Interview with Ed Feulner
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Contributor
Feulner, Edwin J. ; McKiernan, Stephen
Description
Edwin John Feulner is an author, journalist, administrator, educator, political scientist, government official, and the founder and former president of The Heritage Foundation. He was the president from 1977-2013 and from 2017-2018. Feulner received his Bachelor's degree in English from Regis College, his Master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, and his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh.
Date
2003-08-07
Rights
In copyright
Date Modified
2018-03-29
Is Part Of
McKiernan Interviews
Extent
65:51
Transcription
McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Ed Feulner
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 7 August 2003
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(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:03):
No, not at all.
EF (00:00:06):
So I think with those you have got to make some differentiations there. In the sense poor Wes Marlin was given an impossible task because his commander in chief was micromanaging the war. Key, and who was the other one you mentioned?
SM (00:00:25):
General Cao Ky and General... President Thieu.
EF (00:00:29):
Why do not you just hang on the second because he has come back a couple of times. I want you to kill the interview.
SM (00:00:33):
Yeah. Okay, all right. There you go.
EF (00:00:43):
Ky and Thieu, well, patriots, anti-communists, working with a powerful ally again, which was restricting what they could do or what they wanted to do. Playing probably what was essentially a losing game all the way, but tragic basically, the word which comes to my mind for those two.
SM (00:01:08):
And then I have got two more names here and then we are basically done with one final question. Your thoughts on Ralph Nader. And I do not know if you know too much about Noam Chomsky. What do you think about the Noam Chomsky's of the world because he has been consistent?
EF (00:01:26):
Yeah right. Well, in a sense you have to admire Nader for sticking to his principles all of these years. Of course, I think he is totally wrongheaded in what he is trying to do. And maybe the word totally is too wrong, too strong rather. What I do not like about Nader is he tends to look always to the government to solve the problem. And I would like to be able to make it a more balanced approach to problem solving and not always look to the government first but look to government, if not last, at least next to last. Chomsky is an ideologue, of course. A man of the left who I think probably would not, even if you presented him with all the evidence in the world, would not change his position if it conflicted with one of his pet ideas and theories. Case in point, Alger Hiss, I am not sure whether he yet still admits that Alger Hiss was guilty of espionage.
SM (00:02:53):
The Berrigan brothers.
EF (00:02:57):
Yeah, sort of. Again, minor figures of the day, important at the time, believing they were doing the right thing. But I think probably in the greater scheme of things, I think someone like Thomas Merton is more important than the Berrigan brothers in terms of looking to Catholic models of the (19)60s.
SM (00:03:36):
And Benjamin Spock, Dr. Spock.
EF (00:03:40):
Right. Should have stuck to his babies.
SM (00:03:48):
I never asked about Norman Mailer. I will turn this off now. I am here with two questions. I know I said I am almost done but when the best history books are written, oftentimes the best history books are 50 years after the event. Some of the best books of World War II are now. When the best history books are written, say 25 years from now because we are halfway there on the boomer generation, what will their lasting legacy be in the history books? What will they be saying about that?
EF (00:04:20):
Well, I think they will be saying that it is one of the most influential generations of the 20th century and 21st century. Sometimes for good, but I think more often for ill.
SM (00:04:45):
And the very last question is this, and it was the last one I asked Dr. [inaudible]. The two events, the impact that these two events had on the psyche of all boomers, whether they were protestors or non-protestors, the events of the Kennedy assassination in 1963 and the deaths of the four students at Kent State in 1970.
EF (00:05:11):
Well, as I have already indicated, I think you are absolutely right, that became this period of a psychological of depression. This was the beginning of a trauma with the American psyche, with the boomers and with every other American, starting with the assassination. The famous thing that you ask people of a certain age, where were they at 1:30 on Friday on November 22nd, 1963, they will be able to tell you very precisely. So that will always remain with them and it certainly was the most important event. I do not know that the Kent State murders...
SM (00:06:03):
And I say Jackson State included in there a couple of weeks later too, six students.
EF (00:06:07):
I do not know that that was the second most important and defining moment of the (19)60s for the boomers. I do not know. I have to think about that. I might be more inclined to say, for example, just for political impact, the Chicago (19)68 convention. Maybe Dr. King's murder earlier that year. I do not know that that Kent State was that... I would not put it up that high. Certainly, if you want to talk about it being in the top 10 events, but not as number two. Certainly I think the Kennedy assassination was the preeminent event and trauma.
SM (00:06:55):
Is there a person that you thought I might ask about that I did not ask about that may surprise you? I had Barry Goldwater, conservative, I did not mention any other conservatives so to speak. Nelson Rockefeller, obviously, he is another person. He was my governor. Because that convention itself was something in (19)64. I thought that was an unbelievable convention. I will never forget it because Rocky was our governor and then Governor Scranton. That was one heck of a convention.
EF (00:07:29):
Surely was. Yeah. Well, I just think you probably could give some thought to maybe some other conservative figures of that time although not necessarily were boomers. But after all, you have to keep in mind Ronald Reagan did begin his political career in that decade. If you are looking for somebody who balanced off Herbert [inaudible] and you did not mention would be [inaudible]. Certainly Bill Buckley, that was the decade in which he began both his newspaper column and also his television program, Firing Line, both of which had major impacts of course in [inaudible] everything else that he was doing.
SM (00:08:29):
Has been on our campus too. I am a big Everett Dirksen fan so when I think of... And Hughes Scott, because Hugh Scott was from Pennsylvania. In fact we had a professor who was writing a... I do not know why he did not finish it. Dr. Meiswinkel was writing a biography on Hugh Scott and was actually going down visiting him when he was very sick. And then he died and he could not finish it. He did not get enough... Do you know if there has ever been a biography done?
EF (00:08:55):
I do not think everybody has ever written one on him. There have been a couple on Dirksen but I do not know. It seems to me there has been something on Scott but I could be wrong. Could be wrong.
SM (00:09:07):
He was on there a long time, distinguished senator.
EF (00:09:10):
There would not have been any Civil Rights Act in 1964 without Everett Dirksen, by the way. He was key to getting the Republicans support in the Senate for that act.
SM (00:09:23):
His daughter was married to Senator Baker I believe, and she died now he is married to Nancy [inaudible]. And now he is the ambassador to Japan. What a life he has lived. Well, I am basically done, I want to thank you very much. It has been an honor.
EF (00:09:36):
Very interesting and...
EF (00:09:40):
[inaudible] that there is a problem, a discussion and a solution all in a 30 second or a 30 minute, back then, time block on television. Now it is down to about two minutes on CNN or Fox News or whatever your choice is. And that is not necessarily the way the world works. I keep telling kids that instant gratification is not necessarily going to happen on your behest. So on the positive side, still a generation, I saw this both when I was in the Pentagon and subsequently on Capitol Hill and even now, young men and women willing to give their all for their country just as the world's greatest generation did in World War II. To use that [inaudible] phrase. And I am not sure it was, but anyway, that is a different question. Anyway, the point is, statistically [inaudible] to prove it but a willingness on the part of the majority, many people to really commit themselves and do what it takes to help others. Again, whether you are looking at the back end in terms of Vietnam or you are looking at the most recent end in terms of Afghanistan, Iraq or as I was two months ago up at the DMZ in Korea. So it is mixed like every generation is.
SM (00:12:00):
The anti-war movement, those who were involved, I have done a lot of studying of it and I am reading a lot of sociology books and the common term or number used is 15 percent of the boomers were probably involved in some sort of activism. 85 percent were not. And they were talking about civil rights and the women's movement, the anti-war movement and all the other movements that took place in that period.
EF (00:12:23):
Where do you put the conservative movement? Is that part of it?
SM (00:12:27):
Yes. I think yes it is because activism, as I define it, and if we try to do this at the university, that it is everyone. It is people who want to make a difference in this world. And that is how I define activism. I like your thoughts on the fact that when you study the (19)60s, the Young Americans Foundation was also an anti-war group and a recent book has been written on the fact that they were involved in the anti-war movement. And some conservatives were very upset that they were kind of excluded from books on the (19)60s talking about the anti-war movement. Your thoughts on the anti-war movement itself and the impact it had on ending the war and also the conservative students and adults who were involved in politics were also involved and very important involvement in the ending of the war.
EF (00:13:26):
By (19)69 I was working for [inaudible] the then secretary of [inaudible] and there was no question that the Nixon administration was trying to figure a way out of what they had inherited from LBJ in terms of the problems of Vietnam. The whole defense department program toward Vietnamization. The decision by Nixon after long and intense discussion both at the cabinet level and primarily under his I guess domestic policy advisor Martin Anderson at Hoover.
SM (00:14:21):
Oh yeah. I got his book.
EF (00:14:23):
In terms of ending the draft was certainly as much a concession to answering the objection that you were sending the children of working men and women to fight a rich man's war in Southeast Asia through the draft. Clearly, you cannot say that if people are there because it was an all-volunteer army. And it was as much, I hate to say it, Ernie and I would probably have a long debate about this, but he would say it was done for philosophical and principled reasons about objections to servitude or something. Well, maybe, but it was also an answer to a political problem that was out there. And so clearly the Nixon administration, both in those tactical responses to Vietnam and Southeast Asia, as well as more strategic, longer range... Changing the draft was certainly [inaudible] answers like opening to China. In effect, changing the subject. Putting America's policy into a broader kind of context. Even Kissinger, in his memoirs, talks about during the peace process, trying to find areas of agreement with the then Soviet Union to move ahead on because... I have to find a specific citation, but I am sure you can. Because of domestic political pressures. So there were certainly pressures there as from my perspective as a conservative, it was tough because again, I needed it from a question more of principle. Did I like the draft? No. Why did not I like the draft? Because I was a male age 27. No I did not like the draft because the draft in fact was based on a faulty premise. That the only way that a free society would defend itself is through conscription. I did not believe that. And so you go from that to a belief based on my first trip to Vietnam, advancing one of the early [inaudible] trips other than Secretary of Defense in 1969 to Vietnam. And seeing the situation and saying, well we got it right. Either Vietnam's got to be given the tools to do the job successfully on its own, or we got to go in there and do a lot more and do it a lot more quickly and a lot more effectively than we have been. Well the second option was instantly precluded by the politics back home. And it turned out that the first option started out and then Cooper Church and the other resolutions that went through the Congress eventually cut the money off so that you could not do it the other way in terms of Vietnamization effectively either. So then you ended up with, I saw on the history channel the other night, replaying the video tape of the helicopters taking the people off the roof of the American embassy in Saigon.
SM (00:18:27):
April 30th, 1975. Itis interesting when you look at the two dates, April 30th of 1970 was when the Cambodia invasion took place, when the President gave his speech at nine o'clock. And then interesting that five years later, that is to the day. And I do not know if... That was not planned. And the irony, I look at the irony in that and I think about it an awful lot because I was a senior in 1970 and our speaker was representing the United Nations. I was at State University of New York at Binghamton, and of course we had protests all the time. It was a liberal campus. But it was very hard to going into class that year because there was protests constantly and we had a lot of speakers on campus. When you look at the boomer generation, again, getting back to this whole business, the anniversary of Watergate is right now. And then you get the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and young people at that time. And history has shown that that may have been not a real deal there. That may have been made up. Just the thoughts about the whole issue of leaders and trust and the lack thereof. You are in a very important position here with the Heritage Foundation and you work with conservative leaders all the time. I really would respect your point of views on the impact that you feel that President Johnson and President Nixon had in terms of what they did in America and the lack of trust that so many of the boomers had as they grew up and gone on to different kinds of positions and responsibility. Just the whole issue of trust in America. And have they passed this on, this lack of trust to their kids. And by lack of trust I mean trust in all leaders.
EF (00:20:25):
The complex question so the answer is not simple. Number one, it is always easier to Monday morning quarterback. But based on the knowledge, again, looked at from a low level political appointee inside the Pentagon, when we were talking about Vietnam under Nixon and I was out by the time Cambodia was back on Capitol Hill. We were certainly making decisions and explaining/justifying our actions based on the best knowledge we had. And if somebody was doing it to cover something up or to hide something, it was done at a lot higher pay grade than I had then. And when you talk about the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or even some of the later justifications from the Nixon White House itself on Vietnam, I suppose it is easy today to look back and say, "Hey, how could they have been so wrong? Or how could they have been so deceitful?" Maybe. But I suppose I could also ask the same question about FDR and Pearl Harbor or going back through history at other examples that as a representative democracy we always assume people we elect have got a certain knowledge base that is more than what we have. So you have got to translate that.
SM (00:22:31):
Right.
EF (00:22:34):
Anyway, where was I?
SM (00:22:38):
Talking about trust. Talking about Nixon. Some of the things happening in the Nixon administration.
EF (00:22:47):
Looked at again, Monday morning quarterback, and you will get this, I think especially from a professional historian like Lee Edwards, the current generation that makes these sweeping criticisms and generalizations probably have read less history than just about anybody, any prior, whoever has in our country's history. And at the same time, because of TV and the internet now, know a little bit about a lot of things, a lot more things than you or I did when we were 20 or 25 years old. So it is kind of dangerous almost, I think to take some of these criticisms of earlier generations completely... Take them without a grain of salt.
SM (00:23:58):
I think when I refer to the lack of trust it is in reference truly to the boomers who are of college age or maybe just a spec older in the (19)60s and I would say through the mid-(19)70s. Because when you look at the numbers that were given by the Johnson administration and you read history books now and you read what was actually done there, I have a massive collection and I have done a lot of studying on it, but the more I know, the less I know. And that is so true. And the thing is here that I think you are right on track here with some people doing generalizations, but there definitely is a feeling from the peers that I grew up with, went to school with and actually worked with in a university environment, a lack of trust in anyone who was in a position responsibility. And I am wondering, and I say this only because I worry about the young people of today who are being given this information by their parents, whatever background they are, the boomer parents. And in this world, if you cannot trust someone, I know this some psychology. If you cannot trust somebody, you may not be a success in life. You have to trust people. And I worry, I see somebody's lack of trust of... It was very common, and this is not my interview, this is your interview, but it was very common on university campuses in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s that students did not trust university presidents. Did not trust their ministers. Did not trust corporate leaders. Did not trust anyone in a position of responsibility. And the excuse that was given as to the reason why they did not trust anyone, they would go back to Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Watergate. But much more than that, other political leaders too and things that university presidents did. So it is just your overall thoughts on that, the whole issue of trust, because I do not know if this is still happening in America today, but I sense it still is.
EF (00:26:02):
I do not know. You have a better handle on it in your day to day dealings with young people. We have obviously here, [inaudible] very active interns but they are a self-selecting group in terms that they tend to be right or at least center right and more traditionalist. So we are probably not as exposed to it as you are. What does concern me whenever I run into it is that as I look at the development of society and of both the social order and foundation, the most fundamental underpinning that I have been able to come up with is basically the rule of law. Which means every individual treated the same under the rule of law. And this goes directly to your point in terms of trust. If a large part of the upcoming generation does not trust the older ones, then they probably tend to think they are getting the short end of it. And if they are getting the short end of it, they might as well go for as much as they can for themselves because otherwise somebody is going to screw them down the road. Pardon, vernacular. So if what you are saying is really a generalized truth, then yeah, we got some real serious problems. But again, I do not see it reflected. Adam Smith said in the Wealth of Nations, it is one of my... I am a congenital optimistic in Washington. But he said in the Wealth of Nations there is a lot of ruin in a nation. And when you think about going back to the days of the founding fathers, down through our history of the heartbreak of the Civil War, the losses sustained in the First World War, the depression, we built up a hell of a lot of capital that I would worry that, to a certain extent, we have run down in the last generation. That concerns me. How generalized it is, I just do not know.
SM (00:28:48):
And that refers back to the boomers then.
EF (00:28:49):
Yeah. Back to whether the boomers trust or not and whether they have then conveyed a lack of trust to a subsequent generation. As I say, I worry about it if it is as generalized as you might portray it as or as other people might think it is.
SM (00:29:08):
When you look at the (19)60s and early (19)70s and the boomer generation of all the movements that took place, whether it be civil rights, anti-war, if you were to write a book or write a chapter or an essay to write a movement or an event that really defined the period, what would that be? There is many things, but one that just stood out.
EF (00:29:34):
I suppose the Democratic Convention in (19)68. That political dimension, a protesting dimension in terms of the anti-war, it was wrapped up to a certain extent, at least in the reaction from Mayor Daley and the police in terms of civil rights. Certainly as a conservative at the time, I remember thinking to myself, the Democrats sowed the wind and now they are reaping the rewards. But the ramifications of course were far beyond the Democratic Party.
SM (00:30:29):
I remember that so clearly. I remember buying My Life magazine and it was that picture of Hubert Humphrey and Ed Musky. And I have Barry Goldwater when he was with a horse wearing a hat. And I have both of them framed in my office because I am all about the (19)60s no matter who was involved in the (19)60s. You want to go on the other [inaudible] the Vietnam War really did a lot to divide our nation. Some of the people that I have interviewed really felt that outside of the Civil War, which is obviously one of the greatest strategies ever in our country, that we were pretty close to another civil war breakup of our nation back in the (19)60s. And so I would like your thoughts on that particular feeling and whether we as a nation have really healed since that time. I remember I interviewed Gaylord Nelson quite a few years ago one of my first interviews. And he said, Steve, I do not see anyone walking around Washington DC with healing, lack of healing on their sleeve or something like that. And people are... He was making a general comment. But then he said to me, the body politic will never be the same. And I would just like your thoughts on the divisions were so... Have they healed? Is Vietnam still, just the word, the mention of the word Vietnam brings all kinds of feelings to people. And it is not just thinking about the nation, it is what it meant to our country. Have we healed?
EF (00:32:22):
Yes. I think we have fundamentally healed, partly at least because the scar tissue is both thicker and because again, going back to the point where with the short time horizons of individuals, whether it is... I was talking to a conservative journalist this morning who said, I am so glad Schwartz never vote in the race. And I said, why? He said, because I do not have to hear about that damn Kobe Bryant every day. Until a week ago I did not even know who the devil Kobe Bryant is. And now he is every minute 200 news guys in some place [inaudible] Colorado or Esquire, Colorado, whatever it is called. What kind of trivialization of what is going on is this? And so you get the new cycle, et cetera, you got to fill it. And either you fill it the way CNN did until recently. Every Saturday afternoon, if you turned on CNN to find out what is going on in the world, you get 45 minutes on the latest French fashions or something like that because there just is not enough there, there is always news. So you get Kobe Bryant given this kind of prominence and in effect the same level of prominence as Colin Powell giving a major foreign policy speech to the UN or something. And if they both get 30 minutes of prime time over three consecutive days... Or more likely Kobe Bryant will get it and Colin Powell will not. Things are getting distorted and they are off kilter. And so I think that it is a couple of things. You get trivialization at that level. Then you got a shallow understanding what history is about. So a lot of people talk about Vietnam and well, that is a war that happened a long time ago. There is another place in Asia there too. What was that one called? Korea or something. And they are all kind of about the same time. So yeah, in terms of kind of looked at today, it is all... It is healed, but part of the reason that it is healed is because again, I said it about 15 minutes ago, I think that this generation just does not know as much history and has not read as much history as they should have. This same journalist, the guy we are buying the house from, was giving away a bunch of books and a bunch of college students... He brought them into his office and a bunch of college students they started pouring through them. And one of them came on a book called The Real Anita Hill. And she looked at them and said, who was Anita Hill? This is only 10 years ago. This is not ancient history like Vietnam or Korea. This is 10 years ago. Who is Anita Hill?
SM (00:35:52):
Unbelievable. I interviewed Dr. Hilty, he is head of the history department at Temple and he was really strong against the boomer. He is a liberal. Big Kennedy liberal. But very condemning against the boomers because he feels that the boomers were the generation that got the greatest education, Master's, but they do not have a whole lot of knowledge. And I never thought of that. I said their lack of understanding... They may be getting the degrees, but their depth of analysis, I am just like, how do you teach today? I am reading books on education, the proper way of teaching. It is not just always getting the high SAT scores and getting your school scores up. How do students think and analyze these things. When you are working with young people and they are reading things, how are they interpreting it and analyzing it? It is not just a score on an SAT question. And so there are some interesting things here and your observation is very good. Your thoughts on the Vietnam Memorial? I think it is one of the greatest things ever. How the Vietnam Memorial, when it was built in (19)82 and the effect this had on veterans and on the nation. Just your thought on the wall.
EF (00:37:04):
Very moving. Interesting that by the time it was really finished, in place and people saw it-it did what scrubs and everybody else wanted it to do in terms of healing. But during the whole course of it, when whatever her name was [inaudible] divisive, a stab through the heart of America with this black slab and all that. The rhetoric that went up about what it was. But today, to go there and to see some of my friends and contemporaries' names on the list as I have and to think about what it represents. Very moving. So it worked.
SM (00:38:11):
What would your thoughts be if you were sitting in a room with boomers and they were to say to you, we were the most unique generation in American history?
EF (00:38:18):
Bullshit.
SM (00:38:19):
Okay, because a lot of boomers felt that way when they were young.
EF (00:38:26):
Yeah. They were certainly the most pampered. After all our parents, and here I guess I would put myself in the boomer generation, they had gone through the depression. They vowed basically that we would be able to have more than they had. And this goes to Hilty's point at Temple. In terms of the best education possible. My father barely got himself through high school with a family, then went to college and almost got a law degree at night school. You will not have to do that. He said to me and my three sisters. None of us did. We were well-educated and that was very-very important. And then to have the earlier generation be basically so disappointed, I guess in their offspring as to have them copping out or doing drugs, to whatever extent that happened [inaudible]. That is disillusioning. And to have them just not appreciate what happened and then assume that because they got that again, that the notion of instant gratification is going to work for them and their kids.
SM (00:39:54):
Your thoughts, you have some fine, outstanding, young conservative youth here that work in the internship program. The sense that I have had and my peers is that when you look at the boomer generation, they again talk about the most unique generation of American history. Also, there is an attitude that we are going to change the world. We are going to make society better for everyone. We are going to end racism, sexism, or homophobia, everything they were going to end at all because they were the most unique generation. And they were also a very involved generation in the vote. But now we see a group of young people today that do not vote. And this is something I just wanted... I do not know if you have thought about this at times, I just sometimes sit in a park and why do today's young people and the boomers themselves, the parents, they do not vote. What is going on here? What have they transferred on to their kids with respect to the sense of empowerment? Their voice counts. They need to be heard. It worries me as a person. I have come up with several worries here in our interview, and that is another worry that I have because I want young people to know that they are empowered, that they do have a say, that their voice does count. So what happened to the boomer parents who were involved in these protests and activism changing things. And a lot of them did good things and some were just in it for themselves, but what have they done to their kids? Just your thoughts on that.
EF (00:41:27):
Well, you are better off asking them, I guess because our family, at least our nuclear family, in terms of my wife, myself, my kids and their spouses are very much involved politically and I think it has been transmitted. I suppose part of it is that frustration you talked about earlier from the earlier generation, from the boomers, that either they were not heard in terms of their cause. Maybe even it is a little bit embarrassing if anybody ever dares use that word anymore. Some of the excesses going way back when. In terms of the new generation, I would have to look at polls. I know what the broad numbers are in terms of the voter participation, but I would want to look at cross tabs in terms of the ones who are most committed to either a political party or a philosophy or an ideology of government, if you will, in terms of whether those who are most committed are more politically active. I have a good libertarian friend who has a bumper sticker that says, do not vote, it only encourages them. Well, this is a guy who comes at that decision from basically a philosophical perspective and managed to put it on a bumper sticker and you can understand that. That is not the way conservatives think, I do not think, but some libertarians do. And so it is not a case of just disinterest on the first Tuesday of November it is a case of...
(00:43:35):
In that case it is a conscious decision but I suppose again, you have the usual frustration or I am only one, why does it matter? Well, after Florida I think that is a non-argument anymore. Clearly everybody ought to know that their participation does matter. You can see that in the California recall that happened in October [inaudible] and you end up with whoever it was, Schwarzenegger on one side or the lieutenant governor on the other side [inaudible] being elected with 10 percent of the eligibles or something like that. In the fifth largest economy in the world, the largest state in the nation et cetera, et cetera, being elected by 1 percent of the eligible population. That is not exactly a mandate to go in there and straighten things out, whoever you are. I am not saying that is what happened [inaudible]. So does it worry me? Yeah, because again, and this go back to your earlier point in terms of trust and confidence in our systems. If there is not confidence in the political system, then confidence, again, the most fundamental thing in terms of the rule of law breaks down. Because if there is no legitimacy for the politicians, then there is no legitimacy in terms of what they are doing. Which means that people do not want to be governed by whatever laws they are passing. And that is not good for long term.
SM (00:45:20):
This is my last question before I get into personalities and that is, what do you think the lasting legacy will be of the boomer generation? When the best history books are written, and we are only 25 years out now from the Vietnam War and the best history books are often 50 years later, after an event. What do you think? How will history interpret this generation, this boomer generation?
EF (00:45:41):
Now a group of... On the one hand it could be a group of spoiled adolescents trying to feel their way out of a complicated situation by self-gratification. On the other hand, in a deeper sense, the people who did think they could change the world and do it... Every generation thinks it can change the world but here, I think you are on to something. The boomer generation thought it could change the world almost by themselves. Whereas in World War II you did it as part of the army, part of the Navy, you worked for big Bill Donovan at the OSS and later the CIA. Man, you were part of a team. But by the time of the boomers, you were kind of in a do it on your own more or less. So an individualistic way of expressing generally some high moral concerns. For that I recognize my colleagues on the other side of the political arena, but I also recognize my friends on our side who kind of came of political age and said, Hey, there has to be a better way to answer these social problems than the LBJ SDR big government one.
SM (00:47:49):
I at least remember a poster that I had on my door at Ohio State University when I was in grad school. Peter Max was very popular back then. And I will never forget it. I wish I would kept it, but it stuck in my mind. It basically said, you do your thing. I will do mine. If by chance we should get together. It will be beautiful. If by chance...
EF (00:48:14):
We get together.
SM (00:48:16):
Because it is interesting if by chance. And as a young person, as a boomer, that is sounded great for the time. But when you reflect on it, if by chance you have to work together in this world not hope that we just come together by circumstance. So anyway, I have a list of names here. I would just like some brief comments. These are all people from the period, Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda.
EF (00:48:50):
What do you want, one-word reaction?
SM (00:48:53):
Yeah, just your thoughts on the...
EF (00:48:54):
Traitors.
SM (00:48:57):
Lyndon Johnson.
EF (00:49:03):
Manipulative, clever and self-righteous.
SM (00:49:16):
Bobby Kennedy.
EF (00:49:25):
Cynical with a tinge of idealism. Cynical, going back to his days with Joe McCarthy, the senator.
SM (00:49:35):
John Kennedy.
EF (00:49:39):
Idealistic, almost naive... Idealistic, almost naive with a silver spoon, maybe brought on further and faster certainly than he otherwise would have, but maybe even further and faster than he should have.
SM (00:50:15):
Huey Newton, Bobby Seal on the Black Panthers.
EF (00:50:19):
In the overall scheme of things, irrelevant. At the time, strange and so far outside the mainstream it was hard to...
SM (00:50:32):
Go right into the Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin.
EF (00:50:41):
Flash in the pans.
SM (00:50:49):
Barry Goldwater.
EF (00:50:50):
An idealistic trendsetter who never admitted to the limitations of politics. Certainly had an impact beyond his electoral politics.
SM (00:51:18):
Richard Nixon.
EF (00:51:24):
Deep global strategist with the fatal flaw that prevented him from really effectively doing what he was elected to do. He did not trust the people. Never did.
SM (00:51:49):
Your thoughts on his enemy's list.
EF (00:51:53):
Everybody has one, whether they write it down or they just keep it mentally. And his more graphic and in a way, almost more simplistic.
SM (00:52:07):
[inaudible]
EF (00:52:22):
A competent administrator of Baltimore County who then was rapidly beyond his level of competence.
SM (00:52:31):
Timothy Leary.
EF (00:52:40):
A person whose influence was far beyond what it should have been but who... At the same time, I guess if his intended audience had been better grounded, he would have been as irrelevant as he should have been but he was not always.
SM (00:53:13):
Martin Luther King.
EF (00:53:21):
A visionary dreamer who apparently had some personal flaws. But guess we all do. But who also had a big picture in terms of solving some very real problems in a non-violent way.
SM (00:53:47):
Malcolm X.
EF (00:53:54):
Malcolm X... Hello. Okay, be with him in a minute. Bye.
(00:53:57):
Malcolm X. The wrong kind of role model. Malcolm X [inaudible] of Chicago.
SM (00:54:10):
George McGovern.
EF (00:54:18):
A man who believed deeply and compassionately about a lot of things but alas, was wrong. But who certainly built a dedicated cadre of followers no unlike [inaudible] George Goldwater.
SM (00:54:50):
Robert McNamara.
EF (00:54:52):
A technocrat who never understood that people are not cogs and a big machine.
SM (00:55:01):
George Wallace.
EF (00:55:06):
A nasty piece of work without principles or morals.
SM (00:55:11):
Daniel Elsberg.
EF (00:55:11):
A man who deserted the truth that he should have known for lesser political interest.
SM (00:55:34):
Jerry Ford.
EF (00:55:38):
A great congressman from the district of Michigan, who by accident ended up where he was and tried to do a job that even today is... He was fundamentally decent to people I know. He got thrown a delta, a rough deck when he got to the top.
SM (00:56:06):
Hubert Humphrey.
EF (00:56:09):
Idealistic and intellectual, but unrealistic in terms of what human response would be to [inaudible].
SM (00:56:29):
Muhammad Ali.
EF (00:56:30):
[inaudible].
SM (00:56:44):
Gloria Steinem and Betty Fordan, and the women's movement leaders.
EF (00:56:55):
Inconsistent, hypocritical and not clearly thought through in terms of what their real objectives were.
SM (00:57:18):
I got four more here and that is Ralph Nader.
EF (00:57:25):
A man who tried to do some effective things but always pushed too far in terms of using coercion to achieve his objectives. So when he got to the point of curbs and things like that and compulsory student fees, instead of battling reasonable things like...
SM (00:57:54):
Down to our last three.
EF (00:57:57):
[inaudible] bumpers, et cetera. Yes... I want to apply for a city [inaudible]. I think I told Kathy, anybody from any bank that calls or anything with my mortgage is coming up she better put them through.
SM (00:58:14):
This is just a generalization now, but the music of the (19)60s. The Jimmy Hendrix, the Janice Joplins, the Beatles, the music, the influence that that music had on this generation as opposed to any other.
EF (00:58:26):
I do not know if it is the Beach Boys, I like it. If it is the Beatles, I do not understand it. So yeah, it is kind of mixed. I guess it is like all music. But if, like you were saying about history before, let us look back on it in 50 years and see what is still there.
SM (00:58:47):
Yeah. Cause you got Janet Joplin, when you think of the (19)60s, you think of Joplin, Hendricks and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and the list goes on and on.
EF (00:58:54):
Yeah, [inaudible] trio.
SM (00:58:57):
John Dean.
EF (00:59:00):
A man uncertain loyalty to... Well, just stop there. I never understood him.
SM (00:59:08):
And I am going to conclude with this. These are just terms of the period and just quick, SDS. Quick response.
EF (00:59:26):
Yeah. Perverted political agenda, trying to be imposed by compulsory means, which went against what their principles were supposed to be. Never quite understood how they got there.
SM (00:59:48):
Counterculture.
EF (00:59:53):
Sad because our traditional culture has got so much to offer why do you need one.
SM (01:00:01):
The Pentagon papers.
EF (01:00:05):
So what.
SM (01:00:06):
The Chicago Eight.
EF (01:00:16):
Representative of, as I said earlier, that incredible incident in the middle of that time period that tried to unhinge or destabilize a lot of what... A lot of our whole society, so not much sympathy. I do not know what they think their justification was.
SM (01:00:47):
And the last one is kind of a combination of three people. It is if you can put William Westmorland, President Thieu and General Cao Ky because Ky and Thieu were the leaders of Vietnam and Westmorland was [inaudible] Maxwell Taylor.
EF (01:01:10):
Man who tried to accomplish a mission without appropriate political backing from the United States' top officials in government. Therefore, without the backing of the US people he tried to carry out their orders as best he could.
SM (01:01:34):
I want to conclude on... First, I want to thank you very much. I admire what you do. I admire your organization. I am going to see Mr. Edwards next and we will hopefully continue to bring our students down here. The last question... There we go.
EF (01:01:53):
The Kennedy assassination did not start the (19)60s. The (19)60 election really did because JFK proved that the accepted order of vice president succeeding president was not necessarily the way things are going to go. And I think in retrospect that was almost more profound than the fact that Kennedy was a Catholic and proved that a Catholic could be elected. So I think that was a real turning point. But what the Kennedy assassination did for those of us who were around and affected by it was, it was a shock to the moral order of things that something like this could happen in this day and age. It meant that in effect nothing was sacred. That the highest elected person in the country could be zapped by a crazy guy down in Dallas. It was a shock to the body, I do not know about the body politic, but to the whole American society that had its reverberations for a long time. And I guess probably, in some respects foresaw then what was going to happen with Martin Luther King, with Bobby Kennedy and on and on. Attempted assassination on Reagan [inaudible]. Even I suppose you could, in that respect, almost link it to 9/11 and real traumas to the American system. And in that respect, it shook things up and helped... It made things unglue and we lost our compass for a while. And that one lasted longer than most. Kent State, I guess was I would describe as more a tragedy than a shock because Americans shooting Americans not in terms of stopping a prison outbreak or in terms of going back a hundred years plus then to the Civil War, but in basically a much more peaceful environment that just never should have happened. And I guess my problem to the whole reaction of the Kent State thing is that men are not angels and so we are not going to always do... Men who are in authority. Men who are in authority are not always going to do the right thing. Hopefully most of the time, under most circumstances they will, but not always. And so how do you make it happen more often rather than less often? At Kent State it sure did not.
(End of Interview)
Interview with: Ed Feulner
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 7 August 2003
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:03):
No, not at all.
EF (00:00:06):
So I think with those you have got to make some differentiations there. In the sense poor Wes Marlin was given an impossible task because his commander in chief was micromanaging the war. Key, and who was the other one you mentioned?
SM (00:00:25):
General Cao Ky and General... President Thieu.
EF (00:00:29):
Why do not you just hang on the second because he has come back a couple of times. I want you to kill the interview.
SM (00:00:33):
Yeah. Okay, all right. There you go.
EF (00:00:43):
Ky and Thieu, well, patriots, anti-communists, working with a powerful ally again, which was restricting what they could do or what they wanted to do. Playing probably what was essentially a losing game all the way, but tragic basically, the word which comes to my mind for those two.
SM (00:01:08):
And then I have got two more names here and then we are basically done with one final question. Your thoughts on Ralph Nader. And I do not know if you know too much about Noam Chomsky. What do you think about the Noam Chomsky's of the world because he has been consistent?
EF (00:01:26):
Yeah right. Well, in a sense you have to admire Nader for sticking to his principles all of these years. Of course, I think he is totally wrongheaded in what he is trying to do. And maybe the word totally is too wrong, too strong rather. What I do not like about Nader is he tends to look always to the government to solve the problem. And I would like to be able to make it a more balanced approach to problem solving and not always look to the government first but look to government, if not last, at least next to last. Chomsky is an ideologue, of course. A man of the left who I think probably would not, even if you presented him with all the evidence in the world, would not change his position if it conflicted with one of his pet ideas and theories. Case in point, Alger Hiss, I am not sure whether he yet still admits that Alger Hiss was guilty of espionage.
SM (00:02:53):
The Berrigan brothers.
EF (00:02:57):
Yeah, sort of. Again, minor figures of the day, important at the time, believing they were doing the right thing. But I think probably in the greater scheme of things, I think someone like Thomas Merton is more important than the Berrigan brothers in terms of looking to Catholic models of the (19)60s.
SM (00:03:36):
And Benjamin Spock, Dr. Spock.
EF (00:03:40):
Right. Should have stuck to his babies.
SM (00:03:48):
I never asked about Norman Mailer. I will turn this off now. I am here with two questions. I know I said I am almost done but when the best history books are written, oftentimes the best history books are 50 years after the event. Some of the best books of World War II are now. When the best history books are written, say 25 years from now because we are halfway there on the boomer generation, what will their lasting legacy be in the history books? What will they be saying about that?
EF (00:04:20):
Well, I think they will be saying that it is one of the most influential generations of the 20th century and 21st century. Sometimes for good, but I think more often for ill.
SM (00:04:45):
And the very last question is this, and it was the last one I asked Dr. [inaudible]. The two events, the impact that these two events had on the psyche of all boomers, whether they were protestors or non-protestors, the events of the Kennedy assassination in 1963 and the deaths of the four students at Kent State in 1970.
EF (00:05:11):
Well, as I have already indicated, I think you are absolutely right, that became this period of a psychological of depression. This was the beginning of a trauma with the American psyche, with the boomers and with every other American, starting with the assassination. The famous thing that you ask people of a certain age, where were they at 1:30 on Friday on November 22nd, 1963, they will be able to tell you very precisely. So that will always remain with them and it certainly was the most important event. I do not know that the Kent State murders...
SM (00:06:03):
And I say Jackson State included in there a couple of weeks later too, six students.
EF (00:06:07):
I do not know that that was the second most important and defining moment of the (19)60s for the boomers. I do not know. I have to think about that. I might be more inclined to say, for example, just for political impact, the Chicago (19)68 convention. Maybe Dr. King's murder earlier that year. I do not know that that Kent State was that... I would not put it up that high. Certainly, if you want to talk about it being in the top 10 events, but not as number two. Certainly I think the Kennedy assassination was the preeminent event and trauma.
SM (00:06:55):
Is there a person that you thought I might ask about that I did not ask about that may surprise you? I had Barry Goldwater, conservative, I did not mention any other conservatives so to speak. Nelson Rockefeller, obviously, he is another person. He was my governor. Because that convention itself was something in (19)64. I thought that was an unbelievable convention. I will never forget it because Rocky was our governor and then Governor Scranton. That was one heck of a convention.
EF (00:07:29):
Surely was. Yeah. Well, I just think you probably could give some thought to maybe some other conservative figures of that time although not necessarily were boomers. But after all, you have to keep in mind Ronald Reagan did begin his political career in that decade. If you are looking for somebody who balanced off Herbert [inaudible] and you did not mention would be [inaudible]. Certainly Bill Buckley, that was the decade in which he began both his newspaper column and also his television program, Firing Line, both of which had major impacts of course in [inaudible] everything else that he was doing.
SM (00:08:29):
Has been on our campus too. I am a big Everett Dirksen fan so when I think of... And Hughes Scott, because Hugh Scott was from Pennsylvania. In fact we had a professor who was writing a... I do not know why he did not finish it. Dr. Meiswinkel was writing a biography on Hugh Scott and was actually going down visiting him when he was very sick. And then he died and he could not finish it. He did not get enough... Do you know if there has ever been a biography done?
EF (00:08:55):
I do not think everybody has ever written one on him. There have been a couple on Dirksen but I do not know. It seems to me there has been something on Scott but I could be wrong. Could be wrong.
SM (00:09:07):
He was on there a long time, distinguished senator.
EF (00:09:10):
There would not have been any Civil Rights Act in 1964 without Everett Dirksen, by the way. He was key to getting the Republicans support in the Senate for that act.
SM (00:09:23):
His daughter was married to Senator Baker I believe, and she died now he is married to Nancy [inaudible]. And now he is the ambassador to Japan. What a life he has lived. Well, I am basically done, I want to thank you very much. It has been an honor.
EF (00:09:36):
Very interesting and...
EF (00:09:40):
[inaudible] that there is a problem, a discussion and a solution all in a 30 second or a 30 minute, back then, time block on television. Now it is down to about two minutes on CNN or Fox News or whatever your choice is. And that is not necessarily the way the world works. I keep telling kids that instant gratification is not necessarily going to happen on your behest. So on the positive side, still a generation, I saw this both when I was in the Pentagon and subsequently on Capitol Hill and even now, young men and women willing to give their all for their country just as the world's greatest generation did in World War II. To use that [inaudible] phrase. And I am not sure it was, but anyway, that is a different question. Anyway, the point is, statistically [inaudible] to prove it but a willingness on the part of the majority, many people to really commit themselves and do what it takes to help others. Again, whether you are looking at the back end in terms of Vietnam or you are looking at the most recent end in terms of Afghanistan, Iraq or as I was two months ago up at the DMZ in Korea. So it is mixed like every generation is.
SM (00:12:00):
The anti-war movement, those who were involved, I have done a lot of studying of it and I am reading a lot of sociology books and the common term or number used is 15 percent of the boomers were probably involved in some sort of activism. 85 percent were not. And they were talking about civil rights and the women's movement, the anti-war movement and all the other movements that took place in that period.
EF (00:12:23):
Where do you put the conservative movement? Is that part of it?
SM (00:12:27):
Yes. I think yes it is because activism, as I define it, and if we try to do this at the university, that it is everyone. It is people who want to make a difference in this world. And that is how I define activism. I like your thoughts on the fact that when you study the (19)60s, the Young Americans Foundation was also an anti-war group and a recent book has been written on the fact that they were involved in the anti-war movement. And some conservatives were very upset that they were kind of excluded from books on the (19)60s talking about the anti-war movement. Your thoughts on the anti-war movement itself and the impact it had on ending the war and also the conservative students and adults who were involved in politics were also involved and very important involvement in the ending of the war.
EF (00:13:26):
By (19)69 I was working for [inaudible] the then secretary of [inaudible] and there was no question that the Nixon administration was trying to figure a way out of what they had inherited from LBJ in terms of the problems of Vietnam. The whole defense department program toward Vietnamization. The decision by Nixon after long and intense discussion both at the cabinet level and primarily under his I guess domestic policy advisor Martin Anderson at Hoover.
SM (00:14:21):
Oh yeah. I got his book.
EF (00:14:23):
In terms of ending the draft was certainly as much a concession to answering the objection that you were sending the children of working men and women to fight a rich man's war in Southeast Asia through the draft. Clearly, you cannot say that if people are there because it was an all-volunteer army. And it was as much, I hate to say it, Ernie and I would probably have a long debate about this, but he would say it was done for philosophical and principled reasons about objections to servitude or something. Well, maybe, but it was also an answer to a political problem that was out there. And so clearly the Nixon administration, both in those tactical responses to Vietnam and Southeast Asia, as well as more strategic, longer range... Changing the draft was certainly [inaudible] answers like opening to China. In effect, changing the subject. Putting America's policy into a broader kind of context. Even Kissinger, in his memoirs, talks about during the peace process, trying to find areas of agreement with the then Soviet Union to move ahead on because... I have to find a specific citation, but I am sure you can. Because of domestic political pressures. So there were certainly pressures there as from my perspective as a conservative, it was tough because again, I needed it from a question more of principle. Did I like the draft? No. Why did not I like the draft? Because I was a male age 27. No I did not like the draft because the draft in fact was based on a faulty premise. That the only way that a free society would defend itself is through conscription. I did not believe that. And so you go from that to a belief based on my first trip to Vietnam, advancing one of the early [inaudible] trips other than Secretary of Defense in 1969 to Vietnam. And seeing the situation and saying, well we got it right. Either Vietnam's got to be given the tools to do the job successfully on its own, or we got to go in there and do a lot more and do it a lot more quickly and a lot more effectively than we have been. Well the second option was instantly precluded by the politics back home. And it turned out that the first option started out and then Cooper Church and the other resolutions that went through the Congress eventually cut the money off so that you could not do it the other way in terms of Vietnamization effectively either. So then you ended up with, I saw on the history channel the other night, replaying the video tape of the helicopters taking the people off the roof of the American embassy in Saigon.
SM (00:18:27):
April 30th, 1975. Itis interesting when you look at the two dates, April 30th of 1970 was when the Cambodia invasion took place, when the President gave his speech at nine o'clock. And then interesting that five years later, that is to the day. And I do not know if... That was not planned. And the irony, I look at the irony in that and I think about it an awful lot because I was a senior in 1970 and our speaker was representing the United Nations. I was at State University of New York at Binghamton, and of course we had protests all the time. It was a liberal campus. But it was very hard to going into class that year because there was protests constantly and we had a lot of speakers on campus. When you look at the boomer generation, again, getting back to this whole business, the anniversary of Watergate is right now. And then you get the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and young people at that time. And history has shown that that may have been not a real deal there. That may have been made up. Just the thoughts about the whole issue of leaders and trust and the lack thereof. You are in a very important position here with the Heritage Foundation and you work with conservative leaders all the time. I really would respect your point of views on the impact that you feel that President Johnson and President Nixon had in terms of what they did in America and the lack of trust that so many of the boomers had as they grew up and gone on to different kinds of positions and responsibility. Just the whole issue of trust in America. And have they passed this on, this lack of trust to their kids. And by lack of trust I mean trust in all leaders.
EF (00:20:25):
The complex question so the answer is not simple. Number one, it is always easier to Monday morning quarterback. But based on the knowledge, again, looked at from a low level political appointee inside the Pentagon, when we were talking about Vietnam under Nixon and I was out by the time Cambodia was back on Capitol Hill. We were certainly making decisions and explaining/justifying our actions based on the best knowledge we had. And if somebody was doing it to cover something up or to hide something, it was done at a lot higher pay grade than I had then. And when you talk about the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or even some of the later justifications from the Nixon White House itself on Vietnam, I suppose it is easy today to look back and say, "Hey, how could they have been so wrong? Or how could they have been so deceitful?" Maybe. But I suppose I could also ask the same question about FDR and Pearl Harbor or going back through history at other examples that as a representative democracy we always assume people we elect have got a certain knowledge base that is more than what we have. So you have got to translate that.
SM (00:22:31):
Right.
EF (00:22:34):
Anyway, where was I?
SM (00:22:38):
Talking about trust. Talking about Nixon. Some of the things happening in the Nixon administration.
EF (00:22:47):
Looked at again, Monday morning quarterback, and you will get this, I think especially from a professional historian like Lee Edwards, the current generation that makes these sweeping criticisms and generalizations probably have read less history than just about anybody, any prior, whoever has in our country's history. And at the same time, because of TV and the internet now, know a little bit about a lot of things, a lot more things than you or I did when we were 20 or 25 years old. So it is kind of dangerous almost, I think to take some of these criticisms of earlier generations completely... Take them without a grain of salt.
SM (00:23:58):
I think when I refer to the lack of trust it is in reference truly to the boomers who are of college age or maybe just a spec older in the (19)60s and I would say through the mid-(19)70s. Because when you look at the numbers that were given by the Johnson administration and you read history books now and you read what was actually done there, I have a massive collection and I have done a lot of studying on it, but the more I know, the less I know. And that is so true. And the thing is here that I think you are right on track here with some people doing generalizations, but there definitely is a feeling from the peers that I grew up with, went to school with and actually worked with in a university environment, a lack of trust in anyone who was in a position responsibility. And I am wondering, and I say this only because I worry about the young people of today who are being given this information by their parents, whatever background they are, the boomer parents. And in this world, if you cannot trust someone, I know this some psychology. If you cannot trust somebody, you may not be a success in life. You have to trust people. And I worry, I see somebody's lack of trust of... It was very common, and this is not my interview, this is your interview, but it was very common on university campuses in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s that students did not trust university presidents. Did not trust their ministers. Did not trust corporate leaders. Did not trust anyone in a position of responsibility. And the excuse that was given as to the reason why they did not trust anyone, they would go back to Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Watergate. But much more than that, other political leaders too and things that university presidents did. So it is just your overall thoughts on that, the whole issue of trust, because I do not know if this is still happening in America today, but I sense it still is.
EF (00:26:02):
I do not know. You have a better handle on it in your day to day dealings with young people. We have obviously here, [inaudible] very active interns but they are a self-selecting group in terms that they tend to be right or at least center right and more traditionalist. So we are probably not as exposed to it as you are. What does concern me whenever I run into it is that as I look at the development of society and of both the social order and foundation, the most fundamental underpinning that I have been able to come up with is basically the rule of law. Which means every individual treated the same under the rule of law. And this goes directly to your point in terms of trust. If a large part of the upcoming generation does not trust the older ones, then they probably tend to think they are getting the short end of it. And if they are getting the short end of it, they might as well go for as much as they can for themselves because otherwise somebody is going to screw them down the road. Pardon, vernacular. So if what you are saying is really a generalized truth, then yeah, we got some real serious problems. But again, I do not see it reflected. Adam Smith said in the Wealth of Nations, it is one of my... I am a congenital optimistic in Washington. But he said in the Wealth of Nations there is a lot of ruin in a nation. And when you think about going back to the days of the founding fathers, down through our history of the heartbreak of the Civil War, the losses sustained in the First World War, the depression, we built up a hell of a lot of capital that I would worry that, to a certain extent, we have run down in the last generation. That concerns me. How generalized it is, I just do not know.
SM (00:28:48):
And that refers back to the boomers then.
EF (00:28:49):
Yeah. Back to whether the boomers trust or not and whether they have then conveyed a lack of trust to a subsequent generation. As I say, I worry about it if it is as generalized as you might portray it as or as other people might think it is.
SM (00:29:08):
When you look at the (19)60s and early (19)70s and the boomer generation of all the movements that took place, whether it be civil rights, anti-war, if you were to write a book or write a chapter or an essay to write a movement or an event that really defined the period, what would that be? There is many things, but one that just stood out.
EF (00:29:34):
I suppose the Democratic Convention in (19)68. That political dimension, a protesting dimension in terms of the anti-war, it was wrapped up to a certain extent, at least in the reaction from Mayor Daley and the police in terms of civil rights. Certainly as a conservative at the time, I remember thinking to myself, the Democrats sowed the wind and now they are reaping the rewards. But the ramifications of course were far beyond the Democratic Party.
SM (00:30:29):
I remember that so clearly. I remember buying My Life magazine and it was that picture of Hubert Humphrey and Ed Musky. And I have Barry Goldwater when he was with a horse wearing a hat. And I have both of them framed in my office because I am all about the (19)60s no matter who was involved in the (19)60s. You want to go on the other [inaudible] the Vietnam War really did a lot to divide our nation. Some of the people that I have interviewed really felt that outside of the Civil War, which is obviously one of the greatest strategies ever in our country, that we were pretty close to another civil war breakup of our nation back in the (19)60s. And so I would like your thoughts on that particular feeling and whether we as a nation have really healed since that time. I remember I interviewed Gaylord Nelson quite a few years ago one of my first interviews. And he said, Steve, I do not see anyone walking around Washington DC with healing, lack of healing on their sleeve or something like that. And people are... He was making a general comment. But then he said to me, the body politic will never be the same. And I would just like your thoughts on the divisions were so... Have they healed? Is Vietnam still, just the word, the mention of the word Vietnam brings all kinds of feelings to people. And it is not just thinking about the nation, it is what it meant to our country. Have we healed?
EF (00:32:22):
Yes. I think we have fundamentally healed, partly at least because the scar tissue is both thicker and because again, going back to the point where with the short time horizons of individuals, whether it is... I was talking to a conservative journalist this morning who said, I am so glad Schwartz never vote in the race. And I said, why? He said, because I do not have to hear about that damn Kobe Bryant every day. Until a week ago I did not even know who the devil Kobe Bryant is. And now he is every minute 200 news guys in some place [inaudible] Colorado or Esquire, Colorado, whatever it is called. What kind of trivialization of what is going on is this? And so you get the new cycle, et cetera, you got to fill it. And either you fill it the way CNN did until recently. Every Saturday afternoon, if you turned on CNN to find out what is going on in the world, you get 45 minutes on the latest French fashions or something like that because there just is not enough there, there is always news. So you get Kobe Bryant given this kind of prominence and in effect the same level of prominence as Colin Powell giving a major foreign policy speech to the UN or something. And if they both get 30 minutes of prime time over three consecutive days... Or more likely Kobe Bryant will get it and Colin Powell will not. Things are getting distorted and they are off kilter. And so I think that it is a couple of things. You get trivialization at that level. Then you got a shallow understanding what history is about. So a lot of people talk about Vietnam and well, that is a war that happened a long time ago. There is another place in Asia there too. What was that one called? Korea or something. And they are all kind of about the same time. So yeah, in terms of kind of looked at today, it is all... It is healed, but part of the reason that it is healed is because again, I said it about 15 minutes ago, I think that this generation just does not know as much history and has not read as much history as they should have. This same journalist, the guy we are buying the house from, was giving away a bunch of books and a bunch of college students... He brought them into his office and a bunch of college students they started pouring through them. And one of them came on a book called The Real Anita Hill. And she looked at them and said, who was Anita Hill? This is only 10 years ago. This is not ancient history like Vietnam or Korea. This is 10 years ago. Who is Anita Hill?
SM (00:35:52):
Unbelievable. I interviewed Dr. Hilty, he is head of the history department at Temple and he was really strong against the boomer. He is a liberal. Big Kennedy liberal. But very condemning against the boomers because he feels that the boomers were the generation that got the greatest education, Master's, but they do not have a whole lot of knowledge. And I never thought of that. I said their lack of understanding... They may be getting the degrees, but their depth of analysis, I am just like, how do you teach today? I am reading books on education, the proper way of teaching. It is not just always getting the high SAT scores and getting your school scores up. How do students think and analyze these things. When you are working with young people and they are reading things, how are they interpreting it and analyzing it? It is not just a score on an SAT question. And so there are some interesting things here and your observation is very good. Your thoughts on the Vietnam Memorial? I think it is one of the greatest things ever. How the Vietnam Memorial, when it was built in (19)82 and the effect this had on veterans and on the nation. Just your thought on the wall.
EF (00:37:04):
Very moving. Interesting that by the time it was really finished, in place and people saw it-it did what scrubs and everybody else wanted it to do in terms of healing. But during the whole course of it, when whatever her name was [inaudible] divisive, a stab through the heart of America with this black slab and all that. The rhetoric that went up about what it was. But today, to go there and to see some of my friends and contemporaries' names on the list as I have and to think about what it represents. Very moving. So it worked.
SM (00:38:11):
What would your thoughts be if you were sitting in a room with boomers and they were to say to you, we were the most unique generation in American history?
EF (00:38:18):
Bullshit.
SM (00:38:19):
Okay, because a lot of boomers felt that way when they were young.
EF (00:38:26):
Yeah. They were certainly the most pampered. After all our parents, and here I guess I would put myself in the boomer generation, they had gone through the depression. They vowed basically that we would be able to have more than they had. And this goes to Hilty's point at Temple. In terms of the best education possible. My father barely got himself through high school with a family, then went to college and almost got a law degree at night school. You will not have to do that. He said to me and my three sisters. None of us did. We were well-educated and that was very-very important. And then to have the earlier generation be basically so disappointed, I guess in their offspring as to have them copping out or doing drugs, to whatever extent that happened [inaudible]. That is disillusioning. And to have them just not appreciate what happened and then assume that because they got that again, that the notion of instant gratification is going to work for them and their kids.
SM (00:39:54):
Your thoughts, you have some fine, outstanding, young conservative youth here that work in the internship program. The sense that I have had and my peers is that when you look at the boomer generation, they again talk about the most unique generation of American history. Also, there is an attitude that we are going to change the world. We are going to make society better for everyone. We are going to end racism, sexism, or homophobia, everything they were going to end at all because they were the most unique generation. And they were also a very involved generation in the vote. But now we see a group of young people today that do not vote. And this is something I just wanted... I do not know if you have thought about this at times, I just sometimes sit in a park and why do today's young people and the boomers themselves, the parents, they do not vote. What is going on here? What have they transferred on to their kids with respect to the sense of empowerment? Their voice counts. They need to be heard. It worries me as a person. I have come up with several worries here in our interview, and that is another worry that I have because I want young people to know that they are empowered, that they do have a say, that their voice does count. So what happened to the boomer parents who were involved in these protests and activism changing things. And a lot of them did good things and some were just in it for themselves, but what have they done to their kids? Just your thoughts on that.
EF (00:41:27):
Well, you are better off asking them, I guess because our family, at least our nuclear family, in terms of my wife, myself, my kids and their spouses are very much involved politically and I think it has been transmitted. I suppose part of it is that frustration you talked about earlier from the earlier generation, from the boomers, that either they were not heard in terms of their cause. Maybe even it is a little bit embarrassing if anybody ever dares use that word anymore. Some of the excesses going way back when. In terms of the new generation, I would have to look at polls. I know what the broad numbers are in terms of the voter participation, but I would want to look at cross tabs in terms of the ones who are most committed to either a political party or a philosophy or an ideology of government, if you will, in terms of whether those who are most committed are more politically active. I have a good libertarian friend who has a bumper sticker that says, do not vote, it only encourages them. Well, this is a guy who comes at that decision from basically a philosophical perspective and managed to put it on a bumper sticker and you can understand that. That is not the way conservatives think, I do not think, but some libertarians do. And so it is not a case of just disinterest on the first Tuesday of November it is a case of...
(00:43:35):
In that case it is a conscious decision but I suppose again, you have the usual frustration or I am only one, why does it matter? Well, after Florida I think that is a non-argument anymore. Clearly everybody ought to know that their participation does matter. You can see that in the California recall that happened in October [inaudible] and you end up with whoever it was, Schwarzenegger on one side or the lieutenant governor on the other side [inaudible] being elected with 10 percent of the eligibles or something like that. In the fifth largest economy in the world, the largest state in the nation et cetera, et cetera, being elected by 1 percent of the eligible population. That is not exactly a mandate to go in there and straighten things out, whoever you are. I am not saying that is what happened [inaudible]. So does it worry me? Yeah, because again, and this go back to your earlier point in terms of trust and confidence in our systems. If there is not confidence in the political system, then confidence, again, the most fundamental thing in terms of the rule of law breaks down. Because if there is no legitimacy for the politicians, then there is no legitimacy in terms of what they are doing. Which means that people do not want to be governed by whatever laws they are passing. And that is not good for long term.
SM (00:45:20):
This is my last question before I get into personalities and that is, what do you think the lasting legacy will be of the boomer generation? When the best history books are written, and we are only 25 years out now from the Vietnam War and the best history books are often 50 years later, after an event. What do you think? How will history interpret this generation, this boomer generation?
EF (00:45:41):
Now a group of... On the one hand it could be a group of spoiled adolescents trying to feel their way out of a complicated situation by self-gratification. On the other hand, in a deeper sense, the people who did think they could change the world and do it... Every generation thinks it can change the world but here, I think you are on to something. The boomer generation thought it could change the world almost by themselves. Whereas in World War II you did it as part of the army, part of the Navy, you worked for big Bill Donovan at the OSS and later the CIA. Man, you were part of a team. But by the time of the boomers, you were kind of in a do it on your own more or less. So an individualistic way of expressing generally some high moral concerns. For that I recognize my colleagues on the other side of the political arena, but I also recognize my friends on our side who kind of came of political age and said, Hey, there has to be a better way to answer these social problems than the LBJ SDR big government one.
SM (00:47:49):
I at least remember a poster that I had on my door at Ohio State University when I was in grad school. Peter Max was very popular back then. And I will never forget it. I wish I would kept it, but it stuck in my mind. It basically said, you do your thing. I will do mine. If by chance we should get together. It will be beautiful. If by chance...
EF (00:48:14):
We get together.
SM (00:48:16):
Because it is interesting if by chance. And as a young person, as a boomer, that is sounded great for the time. But when you reflect on it, if by chance you have to work together in this world not hope that we just come together by circumstance. So anyway, I have a list of names here. I would just like some brief comments. These are all people from the period, Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda.
EF (00:48:50):
What do you want, one-word reaction?
SM (00:48:53):
Yeah, just your thoughts on the...
EF (00:48:54):
Traitors.
SM (00:48:57):
Lyndon Johnson.
EF (00:49:03):
Manipulative, clever and self-righteous.
SM (00:49:16):
Bobby Kennedy.
EF (00:49:25):
Cynical with a tinge of idealism. Cynical, going back to his days with Joe McCarthy, the senator.
SM (00:49:35):
John Kennedy.
EF (00:49:39):
Idealistic, almost naive... Idealistic, almost naive with a silver spoon, maybe brought on further and faster certainly than he otherwise would have, but maybe even further and faster than he should have.
SM (00:50:15):
Huey Newton, Bobby Seal on the Black Panthers.
EF (00:50:19):
In the overall scheme of things, irrelevant. At the time, strange and so far outside the mainstream it was hard to...
SM (00:50:32):
Go right into the Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin.
EF (00:50:41):
Flash in the pans.
SM (00:50:49):
Barry Goldwater.
EF (00:50:50):
An idealistic trendsetter who never admitted to the limitations of politics. Certainly had an impact beyond his electoral politics.
SM (00:51:18):
Richard Nixon.
EF (00:51:24):
Deep global strategist with the fatal flaw that prevented him from really effectively doing what he was elected to do. He did not trust the people. Never did.
SM (00:51:49):
Your thoughts on his enemy's list.
EF (00:51:53):
Everybody has one, whether they write it down or they just keep it mentally. And his more graphic and in a way, almost more simplistic.
SM (00:52:07):
[inaudible]
EF (00:52:22):
A competent administrator of Baltimore County who then was rapidly beyond his level of competence.
SM (00:52:31):
Timothy Leary.
EF (00:52:40):
A person whose influence was far beyond what it should have been but who... At the same time, I guess if his intended audience had been better grounded, he would have been as irrelevant as he should have been but he was not always.
SM (00:53:13):
Martin Luther King.
EF (00:53:21):
A visionary dreamer who apparently had some personal flaws. But guess we all do. But who also had a big picture in terms of solving some very real problems in a non-violent way.
SM (00:53:47):
Malcolm X.
EF (00:53:54):
Malcolm X... Hello. Okay, be with him in a minute. Bye.
(00:53:57):
Malcolm X. The wrong kind of role model. Malcolm X [inaudible] of Chicago.
SM (00:54:10):
George McGovern.
EF (00:54:18):
A man who believed deeply and compassionately about a lot of things but alas, was wrong. But who certainly built a dedicated cadre of followers no unlike [inaudible] George Goldwater.
SM (00:54:50):
Robert McNamara.
EF (00:54:52):
A technocrat who never understood that people are not cogs and a big machine.
SM (00:55:01):
George Wallace.
EF (00:55:06):
A nasty piece of work without principles or morals.
SM (00:55:11):
Daniel Elsberg.
EF (00:55:11):
A man who deserted the truth that he should have known for lesser political interest.
SM (00:55:34):
Jerry Ford.
EF (00:55:38):
A great congressman from the district of Michigan, who by accident ended up where he was and tried to do a job that even today is... He was fundamentally decent to people I know. He got thrown a delta, a rough deck when he got to the top.
SM (00:56:06):
Hubert Humphrey.
EF (00:56:09):
Idealistic and intellectual, but unrealistic in terms of what human response would be to [inaudible].
SM (00:56:29):
Muhammad Ali.
EF (00:56:30):
[inaudible].
SM (00:56:44):
Gloria Steinem and Betty Fordan, and the women's movement leaders.
EF (00:56:55):
Inconsistent, hypocritical and not clearly thought through in terms of what their real objectives were.
SM (00:57:18):
I got four more here and that is Ralph Nader.
EF (00:57:25):
A man who tried to do some effective things but always pushed too far in terms of using coercion to achieve his objectives. So when he got to the point of curbs and things like that and compulsory student fees, instead of battling reasonable things like...
SM (00:57:54):
Down to our last three.
EF (00:57:57):
[inaudible] bumpers, et cetera. Yes... I want to apply for a city [inaudible]. I think I told Kathy, anybody from any bank that calls or anything with my mortgage is coming up she better put them through.
SM (00:58:14):
This is just a generalization now, but the music of the (19)60s. The Jimmy Hendrix, the Janice Joplins, the Beatles, the music, the influence that that music had on this generation as opposed to any other.
EF (00:58:26):
I do not know if it is the Beach Boys, I like it. If it is the Beatles, I do not understand it. So yeah, it is kind of mixed. I guess it is like all music. But if, like you were saying about history before, let us look back on it in 50 years and see what is still there.
SM (00:58:47):
Yeah. Cause you got Janet Joplin, when you think of the (19)60s, you think of Joplin, Hendricks and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and the list goes on and on.
EF (00:58:54):
Yeah, [inaudible] trio.
SM (00:58:57):
John Dean.
EF (00:59:00):
A man uncertain loyalty to... Well, just stop there. I never understood him.
SM (00:59:08):
And I am going to conclude with this. These are just terms of the period and just quick, SDS. Quick response.
EF (00:59:26):
Yeah. Perverted political agenda, trying to be imposed by compulsory means, which went against what their principles were supposed to be. Never quite understood how they got there.
SM (00:59:48):
Counterculture.
EF (00:59:53):
Sad because our traditional culture has got so much to offer why do you need one.
SM (01:00:01):
The Pentagon papers.
EF (01:00:05):
So what.
SM (01:00:06):
The Chicago Eight.
EF (01:00:16):
Representative of, as I said earlier, that incredible incident in the middle of that time period that tried to unhinge or destabilize a lot of what... A lot of our whole society, so not much sympathy. I do not know what they think their justification was.
SM (01:00:47):
And the last one is kind of a combination of three people. It is if you can put William Westmorland, President Thieu and General Cao Ky because Ky and Thieu were the leaders of Vietnam and Westmorland was [inaudible] Maxwell Taylor.
EF (01:01:10):
Man who tried to accomplish a mission without appropriate political backing from the United States' top officials in government. Therefore, without the backing of the US people he tried to carry out their orders as best he could.
SM (01:01:34):
I want to conclude on... First, I want to thank you very much. I admire what you do. I admire your organization. I am going to see Mr. Edwards next and we will hopefully continue to bring our students down here. The last question... There we go.
EF (01:01:53):
The Kennedy assassination did not start the (19)60s. The (19)60 election really did because JFK proved that the accepted order of vice president succeeding president was not necessarily the way things are going to go. And I think in retrospect that was almost more profound than the fact that Kennedy was a Catholic and proved that a Catholic could be elected. So I think that was a real turning point. But what the Kennedy assassination did for those of us who were around and affected by it was, it was a shock to the moral order of things that something like this could happen in this day and age. It meant that in effect nothing was sacred. That the highest elected person in the country could be zapped by a crazy guy down in Dallas. It was a shock to the body, I do not know about the body politic, but to the whole American society that had its reverberations for a long time. And I guess probably, in some respects foresaw then what was going to happen with Martin Luther King, with Bobby Kennedy and on and on. Attempted assassination on Reagan [inaudible]. Even I suppose you could, in that respect, almost link it to 9/11 and real traumas to the American system. And in that respect, it shook things up and helped... It made things unglue and we lost our compass for a while. And that one lasted longer than most. Kent State, I guess was I would describe as more a tragedy than a shock because Americans shooting Americans not in terms of stopping a prison outbreak or in terms of going back a hundred years plus then to the Civil War, but in basically a much more peaceful environment that just never should have happened. And I guess my problem to the whole reaction of the Kent State thing is that men are not angels and so we are not going to always do... Men who are in authority. Men who are in authority are not always going to do the right thing. Hopefully most of the time, under most circumstances they will, but not always. And so how do you make it happen more often rather than less often? At Kent State it sure did not.
(End of Interview)
Date of Interview
2003-08-07
Interviewer
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
Edwin J. Feulner
Biographical Text
Edwin John Feulner is an author, journalist, administrator, educator, political scientist, government official, and the founder and former president of The Heritage Foundation. He was the president from 1977-2013 and from 2017-2018. Feulner received his Bachelor's degree in English from Regis College, his Master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, and his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh.
Duration
65:28
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Audio
Subject LCSH
Authors; Journalists; Political scientists; Public officers; Feulner, Edwin J.--Interviews
Rights Statement
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Keywords
Anti-war Movement; Vietnam; lack of trust; Baby boom generation; Richard Nixon; Lyndon Johnson; Nineteen sixties; Nineteen seventies; Democratic Convention of 1968
Files
Citation
“Interview with Ed Feulner,” Digital Collections, accessed May 1, 2024, https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1189.
