopted or put into good schools and made the adjustment so that they would have grown up Americans.

MR. MICHELS: More than 17,000 Amerasians will come to the United States this year out of a total of 70,000 Vietnamese immigrants. Many of them will make their way to cities like San Jose, which already have a thriving Vietnamese community. Amerasians hope and expect that the discrimination they felt in Vietnam will be left behind. But that doesn't always happen. Jenny Dang, an Amerasian who came to the United States in 1984, still feels some discrimination. She is married now and expecting a baby, secure in a new life, happy she left her homeland, where Vietnamese used to throw stones at her and call her names. But some of that remains.

JENNY DANG, Amerasian: It's more subtle than before. You know, we don't have kids running around calling you half-breed but it's still there, you know, just a little bit.

MR. MICHELS: For the most part, Jenny's transition to life in America has been successful, but she knows how hard the road is.

JENNY DANG: I work with Amerasians in the past year. I learned that about like 30 percent of them are very, you know, eager to become American, eager to get ahead. But they are, at least 60 to 70 percent are still confused.

MR. MICHELS: Thai Mai is one of those having a rough time. He has been here 10 months and is often alone. Speaking virtually no English, he can't find a job and has had trouble making friends. He spends much of his time at a coffee shop where only Vietnamese can be heard above the music. Young Amerasians hanging around places like this worry the social workers at Catholic Charities.

SISTER MARILYN LACEY: There's an element in the Amerasian population as there is in any population that is involved in anti- social or criminal activities or drugs or gangs. We figure this could be something that a larger proportion of the Amerasians would be at risk for and that's why we propose the setting up of these programs at the local level that would kind of what we call front load the services.

MR. MICHELS: In order to head off potential problems, Amerasians are encouraged to attend English classes given every day and meant to get them up to speed on American life. [ENGLISH CLASS]

MR. MICHELS: Using some U.S. government and some private funds, Catholic Charities provides the Amerasians with counseling, job development and even a social life. But for many of them, fulfillment of the American dream revolves around knowing their fathers. They are young adults now and on average have reached the age their fathers were when they were in Vietnam. They hope that finding their fathers will give them an identity, a sense of acceptance. Some have only a picture, a first name, a 20 year old address, and false expectations.

SISTER MARILYN LACEY: When the first Amerasians began coming several years ago, the media gave a lot of attention to the reunions with the American fathers. And those were beautiful, heart warming stories. But they were very isolated incidents. They are in no way typical of what happens to most Amerasians. Most Amerasians and their mothers have not had any contact with the fathers in ten or fifteen years and do not now know where to locate them.

MR. MICHELS: The Red Cross and the military try on request to find fathers, but reunions take place in only 2 percent of the cases.

JENNY DANG: When I got here, I tried everything. I tried to contact the military. I tried to use whatever I know to search for him, but I didn't get anywhere, and I came to realize that, you know, why, I'm an adult now, why don't I just go on and live my life, and, umm, unfortunately, you know, that I don't know my father, but it doesn't mean that I don't know my identity.

MR. MICHELS: Amerasians more recently arrived haven't yet given up. Tri Tran, here with a caseworker, wants to make contact with the man in this photo his mother gave him.

TRI TRAN: [Speaking through Interpreter] I have his picture and his address. I just want to say only one word, daddy.

MR. MICHELS: Amerasians not only feel the loss of their fathers, in many cases coming to America has meant being cut off from other relatives. The Homecoming Act allowed Amerasians to bring their families with them to America. But as has happened in many cases, Tri's real family was too poor to pay for the immigration papers. So a richer family bought him so they could get out of Vietnam with him.

TRI TRAN, Amerasian: [Speaking through Interpreter] When I knew that U.S. government agreed to sponsor Amerasians to the U.S., II would like to go but my family was so poor, then my mom had to give me to an adoptee family.

MR. MICHELS: Other Amerasians have faced a different dilemma. Until recently, the U.S. government allowed them to bring out either their mother and siblings or their spouse and children, not both. Twenty-one year old Hau Tran had to decide. His cousin translates.

HAU TRAN, Amerasian: [Speaking through Interpreter] He had two choices. If he wanted to go with his family, then he could go with his family, then he can't go with his wife, but if he wanted to go with his wife, he couldn't go with his family.

MR. MICHELS: Hau chose his family. His wife and infant son remain in Vietnam, while he lives in San Jose with his mother, stepfather and half-sister and brother. He hopes to be reunited, but for his wife, immigrating could take up to 10 years.

MR. MICHELS: It makes you sad?

HAU TRAN: Yeah, every night. You know, when I miss her, I go to school.

MR. MICHELS: The either/or rule was recently changed but too late for Hau. He's making the best of it, despite his broken English, finding a job, buying a car and planning for his life. Sister Marilyn thinks most of her charges will overcome the tough odds, even if it takes a lifetime.

SISTER MARILYN LACEY: I've seen victims of Pol Pot's massacre in Cambodia. I've seen torture victims from Ethiopia. I've seen them from Central America. Now I have the Amerasians. People make it when you give them a helping hand and a chance.

MR. MICHELS: Amerasian resettlement has been proceeding full boor for two years now and has about another year to go. By then, nearly all the Amerasians who want to will have left Vietnam for the land of their fathers. FINALLY - FREE SPEECH IN AMERICA

MR. LEHRER: We close this Christmas night with something entirely different from somebody entirely familiar. For the past several weeks, Roger Rosenblatt, our regular essayist and editor at large of Life Magazine, has been performing in his own one man show at New York City's American Place Theater. The show is called "Free Speech in America." We shot part of a special performance of it given at Columbia University as part of the Journalism School's celebration of the Bill of Rights.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: I was introduced to the power of the written word in the apartment house in which I grew up as a boy. My mother was a junior high school English teacher and she worked late in the afternoons and I would visit three elderly women who lived in the apartment directly above ours. They lived in a kind of antique splendor, these three women, each doing her own thing, as none of them would have said. Miss Prescott was a librarian here at Columbia, Ms. Jordane a novelist at one time had been editor in chief of Harper's Bazaar Magazine. Miss Cutler was a painter and a potter. Her forbearers came over on the Mayflower. It was she I believe who had the money. They lived in a dark museum of an apartment with shields and swords on the walls and ivory carved elephants on the table. I remember at the age of five thinking it noteworthy that people would carve elephants out of ivory but I drew no conclusion. And they had framed coats of arms on the walls and a free standing suit of armor in the hall. The women would read to me. They would read aloud to me, from Dr. Doolittle and Jules Verne and the Wind & the Willows, and Mark Twain's "Tom Sawyer," and eventually Huckleberry Finn. At the age of five, of course, I didn't understand Huckleberry Finn but I could tell, as kids can by watching the reactions of grown-ups, that this was a very important book, perhaps even a sacred book. It was Miss Cutler of the Mayflower who always read Huckleberry Finn and the dark museum of an apartment would take on a mysterious silence whenever she would come to the passage that I would like to share with you and honor this afternoon. You know this passage. It's where Huck is deciding to turn Jim in, Jim, the runaway slave, and Huck knows that he's going to go to hell if he doesn't because he's disobeying the law. So he writes a letter to Miss Watson, Jim's owner, and he sets the letter aside and he thinks, "I felt all good and washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life and I know'd I could pray now. But I didn't so straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking, thinking how good it was all this happened so and how near I came to being lost and going to hell and set there thinking and went on thinking, and got to thinking over our trip down the river. And I see'd Jim before me all the time in the day and in the nighttime, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we are floatin' along, talking, singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no place to harden myself against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n so I could go on sleeping and see him, how glad he was when I came out of the fog, and when I came to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was and such like times, and would always call me honey and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was. And at last I struck the time. I saved him by telling the men we had small pox aboard and he was so grateful and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only friend he's got now. And then I happened to look around and see that paper. It was a close place. I took it up and held it in my hand. I was a trembling because I'd got to decide forever betwixt two things and I know'd it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself, all right, then, I'll go to hell, and tore it up." I wanted to read that passage aloud to you as it was read to me not only because it's a beautiful example of free speech, but because it tells us why free speech matters. I think it's important for us once in a while to remind one another why free speech matters. The passage says that all people are equal and that the good and correct acts of judgment that we make are more important than the misjudgments of others even when those misjudgments have the power of laws. It also says that we are obliged to go against the tide on and off the river, when our moral consciences are going in the right direction and the tide is not. But most of all, that passage, which is an example of free speech, after all, of free expression, says that through language we are able to develop our own moral consciences, on our own. Being born free, we are able to figure out who we are, guided by nothing but what is inside us which seeks to come out. By working through his problem on his own, Huck was not only able to figure out who he was, he created himself, he created himself. That is what free speech allows. That is what it encourages. That is why it matters. And if the self one creates is decent enough, then free speech is put to very good use. Every American writer who is worth anything is aboard that raft of Huck and Jim. Their words are made on the raft and they fly above the river. They fly above a country that tears itself to shreds and is capable of immense cruelty and immense wrong, and of straining against its own proper heart, and still from time to time learns something about itself and for the better survives. The beauty of free speech when it is written is that it lasts. It may be handed down from raft to raft and from light to light and may wind up anywhere on the river, the words. The words are who we are and who we might become. The words -- they may wind up in Lexington or Concord or Harper's Ferry, or Gettysburg, or Watts, or Skokie, or Bensonhurst, or Howard Beach or Crown Heights. The words may even wind up in the hands of an old woman whose forbearers came over on the Mayflower, as she reads to a five year old Jewish boy in a dark museum of an apartment in New York about a kid from the South and the black man who loved him and whom he loved. So we sail on. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Also in the news today, fighting continued in Yugoslavia's republic of Croatia. Pope John Paul II used his Christmas message to the world to call for peace in Yugoslavia. He said passions and violence defy reason and common sense in Croatia and its neighboring regions. There was a different kind of violence in Texas this Christmas Day. More heavy rain fell in areas where flooding has already killed 15 people and left hundreds homeless. It has rained six straight days in the Austin area. Officials said the damage there may exceed $20 million. And that's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll see you tomorrow night. Have a good holiday evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.