Latest / BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback / Episode 475 The Fall of Bob Packwood (Part 9) Bonus speech at Iowa State University from 1972 - Dole 16

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Episode 475 The Fall of Bob Packwood (Part 9) Bonus speech at Iowa State University from 1972 - Dole 16 · BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback

• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Hi everybody, this is Randall Wallace, your host from Randall Wallace Presents Podcast, and this is our first of three bonus episodes in our Bob Packwood series.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is from a speech at Iowa State University in 1973, where they were looking back at the 1972 elections.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And Mr.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Packwood will be talking about the Vietnam War, among other things, the Hatfield amendments that were were much discussed, Vietnam War issues from that period.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll get a sense of this young man who has been elected to the United States Senate just four years before, 1968, who became the youngest member of the U.S.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Senate.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: He replaced Ted Kennedy in that role.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: He beat a legendary senator, Wayne Morris, in Oregon in an upset, really.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: He had been one of the youngest uh state uh or Republican Party chairman in his area of Oregon.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: He was one of the youngest chairmen in the hit in the state in the country at the time.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: So Bob Packwood uh is a young man on the rise uh when this speech is given.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And this is, like I said, the first of three of these bonuses uh we're gonna do.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is the only one from when he was a senator and from the early part of his career.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was actually on YouTube uh in a cassette, on a cassette tape.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: So this is how long ago this speech was.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but it it will certainly introduce you to his grasp of the issues of the era that we have covered so much on this podcast.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because he was there even though he was uh considerably younger and junior uh senator than what we covered uh when we were doing the the Vietnam War and the LBJ or the Nixon era um uh in the Nixon administration.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Bob Packard was in his first term then.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so we will also then we will then move to two speeches that were given after his career in politics was over, but as he was the head of Sunshine Re uh Research, his lobbying firm in Washington, D.C.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he will come back and speak uh in those in those addresses to the um uh the the City Club of Portland and to the Gresham Chamber of Commerce.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And and these speeches are available online uh on YouTube as well.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: So with that, here's our first of three speeches by Bob Packwood, this one to the Iowa State University Lecture Series in 1973.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: On behalf of the University of Electric's Committee, I am pleased indeed to present to you Senator Robert W.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: Packwood, United States Senate, who will speak on a Republican looks toward the 1972 election.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: Senator Packwood.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: I want to correct just one misimpression that Neil may have left.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't actually an untruth, but he spoke about my great-grandfather and his pioneer uh background in Oregon, and I don't want to leave you with the impression he was one of those that uh tramped across the mountains with John C.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Fremont or Colonel Colonel Bonneville or any of those uh pioneers.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: My great-grandfather was born in Springfield, Illinois, and I think he planned to be a farmer the better part of his life and spend his career around there, but he made the mistake of joining the Army in 1848, and had been in the Army only a short time when he was transferred to San Francisco.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: And great grandfather was a pretty good letter writer and diary keeper, and he was in San Francisco when gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in 1849, and it's quite clear that it was his intention to desert the Army and pan for gold in 1849.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: But he did not succeed in this because his unit was transferred again, and this time up to Oregon, and the unit was transferred by ship.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: And as they were coming up the coast, uh just off of the what is now the border between Oregon and California, but in Oregon territory, the ship was wrecked, and all but seven were drowned.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Great grandfather and six others managed to swim ashore on a very what is still basically barren, unpopulated Oregon coastline, and they wintered there because at this time there were no roads, no way in or out.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And during the winter his military enlistment expired, and that's how he became a pioneer in the state of Oregon.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: I say this only because every now and then people are saying following in his great-grandfather's footsteps, and I really uh I hope to have higher ambitions than he did in terms of his career in Oregon.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't realize that you're having Ed Morgan here following me on Thursday.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: This makes me uh doubly nervous.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: This is my first appearance in Iowa.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Secondly, Ed Morgan, Ed and Wendy Morgan are two of my wife's closest friends, and I normally know where he's speaking, and he normally knows where I'm speaking, but I didn't realize that he was the follow-up to me.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: And he's one of the best speakers that I've run across in or out of politics, in or out of of news uh commenting.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so as I talk to you tonight, knowing that Ed's following me, I can't help but feel a bit as I did when I when I first went to court.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: First time.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if any of you are lawyers in the audience, although I'm sure some of you are probably planning to be lawyers.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: You go to law school and you study contracts, you study torts, domestic relations, and how to buy and sell real property and draw wills and constitutional law, and you study all of the theory of law.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: You think you're prepared to practice, but the one thing you never learn in law school is how to try a lawsuit.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Literally, how to pick a jury, how to address the judge, how to find the courthouse, how to do anything that has some possible relation to whether or not you may win or lose.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: And inevitably, and it's certainly more true now even than when I started practicing uh ten, fifteen years ago, one of the first types of cases you'll get is an appointed case.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Indigent defendant, person too poor to defend themselves, and so you're called upon to defend them for nothing as one of the obligations of being a member of the bar.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was with me.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'd been uh gosh, I'd been practicing maybe ten days at the most.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Hadn't had any client of any kind, and I got a call from the local presiding judge, and he said I'd been appointed to defend Sally.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Sally was down at the local jail, accused of her usual and perpetual crime of soliciting, and I could go down and uh prepare her defense.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I went down on a Friday, talked with Sally.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: I got her story down as best I could, went back to the law firm and spent the weekend researching the theory of my defense, because not only, of course, did I want to acquit Sally if I could, but I wanted to impress upon the judge how much I knew about how to handle this case.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Went back and talked with Sally again on Monday, and it was fortunate because her story bore little resemblance to that she had told me on Friday.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: I talked with her three times altogether before we went to trial, and her story just went like this, just the slenderest of threads.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: All I could do was pray when I got her on the stand that she might say something roughly similar to what she'd told me in jail.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: And off we went to court together.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, now I want you to understand that at this stage in each of our careers, her knowledge of trial practice was greater than mine by a long shot.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: I decided to waive a jury considering her story, so the prosecution simply was ready to open up and put on their case first.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And they were using two young assistant district attorneys, and this is not uncommon.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: These criminal cases of this type seldom take more than two or three hours.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: There's no time for a court reporter to transcribe the uh transcript into a typed transcript.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the assistant DAs will ask questions, and the other one sits down at a table and sort of writes down in an abbreviated longhand the answers, and they use these for cross-examination and closing argument, rebuttal, and things like that.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: They call the police officer.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: One of the DAs up there asked him questions, the other one's sitting down there writing things down, and they called their second witness, and the two DAs changed places, and the one who'd been doing the writing asked the questions, and the other one wrote.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: They had three witnesses all together, and they arrested their case after about an hour and a half.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I got up to prepare the defense, and uttered my first words in court, which I think were something like, Your Honor, before I call the defendant as a witness in her own behalf, and that's about as far as I got.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Sally's sitting right alongside of me at the council table, and she pulls on my sleeve.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: She says in kind of a low voice, Mr.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Packwood, I want another attorney.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this didn't do much for my confidence in my case, but fortunately the judge couldn't hear, so I continued on, but I didn't get another ten seconds worth out before she pulled again quite visibly, and this time she says quite loudly, Mr.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Packwood, I want another attorney.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: And the judge could hear, he could see my discomfort.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I turned to her and I said, Now, Sally, look, there's no problem.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um you didn't pick me for this case, Lord knows I didn't pick you for my client.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't we just go into the judge's chambers?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: You tell them that you're unhappy, and you can start all over with a brand new attorney.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: She goes, No, no, no, she says, You're all right, but they've got two.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: He said.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: I've just got you.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now, when one of them is standing up there asking questions, the other one is sitting down there thinking.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: When you're up there asking questions, no one's going to be thinking.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Sally was convicted.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Fortunately, however, it was her third felony conviction and she couldn't vote in the election which I ran.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: So there was some some semblance of victory, I guess, even in defeat.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm up here.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's a relatively new Republican senator, trying to tell you about the Republican prospects and what I think's going to happen in 1972, having to tell you from really a relatively narrow viewpoint of Oregon, plus what I find in the U.S.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Senate, and then knowing that I'm going to be followed by Ed Morgan, who has a much broader scope and a much broader source of information.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I'll give you a go at what I think's going to happen.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: If anybody here wants to bet me first, uh give me a hundred to one odds, uh, your hundred against my one, uh I I would be willing to bet that the president does not run again for a second term.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now, only on those odds will I bet that.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Why do I come to that conclusion?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: He'll be out of Vietnam or so far out of it, that the war will be regarded by the American public as concluded.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: He will have reached a salt talk limitation uh with the Russians on the limitation of strategic arms.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, hopefully, uh, the economy will be in good shape, wages and prices will have been stabilized, and hopefully unemployment will have fallen below uh four and a half or five percent.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And the president can look at that situation, can look at the fact that if he wants to retire after one term, he can do it with glory, and can spend the last ten or fifteen years of his life as an elder statesman, popularly acclaimed as a great president, and not have to worry about the vagaries of what might happen if he were to run for a second term, even if he were to win the election.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now that's the hundred-to-one shot.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's likely, but if it did happen, then I picture you would see an extraordinary battle between Governor Rockefeller and Governor Reagan for the Republican nomination, and I think Governor Rockefeller would probably win out as between the two.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of it might depend whether or not the president got out far enough ahead of time that there were a series of primary battles for the other contenders, or rather he waited, clear past the California primary and just announced maybe six weeks ahead of the convention that he wasn't going to run again, which would make one of the wildest conventions we probably will see in American politics in a long time if that happened.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I presume he runs.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you're going to ask me, well, if he runs, does he pick Vice President Agnew?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: And if he doesn't pick Vice President Agnew, is he going to pick John Conley?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now let me talk about let me talk about uh John Conley first.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: He is an amazing man.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: He has indicated uh that he's going to support the Democratic nominee against Senator Tower in Texas.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: He has indicated that he's going to support the Democratic candidate for governor in Texas against whoever the Republican may be.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And there's still all this Republican talk that he might be our candidate for vice president.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't I can't conceive of it happening.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the only way I can possibly understand it is that he's an ex-Texas governor, and those are funny things.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: And they can uh they seemingly can do things uh that uh other humans are incapable of surmounting.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I suppose the possibility is there.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't think so.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think the president's gonna wait till about a week ahead of the convention, and he's gonna tote up the liabilities and the assets of Vice President Agnew.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: And he's going to decide whether he considers him more of an asset or more of a liability and keep him or ask him to leave, depending upon the conclusion that the president by himself comes to.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think many other people are going to be involved in that decision.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that the president's going to have to consider is if he wants another nominee, will the vice president go gracefully?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Or will he go kicking and screaming?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because if he's going to go kicking and screaming, that's a big factor to consider before you suggest that he, you know, go.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: And uh don't forget that the president went through this himself in 1956 when he when uh Eisenhower was being nominated for the second term, and there was a great effort to get Nixon off the ticket.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Great effort to say, really, uh uh, Mr.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Vice President, it's better for your future if you accept a position in the in the cabinet.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: You become Secretary of Defense.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Nixon didn't buy all that.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: He insisted that he stay on the ticket as vice president.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: So where would you put the vice president, the present vice president?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: What kind of a position could you give him, uh, keeping in uh uh at least the dignity and stature of a vice presidential office?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't see where else you could put him but on the Supreme Court.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: If you wanted to move him.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I will leave leave it to you to decide where you'd rather have him.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I really don't think any of us are going to have any factor in the decision, and that the president himself will decide it.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: And if he gets rid of uh Vice President Agnew, I really don't have the foggiest idea.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: There are a hundred there are a hundred people uh that that could be dark horse choices, none of whom really stand any higher than the others.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose there are twenty-five or thirty Republican senators and governors around here who are in favor of a dump Agnew movement solely on the possibility that they think they might be the person to replace him on the ticket.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: But who knows?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: If the president runs, I expect he'll be re-elected, uh, whether or not he keeps the vice president on the ticket.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: It won't be a sweeping victory.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: He will not get a Republican House or a Republican Senate.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: The Republicans might pick up, oh, you know, three or four net seats in the House, uh, two or three net seats in the Senate, or we might lose two or three one way or the other.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: I don't expect any great change in the Congress or in the leadership of the Congress.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I think if if the President does have the factors going for him that I think he will, reasonably stabilized economy out of Vietnam, salt talk agreement with the Russians.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh good rapport, good feeling of rapport with Communist China that that he will be re-elected.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I think against any Democrat.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: So now let me turn to the Democrats for the moment, see if we can guess what they're gonna come up with.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, first, any Democrat that sweeps the primaries, as did Jack Kennedy in 1960, will be nominated.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't really matter who it is so long as it's one Democrat that sweeps them all.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: It could be Birch Baugh, it could be George McGovern, it could be any Democrat.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't foresee any Democrat doing in the primaries what Jack Kennedy did in 1960.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: And don't forget this time, we have infinitely more primaries.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: 1960 you only had five or six significant primaries.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Now you're going to have at least uh twenty-five to thirty primaries, of which ten can be significant, and hardly any candidate can afford to be in all of them.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: Financially, can't afford to be in all of them.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: So the primaries are both more numerous and somewhat less significant because there's more of them than they were twelve years ago.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: So if nobody sweeps them, and that's what I think, and you have a deadlock convention, nobody with more than twenty or twenty-five percent of the votes on the first ballot, 30% of the votes maybe, who do they pick?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: If he wants it, I think they pick Ted Kennedy.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: If he wants it, I think it's his convention uh hands down, if there's a deadlock.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: If there's a deadlock and Ted Kennedy genuinely doesn't want it, won't accept it.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Then this is my guess as to the order in which the Democratic Convention would turn.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Humphrey, Muskie, Jackson.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think any one of those three stand an infinitely better chance in a deadlock convention than uh George McGovern, Birch Bai, Fritz Mondale, who whoever the other Democrats, Fred Harris, that you may want to mention.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: And in the question and answer period, if you want an explanation as to why I think why, I'll be happy to tell you.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that's my assessment of the 1972 election and who the nominees are going to be.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: I really am in no better position.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: I don't stand at the right hand of God and have any special pipeline as to what he foresees coming.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: I hope in these predictions, I don't have the attitude of that old Methodist minister in the small town Midwest, and there's only one other cleric in the town.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's a Catholic priest.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: And these two guys are so far at opposites that it's hardly any basis of comparison.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: The Catholic priest is kind of a jolly, outgoing fellow, and he shoots pool, sings in the barbershop quartet, and he coaches the little league football team, and just is generally the town's most popular fellow.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: Methodist minister, sort of a shy, retiring, pleasant man, but he preaches on Sunday and you never see him until the following Sunday.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: One day the father and the Reverend are walking down the street toward each other.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: The father sees the Reverend and he says to the Reverend, Well, Reverend, I know that we're apart on many things, but I hope we can agree that we're both doing the Lord's work.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: The Reverend says, Well, Father, I suppose you're right.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: You in your way, I in his.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I don't have that kind of omniscience.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: But this is my hunch and my guess.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: But I'll tell you what bothers me, and both parties.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't see anybody that can give to this country the excitement and the leadership that Jack Kennedy was able to give it in the short time that he was president.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it's almost impossible to predict it ahead of time because if in 1959 you would talk to the twenty people in this country who knew Jack Kennedy best, who were probably his fellow senators, most of them didn't see that leadership in Jack Kennedy.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: After seven years in the Senate.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: I can remember the poll in 1959.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Among the members of Congress, Democratic members of Congress, who do you most favor for president of for the Democratic nominee?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: One, Lyndon Johnson.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Two, Hubert Humphrey.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the order.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Two, Hubert Humphrey.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Four, I can't remember who the fourth was.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Jack Kennedy was an also ran at about seventh or eighth.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Not because they didn't necessarily dislike him, but they didn't see any capacity for leadership.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: And yet we all know in a brief time what kind of an inspiration he gave.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: What we need in this country, if we have the wisdom to foresee it, and if such a man or woman can come forth, is a leader who can make us believe that we can achieve things greater than we ever thought we could achieve.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then he can lead us to achieving them.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: What I think is going to happen after eight years of President Nixon is that we will be left in this country uh roughly where we were after eight years of President Eisenhower.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: From a partisan Republican standpoint, uh Uh, the president will not have turned this country around.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: He will not have formed the coalition that Franklin Roosevelt did.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: He will not have made the Republican Party a majority party.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: The Republicans will not control Congress.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: The Democrats, on the other hand, certainly haven't yet come up with a successor to a Jack Kennedy or to a Franklin Roosevelt.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so they'll still continue to be sort of a malaise, sort of a wishing and a lingering in this country, looking for somebody.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Call it the man on the white horse if you want.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: Who can give this country the belief in itself that it so sorely lacks today?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: And who can give it without really worrying if he gets the credit.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: He gets so tired in politics about worrying who gets the credit for what.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: And is your name going to be at the top of the press release?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And who gets to stand at the bottom of the steps when the president comes off?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: And what order do you stand?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it all doesn't really make a hoop of difference.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: I remember that axiom that says that what you have in this world when you die will pass to somebody else.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: But what you are in this world will be yours forever.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: And if somehow we can find a leader who believes that, I think he might have the capacity to give the leadership to this country that we need.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think he might have the capacity to reinstall in this country the lines that Arthur O'Shaughnessy once wrote about America when he said, We are the music makers.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: We are the dreamers of dreams.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, we are the movers and shakers of the world forever.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: It seems thank you very much for letting me be here.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: I regard him as one of the most uh inspirational, dedicated, sincere people I've ever met in my life, in or out of politics.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: Period.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: Now, having said that, uh, I don't think he stands a ghost of a chance uh uh of upsetting the president.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: I cannot conceive of an incumbent president being denied the nomination of his own party in a convention if he wants it, even if he'd lost every primary.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: What happened to Johnson is that he chose to quit.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: And he might have lost the election.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: I have no idea.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm simply saying that no matter what McCarthy did, and McCarthy won in Oregon, no matter what McCarthy did, and Bobby Kennedy might have been able to do, if Lyndon Johnson had wanted the Democratic nomination in 1968, he would have got the Democratic nomination in 1968.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that convention would not have turned him down as an incumbent president coming to his party and his convention and saying, Gentlemen, ladies, please renominate me.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why I think Pete faces a hopeless task.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then secondly, and what I say to you, I've said to Pete, basically he's put his uh he's put his faith on the war issue.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think it's going to be that big an issue, first, generally.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Secondly, it's not nearly that big an issue in a Republican primary as it's going to be in a Democratic primary.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I think Pete's in trouble on the issue, and I just can't picture the party turning uh their back on the president.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now, as to the fourth party, I think there's a possibility.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: And ironically, I think it's more likely a possibility with the people that I think the Democratic Party may pick than uh than if they were to nominate a Birch Bay or a McGovern or uh somebody like that.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think if the Democrats pick Humphrey or pick Jackson, there will be a wing of the Democratic Party that will think this is just a replay of 1968.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: And they're gonna go out and form a peace and freedom party, and they're going to absolutely guarantee the re-election of President Nixon.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because they're gonna pull off uh from the normal Democratic vote, four or five hundred thousand votes in New York, and two or three hundred thousand votes in Michigan, and four or five or six hundred thousand votes in California.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: And George Wallace is not going to pull that much away from the Nixon right, and it's gonna uh with about a plurality of forty-two or three or four percent of the vote in those states, the president's gonna take those states, where he otherwise might run the possibility of losing them if there's no fourth peace and freedom party.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I see it.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think it'll be suicide for the Democrats if they do it.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think they'll be absolutely guaranteeing the re-election of President Nixon, but I can foresee it.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Over here.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: If I were Lindsay, I wouldn't run again for mayor.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: His term is up in 73.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's perfect timing.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'd go to the Virgin Islands for about six months and kind of read and reflect and lose 15 pounds and get tan and travel around the world, and I'd come back and I'd run for governor of New York in 1974 as a Democrat.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: And if he were to win it, he would be in a formidable position for the Democrats in 1976.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the ideal situation is he's a ye he's a year away from the mayorship.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't have to worry about the problems of the city.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: He uh all the things that have gone wrong that he's blamed for rightly or wrongly, uh are half forgotten.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: And he's and he's fit and tailored and tan and rested and could put on a whale of a campaign.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: And if he goes that route, I think he'll be formidable.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: And John Lindsay is a charismatic person.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's no doubt about it.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: I d I know uh John slightly.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: Not not really well, but slightly.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um but if he doesn't run again for mayor, and if he has no base between 73 and 76, no governorship uh I don't think he can sustain it just than having been the mayor of New York for eight years.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Others shoot.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: Do I think that Ted Kennedy can provide the leadership that his two brothers did?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, because it's as I say, when I listen to these older senators, and they're very honest about it, say that they didn't see it in Jack Kennedy.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's really hard to say ahead of time how is a man going to react to a nation and vice versa.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes the change that comes over you when you become president is different.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: I did see this in Ted.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: I went with him to uh Cleveland and Chicago on two days of health hearings, just Ted Ted and I.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's the first time I've ever seen adoration.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Hollywood movie star adoration, not political adoration.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: We'd go into a hospital, and uh Ted would get out of the car.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, everybody, of course, the hospital administrator and the student nurses and the orderlies, and everybody else would be crowding around the entrance.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: And uh just, you know, the girls would be squeaving.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: Just you you would have you would have thought it was Elvis Presley 15 years ago or something like that.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, well, you know, gee whiz, they're twenty twenty-one-year-old student nurses, and I can understand they're excited about Gina Kennedy.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so we get up to the orthopedic ward on the fifth floor, you know, there's a nice and sane 45-year-old doctor.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you think, well, that's a you know, he must must be a calm, intelligent fellow.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, Senator Kennedy, I supported your brothers, and I'm just so honored that you'd come to my ward.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and it was adoration.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: And if Ted can do that to a nation, what I saw in two days as we went around, it is uh an almost fearsome, awe-inspiring thing, because I've never seen a politician do that.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: And if he could continue to do that, he could give that kind of leadership.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: But if he gets the nomination, if he gets the nomination, if he wants it and gets it, I think he's got to make it on his own.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think he can live on the legacy.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: And he's gonna have two and a half months of daily spotlight in that television and radio and newspaper news from the time of the convention until the election.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh for better or for worse, Ted will have to make it on his own, and I don't know, I can't sense, I can't tell if he's got that kind of leadership.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: In my uh listing of the Democratic nominations, I listed Humphrey over Muskie.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: This, of course, it assumed a deadlocked convention.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: It assumed that uh Muskie had not won all the primaries, had been defeated in some, and he had some first ballot votes, but not enough to tie it up.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think the sentimental lingerings of most of the people who go to the Democratic Convention are going to be with Hubert Humphrey.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: One, they uh they will be of an age group in many cases, and I realize there are gonna be a lot of young people there, but they're gonna be of an age group of many uh for many of them who've been fighting with Hubert Humphrey for twenty years.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: They are going to be people uh from different states that Hubert Humphrey has helped raise money for as candidates, uh as party uh central committee chairman over a period of years.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then most importantly, much more so in the Democratic Convention than the Republican.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Organized labor likes Hubert Humphrey.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's worth a whale of a lot of votes in the Democratic Convention.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't see that Ed Muskie has any of the he has a lot of attributes, and he's a bright, able man.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't see that he has the IOUs.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't see that he has the history of calling in the chits that Hubert can do if he wants to do it.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the difference.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well, without without that deadlock which you give a guy who think right now it's the best chance that's Democrat.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: Without the deadlock.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if there yeah, right now it's musky.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you if I pick any one person who might sweep the primaries, who might sweep the primaries, I'd say it's musky, and I say that for two reasons.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: One, uh, you know, the polls showing him with a reasonable lead, two, Ted Kennedy saying he's not gonna get in the primaries, and he's gonna take his name, and I'm trying to believe him.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think he's uh serious on this.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Take his name off the ballot.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh plus the fact that most of the other Democrats who are gonna get in the primaries, uh, you know, they just don't shoot rockets out of their pockets.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: They're not gonna set fire to anybody.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and you you listen to them.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and you know, most of them bore you to death.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and Ed doesn't.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: Ed has a certain uh certain quality about him that's uh kind of likable.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: So if you assuming no deadlock, that means somebody has taken the primaries, and I don't see anybody that's gonna take the primaries but Ed, but I don't think that's gonna happen.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's gonna be a deadlock.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm I'm probably missing people in back.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Just shout if I don't see you.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: All right, here.
• 34:51
  unknown: What has your lord of the legislation?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: What's if you're my abortion what's happened to my abortion legislation?
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: What's its future, and why haven't I mentioned it?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I can assure you it has no future in the 1972 presidential election.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh, no matter who is nominated on which ticket.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh save for Pete McCloskey.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: Pete's with me uh on this.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I have a bill to legalize abortion nationally.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: It is not received with open enthusiasm uh by the members of Congress.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: It is doubly not received with open enthusiasm by any of those who think they are running for president.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it is not going anyplace, period.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: I I can't even get a co-sponsor other than Pete in the House to sponsor the legislation.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I I can understand why.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the politics of uh abortion, or you run across it in politics, we every now and then come across what we call a one-issue issue.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's the kind of an issue that will make people vote against you just because of that issue.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter what else your record is, they feel so intensely about this issue that they'll vote against you.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas people who support you on this particular issue won't necessarily vote for you because of it.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen it with abortion, I've seen it with fluoridation of water supply, and I've seen it with gun registration.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: Those are all one issue issues.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: And in a close race, and that's what we'd call a swing district, a 55-45 district on the average, if you lose just five or six percent of the vote that you might otherwise get because of this one issue issue, you're dead.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why most people don't want to touch this.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: We will get legalized abortion in this country within five years.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think we may back into it judicially rather than facing it frontally in the legislative halls, but we'll get it.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: But uh no politician in his right mind wants on this bill.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know whether that leaves McCloskey and me, but uh who else?
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead.
• 36:54
  unknown: Do you think the economic issue is going to be the major issue in 72 election?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: Do I think the the economic issue will be the major issue in uh the 72 election?
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think it will be if in November of 72 we're about where we are now.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: I do not expect the white wage and price controls uh to be popular.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think the longer they're continued, the more unpopular they're going to be.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: At the moment, I think uh when we hear wage and price controls, most of us hear price controls, and we're tired of the cost of hamburger going up, and we're tired of everything going up, and we are happy to settle right now for the moment for some kind of wage and price control.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: But after they've been in about five months, six months, seven months, and prices have stabilized, then you get the other reaction.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: You get, you know, you get little Susie, who's a legal secretary, and she thinks she's worth$25 a month more, and her boss thinks she's worth$25 a month more, but he can't pay it to her because of the price free.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, at that stage, she begins to lose her ardor for wage and price controls.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I so I think we will not have wage and price controls by the time the election comes.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think that will be out the window.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: And if without them we've still got inflation, and if we're still running at any place from uh five and a half to six and a half percent unemployment in this country, uh, I think it's gonna be the the biggest issue.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: It may not be the uh determinative issue, but I think it'll be the single biggest one.
• 38:15
  unknown: Yeah.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: Are the Democrats gonna try to come up with a bunch of programs to get votes?
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: If uh Yes, they will.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's enough said on that.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, sir.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh don't I think the tragedies that have befallen uh the Kennedys stand in Ted's way?
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: Very much.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: Very much.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I can't picture what it can be like uh for Ted.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: I've never really tried to even talk to him directly.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't know, my wife and I talk about this.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: All of us in politics accept accept as an assumption of the risk uh that we could be assassinated, that our children can be kidnapped.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and they can.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: We I have no protection, and my family has no protection.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: And nothing's ever happened to my family.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then I look at Ted and see what he's what he's gone through in the family, and I I just think that has got to be a factor in his mind that would cause him to think five times and want to say no every time before he would accept that nomination.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: Here.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: What do I think about the 18-year-old vote and will it cause a significant change in politics?
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's going to be that big a change nationally or maybe for statewide office.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: Governor, lieutenant governor, or senator.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think it will be a tremendous difference in local races.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, it can be a tremendous difference in Ames.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: If if the entire university decides, you know, they're all going to register here and vote here, it uh it would have a significant impact.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure it doesn't bother the local townspeople, but uh but I can uh foresee that.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: But where I think it may make a difference is in the tenor of campaign organizations and in the makeup of central committees, where all of a sudden 18-year-olds find that for years the Republican Central Committee's been a vacuum.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: They discover it really hasn't been some kind of power elite, it's been nothing, and they can take it over with almost no effort at all.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: And uh frighten the wits out of some of the older Republicans with resolutions and I mean it has great potential for fun.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think it'll have a general tendency to make campaign organizations younger and more idealistic.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: But when it comes to voting in the national picture, I just don't expect all the 18-year-olds, and don't forget how many of them are not in college, they're out working in the mills, they're working on farms.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't expect everybody in that age group to go left or go right.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: And excuse me, I didn't hear the end of it.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: Position of the Eastern establishment in the Republican Party in this decade.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, depends whether you count the president, I guess, is a New Yorker, a Californian, or a Floridian.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't buy this Eastern Western establishment argument that much.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I know that a lot of Westerners before California got big uh always thought that that uh Tom Dewey and and all those people in the East controlled all the money, and we in the West never got our fair share of anything from the Republicans, and that the it was all those international bankers and money in New York.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I have I've not first, I have not seen that unity of interest among the Eastern establishment that made them all liberal or all oriented toward the East.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: I find they're pretty much split in and among themselves.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I uh I think it that's a uh a theory that Phyllis Shaffley likes to write about, but I don't really find it in existence uh too often.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: Shoot.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um Senator Muskie and Mark might be having to I think that Senator Muskie's remark about he wouldn't pick a black on the ticket because it wasn't pragmatic would have any effect?
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: No, I don't think so.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, the president says he's now gonna pick Ed Brooke as his vice presidential running mate, and I don't know what Ed would do faced with those circumstances if uh if Nixon were running with Brook.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: Has John Gardner's common cause had any effect on the Senate and the Congress?
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, a bit.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, I I told John this, I can tell you this.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're spread too thin.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're spread over too many causes.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think they would be better off if they would do what the National Committee for an Effective Congress does, or the American Civil Liberties Union does.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think if they were to zero in on seniority, or zero in on the war, if that's what they want to zero in on.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um but they're getting they're getting a s a few victories and they're getting a string of defeats.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: And the organization at the moment hinges so much upon the leadership and the personality of John Gardiner.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: It is almost a solely run organization in terms of its policy.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it's had an effect.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: But if it's really going to be effective, it ought to pick just two or three really good issues a year and concentrate on them.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: And despite the feeling you may have about a dozen others, just kind of hold your horses and pick the spots where you can have your victories.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh if they will do that, if they'll s and if they'll broaden their leadership base a little more so that it's not so totally dependent upon John Gardiner that if he quits, dies, becomes head of a foundation, or you know, runs for office, that uh the organization just folds because there's nobody else, uh, I think they can be a a continuing good effect.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: How do I uh see the did you say steel prices?
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: How do I see the steel crisis and the protective tariff?
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well the tariff is uh one of the things that I don't agree with on the president.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: He hadn't done it.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh certainly if you're from Iowa, you should wish he hadn't done it, because the one place where retaliation can be big is going to be in in uh for agricultural exports.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a risk I'm not don't think we should be prepared to run if we just want to talk selfishly about the economy of this state.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: But beyond that, our economic problems are of our own making.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: And we uh we can't turn our back.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: I hope we don't turn our back on thirty years of attempts at reciprocally uh lowering trade barriers.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: I hope we don't think that we can really build up the trade walls and live in this world.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have to live in it.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: Not just within ourselves, and we're gonna have to trade with it.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna have to make our economy be able to compete.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I think that the the uh 10% announcement was a step backward.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: I hope it's temporary.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um but it added great fuel to a strong protectionist movement that exists in Congress today.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because they can now point to the president and say, see, all along he said that we should have lower trade barriers, and then all of a sudden this is what he does, and this is what we've been saying all along was wrong.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's gonna be a tough battle.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: Back there.
• 45:32
  unknown: What are your feelings about Wilbur Mills its potential effect on Mr.
• 45:38
  unknown: Leason's economic policy?
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: The effect of Wilbur Mills on present economic policies it's almost the other way around.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: What uh what effect can the president have on Wilbur Mills's economic policies?
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Wilbur Mills dominates the Congress like nobody I've ever seen dominate any legislative body that I've ever been in or had any experience with or read about.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: All of the tax legislation, uh most of the significant uh even non-tax legislation if it relates to finance, uh starts in the Ways and Means Committee.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, in the under the Constitution, uh taxing measures have to initiate in the House of Representatives.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: And Wilbur Mills dominates that committee.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: And he doesn't dominate it because of seniority, although he is the senior member.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: They don't have any subcommittees, so they all meet all the time together.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: Therefore, there aren't any little sneaky subcommittee chairmen to hold their own little meetings and get things all ready to try to put through the main committee.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: And Wilbur Mills never misses any meetings.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: And he reads all the tax journals and banking journals and economic journals, and he knows more about the subject than any man in Congress.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it's no wonder when he gets on the floor, he has never.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is Wilbur Mills' record in 30 years in Congress.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_01: No bill has ever come from the Ways and Means Committee that Wilbur Mills did not want to come from the Ways and Means Committee.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: No bill that has ever come from the Ways and Means Committee that Wilbur Mills wanted has ever been lost on the floor of the House of Representatives.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's how powerful he is.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: And what he wants in terms of economics will be basically what he'll get.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: And the only way that this could be stopped is if the president really wanted to go to the mat on an issue that was so significant to the president that he was willing to pull out all of the stops in the power of the of the of the presidency.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: Public utterances, television, uh pressure on senators, if that's where he's got to fight his battle if he loses it in the House.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think that the President and uh Congressman Mills are that far apart that often, that the President wants to so irritate him with that kind of a battle because he needs him more often uh than not, and there's no point, I think, in the President's view, in irritating Wilbur over a few minor items of difference.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: Back there.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: What problem we face in eliminating the seniority system and what can we do with what problems do we face in eliminating the seniority system?
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, eighteen committee chairmen in the House and uh seventeen committee chairmen in the Senate on the Democratic side, plus the oldest Republican on each committee who will be chairman if the Republicans ever gain control of the Congress, for starters, we'll beat the system.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we pick up a vote or two every uh every year.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think probably within uh four to six years the seniority system will be gone.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: Although, you know, I've got no particular I I I'm I want to get rid of it.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's the most backward system I've ever seen.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think if you were to sit down and think to yourself, what is the most obtuse, unlikely system of government that you could come up with for at least procedurally orienting your legislative body, you come up with seniority.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but it's ideally suited for a guy that's elected young and gets re-elected.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: It takes you about 14 years to become chairman of a major committee in the Senate.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you get elected 35 or 40, you're a chairman when you're uh 50 to 55, and if you've got a normal lifespan, why you've got probably another 15-20 years as chairman.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's ideally suited for me.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if I can keep getting re-elected.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: But for the guy that's elected for the first time at age 57 or 58, just when he gets to the place, or he's been there long enough to be a chairman, he's playing hide-and-seek with a mortality table, and he may not make it.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but I know what's going to happen just when I get enough seniority to be chairman, they're going to get rid of the system.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's uh yes.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: What would I replace it with?
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: There are two or three alternatives, any one of which would be preferable.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: One is election of the, or election or selection, call it what you want, of the chairman by the members of the committee itself, from at least at least from among the majority party members of the committee.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's one.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: Second is just the straight-out appointment of committee chairman by the majority leader.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: This would be uh much more typical of a parliamentary system, where the prime minister just appoints his cabinet officers and appoints the legislative leaders.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: And third would be uh election or selection by the caucus itself.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I I would accept any one of those in preference to the seniority system.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: Over here.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: What are my views on the Selective Service System?
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: What future do I see?
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: I prefer uh the volunteer army.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_01: I supported all a variety of amendments we had this year to try to get it, all of them failed.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think, however, the president is accurate in his projections that we'll make zero draft calls, even if we keep the selective service system, we'll make zero draft calls by June of 73.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I say that for this reason.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: Out of Vietnam, one.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh down to a military force of about 2.5 million men, women, uh, which will be down from a high of 3.6 million at the uh in uh 1968, substantially increased pay.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, that again to presumes we're out of the out of the war.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_01: At that stage, our only principal overseas assignment will be Germany.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I think probably a kid coming out of high school, not having enough money to go to school, but wanting to, if he can join the army for a couple of years, uh spend eighteen months in Heidelberg and know that he's gonna come out of it with a GI Bill and a reasonable good pay while he's in, uh, would not be too adverse under those circumstances to to going in, and I think we would fill it on a voluntary basis.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let me see if I'm missing back.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't see hands coming up in the back.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's one back there.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, guess not.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead over here.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_02: Why are you a Republican?
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I refuse to comment on the contrast, but I'll I'll tell you why I'm a Republican.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: And of course we we used to think there were two differences.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Democrats were terribly uh were uh fiscal wastels, and they spent deficitly and uh they couldn't be trusted.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: And we had speeches damning the Democrats on this, and then the president came forth with his planned deficit budgets, and it causes all kinds of hell in trying to rewrite those speeches somehow to make their deficit seem bad and our deficit seem good.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: The fundamental difference I find now, and you know it's hard to tell, I was raised a Republican, my folks worry gets mixed up as you come up, and you sometimes wonder how much is heredity and how much you rationalize yourself into one party or the other.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: But the single fundamental difference I see now is the concept of revenue sharing, delegation of powers to local governments.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: The Republicans, I'm here I'm talking about uh, you know, on the averages.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not talking about every Republican and every Democrat.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: The Republicans, on the average, are committed to the concept of revenue sharing, raising money for local governments, sending it back to local governments with relatively few strings, probably the only strings being you've got to account for it and you can't racially discriminate, and saying to local government, look, you spend it because we really can't run this country well from Washington, D.C.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: The Democrats still have a lingering conviction that local government cannot be trusted.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that if you give them this money, they're just going to squander it.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they're gonna they don't know how to spend it.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: They don't really know the needs of their local areas.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we can best here I'm speaking for the generalities of the Democrats, we can best determine what you need in Ames, what kind of sewer you need, what kind of pipe it should be constructed out of, how your urban renewal project should be handled.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: We can best determine that for you from Washington.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's the fundamental philosophical difference.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think it's so that Fred Harris's campaign will be significant if you just stand a chance for the Democratic nomination?
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: Will Fred Harris's campaign be significant?
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: Does he stand a chance for the Democratic nomination?
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 54:08
  unknown: How close are we limiting population through a taxation?
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: How close are we to limiting taxation or limiting population through a taxation bill?
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, in addition to my abortion bill, I had a bill in to limit tax deductions to two children.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that was greeted with as much enthusiasm as the abortion bill.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Chuck Percy co-sponsored it.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: And now he now he won't even let me speak for him in Illinois, any place uh after he started getting the mail on it.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_01: That bill doesn't work, and I've given up on it as a matter of practicality, and just very quickly in your mind, add up mathematically why it doesn't work.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: Take a man and a wife, two children, so you got four deductions in a family.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: If the bill had gone into effect in 1973, it would have said that you could have no tax deductions for children after two, would not have applied retroactively and didn't apply to adopted children.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, in 1973, you have tax deductions of$750 apiece.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_01: So there's$3,000 in deductions for a family of four.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: Then you have a standard deduction of$2,000 in 1973.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: So for any family making$5,000 or less, I'm talking about earned income.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not talking about welfare, social security, or disability benefits.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: For any family with$5,000 or less income and two dependents, just two kids and a man and a wife, they don't have any taxable income.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_01: Bill doesn't affect them at all.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_01: They don't care if you give them three deductions for children or four or five, two is all they need.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: And they and the families under$5,000 a year produce 40% of the legitimate children in this country today.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_01: Legitimate.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I've just kind of assumed that if you make that much money, a tax deduction is probably not a significant factor in your mind as to whether or not you have another child.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then that just leaves you with a five to ten thousand dollar group that produces forty-eight percent of the children, but they only have the average about two point six.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_01: So really the bill, if it's effective at all, would only affect the point six part, and you and I know that all of them are going to pay attention to it, and the practicalities of it are the bill just doesn't work.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think you could cut out tax deductions altogether for children, and it probably wouldn't have a significant effect.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_01: We will reach a stabilized population in this country, but we'll reach it through one, massive contraception, and I mean availability of good contraceptive devices, or pills, or loops, or whatever, to everybody in this country, regardless of educational background, regardless of economic circumstance, so that nobody has to get pregnant accidentally.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then secondly, you back that up with legalized abortion so that no woman in this country has to continue an unwanted pregnancy, because it surely isn't your business or mine or the federal government's or any other government as to whether or not you want to terminate a pregnancy.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_01: You put those two together and you continue the psychology we have in this country now about wanting to reduce population, and we'll make it.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: But we haven't even approached the first two with any degree of uh any degree of conviction yet.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: Who else?
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: Any prediction on who the president might nominate for the Supreme Court vacancies?
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know as much about that as I do.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing I hope, I just hope.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: I voted against Hainsworth, and I thought he wasn't too bad a guy, but he I he had some things about his racial record that I just couldn't take.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, boy, that was a toughie.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: Surely the president will come forth with somebody now who's clean.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then we got Judge Carswell.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that was worse.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I just hope that whoever he nominates, the FBI has so thoroughly investigated that we don't come a cropper again and find something in the hearings that, you know, if the FBI can catch Nazi saboteurs in World War II and they can infiltrate the communists.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why they can't look through the morgues of a newspaper file or why they can't do the normal investigative chores on these guys.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: I have no idea who he's going to suggest.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: I can I can think of four or five I hope he doesn't suggest.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_01: Five or ten top goals or priorities.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let me give you my two.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, they're easy enough to say, and so I'll give you more specifics.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: One's population, as far as I'm concerned, population stabilization.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_01: And the other's world peace, and I don't mean it in the in the just kind of ethereal sense.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think we're going to have world peace until we have some kind of effective, genuinely effective world federalism, until we have a diminishment of national sovereignty.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the United States ought to be the nation in this world that at least, I'm not suggesting it unilaterally, but at least is putting forth the concept that so long as any nation has the ultimate power to go to war, we're going to have war.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that that's and that's what must be limited.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_01: Until we start doing that, we might as well be very realistically faced with the likelihood of wars.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_01: And those are the two biggest things that I see.