December 30,1996 The Nation since 1865. 3 VOLUME 263 , NUMBER 22

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LETTERS 8

EDITORIALS HELMSWOMAN AT STATE 9 TRANSITION OR TRAGEDY? Stephen B Cohen PLUTONIUM REACTION Harvey Wassermaii SUCKERING THE POOR Robert L. Borosage INFACT ... COLUMNS IDEAS FOR INAUGURATION Calvin Trillin MINORITY REPORT

Christopher Hitchens

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The Green Line Fallacy 20

SUBJECT TO DEBATE Let Them Eat Numbers Katha Pollitt MEDIA MATTERS High Corporate Baroque Thomas Frank

ARTICLES BARBIES BETMYAL In search of low wages, the toy industry leaves a host of broken workers.

DOWN & OUT: A NUCLEAR PATH J.F.K. once determined a route to global build-down-its time Clinton took it up. Gar Alperovitz, Alex Canpbell and Thad liYilliamson PROFITING OFF THE FAT OF THE LAND Was a new diet pill passed by the F.D.A. on some very slim science? Wayne Biddle

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BOOKS & THE ARTS GUSTERSON. Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War Toin Engelhardt PIROZHKOVA At His Side: The Last Years of Isaac Babel Lynn Phillips MUSIC: Brilliant Corners Gene Santoro FILMS Jerry Maguire 9. Ridicule 1 Stuart Klawans HANS CHRISTIAN OSTRO (poem) Agha ShahidAli Cover: photo and design 0 by Hans Haacke, computer montage by Peter Girardi; illustrations by Steve Brodner, Vincent X: Kirsch

Helmswoman at State t has come to this: A Democratic President announces his new national security team and the first politician to chime in with bloated satisfaction is Jesse Helms. I believe it is a certainty, Helms.said, that all four of the nominees announced today by the President will be viewed favorably by most senators. Was the election even necessary? With his nomination of Madeleine Albright as Secretary of

State, William Cohen as Secretary of Defense, Tony Lake to head the C.I.A. and Samuel Berger to head the N.S.C., Bill Clinton has again proved that he is a first-class politician and a third-rate President. Each of these choices plays powerfidly with key domes- tic constituencies. Albright, in particular, is a veritable political pinball machine gone tilt. In addition to Helmss praise for her as a tough and courageous lady-as if Helms would know one ifhe saw one-her promotion was celebrated.by womens groups, Cuban-American groups, hawkish American Jewish groups, anti- Russian East Europeans and Baltic-Americans, and jealous pro- tectors of Al Gores future. Cohens name was no doubt greeted with relief at the Pentagon, lest Clinton appoint a Republican like John McCain, who would have demanded serious reform. Lake will calm troubled waters at the C.I.A. and provide a direct pipeline to the President, rather than clean house and rethink the agencys purpose in the post-cold war world. Berger will continue at the N.S.C. much as Lake has, quietly and with the purpose of directing foreign policy coordination with domestic politics foremost in mind. This team gives frightening confirmation of

I Tip ONeills famous aphorism that all politics is local.

Of all these choices, Albright is by far the most troubling. Al- though she was not finally responsible for most of the U.N. deci- sions reached during Clintons first term, she can be fairly blamed for the often amateurish and contemptuous manner in which they were implemented. Clinton spent the first part of his term back- pedaling from the positions that Albright had crafted for hira during the 1992 campaign. The tough talk regarding Beijings butchers was quickly replaced by quisling compliments. Implied promises of military intervention in Bosnia were dropped and picked up so many times that even Clinton seemed not to know which side he was on. Assertive multilateralism was thrown in the trash before it was defined, leaving the United States with a policy of mere assertion. In each of these fiascos, Albright played a central role in raising false expectations and thereby diminish- ing U.S. stature and influence. Much like Daniel Patrick Moyni- han, who twenty years ago used his office at the U.N. to run his campaign for the Senate, Albright has campaigned tirelessly for her new role from her seat in the General Assembly by insulting member nations unlikely to be popular with the American people. Her ham-handed manipulation of Boutros Boutros-Ghalis forced departure, announced with virtually no international consultation, infuriated even those who agreed with it. Utimately, Albrights tenure, an African diplomat observed, did serve the purpose of uniting the world-I84 nations against the United States.

None of this bodes well for the future of U.S. foreign policy. The most challenging issues for the United States in the next four years relate to economic integration, ethnic and regional conflict and national disintegration. But Albright, an academic acolyte of

The Nation. December 30,1996 4 i~RfI@l$&j -

TheNation. PUBLISHER AND EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Victor Navasky

EDITOR Katrina vanden Heuvel

EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Art wmslow SENIOR EDITORS: Elsa Diuler, Richard Lingeman ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Katba Pollitt, Micah L. Sifry LITERARY EDITOW. John Leonard, Sue L e o q d WASHINGTON EDITOR David Com COPY CHIEF: Roan? Carey COPY EDITOR Judith Long COPY ASSOCIATE: Lisa Vandepaer ASSISTANT COPY EDITOR: Emily Gordon ASSISTANT TO THE EDITOR Peggy Suttle ASSISTANT LITERARY EDITOR Molly E. Rauch INTERNS Beth Johnson, Joe Knowles (Fmhingfon), Nikolas Io Amanda Ream, Jennifer Starrels, John Tumer, Matthew Woods ON LEAVE: J o h Wypijewski

,doff, Kristine McNeil,

DEPARTMENTS Architectwe, Jane Holtz ,Kay;& Arthur C. Danto; Films, Stuart Klawans; Music, Edward W. Said, Gene Santoro; Poetry, Grace Schulman; Television, Alyssa Kak; Tkater, Thomas M. Disch; Die Right, Eric Alterman BUREAUS: Europe, Daniel Singer; Budapest, Mikl6s V h o s ; Tokyo, Karl Taro Greenfeld; Sotithem Afica, Mark Gevisser; Corporations, Robert Sherrill, Defense, Michael T. mare COLUMNISTS AND REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Alexander Cockburn (Beat t?ie Devil), Christopher Hitchens [Minorip Report), Katha Pollitt [Subject to Debute), Edward Sorel, Calvin Trillin CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: LuciaAnnunziata,Kai Bird, George Black, Robert L. Borosage, Stephen F. Cohen, Marc Cooper, *e Davis, Slavenka Drakulid, Thomas Ferguson, Doug Henwood, Max Holland, Molly Ivins, Joel Rogers, Kirkpatrick Sale, Robert Scheer, Herman Schwartz, Andrew L., Shapuo, Bruce Shapiro, Ted Solotaroff, Gore Vidal, Jon Wiener, Amy Wilentz, Patricia J. Williams EDITORIAL BOARD: Norman Birnbaum, Richard Fa& Frances FitzGerald, Eric Foner, Philip Green, Randall Kennedy, Elinor Langer, Deborah W. Meier, Toni Momson, Richard Parker, Michael Pertschuk, Elizabeth Pochoda, Neil Postman, Marcus G. R a s h , David Weir, Roger W m

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Zbigniew Brzezinski, is intellectually ill-suited to imagine the architecture of foreign policy in a world without superpowers wearing white or black hats. Like her mentor, she demonstrates little understanding of geo-economic issues and reverts almost reflexively to cold war rhetoric even absent a credible enemy, On the delicate issue of Russians acceptance of NATOs expansion, she tends to reinforce their fears of hostile encirclement. In the Middle East, where the peace process is unraveling in large part because of Israels unwillingness to stick to the deal that Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat signed on the White House lawn, she has sounded more uncompromising than the U. J.A. On Cuba, she has exploited rising tensions to cement her relations with the most regressive elements of the Cuban-American community, thereby tightening their stranglehold on U.S. Cuba policy.

A gender (or racial) breakthrough at the top of any powef i institution is a welcome sight. But there is something distressing at the sight of the head of EMILYS List exclaiming, I am so happy, Im like a Cheshire cat. Its fabulous, at the appointment of anew Secretary of State. Does EMILYS List care about French reintegration to the NATO command structure, which will un- doubtedly be complicated by Albrights deliberate humiliation of the Quai dOrsay in her recent tour of French West Africa? Does it ponder the state of U.S.-Egyptian relations following Albrights humiliation of Boutros-Ghali and her expected coddling of Ben- jamin Netanyahu? The State Department is the last place whose chief should be subject to engineering by interest groups.

The big loser in the Cabinet sweepstakes was Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch, who made the mistake of ex- pecting the Presidents gratitude when he saved the C.I.A. from the clutches of R. James Woolsey and the legacy ofAldrich Ames. Deutch didnt want the job-he took it on the understanding that he would replace Perry at the Pentagon. He apparently had never heard how Clinton treated Lani Guinier, Peter Edelman or Harold Ickes. But he had heard of Richard Nuccio, the State Department official who lost his security clearance because he refused to participate in the C.I.A.s attempt to lie to Congress about a sus- pected murderer on its payroll in Guatemala. Deutch upheld the recommendation that Nuccios clearance be revoked and his ca- reer effectively ended for his act of democratic accountability.

The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Transition or Tragedy? terrible national tragedy has been unfolding in Russia in the 199Os, but we will hear little if anythtng about it in American commentary on this fifth anniversary of the end of the Soviet Union. Instead, we will be told that Russias transition to a free-market economy and democracy has progressed remark-

ably, despite some bumps in the road. Evidence alleged to support that view will include massive privatization, emerging financial markets, low inflation, stabilization, an impending economic take~ff,)~ last summers presidential election, a sitting Parliament and a free press.

Few if any commentators will explain that Russias new pri- vate sector is dominated by former but still intact Soviet mo-

December 30,1996 The Nation. 5 I mmqm4 I I I -

nopolies seized by ex-Communist officials who have become the core of a semi-criminalized business class; that inflation is being held down by holding back salaries owed to tens of mil- lions of needy workers and other employees; that a boom has been promised for years while the economy continues to plunge into a depression greater than Americas in the 1930s; that Pres- ident Yeltsins re-election campaign was one of the most corrupt in recent European history; that the Parliament has no real powers and the appellate court little independence from the presidency; and that neither Russias market nor its national television is truly competitive or free but is substantially controlled by the same financial oligarchy whose representatives now sit in the Kremlin as chieftains of the Yeltsin regime.

In human terms, however, that is not the worst of it. For the great majority of families, Russia has not been in transition but in an endless collapse of everything essential to a decent ex- istence-from real wages, welfare provisions and health care to birth rates and life expectancy; from industrial and agricultural production to higher education, science and traditional culture; from safety in the streets to prosecution of organized crime and thieving bureaucrats; from the still enormous military forces to the safeguarding of nuclear devices and materials. These are the realities underlying the reforms that most U.S. commentators still extol and seem to think are the only desirable kind.

Fragments of Russias unprecedented, cruel and perilous col- lapse are reported in the U.S. mainstream media, but not the full dimensions of insider privatization, impoverishment, disintegra- tion of the middle classes, corrosive consequences of the Chechen war or official corruption and mendacity. Why not? Why dont American commentators lament the plight of the Russian peo- ple as they did so persistently when they were the Soviet people? The United States has thousands of professed specialists on Russia. Why have so few tried to tell the full story of post-Soviet Russia? Indeed, why, despite incomparably greater access to in- formation, do most reporters, pundits and scholars tell us less that is really essential about Russia today than they did when it was part of the Soviet Union?

There are, it seems, several reasons, all of them related to the American condition rather than to Russias. As during the cold war, most U.S. media and academic commentators think (or speak) within the parameters of Washingtons policies toward Russia. Since 199 1, Russias purportedly successful transition, and the U.S. strategic role in it, have been the basic premise of White House and Congressional policy.

American business people, big foundations and academics involved with Russia also have their own stake in the transi- tion. For the business community, it is the prospect of profits; for foundations, another frontier of endowed social engineering; for academia, a new paradigm (transitionology) for securing funds, jobs and tenure. Confronted with the fact that the results of Russias transition continue to worsen and not improve, most of its U.S. promoters still blame the legacy of Communism rather than their own prescriptions, or insist that robber baron capitalism will surely reform itself there as it did here, even though the circumstances are fundamentally different.

More generally, Americans have always seen in Russia, for

ideological and psychological reasons, primarily what they sought there. This time it is a happy outcome of the end of Soviet Com- munism and of our great victory in the cold war. How many of us who doubt that outcome, who think the world may be less safe because of what has happened in the former Soviet Union, who believe that ordinary Russians (even those denigrated elder- ly Communist voters) have been made to suffer unduly and unjustly, who understand that there were less costly and more humane ways to reform Russia thanyeltsins shock measures- how many of us wish to say such things publicly knowing we will be accused of nostalgia for the Soviet Union or even of pro- Communism? Crude McCarthyism has passed, but not the ma- ligning of anyone who challenges mainstream orthodoxies about Soviet or post-Soviet Russia. And the presumed transition to a free-market economy and democracy is todays orthodoxy.

But does it even matter what Americans say about Russia today? Those ofus who oppose the Clinton Administrations mis- sionary complicity in the transition, and its insistence that Rus- sia stay the course, may wish the United States would say and intervene less. In one respect, however, U.S. commentary matters greatly. Eventually, todays Russian children will ask what Amer- ica felt and said during these tragic times for their parents and grandparents, and they will shape their relations with our own children and grandchildren accordingly. STEPHEN F. COHEN

Stephen R Cohen isprofessor ofpolitics and Russian studies at Prince- ton Universiv.

Plutonium Reaction utgoing Energy Department chief Hazel OLeary is being heavily lobbied over the burning of plutonium in commercial nuclear power reactors. She is said to be leaning toward per- mitting the use of plutonium-laced Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOx), 0 pushed by military and utility promoters as a nifty way to

keep reactors burning while also making plutonium from retired warheads harder to use in other kinds of bombs. The Energy De- partment has 50 tons of plutonium it wants to dispose of, thus setting up a crucial battle over whether the Clinton Administra- tion will turn U.S. civilian reactors to military purposes. (Alterna- tives would include encasing the plutonium in glass or shipping it to Ontario for use in Canadian reactors.)

The dual-purpose technology this entails is far more expensive than conventional methods of disposal and fuel production. It is also relatively untested, and would militarize civilian reactors by having them produce tritium for warheads. This is the unholy marriage of bomb-making and civilian power production the in- dustry always deniev says Paul Gunter of the Washington-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service (N.I.R.S.). The secu- rity and civil liberties implications are devastating.

Ironically, this policy would shore up the nuclear power in- dustry at a time when green victories both here and in Russia, our nuclear sibling, suggest its significantly dimmed future. In a stunning rout, Russian voters on December 9 overwhelmingly rejected an atomic reactor proposed for the Kostroma region,

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400 kilometers northeast of Moscow. It was the first binding public vote on a proposed nuclear project in the former Soviet Union (no binding votes have been allowed on proposed reactor projects in the United States, though Sacramentos Rancho Seco was forced off-line by a 1989 referendum). An amazing 87 per- cent of Kbstromas voters were against the project. YXS clearly shows that when people are given a choice, they dont want to live with nuclear power, said Eduard Gismatullin of Greenpeace/ Russia. The people of Kostroma dont want the threat of a Chernobyl-accident on their doorstep, and they dont want to live with radioactive contamination in their rivers and lakes.

Russias tattered federal budget allocates big rubles for new re- actors elsewhere, but Gismatullin hopes this could be the begin- ning of the end of nuclear power in Russia, as it sets a precedent for local communities to block such projects by referendum.

In the United States five days earlier, on December 4, a ref- erendum by the board of directors of Northeast Utilities made ConnecticutYankee the first U.S.,reactor to shut under Bill Clin- ton (six were shut under George Bush), taking the U.S. total of nuclear plants down to 109.

Northeast Utilities, supplies much of western Connecticut

and Massachusetts with electricity, and took over the New Hampshire grid when it bought the utility that went bankrupt building the embattled Seabrook reactor. Now Northeast itself is under siege, with its three Millstone reactors also on the brink of permanent shutdown. Yankees safety-related scandals fed a growing consensus that, in a deregulated age, it was simply too expensive to run. Yankee had one of the industrys best operat- ing records, says Michael Mariotte of N.I.R.S. Its shutdown is a clear sign that atomic technology just cant compete. Its un- clear whether Yankees demise will open the floodgates on a long-anticipated wave of reactor shutdowns in the face of dereg- ulation and increased utility competition.

December 4 also saw a surprise green triumph against a huge uranium enrichment facility proposed for Homer, Louisiana. For the better part of a decade the largely nonwhite rural community fought a multibillion-dollar plant with no apparent market to feed except the patronage needs of retiring Senator Bennett John- ston, longtime chairman of the Senate Energy Committee. But the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board of the Nuclear Regula- tory Commission stunned supporters and opponents alike by

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XIHI KILLERS On December 10-U.N. Human Rights Day-President Nelson Mandela proclaimed South Africas new Constitution. Among other things, the document makes South Africa one of some 100 countries to abolish the death penalty. So it is ironic that,a 17-year- old black South African youth, Azikiwe Kam- bule, sits in a Mississippi jail charged by an ambitious prosecutor with a crime (accom- plice to a murder) for which he could be exe- cuted. Nowhere is the United States more out of sync on human rights with the rest of the world than in sentencing juveniles to death. The U.N. Covenant on Rights of the Child, which the United States signed, forbids exe- cution of people for crimes committed when under 18. In this decade only five countries have administered the ultimate penalty to such persons: Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia.. .and the United States. The United States has executed nine people for,underage offenses, more than the other four combined @formation: National Coalition Against the Death Penalty, 202-347-241 1). - WORKFARE SANTAS, ETC.

John Hess was intrigued to learn that the Giuliani administration is putting welfare re- cipients to work in front of New York depart- ment stores as Salvation Army Santas. Comments Hess: Mayor Giuliani has been keeping thousands of cops busy clearing the city of street vendors, the homeless and, par- ticularly, beggars-and now hes forcing

In Fact. e . workfare people to learn the mendicant trade! Perhaps the Mayors welfare en- forcers will start issuing St. Nick rigs to the families that are out on the street as a result of its hard-line shelter policies. City Limits, a New York urban affairs magazine, reports that up to 10 percent of the beds in nonprofit homeless shelters go empty while the city continues to jam people into for-profit hotels. Meanwhile, under a new Giuliani policy, people who had been doubling up with friends or relatives were (until a judge stepped in) being arbitrarily ruled ineligible for shelter. Medical anthropologist Anna Lou Dehavenon, who did a study on 122 families at one Emer- gency Assistance Unit, said most were denied shelter repeatedly after being told to get this or that document. In its new report, Mean Sweeps, the National Law Center on Home- lessness & Poverty finds that criminalization of homelessness is on the upswing in many cities in the past two years and that in virtu- ally every city the number of homeless people greatly exceeds the number of emergency shelter and transitional housing spaces. Cities with the meanest streets: Atlanta, San Francisco, New York, Dallas, San Diego (information: 202-638-2535). - IBARBIE GIBES Elsewhere in this issue, Eyal Press gives the rap on Sweatshop Barbie. Nation intem Beth Johnson flags a new Barbie computer game, touted as teaching girls to be more computer- friendly, but for all the high-tech hype, it

stereotypes-channeling girls into feminine activities. Called Barbie Fashion Designer, it shows the accesswized homunculus mincing up a virtual runway. Girls are supposed to choose her outfits-from trendy sportswear to career clothes to wedding gowns-and print out the results on special paper. Barbies manufacturer, Mattel, is invading the relatively untapped market for female computer games, e.g., Her Interactives McKenzie & Co., the goal of which is to reach the senior prom. As an antidote, Girl Tech-founded by the producer of Where in the World Is Camen Sandiego?-has a book and CD-ROM, Tech Girl k Internet Adventures, featuring Web page design and a guide to the best sites for girls. It will be published by IDG Books Worldwide in January.

NEWS OF THE WEAK IN REVIEW Sore-as-hell loser Bob Dornan recently circu- lated a letter to former G.O.P. colleagues bemoaning the get-out-the-Hispanic-vote activities of Neighbor to Neighbor. Tarring the group as pro-Sandinista (it opposed contra funding in the 1980s), Dornan quoted a news story saying it had selected people with Hispanic names in a,district where less than 20 percent of the voters had cast ballots and doubled that turnout. This, my friends, is exploitation at its worst, Doman whined. Shelley Moskowitz, Neighbor to Neighbors legislative director; confirmed that the group was out to get Dornan and said his attack is high praise of our work.

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Plutonium Reaction (Continued From Page 6 ) opposing the project, largely on economic grounds. (The deci- sion can be appealed, but opponents are optimistic.) This is the first time any of us can remember the N.R.C. killing something like this, says Mariotte. Hopefully it will be a sign of better things to come.

Such signs will be badly needed from the Energy Department ifthe MOx fuel plan is to be averted. Nuclear opponents are heav- ily lobbying the D.O.E. and the highest levels of the Clinton Ad- ministration, which are expected to render a final decision within a month or two. If a civilian reactor is chosen to burn MOx, fierce local resistance is expected. But as they used to say during the cold war, the United States is not Russia-which now means that a binding referendum will probably not be allowed here, as it was in &stroma. HARVEY WASSERMAN

Harvey Wasseriiian is senior adviser to Greenpeace/ USA.

Suckering the Poor t was Washingtons version of good works: a press conference criticizing Congress and the Administration for balancing the budget on the backs of the poorest Americans. An authoritative report released recently by the Center on Budget and Policy Pri- orities showed that government programs targeted at poor and

low-income people (means-tested programs) consume about one- quarter of all nondefense spending but have absorbed more than half of all the cuts in federal spending over the past two years.

For clout, the centers director, Robert Greenstein, the closest thing to a saint inside the Beltway, rounded up spokespersons from Catholic Charities, from Pete Petersons Concord Coalition and from the Committee for Economic Development (C.E.D.), a grouping of high-powered business executives. David Broder, the dean of Washington columnists, featured the story in a column aimed at the President as he prepares next years budget.

Broder used Van Doorn Ooms, senior vice president of the C.E.D., to make the essential points, While our political lead- ers have reached a consensus to balhce the federal budget, they have been unwilling or unable to contain the growth of the pop- ular, middle-class entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare. As a result of this and wrongheaded tax-cut pro- posals, Ooms concluded, the burden of budget austerity has fallen disproportionately on.. .the poor.

Ooms spoke truth with a forked tongue. Spending on Social Security and Medicare has continued to rise, and the poor have taken it in the teeth-but notice what is absent when Ooms (or the Concord Coalition) discusses charitable concerns: the wealthy; also the fact that the C.E.0.s Ooms represents, and the rest of Americas richest, are making out like bandits.

Inequality in America, as we know, is at record levels. The in- come gap between executives and working people is reinforced by a benefits gap in which executives lavish benefits on upper man-

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agement while cutting them for workers. Wealth has reached lev- els of concentration never witnessed in a Western democracy. According to the Federal Reserve, 1 percent of U.S. households controlled 38 percent of the nations assets as of 1992. Then the stock market doubling of 1991-96 made the already wealthy seri- ously rich. And not only do our affluent pay the lowest taxes in the industrialized world but both the Republican Congress and the Clinton Administration are talking about capital gains tax cuts to further line their Armani pockets.

Having slashed support for poor mothers and children and the disabled and cut food stamps for the working poor and legal immigrants in what is called welfare reform, conservatives are now setting their sights on Social Security and Medicare, the entitlements that provide working people with a measure of se- curity in the dusk of life. What better strategy than to pit the avarice of the middle class against the suffering of the poor?

Advocates for the poor cannot be faulted for trying to enlist powerful corporate elites in the defense of the weak. But this is a fools game. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has documented, Social Security is the most effective antipoverty program in the country-sustaining some 13 million seniors, over 80 percent of the elderly, who would otherwise live out their lives in poverty. Cutting middle-class entitlements wont add money to programs for the poor. If the p0werfi.d are not con- fronted, any savings will be consumed by corporate subsidies or Pentagon passions.

A simple standard for anyone prating about the sacrifice need- ed to balance the budget: Begin by calling for fair taxes on the ,rich and corporations, for cuts in corporate welfare and in cold wm-level military budgets. Anyone who doesnt start there is less interested in balancing the budget than in succoring the powerful. And the only certain result of that work will be to add to the al- ready dangerous levels of inequality that sap this democracy.

ROBERT L. BOROSAGE

Robert L. Borosage is co-director of the Campaign forAmerica h Future.

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