The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour (PBS) - 1993-04-13
Channel: malgent
Transcript
Language: English (original, YouTube automatic captions)
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[0:30] And viewers like you.
[0:32] A United Nations aid convoy today
[0:34] evacuated 800 Muslim refugees from the
[0:37] Bosnian town of Srebrenica. Among them
[0:39] were dozens wounded when Serb shells
[0:42] pounded the town yesterday killing at
[0:43] least 56 people including 15 children.
[0:47] The refugee convoy arrived this evening
[0:49] in the Muslim stronghold of Tuzla. The
[0:51] trucks were covered with tarpaulins to
[0:53] protect the Muslims from Serb youths. UN
[0:55] officials say they have stoned previous
[0:57] refugee convoys.
[0:59] The head of UN refugee operations in
[1:01] Bosnia bitterly denounced the Bosnian
[1:03] Serb army for forcing the Muslims of
[1:06] Srebrenica to choose between transported
[1:08] like cattle or slaughtered like sheep.
[1:11] We'll have more on the Bosnian story
[1:12] later in the program. Kitty.
[1:15] In South Africa the alleged killer of
[1:17] African National Congress leader Chris
[1:19] Hani appeared in court today and was
[1:22] ordered held until May 12th. He is a
[1:24] white man with ties to right-wing
[1:26] groups. African National Congress
[1:28] supporters protested outside the
[1:30] courthouse. But ANC leader Nelson
[1:33] Mandela pleaded for calm. The government
[1:36] has ordered curfews in several districts
[1:38] where violence has flared after Hani's
[1:40] killing. We'll have more on the story
[1:42] later in the program.
[1:46] Israeli helicopter gunships and
[1:48] artillery pounded several villages in
[1:50] southern Lebanon today. The attacks
[1:52] followed a roadside bombing earlier in
[1:54] the day that killed three Israeli
[1:57] soldiers on patrol. Two others were
[1:59] wounded. The bombing was claimed by the
[2:02] radical Muslim group Hezbollah which is
[2:04] opposed to the Middle East peace talks.
[2:07] Those talks are set to resume next week
[2:09] in Washington.
[2:11] Officials in Hanoi have said a newly
[2:13] discovered document about American POWs
[2:16] is a fraud and a fabrication. The
[2:18] document was found in Soviet archives in
[2:21] Moscow. It says the Vietnamese held more
[2:23] than 1200 US prisoners near the end of
[2:26] the Vietnam War. But a few months after
[2:28] it was allegedly written they released
[2:30] fewer than 600 saying they were the only
[2:32] US prisoners being held. Vietnamese
[2:35] government officials today blamed the
[2:37] memo on unnamed people who wanted to
[2:39] sabotage a renewal of US Vietnamese
[2:41] relations.
[2:43] In Washington Senator Robert Smith
[2:45] Republican of New Hampshire and a member
[2:46] of the Select Committee on POWs and MIAs
[2:50] held a news conference with members of
[2:51] MIA families. He had this to say.
[2:56] We're here to stand united today in
[2:59] strong opposition to normalization with
[3:02] Vietnam and strong opposition to
[3:04] relaxing the trade embargo or
[3:06] or removing the trade embargo and
[3:08] certainly in opposition to
[3:10] any loans from the International
[3:12] Monetary Fund or any other international
[3:14] fund to provide funds to the Vietnamese
[3:16] unless and until they provided the
[3:19] fullest possible accounting for all of
[3:21] our missing.
[3:22] A State Department spokesman said the
[3:24] document will be the first thing on the
[3:26] US agenda when talks on normalization of
[3:28] relations with Vietnam now resume there
[3:31] next week. We'll have more on the story
[3:33] right after the news summary.
[3:35] The standoff continued today at a prison
[3:37] in southern Ohio. Officials discovered
[3:40] the body of an inmate today, the seventh
[3:42] found since inmates rioted and took over
[3:45] a cell block at the Lucasville, Ohio
[3:47] prison on Sunday. Eight guards are being
[3:50] held hostage by the rebellious
[3:51] prisoners. Inmates used a loudspeaker
[3:54] today to complain about the slow pace of
[3:57] negotiations with authorities.
[3:59] In economic news the Commerce Department
[4:01] reported retail sales fell a full
[4:04] percent in March. It was the worst
[4:06] decline in more than two years. The
[4:08] department said last month's big East
[4:10] Coast blizzard was partly to blame.
[4:12] Administration officials claimed the
[4:14] report highlighted the need for
[4:15] President Clinton's $16 billion economic
[4:18] stimulus plan which remains blocked by a
[4:21] Republican filibuster in the Senate.
[4:23] Meanwhile Japan today approved an
[4:25] economic stimulus plan of its own. The
[4:28] $117 billion dollar package is aimed
[4:31] partly at reducing the country's record
[4:33] trade surplus by stimulating domestic
[4:35] consumption of imports. US displeasure
[4:38] over Japan's trade imbalance with the US
[4:41] is expected to be high on the agenda
[4:43] when President Clinton meets with
[4:44] Japan's Prime Minister later this week.
[4:47] President Clinton helped commemorate
[4:49] Thomas Jefferson's 250th birthday today.
[4:52] The ceremonies were at the Jefferson
[4:54] Memorial in Washington. It was also the
[4:56] 50th anniversary of the dedication of
[4:59] the memorial which is surrounded by the
[5:01] famous cherry blossom trees currently in
[5:04] full bloom. Mr. Clinton used the
[5:06] opportunity to campaign for his
[5:07] legislative agenda. He drew parallels
[5:10] between Jefferson's philosophy of
[5:12] government and his own policy.
[5:16] Thomas Jefferson understood
[5:18] that no politician
[5:20] no government no piece of paper
[5:23] could do for the American people what
[5:24] they would have to do for themselves. He
[5:27] understood
[5:28] better perhaps than any of his
[5:30] colleagues that the people of this
[5:32] country would always have to be not only
[5:34] the protectors of their own liberty
[5:36] but the agents of their own
[5:37] transformation and change.
[5:39] But he also knew that government must be
[5:41] willing to supply the tools of that
[5:44] change.
[5:46] And that very simply is our task today.
[5:50] In Charlottesville, Virginia today
[5:52] former Soviet President Mikhail
[5:54] Gorbachev attended ceremonies
[5:56] commemorating Jefferson's birthday at
[5:58] the University of Virginia which
[6:00] Jefferson founded. Gorbachev said
[6:02] Jefferson often inspired him as he tried
[6:05] to bring democratic changes to the
[6:06] Soviet Union.
[6:08] The Pulitzer Prizes were awarded today.
[6:10] The Washington Post won three including
[6:13] one for a pre-election examination of
[6:15] candidate Bill Clinton's record. The
[6:17] Miami Herald won the public service gold
[6:19] medal for its coverage of Hurricane
[6:21] Andrew. The Pulitzer Prize for fiction
[6:24] went to Robert Olen Butler for the novel
[6:26] A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain.
[6:28] David McCullough won the biography award
[6:30] for his book Truman and Garry Wills won
[6:33] the general non-fiction prize for his
[6:35] study of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
[6:38] That's it for our summary of the day's
[6:39] top stories. Just ahead on the NewsHour,
[6:42] did Vietnam hide the number of American
[6:44] prisoners of war? What's next for
[6:46] Yugoslavia? We hear from Henry Kissinger
[6:49] and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Then a report
[6:52] from South Africa on the impact of the
[6:54] weekend assassination of an ANC leader
[6:57] and an Amy Wallace essay.
[7:08] We begin tonight with the latest twist
[7:10] in the often twisted tale of the fate of
[7:12] 2200 US servicemen still missing from
[7:15] the Vietnam War.
[7:16] Resolution of the missing-in-action
[7:18] issue is the major obstacle to
[7:20] establishing full diplomatic relations
[7:22] between the US and Vietnam 20 years
[7:24] after the Paris Peace Accords ended the
[7:27] American combat role in that country.
[7:29] President Clinton has just sent a
[7:31] special emissary to Hanoi for more
[7:33] answers on the MIA issue.
[7:35] But over the weekend came a report that
[7:37] Vietnam deliberately misled the US on
[7:40] the number of prisoners it was holding
[7:42] and would return at the end of
[7:43] hostilities in 1973.
[7:46] If verified that could mean several
[7:48] hundred Americans have since died in
[7:50] captivity or are still being held.
[7:52] The Vietnamese government has denounced
[7:54] the document as a fabrication.
[7:56] It was discovered by a Harvard
[7:58] researcher Stephen J. Morris who is
[8:00] working on a book about the war and
[8:01] that's where we begin our coverage.
[8:04] Dr. Morris you're joining us from
[8:06] Boston. Describe just how and where you
[8:09] found this document. I found the
[8:11] document in the archives of the former
[8:14] Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
[8:16] I had been given access as part of a
[8:19] group sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson
[8:23] Center for scholars in Washington, D.C.
[8:26] People working on different aspects of
[8:28] the Cold War.
[8:29] And I was the only one who was working
[8:31] on the history of the Vietnam War.
[8:33] And I should point out that I'm the only
[8:36] person outside the former Communist
[8:38] Party of the Soviet Union who has read
[8:40] these documents on the Vietnam War.
[8:42] And what were you actually looking for
[8:45] when you found this document? Well, I
[8:46] wasn't looking for this to be quite
[8:48] honest. I was looking for interesting
[8:49] information about Vietnamese Communist
[8:51] strategy during the war and the
[8:54] conditions inside North Vietnam from the
[8:56] point point of view of the Soviet Union
[8:58] because of course they had a very
[9:00] intense and
[9:02] commitment to North Vietnam. They had
[9:04] military advisers. They had KGB people.
[9:06] They had political cadres. And the
[9:08] embassy reports were extremely
[9:09] interesting. And it was in the course of
[9:11] reading some of these documents that I
[9:13] stumbled upon one which had the first
[9:16] revelations
[9:17] about American prisoners of war.
[9:20] Now, this is a document said to have
[9:22] been written by whom? It's been written
[9:25] by Lieutenant General Tran Van Quang who
[9:28] was then the Deputy Chief of Staff of
[9:31] the North Vietnamese Army.
[9:32] And he was giving a report to the
[9:35] Politburo of the Vietnamese Communist
[9:37] Party. In fact, this was not the first
[9:39] document I've read by him. The previous
[9:41] report that he'd written on June 12th
[9:43] which doesn't deal with the question of
[9:44] prisoners of war by the way,
[9:46] I have also read there. Uh-huh. And this
[9:48] had been passed on by the Vietnamese
[9:50] Politburo to the Russian what or Soviet
[9:53] >> No, I don't know how it got into the
[9:56] archives. But based on reading a lot of
[9:58] other documents
[10:00] a lot of other documents which were
[10:01] provided to the Central Committee by the
[10:04] uh by the Soviet military, that is to
[10:06] the Soviet Central Committee by the
[10:08] Soviet military.
[10:09] I believe that the Soviet military
[10:12] intelligence had informers uh
[10:15] within the highest levels of the
[10:16] Vietnamese Communist Party. I don't
[10:17] believe the Vietnamese Communist Party
[10:19] would necessarily have given such a
[10:21] document, but somebody gave it to the to
[10:23] the Soviet. Now, in addition to giving
[10:25] the new total of 1,205
[10:28] prisoners, roughly three times what we
[10:31] thought were there,
[10:33] it says the prisoners were grouped
[10:34] politically. Would you explain that? Uh
[10:37] yes, they were grouped according to
[10:38] their political orientation into uh what
[10:41] the Vietnamese called progressive, uh
[10:44] reactionary, and neutralist, according
[10:46] to whether they took the Vietnamese
[10:48] Communist line on the war, according to
[10:50] whether they were critical of President
[10:51] Nixon and the United States or not. And
[10:54] they were uh figures uh numbers given
[10:56] out. And for example, they said that the
[10:58] 368 of the prisoners were politically
[11:01] progressive, and these prisoners would
[11:03] be released in the first instance.
[11:04] Uh-huh. And the most reactionary, to use
[11:07] their term, were the senior officers in
[11:10] the group.
[11:10] >> Uh yes, not only the senior officers,
[11:12] but they said that all the senior
[11:14] officers were reactionary, within the
[11:16] reactionary category. In other words,
[11:18] were defending the American
[11:19] administration's position on the war.
[11:21] >> uh succumb to Vietnamese Communist
[11:22] propaganda. And from the copy reproduced
[11:25] in the New York Times today, it uh it
[11:27] states frankly that Hanoi was not
[11:29] telling the truth. I mean, is it
[11:31] correct?
[11:31] >> Yeah, they say very explicitly, "Up
[11:33] until now, we have only spoken of 368
[11:36] prisoners. This is not the correct
[11:37] number." In fact, this report uh
[11:40] is uh
[11:42] very definite in saying, "This is the
[11:43] first time that I, a representative of
[11:46] the Vietnamese People's Army, are
[11:48] telling you, members of the Politburo,
[11:50] how many prisoners we are holding."
[11:52] Of course, he says uh at the beginning
[11:55] of the document, "All the work that we
[11:57] are doing with the prisoners is under
[11:58] the direct supervision of the Politburo
[12:00] of the Communist Party Vietnam. But this
[12:02] is the first time I'm giving you the
[12:03] actual number."
[12:05] Now, in Hanoi, and their ambassador uh
[12:08] at the United Nations, Le Bang, says
[12:11] that this is a forgery, and it's a
[12:13] forgery designed to block improved
[12:15] relations.
[12:16] I assume you think it's authentic. Yeah,
[12:19] well, I'm not sure who he thinks forged
[12:20] it. Um
[12:22] uh there was uh in part of the media
[12:23] circus that's going on now uh over this
[12:26] issue, uh
[12:27] a uh commentator on CNN earlier today uh
[12:30] suggested that Boris Yeltsin uh and his
[12:33] administration forged the document,
[12:35] inserted it in the archives,
[12:37] uh and used me as a patsy to deliver it
[12:39] to the Clinton administration and the
[12:41] American public as a way of getting aid
[12:43] to Russia.
[12:44] What
[12:46] What convinces you of it of its
[12:48] authenticity? Uh
[12:51] Okay, many things convince me of of its
[12:53] authenticity. Uh for example, the
[12:55] language. Uh for example, the
[12:57] discussion. There are many other issues
[12:58] discussed in this document, by the way.
[13:00] The question of the American prisoners
[13:02] of war only comes at the end of the
[13:04] document. Uh and uh a lot of the
[13:07] discussion of um the uh approaches they
[13:10] had made, for example, to South
[13:11] Vietnamese uh politicians to try and get
[13:13] them involved in a coalition government
[13:15] uh rings very true with the discus the
[13:17] analysis. Uh the dis the discussion of a
[13:20] of a dispatch dispatch of a team of
[13:22] assassins to South Vietnam. But the most
[13:24] important thing, I think, which
[13:26] convinces me this is a genuine document,
[13:29] uh is the fact that there's an
[13:30] accompanying document
[13:32] where I would call, to use American
[13:34] bureaucratic parlance, an executive
[13:35] summary,
[13:37] which is written and signed by the head
[13:40] of Soviet military intelligence, a man,
[13:43] Mr. Ivan Shcherbakov, who was head of
[13:45] Soviet military intelligence for 25
[13:47] years.
[13:47] Now, the fact that he signed off
[13:50] on this suggests that the Soviet
[13:53] leadership believed that this was an
[13:55] authentic Vietnamese document. Mhm. And
[13:58] uh I am one who has greatest respect for
[14:00] the professional competence of uh Soviet
[14:03] military intelligence. All right. Well,
[14:05] we'll come back. I'm sorry, I said you
[14:07] were in Boston, you're not, you're in
[14:08] Washington. But um for more analysis on
[14:11] past and future US-Vietnamese relations,
[14:13] we turn to Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry
[14:16] Kissinger. Dr. Kissinger was Secretary
[14:18] of State under Presidents Nixon and
[14:20] Ford. He's now chairman of Kissinger
[14:22] Associates Incorporated, an
[14:23] international consulting firm. Dr.
[14:25] Brzezinski was National Security Advisor
[14:28] under President Carter. He's now
[14:30] counselor at the Center for Strategic
[14:32] and International Studies.
[14:34] Dr. Brzezinski, you were stated publicly
[14:36] in your quoted New York Times as
[14:37] believing the document is genuine. What
[14:40] convinces you?
[14:42] Its style,
[14:43] its content, the cover note to the
[14:46] Soviet Politburo.
[14:47] One would have to assume a really very
[14:51] complex Byzantine conspiracy
[14:54] to reach the conclusion that this is not
[14:56] an authentic Soviet document
[14:58] based on a Vietnamese document.
[15:02] I'm not prepared to argue that every
[15:04] detail in that document may be accurate.
[15:07] It was prepared, after all, under
[15:08] wartime conditions by the North
[15:10] Vietnamese, who were subjected to
[15:12] warfare and bombing. So this or that
[15:14] item, name, or figure may be wrong.
[15:17] But the style of the document, the
[15:19] numbers cited regarding Americans,
[15:21] correspond in some important respects to
[15:24] our estimates.
[15:25] And even the categorization of the
[15:27] prisoners into these different
[15:29] ideologically described groups is part
[15:33] and parcel of the technique that not
[15:35] only the Vietnamese, but the Soviets
[15:37] many years earlier had followed. Mhm.
[15:39] Dr. Kissinger, you negotiated the end of
[15:42] this war based on in part on the figures
[15:45] you were given
[15:47] and had to accept at the time by the
[15:49] Vietnamese. What do you think on the
[15:51] question of authenticity first of all of
[15:53] the document? Uh
[15:55] uh we did not negotiate the end of the
[15:57] agreement on the basis of the figures
[15:59] because they refused to give us the
[16:01] figures until the agreement was
[16:02] completed. Uh-huh. And uh that was one
[16:05] of the uh blackmails that they
[16:10] uh constantly used against us.
[16:13] Uh I have only read what it was in the
[16:15] New York Times, and I agree with Big
[16:19] that
[16:21] those parts that I know something about
[16:23] have an authentic ring. Good example,
[16:25] when they describe what their
[16:26] negotiating tactics were,
[16:29] those were the tactics they were using
[16:32] uh in negotiating with us. Also, Uh
[16:35] would you amplify on that just a little
[16:37] bit? They say in this document that
[16:40] uh
[16:40] the uh their proposals were
[16:44] first a ceasefire and the overthrow of
[16:47] President Thieu,
[16:49] after which they would use the
[16:52] uh
[16:52] prisoners to negotiate whatever other
[16:55] concerns they had.
[16:56] Now, as of the date of that document,
[16:59] those were their proposals.
[17:01] A month later, they changed it. But I
[17:03] could see that if they make if you make
[17:05] a report to the Politburo in the middle
[17:07] of September,
[17:09] and you want to summarize what the
[17:10] negotiating position is,
[17:12] this was exactly the negotiating
[17:14] position they had as of the date of that
[17:17] document.
[17:18] >> So somebody to have forged it would have
[17:20] to be very ingenious and to know the
[17:22] changes in their position 20 years ago.
[17:25] And on
[17:26] to be precise, on October 8th, about 3
[17:28] weeks after this document, they changed
[17:30] their position.
[17:32] But up to that time,
[17:34] they had insisted on exactly the
[17:37] conditions that are in that document,
[17:39] and they certainly wouldn't have told
[17:41] anybody that they were proposing to
[17:42] change it.
[17:44] Uh
[17:45] that was only that could only have been
[17:48] known to a very few people.
[17:50] And they didn't change it for another 3
[17:52] to 4 weeks. So if this is authentic, as
[17:55] you're suggesting it is, it suggests it
[17:57] may be may be that you were um you were
[18:00] just uh blatantly lied to during these
[18:04] I and every succeeding American
[18:06] administration because it was not only
[18:08] to our administration that they gave
[18:10] these figures.
[18:11] They have consistently maintained in
[18:13] every administration that they gave that
[18:16] they had held no additional prisoners,
[18:19] and that
[18:20] the
[18:22] uh
[18:23] they had given us an accurate account.
[18:25] They told it to us repeatedly.
[18:27] Uh we had a much smaller number that we
[18:29] were questioning. We were questioning
[18:30] about 80
[18:32] people where we had various reasons to
[18:33] believe that they had
[18:35] They adamantly denied this. They denied
[18:37] it to a committee of the Congress that
[18:39] visited there in 1975.
[18:41] I'm sure they denied it repeatedly to
[18:43] the administration
[18:45] in which Big was National Security uh
[18:48] advisor. It's been their permanent
[18:50] position that they have given they gave
[18:52] us an accurate account.
[18:54] Dr. Brzezinski, the New York Times
[18:56] quotes you as having a theory on what
[18:58] might have happened
[18:59] uh to the officers in question. Would
[19:02] you
[19:04] repeat it? Well, I do so with sadness
[19:07] and reluctance
[19:09] that I suspect that the Vietnamese
[19:12] had the view, as Henry indicated, that
[19:15] this would be a very prolonged conflict
[19:18] in which, at the best, the United States
[19:20] might partially disengage from South
[19:23] Vietnam,
[19:24] but would continue supporting it,
[19:26] and that further leverage on the United
[19:28] States
[19:29] would be desirable for them to have.
[19:33] That they were surprised by the extent
[19:35] of our willingness to accommodate, and
[19:38] then by the congressional unwillingness
[19:40] to support South Vietnam subsequently,
[19:43] and thus victory came sooner and more
[19:46] easily than they had expected.
[19:49] In the meantime, they had gone on record
[19:51] repeatedly as having only had the the
[19:54] number to which they admitted themselves
[19:57] to having
[19:58] and as having no more than those that
[20:00] they released.
[20:02] And they were stuck in it with a
[20:03] situation in which they no longer needed
[20:05] leverage against the United States and
[20:07] yet had several hundred surviving
[20:10] Americans
[20:11] many of whom they had classified as a
[20:13] reactionaries and therefore as enemies.
[20:16] And I'm therefore
[20:18] knowing
[20:20] how the Vietnamese regime has behaved in
[20:22] the past, for that matter how the Soviet
[20:24] regime has behaved in the past, I'm led
[20:27] sadly to the conclusion
[20:29] that in all probability sometime after
[20:31] the conclusion of the Paris agreements
[20:33] or perhaps after the fall of South
[20:35] Vietnam in 1975
[20:37] they executed those that were still
[20:40] living
[20:41] perhaps with the exception of a small
[20:43] number
[20:44] whom they retained for continuing
[20:46] intelligence or technical purposes.
[20:49] You compared it to the
[20:51] massacre by the Soviets under Stalin of
[20:54] the Soviet the Polish officer corps in
[20:56] the Katyn Wood. In other words, it's
[20:58] it's just a straight deliberate
[20:59] execution. Yes, because they were
[21:02] in effect in a situation of their own
[21:05] making. They had thought they would use
[21:07] these people as leverage on us and it's
[21:09] hinted in that report, the document
[21:11] which is now public.
[21:13] And they were then faced with a
[21:14] situation in which they no longer needed
[21:16] to exercise that leverage.
[21:18] And they had been publicly committed to
[21:20] the proposition that they had no more
[21:22] Americans
[21:24] and therefore some of them might have
[21:25] felt the leadership might have felt that
[21:27] this is the easiest way out and that
[21:29] incidentally explains the how of outrage
[21:33] that are now emanating from Hanoi.
[21:36] What do you think of Zbigniew
[21:37] Brzezinski's theory?
[21:39] Uh
[21:40] I I have no way of
[21:42] of judging it.
[21:44] Uh if the document is authentic
[21:46] then they were holding 1200 or some
[21:50] 800 people more
[21:52] uh than they acknowledged 3 months
[21:55] before the war ended.
[21:57] And
[21:58] then
[21:59] uh
[22:00] they admitted a then they committed a
[22:02] violation which would without any
[22:04] question have caused us to resume the
[22:05] war
[22:07] if we had known
[22:08] that they had done this.
[22:10] And uh
[22:13] so how they disposed of the prisoners uh
[22:17] I wouldn't begin to
[22:19] to guess.
[22:20] >> But logic logic would impel one to
[22:22] believe that either they're still alive
[22:24] somewhere or they were executed or they
[22:27] died gradually from I have never
[22:29] understood why they would want to hold
[22:31] prisoners that they didn't acknowledge.
[22:33] So if they held prisoners
[22:35] uh that they didn't acknowledge then
[22:37] there is
[22:38] uh
[22:39] considerable plausibility to this
[22:41] theory.
[22:42] Uh I don't see why they would hold them
[22:43] for 20 years
[22:45] without ever saying without ever using
[22:47] them in order to extort
[22:49] uh economic aid or whatever else.
[22:52] Uh
[22:54] uh In other words, if they held them and
[22:55] they were alive, they could have found
[22:57] some use for them. Well, one would have
[22:59] thought that if
[23:01] they held them in order to blackmail us
[23:04] they
[23:05] would have at some point produced them.
[23:09] Uh whether they thought this was no
[23:10] longer necessary after
[23:13] Saigon
[23:14] collapsed
[23:16] and to I think in fairness we have to
[23:18] admit to ourselves it collapsed because
[23:19] our Congress cut off both the ability to
[23:22] use military force
[23:24] and reduced aid by 50% in each year.
[23:28] Uh
[23:29] uh whatever the reason for the collapse
[23:32] was after that they might have believed
[23:34] that there was no longer any negotiating
[23:35] tool. I'm not at least fair to families
[23:38] that are suffering so much in these
[23:40] cases. I cannot assure that they held
[23:42] these prisoners but if that document is
[23:44] authentic
[23:45] and it is hard to imagine who would have
[23:48] forged it for what purpose
[23:50] uh
[23:51] then I think
[23:53] uh
[23:54] enormous crime has been committed and uh
[23:58] then we should we I do not see how we
[24:01] can proceed in normalizing relations
[24:03] until this is fully cleared up.
[24:05] Uh Dr. Morris, you
[24:07] presented this document when you found
[24:09] it to the or you told the Clinton
[24:11] administration about it, National
[24:13] Security Council and others but I gather
[24:15] from reports that you got very little
[24:17] they showed very little interest in it
[24:19] at first. Is that correct? Um well, I
[24:22] tried to bring it to the attention of
[24:24] the highest possible officials of the US
[24:26] government because I felt that the
[24:29] document that I had found was not the
[24:31] end of the story, it was the beginning
[24:32] of the story.
[24:34] And the questions you have raised and
[24:35] which have been answered with the
[24:37] hypothesis of Dr. Brzezinski
[24:39] can be confirmed or denied by documents
[24:43] for example citing execution. The
[24:45] communists are very methodical
[24:47] about documenting all their actions. If
[24:49] they decided to execute um 700 American
[24:53] prisoners, there will be a document
[24:54] ordering the execution. And I believe
[24:56] that as I said before given the close
[24:58] relationship between the Soviet and the
[25:01] Vietnamese leadership during these
[25:02] years, the Soviets would know about it
[25:04] and there is a document in the Soviet
[25:06] archive.
[25:07] And I the reason I went to the Clinton
[25:09] >> You're saying there should be a
[25:10] document.
[25:11] >> be a document in the Soviet archives
[25:13] passed on by a Vietnamese informant to a
[25:15] Soviet
[25:16] representative in Hanoi. Mhm. Now,
[25:18] therefore I felt that the road to
[25:21] resolving this problem lies not in Hanoi
[25:23] but in Moscow. And I believe that
[25:25] sending General Vessey is
[25:27] a foolish
[25:29] enterprise if the purpose is to find out
[25:31] what happened to the 700 American
[25:33] prisoners.
[25:33] >> General Vessey, the retired general is
[25:35] the president's special envoy to Hanoi.
[25:37] Yes, that's right. I mean I think that
[25:40] if the president of the United States
[25:42] wants to express his outrage at this
[25:45] there are other ways of doing it. I mean
[25:46] there's a basic question he has to ask.
[25:49] Um what has happened to the 700
[25:51] Americans? But if he really wants to
[25:52] find out
[25:54] um the answer will be found in the
[25:55] Russian archives and that's why I went
[25:56] to the Clinton administration to try and
[25:59] encourage them to take moves discreetly
[26:02] discreetly
[26:03] to get the Soviets to the Russians I
[26:06] should say to open other archives to
[26:08] which I don't now have access.
[26:10] And I felt that um
[26:12] uh whilst there was great interest for
[26:14] example in the Department of Defense in
[26:15] seeing the document there was no
[26:17] interest or very little interest that I
[26:19] could see either in Defense or in the
[26:21] National Security Council in proceeding
[26:23] along the path that I had suggested to
[26:25] find the rest of the paper trail.
[26:26] Uh-huh. Dr. Brzezinski
[26:30] what what kind of new condition does the
[26:32] presence of this document create for
[26:35] normalizing relations with Viet with
[26:37] Vietnam in your view? Well, first of
[26:39] all, let me just make one comment on the
[26:41] Russian aspect of it. I think we have to
[26:43] give credit to the current Russian
[26:45] government for being willing to face up
[26:47] to the truth as far as this document is
[26:49] concerned. And I'm sure it wasn't easy
[26:52] and I think we have to credit them for
[26:53] their goodwill and openness and
[26:55] hopefully they'll pursue the issue
[26:56] further.
[26:57] As far as Vietnam is concerned
[27:01] I think that if this document is
[27:03] sustained and it looks
[27:05] unfortunately
[27:07] to be sustainable
[27:09] we have the right to ask the present
[27:11] Vietnamese government to place those
[27:14] responsible on war crimes trials. There
[27:16] has been some change in the composition
[27:18] of that government. Communist
[27:20] governments have a unique capacity to
[27:22] rewrite past history and to condemn
[27:25] their predecessors.
[27:26] At the very least there should be some
[27:29] sort of a moral accounting
[27:31] similar to the one that the Russians for
[27:33] example gave with respect to the Polish
[27:35] officers when they acknowledged to the
[27:37] Poles ultimately that they did it and
[27:39] that Gorbachev did that a couple of
[27:41] years ago.
[27:42] >> Exactly and that they regretted it and
[27:43] it was their criminal predecessors that
[27:45] did it.
[27:46] At least some moral satisfaction is owed
[27:48] the United States
[27:50] and a great deal of that is owed
[27:51] directly to the families involved who
[27:53] have suffered so much for so long and
[27:56] have so often been rebuffed even by
[27:58] parts
[27:59] of the US bureaucracy. Dr. Kissinger,
[28:02] what's your view on what factor this is
[28:05] in the attempt to normalize relations?
[28:07] Well, I don't think that we can
[28:09] normalize relations or ease conditions
[28:12] in international agencies until we have
[28:15] uh cleared up this issue.
[28:17] Uh one way to do it is to ask the
[28:19] Vietnamese
[28:20] who who deserves credit for producing
[28:22] this document
[28:24] to produce other documents that are
[28:26] relevant to American prisoners because
[28:27] they must have many more.
[28:29] Uh another one is perhaps to re-question
[28:32] our own prisoners
[28:34] uh the returned prisoners to see
[28:36] how much of that document can be
[28:38] sustained
[28:39] from what they know. I mean, were these
[28:41] prisoners do they know of any separation
[28:43] of prisoners
[28:44] uh and uh and similar matters.
[28:48] Uh but I don't see how we can proceed uh
[28:52] with North Vietnamese or with Vietnamese
[28:54] normalization
[28:56] until this question is cleared up and I
[28:57] think
[28:59] uh if it should be this document should
[29:01] be authenticated some of the measures
[29:03] that
[29:04] uh Dr. Brzezinski put forward
[29:07] would be very appropriate.
[29:10] Well, Dr. Kissinger, Dr. Brzezinski,
[29:12] stay with us because we're going to move
[29:13] on. Judy.
[29:25] Now we turn to the story in Bosnia.
[29:27] Today 800 Muslims were evacuated from
[29:30] the town of Srebrenica which came under
[29:32] Serb artillery fire on Monday. Food
[29:35] supplies are running low throughout the
[29:37] country. We have a report from Eastern
[29:39] Bosnia by Jane Bennett Powell of
[29:41] Independent Television News.
[29:44] The convoy seen here at Bratunac
[29:47] Serb-held territory was given relatively
[29:49] uninterrupted passage on the journey
[29:51] from Srebrenica according to the UN High
[29:53] Commissioner for Refugees tonight.
[29:57] A search was carried out here, but the
[29:59] speed of their journey indicates few
[30:01] delays for the evacuees.
[30:03] Fewer than a tenth of them are wounded,
[30:05] suggesting many of last night's injured
[30:07] are still in Srebrenica.
[30:11] Only six trucks took aid into the town
[30:13] where food supplies are low and the
[30:15] water is thought to be infected. The
[30:17] fear is that rising panic may have led
[30:19] to another storming of the six trucks,
[30:21] which then transferred some of their
[30:22] human cargo to make a more comfortable
[30:24] journey to Tuzla.
[30:27] When the amateur radio operators in
[30:29] Tuzla last made contact with Srebrenica
[30:31] late last night, it was to hear how the
[30:33] 6,000 inhabitants and 34,000 or so
[30:36] refugees who are now there took hours of
[30:38] shelling by the Serbs who surround them.
[30:44] The feeling is that all old men help us
[30:46] and two o'clock this afternoon there's
[30:48] been multiple killings and bombardments.
[30:50] What I've heard is that especially
[30:53] the the school the refugee place is is
[30:55] hit quite severely where about thousand
[30:57] people are living at this moment. It's
[30:59] also close to the hospital. I had no
[31:01] information how bad the hospital was
[31:03] damaged, but it's it's clear that that
[31:05] especially that center was was hit.
[31:09] If Srebrenica is the most prominent
[31:11] instance of life under siege in Bosnia,
[31:13] it's not the only one. Thousands of
[31:15] villagers still live on the front line,
[31:17] staying on to defend their homes,
[31:19] reluctant human shields.
[31:23] 7 km along from where the Srebrenica
[31:25] convoys cross into territory held by the
[31:27] Bosnian government, the Serbs have tried
[31:29] to advance and nearly cut off the pocket
[31:32] of land.
[31:34] In Jajce, sheltered to some degree by
[31:36] the brow of the hill, the inhabitants
[31:38] live on. Their fear that if they leave,
[31:41] the soldiers would have no will to fight
[31:42] on and that the Serbs would sweep in and
[31:45] burn their homes.
[31:50] Men here say the UN Security Council,
[31:53] which is due to discuss the arms embargo
[31:55] soon, should lift it so they can fight
[31:57] the war on a level playing field.
[32:00] They're dismayed that the British
[32:01] Foreign Secretary for one has said it
[32:03] would merely create a level killing
[32:05] field.
[32:07] The local commander here doesn't believe
[32:09] it would escalate the war.
[32:13] It won't. It'll just balance things out
[32:15] with the enemy.
[32:16] And it will help to end the war more
[32:18] quickly.
[32:19] We have the will and the power and time
[32:22] now.
[32:23] Everything to get back our territory.
[32:29] Whether more arms would end the war or
[32:31] merely escalate it, many Bosnians share
[32:34] the view of the UN special envoy here
[32:36] that the solution to the killing in
[32:38] front line villages is not to evacuate
[32:40] women and children, but to enforce the
[32:42] cease-fire.
[32:44] Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski
[32:46] are back with us now to discuss the
[32:48] situation in Bosnia.
[32:50] Dr. Brzezinski, is there any rational
[32:52] explanation for this latest attack by
[32:55] the Serb forces on the town of
[32:56] Srebrenica and on Sarajevo where you
[32:58] have mostly civilians with little
[33:01] military defense? Well, there is a
[33:04] rational explanation. It's an immoral
[33:06] one. It's an unacceptable one, but there
[33:09] is. Namely, the Serbs are feeding their
[33:11] oats.
[33:12] They have concluded that the
[33:14] international community,
[33:16] the United States in the forefront,
[33:18] have neither the will nor the guts
[33:21] nor the motivation
[33:23] to take care of this problem.
[33:25] We're dealing here, I think, with a
[33:27] massive moral and geopolitical failure,
[33:31] an outrage in fact,
[33:33] and I think the Serbs are conscious
[33:35] of what is happening on the ground and
[33:38] are exploiting it.
[33:39] Dr. Kissinger, do you see it the same
[33:41] way?
[33:42] Uh I think what the Serbs are doing is a
[33:45] moral outrage.
[33:46] Uh
[33:47] I have
[33:49] more difficulty
[33:51] trying to understand what it is that
[33:54] the United States is supposed to do
[33:56] militarily
[33:58] in order to resist it.
[34:01] And I am very uneasy about starting
[34:04] military operations whose nature I
[34:06] cannot describe
[34:08] and whose end result
[34:11] uh
[34:12] uh is not calculable from the statements
[34:14] of some of the advocates.
[34:16] Uh
[34:17] I uh
[34:18] this is my this is my concern about uh
[34:23] about military operations. If we wanted
[34:25] to say
[34:27] that we insist on a cease-fire and that
[34:29] we will
[34:31] resist any new military operation, that
[34:34] we will confine our actions to that,
[34:37] uh I could support this, but I would be
[34:39] reluctant to see
[34:41] significant American ground operations
[34:44] in an area that's far removed
[34:48] from the United States and
[34:51] uh
[34:51] for which I cannot
[34:53] visualize what the end would be
[34:57] uh because having just gone through this
[34:58] Vietnam discussion,
[35:00] I do not want to see another repetition
[35:02] of a similar situation, but I agree
[35:04] completely
[35:05] with what Brzezinski said that the what
[35:08] the Serbs are doing
[35:10] is a moral and human outrage.
[35:12] >> Well, since you've gone ahead and
[35:13] brought up the prospect of the
[35:15] discussion of of the use of potential
[35:18] use of US military force, is that the
[35:21] only thing is outside military force in
[35:24] your view the only thing that could stop
[35:25] the course of events over there now? You
[35:27] know, actually I believe that if the
[35:29] United States and Western Europe
[35:30] together had taken a tough stance and
[35:33] indicated a willingness to use force,
[35:35] the Serbs would have backed off. Earlier
[35:37] on.
[35:37] >> Yes, because there is not unanimity in
[35:40] Serbia on behalf of the war. Significant
[35:42] segments of Serbian population are
[35:45] uneasy, troubled and worried.
[35:48] But we didn't do that. Nor can we do it
[35:50] now. The political fact is there's no
[35:53] willingness in the United States to do
[35:54] it, nor in Europe.
[35:56] And therefore in that context,
[35:58] attempting to put American troops in
[36:00] probably doesn't make much sense. But
[36:03] this doesn't mean that we couldn't do
[36:04] some other things which would be at
[36:06] least partial responses. One, really
[36:09] enforce the no-fly zone.
[36:11] This present attempt at enforcement, so
[36:13] much delayed, is really a joke if you
[36:15] look at the rules of engagement. Two, we
[36:18] should put troops in now in southern
[36:20] Macedonia
[36:21] and Kosovo or in Albania next to Kosovo
[36:24] to both deter the war.
[36:25] >> of the former Yugoslavia. Exactly. And
[36:27] three, we should provide arms, lift the
[36:30] embargo on the Bosnians. When the
[36:32] British secretary says Do you really
[36:34] believe at this late date that those
[36:35] actions would make a difference?
[36:37] >> Yes, they are asking for it. You know,
[36:39] during World War II, we provided arms to
[36:42] resistance movements in Europe, but we
[36:44] failed to provide it to the Jews.
[36:46] And we didn't expect them to defeat the
[36:48] Nazis, but we felt they at least had a
[36:49] chance and the right to defend
[36:51] themselves. And the Bosnians are
[36:53] convinced that they had arms they would
[36:55] do better. The Croats have had access to
[36:57] arms and in the last year, the
[36:59] Croatian-Serbian situation has become
[37:02] more stable. Dr. Brze- Dr. Kissinger, do
[37:04] you think the steps that Dr. Brzezinski
[37:06] is describing would make a real
[37:07] difference at this point?
[37:08] >> Well, I uh uh I recommended last
[37:12] September
[37:13] that
[37:14] uh
[37:15] unless there were an immediate
[37:16] cease-fire that the arms embargo should
[37:19] be lifted.
[37:20] So, this is a step that I favor. I favor
[37:23] enforcement of the no-fly zone
[37:25] and a strict uh the strictest military
[37:28] embargo
[37:30] uh that could be carried out and at some
[37:32] point we should consider breaking
[37:33] diplomatic relations
[37:35] with Yugoslavia if uh if these uh
[37:39] measures continue. My opposition is to
[37:42] ground forces and open-ended military
[37:44] action. But meanwhile
[37:45] >> we seem to agree on actually. But
[37:48] meanwhile, you have uh the continued uh
[37:51] killing of of so many people, most of
[37:54] them civilians,
[37:55] uh in in these all many of these towns
[37:57] in eastern Bosnia, not just Srebrenica,
[37:59] but Sarajevo continues to be under
[38:01] attack. Is there anything that could be
[38:03] done just from a humanitarian standpoint
[38:05] for these people? Or uh is that just uh
[38:09] uh idealistic thinking on the part of uh
[38:11] some Americans who are concerned?
[38:15] Is the question addressed to me? To you,
[38:16] yeah. Uh the uh
[38:21] uh great efforts have been made for
[38:23] humanitarian assistance.
[38:26] And
[38:27] uh
[38:28] uh I cannot think of any additional
[38:30] humanitarian aid that can be given.
[38:33] Uh although
[38:34] obviously as many supplies as we can get
[38:36] in there should be done.
[38:38] Uh
[38:39] it seems to me that what the Serbs are
[38:41] trying to do is to take
[38:44] uh
[38:45] all contiguous areas and to shrink the
[38:47] Muslim area to the smallest uh uh
[38:51] dimensions possible and maybe eliminate
[38:53] it
[38:53] uh altogether and this produces
[38:56] extraordinary suffering.
[38:59] Uh and I don't think it can be dealt
[39:00] with by humanitarian aid alone.
[39:03] What about this this this question, Dr.
[39:05] Brzezinski, of is there anything else
[39:07] that can be done from a humanitarian
[39:09] standpoint? I mean, you're talking about
[39:10] in in specifically enforcing the no-fly
[39:12] >> Well, sure, you know, we could increase
[39:14] our air drops. We could increase the
[39:17] amount of food or medicine that's being
[39:19] shipped in there because they're running
[39:21] low on it and the West Europeans are not
[39:22] providing enough. And for that matter,
[39:24] we aren't providing enough.
[39:26] But this would be like dropping food
[39:28] packages into Auschwitz.
[39:30] I think the issue has to be faced.
[39:33] If people is being slaughtered,
[39:35] country is being overrun,
[39:37] and not just anywhere, but in the heart
[39:39] of Europe, that part of humanity which
[39:41] are allegedly subject to some degree of
[39:44] international legitimacy
[39:46] and the powers to be, the United States,
[39:48] Western Europe are watching it. I
[39:50] consider this to be a failure that's
[39:52] bipartisan nature. The Bush
[39:54] administration didn't respond. The
[39:56] Clinton administration in spite of its
[39:58] noises during the campaign is not
[40:00] responding and therefore this is a
[40:02] failure of all of us and we don't have
[40:04] to intervene massively with American
[40:06] soldiers to be doing something. We could
[40:08] be doing more along the lines of the
[40:10] three-pronged approach that I have
[40:12] advocated.
[40:12] >> And just recently you've had the the
[40:14] Clinton administration urging United
[40:15] Nations to put off a vote on the
[40:18] sanctions against Serbia until Yeltsin's
[40:22] fate is determined. Is that the right
[40:23] priority?
[40:24] >> Well, in effect we are propitiating
[40:25] Yeltsin on this issue having lost a
[40:27] great deal of time because in the past
[40:30] the Russians were far more malleable
[40:32] than they are today. They'll be less
[40:34] malleable in the future. The problems
[40:36] are going to be easier to solve and in
[40:38] the meantime we're establishing a
[40:40] terrible international precedent for
[40:43] ethnic cleansing and for the unilateral
[40:45] use of force.
[40:45] >> Is this a terrible precedent, Dr.
[40:48] Kissinger, for this sort of solution to
[40:51] take place when there are territorial or
[40:54] in-country disagreements disputes
[40:57] like this one in the future?
[41:00] Whether it's in Europe or the former
[41:01] Soviet Union.
[41:02] >> I think it is it could turn in Yes, it
[41:05] probably already is a
[41:07] a bad precedent.
[41:10] I think what is needed
[41:12] is for the United States to state
[41:14] comprehensively what it wants and what
[41:17] it is willing to do. I am
[41:20] I do not believe that little measures
[41:22] like in increasing the air drops or
[41:25] doing individual sub-cap measures are
[41:27] going to be able to deal with this
[41:29] problem.
[41:31] Uh we have to put forward some
[41:32] comprehensive
[41:34] requirement of what we want. What we
[41:36] really want is an end to military
[41:38] operations. If that can be achieved then
[41:41] the humanitarian
[41:43] the increase in humanitarian aid is
[41:46] relatively easy.
[41:48] The Serbs would gain from this what they
[41:50] have already conquered.
[41:52] Uh but at least the killing would stop.
[41:55] When I'm sorry, you said if all that
[41:57] would happen if if we if the United
[41:59] States would state and uh
[42:01] >> I think we should say that we will break
[42:02] diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia,
[42:05] that we will
[42:06] blockade
[42:08] the former Yugoslavia that is Belgrade,
[42:10] that we will blockade the countries that
[42:12] we
[42:13] we
[42:14] invite immediately the creation by NATO
[42:18] of some military command that will try
[42:19] to enforce a cease-fire
[42:21] and to enforce the no-fly zone. If we
[42:24] try to create that military command
[42:26] incidentally, we will see who shows up
[42:28] and I don't think there will be all that
[42:30] many. Uh but we should not create the
[42:32] impression that American ground forces
[42:34] can be used. Uh but just quickly, Dr.
[42:36] Brzezinski, is that going to make a
[42:38] difference just like what Dr. the kind
[42:41] of thing Dr. Kissinger's recommending?
[42:42] >> Well, if we were willing to do it, it
[42:44] would make a difference, but I'm not
[42:45] sure we're willing to do it. But because
[42:48] we're not willing to do that, it doesn't
[42:49] mean we should do nothing and I think if
[42:51] we were at least willing to give the
[42:53] Bosnians a better chance of fighting, it
[42:55] would increase the pressure on the Serbs
[42:57] to accommodate because the Serbs are not
[42:59] omnipotent. They have several fronts in
[43:01] which to fight and more effective
[43:03] resistance would create some sort of
[43:05] stalemate on the ground.
[43:07] Well, Dr. Brzezinski, Dr. Kissinger,
[43:09] thank you both for being with us.
[43:20] Next tonight, the response inside South
[43:22] Africa to the weekend murder of one of
[43:24] that country's principal black leaders,
[43:26] Chris Hani. Hani, a former official of
[43:29] the African National Congress and
[43:30] general secretary of the Communist
[43:32] Party, was shot to death on Sunday. A
[43:35] white man has been charged. Now both the
[43:37] white government and the African
[43:38] National Congress are trying to contain
[43:40] the anger among the country's majority
[43:42] black population. Nelson Mandela warned
[43:45] that the country was on the brink of
[43:46] disaster. We have a report from Judy
[43:48] Aslett of Independent Television News.
[43:53] The anger generated by the murder of
[43:55] Chris Hani is already gaining momentum.
[43:58] Outside Boksburg Magistrate's Court this
[44:01] morning where Hani's alleged killer made
[44:03] his first appearance, thousands of
[44:05] protesters were matched by an
[44:07] unprecedented police presence.
[44:09] As the armed convoy left taking Jan
[44:12] Valusz back to jail, the focus of that
[44:14] anger was against the government.
[44:17] As more details of who Chris Hani's
[44:19] killer was are uncovered, the ANC
[44:22] leadership is convinced the man was not
[44:24] acting alone and must have had
[44:26] connections with the security forces.
[44:29] This killer
[44:31] was issued
[44:33] with a submachine gun.
[44:36] I couldn't hear properly.
[44:38] He has got a license for that.
[44:40] In terms of law in this country
[44:42] no civilian is supposed to be having
[44:45] that type of an arm.
[44:47] Who authorized this man to carry that
[44:49] weapon? Is he not part of the special
[44:51] force?
[44:52] Another link with the security forces is
[44:55] that the gun that police say was used to
[44:57] kill Chris Hani came from this cache
[45:00] stolen 3 years ago from the South
[45:01] African Air Force headquarters.
[45:04] At the time Chris Hani was critical of
[45:06] how easy it had been for right-wingers
[45:08] to get hold of the gun.
[45:11] Either this man himself stole the
[45:12] weapons, in which case he's got contacts
[45:15] who opened up for him at the
[45:16] air force base. If he didn't do it, who
[45:19] did it for him? It's unavoidable I think
[45:21] that suspicions are going to be cast on
[45:24] institutions within the state
[45:26] regardless of whether the government
[45:28] itself was involved or not.
[45:31] And it's going to be extremely difficult
[45:32] for the government to completely reject
[45:35] all of those accusations that have
[45:37] already started being that people have
[45:39] already made.
[45:41] Tonight though, the government is
[45:43] continuing to deny that they had
[45:45] anything to do with Chris Hani's murder.
[45:48] As far as the allegation concerning the
[45:50] government is concerned, there we
[45:52] categorically state that we have not as
[45:54] a government been involved in any
[45:56] conspiracy.
[45:58] In the townships, any denials from the
[46:00] government is already falling on deaf
[46:02] ears.
[46:03] Last night news in the Eastern Cape,
[46:06] protesters bombed the police caspers.
[46:09] Burning roads blocked, but also warned
[46:11] outsiders, particularly whites, that
[46:13] they're not welcome in the area.
[46:17] And it's this anti-white feeling that
[46:19] the ANC leadership is trying to contain.
[46:22] The most volatile group is the ANC Youth
[46:25] League who've been holding rallies and
[46:27] marches for the past 3 days.
[46:30] Many of them now feel that talk to the
[46:32] government should be called off.
[46:34] I think it would be very very wise for
[46:37] the African National Congress
[46:39] to suspend or to pull out totally and
[46:42] completely from negotiation.
[46:44] I think now is the time where we, the
[46:46] African National Congress Youth League,
[46:49] would stand up
[46:52] and fight the enemy. We are going to
[46:54] hold the the decisive responsibility
[46:56] because we feel that they are cheating
[46:58] us. We are negotiating at the same time
[47:00] they are busy killing us.
[47:02] Despite the ANC leadership's call for
[47:04] calm, it's clear the militant wing of
[47:07] the ANC is gaining strength.
[47:09] The pressure now is on the leadership to
[47:12] recognize that anger and channel it into
[47:14] organized marches and protests.
[47:19] In the past, Chris Hani was seen as the
[47:22] one man in the leadership of the ANC who
[47:24] could keep the youth wing under control.
[47:27] His peculiar mixture of being the
[47:29] long-time head of the ANC army, Umkhonto
[47:32] we Sizwe, as well as a key negotiator
[47:35] made him the link between the militants
[47:38] and those involved with the reform
[47:40] process.
[47:41] With his death, the ANC lost that vital
[47:44] link and many now feel the organization
[47:47] will have to change in order to keep the
[47:49] youth on side. One of the mistakes that
[47:52] we have made as an organization was to
[47:54] elevate negotiation and not to take care
[47:57] of other pillars of struggle like the
[48:00] pillar of mass action. That's the
[48:02] mistake. Uh it has been used like a tap
[48:04] of water. Uh that is one of the major
[48:07] mistakes that we as ANC have made and
[48:11] death of Chris Hani
[48:12] should mean that we change that kind of
[48:14] an approach.
[48:16] Already there are plans for more mass
[48:18] action with a national stayaway set for
[48:21] tomorrow.
[48:22] The test now is whether Mr. Mandela,
[48:24] tonight meeting Chris Hani's father, can
[48:27] keep those protests peaceful.
[48:38] Finally tonight, Roberta Smith Wallach,
[48:40] art critic for New York Newsday, reports
[48:43] on two New York exhibits which have
[48:45] different views of what is art.
[48:48] Is this videotape footage art?
[48:51] And is George Holliday, the man who shot
[48:53] it, an artist?
[48:55] New York's Whitney Museum of American
[48:57] Art says, yes.
[49:00] Can you make a work of art out of a
[49:02] stuffed black wife beating
[49:04] or skin color?
[49:06] How about phone sex?
[49:08] Sticking a quarter and dialing into
[49:10] someone's fantasy.
[49:12] For some time now, people who call
[49:15] themselves artists have been trying to
[49:17] make art out of subjects like these.
[49:20] Take this year's Whitney Biennial. Ever
[49:22] since the Whitney inaugurated its every
[49:24] 2-year survey of what's hot in
[49:26] contemporary art 60 years ago, it's been
[49:29] notoriously controversial. But never has
[49:32] it so self-consciously invited outrage
[49:35] as this year.
[49:38] The Whitney has transplanted from the
[49:40] margins of society to the art world's
[49:42] equivalent of Broadway, a kind of
[49:45] socially engaged, in-your-face art by
[49:48] women, Hispanics, homosexuals,
[49:51] the disenfranchised who are mad about
[49:53] something and they aren't going to take
[49:55] it anymore.
[49:56] You begin to get the message the minute
[49:58] you pay your money and put on your
[50:00] admissions button designed by artist
[50:03] Daniel J. Martinez.
[50:06] This survey of art of the last 2 years
[50:09] comes out of a world in which the
[50:11] economy staggered,
[50:13] Los Angeles burned, and the art market
[50:16] collapsed.
[50:17] And through video, sculpture,
[50:20] installations, and photography,
[50:22] these artists are engaging the same
[50:24] tough issues that have focused the
[50:26] attention of politicians and talk show
[50:29] hosts.
[50:30] So, the question is,
[50:32] can art show us anything we haven't
[50:34] already seen on Oprah Winfrey?
[50:37] Maybe.
[50:39] Maybe Pepon Osorio really can introduce
[50:42] us into the heart of the Hispanic dream
[50:44] with his baroque fantasy of a living
[50:46] room and dining room in which a murder
[50:49] has been committed.
[50:51] Shelves of videos outside the room
[50:53] remind us of the violent movie
[50:55] stereotypes of Hispanics to compare with
[50:58] his richly imagined and observed
[51:00] reality.
[51:02] Maybe the wily and erudite Cherokee
[51:04] activist Jimmie Durham really can make
[51:07] us rethink our disdain for romanticizing
[51:10] of the noble savage.
[51:13] He's constructed witty sculptures out of
[51:15] hybrids of Coke bottles, engine parts,
[51:18] industrial hoses that he's assembled to
[51:21] suggest guns and cannons, but also
[51:24] fetishes, fertility symbols, in other
[51:27] words, primitive souvenirs.
[51:30] But what about that Rodney King footage?
[51:40] It certainly changed our world if that's
[51:42] what art's meant to do.
[51:44] And the documentary video in the
[51:45] exhibition that uses it repeatedly
[51:48] certainly demonstrates why and how.
[51:51] But can a documentary,
[51:53] no matter how persuasive and
[51:54] enlightening, be considered art?
[51:58] For hundreds of years in the West, with
[52:00] time out for the Middle Ages, there'd
[52:02] been a consensus about what constituted
[52:04] art.
[52:05] It had been defined in what was
[52:07] considered its finest hour,
[52:09] in 5th century Athens,
[52:11] when the Kritios Boy took art's first
[52:14] breathtakingly natural step into one of
[52:17] the first great moments of Western
[52:19] civilization.
[52:22] Before him,
[52:23] statues stood stiff and distantly
[52:25] godlike in the Egyptian manner.
[52:28] Slowly they developed the muscles,
[52:31] the weight of a leg
[52:32] that could come only from interested
[52:34] study of the human body,
[52:37] until the Kritios Boy strode into a new
[52:40] age that was focused on man, not gods.
[52:44] By happy coincidence, the Kritios Boy is
[52:47] currently on view in New York at the
[52:49] Metropolitan Museum, just up the street
[52:51] from the Whitney Biennial, in a loan
[52:53] show from Greece called The Greek
[52:56] Miracle.
[52:57] The Greek Miracle, a term which itself
[53:00] has lately come under scholarly attack,
[53:02] was democracy.
[53:05] The Kritios Boy and what came next were
[53:08] perfect visual expressions of the idea
[53:11] on which democracy was built.
[53:14] It was an idea that said that the key to
[53:16] existence lay in a knowledge of the mind
[53:19] and spirit of man,
[53:21] not in the contemplation of abstract,
[53:23] unknowable spiritual forces.
[53:26] Even then, the idea was riddled with as
[53:28] many contradictions as Athens' own
[53:31] imperialistic democracy,
[53:33] but the concept endured.
[53:35] And after the Renaissance, it became the
[53:37] standard of European art
[53:40] until the 20th century began to invite
[53:42] in other ideas
[53:44] from Africa, the Far East, and the
[53:46] Americas.
[53:48] Even now, though, with Western
[53:50] civilization on the defensive,
[53:53] the Kritios Boy has something to teach
[53:55] us about the definition of art,
[53:58] and the definition turns out to be the
[53:59] same for every culture and every age.
[54:03] A great, even a successful work of art
[54:06] is one in which an idea has found its
[54:09] perfect visual form.
[54:12] Marble may not be the perfect medium in
[54:14] which to express ideas about our
[54:16] disoriented, dysfunctional, dizzyingly
[54:19] shifting world.
[54:21] Does that mean that George Holliday's
[54:23] home video is?
[54:25] You decide.
[54:28] I'm Am I Waller.
[54:38] Once again, the main stories of this
[54:39] Tuesday, the United Nations aid convoy
[54:42] evacuated 800 Muslim refugees from the
[54:45] Bosnian town of Srebrenica. They
[54:48] included dozens who were wounded when
[54:50] Serb shells pounded the town yesterday.
[54:53] At least 56 people were killed in the
[54:55] attack.
[54:56] Good night, Robin. Good night, Judy.
[54:58] That's the NewsHour tonight and we'll be
[55:00] back with you tomorrow night. I'm Robert
[55:01] MacNeil. Good night.
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[55:38] I'm Nancy Marshall with OPB Radio.
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[55:43] OPB Radio, it's Morning Edition.
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[57:14] Join us later tonight for Newsroom 6 at
[57:15] 11:00. Some encouraging news to report
[57:17] tonight about women and menopause. A new
[57:20] treatment is helping lots of women feel
[57:22] better. It may also help them live
[57:24] longer, but there are risks and we'll
[57:26] tell you the pros and cons. Also
[57:28] tonight, Ed Whelan will save all the
[57:29] great plays from sports and Randy's
[57:31] up-to-the-minute forecast. See you at
[57:33] 11:00. It's time for spring cleaning.
[57:35] Time to scrub away the grime, making
[57:38] certain that family vehicle is shiny and
[57:40] bright. Which led Ray Summers to replace
[57:42] a line Southeast Division.
[57:47] I bought all these old '64 Chevrolet SS
[57:51] spinners.
[57:53] I probably got about
[57:55] 10 sets of them in stock now. You can't
[57:58] sell it if you don't have it. Dick
[58:00] McCormick knows that is true.
[58:04] I've got Ford or Olds
[58:06] Even for hubcaps. Kevin knows he has
[58:08] plenty of them. Back here we got a
[58:10] Pontiac room. A Pontiac room and a
[58:13] foreign car wing. And every year a
[58:15] passel of new hubcaps to add to the old.
[58:18] Running out of room already.
[58:20] Started out with a thousand square feet
[58:23] uh 7 years ago and I'm got a 4,000
[58:26] square feet now and I'm just about out
[58:28] of room.
[58:29] A businessman's lament. Chrysler, 14-in.
[58:33] How nice a one you want?
[58:36] You do have a center
[58:37] >> See the one that's on there. You do have
[58:38] a center for it or you need a center,
[58:40] too?
[58:41] You're probably looking at about $50 for
[58:45] just the wheel cover. If you haven't
[58:47] priced wheel covers since you were a
[58:48] teenager, you may be surprised. Older
[58:51] people think that they're still going to
[58:53] a wrecking yard and buying them for $5
[58:56] and that's a thing of the past.
[58:58] Of course, a thing of the past is what
[59:00] some people want. I had a call for a '37
[59:03] Dodge pickup truck the other day. Didn't
[59:04] know for sure what it really looked
[59:07] like, but I had a Dodge right above the
[59:08] door. I pulled it down. He said, "Like
[59:10] this?" And he said, "Hey, that's the
[59:11] right one." Dick McCormick started years
[59:14] ago with a wrecking yard. The wrecking
[59:16] yard is gone, now just hubcaps.
[59:19] Studebakers, Packards,
[59:21] little bit of everything. Spring is
[59:23] good. People wash cars, find a wheel
[59:26] cover missing. And then they start
[59:27] looking for me. Even people with
[59:29] Rolls-Royces. It's a good game. There's
[59:31] a lot of people out there need hubcaps.
[59:34] Enough to keep a fellow busy.
[59:37] Yes, I do. I have some nice ones for $35
[59:39] a piece.
[59:41] Ray Summers at Large with photographer
[59:42] John Keller, Southeast Portland.
[59:45] Some of those hubcaps he showed us will
[59:46] bring more than $100. Is that right?
[59:49] >> They tell me. The guy sells hubcaps with
[59:51] scratches and dents to the recyclers and
[59:53] he washes and polishes the good one and
[59:55] he puts them up for sale. And Ray tells
[59:57] us that some people actually buy them
[59:58] for wall decorations.
[60:00] Something to remind them of a car they
[60:02] owned 40 years ago or so. Cherish that
[60:04] Chevy.
[60:05] Randy, quick 4-day, 5-day forecast?
[60:08] Well, the the 3-hour forecast calls for
[60:10] rain and then beyond that we get into a
[60:12] pattern where the rain ends and then it
[60:13] begins again and then it begins or ends.
[60:16] Which one did I leave off with? Well,
[60:17] you get the picture. It's going to be
[60:18] raining off off on and off through the
[60:21] weekend. A staggering forecast, hard to
[60:23] comprehend for me. So, we need two or
[60:25] three rain gauges to handle all of that.
[60:26] >> Yeah. We'll see what you have to say at
[60:27] 11:00, too. Hopefully, you'll join us
[60:29] then. Good night.