Interview with John Anderson

Anderson, John B. (John Bayard), 1922-2017 ; McKiernan, Stephen

Dr. John Anderson (1922 - 2017 ) was a United States Congressman and presidential candidate from Illinois. As a member of the Republican Party, he represented Illinois's 16th congressional district from 1961 through 1981. Anderson had a law degree from the University of Illinois.

2010-08-04

In Copyright

2017-03-14

McKiernan Interviews

108:03

McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: John Anderson
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Kimberly F Mourao
Date of interview: 3 August 2010
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Start of Interview)

00:03
SM: Anderson, John Anderson, August 3, 19- not 19. Quick question, so here we go. And I am going to read them to make sure I get these correct. When you sat in that cold weather on January 20, 1961, in front of the Capitol as a new congressman listening to a new president, what was going through your mind when you heard these words: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” from President-elect Kennedy, did you know that he would be an inspiration to a whole new generation of Americans born after World War II? And of course, he ended up being assassinated, but what was it like being there being brand new yourself, and then he was brand new?

00:56
JA: Well, I was going to say, obviously, my feelings involved, my own sense of pride, and accomplishment, and having won the race, and I had been elected to my first of what would become ten terms in the US House. So, I had my own thoughts and what I wanted to do, but it, I have a very distinct memory of being thrilled by what the new president had to say. Even though I was obviously of the opposite party. He struck for me the kind of note that I wanted to hear from, from a new president promising a change. And I have to roll back the tides a little bit. And try to think if there was anything other than the fact that it was fifty years ago.

02:19
SM: Yes.

02:21
JA: And I still, still recall quite vividly the sense of pride that I felt that being a part of the scene, being, being there on the porch, then they, in those days, it was on the east front of the Capitol. Last inaugural, of course, that I attended was Barrack, Barack Obama's and they have long been held on the west front. Not long, but for quite quite a number of inaugurations now, as I recall it. But looking as you do up for the Supreme Court, being a lawyer and having respect for that institution, it was totally a memorable experience. And as I say, it filled me with a sense of genuine excitement and hope that I could be part of the new wave of progress. He was, he was assuring us that he would try to achieve.

03:37
SM: When he gave that speech, when you were listening, did that line, did those two lines of that one line really stand out? Or did, or did you read it?

03:48
JA: Yes, I think it did. Even, even at the time, it resonated very clearly, with the thought that, well, here was a new era that was opening up and a new and young and dynamic president with a real gift, as we all know, to speak and write with eloquence. And feel like he struck, struck a real note of optimism. That was memorable.

04:21
SM: The other lines that come out of there, there are many, but “we will pay any price or bear any burden to guarantee Liberty around the world,” of course a lot of people linked into Vietnam.

04:33
JA: I think. I do not, I do not, of course, that could not foretell the fact that he would turn out to be the first president that would really very appreciably enlarge our presence in Southeast Asia by sending a force of more than battalion strength as I recall it, to South Vietnam, and it was a war that I, like many others finally turned against belatedly when I made a speech during my primary campaign, I think it was a nationally devised, televised debate that was sponsored by the League of Women Voters, which not all but I think, four or five of the people who were contesting as I was for the Republican nomination in 1980. I said that one great-. She asked me: “What mistake have you made years that you serve in Congress and in my 10th term,” of course, and I said, “Well, the worst mistake was to vote for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964,” which was, of course, after Kennedy's death, and Lyndon Johnson had assumed the mantle and had decided, you know, that he had to get the public to be supportive of the effort. And some people indeed suggest that the whole thing that happened there in the Gulf of Tonkin was purposely staged as an incident that would arouse public passion and attract public interest. In any of that I said that the worst mistake I made was to go along. Well, it was virtually a unanimous vote, to go along with the crowd and vote, for what turned out to be a misbegotten campaign to assert our presence in Southeast Asia and ended the ignominious incident of Ellsworth Bunker, the American ambassador, the last American ambassador had to be airlifted off the roof. He was in there in Saigon, along with members of his staff, successful North Vietnamese were storming the gates, and about to take the city. So, I have a very distinct memory of that.

07:41
SM: How would you describe the boomer generation? A lot of people do not like terms, like, I found this out through the process of doing this book, is they do not like terms for generations. Higher education always uses terms because that is how they define groups. Sociologists often defined the same way; boomer generation is those born between (19)46 and 1964. And then, but a lot of the people more in between (19)40 and (19)46 really feel closely associated with that group, because many of them were the leaders and the activists of the era. And so, and of course, those students has experienced in the first wave of the boomers compared to the second wave was totally different the second ten years, because they were so much younger. But my question is, when you look at the time that boomers have been alive, which is has been from 1946, right now to 2010, the oldest Boomer is now sixty-four, and the youngest is now forty-eight. Going on forty-nine is amazing how time flies. And so, I have asked each of the individuals in my last one third of my interviews to define the, the years and what those years meant to each individual, in terms of what was America like.

09:04
JA: The years between 1946 and 1954?

09:06
SM: Yeah, no, yeah. No, (19)64 is the boomers.

09:12
JA: I am sorry, (19)46 to (19)64.

09:15
SM: Is what they call the boomer generation. So, I am asking to you, when you look at these periods, what does it mean? What are these periods mean to you? 1946 to 1960.

09:29
JA: Well, Harry Truman started that period, I guess. Not, he did not start it, but he was a president during that period, I was newly emerged. After the war, I went back and finished my law school education. I was discharged in November, as I recall it of 1945 and then went back for the spring semester in 1946. And got my LLB or JD whatever it was they called it in those days. Somebody told me the other day I have always said I had a Juris Doctor degree and they said, “No, it was really a Bachelor of Laws.” Anyway, it was a law degree, I suppose it is not terribly important, what you call it. So, the period began with my emerging from law school. And being picked up by a law firm, and going to work in Rockford, Illinois, in my hometown, and Boulos. And then by 1948, I had decided that the private practice of law was maybe not really what I wanted to do, I would like to teach. And to do that, I would need a graduate degree. So, I looked around and finally was able to secure a fellowship to attend Harvard Law School and went out to Cambridge and spent (19)48 to (19)49 acquiring my degree, and the only really good offer that I received to teach when I graduated was, I remember out of the University of Montana. And I think the law school was located in Missoula. And it just was not a part of the country that I was attracted to. Particularly. So, I declined that offer. And then I decided to go into private practice, I would try the law again, as a private practitioner, and I had made a living and it was fairly interesting. But in any event, it was kind of the springboard, really for a political career. In my case, I became very friendly with the people in the courthouse. And they included two people that were very dominant. In the Republican Party, the county treasurer and the county assessor. The Norland L. Anderson guys. So, remember their names. And they took me around to the various political functions of the republican party held in that area, and I became friendly with the people in the party. So, when the current man who had been State's Attorney, Matt Weston, decided not to run for reelection, he was involved in some scandal, here and there. But in any event, I decided to throw my hat in the ring. And there were five candidates in the race and really the leading candidate was the first assistant State's Attorney, Jack Buynon, his name was. And when and he had been quite a local hero, he had a winning football team of the State University, University of Illinois, which I had also graduated. But I campaigned hard and shoe leather campaign of going door to door and handing out my literature. And I had a small group of friends that obviously assisted and in a fairly close race, I emerged the winner. And that was really then my springboard again into politics. I served for four years as a state's attorney, and I think I achieved a fairly commendable record of convictions and enforcing the law. And so, when I guess I left something out here, something out here because that was, my term was (19)60. (19)60 to (19)80 and I was state's attorney from (19)56 to (19)60. I left out, I left out the fact that I had a stint in the in the Foreign Service. I took the competitive exams for the Foreign Service, and was offered a foreign service officer post, which was in West Berlin, I did go to West Berlin as a Foreign Service officer, and served for about two and a half years, which is the tour of duty got married. During that time to my wife whose still my wife. Our first child was born in Berlin. Eleanor who now resides abroad, married a man from Holland that she met in New York and has lived for many years, twenty, more than twenty years in the Netherlands, had her over a year ago, this past summer, with her four children who were grown up. But it was after that. That time in Europe that I came back and got into politics. I kind of left that. Oh, I should have mentioned that. And-

16:44
SM: How would you describe the America? When you look at that period (19)46 to-

16:48
JA: I kind of got off your question?

16:51
SM: It is just in a few words; how would you describe the America of (19)46 and 1960? Because that is important. But tell me about you.

16:59
JA: The period between (19)46-

17:01
SM: And 19-, in the period that President Kennedy was elected and how was? What was America like in your thoughts?

17:14
JA: Well, Eisenhower was elected president (19)52. And I remember the celebrated campaign where Harry Truman defeated Thomas E. Dewey. That was (19)48, (19)48 to (19)52. Harry Truman who had succeeded when the presidency when Roosevelt died. Well, it was a, (19)46 to (19)60, (19)52.

18:27
SM: I have not broken down here I have, what was the like to be, live in American (19)46 to (19)60, and then (19)61 to (19)70, (19)71 to (19)80, (19)81 to (19)90, (19)91 to 2000, 2001 to 2010, and these are like periods that boomers have been alive. What would, how would you describe the America in a few words what it was like then?

18:51
JA: Well, it was a time of sort of recovering from the events that preceded that period, namely World War II, returning veterans finding their way again in society, in my case, coming out of the army and going right back to school to finish the one semester that I had to complete, to get my degree and take the bar examination. I am kind of groping around trying to think of how I would describe the period, I was pretty busy building my own life, I think those of us who came out of the army and been away from civilian life or interested in getting back into the flow of normal life. It was during that period that I was really trying to find myself, in a sense, because after a brief period, in the law office, as I have just described for you, I decided to try something else. Try teaching rather than, than the practice of law, as a way of using my legal education as a foundation for a career. Then politics took over with my election. That's that was in (19)56. And you wanted me to spell-

21:20
SM: Well you were fine because you were, you describe the year for you right up until the time you were elected to Congress.

21:26
JA: During that time I was trying to reintegrate with my normal pattern of American life that we had left behind when we went off to the army, and had experiences that would live with us forever, but would be totally different alien from the culture that we were accustomed to, and trying to find our way into another veteran style of living, where we can both enjoy life and at the same time, managed to make a living and create a career that would sustain us. And-

22:16
SM: That was typical what was happening in America that time and-

22:20
JA: Maybe, maybe it was the kind of wandering that I was doing between the law and Foreign Service and politics, process of trying to reintegrate in society and American life that caused me to make some rather abrupt [inaudible] and sharp changes in what I was doing, from being at a law office one evening, one day and then being out, back in the classroom again, and then leaving that to go back into private practice with a partner, whom I had met during my law school days, and then leaving that for a career, which began with the election of State's Attorney, and then to Congress in 1968.

23:21
SM: Most of these-

23:25
JA: Well, it was kind of a, we were trying to find ourselves, find our way.

23:31
SM: Most of these other periods are going to be in part of these other questions that I asked because the periods from the time you were in Congress, what does the assassination of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King say about the America of the 1960s?

23:48
JA: Well, I remember vividly, where I was at the moment that the word arrived of the assassination. We were just assembling to conduct a committee hearing of the government operations committee chaired by an African American congressman from Chicago, Bill Dawson, his name was, and the news filtered over the transom somehow that the President had been shot and the committee, adjourned for the day. And I can remember that I wept I literally, he was a president of another party, but he was the young, youthful, vibrant hope that many of us had for the future. So, it was a searing, searing moment, etched into my memory in a way that I can, I can still remember how wretched I felt that this awful thing, it was a blot on the country's [inaudible] the President had been killed, been assassinated, even though it had happened to several others before him, but to me it was, it was a shocking, shocking-

25:23
SM: Was there a fear? Did you, you and your peers, have a fear that it was the unknown? He, you knew he had been killed, and that President Johnson had been protected, so that he would succeed, but the not knowing of why this happened, and it could it be something bigger than just-

25:44
JA: No, I do not think, I do not think I succumb to any deep conspiracy theory other than feeling the same sense of disbelief and wonderment that anyone could commit such a vile act. But I did not really, there were those who subscribe to a more conspiratorial view of the event. I just thought it was one of those tragic events in history that you cannot explain why it happened or how it happened. But you have to accept and somehow pick yourself up and move on as we did. When Johnson came in, and to his credit, it was he launched the civil rights revolution, which to me was the most important part of my congressional career being a part of the Congress that enacted the Civil Rights Act or-

26:51
SM: Fair housing. Yeah, and-

26:53
JA: Fair Housing Rights Act of (19)65. And I was the deciding vote in the rules committee that brought out the Open Housing Act.

27:01
SM: Yeah, I read that your book. And that was historic.

27:05
JA: I am prouder of that vote than any other action that I took, during the twenty years that I was in Congress, because as I think I probably indicated there, you do not very often in the body of 435 members feel that your vote has been of singular importance and it could not have happened without it. And that bill had to get my vote, the only Republican voting for it, and the rules committee needed to come out so that the floor could then vote on it. And that was the thing that really attracted national attention to me, just one at 435 in that large body, and from then on, the press began to cover me a little bit more intensively. And it probably was responsible for the fact that later I would take the bold step of saying I will leave the Congress, retire after ten terms and run first as a Republican and failing that, then as an independent.

28:20
SM: How about the 1968, which was a terrible year, you wrote about it in your book, but the assassinations of two leaders? What they two months exactly between.

28:33
JA: Martin Luther King.

28:35
SM: In April, April 5.

28:38
JA: Yes, yes. Well, yeah. And as someone who had come to really realize that civil rights had to be the dominant issue of that period, that we had to overcome the legacy of indifference and intolerance, that had locked us in from 1896 and the Supreme Court decision that decided it was perfectly alright to segregate people on a railroad train, and require them, blacks to ride in one car. That separate but equal doctrine which came about that bad decision in 1896 and lasted until the civil rights revolution of the (19)60s. well over a half century later. So, you are right, those two assassinations I think gripped me with a feeling that I wanted to be remembered, if I was to be remembered at all, as having played some part and some role and had a hand in bringing about a reversal of that whole doctrine and pattern of separate but equal and integrating American society basis where you did not draw the color line.

30:36
SM: One of the things here that I have is you served in Congress from (19)61 to (19)80. During these twenty years, the boomer generation went to high school, college, began their careers, many became involved in multiple movements which was really big in the late (19)60s, early (19)70s. Many protests and many went on with their careers, in short, the question I am getting at here is what legislation Congress has passed that had a direct-

31:03
JA: I did not get the rest of that sentence.

31:07
SM: Well, no, in short what legislation in Congress was passed, that had a direct bearing on the boomer generation. And I say this that things that I remember, it was the draft, voting age at eighteen, the Civil Rights Act and voting rights act that you talked about the Open Housing Act-

31:26
JA: Well for me the overriding issue was the civil rights issue, but those other things were important, of course, the eighteen-year-old vote-

31:36
SM: Right, and Roe v. Wade, in (19)73. And the Bakke decision, which was a decision that when I lived in California, that made [inaudible] news so big. And so those are some of the things that happened in the (19)60s and (19)70s. That-

31:53
JA: Well, that was a big issue in and in my life as well, because one of the things that I remember most vividly in one debate that I had, a national debate that I had with Ronald Reagan before League lost sponsorship or was afraid, they would lose sponsorship unless they acceded to the demand of Jimmy Carter, who would not get into a debate with Ronald Reagan and me. He said he would only debate Reagan, he would not, he would not debate with an independent candidate, namely my, myself. And, but in the one debate that I did have with Ronald Reagan, the thing that made headlines, of course, was that I flatly came out in strong favor of a woman's right to choose and indicated my belief that the decisions of the court prior thereto that denied that right were totally wrong. So, the women's movement, particularly to achieve the right that we are describing, the right to choose whether or not to have a child. That was one of the really significant features of that era.

33:38
SM: When you think of the politicians between (19)60 and (19)80. In the Senate and Congress, some of them stood out because of courageous acts. The two senators are against the Vietnam War at the beginning were Wayne Morse of Oregon, and I believe, Senator from Alaska, Ruska? The two of them. But they were, they were way ahead of their time in terms of being against the Vietnam War. And they were criticized heavily for it. I got to know Senator Nelson quite well. And because we brought them to our campus, the founder of Earth Day several times, and we organize the Leadership on the Road program. So, we saw eleven, United States senators. And he talked about the courage of those two, they were kind of ostracized, because they were the only ones for a long time. And then, then you had finally Gaylord Nelson and Fulbright and others going against it. But it is kind of a two-part question. What are yours? What were your thoughts then when those very few politicians were the way ahead of the others in terms of being against this war? And then in 1980, the price that was paid by many of the United States senators by losing their senatorial positions because of their anti-war stand when Ronald Reagan-

34:54
JA: Because of what? You have to speak up a little bit, my hearing is not good.

34:59
SM: In 1980, several senators lost their positions because of their anti-war stand and when President Reagan was elected, and of course, we are talking Gaylord Nelson, Birch Bayh, George McGovern, I think McCarthy was just going to retire, right. But they said he was not going to be able to win. Fulbright was on his way out. So, the major people were kind of out because of their stand against the Vietnam War, because America was changing toward Ronald Reagan. So, your thoughts on the politics in 1980 at that time, and also the courageous stands that these early senators took?

35:41
JA: Well, my thoughts today, obviously, are to salute the memory of all of those men that you have mentioned, for the courage and the foresight and the prescience that they had, that we were in an era where the United States should not be fighting that kind of war. To leap ahead, the one thing that troubles me about the present administration, which I voted for, and totally support, is that I have not agreed with a war in Afghanistan-

36:29
SM: Neither have I.

36:31
JA: And I feel that it is unfortunate that the President made the commitment that he did, to continue, I think that we should be trying to turn that over to an international body like United Nations, I do not think the United States should be fighting that war. Well, I guess I pretty well, given you a clue as to what my thoughts are I, I, in very recent times, I have invited people like McGovern, to come to the campus of the law school, or I have taught for twenty years to come speak to the students, in part because of the admiration I had for them on the stand courageous stands that they took with respect to the war in Vietnam. And I do not want to get away from your topic. I mean, I guess maybe it is because of my feeling that Vietnam should have engrained itself so thoroughly into our minds and our thought processes about the danger of becoming involved in the kind of struggle involved there, that I have carried that over to why I feel strongly as I do, that, our, our idea of trying to build a nation, despite recent statements where I think Obama himself has backed away from the idea of nation building, that that his predecessor, George Bush, Herbert Walker, George W. Bush had, he was really drumming a way out, that we were going to build a new nation and, and Iraq in the process of punishing al Qaeda. There was also nation building. And I do not think that is our task. To just totally believe that we ought to have the kind of global democracy represented by a body like the United Nations that will be in charge of building democracy around the world that ought to be an international cooperative effort. It should not be the job of one single nation, albeit my own country and the most powerful country in the world, to take on its shoulders, the idea of building democracy. I think that ought to be an international project. Well-

39:48
SM: It is almost you know, it's almost as I just wish Eleanor Roosevelt saw it even though she passed away in (19)62. But I wish she, she could have lived another ten, fifteen years because her Universal Declaration of Human Rights and what she first saw as the, is the role the United Nations. I still am a believer in the United Nations. But I think they do an awful lot of dialogue. And they do not do a whole lot of action beyond it. And the last great moment, I think was when Stevenson’s “wait till Hell freezes over.” That was a memory I will never forget because that is when the United Nations was working. I think, even though there were confrontations, the confrontation are in the United Nations. And it is, and that is, I think, what Eleanor Roosevelt dreamed of. I, your book is unbelievable. I, I read it in the past three weeks. And, and I had this book for a long time. You were, you were so right on with about the boomer generation and about the young people I think a lot because you had kids of the age. I love the explanation there when you took your daughter to see a concert, I think it was Arlo Guthrie concert, or you finally went with your daughter, the one that lives in Europe. And it was a great description, because the description you have the experience with your daughter was exactly the (19)60s. It was exactly. And so, I am going to start out by question number one. Here is a quote that you said, and I am going to put these quotes in the book. “What impressed me, however, was that the young man who denounced my views, at Elmer-,” this is at Elmhurst college, this is about generation gap. “What impressed me, however, was that the young man who denounced my views did so without even knowing what they were. If I needed any proof of the generation gap. I found it that day at Elmhurst College,” when that person was shouting you down. See, that is what we always teach young people do not speak unless you have some knowledge. And this is a tremendous quote to me. Could you explain what it was like going on college campuses back then? And whether Elmhurst was fairly typical, or was that just a unique?

42:02
JA: No, I think it was a fairly, a rather unusual incident really. I forget the exact date.

42:13
SM: It was, I think it was, not even sure. But it was in the (19)60s. It was right around the time that the Vietnam War was, probably mid (19)60s, (19)65, (19)66, somewhere around there.

42:29
JA: I remember, just got another little bit hazy about dates around that period. But-

42:39
SM: What was it like going to college campuses though, because you went to a lot of them. Speaking in the (19)60s, what kind of, what kind of, what did you think of that generation you had kids that were that age.

42:52
JA: You are talking about the mid (19)60s?

42:54
SM: Mid (19)60s or all the (19)60s, basically, mid to late (19)60s, early (19)70s? What did you think of those young people that listen to you? Were they listeners?

43:08
JA: Well, when was the, when was the great event up in New York? When they, all the young people got together?

43:23
SM: Woodstock? 1969.

43:26
JA: Yeah, that was toward the end of the decade. I know my own daughter; my own daughter went to Woodstock.

43:35
SM: She did? She admits it.

43:39
JA: Well, I find it hard to really tell you now. How to assess that period.

44:03
SM: You say it here the generation gap, your definition you stated-

44:07
JA: I guess there was a gap between generations. Yes, yes. I found it. I found it a difficult, even though I like to believe that I was a person of progressive views who was capable of changing as the times changed, not in just an accommodative sense but in the sense that I was putting my ear to the ground and could understand and empathize with the feelings of young people who were trying to express themselves and how they felt. But I guess I was just one of many somewhat puzzled parents, when it comes to trying to explain Woodstock.

45:00
SM: Let me refresh, you were writing here that, that you had reasons for the generation gap, and you broke them down. And they were very well thought out. And I have just mentioned them if you want to, let me make sure though this is still going here. You mentioned that one of the things is the change was American religion at that time, change was big. You said that hypocrisy, there was hypocrisy of the older generation. Alienation of the young due to the fact that there, there was so much-

45:35
JA: Yeah, I guess. Yeah. As you read those words, and, and refresh my recollection, I suppose I did. I did feel that young people were rebelling and throwing off the teachings of their elders, and yet they had not put in place of that. Anything to really fill the vacuum that they had created, other than to engage in their kind of fantasy that Woodstock represented. It was it was a puzzling time then. And I guess it still puzzles me, I really do not have a good answer.

46:26
SM: Well, in the in the book, you describe pretty well, the, the generation gap, the heroes were different, there was a decline in adult authority, decline in church authority, there was a decline in a lot of different things. And it certainly were challenging. How important do you feel, you have already mentioned the civil rights movement. But how important was the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement and the women's movement, in shaping this generation and in shaping America, the America not only of then, but now, those are three major movements.

47:03
JA: I think, enormously, enormously important. All of those things that you mentioned, were really, enormously important, in causing us to the kind of country we are today.

47:30
SM: Another quote, again, I am going to read these quotes, just see if you can respond to them. This is a quote on the bitterness of many of the people of that era toward the Vietnam War. “The bitterness and intransigence that we see in so many of our young people today reflects, I believe, the fact that unlike the civil rights movement, the Vietnam peace movement showed no early successors.” And then you also thought that the reason why the young people went toward violence, which is the Weathermen, and maybe the Black Panthers and other groups is that “The lessons seem to be no,” I cannot even read my reading here. “The lesson seemed to be no matter how hard they tried, nothing slowed down the war, so they turned to mobs.” So, they turned to mobs-

48:33
JA: Well, there was a feeling of deepening frustration that events simply plotted on. And one tragedy succeeded another because of their inability to affect the kind of change in policies that would have ended that seemingly endless conflict in Vietnam. And you are right. There were some singular victories in the civil rights struggle, like the passage of the Civil Rights Act of (19)64. And the Voting Rights Act and the Open Housing Act. There was nothing similar to deal with the problems that were engendered by the fact that our politicians and our political leaders with a few exceptions, were we were simply kind of caught in the tide and swept along endlessly in this involvement. Not to get off the track completely. That is why feelings like that are why I feel the way I do about the situation today in in Afghanistan, and our involvement in this war against terror, that lives are being lost. In the papers just a day or two ago, another long, well you were not here, you do not read the Post, the voter drafts of all the young men who have been killed in Vietnam, not in Vietnam, but in-

50:33
SM: Afghanistan.

50:35
JA: And it, it does start memories of the frustration that young people must have felt back in that earlier period that you are addressing.

50:49
SM: President Bush. The first President Bush said that the Vietnam syndrome was over, I, I say no, it is not over. I have always felt that way. There seems to be a sensitivity that whenever you bring up the word Vietnam, or the term quagmire, you get out “Oh, do not go back to that again. I mean, you are all you are doing is bringing up past” or “you are nostalgic for the past. It has no relevance to today.” That is frustration on the part of maybe some boomers who have lived through the period and have, they say they moved on, why do not you? But your thoughts on when you bring up Vietnam quagmire, it is, it creates a stir. You sense that still today? Do you do believe the Vietnam syndrome is over?

51:49
JA: Hard question to answer definitively. I-

52:03
SM: We will finish in thirty minutes. You do not ponder anymore on that particular one. But he just said, what did the following events mean to you individually? What does Watergate mean to you?

52:38
JA: Well, it led to the resignation of a president which was a traumatic effect. And yet I think Watergate in a sense had had a purgative and a cleansing effect. That was beneficial, highly, highly beneficial, as far as politics were concerned. And they showed that, it showed the recuperative power of American democracy. I mean, even though we suffered the ignominy and the disgrace really of seeing an elected the highest elected official, forced to resign for all of the reasons that they have gone into by many others and do not need to be repeated. It shows the, the recuperative strength of American democracy that this could survive all of that, and to bring about some of the changes that were clearly necessary.

54:17
SM: What did you think of Nixon's enemies list?

54:21
JA: Did I think what?

54:21
SM: What did you think of Nixon's enemies list?

54:25
JA: Well, it was shocking, was a shocking thing. Really. I was horror-struck.

54:34
SM: Were you on it?

54:36
JA: Well, I do not know whether I was on his list or not. I, I may well have been for the reason that I will always remember a long letter that I wrote to John Ehrlichman, who of course, I will ultimately paid the price of going to jail and being penalized for the role that he played, urging, urging that he counsel the president to come before the American people, this was before the complete denouement occurred about Watergate, and speak honestly and, frankly, and tell everything that he knew. Well, now, in retrospect, Nixon knew that he would be putting his neck in a noose, the fact that I wrote Ehrlichman and told him that that is what he should advise the president to do to come before a joint session of the Congress and honestly, honestly, lay out the facts and his role and the role of his administration, in what had happened. And I never even got an answer to my letter from Ehrlichman, who later went to jail himself, but I have the feeling that maybe Nixon knew the letter had been sent, and Ehrlichman may well have told him about it. And if so, he would have put a check by my name on that, on that list, and he kept of people to watch out for.

56:32
SM: I noticed that Daniel Schorr who just passed away, that he was, he was number four on the list. If he was invited to your, there is a story that he was invited to a White House function, and at the same time, he was number four on the enemies list, so there must be some communication around. What did you think of when Nixon said “peace with honor” in 1973? We, as we were leaving Vietnam, the Paris Peace Talks, “peace with honor,” that upset a lot of Vietnam vets. But your thoughts on when Nixon said, “peace with honor?” We had just, we had just killed almost 3 million Vietnamese. Do you think that was a little-

57:16
JA: Not only that but fought an illegal war in Cambodia.

57:18
SM: Yeah.

57:20
JA: Where no war had ever been declared. Well-

57:28
SM: I am going to turn the-, here we go.

57:33
JA: It was just another cynical effort by Nixon to put a favorable gloss on what had been this continuing tragedy of sending troops and money and incurring a loss of life in Vietnam that we did. It was his, it was the arrogance of power. It was really and others have used that term. It was an expression of the arrogance of power.

58:09
SM: What did you think of the Pentagon Papers? Just Daniel Ellsberg doing what he did?

58:15
JA: Well, I hailed the ultimate resolution of that dispute. And the Supreme Court decision that went with it. Again, I did not, I will always remember whether I put this in the book or not-

58:47
SM: Oh Jesus, it is ok, it is a cell phone, it is my cell phone, it will turn off.

58:53
JA: When Nixon tried to make his comeback in 1968. Well, he did. And-

59:06
SM: Can you hold on one second? We are talking about Pentagon Papers, I think you maybe, you might have finished your-.

59:10
JA: Well, it was just another glaring example, and then of evidence of the kind of intolerance that Nixon displayed toward those who disagreed with him, and his capacity to seek vengeance, and to get even, and all of the things that led to what we just finished discussing before ultimate disgrace. Watergate was of a piece with that kind of mentality that he brought to the presidency.

59:58
SM: What did Kent State and Jackson State mean to you? Obviously, you were, you were halfway through your time in the Congress. And obviously it was on the fourth of May 1970. Right after Nixon gave his nine o'clock speech on the invasion of Cambodia the night before on the 30th. Just your thoughts on that tragedy, and-

1:00:22
JA: Well, it was a shocking, it was a shocking thing, to say the least. And I felt a great deal of personal pain. At the thought, you know, that I had, in a sense, been a part of the scene that that brought about the incident that you just described. It was a, it was a very painful reminder of the fact that we had caused those students in the first place to feel the way they did and the incident that developed, I felt some sense of personal, personal responsibility.

1:01:28
SM: This leads me right into the Wall, which is the Vietnam Memorial. Were you there at the opening in 1982? When they opened the memorial with all the-

1:01:37
JA: No, I was not actually, I was not actually there. I visited the Wall, of course, and I, I do think sometimes since I have been down there. But thinking back to when, when, I went the first time, it was just a very painful reminder of what an awful waste of resources and human life can result from wrong decisions being taken, and what our role in the world should be. And-

1:02:25
SM: Do you think the Wall has done a good job with, for healing the nation on the Vietnam War or is that going too far? Jan Scruggs wrote a book called “To Heal a Nation”-

1:02:35
JA: I think it was belated recognition of it was an effort really to try to, to ease the national conscience over the debt that we owe to those that had to give their lives for what was really a misbegotten enterprise, one that they were forced to make the ultimate sacrifice. And we who were left behind bear some responsibility for what happened.

1:03:15
SM: What is amazing, when you think about of course Mỹ Lai and there were other very bad experiences over in Vietnam, but upon their return, you know, the government had to actually put Vietnam veterans in the affirmative action policy because they were being discriminated against, they could not get jobs. And so, I do not know-

1:03:38
JA: It was a dark, it was a very dark chapter in our national history. Your question, about and the fact you know, that it even came up in that celebrated episode in the campaign against John Kerry-

1:03:56
SM: That is right, in 2004.

1:03:59
JA: To punish him for the fact that he had spoken out against the war.

1:04:09
SM: And then, of course, there is the Vietnam Veterans against the War that became a very strong anti-war group in the early (19)70s. And there was also very strong anti-war movement during the war within the military, that we do not talk about, you know, the alternative newspapers that were at a lot of the bases. What did the Iran hostage crisis in (19)79 mean to you?

1:04:38
JA: That my phone? Well, let me think.

1:04:48
SM: Really cost Jimmy Carter his presidency.

1:04:51
JA: Well, yeah. Ordered desert raid to, you know, rescue the hostages. Well, it was it was just a very early signal, we did not really recognize as such at the time of how vulnerable we were, as far as energy supplies were concerned. And it was the beginning of the end of any hopes that he had of being reelected since-

1:05:40
SM: Then the Berlin Wall coming down because that was a major happening when we consider the Cold War.

1:05:49
JA: Well, I have been, I went to the Berlin Wall, while it was still there on a trip to Europe, particularly having served in the State Department in Berlin, for that period that I mentioned between 1953. A grim reminder of how political division can lead to a kind of obscenity that that wall did to literally divide the city, shut people from one sector off from another sector.

1:06:35
SM: And then Chicago, 1968, you write in depth about-

1:06:39
JA: Chicago in 1968?

1:06:41
SM: Yes, the convention, the Democratic Convention, and the fighting between the police and-

1:06:50
JA: Oh, yes, yes.

1:06:58
SM: I got three quotes here that I want you to respond to. These are quotes from you. And these are, to me they say a lot about America. “The real tragedy of Chicago was not the violence done to bodies in the streets. But the violence done to the hopes and minds of the young people. I speak as an American who, who cherishes the value of participation in American politics.”

1:07:27
JA: I cannot say it any better today than I did then I guess.

1:07:31
SM: Yeah. And then you say in quote, number two, “the lesson of Chicago seems to be: Do not get involved for the system will beat you in the end.”

1:07:42
JA: Or the system will beat you in the end? Is that the way I put it? Well, I think I think if I had some words to take back, I might be, I might modify that. To some extent. It was a little too pessimistic about the permanence that that event had on affecting people's attitudes about participating in democracy and in government, I probably was a bit of an overstatement.

1:08:18
SM: And the third one was “five years ago, in 1965, the response to, to the failures of the American institution was to get in and change it, change it. In 1970, many today are selling out, dropping out. It is not cool to be in that kind of thing.” So, you, were your thoughts on that? You went into the whole description of selling out, throwing out, and dropping out, which really worry you.

1:08:51
JA: Yeah, well maybe I was a little too pessimistic. At the time. I think, frankly, I was in the sense that the election of Obama now in.

1:09:17
SM: 2008. The reason I, early on after reading this book, decided that he was the one that I would like to support and did support in his campaign shows that we, history does have a way of reversing itself and of changing. And some of the deep pessimism that I expressed at that time, I think have been replaced by, were replaced by a renewed hope and belief that government could be truly responsive to the needs of the people. My one, I do not want to be tiresome on the subject, my one fear is that we have not done enough to build. Not democracy in Afghanistan, which I do not think is going to be a successful effort, to build an international institution, which we started to do. And we signed the charter, establishing United Nations, we have not gone far enough and had presidents or sufficiently dedicated to putting the United Nations in a better position to express the will of the world community. And leave it to individual nations to try to build democracy, as we say we are going to try to do in Afghanistan. That ought to be a global effort led by a global institution, not just one nation.

1:11:29
SM: You state something, I will get that. But there is a quote we use here. John Gardner is one of my favorite people. And you actually quote him in your book on page sixty-seven, who at that time, he was chairman of the Urban Coalition. And, and you, you wrote down what he wrote, and I think it is very important here. He had observed that “an important segment of young people has accepted the view that man is naturally good, humane, decent, just and honorable. But that corrupt and wicked institutions have transformed trends transformed the Noble Savage, into a civilized monster, destroy the corrupt institutions, they say, and man's native goodness will flower. There is not anything in history or anthropology to confirm the thesis, though, it survives through the generations.” Any thoughts on that?

1:12:31
JA: Again, I think I would modify what I said then, with the further, that with the further thought that where we have really singularly failed, is to strive with might and main to create an international institution that would be democratic, and would enable us to explicate American foreign policy in a way where it became an international responsibility to bring democracy in nations of the world that are troubled and being beset by civil strife and all that we, we still have too much “go it alone” attitude, with respect to world affairs, have not really yet yielded to the strong impulse, that our principle effort has got to go into building world institutions that will be capable of governing ungovernable areas of the world like Afghanistan, where the Taliban are free to roam and commit their degradations and commit their crimes. We finally signed reluctantly, the World Court treaty, you know, but we have done we have done nothing really, to make that body given the credibility and the enforcement power that would enable a truly World Court to take the place of making the judgments that we want to make unilaterally about how nations should conduct themselves. It ought to be that sense of international responsibility that gets more support from our leaders. Even Obama has not come up to the mark, as far as I am concerned. Yet, he has time. He is only halfway through one term. I hope maybe he will see the virtue of doing that.

1:15:12
SM: He has got the timeline to get out of Afghanistan, but now he was getting the pressures from the military and others. McChrystal-

1:15:21
JA: So many people have to resist those pressures.

1:15:24
SM: McChrystal was one of the main persons that, Petraeus may be the next person who knows, because they believe we cannot leave. I am going to just finish this little segment by saying that, even though you have changed since 1978, you state in your book, and I think it is very important, that you fear the new culture in 1970, due to its effect on participants in social and political life, you felt apathy is more of a threat than revolution, which I think is important point. Because if you know, well who knows, there is always this philosophy, I think Benjamin Barber are very good at this, the former guy, the Walt Whitman Center for Leadership at Rutgers is that the stronger the citizenship, the stronger the nation, when we constantly look to have a strong leader. That is, oftentimes we have weak citizens, it should be the other extreme, we do want a strong leader, but we want strong citizens. And I think this is what you are saying here. And the other final quote on this is something a beautiful quote that you put in here, “I believe our youth would rise to the challenge, for it seems to me that they understand intuitively perhaps better than some of their elders, that they will be, they will find their meaning only through constructive involvement in the problems, needs, hopes and joys of other people.” And I think that is exactly what you just been telling me. And it is very well said in that time going, you took your daughter to an Arlo Guthrie conference or concert, I remember, you mentioned that in this book, I think she was 16 years old. And even though you had a hard time with some of the long hair, and you had a quote in there saying, you know, “barbers have to make a living too.” Yeah, when you put that in there, that is beautiful, because it shows you have a sense of humor. But this quote’s important too. This is a quote from a song that you took from Arlo Guthrie, “it is only by having no self-sat-, status, satisfying grati-,” excuse me, “it’s only by having no self-gratifying goal that you can ever really fulfill yourself.” And that's Arlo Guthrie. So, the message in the music sometimes is very important. Couple questions I have here. When did the (19)60s begin, in your opinion? And when did it end?

1:18:00
JA: When did the (19)60s begin?

1:18:02
SM: Yes. And when did it end?

1:18:05
JA: Well, they really began I think with the election of john F. Kennedy that we have already talked about. It seems to me that that, that it ended the Eisenhower era. And definitely, even though his life was tragically cut short, launched us on, on a new phase, period of American culture, political culture. And when did they end? Was that-

1:18:40
SM: Yeah, what do you think the (19)60s end?

1:18:59
JA: Well, probably, probably with the election of Nixon.

1:19:09
SM: (19)68.

1:19:12
JA: That, that, I think, brought about kind of a different approach. Yeah, I guess I would, I would tie it off with, with the election of Nixon.

1:19:33
SM: Is there a watershed moment during this time that stands out above every other?

1:19:38
JA: Well, for me, it was the civil rights revolution. Yeah, it was the mid (19)60s when we finally, sixty-four and sixty-five. And Open Housing (19)68, that, that to me was the great defining moment of that decade.

1:19:58
SM: Did you ever have a chance to meet and talk to the Big Four, which is Dr. King, Roy Wilkins, James Farmer- Did you have an opportunity to talk to the Big Four, Dr. King, James Farmer-

1:20:13
JA: No, no I never actually had a personal meeting with him much as I admired him.

1:20:20
SM: Any other civil rights leaders that you talked with in any?

1:20:24
JA: Well, our great civil rights leader of my personal circle of friends was the former lead counsel to the civil rights movement, Joseph Rauh.

1:20:42
SM: Oh, yeah.

1:20:45
JA: He was, he was, he became a dear friend of mine. And I revered, there is a Joe Rauh Memorial Lecture Series. Every year someone coming from the DC law school. And I missed the last lecture. Sorry to say, Eric Holder, the new Attorney General delivered the lecture. But Joe Rauh should be remembered in any book that is written about civil rights, and the true meaning of the important events of the decade of the (19)60s.

1:21:30
SM: I am going to put down my batteries might seem to be low here. So let me just turn my, put my batteries in here. Bear with me. I can see you doing okay. It was a gentleman who never got a whole lot of praise. But he is always behind the scenes and he was African American. He worked with in Congress. And he was not a congressman. But he was certainly in-

1:22:04
JA: I cannot think of him either, of course, Joe Rauh was not an African American. To me he was one of motive forces behind the accomplishments in that field that took place in the decade of the (19)60s.

1:22:23
SM: You said one of the problems of the (19)60s was what you call massification. What do you mean by that?

1:22:30
JA: Massification?

1:22:32
SM: Massification.

1:22:33
JA: I am not sure I remember what I had in mind.

1:22:35
SM: That is a whole, you have a whole chapter I do not know what to tell you.

1:22:39
JA: No, that is faded into the ether, I am not sure why.

1:22:47
SM: I know that. That is when you talked about Riesman’s book lonely, the lonely crowd-. Riesman’s book, The Lonely Crowd, David Riesman. And it was part of that feeling that America just was not talking to itself, they were walking by each other. And that was that was part of the massification that there was so much technology and so many new things that because of all these new things, there was no communication. You are just, you are walking by someone on the street. And that is what David Riesman said in his book, The Lonely Crowd, because-

1:23:22
JA: Well probably I just, it goes back to my real preoccupation with the fact that it was not until, toward the end of that decade that we finally completed the trilogy of congressional enactments that we refer to as the civil rights revolution, that we were walking down the street and we did not see people as we should have seen them, suffering from, from prejudice and bias and indignity of that separate but equal doctrine.

1:24:09
JA: Yeah, you talked a little bit about Woodstock and the moratorium also, the moratorium was in (19)69 and Woodstock was (19)69. So, these are two happenings and you felt that Woodstock was not so much to express to decent as to draw human and personal meaning from each other, of being around someone that you-

1:24:32
JA: Yeah, yeah, recall the old saying people like company. They like to know that there are others that share their thoughts and dreams. I think there was that feeling on the part of many young people that they wanted the comfort and the assurance that came from knowing that there were others like them that were grappling with the same kind of uncertainty and indecision and problems that they had. They wanted the, the proof, of the comfort that comes from association with other like-minded persons.

1:25:18
SM: You also said that was similar to what happened the moratorium in (19)69. Where something like four hundred. There is a lot of people there, 400,000 or whatever, at the moratorium and you said it was more commercial than political. It was a coming together out of a deep sense of, I cannot read my writing here. But deep sense of feeling about issues and that was (19)69. And my last quote that I have here, that I am going to incorporate within the rest of the straight questions is your discussion of Vietnam. And because I know this, Vietnam really upset you immensely. And bear with me because I want this in the record too that you wrote this. “We are guilty, not of intentional evil, but of blindness, and specifically of an inability to perceive the difference between a situation such as World War Two, in which American security itself required a foreign military effort, and a situation such as Vietnam, in which a threat to our security was indirect at first, and in which our power should have been employed in an entirely different manner, if at all.

1:26:39
JA: Yeah, well, it goes back to what I have been drawing away at that we should have internationalize that problem, it should not have become a concern. If there were problems in Vietnam, they were the concerns of the world community. They were not simply American concerns that we would deal with unilaterally. There ought to be, the world ought to take responsibility, the world community and we should be a leader in the effort to transcend the idea that every problem around the world is an American problem and is somehow run a militate against our best interests unless we promptly solve a particular nations problems. It goes back to my intensified feeling today. And I had it back as long ago as when those words were written that we have got to become much more globally conscious. And if we do, then we will see that purely national interests have to be submerged in an effort to find international solutions, problems that are not simply our problems, but the problems of humanity and the rest of the world.

1:28:09
SM: Let me-

1:28:09
JA: -walking today.

1:28:12
SM: It is not very nice out there. One person running. And that is about it. In the end, why did we lose the Vietnam War In your opinion?

1:28:27
JA: We lost the Vietnam War. Because we failed to understand that the government that we chose to support, namely, the government of South Vietnam, what it was not representative of the aspirations of the Vietnamese people themselves. It was a construct that favored a few who held positions of power and influence, but it did not look to the national needs of that area, known as Vietnam. And we should have seen that it was not, it was not an appropriate venue for us to try to transport American democracy to a part of the world that clearly preferred the leadership that was provided by another system altogether. And even though they were communists, today, we were living peacefully with Vietnam. I have clothing in my closet that when I turn over the label it is made in Vietnam, we are importing and exporting, carrying on trade and commerce with Vietnam. And we just totally misconceived, what the appropriate role for American policy, foreign policy, should be. We took upon our shoulders, something that did not belong there. And if the world community through a world body, like the United Nations did not want to take over and administer the affairs of those people, that it was not up to us to interfere in the internal decisions that were made by the Vietnamese.

1:30:48
SM: When you, you have kids that are boomers. And when you I have asked this question to everyone, but you cannot generalize an entire generation of seventy-four million people's, which the boomers and actually only between 5 and 10 percent. were involved in any kind of activism within the generation, which is still a couple million, but that means 85 to 90 percent were just went on with their lives, although they were affected psychologically, obviously. What, what are some of the positive qualities or negative qualities you look at the generation? That includes everybody, when we are talking, we are not only talking white, we are talking African American, we are talking Latina, we are talking what generation? Are you talking about?

1:31:34
JA: What generation are you talking about?

1:31:37
SM: Boomer generation. Yeah, just some of the positive qualities and some of the negative qualities that you see.

1:31:47
JA: Oh, I do not know whether I am wise enough to give you a good answer to your question. I suppose the positive qualities of that generation, are that they picked up their lives, those of us like myself, who had fought in a war and gone on and picked up the pieces of their lives and put them back together. I do not know. I do not I do not have a good answer.

1:32:30
SM: How about your kids, your kid’s generation? What do you think about their generation?

1:32:37
JA: Of which generation?

1:32:38
SM: The boomers, the kids that were born after World War II.

1:32:41
JA: that were born after World War II?

1:32:44
SM: Yeah, what are their strengths and weaknesses? As a group? You saw them in so many different ways? And then you raised boomers.

1:33:18
JA: It is almost an impossible question to answer. I really defer to others. I personally do not know.

1:33:27
SM: How do you, 1984 when Newt Gingrich came into power, and actually George Will oftentimes does this in some of his writings, and we see it when Glen, Glenn Beck often times on his TV show and Mike Huckabee on his TV show, they'll blame a lot of the problems we have in our society today on the generation and the era of the (19)60s and (19)70s by saying that the breakdown of the American family, the lack of moral values, the drug culture, the, the divorce rate, the not going to church, you know, the family, stable family unit we saw in the (19)50s, the welfare state, all special interest groups. They only think about themselves and not about others. What do you think of when people make those general attack?

1:34:29
JA: I have a very minimum high regard for people like Glenn Beck, who set themselves up as philosophers who have the capacity and the wisdom to assess any generation. There is anybody that causes me to turn the dial immediately its somebody like that comes on. Their pontifications where they blame one group or another group for the problems of society do not impress me as being very analytical. Their post proper, post hoc, propter hoc kind of reasoning, after the fact, they are trying to tell us. This is what, why things happened as they did. And I do not think their analysis is very credible.

1:35:49
SM: Have we healed as a nation? I am going to get to some, we took a group of students to see-. The question I am asking is regarding the issue of healing, healing. We took a group of students to Washington DC in 1995, to meet Senator Muskie. And the students came up with this question because none of them were alive in 1968. But they had seen the divisions that were happening in America in the (19)60s. And since he was the nominee, they wanted to, the vice-presidential nominee, they wanted to see his thoughts on this question. And the question was due to the divisions in America, in the (19)60s, do you, which was the divisions between black and white, between male and female, between gay and straight, between those who supported the war and those who were against the war, between those who supported the troops and were against the troops. They have seen the bombings, the fires within the cities and the assassinations. Do you think that the boomer generation that was born after World War II was going to go to their grave similar to the Civil War generation not healing? No,

1:36:58
JA: No, I do not think so. I think that is, that is kind of overdrawing that picture, to, to make that kind of blanket condemnation. I do not give it as much basis, much justification. I do not think the people that say things like that are not terribly credible.

1:37:25
SM: The Senator Muskie responded in this way. He said, he did not even respond to 1968. He responded by saying we have not healed since the Civil War, over the issue of race. And that is how he responded to it. And then he went on to talk about people that had died, he had seen the Ken Burns series and all the people that died. So, the students were a little surprised by his commentary, but then he made a lot of sense because he was talking about that ongoing issue of, of race. Trust, you bring up the issue of trust in your book, too. But trust seems to be a quality that or lack of trust, that many of the boomers had toward leaders in any capacity, whether it be a Congressman, lack of trust, whether it be a congressman, a senator or president, president of a university, a head of a corporation, even ministers and rabbis or anybody in position of responsibility they did not trust because they have seen so many of the leaders lie to them? And of course, we are talking Watergate, we are talking golf with Tom McNamara.

1:38:32
JA: That begs the question, what events like Watergate do play on the national conscience, and can be influential, and affect the thinking and self-assessment that people make of their own lives and the lives of the people that they associate with? I am not suggesting that we live in some kind of a vacuum, all of these forces have some interplay, with how we emerge as, as a people as a nation. I am just very hopeful. I am optimistic about the future, even though I get a little bit discouraged. As I already indicated things like the continuing war in Vietnam and our failure to construct international institutions and build respect for the rule of law. So that we do not have to take on tasks that are beyond our capacity as a nation to really assume. I am still an optimist.

1:40:10
SM: How have you changed since writing this book? This book was written in 1970. Yep, it came out in 1970. And it is a really important book of the times it really.

1:40:30
JA: I do not know whether I have become, I become older, have I become wiser? I am not sure. Well, it is hard for me to give you an intelligent assessment of how I have changed, I hope I have become more tolerant of other people and opposing views. And even when I very much disagree, as I frequently do with things that happen. I, I have kind of an optimism that we are going to get over this, and eventually we will find the right path. We will find the right way. So, I still put myself in that category.

1:41:23
SM: When you were very young. We are not we are not talking about your college years. And we are talking about when you were growing up in elementary school, in high school. Who was the greatest influence in your life?

1:41:38
JA: A great influence in my life?

1:41:40
SM: Yeah, who helped shape the person you became?

1:41:44
JA: Oh, my father, I think I admired my father intensely. He was a Swedish immigrant boy who came in (19)15. Lived a very useful life as a, as a merchant, raised a family. Was a good Christian. I guess I can hope for nothing more than that my children would one day look up to me the way I look up to my father. He was he was a great overriding influence in my life.

1:42:28
SM: What are the qualities of leadership that you most admire in a person?

1:42:32
JA: The qualities of leadership?

1:42:34
SM: That you think are important to be a leader.

1:42:36
JA: Well, you have to be able to break from the pack, you have to be able sometimes to disregard conventional thinking. And to know I was put on earth in this time, in this era, given the present circumstances, and it is for me, not simply to accept it, as wrote, the opinions of other people, but to examine them carefully and choose for myself. Whether this is the course that we should now follow. So, it is that independence of thought and action, I think I treasure the most.

1:43:20
SM: One more question here, and then we will be done. Some of the personalities that kind of stand out from the (19)60s, the personalities that stand out from the (19)60s, we often tell young people that if you stand up and speak up, there is a price one pays for that. You do not get assassinated, mostly like you do in other countries or be put in jail. But what were your thoughts on?

1:43:55
JA: I think that’s my phone. My wife got it. We have one down here somewhere.

1:44:05
SM: What did you think of people who believe they stood up for something, but they had a lot of people that did not like them, and I am just going to list them. And then you can just give your thoughts. The Tom Haines’ of the world, the Jane Fonda’s, the Rennie Davis’, the Abbie Hoffman’s, the Jerry Rubin’s, the Angela Davis’, the Benjamin Spock’s. You know, the-

1:44:34
JA: That is a rather mixed breed. I mean, going to the last name first, Dr. Spock. I thought was a rather opinionated person that probably was a little bit, demonstrated our quality of a little too much self-assurance. He has the right answers and the right remedy and the right prescription. The world is constantly changing. And people have become rigid in their thinking. And think that, well, this is the way we do it. This is the way we have always done it. This is the way we should always do it in the future. I kind of drawback, a little wary of people who dispense that kind of advice. I think people have to realize that different voices are needed in different periods of history. And the same message that may ring true today may not be appropriate in the message, depending on changed circumstances tomorrow. That is not to say that there are certain eternal verities, I believe in the Ten Commandments after all. And as a Christian, I accept the Gospels as the translation of your kind of religious faith and doctrine that I should continue to have, no matter what happens. But that aside, I think the capacity of the greatness of this country has resided in its capacity for change, to realize that what may have been an appropriate thing to do, and an appropriate approach in this era is not necessarily the key to open the door to tomorrow. Where different circumstances may require an entirely different approach. I hope that does not sound wishy washy, I do not think it is, it is just the changing times, and changing circumstances can and should lead to changed attitudes. That is progress. Without that you are stuck on a treadmill, and just kind of going around and around and around. And nothing ever does change. I do not believe in that limited view of our capacity, either individually or as a nation to deal with our problem. We ought to be constantly willing to turn over new ideas, examine new approaches. And if there is one problem the Republican party has today, I think it is extreme conservatism is, they claim to have views that might have been appropriate some prior period, but certainly are not an adequate prescription for tomorrow.

(End of Interview)

2010-08-04

Stephen McKiernan

John B. Anderson, 1922-2017

108:03

English

Binghamton University Libraries

audio/mp4

Sound

1 Microcassette

Audio

Legislators—United States; Presidential candidates—United States; Anderson, John B. (John Bayard), 1922-2017--Interviews

Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly.