The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

GWEN IFILL: Good evening, I'm Gwen Ifill. Jim Lehrer is off this week. On the NewsHour tonight: Supreme Court watcher Jan Crawford Greenburg explains today's free speech decision; Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on the AIDS epidemic in South Africa; Margaret Warner updates the face-off between China and Taiwan, Ray Suarez talks with writer Malcolm Gladwell about what makes little things mean a lot; and, we remember three great performers who died recently: Flutist Jean Pierre Rampal, novelist Barbara Cartland, and the actor Sir John Gielgud. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday.

NEWS SUMMARY

GWEN IFILL: The U.S. Supreme Court today struck down a law today that placed restrictions on cable TV channels. The five to four ruling said Congress violated free speech rights by limiting sexual materials to overnight hours unless it's scrambled for non-subscribers. The rule was designed to protect children. In other action, the court agreed to review federal clean air standards aimed at reducing smog and soot. Industry groups and some states opposed the rules. We'll have more on the court's day right after this News Summary. A committee of the Arkansas Supreme Court panel today recommended President Clinton be disbarred. It said he engaged in, quote, serious misconduct in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case by giving false testimony about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. The President's attorney vowed to challenge the recommendation. It now goes to a state judge in Little Rock for consideration. There was growing chaos in Southern Lebanon today, amid Israel's military pullout. Israeli-allied militiamen abandoned their outposts to Muslim guerrillas and their backers, and gunfire from the Israeli side killed five people. We have this report from Louise Bates of Associated Press Television News.

LOUISE BATES: Lebanese civilians waving Hezbollah flags moved into what was Israel's security zone. The supporters of the guerrilla groups, Hezbollah and Hamal, were trying to reclaim homes in six villages abandoned by deserting Israeli- allied militia known as the South Lebanon army. When the Lebanese reached Hula, they looted SLA militia posts. Two people were killed when more than 100 Israeli allied militiamen surrendered en mass. Others sought asylum in the Jewish state. Altogether, 12 acres of the zone have been taken over had in the past two days. The Lebanese are now on Israel's doorstep and have threatened the plan for an orderly military withdrawal. But for them, it was a day of celebration as they were welcomed by the few remaining villagers. Many embraced and wept as they were reunited after years of separation. Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Barak visited the border on Monday. (Hebrew) He warned that if Israel was attacked after its troops withdraw from South Lebanon, the army would launch a reprisal that would go beyond the border area.

GWEN IFILL: Also today Palestinian police cracked down an anti-Israeli demonstrations on the West Bank. They blocked protesters in one town, and closed a TV station for, they said, glorifying the violence. Five Palestinians were killed and hundreds were injured last week, in clashes with Israeli troops. Israel today barred its citizens and foreign tourists from entering Palestinian-controlled areas. President Clinton today welcomed south African President Thabo Mbeki to the white house. Their agenda, among other things, included the spread of AIDS in Africa. Mbeki has stirred controversy by questioning conventional views on the treatment and origin of AIDS. Today, he said it's important for his country and the U.S. to work together on a range of issues, whatever their differences.

PRESIDENT THABO MBEKI, South Africa: The best possible ways have to be found to end poverty and disease, and to help people to extricate themselves from the indecencies of wars and violent conflicts. The challenges require of us not just standard responses, but extraordinary interventions that will ensure that the benefits of the current scientific and technological advances are shared by everyone including those in the most remote and isolated villages of the world.

GWEN IFILL: President Clinton said he supported Mbeki's goal of obtaining cheaper AIDS drugs, and would try to help. We'll have more on AIDS in South Africa later in the program tonight. The challenger in Peru's presidential runoff officially withdrew today. Allejandro Toledo accused President Alberto Fujimori of rigging the election system to give himself a third term. Last week, Toledo demanded the May 28th runoff be delayed but officials refused. Investigators searched today for the cause of Sunday's plane crash in Northeastern Pennsylvania. All 19 people on board the twin-engine charter plane were killed, when the twin-engine turboprop went down in a remote area. They'd been to Atlantic City on a gambling trip. British Actor Sir John Gielgud died Sunday at his home near London. The Oscar-winning actor was 96. He gained wide acclaim for his performance as Hamlet, and in other Shakespearean roles. We'll have more on Sir John Gielgud later in the program tonight. Between now and then, free speech and the Supreme Court, AIDS in South Africa, China versus Taiwan, and a conversation about tipping points.

FOCUS - SUPREME COURT WATCH

GWEN IFILL: For more on today's action at the Supreme Court, we turn to NewsHour regular Jan Crawford Greenburg, national legal affairs correspondent for "The Chicago Tribune."

So, Jan, today it was Playboy versus the United States Government. What was this case about?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, Playboy won. This involved a provision in the 1996 Telecommunications Act that was targeted at a problem called signal bleed. That's where when you don't subscribe to a premium channel you can still see audio and hear, hear the audio and see the visual bleeding through. Congress got some complaints from parents that they would walk in the room and see their kids looking at this signal bleed and they thought that these premium channels like Playboy had been fully blocked. So congress passed this law to address that problem. Specifically the law said that these kind of cable companies that offer these kind of premium channels like Playboy had to fully block their programming. And if they didn't have the technological ability to do that, as most don't because that's why you get the signal bleed, then they had to limit it to the hours of 10 PM and 6 AM. In other words, when most kids are sleeping and many adults.

GWEN IFILL: So the court decided that congress had overreached on this?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Right. They said that in the interest of protecting children, congress had gone too far and infringed on the first amendment speech rights of adults. It said that the court, I mean that Congress hadn't really shown there was a compelling problem, that millions of children were watching this kind of signal bleed, to hear and look at these fuzzy images. And it also said there were better ways to address this problem that wouldn't be so restrictive.

GWEN IFILL: It almost sounded like Congress and the government has an interest in protecting children that is upstaged by the court's interest in preserving the free speech protection of the Constitution.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, it's a delicate balance in the court today acknowledged that the government does have a strong interest in protecting children and insuring that children don't have access to indecent and offensive materials, particularly when parents are at work, when both parents may not be home. But it emphasized Congress can't go too far and infringe on adults' free speech rights. Even though we may think or some people may think that Playboy is offering indecent programming that a lot of people may not want to see. It's still protected by the first amendment. It's not considered obscene. And obscene speech is what's not protected.

GWEN IFILL: Is that a big problem, signal breed?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: The signal bleed, yes, is a big problem, because 75% of cable television companies say that they really have that happen on some occasion, sometimes it happens more than others, depending on for example the weather, or the time of day.

GWEN IFILL: But you said a few parents had complained to congress. Are a lot of parents affected by this?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Justice Anthony Kennedy in his opinion today questioned whether or not putting the problem of the general problem of signal bleed aside, whether it was a problem that kids were sitting there watching it. He said you would think if this were a widespread problem that we'd hear from millions

people or certainly many more than the handful of examples that the government has put forward.

GWEN IFILL: So theoretically there are other ways that parents could control access to this kind of information. What are those alternatives?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Right. And the court pointed to another provision in the Telecommunications Act that requires cable companies to offer specific blocking devices to parents who request them for their individual house. So the court said today, look, that's good enough to protect children. If a parent is concerned about it, they can call up their cable company, and under the law the cable company has to come and install this blocking device or fix it so their signals are fully blocked, and we don't need this broad law that would limit everyone's access to this kind of programming.

GWEN IFILL: But I gather that Justice Breyer writing in the minority argued that this is too much of a burden for parents, this idea of getting, of affirmatively having to block this information?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Right. And let me just say, it was a very unusual lineup. Justice Breyer wrote a dissent, it was a 5-4 ruling. And in the dissent, Justice Breyer was joined by Justices O'Connor and Scalia, Rehnquist. Not normally the Justices he goes along with. But the four dissenters today, led by Justice Breyer, said there is a compelling problem. We have 28 million kids who, you know, could have act says or could potentially see this kind of signal bleed, whether or not the government has documented each and every case. He referred to the 5 million kids who are home at some point without supervision. And he said the other alternative, making parents actually pick up the phone and call the cable company, wasn't as effective. Sometimes parents may not realize that their kids are doing it, and it's obvious that the better way is the broader way.

GWEN IFILL: You use the term earlier, indecent speech. Is there a distinction between what's considered to be indecent and constitutional protected, and what considered obscene and therefore is not?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Yes, absolutely. In this case, as the majority made clear from the beginning, turned on the notion that this speech was considered indecent, and not the bad, much more offensive obscene speech, which isn't protected or doesn't get that kind of first amendment protection. This speech is indecent and therefore gets some, gets a high degree of first amendment protection.

GWEN IFILL: Is cable different from broadcast, different from radio, different from print in these kinds of cases?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: That was also interesting, because this case made clear that cable is different than broadcast for the reasons that we've been talking about, that people can control it. Broadcast can't air this kind of indecent programming, by law. Cable can air it, and people can control the access that they're going to subscribe to. And today as the court made clear, they can get these blocking devices, the parents can, to further restrict even that signal bleed that, you know, scrolls through that you can kind of make out fuzzy images.

GWEN IFILL: And Playboy Magazine is different than the Playboy Channel under this interpretation of the law?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Right. This was completely focused on Playboy Channel as it is an cable television. I spoke with Christy Heffner today, the CEO of Playboy Enterprises, and she hailed the ruling, she said this was costing Playboy millions of dollars in lost revenues and it was important that the court had recognized that adults' speech must be protected, even though it's important to protect children, parents have a real in that, and they can step in and ask the cable companies to do so.

GWEN IFILL: But isn't the technology at some point going to outpace this kind of ruling? There are abilities to block it fully now, aren't there?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: There will be, yes, and as we get further down the road and the majority makes this clear, as we get further down the road, companies will even have different kinds of technology for broadcasting their programming, so that the whole notion of signal bleed and whether or not something is fully scrambled and we can kind of make it out, that was ultimately become obsolete.

GWEN IFILL: So the big victory Christy Heffner is talking about is short term, because it won't be an issue soon.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Right, but it's a victory she's certainly glad to have, it will be rendered obsolete down the road. But in the short term, sure, this is certainly one they're happy with.

GWEN IFILL: Okay, Jan, thanks a lot.

FOCUS - AIDS IN SOUTH AFRICA

GWEN IFILL: South African President Thabo Mbeki began a six-day visit to Washington today, meeting with President Clinton at the White House. Among the subjects the two leaders discussed: The fast- spreading epidemic of AIDS in South Africa. We have this report from Fred de Sam Lazaro, of Twin Cities Public Television. (Baby crying)

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Across South Africa, hospital wards have gone from near full to overflowing, thanks largely to the AIDS virus. It's not unusual for two infants to share a cot at the Chris Hanney Hospital in Soweto where Dr. Glenda Grey heads the perinatal HIV Clinic.

DR. GLENDA GRAY, Perinatal HIV Clinic: HIV'S prevalence amongst children in 1992 was 6%. And recently we did a survey, and we found that up to 40% of kids admitted to our hospital every day are HIV-infected. And last year, 75% of all our guests in these wards were HIV-related. So almost half of the children admitted to our wards in any one day are HIV-infected.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Adult figures are equally staggering. Almost one in four pregnant mothers are believed to be infected with HIV, infected by heterosexual contact. Some 10% to 12% of all South Africans are HIV positive. (Singing) At the same time, both government and non-government organizations have pushed extensive awareness campaigns. AIDS is the subject of this Zulu school chorus. (Singing) And the whistle-stopping love train. In broadcasts, billboards and posters, South Africans are warned about the dangers of HIV And AIDS. There's plenty of evidence that the awareness campaign is working. 98% of South Africans say they're aware of HIV, AIDS, and how it's transmitted. However, there's little evidence that that awareness is translating into changed behavior. For example, fewer than one in ten women report using a condom during their last sexual encounter. Mary Crewe is the director of the study of AIDS at the University of Pretoria.

MARY CREWE, Director, Study of AIDS: We don't understand why the prevention campaigns have failed. We don't understand why we can't change behavior. We don't understand whey there's such a refusal to acknowledge what the epidemic is doing. We don't understand the denial. And until we start really becoming a very critical society-- critical of our own practice, critical of our own thoughts, critical of what we're doing-- I don't think we're going to really find the answer to this, the epidemic.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: South Africa's epidemic is proving most devastating in impoverished rural areas, in households like Rose Mthembu's. Women like Rose Mthembu spend most of their lives alone with their children; their husbands took jobs in distant cities as part of a migrant labor system. The former white minority government did not allow men to take their families along. Today, migrant workers, HIV- positive in large numbers from exposure to commercial sex and alcohol, are returning home to spend their last days, ill with AIDS or related diseases like tuberculosis and pneumonia. Once they sent money home. Today their health care is likely to deplete the family savings. Rose's husband, a mine worker, was buried behind their tiny home in March. He left a wife who is also HIV-positive, as are two of their five young children.

ROSE MTHEMBU (Translated): We had decided to refrain from sexual intercourse after we knew he was HIV-positive, but sex is a natural thing and we were tempted. Women are not socialized to say no. Even if she knows that her husband is sleeping around, our culture does not make it easy for her to say, "No, we cannot have sex today." There has not been any support by people in the community. They used to keep saying, "Why are you spending money to take him to the hospital when you know he's going to die anyway?"

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: With all the epidemic's complexities, scientists say President Thabo Mbeki added a new complication when he recently opened a debate that appeared to call into question whether AIDS is, in fact, the result of an HIV Infection. Mbeki cited work he personally came across while surfing the Internet-- articles by dissident scientists, including American Peter Duesberg, who assert that AIDS is not caused by the HIV virus. They say AIDS may instead be the result of recreational drug use, that AIDS drugs may in fact be the cause of death. It's a view widely discredited by scientists worldwide, but in a letter to several world leaders, Mbeki defended his right to consult the dissidents. "It is obvious that whatever lessons we have to and may draw from the West about the grave issues of HIV-AIDS, a simple superimposition of western experience on African reality would be absurd and illogical. We will not, ourselves, condemn our own people to death by giving up the search for specific and targeted responses to the specific African incidents of HIV-AIDS."

WOMAN: Thank you. Thank you very much to all of you for a most successful meeting.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The South African government, led by its health minister, called a conference early this month, allowing leading scientists and dissidents to discuss the HIV-AIDS link, along with other issues. It's a debate Mary Crewe says is both unnecessary and dangerous.

MARY CREWE: It allows people to think that HIV is not sexually transmitted and, therefore, there is no need to change behavior, there's no need to look at any of the cultural, racial, patriarchal issues that are driving the epidemic.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Anecdotally, doctor's offices report that patients have begun to ask questions. Glenda Gray's clinic, for example, offers anti-HIV drugs free to pregnant women if they volunteer for research trials funded entirely by international grants, not the South African government.

DR. GLENDA GRAY: We do have patients who are on anti-retroviral therapy, who phone us and say, "well, the President's a very clever man, he's an intellectual man, and if he says he doesn't think HIV causes AIDS, then I believe him. And I'm going to stop taking these drugs because they're toxic and they're probably giving me HIV."

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The government has indeed alleged that drugs, like the widely used AZT are toxic. And it has refused to provide AZT or another drug, called Nevirapine, to HIV-positive women during pregnancy, even though studies show this lowers the risk of passing the virus onto their babies.

DR. GLENDA GRAY: It could halve the amount of vertical transmission, and maybe even get it down to a third of what you see at the moment. And we know that Nevirapine given in labor at a cost of 4 U.S. dollars will halve the transmission. And using good obstetrical care and good labor care, we could probably decrease their transmission even further.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: South Africa's health minister, Mantu Tsabalala Msimong, trained as an obstetrician herself, defends the government approach, precisely she said, because of the lack of good obstetrical and other care for mothers in rural areas.

MANTU TSABALALA MSIMONG, Minister of Health; I don't quite ascribe to the theory of just giving medicine and not looking at a woman... her whole health status because the last thing that I'd like to see is for medical person to give a particular woman an injection and you never see that woman again. You don't know what complications are there. You don't know what the side effects are.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Meanwhile, Bongani Kumalo, recently appointed to head the presidential response to the epidemic, said Mbeki has been misunderstood, that he merely wanted a broader approach to dealing with the epidemic.

BONGANI KUMALO, Presidential Adviser/AIDS: We believe we face a catastrophe. And when you face a catastrophe, you don't go on with that which is routine. You begin to look at other things that you may not have been looking at. You begin to wonder if you are actually addressing all the questions. I will listen very carefully to what the people are saying in response. If it suggested that it is a behavior change, that is attitude change, we will look for that because it will be very important that we correct any change in attitude and behavior. We must be... we must stand firm, we must be strong in our resolve to beat AIDS.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The controversy surrounding Mbeki's statements has helped step up the debate among South Africans, facing a health crisis of scope rarely witnessed in human history. An estimated 1,700 South Africans are becoming infected with HIV each day.

GWEN IFILL: We will have a Newsmaker interviewer with South African President Mbeki tomorrow night.

Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: China versus Taiwan; a conversation about the tipping point; and remembering three great performers.

FOCUS - TAIWAN VS. CHINA

GWEN IFILL: A new President for Taiwan, new questions for China, our coverage begins with this background report from Kwame Holman.

KWAME HOLMAN: Pledging to protect the safety of his people, 49- year-old Chen Shui-bian took the oath of office Saturday and became the first directly-elected President in Taiwan's history. Chen also is the first Taiwanese President not to come from the ranks of nationalist party, which ran the country for five decades. Chen's is the democratic Progressive Party, which long has promoted independence from Mainland China. But in his campaign, candidate Chen avoided any talk of independence, and in his inaugural address, he made additional promises to Beijing.

PRESIDENT CHEN SHUI-BIAN, Republic of China: As long as Mainland China has no intention to use military force against Taiwan, I pledge that during my term in office, I will not declare independence. I will not change our country's official name. And I will not promote a referendum on the question of independence or unification.

KWAME HOLMAN: The speech was dissected across the strait in Beijing. President Jiang Zemin and his colleagues long have maintained Taiwan is part of China under the so-called one-China policy, and should return to the motherland. Within hours of Chen's speech, the Communist party issued a statement, part of which was read on state-run TV.

CORRESPONDENT: (speaking through interpreter) The statement has an unclear and ambiguous attitude toward the one China principle so his so-called goodwill understanding is lacking of sincerity.

KWAME HOLMAN: The document states acceptance or rejection of the one China policy is the touchstone to test whether one sincerely wants to improve cross-strait relations, but in another paragraph it says the sides will express in their own way orally that both sides across the strait stick to the one-China principle. The statement also warns if anyone dare trigger a civil war again by splitting Taiwan from China, they must shoulder the historical responsibility for this sin. Yesterday, Taiwanese President Chen made another overture to Beijing. He promised to consider direct trade, transportation, and postal links with the mainland. (Mandarin)

PRESIDENT CHEN SHUI-BIAN, Republic of China: (translated) Under the pre- condition that national security can be assured, we are willing to review the outdated, rigid and inflexible three-links policy. Taiwan shut off the so-called three links with China in 1949, when Communist forces took over the mainland and the nationalist government fled to Taiwan. Since then, all business deals have had to go through third parties, mostly in Hong Kong. But business has flourished recently, as Taiwan enterprises have invested some 40 billion dollars in China over the last two decades.

GWEN IFILL: Margaret Warner takes the story from there.

MARGARET WARNER: For more on the weekend's developments between Taiwan and China, we turn to: Winston Lord, a former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs and a one-time ambassador to China; David Brown, a former foreign service officer who headed the State Department's Taiwan desk -- today he's associate director of the Asian Studies Department at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies; and Merle Goldman, Professor of Chinese History at Boston University, and Research Associate at the Fairbanks Center for East Asian Research at Harvard.

Merle Goldman, what do you make of President Chen's inaugural speech?

MERLE GOLDMAN, Harvard University: Well, I think it was a moderate speech. It was conciliatory. And in contrast to the language that has been used by the leaders of the People's Republic of China, he sounded very diplomatic. In fact I've just come back from China. And what impressed me was for the first time I heard various people in the think tanks and the institutes in Beijing and Shanghai talk about their leaders' bellicose manner in a very negative way, they were critical. And this wasn't just one on one, that was at discussions at dinners and so forth. And they contrasted their leaders' bellicose language with the diplomatic language of Chen Shui-bian. So I think this is a moderate speech.

MARGARET WARNER: David Brown, is that how you read it, very conciliatory, very diplomatic?

DAVID BROWN, Former State Department Official: Yes. I think Chen who is very much a strong Taiwanese nationalist who has deep roots on the island who thinks of himself as a child of Taiwan, who has been associated with the party that has supported independence, has come a very long way in trying to hold out a hand of reconciliation and dialogue to Beijing.

MARGARET WARNER: But Winston Lord, he did very much tout, one, Taiwan's democracy and its sort of independent spirit in that way. He also didn't embrace the one China policy, which Mainland China had demanded he publicly do in his speech.

WINSTON LORD, Former U.S. Ambassador to China: Well, I agree with the others that this was a masterful speech. It blended conciliation and pride in Taiwan's democracy, which of course makes the clear contrast with the repressive political system on the mainland. But he talked about shared history with China; he talked about possible discussions on the future of one China. It was as far as he could go; it was very conciliatory. He followed it up with a trip to the off shore islands where he talked about the three links economically and also underlined national security. So not only did he exhibit conciliation, I think in contrast to Beijing's past rhetoric, but I think he elicited a relatively moderate response from Beijing. They didn't attack him personally, they distinguished him in a follow-up commentary today from other people in his party, they agreed about the possibility of direct economic links; they talked about going back to a formula where the two sides talked in 1992. And in a backgrounder today, a senior official said that they understood he was in a delicate position, they've got to give him some time. And so this, by Beijing's standards, is fairly moderate rhetoric. One other point I'd make, and Merle, referred to that, I think the people of China have been very impressed with what has happened on Taiwan, its democratic election, this transfer of power from one party to another, in great contrast to their own system.

MARGARET WARNER: And, Merle Goldman, how do you see China's reaction to this weekend speech?

MERLE GOLDMAN: Well, certainly I think in the short run, the threat of war between China and Taiwan, I think that threat has waned. That doesn't mean it won't appear again, it could very well be. But I think in the short run it has waned. But Taiwan in the election they just had in many ways is in sharp contrast to the People's Republic. The people in China see this. They see that for the first time in Taiwan you have a separation between the state and the party, between the party and the military. And most important, you have the election of an opposition party which promises to get rid of the corruption in the ruling party. And that is a concern of the people in China, they're concerned with the corruption of the ruling party, the Communist Party. So there are many ways example of Taiwan, I think, is a threat -- having nothing to say about the military problem.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree that just the very contrast is threatening to the regime in Beijing?

DAVID BROWN: I entirely agree with Merle's comments. And while we here focus very much on this election in terms of the cross straits aspect of it on Taiwan, it was very much an election over clean government, how to get rid of corruption that was associated with the KMT and move to something new,. And I think the people on the mainland who face a very similar problem, can't help but be impressed by what the people of Taiwan have accomplished.

MARGARET WARNER: David Brown, also expand a little on a point you raised, which was you said President Chen someone who is really a nationalist has come a long way. He is from a party that advocates independence. He always advocated Taiwanese independence. Now we hear him give a speech where he says he won't even move in that direction. What is his long-range strategy here, what's he really doing?

DAVID BROWN: Well, what I think he's doing, of course, is as a person who wanted to be elected in Taiwan, he's appealing to the broad middle ground of people on Taiwan who want to preserve peace, don't want to provoke the PRC and want essentially to try and live with harmony across the Taiwan straits. I think that his long-term game plan is to speak sweet words to the Mainland, and to be reasonable and to work on developing a more cooperative relationship across the straits, without in any way compromising Taiwan's de facto independence.

MARGARET WARNER: Winston Lord, I know you met with him - what -- just last month. How do you read him in terms of his long-range strategy here?

WINSTON LORD: First, I think he's been very impressive in his rhetoric, his speech, his appointments -- because he got elected with a minority of the vote. I think he is taking this posture, number one, to get some breathing space calm across the straits so he can tackle corruption, that he can make Taiwan competitive in the age of information and technology, which is what he basically got elected on, and to put Beijing on the defensive in terms of international and American opinion. Beijing has been forced now to back off from this bellicose rhetoric. We're only home free until Wednesday's vote in the House on China's WTO entry, but I think China's more moderate response will probably last at least until August when the leaders get together every year at a seaside resort to review policy.

MARGARET WARNER: So you think that international pressure does have an impact on Beijing here?

WINSTON LORD: Well, I think they're suspicious of Chen of course because of his past positions, because they feel they got blind sided by his predecessor. But I think they're beginning to understand that Chen needs to build a national consensus on this issue, that he is trying to move to a more moderate position, and that they can't really attack him now, because of the moderate position he's a taken. And the commentary in the U.S., in Japan and Europe has been very favorable. That's why this speech has been so magnificent -- and also his emphasis on democracy and freedom, the clear contrast he draws with the Mainland.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, Merle Goldman, put Beijing's reaction this weekend in relationship to this white paper issued in February essentially threatening a military attack on Taiwan if Taiwan didn't start unification talks. Where did that come, is that impulse still there as well?

MERLE GOLDMAN: I'm sure the impulse is still there. But it is a sharp contrast between the bellicose language and the threats of war, and in many ways the leadership really went out on a limb on this.

MARGARET WARNER: What do you mean out on a limb?

MERLE GOLDMAN: Well, they really threatened to go to war. And the question is, if they said, if Chen Shui-bian asserted independence for Taiwan, and in many ways I think they truly lost the support of their people. This is not a democratic country. But you could really feel the unrest among the population; they were frightened by it. And now their rhetoric has certainly changed. And certainly I think certainly to Wednesday -- maybe a little longer. But it might resume again if they're not able to resume, if there's some kind of discussion between China and Taiwan in the future, I think that's very important.

MARGARET WARNER: And how important personally do you think it is to President Jiang?

MERLE GOLDMAN: Oh, I think it's very important to President Jiang. If he can get a dialogue going, if he can get some kind of discussion going between Taiwan and China, then the supposed more military elements within the Chinese government don't really have a platform to stand on. And so I think it's very important. It's not clear who wants war with Taiwan. When I was in Beijing, they said some of the military officers. But certainly if you can resume the relationship in any way, just opening up the dialogue I think would be important.

MARGARET WARNER: And David Brown, how do you read President Jiang Zemin's intentions here?

DAVID BROWN: He has to balance a wide variety of views in China on how to deal with Taiwan. They don't have a clear strategy on how to accomplish what they want, which is to bring Taiwan back into the fold of China. And Jiang has to be very cautious not to do anything that would seem to appear to be, being soft on Taiwan, because this will expose him to criticism. And we have to recognize that there is a very strong nationalist consciousness that has grown up in the PRC in recent years, and this isn't just one leader talking about bringing Taiwan back into the fold. There's a strong sense that Taiwan ought to become part of China again.

MARGARET WARNER: Winston Lord, do you think that sentiment is stronger now than it was ten years ago -- that sentiment of wanting to unify with Taiwan, and that it's time to have it happen?

WINSTON LORD: I don't think so. There is a danger here, though, and that is the leadership I think understands it's considerable unrest in China. I think it's the most fragile situation since Tiananmen Square, because of corruption, because of economic problems. Therefore there's an appeal to nationalism to rally domestic populous, and Taiwan gets caught up in that. I think the average Chinese doesn't want Taiwan to go independent, but they're satisfied with the status quo if it doesn't drift away. So basically we've seen good news the last few days, but it still remains a very dangerous problem.

MARGARET WARNER: And would you say that we saw -- there's that nationalist sentiment in the people as well, for instance when the U.S. bombed the embassy in Belgrade, the Chinese embassy.

WINSTON LORD: Well, there is nationalist sentiment. That of course sometimes is stirred up by Beijing's leaders for its own purposes. But basically I think we've seen a very skillful play by Chen so far, and I think he is buying time to work on his domestic problems. And China now faces some difficult choices. I agree with Merle, they were very bellicose up until recently and now they'll have to rethink their strategy, and it's important that the U.S. continue to warn China against the use of force, even as it encourages Chen to continue his moderate policies.

MARGARET WARNER: And Merle Goldman, what's your view on that about the U.S. role? About a couple weeks ago there were these stories floated that maybe both China and Taiwan wanted the U.S. to help mediate this. What can the U.S. or should the U.S. role be here?

MERLE GOLDMAN: Well, I think the U.S. role should encourage the leadership in Taiwan not to demand independence. I think they should encourage the leadership in Beijing to try to soften certainly the rhetoric, to be patient, to try to deal with their own internal problems, which as Winston said, are very severe. There are protests going on all over the country, in the countryside, in the cities -- and say try to in a sense postpone the day when there will be what they call a unification. And it could very well be in time that maybe the People's Republic will evolve into a different kind of political system. And I think that is what we should really be encouraging.

MARGARET WARNER: Briefly, David Brown, on the U.S. role, what she just described is basically what the U.S. has been doing. Anything else?

DAVID BROWN: No. We need to send clear messages to Beijing that if they use force, there is going on the an American response to protect a vibrant democracy. We I guess have less worry today that we'll have a government in Taiwan that will move in the direction of independence. So that message I think has gotten through. We don't need to get involved in this specific negotiating between the two.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Well, David Brown, Merle Goldman, and Winston Lord, thank you all three very much.

CONVERSATION

GWEN IFILL: Now, another of our conversations about new books, and to Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: The idea that little changes can add up to big results may not rock you back in your chair, but can you explain how it works? Explaining how ideas catch on and spread in an almost organic way led to a book called "The Tipping Point: How Little Things can Make a Big Difference." Author Malcolm Gladwell joins us now. Let's start with a tipping point: What is it? See if you can give us an example of how it works.

MALCOLM GLADWELL, Author, "The Tipping Point:" A tipping point is that moment in an epidemic when the epidemic changes state. If you think about, anecdotally, every winter when there's always a point when you look around you and everyone has the flu and no one had the flu the week before, that's because the flu has just tipped. And that's very characteristic of disease epidemics. You know, there's a moment when the AIDS epidemic tipped in the early 1980's. You can actually look on and go back and pinpoint a period of a couple of months when that disease suddenly exploded. One of the ideas of the book is that ideas and products and information and messages undergo the same kind of process -- that they can tip and explode all at once. I'm trying to figure out why that happens in "The Tipping Point."

RAY SUAREZ: So, when you looked at different kinds of things, whether a neighborhood was a hot place to live, whether a certain profession was one worthy of going into, how can you tease out the moment where it crosses that threshold and becomes the next big thing?

MALCOLM GLADWELL: Mm-hmm. Well, it differs. I mean, in different cases, it's different kinds of factors that lead to a tipping point. In the first section of the book, for example, I talk a lot about word of mouth, and why do certain ideas take off through word of mouth? And there, it seems to me, that the key lies with there are a very, very small number of people with really extraordinary personalities who are responsible or are the ones who generate these kinds of word-of- mouth epidemics. In other words, if an idea... if someone with-- I call these people connectors, mavens, and salesmen. A connector, for example, is someone who has an extraordinarily large social circle. And there are people, if you... I have a little test in the book where you can sort of get a sense of who these people are. But in any group of 100 people, there's going to be one person whose social circle maybe is five or six times as large as the average in that group. If that kind of person gets a hold of an idea, because they know so many people and they have so many connections, they have fingers in so many worlds, they can single-handedly make that idea tip just because they can send it in so many directions. I'm not a very social person. I couldn't start a word-of-mouth epidemic if I tried. But one of these people can, and I actually sit down with people like this, I find them and sit down with them and try and figure out, now, in what way is this person different from the rest of us? And you get some really... a really sort of fascinating glimpse of how these little, odd-- these people are a little bit odd-- how these sort of strange, unusual personality types play a much larger-than-expected role in the movement of ideas and in sort of explaining why change happens.

RAY SUAREZ: Are some of those viruses, those ideas that act like viruses-- following the epidemic metaphor all the way-- and then subsiding, like a wave that finally breaks and releases all its energy? What's happening on that other end?

MALCOLM GLADWELL: Well, what's happening on the other end, that's a very interesting question, because it is very... just as viruses, disease epidemics fade away at some point, so do these kinds of contagious epidemics of behavior, or... I mean, I have a whole chapter in the book, for example, on crime. And crime in big cities in America started like an epidemic in the late 60's and it ramps up very, very quickly, and it has fallen like an epidemic in the mid-90's. And the only way to understand that kind of really, really rapid rise and decline is to understand that phenomenon as an epidemic phenomenon. What's going on in some of these cases is-- in the case of something like a word-of-mouth epidemic-- it is that the kinds of people who start epidemics quickly become... they're the kinds of people who are constantly searching for the next thing. It is the nature of the sort of person who starts an epidemic that once everybody else is doing what they were doing six months ago, they're on to the next thing. They don't want to be doing what everyone else is doing. There's a kind of restlessness built in to the person, the sort of person who starts any kind of, say, word-of-mouth epidemic.

RAY SUAREZ: I read the section on crime with great interest, because while I think the reporting was right on, what interests me is how people change their behavior and their attitudes toward a place, sort of behind where the actual statistics are. A place may become safer, but people won't necessarily act like it's safer for a little while after that. It's almost like the hip sneaker becoming fashionable, or becoming more widespread and then not hip anymore.

MALCOLM GLADWELL: Well, it's because people don't trust the change. They can see the change happening around them and they're not convinced it's permanent or real until they have more experience with it. What's interesting about the crime example to me is-- and I tried to bring this out in the book-- is that what has happened with crime in major American cities ought to cause us to fundamentally reexamine what we think about crime and what we've said about crime over the last 20 years, because we've said... we thought for so long during the 70's and 80's that crime was a permanent condition of big city life in America. It was here to stay, and all you could do was either get criminals and, you know, lock them up and throw away the key, or run to the suburbs. There was nothing you could actually do about it. It was a permanent feature. But now all of a sudden we've realized, wait a minute, crime is not a permanent feature of big city life; it's an epidemic. It came and now it left. And that, I think, necessarily changes a lot of these very unforgiving attitudes that we develop towards criminally prone neighborhoods or the disadvantage of things, need to be reexamined -- because now we realize, look, crime is not... crime is something that can be affected by relatively small changes in the environment, and it's not permanent. It's something that comes and it goes.

RAY SUAREZ: One thing you demonstrate in the book is that even if we understand how tipping points happen, how they're unleashed, we can't necessarily control when and how it happens, and you use the example of teen smoking.

MALCOLM GLADWELL: Yeah, teen smoking is... I mean, the reason I spent as much time discussing that in the book as I did is that it is a fundamentally baffling problem. It's an epidemic that is raging out of control in this country right now, despite the fact that we are spending more time and effort and money trying to combat it than we've ever spent. In fact, it seems that the more we... the louder we shout against smoking, the more teens want to smoke. And that is, to me, very characteristic of what I call epidemics of self-destructive behavior, which, you know, I think Columbine falls, the whole wave of school violence is a mini version of the same kind of thing. In the book, I talk about a suicide epidemic among teens in Micronesia. Again, trying to get at this idea that among adolescent cultures there are certain behaviors that take on epidemic status and get very powerfully entrenched in the culture and defy our best efforts to try and bring them to an end. And the suggestion in that chapter is that we need to fundamentally rethink the way we attack those kinds of problems. The normal... the normal means that we use are simply not sufficient in the case of these extraordinarily entrenched teenage epidemics.

RAY SUAREZ: Have you seen a little bit of your own theories at work in the buzz that's been flitting around this book?

MALCOLM GLADWELL: Well, yes, it has. We... you know, we started... we decided that we would adopt some of these ideas in the way we promoted the book, and so my publisher and I-- well before the book came out, back in January-- we identified, in my word-of-mouth chapter I talk a lot about mavens, the role that mavens play. Mavens are people with specialized knowledge, and they're people we rely on for recommendations. And I think that that kind of personality type is also very important in starting word of mouth. So we sat down and made a list of who we thought the book mavens were in this country, and we spent three weeks traveling from one end to the other, having lunch and dinner with book mavens and trying to say, "look, you know..." We just wanted to get them excited about the book and, you know, we bought them dinner and I gave them a copy, and I chatted about it, and then we went home again and waited for three months. And sure enough, the book from the very beginning had a kind of word-of-mouth momentum, and I think, you know, maybe in some small way we put the ideas of the book into action.

RAY SUAREZ: Malcolm Gladwell, thanks for being with us.

MALCOLM GLADWELL: Thank you.

FINALLY - IN MEMORIAM

GWEN IFILL: Finally tonight, the passing of three prominent artists.

SPOKESPERSON: Barbara, Barbara...

GWEN IFILL: Barbara Cartland was the very successful-- and very flamboyant-- queen of the romance novel. The Guinness Book of World Records lists her as its top- selling author, with 723 books published, more than a billion sold. The British writer's stories featured virginal heroines swept away by handsome heroes. She dictated the books to secretaries, and usually finished them within a week.

BARBARA CARTLAND, Novelist: (dictating) "As he kissed her she felt as she was flying into the sky, and they entered a very special heaven. It was all their own." How many words?

SECRETARY: 6,400, Ms. Cartland.

BARBARA CARTLAND: (talking to dog) That's it, come on boy.

GWEN IFILL: Barbara Cartland died Sunday at age 98.

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, Isaac Stern and Jean Pierre Rampal.

GWEN IFILL: Jean-Pierre Rampal won new worldwide popularity for the flute, becoming one the most- recorded and best-selling classical instrumentalists in history. The French-born virtuoso began his solo career in the late 1940's, and performed with major orchestras around the globe. Rampal died Saturday in Paris at age 78. Here, he performs an Antonio Vivaldi concerto at the Kennedy Center in 1994, with violinist Isaac Stern. (Music)

GWEN IFILL: Sir John Gielgud was widely regarded as one of the 20th century's greatest actors. He became famous in stage performances of classic works, especially Shakespeare. He played Hamlet hundreds of times, including this version, from 1942.

SIR JOHN GIEGLUD: Your gambles, your songs, your flashes of merriment that were one to set the table on a roar, one now to mock your own grinning...

GWEN IFILL: Later in life, Gielgud appeared in many films and on television. He reached perhaps his widest audience with the Oscar-winning role of a very British butler in the 1981 film, "Arthur."

SIR JOHN GIEGLUD: Thank you. You spoiled little bastard! You're a man who has everything, haven't you, but that's not enough. You feel unloved, Arthur, welcome to the world. Everyone is unloved. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself. And incidentally, I love you.

GWEN IFILL: Gilbert was at work on a new movie last month. He died yesterday at age 96. Here is a longer excerpt of his acting, Gielgud as the title character in the 1991 movie, "Prospero's Books." He described it as "the best part I've had, ever."

SIR JOHN GIEGLUD: Please you, draw near... Now my charms are all overthrown, and what strength I have is my own, which is most faint. Now it is true, I must be here confined by you, or sent to Naples. Let me not, since I have my dukedom got, and pardon the deceiver, dwell in this bare island by your spell. But release me from my bands, with the help of your good hands. Gentle breath of yours, my sails must fill, or else my project fails, which was to please. Now I want spirits to enforce, art to enchant, and my ending is despair, unless I be relieved by prayer, which pierces so that it insults mercy itself and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardoned be, at your indulgence, set me free.

RECAP

GWEN IFILL: Again, the major stories of this Monday: The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal law that placed restrictions on sex- oriented cable TV channels, and a committee of the Arkansas Supreme Court recommended that President Clinton be disbarred. We'll see you on-line, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Thank you and good night.