#23

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This is a federal case a weekly show that takes up an issue of government and takes a
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good look in Washington D.C.. I am and still producing for the
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national educational radio network.
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This week we're going to make a federal case out of another veteran government Watcher in the
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Capitol. He's Marcus Giles. Washington's contributing editor
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to The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the United features syndicated columnist.
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He is truly a veteran. He's written for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch for 44
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years and his little bio sheet that descriptive piece which diligence
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secretaries work out for anybody who's anybody anywhere. Says that Marcus Giles
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is one of the ablest and most experienced members of the hardcore
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Washington press corps. But he's also a veteran in another sense.
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He looks and talks like he should. If you consult the 1930 movie versions of
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newspaper men. Mr. Chiles is a very large area looking man who looks
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both like a farmer and an English gentleman. He acts like that sort of
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combination too. He wears an enormous red suspenders. He also
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talks like he was educated by an upper class New England lady who knew her manners
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very well. In fact he comes from Iowa. His ancestors were
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farmers and he went to the University of Wisconsin. He's really a
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newspaperman of the old school. He has worked hard to know Washington
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D.C. as a government town very well. He has his proper
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contacts. The day I met him he was off to a birthday party for Alice Roosevelt
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Longworth. He is very correct in his profession. He tries to be objective.
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He doesn't say anything he can't substantiate. You might call him an old
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fashioned liberal but you might be wrong. He's liberal in many ways if that means being for
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birth control or better relations with China or more government attention to social
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programs. But he's not so old fashioned. He's in his late
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60s but he doesn't really fall in with either the conservative or the liberal
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label. In many ways you're going to hear him talking about the president and this
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administration and how it seems to be shaping up after a year. He
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works out of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Washington office so you'll hear some newspaper
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and reporter noises occasionally in the background.
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Winston Churchill once spoke of a. Political leader leader's
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moral purpose being something like the impulse and the image of the ages. Would
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you say that President Nixon has that kind of moral purpose.
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No the bad carpenter. I don't know what kind I think it maybe might be divisive.
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So I think he's a very pragmatic and I don't want to
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be you know perhaps pragmatic. He's a
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politician and I don't think you could apply those same words to
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him. You just use for Winston to talk.
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Do you think that you made a distinction then between political
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and a moral. Do you think that that means it would be fair to say the president's
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policy is that it's politically motivated more than stemming from a strong moral
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belief.
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Well these things are very hard to define. I think I think that.
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You take Let take a president like Woodrow Wilson. And
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his determination to keep us out of war which is one of the reasons he
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won a real election in 19 12 1916 really.
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Now then completely reversed. This took a high
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moral tone about the entry of the United States to the world what we were going to save the world for
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democracy. It doesn't seem to work OK. Now I think that.
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Probably looking back in hindsight there should have been a
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moral evaluation as well as a practical and pragmatic way.
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And our involvement in Vietnam. If two or three years
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ago we had suddenly before the great escalation we had just said look let's
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look at this and see whether this war is first of all morally
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justifiable and then let us see whether or not it is in
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America's real interest to prosecute this war.
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In your estimation do you think that Mr. Nixon has made a philosophically sound
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judgment to it in his Vietnam policy.
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I don't know.
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I don't exactly like those terms used about a president
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or a politician I think he's made a practical practical and perhaps a
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workable judgment in the Vietnamization policy.
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I think it's still to be determined whether or not it will will work.
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But I think it is. Totally
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useful.
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Again I'll use that word pragmatic philosophically
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that implies all kinds of things that I don't think ordinarily
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would apply to the judgments of a president.
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Some of his critics have suggested that he may be in the sense of double
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dealing that he is saying one thing and he's talking about Vietnam is Asian and that he's not
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quite doing that or that in other words that he may be withdrawing
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troops but not never intended winter all the troops leave some I mean there is any
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validity to what those critics are saying. The basis for their saying that or not.
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I think it's probably too early to reach a judgment on that. I think that he wants
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to disengage the United States from the war because I think as a practical
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politician he understands that this country is deeply divided
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and that it is important for him as a president
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looking toward 972 to end the war. Now whether that can
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be done by removing Well the troops.
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Or whether as his critics and suggest that he intends to leave in 200000
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not just daycare and that is a matter that I don't think we can touch. There's
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certainly a very important book in this respect is one you may have discussed
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your programs and that is tons of hoops the limits of intervention and in the
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end of that book after he Dessaix errors and
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terrible mistakes of the Johnson policy and how the final
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escalation was frustrated in terms of the two hundred six thousand additional
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troops that General Westmoreland wanted. He then has a closing
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passage in which he said in effect a partial withdrawal will not work.
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It will leave the country just as divided as ever and present us with
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the we.
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Past the big difficulty level of an indefinite What
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if one hundred thousand is not. I don't know but
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I say I think it's too early to determine whether the policy
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we're talking about the president's Vietnam policy there in two
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important characteristics to Mr. Chiles observations.
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The first says something about him. The other about Mr. Nixon Mr. Chow
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says it's too early to tell whether the president is double dealing on Vietnam.
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You'll hear that kind of reporter's caution being expressed again and again as Chiles
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speaks. He's not going to be caught really judging the president in case he's later
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proved wrong. He does say the president has always been pretty much the same
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Nixon but he won't go further. That would not be being properly
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objective. Mr. Chiles also said he was uncomfortable with phrases
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like philosophically sound. He does think the president is pragmatic
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and political. Those are words which every other government observer I've met has
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also used to describe Mr. Nixon whether this strikes you as good or bad.
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The chances are better than average that the president is indeed a pragmatic and a
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political man to change the subject for a minute how do you think the president
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has done in cementing a good political base for himself this year.
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I think he's made a lot of progress in that respect. Back during his first year I
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think he found that he is he understands the
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current tides of opinion that there is a kind of right good movement
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I think his people those people very close to him are talking
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about at the end of this first year they're talking about
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establishing a centrist position in politics moving a little to the
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right a little to the left and in a centrist position establishing
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a base that will last nothing for just one term or two years but terms are three.
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But first year. Now this of course has been the history of the Republican
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Party the Republican party rule this country from when was it
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roughly after the end of the civil war will have very few Interpol's wanted to have a vote
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until 1929 and the Great Depression. I think this
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is what President Nixon is aiming at.
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Has he kept in touch with the various groups in the country and any
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noticeable exceptions I think perhaps the blacks would be a notable
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exception.
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I think he he says he has tried to keep in touch with them but I whether it's been
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an attempt that failed or whether it's been an attempt that was too hesitant and
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weak.
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It's hard to say but I think certainly you could say as a group the blacks have been
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out of this I don't want to use that word that President Johnson used all the time
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consensus but but something like that which President Nixon has been
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trying to achieve.
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The president advocated the ABM twice now in a year is also
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come out for the supersonic sonic transport. He's taken a hard line on
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student dissent. A lot of other things but those are three kinds of things which which the
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president has done. What do those actions say about him.
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Well I think the ABM decision particularly the second one that he brought out
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in his press conference shortly after the first year I think that
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this was a very great very greater error in terms of
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military spending because phase two of the safeguard out of
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the missile will he said. Will cost
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about 11 billion dollars and you know what the Pentagon price tag. They
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always are at least slightly understated. And also
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I think this really gets seriously in the way of the nuclear arms to
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now that I think was a very grave error. Whether it will result in the
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same kind of controversy that went for what was at least two
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months last of the last session of the Congress I don't know.
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Well there's testy again I think this is probably a very grave mistake in terms
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of. This phrase that you so often ordering our priority is
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because whatever I forget the amount that he proposed in the budget put into
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SSP several hundred billion dollars the SSP
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finally will be used by a fraction of
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1 percent of the traveling public who will want to get to London
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there.
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But this is two and a half or three hours instead of six hours. And I
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myself don't see any reason why the taxpayers should. Paid for the
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cost because the
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airplane company is a very small part of the cost.
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Now I think
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they can. I think the
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great centrist majority together I think there is a
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deep
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ethnic groups in the white middle class groups
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like this after all. They go to college. So I
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think that the
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level of the
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Marcus Giles continues to emphasize the president's political shrewdness in this
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case in forging a new centrist position.
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He has also cited a few what he calls Mr. Nixon's failures.
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Now you'll hear him praising a few actions that aren't mentioned much
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the president's best proposal he sent to Congress has been.
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Well I think you know one of the good one of the things that he did a very constructive way was he he went
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farther than any president has ever gotten in a proposal for Planned Parenthood and birth
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in this country and in the aid we give to other nations. This was a
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remarkable document.
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I think that is pollution was or was on the
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whole health proposal under budgetary and
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finance 4 billion dollars will go in the a very short way
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spread out over whatever it is 10 years is needed for this problem and then there's a question of whether
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the citizens they'd have the money to do this.
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If you want if you want you know to the most important breakthrough
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I think it is in the revised China policy and
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the effort to open up a real avenue of
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exchange where the coming is China. Now I'm not at all
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sure that a Democratic president like thank you would have a record of done there because you would have
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had the screams of outrage from groups or
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types with the so-called China lobby piece but all the rest of it. Now
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President Nixon has begun there and I think it's very important.
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Do you think he's gone very far toward hoping.
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Well he's begun. I don't think I could do much more than that they resume those talks in Warsaw
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and he made other proposals are he secretary of state has made other proposals about
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trade about cultural exchanges.
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Now I don't know how far this is going to get that I think
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that a situation like the revolutionary government is carrying and I not sure how far they will
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go.
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It's biggest thing here on the Hill.
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Well I should say his Supreme Court nominations have been a failure the
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rejection of Judge Clement Haynsworth by 15 vote
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coding. How many of the 17 Republican 70 members of the party voted
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against that or that I think is the most
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conspicuous. I think the most tragic ever was the
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said got out of this mess or it might have been all right because you remember this that it carried out
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by one vote might have been a right to have had an experimental first day
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now going in. Second we have very doubtful whether
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you think he's calmed the country down that's what he said he wanted to do. Well
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yes in a sense I think that I think people want to believe in it.
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I think they were pretty fed up with him in the job. And I think they were
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very glad to have him. He was awfully noisy around here
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and I think they I think they want to believe that President Nixon and the
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Vietnam War that perhaps he could put a damper on inflation.
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Now this may be a temporary maybe only the
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first half of the year for him but
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I think yes there is some degree damp down the
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protests that were organized. So on and off a
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lot of the left maybe just yes but that I think that way.
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Is there a contradiction in the sense between trying to lower people's voices
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calm them down and initiating a number of strong and potentially
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divisive actions as present as well of course that's your right.
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That is the pertinent point.
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He has failed to take aggressive positive active leadership
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for the programs that need to be done in this country and there are very few people who are speaking off
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about this. One of them is John Gardner who was formerly secretary of health education welfare and
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is now head of the urban coalition. Who is just
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beating his breast over the failures of President Nixon to
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take an aggressive lead for the programs that are so desperately needed
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to trim it up with rhetoric. Why did I see just the other day in a
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lead case for the president to the effect that they
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will use all the rhetoric you want just so long as it doesn't cost and
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the others may be back before. Or it may be true but still.
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Anybody that sometimes the impression we have but you but you make very good point.
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How is it done on appointments do you think he is happy and had a number of so-called
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failures as any customary presidents first year how do you mean failure. Well he
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had little difficulty with John Knowles Willie Mae Rogers.
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FRANKEN long he was worth that right. Yes of course that
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I suppose invariably happened I don't think his appointments have on the whole been a
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very high order. I think one of the things so you take his Cabinet for example
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except for who is it. Well if Romney vote.
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Layard had political experience for the most part the others have.
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Made it since he was governor.
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But now the appointments have been in order.
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Who stands out to think mine is Cameron and has as a good man I think Laird is the most
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realistic and one of the shrewdest perhaps the shrewdest man in the Cabinet I think he's the real author of
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the ventures had his troubles.
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And has been the target of an awful lot of.
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Attack.
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I think I think
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why did Russell CRANE It was the secretary of interior and
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become head of the other party. Counselor
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No I haven't you know. Yes I think it's a good yes I think he's an able
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man and with a very broad background in his sub culture than
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anything the president handles things like his news conferences. He had
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enough now we have had them and he said What is it only seven rating to the president
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and he has I think they're too prepared to stay
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they're not enough but immediately apparently though they go over with the public.
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That's why that's probably true. He seems to be able to
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answer all these questions. But here they are
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very informative and he seems to hold them always when there's very
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little news to make.
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Why is it that they're not very informative. I mean the follow partly
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I think yeah it's partly the fault of the men in the what they
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see the question did also is so today that the regulars are the one who
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asked the questions and I think that often they're questions that they know the
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White House press secretary wants and. That's what happens in that.
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Now Mr. Chiles is going to discuss the president in a number of different perspectives
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comparing him with others looking at him in the past and even the future.
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Do you draw any see any similarities between Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson.
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No I wouldn't say there were any conspicuous similarities I think they're both
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very skilled politicians but in quite a different way.
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Nixon is but calculating restrained.
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Withdrawal.
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Well I think that is the BEEN is a difficult man to understand as president.
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He's actually well I don't know whether I understand would be so hurt
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but here it was. He's a man who
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discloses very little of his personal life. Or of his personality I'm not
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sure whether anyone was very much in her life this and.
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That but the selling of the president night by Joe McGinniss
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tells us something about. What I'm about is operating me especially.
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In that book.
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Joe McGinniss wrote that he was a he had a whole special image that was kind of created for him
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during the campaign and that and that that wasn't the real Nixon at all
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there are a lot of Nixon's it would appear there's the people of the data labels too like the old
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Nixon the new Nixon allies on that exist much to the other side.
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Boy Yes I think it's always been pretty much the same except he's changed in the last 10 years.
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But he certainly changed his 962. And failure when he failed
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to be elected the governor of California I think that takes an effect.
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In your law of life.
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Profitably I think a lot of a lot of that
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going there.
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There are two Eric Goldman road ones that that
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Mr. Nixon has a kind of chairman of the board approach to the presidency he sits back in his cabinet
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meetings and acts like a chairman of the board other people instead he goes makes all his decisions in
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private.
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I think that is true I think the chairman of the board was president I don't know
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what it would have done she was general of the Joint Chiefs of Staff went right up to
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the he was the one who said you know they should do this
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but I think Nixon I think it rather much more nearly comes to me this is
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himself in private with two or three close.
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And I ask you to indulge in a prediction. He would and that isn't on the basis of only
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a little over a year do you think that he will be remembered.
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Mr Nixon as a great president has one kind of read Oh it's much too early
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again to say anything about the had in the first place that depends on events that are still.
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We can't look at the Book of Death of fate more than two or three months
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ahead. Some very terrible things could still happen in the world
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with them.
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There is so much will depend on whether or not
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avoid the disaster before.
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So I would make her a critic.
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Stylistically do you think it's advantageous it doesn't matter
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that he is appears to make his decisions in private.
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Joe I don't think so.
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I think he presents a public facade.
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Well I think I have accepted that the start and that's really what's
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important because of our reaction.
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Think there are any important ways in which this country changed the direction of this country
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not a book.
[25:41 - 25:45]
No I think he has to some degree turned off the protester
[25:45 - 25:51]
that he would take as one of the most outstanding contributions and I think it
[25:51 - 25:56]
very well may be that may be temporary but
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otherwise I wouldn't be that great.
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I think my own opinion is weighted much right to try to turn the
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economy around. I think we could be in for quite a serious recession.
[26:11 - 26:17]
Like any other trouble spots. Well there are so many.
[26:17 - 26:21]
I don't know whether the Middle East. Well you know it
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is an illustration and open one.
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No I don't think you can use that term about in this
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closed world.
[26:33 - 26:38]
There are degrees of openness. Johnson thought he was running over the administration and then when
[26:38 - 26:40]
he got a serious problem of up.
[26:40 - 26:49]
He's a good. There was a political scientist called
[26:49 - 26:54]
barber who while ago wrote that Mr. Nixon had he in his
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opinion the capability to move this country in disastrous actions by taking precipitous actions when he
[26:59 - 27:04]
was threatened disastrous directions do you think that there's much I don't know with that
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trait.
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After all we survived it in terms of the five year that he was that he was
[27:11 - 27:16]
alternately Marcus Giles is not optimistic about Mr. Nixon.
[27:16 - 27:22]
He has a laugh that comes out when he's being most pessimistic like when he
[27:22 - 27:27]
says We survived Lyndon Johnson. That's not an optimistic view on
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the other hand. Mr. Giles is not all that optimistic about anything. When I asked
[27:31 - 27:36]
him what the trouble spots in this administration were he answered Oh there were so many.
[27:36 - 27:41]
His estimate on Vietnam was that the president has done well but only for the
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moment inflation that Mr. Nixon has badly misjudged and
[27:46 - 27:50]
didn't act in time. He hasn't really changed the country much. He is
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calculating but not really all that difficult to understand by not
[27:55 - 28:00]
indulging in predictions and by saying it's too early to tell. Marcus
[28:00 - 28:04]
Chiles has painted a picture of this administration that is bleak indeed.
[28:04 - 29:37]
This is been a correspondent.
[29:37 - 29:39]
By the National Education.