Clinton Appeals to Hollywood on Film, TV Violence : Media: In Southland visit, President asks industry to look at effect on poor young people. At earlier ‘summit,’ he discusses state’s economy with political, business leaders.

As his party solicited money at a glittering Hollywood fund-raiser Saturday night, President Clinton implored his entertainment industry supporters to examine how film and TV violence are threatening the lives of impoverished young people with weak family and community support.

Clinton, in his eighth presidential visit to the state, told 400 top stars and executives at a Beverly Hills gathering that movies that may have little effect on many Americans can have “far different” results on young people whose lives are without the organizing forces of family or work.

For them, he told the gathering, life is a void “that has been filled for all too many of them by organized violence--organized around guns and gangs and drugs, with no offsetting forces. . . . For people living in chaos, it is a disaster.”

The remarks came after a day in which Clinton hosted a round-table meeting on California’s ailing economy with top political, business and community leaders at Rockwell International Corp.’s Canoga Park facilities.

Chairing the economic brainstorming session, Clinton promised that the government will increase spending to invest in California “as we can.” He announced that as part of that effort, Los Angeles will receive a $46-million housing assistance grant.

But he said that increases in aid to California are part of a delicately balanced spending and cost-cutting effort that could be upended by pressure for cuts in the federal deficit from the business community and other quarters.

At the Beverly Hills fund-raiser, the President did not threaten any federal sanctions or prescribe a specific proposal to limit depictions of violence. Instead, he urged the group gathered at the Creative Artists Agency’s headquarters to “examine what together you might do to simply face the realities that so many of our young people live with.”

“You have the capacity to do good, culturally to help the way we behave, the way we think of ourselves,” he told the gathering, which was sponsored by the Democratic National Committee.

On the guest list of the event, hosted by CAA founder Michael Ovitz, were such stars as Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Costner, Warren Beatty and Alec Baldwin, and executives such as Disney’s Michael D. Eisner and Peter Guber of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

The speech marked a new turn in Clinton’s often-delicate relationship with the entertainment industry. Hollywood contributors are some of the President’s staunchest and most generous supporters. But he has been called star-struck, and his more conservative supporters have accused Clinton of edging too close to the liberal views that some in Hollywood espouse.

White House aides sought to play down suggestions that Clinton would use the occasion to make political points with average Americans by bashing Hollywood.

This was a sincere reflection of Clinton’s rising concern about violence, aides insisted, not a repeat of Clinton’s celebrated election-year encounter with rapper Sister Souljah. In that episode, Clinton rejected her espousal of violence, seeking to show moderate supporters that he was not afraid to tangle with powerful and liberal Democratic interests.

Still, lecturing Hollywood--even politely--can pay heavy political dividends, particularly at a time when polls show that gun-related violence again has risen to be the No. 1 concern of the American public.

Clinton said three decades of weakening the social fabric had created a group of people “who are vulnerable to cultural forces that the rest of us find entertaining.” These forces “are not in and of themselves bad when they are part of a culture that is organized by family . . . and other institutions.”

The President tried to soften his words by insisting that his intent was not to ask the industry to say mea culpa but to recognize that what may be one person’s moment of entertainment--if repeated over and over--can “have a punitive impact that at the very least does not help to bring a whole generation of people back from the brink.”

The problems of the “outer class” are among those that “cannot be fixed by the passage of a law or by an official declaration of the President of the United States,” he said.

Clinton insisted that he loved entertainment. “I love television. I am a movie-goer almost to the point of compulsion, have been since I was a small boy.” He singled out for praise the movie “Boyz ‘N the Hood” as a violent film that sought to show the corrosive effect of crime in the urban core.

It was unclear how the broader Hollywood community will react to Clinton’s remarks, but most in the audience seemed enthusiastic about his words.

A number nodded in approval as Clinton spoke. Actor Chevy Chase applauded eagerly.

Producer-director Irwin Winkler, who was at the gathering, said he felt that the President “was very articulate about violence in general and the responsibility we all in the entertainment industry have. It was very brave of him to approach the subject right on.”

Actress Sally Field added: “I think what he said was true. The entertainment industry has responsibility to help influence our culture. I do believe we have a responsibility to direct our energies in ways he (Clinton) mentioned.”

The fund-raiser was one of two DNC events that were expected to raise about $2 million for the party. The first, hosted and organized by Ovitz, asked $1,000 to $2,500 a plate.

A later fund-raiser, for 140 people at the home of mogul Marvin Davis, asked $25,000 to $100,000 per person and had a guest list that included Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Frank Sinatra.

In his economic meeting earlier Saturday, Clinton warned Southern California leaders that the Administration’s emerging effort to help the state’s economy is threatened by growing political pressure for deeper budget cuts.

Clinton called the pressure for more budget-cutting--including a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution--”a real conflict that the American people have imposed on the Congress and me. . . . We don’t need to glaze it over.”

But he also said California’s economic problems won’t be relieved if “political pressures force us to overlook the economic realities” that require more spending to develop new industries and retrain the labor force.

Clinton’s warning came near the first anniversary of his wide-ranging federal effort to help California, an initiative that has gotten mixed reviews from state leaders.

Styled as a sort of California economic “summit,” the 3 1/2-hour gathering at the aerospace company brought together the state’s two Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, members of Congress, top state officials and legislators, and business and community leaders.

The meeting was billed as an effort to shake loose new economic development ideas, and the 32 speakers were more than willing to offer their thoughts on how Clinton’s cash-strapped government could help the state through its worst recession since the 1930s.

They urged an increase in transportation spending, job-training programs, loans for small business, export promotion and minority set-aside programs. Clinton was also asked to ease bank rules, add more police, use pension money for infrastructure spending and to pick Los Angeles as the site of the 1996 Democratic National Convention.

“Thanks for being specific,” Clinton said at the close of the meeting, which was modeled on the national economic summit he held a year ago in Little Rock, Ark., before taking office.

The meeting hall was a cavernous warehouse where the space shuttles’ main engines are assembled. Beneath 35-foot ceilings and flanked by Riordan and Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown, Clinton sat in front of a huge model of a shuttle engine adorned with the presidential seal.

Overhead were banners touting the company’s shuttle work, including one that read, “America’s Pride: The Journey Continues & Continues.”

After the meeting, Clinton addressed an enthusiastic gathering of about 2,000 employees of the aerospace giant’s Rocketdyne Division, which makes the shuttle engines.

Although it played a role in the Ronald Reagan-era “Star Wars” missile defense program, Rockwell has been trying for years to shift from defense to commercial business; thus, its selection allowed the White House to illustrate that such transitions can be successful.

Clinton has promised that economic help for the state would be a keystone of his domestic effort, in part because California’s economic recovery may be a necessary condition for a full national recovery. With its 54 electoral votes, the state is also crucial to Clinton’s political hopes in 1996.

To make his audience more receptive to his message, Clinton sprinkled in news of various new initiatives for the state, which has had an unemployment rate near 10% for most of the year.

The President announced the $46-million housing grant for Los Angeles, which will put young people to work rehabilitating the Pico Gardens, Aliso South and Aliso North public housing projects. The sum is the largest grant given under the program to any city.

He also said the Labor Department will unveil next week a $14-million program to help retrain defense-related workers at GTE, Westinghouse, Lockheed, General Motors and McDonnell Douglas.

And Clinton repeated promises that the White House will soon announce an initiative aimed at retraining any workers who lose their jobs as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

As Clinton headed for California on Friday, the White House announced $155 million in federal matching funds for a new round of research projects to develop peacetime uses for defense technologies.

The President mounted a vigorous defense of his Administration’s efforts for California, but also took pains to stress the limits of what he can do for the state.

He outlined initiatives that include a five-year, $19.5-billion defense-conversion plan; the lifting of restrictions on $37 billion in high-tech exports; efforts to expand trade with Mexico, Asia and Europe and the deficit-cutting program that--by lowering interest rates--should help California.

He pointed to signs of a national economic recovery, including a rise in housing starts and corporate profits, a decline in national unemployment and lower interest rates.

“We are coming back, and that will benefit the state of California and the people who live here,” he said.

But Clinton’s analysis also acknowledged that “there is no silver bullet. . . . We can turn it around, (but) it won’t happen in a day.”

The President discussed the economic costs of crime--a theme that has become a favorite of his in recent months--citing a recent article in Business Week magazine asserting that crime costs the nation $425 billion a year.

“If we had $425 billion to invest in this country, we could lower the unemployment rate by 3% in California within a year,” he said.

Clinton suggested that the federal government may be able to expand its “technology reinvestment project,” the segment of the defense-conversion effort that is seeking ways to find civilian applications for high-tech defense technologies.

Although some analysts and industry leaders are skeptical of the program’s payoff, Clinton said the Administration hopes “we will be able to find even more money for this process next year, and we will be able to do it again.”

He gave highly tentative support to a proposal from Boxer to tap the billions in pension funds to finance huge public works programs.

Boxer said there is $4 trillion to $6 trillion in such funds, and that such financial experts as New York financier Felix Rohatyn had agreed that such assets could be safely put to use.

“They’re sitting out there--we could put those dollars to work,” Boxer said.

Clinton said the idea deserves “very careful study,” noting that proposals to use retirement money make some people “very nervous.”

He said the proposals should be limited to using only a modest share of the assets of such funds. But he said that in an era of low interest rates, some companies’ unfunded pension liabilities had grown sharply higher, creating strains that could be relieved to some extent by higher-yielding investments.

The elected officials made various pleas for special relief.

Boxer argued that because California has already suffered greatly from defense cutbacks, the state should be spared any further military base closures.

“Please, Mr. President, tell your department to consider regional fairness,” she said. “I don’t know if we can absorb any more,” she said.

Feinstein told Clinton that he should embark on a targeted program of small-business lending. She argued that $100 million in new loans would generate 400,000 jobs nationwide.

She said she worried that California still faces defense cuts that have been approved but not carried out, including “$11 billion in Clinton defense cuts and $5 billion in (George) Bush defense cuts.” California would be hardest hit by them, she said.

The 2,000 Rockwell workers who showed up to hear Clinton had crammed into another rocket engine assembly room.

With cameras, binoculars, spouses and children, those workers present were picked by lottery and--like the rest of Rocketdyne’s employees--had heard rumblings of Clinton’s visit just a day before it was announced.

“There wasn’t much notice of it at all,” said Fred Friday, a 37-year employee who said he worked his way up from an assembly line worker to a product manager for the space shuttle engines.

Although he didn’t vote for Clinton and expressed skepticism about the President’s claims of an economic recovery, Friday said he was proud of Rockwell and welcomed the $2.6-million defense conversion grant that its Rocketdyne Division had won.

The money will be used to develop the “EcoScan” a portable device capable of identifying hazardous materials from a distance.

“Every little bit helps,” Friday said.

Others were less generous in their reactions, calling the technology reinvestment program award “a bone” and predicting that it would do little, if anything, to create jobs.

“It’ll go to R&D;,” shrugged toolmaker Kerry Gunther, meaning research and development.

Because Clinton’s round-table discussion ran for three hours--one hour more than scheduled--company workers had to wait nearly four hours for his 40-minute address--without seats, refreshments or ready access to restrooms.

But the President drew cheers and applause when he entered the room.

Clinton also thawed a tired and skeptical audience when, midway through his address, someone accidentally knocked into a pipe, setting off a deafening hiss of steam.

“What is that sound? It’s not my hot air for a change,” quipped the President.

Times staff writers Leslie Berger and Claudia Eller contributed to this story.