HOLLYWOOD & POLITICS : All Quiet on the Hollywood Front : The debate over the Persian Gulf War is less clear-cut than in wars past, forcing erstwhile activists away from the political limelight

It is Jan. 24--eight tense days after President Bush launched the Persian Gulf War and one week after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein lobbed the first Scud missiles into Israel.

It is also Mike Medavoy’s 50th birthday party.

On a sound stage that night at Columbia Pictures in Culver City, some 250 of Tri-Star Pictures chairman Medavoy’s closest friends gather. Talk of the war dominates conversation, for even at an A-list party in the land of illusion, war’s reality is jarring.

Among the guests are Jane Fonda and fiance Ted Turner, who have just come from an American Jewish Committee dinner in honor of Turner, whose Cable News Network scored a coup as viewers glued themselves to CNN’s round-the-clock war coverage.

According to partygoers, the effervescent Turner was more than happy to engage in war talk but Fonda remained silent on the subject. Discreetly, no one asked her.

Her reluctance to speak about Operation Desert Storm is conspicuous because of Vietnam. In 1972, Fonda’s name became synonymous with the anti-war movement when she posed in Hanoi, smiling, atop an anti-aircraft gun aimed at American planes--earning her the sobriquet “Hanoi Jane.”

Although Medavoy’s guests avoided raising the war issue with Fonda--apparently out of politeness--her spokeswoman, Pat Newcomb, said in a phone conversation that since the Gulf War began, “the world” has been calling to ask for Fonda’s comments. And not getting them.

“(Fonda) is just watching the war like everybody else, hoping it will end with as few casualties as possible,” said Newcomb. “She doesn’t see why she has to make a statement. . . . This is a different war . . . she knows only what she sees on TV.”

Danny Goldberg--chairman of the American Civil Liberties Foundation of Southern California and president of Gold Mountain Entertainment, who helped put Sean Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance” video together--sees it the same way.

“People say to me, ‘We haven’t heard from Jane Fonda,’ and I say, ‘We haven’t heard from (Senate Majority Leader) George Mitchell or (House Majority Leader) Dick Gephardt or (Sen.) Teddy Kennedy. You can’t expect entertainers to be more sophisticated about questioning a war (several) weeks in.

“I’m a big proponent of the value of entertainers in framing political issues,” Goldberg adds, “but I never thought of entertainers as being policy makers.”

But Jane Fonda’s silence is loaded with symbolism in light of Hollywood’s long history of high-profile political involvement, and begs the question: Where is Hollywood in relation to the Persian Gulf?

Stars and studio heads have long had roles in America’s wars. In World War II, that “Good War” against Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini, they were all on one side. They served in the Armed Forces, made propaganda movies for the troops and films such as “Mrs. Miniver” and “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” to bolster morale on the homefront.

When the fears of communism and McCarthyism gripped the nation after the war, the most visible target of congressional suspicions was Hollywood--resulting in the infamous blacklists.

But the threshold of division and debate in Hollywood was Vietnam. It opened the doors to stepped up activism in campaigns and issues including the environment, abortion, foreign policy, homelessness and AIDS.

But the debate over the Persian Gulf is less clear-cut.

And that has forced Hollywood to step backstage a bit, away from the political limelight. The war, after all, is a work in progress.

And Fonda’s not the only one keeping mum.

Barbra Streisand--who raised $1.5 million for the 1986 Democratic “Regain the Senate” campaign--”won’t talk to you about this,” said songwriter Marilyn Bergman, a leading voice of Hollywood liberalism who serves on the 176-member Hollywood Women’s Political Committee along with Streisand, Fonda and former Columbia Pictures President Dawn Steel.

Richard Dreyfuss, a member of the board of advisers of Americans for Peace Now, the offshoot here of the Israeli organization, is said to be “conflicted.” Warren Beatty fails to return phone calls. And Paul Newman, according to a spokeswoman, “will not be able (to comment).” Whoopi Goldberg declined comment. So did Michael Douglas.

If there is one sentiment that likely rings clear with those who might have been expected by past or present political activism to take a stand against the war, it is confusion caused by decidedly mixed emotions.

Individuals usually committed to peace are having their beliefs tested by Israel’s precarious position, Saddam Hussein’s ruthlessness and the prospect of continued unrest in the Mideast.

“People are off-balance,” says Mike Farrell, formerly of TV’s “MASH” and an activist who made his political bones challenging the Reagan Administration’s Central American policies.

“People who would normally respond from a position of principle are, because of the specific nature of this struggle, out of sync with themselves,” says Farrell. “They don’t know what to do, which way to turn.

“Nobody wants to be in a position to be thought of as being opposed to our young people over there,” adds Farrell. “On the other hand a great many people are still of the belief that this is not necessary (or) appropriate, and are trying to figure out (what to do).”

So while liberals are torn, they make a point of now fervently standing behind the troops.

Barbara Corday, former president of Columbia Pictures Television and co-creator of “Cagney & Lacey,” honored Jan. 23 at an American Jewish Congress dinner, says she talked that night about “how confused most of us are.”

“I have been ferociously anti-war all my life, and was in Another Mother for Peace during Vietnam. And yet I find myself sitting in front of the television rooting for the Patriots to slam the Scuds as though I were watching a football game. . . . This has caused more heated, honest, emotional and searching debate among my friends in the last couple of weeks, whereas Vietnam you always felt like you were preaching to the saved.”

“The day the war started,” notes Michael Gross (“Family Ties”), “I felt this patriotic wave just shoot through my body. I wanted to stand up, salute the flag, and sing ‘America, the Beautiful.’ (It) was almost like a shot of heroin for me, and I was going to have to come crashing down to reality once this high wore off. I just am not terribly committed to United States policy in this case. (Yet) the moment our troops were committed to this fray, all of us were swayed emotionally to stand by our men and women in the Persian Gulf. I became a hostage to my heart.”

Hollywood’s conservatives don’t need to flaunt support for the troops. They take pride as well as comfort in the fact that they are in sync, at least according to the polls, with 80% of the American people who back George Bush and the allied coalition.

“The polls,” Charlton Heston says easily, “don’t surprise me.” But he observes wryly that “the peaceniks are a little more sophisticated than they were in the Vietnam War. They recognize it was a lousy idea to spit at the troops, and so some of the peace demonstrators are even carrying U.S. flags--which seems a contradiction in terms.”

For those who believe, as President Bush said in his State of the Union speech, that “our cause is just, our cause is moral, our cause is right,” war’s reality also hits hard.

Bob Hope, who has entertained troops in various war zones since World War II and supported Republican presidents since Eisenhower, was saddened to learn on Feb. 1 that 11 Marines among the first combat dead were from Twentynine Palms, close to his home in Palm Springs.

But he remained steadfast in support of the war. “A small percentage, I think, will protest,” Hope said. “But for me it’s time to get behind the troops and the government.”

“Pandora’s Box is open,” says Marilyn Bergman, sounding heartsick, “and I think we have no choice but to see that these men and women and children-- I don’t even like calling them troops because that makes it too abstract for me; they’re our children and our husbands and our wives and our treasures-- they must come home as quickly as possible.

“I don’t feel the protest movement yet has found a language I can adopt,” she adds. “I don’t feel comfortable with (it) because I do believe (Hussein is) a terribly dangerous man who so far has done everything he said he would do.”

Danny Goldberg also does “not feel comfortable with any of the existing anti-war groups that have yet constituted themselves. . . . I don’t want to associate with the blatantly anti-Israel messages.”

Yet Goldberg--secretary of Americans for Peace Now, which favors negotiation on the establishment of a Palestinian state along with security guarantees for Israel--confides: “It’s a bone-chilling experience to know that you’re on the other end of the phone (to Israel) with somebody who might be bombed at any moment.”

This war is so confusing that past politics do not necessarily predict current points of view. Take Robert Vaughn, “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” for example. In 1966 he was drafted by Allard Lowenstein, who fathered the national “Dump Johnson” movement, to head up Dissenting Democrats, the highly-visible, star-studded group of Hollywood anti-war activists.

Vaughn--who holds a doctorate in mass communications from USC and is immersing himself in the Gulf War--now says: “I would shed nary a tear if (Hussein) were taken out by Israeli commandoes.” Still, he asks: “What are we doing there, what are the goals, and what will we have achieved?”

With everybody demonstrating and wearing the same yellow-bows and flag pins, it’s hard to tell who’s on which side. And you also can’t tell by the nature of the activity-- as opposed to activism. Nowadays activity mostly means doing something for the troops. Confusion has tempered activism.

The Hollywood Women’s Committee is organizing a blood drive for early March at 20th Century Fox. Behind the scenes they’re polling the membership to evolve a position and strategy.

Operation USA, the 12-year-old relief organization, has tapped entertainment industry connections for $250,000 worth of supplies and $30,000 in cash.

Paul Newman sent 300,000 cases of Newman’s Own lemonade to the desert troops.

And being entertainers, many in Hollywood simply entertain.

On Feb. 7 and 8, with families of military in the audience, a batch of stars gathered on the red-white-and-blue bedecked set of KABC-TV’s “A.M. Los Angeles” for two USO-sponsored installments. The shows were taped and dispatched to Saudi Arabia.

Lee Greenwood, who supports this war but opposed Vietnam, moved a lot of the audience to tears with his country hit, “God Bless the U.S.A.”

Ben Vereen sang “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now,” and urged the audience to back the troops. “We’ve got to not let Saddam Hussein or the rest of the world see that we’re divided.”

Away from the mikes, he confides: “I don’t think anybody’s for war; if they are, then they are war-mongers. But we are in it (and) there’s nothing we can do to pull them back right now.”

Tom Selleck participated in the KABC event via videotape. At Ronald Reagan’s 80th birthday party Feb. 6, Selleck told a TV crew he wished he had “heard more (people) on the media thanking President Reagan” for his Administration’s defense buildup.

On Feb. 10, 100 stars from TV, music and sports--including Kevin Costner, Whoopi Goldberg, Meryl Streep, Billy Crystal, Wayne Gretzky and Mike Tyson--were on a Warner Bros. Studios sound stage to record “Voices That Care.” Proceeds will benefit the USO and the American Red Cross. Quite deliberately, the video takes no political stand on the war. That night Frank Sinatra gave a benefit for the troops in Long Beach.

Mike Farrell is among the prominent handful on the protest front. On Jan. 24, at Unitarian Church downtown, Farrell, along with radio host Casey Kasem and actor David Clennon, participated in a press conference sponsored by the Southern California Sane/Freeze organization, Greenpeace and Physicians for Social Responsibility. They called for “a pause for peace,” a unilateral cease-fire, which, according to Farrell, “allows for reimposition of the sanctions, an opportunity for the UN to interpose itself, to find out about civilian casualties, to hopefully institute some sort of negotiations so we could end the killing.”

Protest still exacts a price--despite the President’s State of the Union remark that “all voices have the right to speak out. “

Woody Harrelson, 29, the farm-boy bartender on “Cheers,” was seen on a New Orleans TV station Jan. 28 with disabled Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic in an anti-war rally at UCLA. Next day officials of a Mardi Gras parade there dropped him as grand marshal.

Parade officials said that while they recognized that Harrelson “like every American has the right of opinion and expression,” the parade itself was “non political.” And they feared for Harrelson’s safety along the parade route.

“I support the troops 100%,” Harrelson said the day he lost his parade berth. “I don’t want ‘em to get shot, I don’t want want ‘em to get killed. I don’t want ‘em to come home in body bags. . . . I don’t support the government that sent these troops into battle after a six-hour meeting between (Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq) Aziz and (Secretary of State James) Baker. . . . There’s an absurdity about it, if people have stopped questioning the same government that gave us Vietnam and Watergate and the S&L; debacle.”

Ed Asner, who believes that his opposition to Reagan’s Central American policies led to the cancellation of his CBS series “Lou Grant” in 1982, says he appears at demonstrations, goes on TV, talks to the press. And yet he says: “I keep a fairly lonely counsel.”

“I am not going to be a leader in this,” Asner adds, “I am going to speak when asked. I am going to say where I stand. I am too tired to be a leader”

Yet it doesn’t take much to get Asner going. “What are the issues in this war?” he repeats in a tone as if he can barely list them. “Despite all the phenomenal humanity and brilliance that George Bush displays in his speeches,” he says with bite, “rousing speeches against this new Hitler, this war to me is a perpetuation of the military/industrial complex that we have in this country, the very thing Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about when he left office. . . .”

Martin Sheen didn’t actually volunteer for protest this time--in essence he got drafted.

Returning from Rome Jan. 31 after completing a movie, he found a letter from the National Security Caucus, a bipartisan group of congressmen asking for an endorsement of Desert Storm.

Sheen wrote back: “. . . how can I explain why it is not even remotely possible for me to join the current national storm of violence, let alone the coalition? . . . Everywhere, at every turn, we are urged to support the troops in the Gulf as if we should somehow encourage them to ‘HAVE A NICE WAR.’ As the casualties mount on both sides, this rampant rush to patriotism is tearing apart the national fiber . . . CEASE FIRE!”

In a phone conversation after attending a peace rally in Westwood Feb. 2, he said Hollywood’s liberals were “scared to take a stand because the polls show 80% of the population supports the war.”

And he encouraged entertainers to plead for peace--as loudly as Jane Fonda did in the ‘70s. “Jane is one who has been one of the great inspirations to all of us,” Sheen noted, “her spirit and her truth. She was one of the most courageous of anyone in Hollywood (in) the past 40 years. She stood in front of a whole industry, and she stood there alone.”

Janet Lundblad of the Times Editorial Library contributed to research on this article.