Michael Parks

We are very pleased to be here at what is now an annual event. That tells us something about your interest in international affairs, the economy, and in our city and state. You are our readers, and that means something very special. You are the people for whom we report, write, edit the news. So we are very pleased to have this opportunity to talk—talk about the news, the news of the day and the news of tomorrow. At the Los Angeles Times, we think we do a pretty good job at getting the day's news into the paper. What we are working at is getting tomorrow's news there, too. We are determined to be disciplined this evening because the most important part is listening and responding to your questions.

Doyle McManus

I came in last night from Washington. I always love coming back to California, as I am a native Californian and I grew up here. It is a special pleasure to come someplace outside the beltway these days. As you know, in Washington for the last four weeks we have been thinking of nothing but—well, never mind what we've been thinking of. I have decided that the discipline I am going to exercise is to declare tonight a "Monica-free Zone." I will rely on the good judgement and seriousness and discretion of the distinguished members of the World Affairs Council to help me keep that promise.

What we have been asking ourselves in Washington, in fact, for the last few weeks is, is there life after Monica? Contrary to the televised impression, we have been thinking of other things. We have been thinking, believe it or not, about social security reform, about health care regulation, about a whole list of significant issues. And, of course, we have been thinking a great deal about Iraq. What I would like to do very briefly is talk a little bit about a few of the points of interest in our current national dialogue about Iraq, points that tell us something about this moment in foreign policy and in our global life.

After the end of the Cold War, there was a rush to judgement that Americans were turning isolationist, that Americans did not want to spend time thinking about foreign policy or the rest of the world, that Americans wanted, as a nation, to cocoon, to move inward, to think about their houses and their gardens and their jobs and their economy. That is all true to some extent. We also found very quickly that we had overestimated that trend and underestimated the American people. We failed to see that the American public had already perceived that to think about its jobs and its businesses, to think about keeping streets free from crime and drugs, to think about the quality of life in our country, we must think about the quality of life in other countries as well.

What we saw, especially at the beginning of the Clinton administration, was an allergy to foreign intervention in the unholy trio that bedeviled the administration in 1993: Bosnia, Haiti and Somalia. It turned out actually not to be an allergy to intervention at all, but an allergy to indecision, lack of clarity, and even what looked at the time like a certain shortage of sure hands on the wheel. One of the most striking transformations in the Clinton administration, as one who has followed Bill Clinton around the landscape for much of the last three years, is that in 1993, he was widely seen as simply incompetent in foreign policy. By 1996, he was able to run a campaign video that highlighted his achievements in foreign policy. It was a remarkable learning curve. In the polls of that year, he was seen as more competent at foreign policy than most of his rivals.

Now he is at a decision point. One of the problems we have with the situation in Iraq is that as Americans we have a great discomfort with situations that do not offer a solution. We are problem-solvers as a nation and we like to find solutions. We do not like situations that, while they may have three or four options, none of the options look very good, or as Secretary Cohen said, "there is no best option in Iraq. Iraq is not the kind of place that offers you a best option." The most recent Gallop polls, quite careful polls, found that 41% of Americans currently approve military action to resolve the dispute, and a majority of 54% oppose military action. Now that is not an unusual number at this point. Americans are not a terribly warlike people until the war starts. Once the war begins, people do tend to rally ?round the flag and rally ?round the president.

But this situation, reading the polls deeper, has a couple of alarming points for anyone who is making policy. Most Americans believe that if there are aerial attacks, the aim should be to remove Saddam Hussein from power. At the same time, most Americans believe that if there are aerial attacks, they will not succeed in removing Saddam from power. The public has the prerogative of having contradictory views at the same time. The public is actually rather realistic about that.

Finally, here is one that I think is interesting and cautionary. Asked whether they would favor bombing if it would result in many Iraqi civilian dead, Americans are divided straight down the middle: 47% would still favor bombing, 45% would oppose. That is basically a split—and that means that if there are human hostages, the administration would run into public opinion trouble, not only in the Arab world, but here at home. The problem of course is, as Secretary Cohen said, there is no best option. We do appear to be heading down a path that leads either to Saddam Hussein surrendering on some of his significant points, or aerial attacks. The outcome in political terms will depend on whether there is a success. Americans tend to applaud success no matter what it is. But the troubling fact is that the outcome is unlikely to be a solution. Remember that Iraq was where George Bush established what he called the New World Order in 1991. Remember that Bill Clinton's first attempt at serious multilateral, military action was in Bosnia, which we now count as a success but has fallen far short of its original goals. I am afraid that we are in a world now in which solutions are rare, and half-solutions are characteristic of what we are likely to get.

Alvin Shuster

We are on the verge of another Gulf War and we have not even stopped telling war stories from the last one, like this one: the air is heavy with smoke and pollution. The Kuwaiti oil fields are on fire and a courageous Los Angeles Times reporter ventures out to a U.S. ship for an on-scene report. Climbing aboard, he encounters a seaman, coughing, eyes watering, lungs in pain. "Where are you from," he can hardly get the words out. "Los Angeles," announces our reporter. The seaman, wiping his eyes, replies, "You must be used to this air."

Today, seven years later, the air is now filled with rhetoric and nobody is coughing—gagging, maybe, but that is another story. What is the feeling about the administration's foreign policy overseas these days? What is the outlook? Let me take seven minutes and try to give you the world.

Doyle mentioned the rough start by the President in this big, wide world. He was not all that interested in events abroad and focused more on domestic issues, thought a World Affairs Council was an alien being—preferred the International House of Pancakes. That changed. In fact, the President, as he entered his sixth year in office, had hoped that an increased emphasis on matters foreign would help shape that legacy that all outgoing presidents like to think about: a legacy of success, one that he could point to with pride. That determination and assessment will depend in large part on what happens in coming months, and in these last three years of his presidency. It is quite possible that his domestic problems will be so overwhelming as to negate any advances and successes on the foreign front. Scandal or the economy could well be more decisive when historians finally go to work. Unfortunately for the White House, these problems at home are occurring just when things were beginning to look fairly good for the administration overseas. Iraq remains that great major unknown, but elsewhere the record was not unimpressive for the President.

In Europe, [President Clinton] reasserted American leadership, backing Boris Yeltsin's reforms in Russia, launching NATO expansion, taking charge of Bosnia, and eventually committing troops there—a move that has finally brought some peace to those terrified people in that region. In Asia, the bitter disputes with Japan diminished and he overhauled his China policy in a way that allowed progress in important areas such as trade, despite differences on human rights. And he rightly felt the time had come to normalize relations with Vietnam. Again, Iraq aside, about the only thing that has consistently gone wrong during this second term is the gradual unraveling of the Middle East peace process, and our correspondents in the region have reported that the whole Iraqi situation has been bad news in the Middle East because it has meant more stagnation in the peace process.

Now, as Clinton begins the second year of his second term, he had been working to consolidate many of these achievements. The reaction from abroad on how he is doing is mixed, with judgements depending on how closely Washington's policies match those in the surveyed capitals. In some, [there is] quiet relief that the United States is once again acting like a superpower, taking hold in Bosnia, standing tough with Saddam, perhaps relief that the United States did not go from the Cold War to cold feet. In others, [there is] resentment because all of these are happening, particularly in Moscow.

So what is ahead? First, the President is planning a heavy dose of travel. Trips scheduled this year include Latin America, Chile, Africa (the first President to visit Africa in twenty years), South Asia, India, Pakistan, Europe, probably Russia, and perhaps another meeting with Xiang Zemin in Beijing in November. Congressional foreign policy priorities include winning ratification for NATO enlargement in the Senate—that vote should come next month—getting funding for keeping troops in Bosnia, winning approval for more IMF funding and for paying the country's $1 billion in overdue United Nations payments. All these big-tickets items.

Clinton must also decide how he wants to deal with Iran now that a more moderate President is in place there. Bosnia could be a major concern if it blows. And again, underlying all of this: Iraq, which has underscored some of this new assertiveness on the part of Russia and new strains between Washington and Moscow. The foreign minister of Russia, with the defense minister, are describing Washington as being a little too aggressive and out of control, intent on dictating policy to the rest of the world beginning with Baghdad. Obviously, [there are] economic reasons for the Russians' motives here. More interest perhaps in rubles than rubble.

Other potential problems ahead: ethnic strife, proliferation of weapons, terrorism, plutonium smuggling, economic troubles in Asia. Such events overseas have a way of forcing themselves at the top of any agenda on any given day, and there is just no way to predict it. But if things go wrong overseas, they obviously hurt the image, not to mention the legacy. Even if matters go right, they don't necessarily help. Again, with Bill Clinton, there is that saga unfolding in Washington that could well overshadow his world successes. Clearly the question is, will world events contribute to this shining legacy? As every columnist, as every anchor, as almost every journalist has ever said or written at one time or another, that famous phrase, "Only time will tell." Doyle mentioned this presumed lack of interest on the part of Americans in international affairs, but let's pay credit to the New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and of course, the Los Angeles Times for maintaining foreign bureaus despite the trends elsewhere to cut back and to reduce the presences of correspondents overseas. We even send reporters to interview sailors when they are coughing.

But in conclusion, let me just mention that strange things are happening. A friend of mine in the Washington Bureau recently said that rarely has the White House been more eager to discuss foreign affairs than they are now. He said he called Press Secretary Mike McCurry, who is usually hard to get on the phone and even tougher to pin down in person. When he called him and said, "Mike, I just want to come over and talk about foreign policy," McCurry came on the phone and said, "You do? Come right over, I'll talk to you right now."

Janet Clayton

It's always rough following Al, who tells these glamourous war stories and you can picture it in your mind. For my days as a reporter, I was covering local and state politicians who would come to nice dinners like this and then, when it was all over, one of them would look to see if you had any steak left on your plate and if you did, he would stick his fork in it, ask the busboy to wrap it up and stick it in his suit pocket. So those are the kind of classy guys I used to cover!

I have been asked to talk about California and, of course, we already know that we live in a beautiful state of dramatic extremes: sunshine and El Niño, snowcapped mountains and sunny beaches. And our political life here reflects those extremes. Let's think about the people whom we have elected from this state: Richard Nixon and Tom Hayden, Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown, Pat Brown and, well, Jerry Brown. By the way, Jerry Brown is now the odds-on favorite to become the next mayor of the city of Oakland, so go figure that. That is California politics.

This state has long been a leader and a trend setter in ways both good and bad for the nation and for the whole world. The Boston Tea Party reaction that we had here toward high property taxes started with Proposition 13 and spread across the nation. Ironically, the cut-government-spending-at- all-costs movement may also end here, too, as California voters are beginning to show new willingness to pay more for the things that they find truly important, like education. We have a gubernatorial election this year and education is at the top of the agenda of all of the candidates. You will hear a whole lot, more than you ever want to hear again, about tougher graduation standards, more accountability from teachers, students, administrators, ending something called social promotion, through which children are promoted to the next grade, even though they cannot do the work. Everybody is going to say they are against this, which is pretty easy to say. Education has now surpassed crime as the main topic for politicians in this state—that is a healthy sign—but the question now will be whether any gubernatorial candidate can really deliver on the promises of educational reform. I want to talk a little about why that is so tough in this state.

The State Education Code looks a bit like the 1960s version of the Encyclopedia Britannica. It has many volumes and dictates some of the tiniest details of how we operate our public schools. For instance, it actually has in it the square footage of how big a football field should be at a high school—this is in the education code. Let's just say it is not a flexible document. So in order to make changes and affect real reform, you must actually pass new laws to try to negate those that are on the books. Even pilot programs need legislative permission. It is the frustration of this hardening of the arteries of the governmental system that fuels movements to just opt out. That is the feeling behind the secession movement in the San Fernando Valley—it is an attempt to deal with that frustration, although in our view, wrong-headed.

Yet, there is no shortage of people who want to run for mayor, who want to run for governor, and particularly there is no shortage of multimillionaires who want to run for governor this year. There is Al Checchi, who has already spent more than $7 million just to make sure we all know how to pronounce his last name. There's Jane Harman, member of Congress, who also has significant family wealth, along with the party stalwarts like Lieutenant Governor Grey Davis and Attorney General Dan Lundgren. They will all be running under California's new open primary and how it will affect the governor's race is really anybody's guess. Up until now, in a primary election, Democrats voted for Democrats, Republicans voted for Republicans and Independents could only vote in non-partisan offices. With the open primary, all voters get a ballot listing all candidates running. You can vote for whomever you want, regardless of party affiliation. At the end, the top vote-getters from each party are going to go on to the November election.

Under the old system, the primary race was one that really played to the extremes of each party. Because the Democratic candidate only had to worry about getting Democratic votes, he or she would tend to play to the party faithful which, in the Democratic party, means the left wing of the party. The Republicans would do the same: play to the strongest elements of the party which, in the Republican party, tend to be the right wing. What we then ended up with were two extremist candidates who ended up having to tone it down for the general election in order to get votes from lots of different sorts of people. With the open primary, it is going to promote more moderate candidates from either party to have a much better chance of surviving and actually winning in November.

Another thing that you are going to hear a lot about this year is the bilingual initiative, known as Proposition 2270. This initiative would eliminate most of what is called "bilingual education" in California, although a one-year English immersion program would be allowed. There should be no question that English fluency is the currency of success. Many bilingual programs take far too long to become effective. In L.A. Unified School District, it takes seven years to move a child from the beginning of a bilingual program to an English program. That, obviously, is too long. We at the Times would love to see a truly bilingual program in public schools—truly bilingual, in which everyone masters his or her first language as well as a second. After all, our nation does seem to be the only major industrialized country that almost prides itself on being monolingual. But that said, the hodge-podge bilingual system in California is in obvious need of an overhaul. Critics of this initiative say that it is a sledgehammer approach, which is true of most initiatives. But it is also true that there wouldn't be any such initiative on the ballot had the governor and the legislature addressed legitimate parent concerns. So when Sacramento does not do its job, there is always another catch-all initiative in this state waiting in the wings. That is one way to do the public's business, but almost never the most thoughtful or effective way.

There you have it, I have gone full circle on why it is important to find a true leader in the next governor. We at the Times will be watching for a person with a tenacity of a tiger, the boldness of a lion, a political skin thicker than an ox, and no skeletons in his closet. Luckily for you, I am all out of mixed metaphors.

James Flanigan

I only have to speak about the economy and, with the stock market at approximately 8800, there is scarcely anything I have to say except "Hurrah." Actually it is really good to speak to this group because we have a global economy. We know that. Most businesses have at least half of their revenues coming from outside the United States. But I have a particular view following the economy. I get to look at different aspects than my colleagues here. And what I see in Washington is a lot of American groups rising in some antipathy or some suspicion of the global economy. So it is members such as you who would have to counter this in public forums and by conversing with your members of Congress. The environmental movement and the labor unions, and many other groups that find that maybe they are being discomfited for one reason or another by the global economy, are the reason that Clinton did not get fast-track, that the Clinton Administration had to retreat on an international investment treaty, and why he could not today get a vote to fund the IMF and the IMF funding that is needed to keep bridge-loans coming to troubled Asian countries. The Clinton Administration is very weak on economic fronts in Washington and what we have in the world are a lot of economic troubles or changes that may affect us. What I am going to do with my time now is go through the world and give my opinion of it. Then you can cat-call and ask questions until I come around to the American economy at the end.

For anybody interested in the economy, the first area of the world is not the Middle East, the first area is Asia. As you know, last year there were sudden declines in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and much trouble in Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, everywhere really. There is a lot of worry about how all of this is going to work out. First worry among Americans, Alan Greenspan to begin with, is how much will it affect the United States economy. It is going to affect the United States economy. It is already affecting the U.S. economy, mainly in the fact that we start taking in more imports. If we take in more imports, this will arouse suspicions and discomfort a lot of other people in this country.

I think what you must do, first of all, is to learn a lot about Asia. That is why we have reporters there covering it. You must think, "What is going on in these countries and what will be important and what to watch for." To my way of thinking, what is going on in these countries is the same kind of restructuring that we saw here in the United States starting in places like Youngstown, Ohio. You will recall the 1980s, when we said, "What is happening? These companies are coming apart. They are laying off people, will there ever be any more jobs again in the Midwest." We went through that. And we transformed our economy and communities were transformed. Pittsburgh is a heck of a lot different today than it was then, but one thing about Pittsburgh today, the unemployment rate is about three percent. So we pride ourselves, we boast and say we have a wonderful economy, it is restructured, it's fit, it's technological. This is trying to happen in Asia. Japan is going through a big bang in its financial system. The restructuring in Japan has begun. South Korea, which was a very successful economy, now has come to a wall. It has had to find a new way to do things. It has had to restructure. It is trying to do that. Many others are trying to restructure.

To understand what is going on and the reason the news day-by-day must be put into context, you must understand political economy. Our economy changed because the United States happens to have a system of checks and balances and democratic voting that allows change and we must ask, and look, and see, whether these economies in Asia will allow change. I believe they will, because I believe that you cannot send people back into the hillsides and into the subsistence agriculture of a former time. I think the genie is out of the bottle in Asia and change is occurring. What gives me such confidence? I hear things, I see things.

China. China is a great and vast country. I do not understand it, and I do not know anybody who does understand it. I wish I knew more of its history. But I do know one thing: the mayor, Mayor Riordan, with a delegation of sixty business people, will depart tomorrow for a swing through [Southeast Asia] and they will bring small companies and medium-sized companies. When they go to China, they are bringing independent television producers. Why? Because there are seven hundred television companies in China. The government has told them that they must get out there and be private and they must put on programs to entertain the people and they must make some money so they can pay back the government for the television equipment they are now getting from the government. They need to have something to put on and the independent television producers from Los Angeles might give them that—the kind of people who produce shows like "Cops" and "Loveline."

So I think that is where China is changing. The economies to worry about in the world are not those that are changing, however long it takes to change, however difficult the change. They are the economies that are stagnant, the economies where there is a rule by a dictator. Iraq comes to mind. There is stagnation. There is no development of the people. There is bickering and there is a terrible kind of stagnation in the Middle East. Turkey is a country that changed. Turkey is a society modernizing. This is the kind of thing to look for. Look for change in Europe, and Latin America, and Africa, look for places that are changing that are healthy. We have less to worry about.

Now the U.S. economy is on top of the world right now and even here is Los Angeles we have lowered unemployment. We have no unemployment in Orange County and places like that. We have the technology, and our businesses are changing. Our whole way of living has changed so dramatically in twenty years. I have been a business reporter for thirty-five years and I have never seen anything like it. We are barreling ahead. What it will take, can we keep going, can the stock market keep rising, can prosperity continue at whatever pace? Yes, I think it can, but a lot depends on the rest of the world. That is where I come back to my first point—your interest, your curiosity, your support for an America in the rest of the world and in changing economies, is a support for this country.