July 1992

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Business

SPANJU,Y/992 If you are looking for a lesson in the virtues of patience and perseverance, we have one this month in our story about the Nilgiri tahr. The tahr, mountain cousins to sheep and goats, cherish their privacy. Biologist Clifford G. Rice spent almost a year of quiet waiting in Eravikulam National Park, Kerala, before he could get close enough to these timid, skittish animals to begin studying their behavior. He then devoted another year to charting their habits and social organization. In something of an understatement, he writes: "Any habituation effort is an act of faith, and one cannot expect immediate results."

Rice may have some soul mates in patience among the negotiators who have been laboring in fits and starts over the past six years to conclude the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

GA TT talks, aimed at breaking down international trade barriers, have been going on in stages, or rounds, since 1947. Recent political changes around the world have led to increased emphasis on market economies. This naturally has generated even greater interest in the whole GATT process-as well as in various regional and bilateral trade negotiations. Certainly India, with its economic reform policy, has a greater stake than ever in how such talks shape up.

This month SPAN is reprinting my friend Ernest H. Preeg's article examining America's role-past, present, and future-in world trade. Preeg has had a distinguished career, first as a merchant marine officer, then as an economist, U.S. Foreign Service officer, and Ambassador. I first met him years ago when he was working on economic affairs in the U.S. State Department, and then recently served with him at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., where he now holds a special chair in international business. In the State Department he served as director of the Office of OECD and European Community Affairs, as deputy assistant secretary for international finance, and as executive director of the Economic Policy Group. During 1981-83 he was U.S. Ambassador to Haiti. He has written extensively on economic affairs and currently is writing a book about the Uruguay Round and the future of the international trading system.

In that book he no doubt will expand on some of the points in this month's article in which he assesses America's change from a creditor to a debtor nation, criticizes some shortcomings in its trade policy, weighs the countervailing influence of the world's two other major economic powers, Japan and the European Community, and examines the influence of all three in forging new international trade regulations. Preeg concludes: "The leadership challenge in world trade will continue to confront the United States during the 1990s, but under greatly changed-and continually changing--eircumstances." Just what these circumstances will be is unclear as negotiators in the GATT and in other fora search for trust and agreement in trade matters.

Biologist Rice used some salt to coax the tahr to come closer and to gain their confidence. Is there a lesson here for trade negotiators? An old adage says, "Before you trust a man, eat a peck of salt with him."

2

Inside the Baltimore Sun

8

Murder

by Richard A. Bumstead

by Russell Baker

11 The Media and the Elections 14 Tracking the Tahr

by Ronald Goben

by Clifford G. Rice

18 22

Still Life on Tour

28

Foreign Encounters of a Close Kind

Aiming for Barcelona

by Rajib Sen

30 On the Lighter Side

31

America and World Trade

34

Threads of Culture

40

Campus Debate

43

AIDS-A

by Ernest H. Preeg

by Judy Frater

by Dileep Patwardhan

Global Perspective for the Nineties

by Jonathan M. Mann'

47 Focus On ...

Front cover: One of the photographs from the exhibition of American still life photography currently touring India-Robert Mapplethorpe's Calla Lily, 1986, 70 x 50.8 em., silver gelatin print, lent by Robert Miller Gallery, New York. See page 18.

Publisher, Stephen F. Dachi; Editor, Guy E. Olson Managing Editor, Krishan Gabrani; Senior Editor, Amna Dasgupta; Copy Editors, A. Venkata Narayana, Snigdha Goswami; Editorial Assistants, Rocque Fernandes, Rashmi Goel; Photo Editor, Avinash Pasricha; Art Director, Nand Katyal; Associate Art Director, Kanti Roy; Artist, Hemant Bhatnagar; Production Assistant, Sanjay Pokhriyal; Circulation Manager, D.P. Sharma; Photographic Services: USIS Photographic Services Unit; Research Services: USIS Documentation Services, American Center Library, New Delhi.

Photographs: Front cover-Robert Mapplethorpe. 8-NYT. 18-21-© 1989,1991 by The Curators of the University of Missouri. 22-George Tiedemann, Sports Illustrated. 23Wide World photos. 24-© Billy Strickland, Allsport. 25-© Allsport. 27 top-© Mike Powell, Allsport; bottom-© Allsport. 28-eourtesy Rajib Sen. 34-37-Avinash Pasricha except 34 left, 35 center by Judy Frater. 47 top right-Avinash Pasricha.

Published

by the United

States Information

(phone: 3316841), on behalf of the American

Service, American Embassy,

Center,

New Delhi.

24 Kasturba

Printed at Thomson

Gandhi

Marg,

New Delhi

Press (India) Limited,

110001

Faridabad,

The opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Government.

Use of SPAN articles in other publications is encouraged, except when copyrighted. For permission write to the Editor. Price of magazine, one year's subscription (12 issues) Rs. 60; single copy, Rs. 6.

Haryana.

Inside the Baltimore Text by RICHARD A. BUMSTEAD Photographs by KENNETH E. WHITE

Right: A city hall reporter interviews Baltimore's mayor, Kurt L. Schmoke.

Below, left to right: Editors plan the content of the Sun's morning edition; a Sun photographer shoots a businessman for afeature; a graphic-design artist works on the Sunday magazine; a cartoonist renders a famous politician.

SUN

Baltimore, Maryland, lies a half-hour's train ride north of Washington, D.C. It is a leading seaport and commercial center and is Maryland's largest city, with a population of 736,000; another 1.5 million live in its suburbs. Baltimore's major daily newspaper is the Sun. It has been part of the local scene since 1837 when it first appeared as a penny tabloid featuring local news; police reports; stories of ghosts, murders, and monstrosities-anything to shock and titillate the reader.

The Sun has outgrown its tabloid past and outlived its numerous competitors. Its last major rival, the Baltimore News American, ceased publication in 1986after a decade of declining circulation, making Baltimore a one-newspaper town. Today, the Sun's competition comes from TV, magazines, and suburban newspapers.

The Sun is also recognized as a leading American newspaper. It maintains domestic news bureaus in Washington, D.C., New York City, and San Francisco, California, and foreign bureaus in London, Paris, Tokyo, Beijing, Johannesburg, Jerusalem, Mexico City, and Moscow. James Keat, a current editor and former Sun correspondent based in India, says that the Sun operated a bureau in New Delhi from the early 1960sto the early 1980s,with a hiatus of a few years in the mid-1970s. The Sun has been relying for much of its coverage of India and the subcontinent on New Delhi-based stringer Granville Watts.

In its long history, the Sun has experienced some triumphs and suffered some embarrassments. During the American Civil

Above: Reporters prepare their stories on personal computers. Copy goes from reporter to editor to composing department via the newspaper's computer network.

Left to right: Employeesfrom the Baltimore Sun's business office visit a school to teach future subscribers how to read and enjoy the newspaper; solicit an advertisement from a clothing-store owner; take classified ads over the phone.

War (1861-65), it voiced sympathy for the southern causeBaltimore itself was a deeply divided city-but hewed closely enough to the Union position to prevent military authorities from suppressing its publication, a fate several other Baltimore newspapers suffered. In 1912, when the Titanic went down in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg, the Sun's afternoon edition, called the Evening Sun, announced, "All Titanic Passengers Safe." In fact, only 705 of the 2,200 persons aboard survived.

Nonetheless, the Sun has received many honors, including 12 Pulitzer prizes, the highest award in American journalism. One of those Pulitzers was awarded in 1949 for International Reporting to Sun correspondent Price Day for a series of articles he produced from India on its independence.

"India's freedom may signal the real beginning of a development which prophets of world affairs have long foreseen, the 'rise of the East,''' Day wrote in one of his award-winning dispatches. " ...There can be no doubt whatever that the Dominion of India sees itself as the champion of the peoples of Asia, particularly of those still under foreign domination, or that the rest of Asia looks toward India with eager and admiring eyes."

The Sun has been home to many famous journalists, including H.L. Mencken, who was called the "sage of Baltimore" for his witty, often savage commentary on the pomposities of the American middle class published during his 42-year career (1906-48) with the newspaper. A journalist of more recent note who started as a cub reporter on the Sun is Russell Baker, now a humor columnist for The New York Times. (An excerpt from his book, The Good Times, describing his first reportorial assignment starts on page 8.)

Today the Sun publishes, in practical terms, three newspapers.

There is the Sun itself, which appears in the morning. Its circulation is 253,000. Then there is the afternoon edition, the Evening Sun with a circulation of 167,000. It emphasizes local news.

Those two papers are replaced on Sunday by the 494,000circulation Sunday Sun. It is a big, heavy newspaper offering expanded coverage of state and national news, foreign news, arts and entertainment, sports, and specialized sections on travel, real estate, jobs available, and the week's TV programs.

It also contains two magazines: Parade, a publication distributed nationally to newspapers for Sunday distribution, and Sun.

Workers in the composing department paste up pages (right) to be photoengraved. Pages include advertising copy (below right) and color photographs preparedfor processing on a laser scanner (below).

Magazine, whose contents focus on local subjects.

Despite being the only major daily in town, the Sun management realizes it must give constant attention to its product. The Sun initiated several changes in the 1980s. On the editorial side, it strengthened the photographic department and expanded the use of color photographs. News stories were shortened to allow for a greater variety of subjects, and charts, graphs, maps, and other graphic techniques appeared more frequently. On the production side, a new printing plant containing state-of-theart presses opened in February 1991. The new machines have improved production quality and increased printing speedfrom 60,000 newspaper copies to 75,000 per hour.

The Sun maintains a close watch on the buying and reading habits of its audience through a IS-person marketing department, sharing the results of demographic and economic surveys with advertisers and editors. Mindful of its community responsibilities, it sponsors a newspapers-in-education course in grade schools, sending instructors to classrooms with armsful of the Sun to explain section-by-section what readers-even very young ones--ean find in the newspaper. It is one of the most popular classes in Baltimore area schools.

Such a program should help insure the continued success of this big city newspaper in the face of increasing competition from electronic media. In a recent article for the Columbia Journalism Review, Doug Underwood, a communications faculty member at the University of Washington in Seattle, wrote that newspaper journalists should "take heart from the fact that virtually none of those who gaze into the future are predicting the near-term demise of the newspaper-on-print.

Technology, so far, has been unable to match the efficient way the eye can scan the newspaper page or the way a newspaper can be folded up and carried around-or the way it can be read while [eating breakfast] on a Sunday morning.

"Newspapers understand their local, or their speciality, markets. And they can offer an intelligent voice in a world where the cacophony of other media seems to be drowning the public in noise it doesn't want to hear."

Soothing words to the folks who put out the Baltimore Sun. 0 About the Author: Richard in Washington, D.C.

A. Bumstead

is a SPAN

correspondent

Above: Rolls of newsprint, each weighing one ton, are readiedfor presses. The Sun buys newsprint from manufacturers, two Canadian, four and one Swedish. As many as 600 rolls go into the Sunday Sun. Aboutfive percent of the Sun's newsprint is

u.s.

recycled paper. Since old newspapers account for eight percent of America's solid waste, legislation has been introduced to increase the amount of recycled newsprint used. The sticking point, however, is its scarcity. Of65 mills producing paper for newspapers in

the United States and Canada, only nine produce recycled newsprint.

Below: Copies of the Baltimore Sun fresh from presses move via overhead conveyor to packaging room for counting and stacking (left), pending distribution by delivery truck (right).

Munier

BLUDGEONED

TO DEATH.

POLICE HOLD MAN IN SUNDAY SLAYING.

Sunday. East Baltimore. Murder.

Those monstrous headlines were jeers directed at me personally. "Some reporter!" was what they said to me. "Sunday in east Baltimore was your beat, and you couldn't even find out about this unspeakable murder."

Caulfield's command-"Come on into the office"-was Russell Baker, 66, began his distinguished newspaper career in ominous. He was the man who had told me police reporters 1947 as a police reporter on the Baltimore Sun. In this weren't expected to come into the office. Somebody higher up, excerpt from The Good Times-the second installment of his probably Mr. Dorsey, must have issued orders so severe that memoirs-he describes a painful lesson in becoming a they could only be executed in the office. I dreaded to think diligent reporter. Baker's irreverent, whimsical cast of mind what those orders might be. Mr. Dorsey might have decided has served him well in his present post as humor columnist that a man who could overlook a murder on his first night on for The New York Times. Baker has won two Pulitzer pri=es, the job was too dim ever to be a newsman. one in 1979 for his writings in The New York Times The humiliation I anticipated in the office was too painful to and the other in 1983{or his autobiography Growing Up. think about. One night during flight training in the navy, I had landed my plane without remembering to put the wheels down.

On my first night as a police reporter I was scooped on a Except for ruining the propeller, it was a beautiful landing that murder. It was a Sunday. I worked from 3:30 until midnight left me unscratched. When the plane finally skidded to a stop in showers of sparks, I stood up in the cockpit with spotlights covering east Baltimore police stations and got home around playing over me while sirens screamed and fire trucks and one in the morning. My mother was waiting up to hear all about ambulances roared to the scene. Standing there with my the launching of my career, and we sat over coffee for an hour stupidity on brightly lit display before the entire squadron, I while I told her what police stations looked and felt and smelled knew for the first time in my life what utter humiliation felt like. like, and how dull the night had been.

Going into the office to face Caulfield on this dreadful Monday I was grateful for that dullness. Riding the streetcar to work would be even more painful. How could I face my mother and that afternoon, I had been worried. What would I do if a big break the news that [I had been fired] after one day on the job? story broke that night? Aware that I knew nothing about police I studied the murder story in the afternoon papers. It wasn't reporting, I realized my incompetence could be disastrous if the sort of thing that would have interested a movie detective .... something newsworthy happened in east Baltimore before midnight. Luckily, it was a quiet night. I phoned the city desk There had been a sidewalk confrontation between a man and a woman, and he had hit her with a brick. Taken into the Johns with a few dim items culled from the police reports, and at Hopkins emergency room, she was pronounced dead. Later the midnight reported everything quiet in east Baltimore and got police had picked up the man and had him locked up at the permission to go home.

Northeastern Police Station.

I went to bed feeling lucky and was eating breakfast at 10:30 Reading through these dreary details, I was horrified to next morning when the phone rang. It was Mr. Caulfield, early realize that I had held that basic material of the story in my man on the Sun city desk. hand the night before and paid no attention to it. Part of the "Did you cover the east side last night?" was his first reporting routine involved flipping through each ~tation's sheaf question. of daily reports the cops filed about the business they tended on "Didn't you notice that murder?" was his second.

Murder. their daily rounds: Stickups, cats rescued from trees, purse snatches, fires, auto accidents, burglaries, pet owners warned to .

Instantly I knew calamity had struck. silence their barking dogs, assorted forms of violent death. Not "What murder?" all police reports were illiterate, but since becoming a Baltimore "Haven't you seen the afternoon papers?" cop in those days depended on political connections rather than I was still eating breakfast. writing skill, most made heavy demands "Take a look at them," Caulfield on the reader. said. "Then come on into the office."

I had toiled through reports at NorthThere were two afternoon papers, east and excavated a couple of routine Hearst's News-Post and the Evening items which I offered the city desk to Sun. I was sickened by the huge headshow I was on the job. One of the many lines leaping off their front pages: MORNING EVENING SUNDAY BAlTIMORE MARYLAND items I rejected was a barely legible MURDER IN EAST BALTIMORE. WOMAN v-·ne.. .. ,J. I ,//,/;. document written in incomprehensible ~ /1 English. It seemed to concern a woman SIfIH Member ,.1 .,)' f~ecutiYe Editor Reprinted by permission of Don Congdon Associates.

Inc. who had died at the Hopkins emergency Copyright © 1989 by Russell Baker.

PRESS .• 1953 THE .• ~

SUN

I

0'4~

Police

(P ..•.• ;·,

~o';'~js>rer

(J

i:J~

Pres. 91 jhe Fire Boord

the managing editor's desk, which Mr. Dorsey used when not in room. No news there. People died in emergency rooms all over his private office talking to the Washington bureau, interviewBaltimore every night. This particular woman, so far as I could ing job applicants, or doping the horses. make out from the report, had met a man on the street during Through the windows I could see a half dozen reporters her final day. I saw nothing unusual about that. The man had drifting around idly, the way reporters do when they have no been carrying a brick. That was a bit odd, but hardly news, was assignment and are looking for trouble. Caulfield was sitting it? The two of them had a discussion. That wasn't very newsy either. Two people meeting on the street often have discussions. alone at the city desk, his back to the window. At the managing editor's desk sat fierce Mr. Dorsey in his shirtsleeves, feet up on The man had done something unintelligible with the brick, subsequent to which he walked away. After a while the woman the desk, hands clasped behind his head, talking across the room to somebody on the copy desk. was taken to the hospital.

I had not yet heard Lyndon Johnson say, "It's time to bite the Reading the afternoon papers, I cursed the cop who wrote bullet," but that's what time it was on that Monday afternoon. that half-witted report. I also cursed the desk officer who'd Standing outside the window, I collected myself as well as I been on duty at Northeast last night. Silently, I cursed him could under the circumstances, opened the door, and went in, unprintably. Too late, I knew now that he had hated me when I looking to neither left nor right, cheeks burning with shame, pushed through the big oak doors, smile~ at him as genially as I imagining that everybody in the room was staring at me, the could, and introduced myself. pariah who had been scoopt;d on a murder his first night out.

"New reporter for the Sun ... Baker...how's the world treating Afterward, I realized that nobody could possibly have paid me you? ... Anything happening out here tonight?" the slightest attention, but that was long afterward, when I was He was a lieutenant, gold bars and silver hair, impassive face, wiser about newspaper life. an old-timer whose heart was not to be softened by a smile from Caulfield didn't notice me at first. When he did he seemed a Sun reporter. My attempt to play the regular guy fell flat. He puzzled about who I was and what I wanted. Then, recognizing grunted once or twice in reply and shoved the docket to me. me, he tilted back in his swivel chair and asked, "What This was a record of everybody who had been arrested. It was happened last night?" routine stuff. A couple of men locked up for "disturbing the I made a determined effort not to look toward Mr. Dorsey. If peace," another for not making his child-support payments. It he caught me looking at him he might call me over and fire me was quiet, all right. There was one man listed as "held for on the spot. Before ordering me out of the office, he would say investigation."

"What's he being investigated for?" I asked. something cruel like, "And you thought you could be a "I wasn't on duty when he came in," was all the lieutenant newsman. Hah!" Caulfield at least seemed gentle. He was looking at me calmly, even with the hint of a smile as he waited offered. for my defense.

That was when a careful reporter would have got on the In straightforward fashion I tried to tell him how I had phone to the policeman who'd made the arrest, but I was not happened to overlook the murder. It was no use lying. Someeven a reporter, let alone a careful reporter. During my body later told me Caulfield had once taught high school Latin, indoctrination, I'd been told that docket entries reading "held for investigation" were commonplace and that these investigaso he must have heard every conceivable excuse for failure.

Now, however, peering over his steel-rimmed eyeglasses, tions were usually small chaff-minor burglaries, hit-and-run he looked flabbergasted by my explanation for missing the accidents, things of no news value. murder story.

So when the lieutenant brushed off my question and handed me the day's file of police reports, I put the "held for Yes, I confessed, I had seen the police report. But nobody could have made sense of it, the way it was written. It was investigation" entry out of mind instead of connecting it to the brick-toting man in the incomprehensible police report. As a hardly in English. I tried to reconstruct that constabulary prose for Caulfield, saying something like, "All it said was that a result, I was now summoned to appear in the city room in shame and disgrace, a reporter scooped on a murder his first female expired consequential to injuries occurring during the night on the job. Had any man in the whole history of course of a conversation with a man carrying a brick in the journalism made such an inauspicious course of which the same did something beginning? ... and today as a New York Times columnist. unintelligible to¡ her head with same, to Reporters used the small back elevator wit, the brick." to the newsroom on the top floor. A Caulfield studied me as though he central corridor divided the morning couldn't believe what he was hearing. paper's city room from the Evening Sun's.

"And that didn't seem to you like someBig window panels afforded a sweeping thing that might be worth looking into?" view into the Sun city room. The city desk Caulfield said. was situated toward the far end of the "At no point in his report," I said, "did room, and just beyond the city desk was the cop state that this was a murder."

"Didn't you talk to anybody at the station? Anybody at all?"

Of course I did. I talked to the lieutenant. I asked him if there was any news, and he didn't even mention there'd been a murder.

Caulfield studied me as he must have studied the class dunce in his days teaching Cicero. His voice was low, quiet.

"Nobody told you it was a murder," he said.

Absolutely not.

His voice became a little louder now.

"You saw a report saying a woman died of head injuries-" Exactly.

"-after a man with a brick did something in her presence with that selfsame brick-" That's right. "~and it never crossed your mind that what he did with the brick might just possibly have been an act of violence, and if it was and the woman died, that it might just possibly have been murder?"

I saw what he meant.

"I shouldn't have counted 011 the cops to tell me they had a murder," I said, hoping I sounded sincerely contrite instead of merely stupid.

Caulfield never used coarse language, so refrained from cursing. Instead he lectured. A newspaper reporter, he explained, was supposed to be able to "add two and two and get murder."

I said I understood that now.

"And you can't expect the police to tell you when they've got news," he said. "The police hate having news in the paper because news means the police might have to work harder."

This was the only lecture Caulfield ever gave me on newspaper work. Usually he was satisfied to do his job quietly and go home. His lecturing now was a good sign because if he was going to fire me he probably wouldn't be wasting his time trying to teach me something. This proved to be the fact when Caulfield said that Mr. Dorsey had ordered me to suffer a week of humiliation. I would not be trusted to undertake reporting duties again until next week. Until then I would have to tag along with the other police reporters and try to learn something about the work from watching what they did on their rounds.

There were worse things than being held up as a dolt before my fellow reporters. For instance, there was having to go home and tell my mother I'd been fired. With much unctuous groveling, I thanked Caulfield, promised always to use my head from here on, and assured him the Sun wouldn't be sorry about giving me another chance.

Out of the agony of this episode I learned one of the most important lessons every journalist needs to know about the craft of newspaper reporting; to wit, that only a fool expects the authorities to tell him what the news is.

There were other lessons. About newsless Monday, for example. Because Sundays produced little news, editors could not be finicky about how they filled their Monday papers. The murder that caused my troubles would have got little space any day but Monday; it lacked gore, mystery, melodrama, scandal,

or sex, the elements that made murder stories juicy entertainment for the public. Except for being murdered on Sunday, the lady would probably have been buried "back in the truss ads," as reporters called the deep interior of newspapers. In fact, though editors of the evening papers splashed it in heavy ink in their early editions, they quickly busted the poor woman down to very small headlines as the day went on and the rising tempo of human activity churned up better stuff for later editions.

In newspaper terms, her death wasn't much of a murder, but on a newsless Monday morning it was better than no murder at all. As I soon learned, whether something was big news, small news, or no news at all depended on a complicated mixture of factors, including what day of the week it was. There were no written rules, you just had to get a feel for the relative value of events. Before my police days, I'd had the innocent notion that murder was murder, and it was all equally bad. As a police reporter, I learned better fast. The gravity of murder varied.

There was quality murder and there was ho-hum murder. In the jargon of the Sun newsroom, there was the "terrific murder," the "good murder," and the "little murder." I soon learned to distinguish them so as not to waste the rewrite man's time on busy nights.

Phoning the desk, I might say, "I've got a little murder." To which the rewrite man might say, "Just give me enough for a couple of paragraphs. We've got a six-alarm fire on the harbor taking up most of the page."

Saying "I've got a good murder," however, got the city editor's attention. It meant a story worth prominent play even on a busy night. Any number of things could elevate a "little murder" into a "good murder." Was the victim "a prominent Baltimorean" or."a member of an old Maryland family"? If so, "good murder." Could the rewrite man justifiably describe the victim as "statuesque," the universally understood code word meaning "big breasts"? If so, "good murder," especially if the murderer was still unknown and the cops could be persuaded to hint at sexual motives behind the crime. Multiple murders were "good." So were murders of children.

The mass murderer, later to become a commonplace figure in American life, was unknown in Baltimore in those days. Now and then somebody with a pistol lost control of himself and killed two people in a single outburst, but the modern custom' of killing strangers by the dozen as a deed of looney selfexpression was still undreamed of.

The "terrific murder" was one so uniquely gory, so sexdrenched, so mysterious, or so diabolical as to be irresistible even to the Sun's stodgy readership. Such murders featured dismembered corpses, "statuesque" women found dead in full nudity, husbands willing to kill to inherit a rich wife's fortune or to replace a cool wife with a warm mistress, and similar elements beloved by connoisseurs of barbershop magazines like the Police Gazette and True Detective. The "terrific murder" was so rare that as a police reporter I never had the pleasure of covering one.

One of my major disappointments in journalism was the discovery that murder was almost always uninteresting.

0

The Media and the

Elections

The increasing influence that the media exercise on American voters has sparked a debate over how print and broadcast journalists should conduct themselves at election time.

Almost all knowledgeable observers of the United States political scene agree that the media will playa pivotal-possibly decisive-role in the outcome of the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign, but there is a great deal of disagreement on how that role will be shaped.

That's because the key players, the reporters and newscasters who cover the election campaign, are conducting an increasingly active debate among themselves about how they should do their jobs. As their influence has steadily increased over the past 20 years, so has criticism of it. The result is ambiguity; some reporters will be overly aggressive, some probably not aggressive enough.

In the 1988 presidential election, that schizophrenic attitude was demonstrated in a few brief weeks after the selection of Senator Dan Quayle to be the Republican vice-presidential candidate. In the first days after his selection by George Bush, Quayle was subjected to a relentless attack as an amiable lightweight who had no business being one step away from the

presidency. Then, after a dramatic press conference in Quayle's hometown that featured angry crowd response to the media, the attitude changed. Many reporters seemed to feel they had gone too far, and the attacks on Quayle dropped off.

Not all the attacks, of course. There were still many newspaper columnists and a somewhat fewer number of television commentators who continued to express doubts about Quayle. But the major networks were careful to praise him in analyzing the result of his nationally televised debate with Senator Lloyd Bentsen, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate. Yet, while the networks waffled, the American people responding to a poll thought Bentsen the winner by a margin of 51 to 27.

The Quayle affair occurred after the media had already demonstrated the power to drive two candidates from the Democratic primary-actions that caused a bit of soul-searching among newspeople wondering just how far reporters should go.

Senator Gary Hart, the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, eventually withdrew after news stories about his relationship with a Florida model. Senator Joseph Biden, another Democratic candidate, also withdrew after stories about his plagiarism of a portion of a speech by a British politician, as well as stories about other incidents that challenged his veracity.

One interesting aspect of the Hart and Biden episodes is that the key media roles were played by newspaper reporters who uncovered the details. Although newspapers have long set the agenda for presidential campaign coverage, most unbiased observers think television achieved ascendancy by 1988. Poll after poll shows that the majority of Americans watch television for news.

Yet newspapers can cover news better than television, because, for one thing, they have more reporters. Thus, newspapers find the stories that would otherwise be hidden-which usually means stories that are negative. So newspapers have a negative influence in that they can force a candidate to abandon the race, but television has a more positive power to get voters to favor a specific candidate.

Media expert Michael Robinson has called the people who watch television¡ fQr their political information an "inadvertent audience." Watching television is a passive activity and requires less concentration than reading. Television audiences are usually less educated and less interested in public affairs than the people who read newspapers. But they are also more numerous, and it is numbers that win elections. As political writer Theodore H. White once said, television is "the playing field of politics."

Of course, the candidates themselves affect what television shows, and the ability to control what appears on the screen can make the difference in an election. That has led to the rise of media consultants whose primary mission is to make sure their candidates win the television battle.

No one is better at that than Roger Ailes, who choreographed President Bush's television appearances during the

After the media had demonstrated the power to drive two candidates from the Democratic presidential primary in 1988, there was some soul-searching among news people wondering just how far reporters should go.

1988 campaign. After the election, Ailes explained his view of TV coverage in a speech describing what he called the "orchestra pit" theory: Suppose, he said, his candidate gave a well-written, thoughtful speech on an important topic and, as he was leaving the stage at the end of the speech, tripped and fell into the orchestra pit. "What do you think is going to be on television that night? You're damned right. His fall into the orchestra pit."

Ailes took every precaution during the 1988 campaign to make sure Bush didn't fall into the orchestra pit. The then-Vice President was almost inaccessible to TV reporters (or newspaper reporters, for that matter) for interviews or questions.

But he was available to TV cameras in carefully staged appearances at sites calculated to provide a good background (a flag factory, where he was surrounded by U.S. flags, was the most memorable such appearance). There, he would deliver a short, simple message that usually attacked his opponent. Television, hungry for "visuals" of the campaign, would run the staged event as news.

Virtually all candidates followed a similar strategy in the primaries and the general election during the 1988 campaign, but none could match the Bush campaign for effectiveness. For example, the Democratic candidate, Michael Dukakis, was never in the same league as Bush in getting off memorable one-line quotes for the evening news. And some of his attempts to capitalize on television backfired. A ride in a tank, intended to demonstrate Dukakis's strength in military affairs, turned into a disaster when the relatively small candidate appeared overwhelmed by the tank and the helmet he was wearing. Some heartless analysts compared his appearance with that of the dog Snoopy in the "Peanuts" cartoon strip.

Dukakis also made himself available to the media for interviews as a general rule, but by answering reporters' questions he often seemed on the defensive. And by allowing himself to be photographed at inopportune moments, he sometimes looked foolish-as when he was struggling unsuccessfully to close a window on his campaign bus.

Naturally, television newscasters are aware they are being used-and they resent it. They are also professionals, and they want to report the news thoroughly without providing an edge to one candidate whose campaign team is more adept at manipulation. There are dozens of proposals to change campaign coverage, ranging from attempts to make the candidates hold more debates to insisting they hold regular press conferences.

But the television reporters and anchorpersons also are captives of their own medium. They must have pictures, and if all they can get are staged pictures, they feel a need to use them. They even feel an obligation to use them in an attempt to balance coverage. In a two-person campaign, they want to give equal time to each candidate.

Television stations and newspapers are attempting to counteract TV ads, too, which have grown ever more negative over the past 20 years. Both press and television began taking a critical look at paid political advertisements during the 1988 campaign, and newspapers in particular offered point-by-point analyses of their truthfulness. That approach seems almost certain to continue during this year's campaign.

There is some question about the effectiveness of "hit piece" ads (ads that attack a candidate's opponent) in presidential campaigns, anyway. Most observers concede they can make a difference in a local or even a statewide campaign, but many doubt that people make up their minds in a presidential campaign based on 30second ads. However, when the points raised in an ad can be reinforced by a candidate in a staged appearance covered on the evening news, they are certainly effective.

When it comes to influencing voters,

nothing is as important as the presidential debates, which belong to television.

Newspapers write pages of copy before and after the debates, but voters make their judgments based on how they view the candidates' performance under fire.

Or rather, voters think they make their judgments that way. The candidates' campaign managers think otherwise, and their thinking has resulted in the creation of a whole new campaign subgroup---"spin doctors."

Spin doctors are partisan analysts whose mission is to convince the independent analysts of the media that their candidate won the debate, the theory being that viewers watching the debate will make up their own minds about a candidate only after hearing the analyses.

Since the spin doctors are so resolutely biased, it stretches credulity to think the media would pay much attention to them, but they do get air time and their words are printed in newspapers. And the situations in which they appear are becoming more absurd. A Los Angeles Times reporter told of a Dukakis aide coming up to him before one of the 1988 debates in an attempt to get his spin in early. "In case I don't catch you later, we're elated," he told the reporter.

The use of spin doctors first became prevalent in the 1980 campaign, which seems appropriate since it was the first time that two media candidates were running for the presidency. Neither Jimmy Carter, the incumbent President, nor Ronald Reagan, who was to defeat Carter, owed his candidacy to his political party.

Rather, both were beholden to the media.

Carter came from obscurity to win the Democratic nomination and then the presidency in 1976. He based his campaign on his image as an "outsider" and as an honest man in an era of scandal and immorality in Washington. Although he had been governor of Georgia, he was basically a political amateur.

But he learned how to use the media, and he was aided by a media eager to embrace a new face and a fresh approach.

Reagan also was a political amateur, but he was a media professional who had developed valuable campaigning skills as

an actor in Hollywood films. He was hardly unknown when he won the California governorship in 1966, but he was a political neophyte whose victory stunned a great many politicians. Then in 1980, he won the Republican nomination with simplistic slogans and repetitive speeches that were scorned by most of the reporters covering him as well as by political professionals. But people loved his charm and air of assurance, and he easily won the primary campaign before disposing of Carter in the general election.

Since 1980, candidates with the most media savvy have won. Walter Mondale, a Democratic Party professional of long standing, was no match for Reagan in 1984. Bush, a professional with ties to government and politics, won because he and his advisers had learned well from Reagan's media techniques. Dukakis, Bush's opponent, was governor of Massachusetts but was not an adept media candidate.

Nobody appears to be content with the way the media role in elections has evolved, and that most definitely includes the people in the media. Despite the fact that t.hey are by nature and experience a somewhat cynical group, the great majority want to do a better job. They are certain to make some changes in election coverage as the 1992 campaign evolves.

The question is how widespread and effective the changes will be.

Paul Taylor, a Washington Post reporter who covered the 1988 campaign, has written a book, See How They Run: Electing the President in an Age of Mediaocracy, in which he offers some suggestions for improving the process. He urges his colleagues to emphasize in their writing and broadcasting "what is important rather than what is titillating" and says they should be more aggressive in pointing out untruths in political ads.

Those efforts are simple for individual reporters if they wish to pursue them.

Taylor has another suggestion that would need authoritative backing but could have a substantial effect: He suggests regulators should force the networks to provide five-minute blocks of time free to the candidates. In return, the candidates

would be required to appear in the segments personally, not provide taped ads or interviews.

David Broder, the highly respected political editor of The Washington Post, has an idea with a similar thrust that would be much easier to implement. He says that the press should attempt to force each candidate to hold one 30-minute news conference a week. Edward M. Fouhy, the executive producer of the presidential debates in 1988, endorsed Broder's suggestion and noted that television anchorpersons could add to the pressure for news conferences by simply stating something like "this is the 13th day since the last press conference by the candidate."

Executives at the major commercial broadcast networks (ABC, NBC, and CBS) are unlikely to do much to change campaign coverage in this year's presidential election. For one thing, they are preoccupied with keeping their jobs, and that usually does not spawn innovation.

For another, the recent U.S. recession and the enormous costs they incurred in covering the Persian Gulf War have left them with few financial resources for coverage.

But the major networks have been losing ground anyway to local stations and to cable networks, most specifically the Cable News Network (CNN). If there is a dramatic shift in campaign coverage during 1992 it is likely to come from one of those areas.

However the presidential campaign develops, there are certain to be people complaining about the media coverage, and there are certain to be shrewd campaign managers exploiting the media to gain an edge for their candidates.

And, four years from now, there is certain to be another debate over the role of the media in presidential elections and once again earnest efforts to change that role.

0 About the Author: Ronald Goben, who worked for 30 years as an editor, reporter, andfreelance writer, is now associate director of the Stanford University Medical Center Office of Communications in California.

Patience and salt help the author get close to the elusive Nilgiri tahr in the Eravikulam National Park in Kerala.

Text by CLIFFORD G. RICE Photographs by RAJESH BEDI

Since I couldn't go to the animals, I thought, maybe the animals would come to me. Amazingly enough, they did.

I must have been an odd sight as I sat on the high Indian plateau sowing a slushy concoction of salt and water. It was part of my plan, born of months of frustration, to "bribe" a herd of Nilgiri tahr-rare relatives of sheep and goatsso I could study them up close.

The bribe paid off. At first, the wary animals ventured only as near as the most distant clumps of slush. Pushed aside by the dominant animals, the others were left with a choice: Either forget the treat or brave the clumps nearest me.

To my astonishment and delight, one male tahr kid that had seen me all his life started coming up to take the closer salt, encouraging others to follow. Soon he From Nalional Wildlife. Copyright Š 1991 by the National Wildlife Federation. Reprinted by permission.

was inches away, warily plucking salt from the grass at my feet. Hardly able to contain myself, I wanted to reach out and hug him for what he had done.

The episode brightened -what at times had been a long and discouraging experience. I was in Kerala's Eravikulam National Park, high in the hills of south India, conducting a two-year study of the Nilgiri tahr in the creatures' only home. After almost a year, though, I had not been able to approach the animals to observe them up close. Meanwhile, I had been blinded by monsoon mists and slowed by a mysterious illness-which, ironically, might have been just the break I needed.

Because few scientists had studied them, little was known about the Nilgiri tahr, goat-sized creatures with short, curved horns. My mission, as a graduate student at Texas A&M University and a junior fellow with the American Institute of Indian Studies, was to gather as much information as I could about the animals by watching them. I knew they were wary of people. In theory, though, one could observe them at a distance through a spotting scope as they roamed the open plateau. As I discovered, theory and practice do not always mesh, especially when the theory does not account for monsoons.

From June through August, warm moist air comes sailing off the Indian Ocean and slams into the south Indian hills. The air mass has to climb 2,130 meters to clear the Eravikulam Plateau.

As it rises and cools, it sheds moisture with a vengeance. During most of this time the hills are either drenched by rain (about three meters fall during the monsoon months) or shrouded in fog. Galeforce winds flail the grass and drag the mist writhing over the ridges.

Day after day I left my small cottage to wander in search of tahr. I found fresh droppings and sometimes caught a glimpse of a silhouette before it disappeared into the gray. Otherwise, I lurched and stumbled over the grass hummocks and staggered against the buffeting wind. The idea was simply to watch the tahr. But to watch them I first needed to see them.

The monsoon eventually would end, of course, but all indications were that the

mating season for tahr was during the rainy season. Finding out anything about this important aspect of the animals' life seemed impossible, and short of that I felt my project would be a bust.

The solution, I finally determined, was to get some of the tahr used to me so I could stay close by and watch them in the mist and rain. This type of habituation has been done before, especially by primate researchers. But seldom has it been tried with ungulates, in part because hoofed animals usually live in the open and are easy enough to observe from a distance.

In September, the monsoon eased its grip. Mornings broke clear and sparkling.

The landscape burst into a symphony of color, lush green hills offset by deeper green patches of forest and steel-gray rock outcrops.

Now that I could see, I quickly determined that the 550 or so tahr of Eravikulam were divided into a halfdozen loose subpopulations, each consisting of no more than 120 ad ult

I tried to match my behavior with that of the animals. I walked slowly, taking frequent pauses. Occasionally I plucked and chewed on a grass stem. females and juveniles of both sexes. The older males moved among these groups, which stayed within a common range of about five square kilometers.

Rather than try to habituate the whole population, I decided to concentrate on one of the more accessible subgroups. Initially I considered using some sort of bait to bring the animals to an area where I could observe them. But I wanted to study their natural movements, so I chose instead to

"bore them to death" from a nonthreatening distance of about 300 meters. As days turned into weeks, I began to wonder which of us would lose interest first.

Any habituation effort is an act of faith, and one cannot expect immediate results. So I kept the faith, squinting cross-eyed into the spotting scope well into the new year. Newborn kids appeared, sometimes popping up from the grass at my feet to bound away.

I finally made the leap from faith to knowledge in March, when the tahr showed the first real signs of habituation.

Shortly before, park officials had burned a ridge of grassland as part of an annual effort to improve grazing in the tahr's range. Attracted by the new growth, the animals moved to the area. But because of a deep ravine on one side and cliffs on the other, there was nowhere less than a kilometer nor more than 50 meters away from which I could watch them. I had no choice but to move closer.

As I made my way around one knoll, I tried to match my behavior with that of the animals. I walked slowly, taking frequent pauses. Occasionally I plucked and chewed on a grass stem. I kept my gaze out over the valley or back behind me, glancing only surreptitiously at the tahr, as if their presence meant nothing to me. I was overjoyed when, instead of fleeing, they just slightly increased their rate of movement and continued grazing.

Around that time, ten months into my study, I came down with a mysterious illness whose chief symptom was extreme fatigue. (A doctor later narrowed it down to tuberculosis, mononucleosis, or hepatitis.) Every step was an effort. When I caught up with the tahr on my forays I usually put my pack behind my head and took a nap. Though there .are more efficient ways to gather data, this passive approach seemed actually to help with habituation: What, after all, could be less threatening?

By the time I had recovered, which took several weeks, the tahr tolerated me as close as 50 meters, but even at that distance I still made them nervous. I knew that the monsoon mists would soon return, making 50 meters seem like 50 ki-

lometers. Only then did I reluctantly decide on a new strategy: To give the animals an addiction, then coax them with it to come closer. Local tea estate managers provided me with the perfect attractant-a bag of gritty, lumpy salt. I put some lumps out for the tahr, and, when after a week they figured out what it was, they loved it.

I then began carrying the salt around with me. The animals seemed to locate the treat by smell. So when I located a small group, I slowly worked my way upwind, sat down and gently scattered some lumps on the ground. The dry pieces just sank into the grass, so I mixed them with water to make a salty slush. The tahr were coming close now, but they remained jumpy, leaping away if I so much as moved to scratch a leech bite. Slowly the tension eased, and before long it was not unusual for me to have a crowd of 30 or 40 of the animals gathered around me. By then the monsoon had arrived in force, so these salt sessions often took place in frigid, slanting rain that left me stiff and shivering.

The older males, having left the female groups in the fall and missing most of the habituation process, returned for the surprise of their lives. As I came around the hill or emerged through the mist, they bolted in alarm, only to stop suddenly when they noticed that the others did not react the same way. It took them about a week to join the ranks of the habituated.

On his second or third day back, a burly male came for salt and lingered longer than the rest. As a ray of sunlight shone down on us, r decided to take his photograph. I rose slowly, moved away, and circled around below him to get a better angle. At this, he straightened up, arched his back and walked stiff-legged away from me, then stopped in a head-out posture. Suddenly it dawned on me: By moving around in a semicircle and stopping, I had emulated the tahr's dominance display. Challenged, this male was responding in kind. Not wishing things to escalate further, I casually moved away, as did he.

After a full year into my study I was able to move among the tahr, with or

without salt. Their reaction to me was similar to their reaction to a dominant tahr: If I came forward, they moved out of my way. I had, in a sense, become one of the herd.

To better understand the tahr, however, I needed to know more about the individual animals. Identifying males was no problem; many had recognizable chips in their horns from clashes with other males. Females were a different story.

They rarely fought, and when they did, they seldom clashed horns. I needed to

After a full year ... their reaction to me was similar to their reaction to a dominant tahr: If I came forward, they moved out of my way. I had, in a sense, become one of the herd. find a way to mark them.

Among my supplies were some selfattaching color-coded identification collars. In theory, the animals would slip the collars around their own necks when they walked through a nooselike snare set on a trail. In their open habitat, though, tahr seldom went through restricted passages, and when they did they were leery of snare settings, probably because poachers occasionally used snares. (Tahr have been protected by law since 1972.)

So r devised another method, borrowing a trick from the fisherman. I attached a collar and noose to a bamboo pole.

When the tahr came for salt, I slipped the noose over an animal's head and pulled to tighten the collar around its neck. But once an animal felt something rubbing on its skin, oftentimes it pulled away,

yanking the collar from the pole.

The solution was to lengthen the trailing end of the noose, run it down the pole, and leave it coiled at my feet. Now when the tahr jumped away, I let the line run like a fish taking the bait. When the animal stopped, I made sure the clip on the collar was fastened, then broke the noose with a sharp tug, leaving the collar in place. With this technique I was able to attach more than 50 collars on females.

At last, my job could begin. Each morning I left the cottage and hiked off in search of tahr. When I found them, I wandered through the group, listing each member into my tape recorder. Then I found a good vantage point and kept close tab.s on tahr society.

When the monsoon sailed in again, I was able to determine the social rank of the males. I watched the hierarchy change as they settled their differences in violent horn-bashing fights. I also charted the progress of females as they came into heat. Younger males first attempted brief courtships; then mature males began to show interest. Finally, the dominant male chased away the other suitors and mated with the female during the few hours she would allow it.

My research had been successful, I thought, for I knew all I could hope to know about the tahr's behavior. But how well did I know them, really? After more than two years, we were in many ways still strangers.

Did individual tahr have personalities? I could not say, so different are tahr society and communication from those of people. I do know this: Whatever I learned about the animals, my inability to communicate with the tahr, along with the unrelenting baptism of the monsoons, taught me the great rewards of patience.

When I returned from Eravikulam, I heard from Indian colleagues that the Nilgiri tahr remained approachable long after I had gone. Perhaps, then, in their way the animals remembered me. For my part, I will never forget my years among the tahr nor how I won their trust.

0 About the Author: Clifford G. Rice is currently a biologist for the Department of Natural Resources on the Pacific Island of Saipan.

Still Life on Tour

The best of contemporary American still life photography is scheduled to be shown in Bangalore, Chandigarh, and Jaipur during the next three months. "The Modernist Still LifePhotographed" is a traveling exhibition that embarked on a 16-month tour of nine countries in South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa on April 15.

The exhibit, containing 38 photographs by 11 leading American artists, is sponsored by the U.S. Information Service and was assembled by Jean S. Tucker, who has been involved in modern art and photography for more than 20 years. She is currently a research fellow responsible for developing an independent curatorial service in photography at the University of Missouri il1 St. Louis.

The artists whose works are featured in the show are Zeke Berman, William Clift, Robert Cumming, Jan Groover, Betty Hahn, Barbara Kasten, Robert Mapplethorpe, Sheila Metzner, Olivia Parker, Irving Penn, and Lucas Samaras.

Olivia Parker Carrousel, 1982, 30.5 x 50.8 cm.

Selenium split-toned contact print.

Lent by Brent Sikkima Fine Art, New York.

Olivia Parker

Site II, Deer, /98/, 20.3 x 25.4 em.

Selenium split-lOned contact print.

Lent

by Brent Sikkima

Fine Art. New York.

The objects depicted in the exhibition range from household implements, tools, food, flowers, and antique store memorabilia to mysterious fragments and unknown forms. The photographs are symbolic, realistic, or abstract. Some look like paintings.

In her introduction to the llO-page exhibition catalog Tucker writes: "That the first camera images ... were studio still lifes was a necessity imposed by the technical restrictions of...equipment. By contrast, still lifes conceived by the modernists seen in this exhibition result not only from the sophisticated camera techniques ... but from aesthetic choices made by skillful artists wishing to express relationships not found in natural or urban settings. Although every

photograph stills time and motion and could broadly be termed a still life, these pictures have been chosen for their conscious still life arrangements .... " Modernist still life photography, Tucker continues, allows for "more personal symbols and more exceptional objects than possible in the traditional...arrangements of food, flowers, the hunt, musical instruments .... " The objects need not have any significance or even value-they may be chosen for their shape, a personal association, or just a feeling they evoke in the artist. The photographer's talent elevates the object from the realm of the trivial to high art. Tucker describes it as "rendering visible the invisible."

0

Betty Hahn (below) Tab. 11 PI. 22 (Stargazer Lily), 1988, 70 x 50.8 em.

Color Polaroid.

Jan Groover Untitled, 1988, 40.6 x 50.8 em.

Type C print.

Lent by Robert MiIJerGaIJery. New York.

Aill1ing for Barcelona

The 1992 Summer Olympics, scheduled to open July 25 in Barcelona, Spain, promise to have the most crowded field in the history of the games. Some 173 national Olympic committees have said they will participate, which is more than the total number of nations that existed in the world just two years ago. Another reason for the expected strong showing is that the Spanish organizers have offered free room and board to all athletes, the first time this has been done in the history of the games.

"The number of athletes is the price to

be paid for the success of the games in Barcelona," says Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee (1OC). "We told everybody that 10,000 athletes and 5,000 officials-no more-were all that we could accept. But it seems everybody wants to come to Barcelona." More than 19,000 have signed up, and the IOC has been asking countries to trim their rosters to avoid overcrowding.

The United States expects to send the largest contingent in its history-more than 850 athletes, coaches, trainers, and

Left: Dan O'Brien, who was a favorite to win the decathlon event in Barcelona, failed to qualify at the U.S. Olympic trials in New Orleans June 28. At the time of going to press, four U.S. world champions had failed to make the Olympic team in their specialities.

Above: Mike Powell broke the oldest standing world record in track and field when he won the long jump at the 1991 World Track and Field Championships in Tokyo with a leap of 8.95 meters. That was five centimeters better than the previous record, set by fellow American Bob Beamon at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.

officials. Pictured here are some of the Americans who are expected to compete.

Athletes from just nine nations were on hand when the modern Olympic Games began in 1896 in Athens, Greece. The world has changed a lot in the intervening 96 years, and so have the abilities of athletes. Edwin Flack of Australia won the I ,500~meter run in 1896 in a time of 4:33.2 minutes. The 1988 winner in Seoul,

Peter Rono of Kenya, was almost a minute faster when he crossed the finish line in 3:35.9 minutes. The contrast in the discus throw results is even more dramatic. America's Robert Garrett threw the discus 29.1 meters to win the gold in 1896, less than half of East German Jurgen Schult's 1988 gold medal toss of 68.82 meters.

The Olympics are more than medals and

records and national pride. They are an inspiring example of international cooperation and human achievement, which is in keeping with the Olympic Creed: "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle.

The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought wel1."

Left: Carl Lewis (lane 5), shown here shattering the world record with a 9.86-second clocking in the 100 meters in Tokyo last year, shocked the track and field world when he failed to qualify for the same event in the Barcelona Olympics. Former world record holder Leroy Burrell (lane 3) and Dennis Mitchell (lane 6) along with Mark Witherspoon edged out Lewis in the U.S. Olympic trials last month in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Lewis nevertheless is expected to compete in the long jump and possibly other running events.

Canoeing and kayaking return to the Olympic Games this year, ending a 20-year whitewater void. Joe Lugbill, who has won more gold medals at the world championships-five individual and six team-than any other whitewater canoeist in history, is a favorite to win a gold in Barcelona.

One of the most stirring examples of that creed was played out in Mexico City.

American sports historian and filmmaker Bud Greenspan, who was there, recently described the scene for the publication Lands' End: "At 7:00 p.m. on the evening of October 20, 1968, a few thousand spectators remained in the Mexico City Olympic stadium. It was cool and dark as the last

of the marathon runners were carried off in exhaustion to first aid stations in the bowels of the stadium.

"More than one hour earlier Mamo Wolde of Ethiopia, as fresh as when he started the race, powerfully moved toward the finish line, the winner of the gruelling 26-mile 385-yard marathon ....

As the remaining spectators prepared to leave, those sitting near the marathon

gate were suddenly aroused by the sound of sirens and the gunning of motorcycle engines. Policemen were blowing whistles and the quiet of the evening was shattered by sounds usually reserved for some emergency.

"A few moments went by as the con~ fused spectators looked toward the marathon gate. Then entering the stadium came a lone figure wearing the uniform of

The American press has been filled recently with reports on the pending makeup of the U.S. Olympic team.

One of the more interesting developments will be the inclusion of professionals on the U.S. basketball squad. In the past, America has permitted only amateurs to participate.

High jumper Louise Ritter won a gold medal at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul with a leap of 2.03 meters. She has broken the American record more than ten times.

Heavyweight wrestler Bruce Baumgartner, the 1984 Olympic gold medalist, wrapped up his sixth World Cup title at the 1991 World Cup of Freestyle Wrestling in Toledo, Ohio, and his tenth consecutive national title at the 1991 U.S. Championships in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Tanzania. His name was John Stephen Akhwari. He was the last man to finish the marathon.

"His leg was bloodied and bandaged, and he grimaced with each step. He had severely injured his knee in a fall. As his full figure stepped onto the track for all to see, he painfully hobbled around the 400meter track. The spectators who remained stood and began to applaud the

courage of this man. It was as if they were receiving the winner. Now more than an hour after the champion had been crowned, John Stephen Akhwari was receiving the acclaim reserved for a champion.

"He painfully finished the run and crossed the finish line. Then slowly he walked off the field without turning to the crowd that cheered him.

"Afterwards, one newspaper man wrote, 'Today we have seen a young African runner who symbolizes the finest in the human spirit.. ..'

"Later Akhwari was asked why he did not quit since his task was so painful and he had no chance of winning a medal. 'My country did not send me 7,000 miles to start the race,' he said. 'They sent me 0 7,000 miles to FINISH the race.'''

Foreign Encounters 01 a Close Kind

by RAJIB SEN

A chance letter led to an ongoing pen pal correspondence between two men who discovered they-and their families-had much in common.

writing n about an American I have never met, I might well be writing about myself. It's a revelation that has emerged through an exchange of letters triggered by one I wrote on July 26, 1988. According to my diary, I wrote to a Mick Martin that day, listing some Hollywood films I had seen on video, and pointing out that they were missing from the Video Movie Guide that he publishes. I had picked up the 1988 edition from a New Delhi bookshop a couple of weeks earlier, to add to my knowledge of films. (This interest had been sparked by the ever-interesting Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet when I first found myself in a cinema hall in 1946.)

Martin didn't reply; he assigned the task to someone who then headed his list of chief contributors, Derrick Bang. And Derrick's letter brought all the warmth of sunny California into

I

our home. There, matters might have ended. But Derrick Bang is made of more gentlemanly stuff.

His reply of September 7, 1988, ended: "If you'd like to write back (and please do; I've never before exchanged letters with somebody from India), feel free to use my address below. I think our correspondence has reached beyond the stage of 'video pen pals' and need not rely on the Video Movie Guide address."

That first letter itself gave a hint of our common tastes and interests. Derrick mentioned that he was a "big" fan of my favorite fi.1mmaker, Walt Disney. Subsequent letters threw up similarities in taste for directors (Alfred Hitchcock and David Lean, for example) and style (the stark black-and-white renderings of The Third Man and Oliver Twist, among others) besides individual films, memorable scenes, and unforgettable performances.

Following those early revela-

The Sens and the Bangs-far apart and yet so close. Left: Rajib and Kumkum Sen with their daughter Sabrina ani their pet cat on the roof of their house in NaIDA, Uttar Pradesh. Above: Derrick and Gayna Bang wi'th their pets-a dog and a cat-at their home in Davis, California.

Below: Rajib'Sen designed this symbol to illustrate the close bonds between the two families.

tions, we discovered that each of us had earned some reputation as a writer. We weren't big-time journalists, but had a small and steady clientele that contributed to keeping our home fires burning. Yet, direct sales had occupied much of our working lives.

He's been selling parlor games at his shop, The Game Preserve, while I was a salesman of office systems for 14 years.

As to our writing, we might well have been disciplined by the same stern English teacher. We are fastidious to a fault about differences few seem to recognize-as in "its" and "it's," and "everyday" and "everyday."

Likewise, our commas, semicolons, and hyphens make eminent sense to each other. So does our speech. Derrick and I understood each other with surprising ease the first time we spoke over the phone.

However, reading the clippings he has sent show that Derrick

writes exclusively on entertainment, especially motion pictures.

(Amazingly, he can even do a review in verse!) My subjects, on the other hand, ha ve ranged from films to topics like salesmanship, humor, sports, travel, outer space, applications of technology, and such social issues as children's rights, women's welfare, and leprosy eradication. I've been gratified to find that most of what I have sent Derrick has struck a responsive chord.

Now, take music. For years, I've been irritated by vocals generally as they interfere with my thinking process. I was thus intrigued to find Derrick echoing similar sentiments to explain why he dislikes opera, and believes that Beethoven spoiled his Ninth Symphony with the choral climax of the fourth movement.

Such similarities aren't limited to ourselves; they extend to our married lives. In an age when strained, broken, and multiple marriages are practically in style, here are two couples-four original spouses-who flaunt no such "status symbols." While each appears to have contributed to making life a lot of fun, all four avoid wild, late-night parties in favor of small, intimate social gatherings.

Beyond that, the families' lifestyles bear other striking resemblances. Both wives, for instance, work in banks. As if that isn't coincidence enough, their banks' initials are as close as FNB and PNB. Both had been tellers early In their careers and even now commute to work In another town. And, thanks to our wives' employers, Derrick and I have financed and refinanced the roofs over our heads.

What is remarkable is that the two roofs have nothing to do with ranches, palaces, hovels, or flats in multi storied apartment complexes. Standing by themselves among other independent houses, ours have their own little patches of green. Our wives are more likely to drive the family car

away from home than we are. For Derrick and me, nothing beats the humble motorized twowheeler for economy as well as for the sheer ease and exhilaration of scooting in and around our respective towns.

Derrick lives in Davis. CalifornIa, a city famed for its agncultural university. It has wide open spaces, plenty of vegetation, and is more rural than urban. The nearest big city is the state capital, Sacramento. My NaIDA is outside the confines of another capital, New Delhi. Set amid nearly 15,000 hectares of lush green country, its authorities are forbidden TO urbanize more than 30 percent of the land acquired under the act of the Uttar Pradesh state legislature, which established the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (NaIDA) in 1976.

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ferent ages, complexions, heights, and weights, our conscious decisions on grooming have been on uncannily parallel lines. We're clean-shaven and don't allow hair to grow below the nape of our necks. Our clothes don't have a trace of formality or fashion, and our watches are distinguished only by their white dials, clearly legible numerals, and large center-second hands.

The time factor is present in a couple of other astounding similarities.

Derrick once conjectured in a letter about his options In gifts for his wife Gayna's forthcoming birthday.

Surprised to find that it would be just three days after rd be greeting Kummy (Kumkum) for her birthday that June, I quipped in my reply that, maybe, his birthday synchronized with mine in November. He answered that it didn't-but added that six days later isn't so far off the mark!

But as to why our correspondence has been so sustained, I see only one reason aside from our

mental compatibility.

Both of us are, what I might term, "compulsive repliers." No one who writes to us can escape a prompt reply.

Letters between Derrick and me have sometimes exceeded ten typewritten pages. Such lengthy, leisurely endeavors have provided some real eye-openers. For instance, at different times, each of us caught a small boy stealing our belongings. Afterward, having recovered what we had lost, we let the kids go without bawling them out or beating them up.

We did so with the conviction that, going beyond explaining to them the error they had committed, we might have driven them deeper into delinquency had we punished them.

Another example is having children. We each have decided not to have more than one child for practical reasons, despite our love for Disney films-as well as comic books and cartoon strips of most kinds. While one of our favorite literary heroes is Sherlock Holmes, we have immensely enjoyed books and movies featuring James Bond and the Saint (aka Simon Templar).

High philosophy and politics almost never intrude on our correspondence-in which India's Holi festival, my kitchen sink, his Halloween pumpkin pies, crossword puzzles, and brain teasers have been used to probe the frontiers of our interests. Never demanding, the underlying tone is one that scorns religious and other superstitions, loathes arms and warmongers, and respects personal dignity, integrity, and freedom. The unshakable conclusion I have reached is that human nature, in all its variety, is essentially the same-at least, in our two countries. That might just explain why Derrick and I are so much alike.

As things stand, neither of us can afford to visit the other's home to shake hands. Does that mean that those whose minds have bridged so wide a gulf are destined never to meet?

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America and World Trade A~

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~. ~J W;'~(7 I The critical role of leadership within the international trading system h'as been studied extensively, The United Kingdom's leadership role from the mid-19th century to 1914 is widely recognized, The impact of the lack of leadership during the Great Depression of the 1930s, when world trade collapsed, is more controversiaL In his book, The World in Depression, Charles Kindleberger concluded that the depression was "so wide, so deep, and so long because the international economic system was rendered unstable by British inability and U,S, unwillingness to assume responsibility for stabilizing it."

Even more pointed is his "main lesson of the interwar years .. ,that for the world economy to be stabilized, there has to be a stabilizer-one stabilizer."

For the trading system, the stabilizer had, inter alia, "to keep the import market open in periods of stress," From 1945 to 1980, the United States was the unquestioned leader in world trade, U,S, initiative led to the creation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947, dedicated to nondiscrimination among trading partners and a mutual lowering of trade barriers, The timing and agenda of successive GATT "rounds" of negotiations were orchestrated by the United States, and they led to a dramatic reduction in tariffs for manufactured products, The almost continuous GATT rounds were also designed to repress Reprinted from The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 15, No.2. Ernest H. Preeg, "The U.S. Leadership Role in World Trade: Past, Present, and Future." Copyright Š 1992 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The United States, the European Community, and Japan are the three principal actors in the global economy today. Yet, the author says, world trade leadership continues to be thrust on the United States by default.

protectionist pressure and were based on the' "bicycle theory," whereby trade liberalization needs to move forward or else, like a bicycle, it will fall down, Finally, the United States played the stabilizer role by keeping its import market open in periods of stres's, although with a significant lapse in 1971 when a temporary import surcharge was levied in conjunction with the break of the linkage between the dollar and gold, The 1980s, however, were a period of important change in the world economy, including change in the US, leadership role, Globalization of markets was accompanied by an ideological consensus on the benefits of market-oriented national economies and open trade that swept away the old economic dichotomies of North versus South and East versus West. At the same time, industrial development, investment, and trade tended strongly to polarize regionally in Western Europe, North America, and East Asia, About half of world trade now takes place within these three regions, and another quarter among them, The U,S, share of world trade did not change greatly, but the trade balance turned sharply negative, with the result that the United States shifted from largest creditor to largest debtor nation during the decade, Even more fundamental, the United States lost its heretofore commanding technological lead, especially vis-a-vis Japan, and thus its hegemonic position in indus-

Malaysia has called for an East Asian economic grouping to counter the European and North American trade blocs.

trial trade and investment.

The impact of these developments on the U.S. leadership role, and vice versa, can be assessed in terms of three distinct yet interacting aspects of trade policy leadership: The role as stabilizer in periods of stress; the GATT leadership role to strengthen the multilateral system; and the management role for transition to a "three-track" trading system.

The Stabilizing Role in Periods of Stress The U.S. market remained surprisingly open to imports during the 1980s despite the surging trade deficit that peaked at $170,000 million in 1987. The import surge came principally from Japan and other East Asian countries, but aside from voluntary export restraints on automobiles from Japan, which had become ineffective by the decade's end, and a few lesser restrictions, the United States provided the principal market for the extraordinary East Asian export-led growth of the 1980s. Even in the textiles and apparel sector, which is cluttered with bilateral quotas, U.S. imports rose from $8,900 million in 1980 to $19,800 million in 1985, and to $31,900 million in 1990.

Nevertheless, in the 1980s, the longstanding U.S. stabilizing role in world trade was severely challenged by the most wide-ranging domestic debate over trade policy since the 1930s. A plethora of congressional initiatives for import restrictions to counter the trade deficit were put forward. A domestic content requirement for automobiles received widespread support in 1986. A number of variations of a bilateral trade balance approach, with the implied threat of U.S. import restrictions if targets were not met, followed. The most prominent was the amendment to the Trade Act of 1988 put forward by Congressman

Richard Gephardt, which won congressional approval but was later modified into what became the section known as "Super 301."

The issue is whether in periods of "market stress," or more precisely when imports are rising sharply into a depressed domestic market, the policy response should be through macropolicy actions, including exchange rate adjustment, or through selective import restrictions. The United States, thus far, has more or less followed the former course and avoided import restrictions, but the policy has been subject to more serious question than in the past. In any event, one change during the 1980s in the U.S. role was a definitive shift away from being the "one stabilizer," as predicated

by Kindleberger, to being one of three stabilizers, in uneasy concert with the European Community (EC) and Japan. The critical point was the Plaza Accord in September 1986, in which exchange rate and other macropolicy adjustments were adopted as the preferfoo and necessary means to deal with destabilizing trade imbalances.

The question remains how much "in concert" the three largest trading partners will be during the 1990s in achieving trade balance adjustment without protectionist actions.

Following the Plaza Accord, the U.S. trade deficit declined from 3.8 percent of gross national product (GNP) in 1987 to a projected 1.1 percent in 1991, a considerable achievement of concerted action. Japanese trade surpluses, however, which also declined after 1986, are rising again, with both the European Community and the United States. There is also a broader East Asian surplus emerging, based in part on the "triangular trade" whereby Japanese investment elsewhere in Asia results in exports to the United States and Europe.

It is likely that we are approaching a new period of "market stress," and the leadership role for trade stabilization is by no means clearly defined. Despite the

concerted approach among the largest trading nations, as in G-7 meetings, the United States may well emerge as primus inter pares. The European Community is already moving to limit imports of Japanese automobiles, consumer electronics, and other "destabilizing" products, while many EC political leaders are prone to pursue the protectionist route with respect to import surges from Asia.

Japan, as the surplus country, will face less domestic pressure to act, and indeed its export industries will resist exchange rate adjustment.

Under these circumstances, the United States is likely to need to assume the leadership, largely by default, for trade stabilization or risk severe new protectionist pressures at home. The precise modalities for leadership to this end are beyond the scope of this paper, but the conclusions of a 1989 CSIS (the Center for Strategic and International Studies) study group, cochaired by Senator William Bradley and former U.S. Trade Representative William Brock, remain a promising point of departure: We should not seek to remedy the current unacceptable deficit relationship by attempting to balance trade bilaterally with each country. Rather, we should seek agreement that multilateral balance of the overall current account-which includes trade in goods and services and income from financial assets abroad-is the central target. Persistent large surpluses or deficits on this account should trigger prompt adjustment of internal policies or exchange rates. We should seek an agreed target for th.e United States.

This formula would still appear to be a forceful and sound approach for dealing with destabilizing trade imbalances as long as it is clear that reaching common goals for current account balances should be achieved through macropolicy adjustment and not through selective trade restrictions. The management of such a trade adjustment strategy in the 1990s, however, would have to continue to rely on principal initiative and leadership from the United States.

The GATT Leadership Role to Strengthen the Multilateral System The U.S. leadership role in the GATT also changed markedly during the 1980s.

In a positive sense, the United States foresaw the need for a fundamental broadening of the GATT mandate in keeping with changes in the world economy. Earlier GATT rounds were limited to tariff cuts and codes for some nontariff barriers, but the new Uruguay Round, at U.S. insistence, went much further, including trade in services, intellectual property rights, and trade-related investment measures. Other U.S. objectives were to integrate newly industrialized countries more fully into the GATT and to bring the agricultural sector within the GA TT norms for market-oriented trade.

There is no question that U.S. leadership has been dominant and critical throughout the Uruguay Round periodmore than ten years since the initial U.S. proposal for a new round in 1981-in establishing the agenda and keeping political minds focused on the need to achieve substantial results if the GATT multilateral system is to remain a credible foundation for world trade. Some question about the U.S. commitment to a major Uruguay Round agreement was raised in the summer of 1990, in connection with U.S. willingness to negotiate seriously on such issues as textiles, antidumping, and even services, but by the time of the Brussels ministerial meeting in December these doubts were largely dispelled.

The most controversial act of U.S. leadership in the Uruguay Round was the decision to challenge the protectionist European agricultural policy frontally as a necessary step toward maintaining the cohesion and credibility of the GATT trading system. Shortly after the Punta del Este meeting of September 1986, the United States proposed to eliminate all

trade-distorting measures in the agricultural sector. This initiative provoked a showdown with the European Community that delayed and almost destroyed the round. The proposal was based on the U.S. assessment that the circumstances of agricultural trade in the 1980s were so greatly different from those of the 1960s and 1970s that a major change was necessary. In particular, the European Community, as a result of internal price supports two to three times higher than world prices, had shifted from a net importer of between 12 million and 22 million tons of grains per year in the mid1970sto a net exporter of 23 million to 27 million tons in 1988-91.This had led to an escalating export subsidy war between the European Community and the United States beginning in 1985, just before the Uruguay Round officially got under way, which caught up other grain exporting countries in a ruinous cross fire. An unbridled export subsidy war between the two largest traders is antithetical to everything the GATT stands for, and its resolution became a vital U.S. objective; failure meant that the GATT system would not emerge from the round with its credibility intact.

Thus, in contrast with the U.S. role for the "trade stabilizing" objective, which could rely on a reasonably well-functioning trilateral structure for concerted action, the relationship within the GATT between the United States and the European Community became largely adversarial. This was especially the case after the stalemated ministerial meeting in Montreal in December 1988. Moreover, the predominant U.S. leadership role in the GATT reflects, even more than elsewhere, the relative incapacity or unwillingness of the other two major participants-the European Community and Japan-to take major trade-liberalizing initiatives. The European Community has been preoccupied by internal priorities and, especially since 1989, by historic opportunities within Europe, that can conflict with Uruguay Round objectives.

The protracted nature of decision making within the European Community structure also tends to inhibit trade-liberaliz-

ing initiatives. Japan, on the defensive about impediments to access to its market and unwilling to negotiate any relaxation of its ban on rice imports, has played a basically passive role in the Uruguay Round.

This attitude also reflects broader cultural and bureaucratic constraints on Japanese leadership in international organizations.

The perseverance of U.S. leadership in the GATT Uruguay Round negotiations has been offset to some extent, however, by other actions the United States has taken in the trade field that tend to weaken its overall commitment to the multilateral trading system. One important change in U.S. trade policy has been the increased prominence of bi.: lateral or unilateral actions, initiated outside the GATT, to deal with trade issues.

The United States carried on an almost continuous bilateral trade negotiation with Japan throughout the 1980s that culminated with the Structural Impediments Initiative (SII) agreement in 1990.

This interaction dealt with a wide range of important issues that often affected third countries as well. The widespread use by the United States of unilateral requests under section 301 to open markets to U.S. exports in selected countries, although it often produced trade-liberalizing results, is nevertheless contrary to the GATT approach based on reciprocal actions.

Frequent recourse to antidumping actions, sometimes as leverage to achieve export restraints, has highlighted the inadequacy of the GATT "trade remedy" provision.

The credibility of the GATT multilateral system was weakened during the 1980s by this strong U.S. tendency to-. ward bilateralism, whose scope in the future will be largely dependent on the final outcome of the Uruguay Round and how the associated agreements are implemented. Negotiations on a revised safeguards procedure (article XIX) and a more tightly defined GATT antidumping agreement encompassed much of the scope of bilateralism during the 1980s.

Extending the GATT mandate to trade in services, intellectual property protection, and trade-related investment measures could bring most of U.S. section 301 (Text

continued on page 38)

THREADS OF CUL-i-URE The author, an assistant curator of the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., has spent several years studying the textiles of India. The focus of her latest research was the Sodha Rajputs and their suf embroidery.

Below right: Judy Frater displays some of the samples she has collected for her museum.

Left: A Sodha Rajput woman infestive dress.

Above: Sodha Rajputs who came to Gujarat from Sind, Pakistan, in the 1970s introduced their embroidery styles to the region. Some items Frater saw in Kutch-such as this camel's neck decoration-were made in Sind.

"You'll go home to America and get rich and famous; and we will remain here just as we were." This incisive, if erroneous, prophecy ofa Rabari artisan at the end of my last research visit in India was to inspire a new type of fieldwork during my next trip.

I had thought I was finished with Rabari people. After working with these nomads for more than 16 years, documenting Rabari subgroups throughout Kutch and Saurashtra, probing and analyzing Rabari textiles, I could interpret their embroideries as "written" records of Rabari history.

I had produced a traveling exhibition, a book, and several articles. I felt I now had to move on to a new subject.

Yet, in 1990 when I was awarded a Fulbright grant that would enable me to explore new ground in textile studies, I couldn't help but recall the essence of the artisan's words. So I reserved some time and energy in the year ahead for the Rabaris, too.

Consideration of Rabari needs prepared me for 15 months of wearing several hats, and for experimenting with a more comprehensive concept of research on traditional textiles. At this point, I believe that contemporary research can no longer remain purely academic. A researcher cannot conscientiously gather information about a community without regarding them as people. While collecting played a major role in my fieldwork

last year, academics eventually dovetailed with economic development.

This time when I returned to Kutch, I intended to document the cultural significance of sui embroidery, fine geometric work stitched from the reverse side. Of all the traditional embroideries of the area, I found sui the most intriguing. The style seemed an anomaly in the region, and its origins were shrouded in mystery.

The information I had so far on sui embroidery was that it was probably produced by the Sodha Rajputs, who had fled as refugees from the Thar Parkar Desert in Sind, Pakistan, to Kutch and Rajasthan in the early 1970s. So the first thing I did was to locate a Sodha Rajput who could introduce me into the community. Mohbat Sinh Sodha, a figure of respect among the Sodha Rajputs since he had secured a semigovernment job, became my essential contact. He was tireless, greathearted, good-humored, and fiercely devoted to his people. But, he quickly disclaimed, he knew nothing at all about embroidery; that would be up to me. lt seemed a fair bargain, so Mohbat Sinh Sodha, Ray Sinh Rathod (an expert local guide), and I set out to survey Sodha

Below left: The inspiration for this suf style bukani, a ceremonial scarffor men, comes from the mod (center), a triangular turban ornament worn by Sodha Rajput bridegrooms.

Unlike the spangled one shown here, the traditional mod was embroidered. Below: Detail of a wrap with suf embroidery.

Rajput villages. These are distinctive, small clusters of newly built round bhunga homes widespread in the wildest, most remote lands of Kutch. We soon developed a routine: Mohbat Sinh and Ray Sinh would establish themselves with the older men in the bethak, a male meetinghouse. I would be sent off with a young boy to the women's quarters. In rudimentary Gujarati, I would chat with the women, focusing on embroidery.

This topic is both concrete and innocuous, and thus helped allay their innate fears.

"What do you suppose the foreign lady really wants?" they would whisper anxiously. They would speculate about sinister government dealings. But embroidery had been broached by outsiders before; it immediately conjured up some sort of economic exchange, familiar nonthreatening transactions.

I asked open-ended questions: "What kind of embroidery do you do? Who else does it? What pieces do you embroider and how do you use them?" My intent was to gain background on the culture of the artisans as well as on the embroideries. The Sodha Rajput women would answer my questions, but initially they showed little interest in engaging in discussion. "Embroidery is something we did there [Pakistan]," they would say, dismissing the topic.

Later, I realized another problem: My questions were driven by assumptions about embroidery based on previous fieldwork with Rabaris, and so

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were not necessarily applicable.

Rabaris and Sodha Rajputs are similar in that both communities migrated from Rajasthan to Sind to Kutch, and underwent the cultural changes necessitated by migration into new lands. However, there are basic differences in the social structures, cultures, and circumstances of the two peoples. Migration was not new to the nomadic Rabaris, for example; their migration to Kutch took place centuries ago. In contrast, the sedentary Sodha Rajputs fled unexpectedly, merely 20 years ago. Thus, the extent and type of cultural change each community underwent varied significantly. This is expressed in their respective traditional arts.

My real fieldwork began with serendipity when, several weeks into our survey, our team entered the bethak of a Sodha Rajput village to find a young man smeared with turmeric and wearing a saffron-colored turban and gold earrings, indications of an impending ceremony.

Sure enough, the man was to be married the next night.

I regretted that I did not have an invitation. Mohbat Sinh laughed. "You do," he said. Then he simply instructed one of the elders to look after me. He and Ray Sinh went back to Bhuj city.

With that, I was plunged into unmediated contact with a large gathering of Sodha Rajputs. The several days of ceremony were an intense time of trial.

Women temporarily released from their customary seclusion bawdily harassed me; children relentlessly pestered me for photos. I was taunted and tested to find out how trustworthy I was. In the process the community members and I developed important relationships, so that, as soon as the wedding was over, some young men from a nearby village invited me to attend another colorful celebration, Janmashtami, the birthday of Lord Krishna.

During this extended stay among Sodha Rajputs, I learned much about community customs and personalities, an invaluable background for interpreting traditional embroideries. For example, T saw men at the wedding wearing bukani, ceremonial scarves that I had thought had been

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abandoned. T saw a ( ;: ". \, )\ .~ '" clay image of Lord \_-~ ~ Krishna dressed in an embroidered puthiyo. ajacket traditional to Sodha Rajputs. Seeing embroideries used in ceremonies helped me understand them viscerally.

For the Sodha Rajputs, my sharing a significant block of time with them during two major ceremonies gave them some basis for determining whether I was someone who could be trusted. Now came the test. Until this point, T had collected nothing. Occasionally embroideries had been offered to me-for sale, the villagers would say. But they invariably maintained a firm grip with one hand while offering me painstakingly crafted handwork.

"Are you sure you want to sell this?" I would ask. The answer would be, "Oh, yes." But the grip never loosened. So I would discuss the piece in terms of cultural heritage, and photograph the artisan with her work. I deliberately downplayed the notion of sale in order to gain the confidence of the artisans.

Finally, I was offered an embroidered bag. The piece itself was not extraordinary.

But T sensed that the transaction could be a turning point, so after a tentative discussion on the price, T purchased it. Just then, a man of the village came by and, curious, picked up the bag. "This was made by Meghval people," he pronounced.

I asked him how he knew. He didn't know how he knew, he answered; it was just obvious. A little later, a woman drifted in, glanced at the bag, and commented, "Oh, purchased a Meghval bag, did you?" But she could not explain either what distinguished the embroidery style of this piece.

Purchasing that embroidered bag did in fact mark a dramatic shift in my relationship with the Sodha Rajput villagers, and a watershed in my research.

Because the villagers interpreted the exchange of cash for goods-initiated by them and priced by them-as an ex-

pression of reliability, they opened their cupboards and trunks and began to bring me embroideries in a steady stream. With each purchase, T more firmly established my trustworthiness within the community. More important to me, the purchase of the Meghval bag opened the topic of styles. Villagers began to explain how they could identify embroideries, and to discuss elements of style with me.

Thus, collecting embroideries helped me to enter the strictly secluded world of Sodha Rajput women. Observing my purchases, the women learned what I appreciated. "Go on, bring your embroideries," artisans encouraged one another at first. "Who can tell what she likes? One thing's for sure, though: If she likes it she'll pay almost any amount." (An exaggeration!) Soon enough, they were teaching me what to appreciate in their work. I learned from artisans what objects Sodha Rajputs embroider and the customs with which they are associated. The artisans unearthed for me information to which I would otherwise not have had access. I learned the vocabulary of design that Sodha Rajputs employ, their sense of aesthetics, how they think and create, and how they assess the quality of an embroidery. Sodha Rajputs actually embroider in three distinct styles, not only suf, but also kharek and pakko.

By this time I was enough of an "insider" in the world of Sodha Rajput women to be told of their concerns.

If collecting was important to me as a researcher, it was critical to them as artisans. "We want work," women would implore. Since Rajput women are not allowed outside the village, the only income they can conceive of earning is through embroidering at home. In some villages, women have been offered such opportunity in the form of "labor embroidery." But commissioned work is purchased at exploitatively low wages.

The need to supplement their meager incomes is so great that women part with em broidered heirlooms far more easily than T at first surmised.

A similar refrain was echoed by Rabari women. By now I had well-established

and extensive links in the Rabari community. I did not have to go to them as I had initially planned; they came to me. They too were eager to sell embroideries, to the extent that they were willing to sell the last examples of styles that represented important links in their "recorded" cultural history. In me, they saw someone who could connect them to a market.

So I found myself in the often difficult position of being researcher of, and advocate for, artisans. In a way, this situation seems inevitable, if concern with traditional art encompasses concern for the welfare of its artisans. Still, there is a dilemma if economic uplift means assisting artisans in selling cultural heirlooms. Respect for traditional art also evolves into desire for that art's preservation.

Utilizing the broad perspective to which I had access, I tried to bridge the gap that unfortunately sometimes exists between organizations whose mandate is to assist artisans and the artisans themselves. I put some of the artisans in touch with the Crafts Museum in New Delhi and with the Office of the Development Commissioner, Handicrafts, which has a local office in Bhuj. I found limited markets at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and at the National Institute of Fashion Technology; both in New Delhi, they were building permanent collections of traditional textile arts.

Because I myself was collecting traditional embroideries while researching traditional societies, and simultaneously pleading the cause of artisans, I was compelled to ponder ethical issues that surround collecting, issues that I think must concern field-workers.

The embroideries that I had gathered would go to the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C. Yet, since some of these objects are the last of irrevocably changing traditions, do they belong in foreign institutions? By removing embroideries from the cultures in which they are made and used, are we preserving traditions or plundering cultures? Since we are collecting for educational purposes, do we collect the superb (and often atypical) objects, or the representative? Do we collect according to our own taste, or to

that of the artisans? There are no simple answers to these questions.

My personal solution to the dilemma that arose from wearing several hats was to don yet one more. The hat of a participant in culturally sensitive economic development. Inspiration for the project came from the embroidery collections and the artisans themselves. Although a Rabari artisan easily sold her grandmother's dowry sack, when told it would be used as a sample and she would have to produce more, she studied the piece, memorizing each detail. Coming upon a pile of my collected embroideries, a Rabari or Sodha Rajput artisan would study the individual pieces with intense interest.

Assisted by a generous grant from the Pacific Asia Travel Association, made possible through Aid to' Artis(ins, a nonprofit organization based in Connecticut, I and a grass-roots cooperative of Rabari artisans began a permanent collection of traditional Rabari textiles, to be used as a resource for artisans. Thereafter, working with Dastkar, a nonprofit society for crafts and craftspeople based in New Delhi, I proposed a project that incorporates documented permanent collections of traditional embroideries as resources in the development of commercially viable products. The project focuses on teaching basic business skills and marketing to artisans of three communities in Kutch, and involves collaboration among Dastkar, SHARE (a nonprofit development organization based in Bombay), and Aid to Artisans.

Generously funded by the Ford Foundation, the project began in July 1991.

Already, one permanent collection has proved to be effective. When I commissioned a Rabari artisan to embroider a dress for me, she presented me with a masterpiece worked in a repertoire of stitches much more extensive than that of contemporary Rabari embroidery.

Where did she get all those stitches?

I asked her. "I learned them from those embroideries we collected," she replied.

This story does not end here, for the mystery of sufembroidery that I set out to investigate is yet to be solved. Fieldwork

requires a final important step, and in this the embroideries collected will again play a critical role. By spreading out embroideries along with documentation notes, and pondering this information in the context of literature and existing collections, I will search for patterns, for threads that run throughout, for systems.

In this way I hope to make statements about suf, and about embroidery style and culture, that will advance the field of textile studies.

"Suf?" an elderly Sodha Rajput woman said. "Oh, I can't do suf anymore." Finally, I coaxed her into digging out the only example in the house, a suf rumal (ceremonial covering cloth) embroidered by the mother or grandmother of a daughter-in-law.

The old woman smiled as if greeting an old friend. She used to embroider blouses like this, she recalled. Abochhni. too, were all done in suf, with laheriya (wave design) borders and an appliqued edge. The abochhni was a special shawl that a Rajput bride wore when going to her in-laws' house-"like this," she demonstrated, draping the square rumal on her head, laughing. It took her back to the days before her marriage, in Pakistan. She described customs dear to her, in crystal clear detail. A crowd had gathered by now, and they listened enthralled as the old woman related history that perhaps she would ¡otherwise never have thought to tell anyone.

Traditional textiles play the role of story cloth, for community members and researchers alike. In a sense, they are history, sociology, and anthropology recorded on fabric with the calligraphy of stitches.

D

activity within the GATT purview. Perhaps most important, the little publicized Uruguay Round negotiating group on dispute settlement could play a pivotal role. In its customary proactive fashion, the United States threw down the gauntlet for a more expeditious and effective GA TT dispute settlement procedure, including change in the consensus rule for adoption of panel recommendations.

Others had to respond to the U.S. challenge and then hold the United States to the new GATT procedures if they wished an alternative to U.S. bilateralism in the post-Uruguay Round period.

An even more far-reaching change in U.S. policy toward the GATT that. evolved during the 1980s has been the official view that, under certain circumstances, the United States might turn away from the multilateral approach and restructure its trade relations based on regional trading blocs. President Ronald Reagan, for instance, said in 1985 that If these [new GATT Round] negotiations are not initiated or if insignificant progress is made, I am instructing our trade negotiators to explore regional and bilateral agreements with other nations.

In 1988, James A. Baker, then U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, stated: If possible we hope this follow-up liberalization [to the U.S.-Canada free trade agreement] will occur in the Uruguay Round. If not, we might be willing to explore a "market liberalization club" approach, through minilateral arrangements or a series of bilateral agreements.

A year later, Carla Hills, U.S. Trade Representative, testified before the U.S. Congress:

World trade stability centers on the U.S.-EC-Japan relationship. They should act "in concert" as a tricycle, which, unlike a bicycle, has greater stability.

forthcoming in the Uruguay Round, might be viewed primarily as a negotiating ploy. The fact remains, however, that such statements would simply not have been made in the 1960s and 1970s, when the GATT multilateral system, despite its shortcomings, was the essential warp and woof of U.S. trade policy. Moreover, the United States has, in parallel, been negotiating free trade agreements in North America, with the intent of creating a single free trade region for the entire Western Hemisphere.

The "either-or" approach to U.S. participation in the GATT that might be read into such statements is an oversimplification of the underlying changes that have been evolving in U.S. leadership in the trade field. Part of the problem, however, as described in the following section, is that the new approach has not been fully formulated or adequately articulated.

The Management Role for Transition to a Three-Track Trading System

During the 1980s, the United States fundamentally changed its trade policy Our strategic goal is to open markets ... we much orientation from an overriding commitprefer to use multilateral negotiations to achieve this ment to the GATT multilateral system, end, but we will engage in bilateral and plurilateral based on nondiscrimination and recipefforts and take selective unilateral action where such can be effective. rocal reduction in trade barriers, to a -three-track approach. Track one remains In December 1990, at the time of the the GA TT multilateral foundation.¡ failed Uruguay Round ministerial meetTrack two is the negotiation of free trade ing in Brussels, U.S. Secretary of Comagreements, principally on a regional bamerce Robert Mosbacher explained: sis. Track three consists of unil~teral iniWe could be okay either way [multilateralism or tiatives to open highly restricted markets regionalism]. The U.S. always could make regional or to U.S. exports and thus to achieve an other agreements. In all truth, we're doing this now. "even playing field."

The statements, usually in the form of This change in policy evolved over the quasi-ultimatums if others were not more decade and was not the result of a com-

prehensive, clearly defined initiative, such as the creation of the Bretton Woods system, including the GATT, after World War II. The policy evolution, moreover, reflected conflicting views within the U.S. government and changing circumstances abroad. In 1980, Reagan spoke privately of a North American free trade area, was counseled by his political advisers to be less specific in public, and was opposed

by State Department multilateralists. Actual negotiation of free trade agreements with Canada and Mexico was a result of the reaction of the iatter countries to the perceived closing of markets in Europe and East Asia. Section 30 I unilateralism was a negotiated compromise to meet earlier administration opposition to the Gephardt amendment. In the spring of 1991, the U.S. administration's rationale for free trade with Mexico was tailored largely to obtain legislative authority from a skeptical Congress.

As a result, other nations are not clear what the United States is seeking for the world trading system over the longer run and are suspicious about U.S. motives.

Such perceptions tend to detract from U.S. leadership capability. A number of basic questions need to be more fully addressed, including: Are regional free trade agreements "building blocs" toward global free trade or are they strategic economic groupings designed to become more competitive vis-a-vis other blocs? If the latter (and the United States used this line of argumentation in support of "fast track" legislation for a North American free trade agreement), how should East Asians and others not part of a major bloc respond? As for track three, what precisely needs to be done in the GA TT or elsewhere in order to bring U.S. unilateral and bilateral initiatives within the multilateral (or regional) framework?

If the United States is to exercise firm leadership in the trade policy field in the 1990s, a more clear and complete trade strategy based on the convergence of these three tracks needs to be formulated, in which actions in each of the tracks reinforce the others in working toward well-defined longer-term goals. Such a strategy has been evolving through U.S. trade policy implementation over the past several years, but some gaps remain.

The most important gap in U.S. trade strategy pertains to the Asia-Pacific relationship, which has urgency because of the ominous and growing U.S. trade deficit with East Asia noted earlier. The Asia-Pacific economic relationship and the U.S.-Japan relationship in particular are clearly three track in concept, but they are ill-defined in practice and lacking in direction. The GA IT multilateral track is important to all in the region, but even a successfully implemented Uruguay Round would not resolve all U.S.-Japan and broader Asia-Pacific trade problems.

At the regional level, a ministerial-level framework established in 1989-Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEChas yet to define its substantive agenda, and thus has little credibility, while Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad is calling for an East Asian economic grouping to counter the European and North American trade blocs.

The U.S.-Japan bilateral trade relationship, since the conclusion of the SIr talks in 1990, has been ad hoc, responding to trade problems only as they approach the political boiling point.

A more structured three-track response to the dynamic Asia-Pacific relationship is contained in a CSIS report that appeared in May 1991. The report warns of a possible "drift apart into regional economic blocs" and calls for a more comprehensive policy framework. It offers a specific substantive agenda for APEC, including a regional policy framework for international investment, an integrated trade/aid approach for economic infrastructure projects, an Asia-Pacific Economic Policy Committee to achieve more prompt and effective macropolicy adjustment, and an action agenda for environ-

mental issues of a regional character. The report also proposes a more structured U.S.-Japan bilateral framework that can anticipate and resolve trade and investment problems before they become publicly contentious, and that would deal with such issues as competition policy, government support for new technology development, and public procurement.

The leadership challenge in world trade will continue to confront the United States during the 1990s, but under greatly changed-and continually changingcircumstances. Questions are being raised about U.S. self-interest in an open trading system, and a ground swell of post-Cold War isolationism has strong protectionist overtones. In any event, U.S. leadership will no longer be based on the strength of a dominant creditor position and a commanding technological superiority.

There are even stronger arguments to support continued U.S. leadership for liberal trade, however, that hopefully will prevail. U.S. economic interests, and U.S. ability to improve living standards within the country, are increasingly based on global trade and investment relationships. The domestic debate over international competitiveness is wide-ranging, but an inward-directed "Fortress America" approach is not a credible option.

The exercise of U.S. leadership in the period ahead will be facilitated by a broad international consensus on an economic strategy of open trade and market-oriented national economies. The economic liberalism consensus, however, is iII-defined in specific areas of trade policy and potentially conflictive. The central challenge is to reconcile the momentum toward regional integration, and the corresponding economic bloc formation, with the underlying multilateral policy structure, principally the GATT. More precisely, the regional tendency is toward a predominant tripolar relationship among Western Europe, Norttt America, and East Asia. Trade policy deliberations cen-

ter on the U.S.-EC-Japan relationship, with a second echelon of regional partners more and rriore likely to align with the primary regional economic power, and a third tier of many nations, mostly of relatively small trade significance, not yet part of any major grouping.

U.S. leadership capability reflects to some extent its more balanced export interests: A 25 to 30 percent share each in Western Europe, North America, and East Asia, and the remaining 16 percent scattered elsewhere. More important, trade leadership continues to be thrust on the United States by default, as the alternative to the leadership vacuum of the 1930s. The European Community remains preoccupied with regional priorities and its capacity for initiative is constrained by its internal decision-making process. Japan has yet to assert itself in internatio{lal forums, as shown in the Uruguay Round. This highly asymmetric leadership capability may change over time, but for the relevant policy horizon of at least five years, if not until the end of the decade, the challenge of defining the new world trading order will remain principally an American challenge.

In this dynamic context, the "bicycle theory" is no longer an adequate concept.

Reliance on prolonged GAIT negotiations to keep protectionist pressures in check lost force as the Uruguay Round dragged on and as the momentum for trade liberalization shifted to the regional level. The increasingly wobbly bicycle needs to be replaced, in fact, by a tricycle, reflecting the tripolar orientation of the world economy.

A tricycle, among other things, has greater stability and does not fall over if it should stop for a while. Unfortunately, and to push visual imaging to its limit, the central trade policy configuration of the early 1990s appears to be a tricycle, two of whose wheels are square.

0

About the Author: Ernest H. Preeg holds the William M. Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He is currently writing a book on the Uruguay Round and the future of the international trading system.

Campus Debate Indian-American Dinesh D'Souza's book on the politics of race and gender on American campuses-which has won rave reviews and provoked angry outbursts-asserts that mindless affirmative action policies and "politically correct" thinking have stifled academic freedom.

The three most striking developments in American higher education in the past 30 years have been the transformation of the campus from a white male preserve to one of racial and gender diversity; establishment of specialized departments for the study of ethnic, gender, and international issues; and a phenomenal increase in the number of foreign students, particularly from the developing world. We in India who have been watching the American higher education scene, have considered these changes positive and enriching-until Dinesh D'Souza's Illiberal Education came along.

The complete title of the book, Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus*, succinctly describes the' thrust of the book and spells out D'Souza's major concerns about the current state of American higher education. The American campus once provided an intellectual and harmonious environment conducive to the free flow of ideas; it gave impetus to creativity and individual growth. But today, laments D'Souza, it has been politicized over issues of race and gender to such an extent that it is capable of providing only illiberal education in an atmosphere of suspicion and hostility.

D'Souza sees academic freedom being stifled, and group interests being given precedence over individual rights and meritocracy. He attributes this slide to selfish, shortsighted, and mindless affirmative action policies of university administrations, abetted by their "politically correct" supporters.

D'Souza observes that those who call themselves "politically correct," though in a minority, have succeeded in unleashing a tyranny that is eating up the very vitals of American higher education. They stand for multiculturalism, feminism, and diversity in the curriculum.

D'Souza uses the case study approach, citing concrete examples for illustrating his arguments. He lays bare the inner workings and the resultant injustice of race-based admissions at the University of California, Berkeley; explains the dynamics of black protest at Howard University in Washington, D.C., exposing its hollowness and superficiality; and examines the University of Michigan's efforts to protect minorities by impos"This book is available and New Delhi.

at American

Center

libraries

in Bombay,

Calcutta,

ing restrictions on this liberal campus community's speech, expression, and behavior.

Against the background of these disturbing trends, D'Souza discusses how minority and politically correct activists have diluted the objectivity, scholarly content, and rigor of the curriculum at Stanford University in Stanford, California, and Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He says that at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the faculty's academic freedom has been compromised by an aggressive and committed ethnic and feminist minority that has charged the faculty with being insensi tive, if not bigoted, on race and gender issues. Faced with such charges, and with no support from the weak and apathetic university administration, the faculty has dropped controversial courses and submitted itsdf to censorship, with knowledge and freedom as the casualties.

D'Souza has selected the six universities mentioned above for special consideration because they are in the "vanguard of the revolution of minority victims" and as such are role models for others. He also alludes to other campuses to show that the experiences described are universal. While giving an insight into the "politics of race and sex" and a ringside view of university administrations' decision-making processes, D'Souza makes several significant comments about American academe in the broader perspective of the American democratic process.

He recognizes that American higher education has a responsibility to bring into the academic mainstream minority races and women who have historically been deprived of higher . education. He firmly believes that higher education in multiracial America should not be the preserve of the white male.

Thus, D'Souza is not arguing against affirmative action per se but rather against the ways in which it has been implemented.

He calls for an affirmative action policy that is in keeping with America's commitment to individual rights and freedoms, one that would avoid polarizing the campus into warring groups.

D'Souza urges that the pace, nature, and execution of reforms be worked out meticulously and sagaciously, so that they would not invite a backlash from favorably disposed but status quo oriented whites.

D'Souza offers some rather sketchy, tentative, and "modest" proposals at the end of the book. His first recommendation is

that universities continue with their "policies of preferential treatment but alter their criteria of application from race to socioeconomic disadvantage."

He is obviously trying to improve upon Berkeley's experiment, which has endeavored to diversify the student body according to the proportions in which racial groups are represented in California's population.

This has created a situation in which many Asians and whites with superior test and academic records cannot find places while blacks and Hispanics with average records can. D'Souza would like to avoid such "social engineering" that totally ignores equity, achievement, and excellence. Under his proposals, admission officers will consider "the applicant's family background, financial condition, and primary and secondary school environment." If this record suggests that the student's undistinguished performance was not due to "lack of ability or application but rather to demonstrated disadvantage," the applicant would be admitted.

This solution does pose some practical problems regarding the availability and verification of data. While admissions based on race are mechanically given and candidates are treated as members of a group, admissions based on socioeconomic criteria would be made on individual basis only after careful evaluation of each student's learning and growth potential.

Processing individual cases would prove cumbersome and time consuming. D'Souza contends, however, that information required for making admission decisions is available in university admissions and financial aid offices.

By replacing race with socioeconomic criteria, preferential treatment for admission would be extended to a larger pool of

applicants, thus reducing opportunitIes for blacks and Hispanics. Anticipating criticism, D'Souza is quick to counter by pointing out that ifbeing a member of a race can be "shown to translate into socioeconomic disadvantage currently suffered by the student applicant" he would continue to benefit under the scheme. The number of racial minorities admitted to schools will not diminish, only they will be getting into universities they academically deserve.

D'Souza's second recommendation aims at arresting the growth of separatism among minority students on the campus. The author offers various explanations for a minority's coolness toward integration. He says an admission process that gives preferential treatment to ethnic minorities ironically does not benefit them because they are so inadequately prepared academically that it is difficult for them to compete with highly motivated and meritorious students at prestigious universities. The minority dropout rate at Berkeley is high; fewer than 40 percent of entering blacks and 50 percent of entering Hispanics graduate. The blacks and Hispanics, lured to the campus with offers of scholarships and other financial incentives, are told that because of their backgrounds and viewpoints they are helping to produce a "dynamic intellectual environment" and "richer undergraduate experience." Consequently, their poor performance comes as a rude shock and a blow to their self-esteem. In their despondency, the blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians supported by foreign students, feminists, and homosexuals blame the university's racist structure and "white curriculum" for their poor performance.

In this gloomy situation, minorities find solace within their own ethnic groupings such as the Rainbow Coalition at Stanford. The minorities "tend to develop group consciousness and collective orientation partly as a protective strategy." Some black organizations encourage "anti-intellectualism" instead of starting remedial programs. Minorities are told learning is "acting white." It would seem that Martin Luther King, Jr.'s movement for equal rights and integration is being effectively challenged by Malcolm X's ideology of separation and Black Power. It is a "fight between Martin and Malcolm." Historian Arthur Schlesinger aptly remarks, "The melting pot has yielded to the Tower of Babel."

The university policy of establishing separate dormitories, cultural houses, and organizations for ethnic minorities also unwittingly encourages separatism. The extreme case is that of California State University at Sacramento, which is planning an entirely separate "college within a college" for blacks.

Whites, meanwhile, are becoming bitter about race-based admissions, faculty hiring practices, behavior codes, and sen-

(

j

I-LL-IB-E-R-A-L I EDUCATION sitivity training that they perceive as being selectively used against them. They charge that double standards are being applied in the way university leaderships cultivate minority organizations and in the care and tenderness with which they handle the campus protests of minorities.

Having discussed the crucial issue of multiculturalism throughout the book, D'Souza's proposed solution is indeed disproportionately brief and inadequate. As he has proposed in the case of race-based admissipns, D'Souza wants the universityto refuse to recognize and fund any group that is "racially separatist and excludes students based on skin color." He wants ethnicity and gender to cease to be criteria; he would replace them with intellectual or cultural interests. D'Souza rightly points out that "thought and expression are the currency in which universities trade and speculate" and that universities therefore have no business in supporting nonacademic politically popular causes.

The third proposal is made in connection with courses classified under the broad rubric of non-Western, ethnic, and gender studies. When more than 20 years ago such studies were introduced in American universities, they fulfilled an important need for covering intellectual and geographical areas of study that had been largely neglected. Eurocentric views had long dominated liberal arts education. The new courses opened the window on the history of minority groups and non-Western cultures. This perspective was reinforced with visiting faculty and students from foreign countries, and new opportunities were created for Americans to study, teach, and perform research abroad. As a visiting faculty member teaching Indian civilization at a Midwestern liberal arts college in the early 1970s, I personally experienced the success of this internationalization. I still vividly recall curious and eager American youth learning about faraway India and the masterful term paper one of them wrote on Emperor Akbar at the end of the semester.

However, more recently, America's academia has been polarized between the politically correct scholars, who have made issues of race, gender, and class central to their teaching and research, and the traditionalists who advocate the study of Western civilization and culture. The latter claim to have an "objective" approach to scholarship and believe that it is important for Americans to study first the civilization to which they belong before venturing to comprehend more exotic cultures. In their view, politically correct scholars allow their radical political agenda to taint their scholarship and teaching. In support of this contention they cite the example of the politically correct describing Western culture as "racist, sexist, and oppressive," ignoring its many nobler aspects.

Research in non-Western areas is done selectively from the Western perspective, the true culture eluding the researcher.

The teaching of non-Western courses leaves much to be desired and students take them because they are trendy, thin in substance, and hence easy to pass. Western culture courses, on the other hand, argue the traditionalists, are rich in content and

ThePolitics of Race and Sex on Campus ~

therefore hard to master.

D'Souza, who sides with the traditionalists, is particularly harsh on AfroAmerican and women's studies proIUAl!!l grams, which he thinks are committed to DINESH D'SOUZA an activist ideology of the 1960s, closed to academic argument, and "hostile to alternative views." He finds these programs more political than scholarly and agrees with sociologist Walter Allen that the "departments play an affirmative action role" by providing opportunities to hire minority faculty. Not academically serious, they are "tolerated but never fully accepted by traditional or mainstream fields." D'Souza calls Harvard women's studies professor Alice Jardine's class "so esoteric and yet so vulgar, so freewheeling and yet so dogmatic, so full of political energy and yet ultimately so futile."

Considering that there are some 350 Afro-American and 500 women's studies programs in American universities, D'Souza's blanket condemnation appears too sweeping. Western civilization and culture, and non-Western, ethnic, and gender programs, complement each other. Together they should really form the core of liberal arts education. Realizing this D'Souza suggests universities devise "a required course or sequence for entering freshmen which exposes them to the basic issue of equality and human difference, through a carefully chosen set of classic texts that deal powerfully with those issues." This is not a novel concept and has been tried before. A required course or sequence for entering freshmen will only be a token effort given the significance of the subject matter involved and the richness of materials available for teaching and research.

The book and the author's recommendations gain significance given the author's background. An Indian expatriate, D'Souza, 31, studied at prestigious Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, wrote for conservative journals like National Review, authored with Gregory Fossdal the biography of television evangelist Jerry Falwell, worked for the Reagan White House, and is now a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. With such impeccable conservative credentials, one would expect his work to be polemical. Surprisingly, this representative of the pugnacious right is balanced, understanding, and even somewhat sympathetic. Perhaps his Indian background has something to do with this restraint. As a Roman Catholic, D'Souza belonged to a religious minority in India and well knew what it was like living in a multicultural society that faces some of the same problems as those in America. India is struggling to reflect its multiculturalism in its own curricula, to bring its scheduled castes and tribes into the academic mainstream, and to effect a compromise between its "politically correct" left and traditionalists of the right. This lucid, analytical, and bold book will therefore be of interest to Indians, particularly those in academia.

0 About the Author: Dileep Patwardhan is the regional officer for the

Bombay branch of the U.S. Educational Foundation in India.

A Global Perspective for the Nineties On June 5, 1981, a report in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control's "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report" signaled the discovery of AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome).

A decade later, it is now possible to present a clearer picture of the pandemic. As background to the consideration of the global problems of drug use and HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) I propose to review the current status of the pandemic, the main lines of its projected future course, and the central trends in the global response to HIV /AIDS. The HIV epidemic merits its designation as a pandemic. AIDS cases are officially reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) from 163 countries, and HIV infections have been documented in virtually all countries.

In 1980, an estimated 100,000 people worldwide were HIV-infected; during the 1980s, this number increased a hundredfold, so that today an estimated ten million adults are infected. These HIVinfected people are not uniformly distributed: At least six million are in Africa, one million each in North America, South America and Asia, and 500,000 in Europe. This reminds us that North America bears only about one-tenth of the world's HIV/AIDS burden.

Among HIV-infected adults, more than six million are men and nearly four million are women. Of all HIV infections, approximately 75 percent were acquired through sexual intercourse; of these, the large majority~by about a factor of four to one-were heterosexually transmitted.

About ten percent of the global HIV infections are linked with injecting drug use, ten This article is adapted from a speech delivered at the World Conference of Therapeutic Communities in Montreal, Canada, in September 1991.

percent involve infants becoming infected from their HIV-infected mothers, and the remaining five percent were transmitted through blood-principal1y for transfusion. No new routes of HI V infection have been discovered, despite a worldwide, continuing, and thorough search.

To understand the current and evolving pandemic, we must realize that in historical terms, the HIV pandemic is still a relatively new phenomenon. The virus is not new; yet its international spread did not really gain momentum until the midto-late 1970s.

The newness of the HIV / AIDS pandemic has two major consequences. First, the pandemic is still very unstable, dynamic, and volatile. This dynamism, which is the central feature of the pandemic, has three components: The virus continues to spread in all already affected areas; the virus is spreading, sometimes very rapidly, to new areas; and the epidemic has become and wil1 continue to become more differentiated, complex, and socially complicated in al1 countries.

Thus, HIV continues to spread in the Americas, Africa, Europe, and Asia. To examine two industrialized country examples: In the United States, approximately 40,000 to 80,000 new HIV infections were expected in 1991, along with 75,000 new HIV infections in Europe.

Moreover, HIV is continuing to spread to countries, and parts of countries, that had little or no evidence of HIV infection just a few years ago. For example, five years ago HIV seemed to be affecting mainly urban areas of central and eastern Africa. Today, HIV has reached into western and southern Africa. Among adults in Abidjan (Ivory Coast), HIV seroprevalence increased from less than one percent in 1987 to more than seven percent today. In South Africa more than

300,000 people, largely black Africans, are estimated to be HIV-infected. Ominously, HIV is now spreading rapidly into rural areas of Africa, where the majority of the people live.

However, it is in Southeast Asia, Thailand, and India that the volatility of this epidemic is most dramatically displayed.

As of July 1991, only 106 AIDS cases were reported officially from Thailand to WHO, but an estimated 400,000 Thais are HIV -infected. The spread of HI V in Thailand has been extraordinary. In late 1987, less than one percent of intravenous (IV) drug users in Bangkok were HIV-infected; by 1990, a nationwide median of 32 percent of IV drug users nationwide were infected. In 1987, only a very small number of women sex workers in Thailand were HIV -infected; today that proportion has increased to 15 percent. A 1990 survey among Thai military recruits found six percent to be HIV-infected. On a population basis and within just a few years, the Thai HIV epidemic is now about ten times larger than the HIV epidemic in Britain. The Thai experience demonstrates again that regardless of the route of spread-homosexual, injecting drug use, or heterosexual-an explosive HIV epidemic can occur if the virus is present and the behaviors that spread HIV are sufficiently common and intense.

This rapid change from HIV as a marginal problem to AIDS as a national crisis is also now under way in India. As of July 1991, only 65 AIDS cases were reported there. Yet HIV infection rates as high as ten percent are now being documented among men attending sexual1y transmitted disease clinics in Madras, Veil ore, and Bombay. Reports from cities around India all point toward an HIV epidemic that may be spreading rapidly, and which is already larger than the Thai epidemic.

The Philippines and Indonesia may well be next. Sometime before 1995, the number of HIV -infected Asians will exceed the number of HIV -infected people in the ind ustrialized countries.

The third part of the pandemic's dynamic and evolving nature is its increasing differentiation and complexity. The HIV pandemic is composed of thousands of smaller and dynamic epidemics, differing in time, place, scope, and populations affected.

For example, in the Caribbean, during the first part of the 1980s, homosexual and bisexual transmission was responsible for the vast majority of AIDS cases; however, by the late 1980s, heterosexual transmission had become the predominant route of HI V spread in the region. In Europe, since the last half of 1989, injecting drug users have become the major transmission category for newly reported AIDS cases, in marked contrast with the early 1980s. In addition, the European situation is further complicated by continuing North-South differences in the role of injecting drug users in the epidemic. And in Argentina, the proportion of AIDS cases who are injecting drug users increased from zero percent in 1986 to more than one-third in 1990, reflecting the recent and rapid spread of HIV infection into and within that drug-using population.

The evolving HIVjAIDS epidemic in the United States offers another illustration of epidemic differentiation. In 1981, of the 189 AIDS cases reported, 97 percent were men, and three-fourths were from New York and California. In contrast, the more than 43,000 AIDS cases in 1990 came from all states of the nation.

Only about one-third were from New York and California, II percent were women, and approximately 800 were children. Within a single large metropolitan area (Dade County, Florida), at least five distinct subepidemics have been identified, each with its own dynamic and each req uiring targeted as well as linked prevention strategies.

In general, regardless of which people, with whatever behaviors, were first affected in a community or country, HIV has demonstrated its ability to cross all

social, cultural, economic, and political borders. It is now clear that HIV will eventually reach most if not all human communities, and once the HIV epidemic starts, it evolves and intensifies within each community.

While as of July 1991,371,802 cases of AIDS had been reported officially to WHO from 163 countries, a more realistic estimate is that more than one million adults and 500,000 children worldwide have developed AIDS since the beginning of the pandemic.

The second critical consequence of the pandemic's newness is that its major impact is yet to come.

WHO recently estimated that about 20 million adults and ten million children will become newly infected with HIV during the 1990s. Accordingly, by the year 2000, a cumulative global total often million adults and five million children will have developed clinical AIDS-for a tenfold increase in the number of people developing AIDS during the 1990s compared with the 1980s.

The largest proportional growth of the HIV pandemic during the 1990s will be in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Thus, while the HIVjAIDS problem will continue to grow and intensify in the industrialized world during the 1990s, the largest expansion of the pandemic will be in the developing world. By the year 2000, more than 90 percent of new AIDS cases may be occurring in the developing world.

Yet to look into the future, we must also consider the problem of global vulnerability to further spread of HIV. Curiously, there is a popular tendency to believe that the global risk of HIV infection has peaked and has been declining as a result of AIDS information and education programs. This view is seriously flawed, for global vulnerability to HIV is increasing in response to social, economic, and political events. The global economic downturn of the early 1990s will increase our collective vulnerability to HIV infection.

For example, countries worldwide remain profoundly ignorant about real sexual behavior in society. WHO recently estimated that there are at least ISO mil-

lion new cases of sexually transmitted infection (gonorrhea, herpes, syphilis, among others) in the world each year.

There is clearly a tremendous potential for sexual transmission of any pathogen, including HIV. In addition, of the estimated five million injecting drug users in the world, only 20 percent or fewer have thus far become HIV-infected. Therefore, there is major potential for explosive HIV epidemics in unaffected or little affected communities of injecting drug users-as recently seen in Yunnan Province, China; Rangoo-n, Myanmar; and Manipur, India.

From whatever perspective-number of HIV -infected people, num ber of people with AIDS, number of AIDS orphans, or the stresses on health systems and entire societies-i t is clear tha t the decade of the 1990s will be much more difficult than the 1980s. This will be particularly dramatic for countries whose epidemic started in the mid-to-Iate 1980s. For example, in Thailand, AIDS cases during the next five years (1992-96) will likely increase more than 500-fold compared with the past five years (1987-91)-from about ISO to at least 80,000.

As we look ahead, two additional factors should be kept in mind. First, this bleak scenario is actually the "best case," for ifHIV spreads widely in large countries

A new study by Harvard University, the most comprehensive to date on the global AIDS epidemic, puts the figure of AIDS-infected people much higher than does Dr. Jonathan Mann in the accompanying article. It also predicts an explosive spread of the disease, going beyond the' recent projections of the World Health Organization (WHO).

The Harvard researchers said that AIDS has increased more than 100-fold worldwide-from an estimated AIDS-infected 100,000 people in 1981, to at least 12.9 million people today. They also noted that between 38 million and 110 million adults and more than ten million children will be infected with the AIDS virus by the year 2000. In addition, about 24 million adults and several million children will have develto ten times as oped AIDS symptoms-up many as today. In contrast, WHO predicts ten million AIDS cases and 30 million to 40 million infections by the end of the decade.

The conclusions of the one-year study, entitled "AIDS in the World 1992," are

that already have a serious HIV problem, like Nigeria, Brazil, and India, the WHO projections will be much too small. Second, we must remember always to think about HIV in decades; the impact of the pandemic will continue, and likely continue to grow, well beyond the year 2000.

For all these reasons, the HIV/AIDS pandemic cannot yet be considered a stable, orderly process; it is too new and its interaction with personal and societal life too complex to allow us the mental relief of predictability or complacency.

Since the evolution of the pandemic reflects, and will be determined by, individual and collective behavior, it is important to understand the dynamics of the global response to the pandemic.

In the history of the pandemic, we can distinguish four periods: Silence, discovery and initial responses, global mobilization, and now-a crossroads.

HIV spread around the world, silently and unnoticed, from the mid-1970s until 1981, when AIDS was first recognized in the United States. There is a great lesson in this silent period of the HIV pandemic.

The dramatic, extraordinary increase in movements of people, products, and ideas, so characteristic of our world, also creates conditions uniquely favorable to rapid global spread of infectious diseases. based on a survey of epidemiologists from around the world. The report was prepared by the Harvard-based Global AIDS Policy Coalition, an international research network for AIDS. The study stresses that international assistance is not keeping up with the growth of the pandemic. In 1991, WHO received $50 million for AIDS work, which is 40 percent less than for 1990 and the first decline in resources since the world body's AIDS program began. The study further states that last year only about six percent of total global spending for AIDS prevention was in the developing world, which accounted for some 80 percent of the total AIDS cases.

In addition to accelerated research toward treatment and a vaccine for AIDS, the report emphasizes that international and national institutions need to "revise and revitalize" the global response to the disease.

Commenting on the report, Dr. Mann said, "The gap between lagging national and international efforts against AIDS and the expanding pandemic is widening rapidly and dangerously, and a new global strategy for the 1990s is urgently needed."

0

We must learn how to be globally vigilant for the pandemics yet to come.

The discovery of A IDS in 1981 ended the silent period and inaugurated a phase of discovery and initial response, from 1981 to 1985. By early 1983, thanks to epidemiology, the routes of transmission were known, and rational prevention recommendations were issued. During this period, the scientific response to the new challenge was dramatic, and enormously productive.

Yet curiously, at the individual, community, national, and international levels, the initial response to AIDS was rather slow-an average of two to four years, or longer, generally elapsed from diagnosis of the first AIDS cases to the start of major and energetic efforts to inform and educate the public. For example, in Switzerland, the first AIDS case was reported in June 1982, yet the national AIDS program (one of the best in the world) was not launched until early 1986.

The third period, of global mobilization, was inaugurated by the First International AIDS Conference in April 1985 and lasted until late 1989. During this period a global strategy was designed and put into action; national AIDS programs were created in virtually all countries; and creative, innovative, and courageous community programs were developed.

This combination of global leadership and practical support to national and community action, unprecedented in speed and scope, was symbolized by the United Nations General Assembly debate on AIDS in October 1987, the first time that body had ever discussed a disease; and by the London AIDS Summit in January 1988, when the largest number of health ministers ever assembled, for any reason, came together to discuss AIDS prevention and care.

Yet today, facing an unstable, dynamic, and increasingly dangerous pandemic, there is a growing sense that the effort against AIDS has reached a "crossroads."

Societal commitment to AIDS is decreasing; institutional commitment is declining; the gap between rich and poor (not only rich and poor countries but the rich and poor within coun-

tries) is widening; the biomedical advances-AZT, aerosolized pentamidine, which prolong and enhance quality of life-are currently irrelevant to the vast majority of the world's HIV -infected people; and, at times, our global, national, and community efforts seem stalled and uncertain.

We must recognize that against this epidemic, we have too often been reactive and late. The pandemic stole a march upon us. It silently spread before we even knew it existed. Then denial, at the personal, national, and international level, has been an integral part of this epidemic from the beginning.

To move ahead, a new global AIDS agendais needed, and its creation is our collective responsibility. Already, we can discern its outlines: To apply well what we already know; to confront a cluster of difficult health and social issues (the remarkably similar imbalances and inequities embedded in the status quo of each health and social system); and to build a coalition for health-not just AIDS-to catalyze a revolution in health, based on right, not privilege. Only by combining work at each level can we hope to be effective in controlling the pandemic.

First, we must do well what we already know how to do. There is sufficient evidence from nearly a decade of experience in HIV prevention to show that we do know how to slow the spread of HIV. Three elements are required: Information/education; health and social services; and a supportive social environment. For example, at the recent International AIDS Conference, a Zairean group demonstrated how the combination of treating sexually transmitted diseases and condom promotion was able to reduce the annual incidence of HIV among women prostitutes from 18 percent down to two percent per year. Regarding injecting drug users, large-scale risk reduction programs have been associated with reduced seroconversion rates among drug injectors in North America, Western Europe, and Southeast Asia.

Unfortunately, in most places, only one or two of the elements in the preven-

rights and public health is one of the great advances in the history of health and society. It is precisely because the major public health challenges of the future involve behavior, individual and collective, that the human rights discovery in AIDS is so important for the future of public health. tion equation have been put into place.

• The pandemic has highlighted the Where information/education, health world's most pervasive inequality-that and social services, and a supportive so- involving women. The pandemic, now cial environment are not all present, HIV and in the future, cannot be separated prevention is not being given a real from fundamental problems in the social, chance to succeed. Yet, even as commu- economic, and political roles and status nities and countries struggle to put the of women. In the 1990s, HIV/AIDS will prevention equation we know into place, become, increasingly, a health problem we realize that this work is necessary but affecting women. Thus, through AIDS, is not sufficient. For in every country, recognizing the societal and historical AIDS leads us directly to preexisting dimensions of gender and health, we are deeper health and social problems that led to the conclusion that a male-domimust be addressed, both for the sake of nated society is a danger to public health.

• Although science is increasingly AIDS and for progress in health. Too often, as experience with injecting drug international, the practical benefits of sciusers has shown, official attitudes and ence are not fairly distributed. First, at status quo policies represent a major bar- $2,000-$3,000 per person annually, AZT is impossibly expensive for countries with rier to progress against AIDS. • We desperately need to reexamine annual per capita health budgets of$20 or human behavior. The current conceptual less. Also, a recent study in the United framework and methods for study of States found that AZT was more likely to sexual and drug-injecting behavior are be provided to men than to women and to not really able to address or answer ques- whites than to people of color. Looking tions vital for HIV prevention. For exam- toward vaccine, it may be possible to ple, we must understand better why preserve key elements of the existing sysinjecting drug users can have good levels tem, including the profit motive, without of knowledge about HIV, recognize that at the same time sacrificing our ability to injecting drug users as a group are at provide an AIDS vaccine to the entire considerable risk of becoming infected world's population in need, not just to the with HIV, yet deny their personal risk of rich in countries or to the rich countries.

HIV infection. Our ignorance in the matThese considerations lead to the third ter isjust part of a legacy of neglect about priority for the years to come-to catthe role and importance of behavior in alyze a new era in health. The conceptual health-a legacy we must now address. basis can be found in the preamble to the • We need to protect human rights, WHO Constitution, which declares that for four reasons. First, because it is right "the enjoyment of the highest attainable to do so; second, because preventing standard of health is one of the fundiscrimination helps ensure a more effec- damental rights of every human being." tive HIV prevention program; third, be- This is not only a dream. cause social marginalization intensifies In the pioneering work we must do the risk of HIV infection; and fourth, together, we can draw strength from three because a community can only respond sources: From individuals who, someeffectively to HIV /AIDS by expressing how, find the courage to reject the "status the basic right of people to participate in quo" of health and social services, or the decisions that affect them. The discovery role of victim, or the role as outcast, and of these.criticallinkages between Quman who courageously work for change;.from

In every country, AIDS leads us to preexisting deeper health and social problems that must be addressed, both for the sake of AIDS and for progress in health.

commullitIes, who, facing specific and concrete challenges, have responded, innovated and created, and inspired others; and from the global e~sence of this epidemic. In AIDS, in international politics, in humanitarian relief work, we are witnessing and participating in a fundamental redefinition of the self and the other-of the connections between people and among peoples. The spectacular and unprecedented increases in movements of people, goods, and ideas in the past quarter-century have created a qualitative new reality-and the face of global interdependence in health. Our capacity to participate actively in shaping the history of our time will depend upon our ability to understand and respond creatively to this fundamental health reality.

In business, this reality has long been appreciated, but in health we have been slower to acknowledge and respond. Yet just as it is no longer possible to consider local or national economies without reference to the global economy, so local and national health must take global health into consideration .

AIDS is the first truly global epidemic.

In keeping with the global realities of our time, it has also called forth the world's first truly global strategy and response.

In this spirit, transcending borders, we can see many smaller lessons, but yet one dominant, vital, inescapable lesson from a decade's struggle with a new global epidemic. It is often said that the HIV /AIDS pandemic reflects, in a special way, the conditions of the modern world.

This is surely true. Yet this insight suggests another-that the way out of the crisis of AIDS is also linked inextricably to modern social, economic, and political life, now valiantly striving to increase the participation of people, to value community with its diversity, and to heed the universal call of health, human rights, and solidarity.

0 About the Author: Jonathan M. Mann, professor of epidemiology and international health at the Harvard School of Public Health, is also director of the International AIDS Center of the Harvard AIDS Institute, Cambridge, .Massachusetts.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) signed two agreements with India last month.

Under one of them, USAID will provide $1.1 million in grants to the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). The grant will help FICCI conduct a nationwide awareness program for business on India's new industrial and economic policies. The FICCI initiative calls for facilitating interaction between regional and industrial interest groups and policymakers to ensure India's integration into the world economy, The agreement was signed by Ambassador William Clark, Jr. (left) and FICCIPresidentV.L,Dutt (right). Union Commerce Minister

P. Chidambaram presided over the ceremony.

Under another agreement signed with the Government of India, the United States will provide a $50 million grant for the import of crude, degummed soybean oil during 1992-93. The United States will pay for the edible oil and ocean freight costs. It also will arrange for the oil's purchase, shipment, and delivery to the State Trading Corporation of India, which will sell it to vegetable oil processors, wholesalers, and distributors.

The sales proceeds will be used by the Indian government to fund various activities, including financing the National Renewal Fund to assist in the industrial restructuring process,

A group of people aged 60 and over in Sikrona village in Ballabgarh, Haryana, huddle around project consultant Sujatha Sharma (left) as she administers a questionnaire to find out the prevalence of dementia among them. They are among the 2,500 elderly people from Sikrona and 27 neighboring villages who have been identified as a representative segment of rural India by the New Delhi-based Center for Aging Research in India (CARl) for its six-year study on the epidemiology of Alzheimer's disease in India.

"Alzheimer's," says Dr. Vijay Chandra (center), a neurologist and founder of CARl, a nonprofit voluntary agency, "is a devastating brain disorder that usually strikes people in their late fifties or older. It is the most common cause of dementia. In America, it is estimated' that some 2.5 million people suffer from the disease.

"How prevalent is Alzheimer's in India? We don't know, as it is generally not considered a disease here," adds Chandra, who received a doctorate in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health in 1978. "This is mainly because most people consider dementia a normal aging phenomenon. It is possible that there are some factors-socioeconomic, environmental, life-style-that protect Indians from the disease. But we must have a scientific basis to establish that. Our study, we hope, will explain some of these issues and also shed light on the epidemiology of the disease in India."

Assisting CARl in its study are the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, the U,S. National Institute of Aging, and Dr. Mary Ganguli, an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry and epidemiology at Pittsburgh University and head of a similar U.S, project-MoVIES, the Monongahela Valley Independent Elders Survey.

'l92

Indian Americans are becoming conspicuous by their ,,,Bill Clinton. At a fund-raising event held in Edison, New Jersey, on May27, they helped collect more than $250,000. presence and contributions in this year's U,S,presidential U.S. ", election campaign, reports India Abroad, a weekly pub- ELECTION "This is the fifth fund-raiser we have held for Clinton since last December, and brings to over $1 million the amount raised for Iished from New York. him," said Prakash Shah, an investment banker. Shah's wife, Rajul, Krishna Srinivasa, owner of a computer consulting firm in Smyrna, also a Democratic activist, has been selected by Clinton as a Georgia, and a Republican activist, recently mobilized 128 members delegate to the Democratic National Convention, which opens this of the Indian community from the state to attend a fund-raising month in New York City. dinner in Atlanta for the Bush-Quayle campaign. They each paid One of the principal organizers of the May 29 San Francisco fund$100 for the dinner. Speaking on the occasion. President Bush raiser for Clinton also was an American Indian-Darshan Singh, a praised Srinivasa "for his wonderful contribution of energizing ...the businessman and the city's parking commissioner. Addressing a Indian community, all great, loyal Americans." gathering of about 100 Indian Americans, Clinton said, "The Indian In three earlier fund-raisers, according to India Abroad, "the community in America is a shining example of devotion to the family, [Indian] community had helped the Republican Party [raise] more work, and responsibility, and the whole nation should be grateful to than $700,000 for the Bush-Quayle campaign." you for the example you are setting." He added, " ...together we can Indian Americans of Democratic persuasion also are actively bring the United States and India closer." engaged in raising funds for the Democratic presidential candidate,

WORLD TRADE FAIR INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION AND CONFERENCE ON FOREIGN COLLABORATIONS, INDUSTRIAL AND BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES 1ST TO 10TH JANUARY,

1993.

HYDERABAD - INDIA

First World Trade Fair in India covering the whole range of industry and business.

Expected to be the largest event ever to be held in India with th-e support and full co-operation of the Government, Financial Institutions, Chambers of Commerce, Trade and Professional Associations.

I,I.J._ The World Trade Fair would comprise distinct and specialised International Exhibitions and Seminars at the largest exhibition complex spread over 7,00,000 Sq.Mtrs. (180 acres) covering thrust areas Engineering, Electronics & Telecommunications, Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals, Petrochemicals & Plastics, Textiles, Food-Agro Products & Packag ing, Construction & Building, Hospitals & Health Care, Tourism and Miscellaneous Industries.

The largest number of exhibitors and delegates from India and abroad will be exposed to latest products, services, technologies and catalogues.

Around 200,000 Foreign and Indian business visitors in addition to one million general visitors expected at the Fair.

Based on the past experience, the business activity at the Fair is expected to be around Rs 3,000 Million (US $ 100 million). To support business activity, facilities and services of international standards will be provided. Special incentives will be given to Small Scale Industries for fruitful participation.

Extensive media pubilicity is being through Press, Radio and given to the Fair Television in India and abroad.

Neariy 1000 international experts will make presentations exploring the technological, industrial and businessopportun ities in the internationa Iseminars on the thrust areasJoreign collaborators and trade delegations would make presentations and have "Oneto-One" meetings with their Indian counterparts.

TRADE DELEGATIONS To secure maximum foreign participation from financial and technological collaborators and NRls, delegations from India will visit North America, Europe, Japan, South East Asia, Australia and the Gulf Countries.

For further details,

The World NRI Conference will be held from 11th to 13th January 1993. Around 2,000 NRls and their associations from allover the world are expected to participate for exploring technological and financial collaboration opportunities.

please contact.

The Convenor,World Trade Fair, Network ConsultoncyServices,POBox No.1065,Hyderobad-500 029,INDIA Tel: 237315, 235312, 24] 993, 241642 Telex: 0425-6075 MCA IN Fax: 09] -0842-845228

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