Top executives from every major Hollywood studio and other titans in the entertainment industry emerged from a private discussion with senior White House adviser Karl Rove this afternoon vowing to play a broad, but still vague, role in the nation's fight against terrorism.
Today's meeting, the second White House overture for Hollywood's help since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, lasted less than two hours inside a chic hotel here and was an extraordinary sight: rival studio moguls brainstorming with an administration that the entertainment industry had hardly welcomed into office. But as they left, both sides said they were pleased with the tone of the conversation and expressed confidence that it would lead to action without White House meddling in content.
"We've just concluded a unique experience," said Jack Valenti, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, who helped organize the meeting at the White House's request. "I've never seen this kind of gathering. . . . There was a seamless web of unity."
Rove and others said they discussed a range of ideas, from simple steps such as sending new movies to U.S. troops overseas, to embarking on creative projects such as movie trailers focused on homeland security or Islam, or documentaries in both English and Arabic about the war.
Rove, who called the meeting "wonderful," insisted that the White House had not come to enlist Hollywood in a propaganda campaign or to dictate how it should help the war effort. "Our job will not be to direct, to approve, or to ask," he said. "The industry decides what it will do and when it will do it."
Valenti said bluntly: "Content was off the table."
But Rove did come with a seven-point agenda of broad themes for Hollywood to ponder, suggesting that the industry find creative ways to urge Americans to support the war with volunteerism, to raise the morale of U.S. troops, and to illustrate that "this is a war against terrorism, not Islam."
Sherry Lansing, chairwoman of Paramount Pictures, called the meeting "the beginning of the beginning" and said industry executives would meet again soon to work on specific plans. She and other executives said they stressed to Rove that they were not interested in producing propaganda, but wanted to help.
"All of us have had this incredible need, this incredible urge to do something," Lansing said, adding that the subject "crosses party lines." Hollywood is a gold mine for Democratic fundraisers, and President Bush has few of the close ties to the entertainment industry that President Clinton had.
Participants in today's meeting, which ended slightly earlier than had been planned, also said that at no point were any political deals suggested for enlisting the help of Hollywood, which has been under fire in Congress for the violent content it produces in films and television and fears new regulation.
"Nothing was discussed that in any way touched a nerve," said Bob Iger, Walt Disney Co.'s president.
Although both sides were circumspect about today's meeting, it seemed to produce more enthusiasm than the first session that lower-level White House aides had last month with Hollywood producers and directors about assisting with the war. Some industry executives said those talks lacked focus.
But today's gathering, which Rove initiated, drew more than 20 Hollywood heavyweights -- top power brokers in film and television as well as the leaders of the industry's creative unions. Afterward, they stood side by side and said they were determined, for once, to work together to help the country during wartime.
No one at the meeting said he envisioned the kind of intensive collaboration Hollywood had with Washington during World War II, when acclaimed filmmakers such as Frank Capra created inspirational movies and documentaries on the conflict. But no one ruled out making patriotic films, either.
Valenti, for one, expressed interest in developing movies or public-service announcements to be shown here and overseas that emphasize that the war on terrorism is not an attack on Muslims as well as films that have themes about "how America has been the most generous country in the world."