MR. SAPIENZA: Okay. What was the -- in general what was the purpose of the Pew Center Survey, America's Place in the World, Too.

MR. KOHUT: Well, as we did four years ago, we were interested in how Americans, the public at large and then opinion -- so-called opinion leaders, uh, view America's place in the world, how they feel about America's foreign policy priorities, how satisfied they are -- or dissatisfied they are with America's role in world affairs. And we surveyed 2,000 adults in September of this year just as four years ago we did a representative sampling of 2,000 adults, but we also interviewed close to 600 opinion leaders from a variety of groups. We surveyed members of the Council on Foreign Relations. We surveyed security experts. We surveyed members of the media. Each group, about ten groups, had sixty respondents in them. They included governors, mayors, labor union leaders, a whole range of the kinds of people that might influence international foreign policy.

MR. SAPIENZA: So most polls that we hear about and we in newspapers are public opinion polls. Why did you guys separate -- what separates this survey, really from those types of polls?

MR. KOHUT: Well, we not only surveyed the public but we wanted to see how differently the general public felt from opinion leaders who were thought to have more of a role in bring pressure on decision makers about foreign policy than the public because the public doesn't know as much about international policy as it does about domestic policy questions. That's the theory at least.

MR. SAPIENZA: And did you ask the same questions to both groups.

MR. KOHUT: Pretty much. These were parallel surveys. We asked more probing questions with the opinion leaders because they were in a position to add -- to answer more detailed questions based upon their greater knowledge and the greater attention they paid to international affairs. We asked them, for example, to make forecasts of what's going to happen over the next decade in terms of global events. We didn't ask the public that question.

MR. SAPIENZA: Okay. In general, what did the survey suggest about how Americans view the role of the United States in the post Cold War era?

MR. KOHUT: Well, it depends on who you ask. If you ask opinion leaders, they're much more satisfied with what the world looks like than they were four years ago. They feel we're playing a much more influential role in the world. They think that the problem spots that they saw four years ago were -- were less apparent now than then.

Public on the other hand, is largely dissatisfied when they look out on the larger world. They have a different view, a less aggressive view of what America's place in that world should -- of what America's place in that world should be. And there are more gaps in attitudes between the average American and the so-called American opinion leader about foreign policy than there were during the Cold War years.

MR. SAPIENZA: Who is more comfortable with the post Cold War era? Is it the opinion leaders or the public?

MR. KOHUT: It's certainly the opinion leaders. Sixty percent -- close to 60 percent say they're satisfied with the way things are going in the world. That's up from 29 percent four years ago. They're feeling better about things than they were at the end of the Cold War when Bill Clinton was taking office. The public on the other hand, only about a fourth now and a fourth then is satisfied with the way things are going in the world.

MR. SAPIENZA: What would be some reasons for the public's sense of pessimism?

MR. KOHUT: Well, I think the public looks at the world as a place that's full of conflict and therefore not very interesting because the public now wonders about the relevance of what goes on in the larger world to their own lives. In fact, we ask a very specific question: to what extent is what happens in Western Europe or Mexico or Asia relevant to what happens in your life? And only minorities of the public, about a third in most cases, said, "What happens in Asia, what happens in Western Europe matters to what happens to me." Opinion leaders obviously are much more of the view that America's place in the world is very much determined by its role in the larger world. And the public is -- I think looks at the world as conflict driven, as a scary place and not a very interesting place. Therefore we find the public disinterested, disengaged and it has a less positive view of America playing a important leadership role than do opinion leaders.

MR. SAPIENZA: Other theories as to why this is would be filtered through media -- was it education?

MR. KOHUT: Well, I think -- we did a content analysis a few years ago about what's in the newspapers, what's on network news broadcasts, a very large percentage of the stories that are on television or in newspapers have to do with conflict. I think close to two thirds of those stories were basically about some kind of argument, some kind of conflict or an all-out war somewhere in the world. So the public sees the world as a pretty scary place. It's almost like crime reporting. The only difference is the public has to set forth in it's own streets and therefore is concerned about crime. It looks at a conflict in some realm of the former Soviet Union and shakes its head and says, "What does that have to do with me?"

MR. SAPIENZA: What about education? What role does that play?

MR. KOHUT: Well, education plays a role, but it's not only education because there an awful lot of people with college degrees and more who aren't very interested in what's going on in foreign policy. What we did find is if -- when we narrowed our sample to the group of -- the slice of the American public that knows a lot -- we asked quiz questions about what's going on in the larger world and is reasonably well-educated. We find that small group of people having a better opinion of the world's condition than the public at large. The unfortunate part of it -- it only represents -- this group only represents about 6 percent of the population. So the vast majority of the public is not very well informed about pretty basic things: who's the president of Russia, name one country slated for NATO enlargement, those kinds of questions. What's the name of the province that might succeed from Canada? That's pretty close to home, yet only minorities of the public know the answers to those questions.

MR. SAPIENZA: In general do opinion leaders, the opinion leaders that were surveyed think the world is a more or a less dangerous place today?

MR. KOHUT: Well, compared to probably four years ago, they see it as less dangerous. The one specific danger question we asked was about the threat of an attack on the United States with a weapon of mass destruction. And every one of our groups, opinion leader groups from religious leaders to labor leaders and members of the media think that we're at lower risk of an attack on the United States with a weapon of mass destruction except security experts who think that we're at a greater risk than we were ten years ago. Of course, it raises the question of whether security leaders feel that way because that's what they do or because whether they know more than the rest of us do.

MR. SAPIENZA: What other issues were seen as foreign policy priorities by both the policy makers and the public?

MR. KOHUT: Well, the two issues that come, that are symmetrically apparent in both poles, the large majorities of the public, the large majorities of opinion leaders feel the United States should do whatever it can to reduce the chances of nuclear proliferation. That's a great threat to the United States. The other thing is securing the American energy supplies. That's a great economic threat to the United States. Then the two groups part company. The American public puts protecting jobs very high on the list, opinion leaders don't. Opinion leaders place more importance on other issues, more typical -- solving geopolitical problems which lie largely less interesting to the public than doing such things as controlling immigration or reducing -- reducing the flow of drugs into the United States. Not that opinion leaders aren't interested in that, but the public in relative terms puts more of its emphasis in terms of international affairs on those global issues that have an impact at home.

MR. SAPIENZA: How does the public's opinion of the U.S. role in international affairs differ from that of the opinion leaders? Well, both groups agree that the United States should not be the single leader of the world. That's a minority opinion in both groups. However, the opinion leaders feel that the United States should play a first among equals role among the leading nations, more assertive than other leading nations and the public thinks that we shouldn't play a more influential role than other leading nations, that should just be one of the leading nations that deals with global problems.

Now, the reason for this is pretty apparent if you look at the history of public opinion. In every kind of question of about foreign aid or foreign involvement which is multilateral, Americans -- every American over the age of twelve years old, virtually, thinks that we pay a disproportionate share of the costs of these things. Public feels that there's an unfair burden on the U.S. because of its power, its wealth and so on and so forth, so I think that has a large part to do with it. I think the other thing is that the public is less -- less sanguine or less of the view than compared to opinion leaders that we -- it's important that we deal with glo -- with geopolitical problems and global issues or traditional international affairs issues.

MR. SAPIENZA: See, when facing part of the problems of future military aggression, did the groups surveyed favor unilateral or multilateral approaches to dealing with those sort of threats.

MR. KOHUT: Well, almost every survey that we've conducted, a multilateral approach has more appeal to both the public and to opinion leading groups. The public likes to think that the United States is not out there alone dealing with a problem that affects the west or affects the entire planet. And a sense that the U.S. has partners and that those partners are paying their fair share is an important component of public opinion.

MR. SAPIENZA: How -- is the support for the United Nations increasing or decreasing among the respondents in the survey?

MR. KOHUT: Well, we found some small decline in support for the United Nations among the public and also, I think, among the opinion leaders but still most Americans while they're critical of the kind of performance that the U.N. has in carrying out its tasks, they're broadly supportive of the U.N. because they think it's a forum for peace and a forum for international cooperation.

MR. SAPIENZA: So there's not a disconnect between waning or somewhat waning support for the United Nations and then the multi -- one of the multilateral [inaudible]?

MR. KOHUT: No. I don't think so. I don't think so.

MR. SAPIENZA: As far as defense spending goes, did the groups surveyed think that we should increase our spending one defense, keep it about the same or cut it back?

MR. KOHUT: Well, there's been a change in opinion there. Four years ago, the opinion leaders overwhelmingly -- about 60 percent said let's cut back defense spending. We've had cuts over the past four years and the consensus in this survey was let's keep defense spending pretty much where it is even though opinion leaders are not concerned about any specific threats, military threats, they felt there is the sense that we're at about the right place. The public in both surveys then and now particularly feel that defense spending should not be cut. Defense spending has some real domestic implications for the average American. We do a monthly survey about interest in news stories and every time there are base closings, large percentages say they're following that news, so in part it's a sense of are we sufficiently prepared, in part the response is what will this do to the economy here in southern New Jersey?

MR. SAPIENZA: Do you -- in your surveys do you ever ask or give people and option of reducing defense spending and then taking that spending and putting it into other federal programs?

MR. KOHUT: We have.

MR. SAPIENZA: How do you find the results?

MR. KOHUT: Well, we haven't done that in this particular survey. I mean, I remember doing that in 1989 where before the end of the Cold War when there was a great -- there was more of a sense that we were spending too much in this contest with the Soviets where people would redistribute the national budget and take some away from defense, put more onto other things. But, I think, ironically, since the end of the Cold War, there's almost less pressure to cut the budget.

MR. SAPIENZA: Was the survey able to gauge the current level of support for U.S. military strategy fighting two wars at the same time?

MR. KOHUT: We asked that question among the -- among the opinion leaders and there was pretty strong support for that continued policy.

MR. SAPIENZA: Could you -- could you restate that because most people won't hear my question on what are the two war strategies that something -- that is supported by the current --

MR. KOHUT: A majority of our opinion leading groups, especially the security experts favor a policy of being -- having sufficient military preparedness to fight two regional wars at one time.

MR. SAPIENZA: Okay. Overall, do you think that the policy makers misread the public?

MR. KOHUT: Well, I think that there's a fair amount of misreading in both directions. I think the public is having a difficult time in the post cold war world figuring out what our place in the world is and what the connections are. Opinion leaders often misunderstand a lack of information for a lack of good judgement because when the public gets informed and comes up to speed on an issue, it generally makes some pretty good judgments about what the nation's course should be. So said an opinion pollster. [break in tape] So said an opinion pollster. [laughter]

MR. SAPIENZA: All right, well, um, do you have anything else that [think] we didn't cover --

MR. KOHUT: Why don't we just -- let me just take a look and see. No, I think that's it. The only thing we didn't cover is, I think, a large element in -- a large element in improved opinion -- an improved view of opinion leaders is more comfortable with the Clinton Administration. Groups everywhere from security people to CEOs to even journalists have a much better view of Bill Clinton and his achievements than they did four years ago when they were very nervous a about this governor from Arkansas who was taking over leadership -- international leadership without a great deal of foreign policy and seemingly a lot of equivocation. It's still a complaint -- it's the number one complaint that respondents make about Clinton that he changes his mind too much but he gets good marks for Bosnia; he gets good marks for his appointments and good marks for being flexible in the way he approaches foreign policy.

INTERVIEWER 2: [inaudible]

MR. KOHUT: Since the 1970s and 1980s there's been a steady growth in the isolationist minority in the United States. Every one of these surveys except this one has shown some increase in the percentage of people who think the United States should go its own way. But I'd like to emphasize that still remains a minority opinion, maybe as high as 35 to 40 percent depending on the question. But most Americans think that we should be engaged with a larger world. The growth in the isolationist minority has to do with, I think, the fact that isolationists views have become more often pronounced by political leaders. They're are political constituencies for this, and the end of the Cold War created the view on the part of many people that the United States has made its contribution defeating communism and the threats are not as great as they once were therefore we should disengage a little bit. But still those remain minority views, larger minorities than twenty years ago was certainly larger than thirty years ago when fewer than one in five expressed those opinions.

INTERVIEWER 2:

MR. KOHUT: The public doesn't have a -- doesn't give a lot of thought to the specifics of very narrow questions about foreign policy, what should our policy be in Macedonia, the average American -- 1 American out of 200 has probably thought about -- thought about that. But on the broad questions of are we overspending on foreign -- on defense, or what kind of role should we play. People talk among themselves when they think about these things and they read about them and they have general views. And the stability of these general views is evidenced by how often each survey shows a very similar response until some -- a great event occurs which galvanizes public opinion or changes public opinion in some specific direction. And the overall -- the overall disposition of the public is pretty stable and in most cases pretty rational. On the question of defense spending, for example, throughout the 1970s the public favored less defense spending until we got to the end of the 1970s, the public saw the Russians invade Afghanistan and saw the United States seemingly powerless when our hostages were taken in Teheran and for a brief period during the beginning of the Reagan administration, the [inaudible] -- a plurality of the public said let's increase spending. By mid-1984, it saw a lot of increasing and it began to wonder collectively have we gone too far in increasing spending? And for much of the Reagan years, the view was, perhaps we have gone too far. So, collectively, there is -- there seems to be a pretty close tracking with response to the large events of American history and international affairs.

INTERVIEWER 2: I just had one --

MR. KOHUT: Most Americans continue to get the international news that they follow from television and secondarily from print newspapers and magazines but as we've seen over the years in the tracking of media coverage, the newshole or the amount of news -- international news is much less and therefore people are watching less. We also find then when it's -- when international news makes the front page or the top of the news broad -- top of the broadcast, there's less public attentiveness. For example, in the recent summit between Yeltsin and Clinton only 25 percent paid any attention to stories about that meeting. In the old days when the American President would meet with the Soviet Premier, that number would be in the 70s to 80s. So that's a big difference.

End of Interview as Recorded