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And Now The News From Overseas...

By Charles Bierbauer/CNN

SAN ANTONIO (Sep. 26) -- "What about Red China's nuclear missiles ... ICBM's ... the power of dictators ... their insanity ...?" an earnest gentleman asked me. "Is the government aware of that?"

I presume the government is. Officials in Washington not only worry about the missiles China has, but the missile technology it markets in such worrisome places as Pakistan and the Middle East.

The U.S. itself might be under greater threat from the barrage of toy missiles China launches into American markets. And the salvo of sneakers that clad an army of American kids' feet. And the clothes. And appliances. All non-nuclear.

But the tall, gray-bearded gentleman whose eyes burned with a lingering Cold War intensity was only worried about Chinese missiles.

Who says Americans are not interested in world news?

More than 300 San Antonians on hand for the World Affairs Council lunch this week belied that conventional wisdom. The Texans had plenty of questions for CNN anchor Jeanne Meserve, Time White House correspondent Karen Tumulty and me.

If they are representative of even a portion of Americans across the country, there is hope that not everyone is fixated on the sexual peccadilloes of sports announcer Marv Albert. Nor are they holding their breath for any as yet undisclosed tidbit about Princess Diana.

My suggestion that "we've heard enough about Diana" produced spontaneous applause.

Diana's death was the anomaly in this year's reporting from overseas. It will surely tally the most minutes and column inches of any story. Those minutes and inches have been shrinking steadily over the years, partly because the Cold War has ended, hot spots flare up in hard to reach places, costs are at times prohibitive and there's a presumption among media managers that Americans don't care.

But they do. They care about a lot of things.

Texans have a natural interest in relations with their Latin American neighbors. Many share a Latin heritage. Many more find a cross-border impact on trade, jobs, the environment. They asked:

Will Chile join NAFTA -- the North American Free Trade Agreement -- any time soon? Not unless President Clinton can persuade Congress to adopt "fast track" legislation to negotiate the next entries into NAFTA. The president has to forge a coalition of trade-oriented Republicans and Democrats. Clinton was coolly received by NAFTA's labor foes at the AFL-CIO convention this week.

Should the embargo against Cuba be ended? It's a Cold War anachronism. Fidel Castro is an annoyance, though not a threat. Over nearly 40 years he has both helped his people and hurt them. There are economic opportunities in Cuba that the U.S. is missing out on. The embargo persists because of domestic U.S. concern -- the Cuban-American vote -- not because of a security need.

Is Argentina going to become a member of NATO? It was tough enough getting Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic admitted to NATO. A special association for Argentina, as has been suggested, does little for European security. It does a lot to make other Latin American countries wonder what the U.S. thinks of them.

President Clinton has some explaining to do about NATO and NAFTA when he visits Latin America later this year. He's planning another trip next year.

Presidential travel, though, does not correlate with public interest. It's more a function of where a president is in his term, what's left of his policy agenda, and what he wants to avoid. In Clinton's case, it's already getting late in his, yes, lame duck term. His domestic objectives are limited, though he might get a little something done overseas. He's being investigated for possible wrongdoing in his quest for campaign funds. These are good times to get out of town.

What else worries these Texans?

What's happening in Iraq? Hard to tell these days since relatively little news comes from there. It's clear Saddam Hussein has not lost power and any imminent chance of overthrowing him has faded. But what was he doing swimming in the Tigris River the other day? Shades of Mao. Is that what the earnest gentleman meant about the sanity of dictators?

How long will American troops remain in Bosnia? Longer than we've previously been told, according to Clinton national security adviser Sandy Berger. This week Berger said the early 1988 pullout date would likely be more of a "draw down" than a pullout. Congress this week also passed the spending bill that would authorize funds for a longer stay. Will it last into the new millennium?

The Bosnian question was asked by a high school teacher who'd brought her American history class to the luncheon. They had their own questions.

What's the best source of renewable energy to develop? This turned out to be a debate team topic. Hydrogen fusion, the student suggested. Makes solar power sound mundane. Implicit in the debate topic is the concern that overseas sources for fossil fuels may not be reliable. Would the U.S. fight for Kuwaiti oil again?

To be sure, the World Affairs Council members had domestic policy questions, too.

Will we get campaign finance reform?

Will an independent counsel be named to investigate President Clinton's fund-raising?

Have Al Gore's presidential hopes been damaged?

Has the Internal Revenue Service been abusing taxpayers?

And, to each of us, who was the most interesting person you've interviewed or covered? Mikhail Gorbachev was Karen Tumulty's pick.

A curious parlay of Fidel Castro and Pope John Paul II, both magnetic personalities, intrigued Meserve.

Muhammed Ali fascinated me when I dogged his every step during his 1979 trip through the Soviet Union.

Note that we all picked international figures. None a princess, president or sportscaster.

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