The April Harper's will offer a "conversation" between the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson and anti-welfare theorist Charles Murray as editor Lewis H. Lapham continues tinkering with the revived highbrow monthly.

The one-on-one "conversation" is a new version of Harper's "Forum," transcripts of notable people batting around a current topic, a feature that Latham concedes was sometimes "stiff."

To a reporter's objection that "Forum" amounted to "television's `talking heads' in print," Latham said, "The idea was to get past the talking heads, do it better.

"Television is very limited in time and people tend to get timid on camera.

"I still think it can be done in a way TV can't do it. I just ...