Those participating were Ronald Bayer, director of the Project on AIDS and the Ethics of Public Health at the Hastings Center: William Schneider, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; and Jonathan Handel, a gay activist and a member of the Cambridge, Mass., Human Rights Commission on the AIDS Task Force for Cambridge. Others interviewed were Stanley Greenberg, president of the Analysis Group, a national Democratic polling firm; Denise McWilliams, director of the AIDS Law Project for the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders in Boston; William Shannon, professor of journalism and history at Boston University and a columnist for the Boston Globe; and Barbara Whitehead, a social historian and consultant with Public Policy Associates in Chicago. Their comments focused on the role of AIDS in the 1988 campaign, funding for efforts to address AIDS, the need to recognize AIDS as a major public health problem, the impact of AIDS, and community responses. (Author abstract modified)