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SPEAKER 1: Currently, most European Communist countries receive much of their news from the Western world via one of two sources-- Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.

A while ago, Radio Liberty provided us with a conversation between two of America's leading Soviet experts. The conversations were translated into Russian, and broadcast by Radio Liberty. The two men are Professor Hans Morgenthau of the City University of New York, and Harrison E. Salisbury, Associate Editor of the New York Times.

The topic of their dialogue concerns détente.

HANS MORGENTHAU: We have been discussing in the United States our new relationships with the Soviet Union. And the overwhelming majority of us, welcome is the relaxation of tensions and the beginning of a more normal and friendly relations with the Soviet Union.

While we do this, we are also profoundly concerned with the situation in the Soviet Union, in which prominent scientists find themselves who are either voicing dissenting opinions or belong to ethnic minorities. There are two schools of thought about this. One saying, is that the domestic affairs of a nation are no concern of the governments of other nations.

And this is obviously the official position of the Soviet government, which through its head, Mr. Brezhnev, has found this concern naive, unseemly, and I would say a mercantile way of looking at the issue.

The other school of thought to which I belong, believes that there exists an intimate relationship between certain types of domestic activities by a government and its foreign policy. In other words, a foreign policy is the balance of power operates within a moral framework in which the participants in the balance of power must share.

It is my opinion, and it is the opinion of the great majority of the American people that the Soviet government has not complied with the minimum requirements of obedience to moral principles upon which a viable balance of power and a true détente repose. I don't know what your opinion is, Mr. Salisbury, on this question.

HARRISON E. SALISBURY: Well, Dr. Morgenthau, my opinion is very similar to yours. I believe in detente between the Soviet Union and the United States. I believe in the general relaxation of world tensions among all the powers. I also believe in a détente between the Soviet Union and China, where the tensions are undoubtedly greater than they are between the United States and the Soviet Union.

But I do not believe as part of this creating this diplomatic atmosphere, that we in the United States should lend our support, moral or otherwise, to the maintenance within the Soviet Union of intolerable conditions for their scientists, their writers, their creative people, and indeed one must say, for many ordinary Soviet citizens.

HANS MORGENTHAU: As this is a very widespread opinion within the United States, and I want to refer only to a few particularly prominent expressions of that opinion. Over 3,000 scientists, for instance, in the United States, have signed a petition on behalf of Academician Benjamin Levich.

Over 100 gastroenterologists have signed a petition on behalf of the son of Academician Levich, Evgeny Levich, which has been for all practical purposes kidnapped by the authorities of the Soviet Union, and sent to a camp in the far north in spite of his serious illness.

The academic committee of on Soviet Jewry has mobilized a wide range of people in the medical professions to intercede with the United States and the Soviet governments on behalf of the father and the son Levich.

I myself have written a letter to Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin in Washington, warning that the Soviet authorities will be held responsible if anything should happen to Evgeny Levich as a result of his having been kidnapped on his way to the hospital in Moscow, inducted into the armed forces and shipped to the Arctic Circle and forced to do hard labor, it's a risk of his life. This letter was widely publicized.

Finally, you see electrochemical society, which has bestowed its highest honor, the Palladium Medal, to Academician Levich, plans a suitable ceremony and wide publicity for the presentation of that medal on October 9. This is only a small example of the widespread popular movement in the United States, which really doesn't threaten détente as a certain Soviet spokesmen indicate, but which want to create within the Soviet Union the preconditions not for a sham détente, but for a real one and a lasting one.

HARRISON E. SALISBURY: I'd like to point out something in that connection that Dr. Morgenthau, and that is the arguments which are made against the viewpoint which you and I share. These arguments are made, for example, within the government, and Dr. Kissinger in testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee not long ago, deplored the situation in the Soviet Union and expressed his sympathy, for example, for the views expressed by Academician Sakharov.

But said, in effect that he saw no way, in which the United States might attempt to alleviate these conditions. And he declined to permit the internal situation in the Soviet Union to interfere with the measures which he has put in foot, in which the president, President Nixon has put in foot, for example, toward a freeing a trade between the two countries from certain restrictions that now exist.

And some of the American businessman, Donald Kendall, a very close friend of the president and the head of Pepsi-Cola, which is engaged in a lucrative contract with the Soviet Union, have opposed linking these two issues.

Another prominent American businessman, Dr. Hammer, head of Occidental Petroleum, a man who has had a long, long association with the Soviet Union, and indeed negotiated with Lenin himself for a concession before Lenin's death and received it, I might say.

A man who is certainly dedicated to both trade and detente with the United States and the Soviet Union, has large contracts for development, and negotiating for large contracts for development in the Soviet Union has also objected to this question of linkage of the two issues, saying that in effect, and this is the argument, I think, which is made perhaps by President Nixon, that the United States must not concern itself with internal affairs in other nations, that the great objective must be to try and relieve world tensions.

Now, I myself find something rather lacking in that argument, because it is as if we should put aside our principles and live in accordance with the cartoon of the American capitalist, which has long been drawn by a revolutionaries in the Soviet Union. The capitalist, who with his money bags and his very fat stomach, doesn't mind who he trades with so long as he makes a profit.

I think that one of the most telling arguments about against capitalism as a system has been this one, that it has lacked any moral scruples. That money is not either clean or unclean. It's just money and you try to get it.

Now, I find that approach repugnant, I must say.

HANS MORGENTHAU: But you find the approach of the capitalists?

HARRISON E. SALISBURY: That's right. I do.

HANS MORGENTHAU: But unfortunately, the analysis which you have given, which you have quoted, corresponds to a very great extent to reality.

HARRISON E. SALISBURY: It does.

HANS MORGENTHAU: And Lenin himself made the point that capitalism will hang himself because of the exclusive concern of the capitalists with profits.

HARRISON E. SALISBURY: That's right. And it seems to me that we have this remarkable contradiction now in the attitudes of the Soviet Union on the one hand, and the United States on the one hand, of a certain small group of American capitalists and the American government supporting this business regardless of moral considerations.

The Soviet government also embracing this principle of dealing with the devil himself if they can gain some economic advantage from it. Whereas the intellectuals in the Soviet Union who are aware of this situation, the outstanding spokesmen, like Sakharov, Solzhenitsyn.

And the multitude of very brave people over there who put their principles on record, stand together with a very large group in this country, which takes the same position that we cannot put morals aside from these grave questions.

HANS MORGENTHAU: In other words, the open letter which Academician Sakharov sent to the Congress of the United States on September 14 represents, in a sense, the consensus of all men of goodwill, regardless of national boundaries, who are profoundly dedicated to détente, to a lasting, genuine détente.

And by that very same token, are also profoundly dedicated to the acceptance by the Soviet government of a certain minimum of moral principles, which really are the essence of civilization all over the world, regardless of national boundaries.

HARRISON E. SALISBURY: I think that's absolutely true. And I think that it is a striking fact that the Soviet Union in its official policy, not only has abandoned any question of morality, but we find in their spokesman. For example, in the dialogue between Academician Sakharov and a high official Malyarov not very long ago, he ridiculed the idea that there was anything wrong or unusual about the Watergate scandals, which surround our White House and our president.

And ridiculed the position of American public opinion, which is very strong on this question, of finding something morally obnoxious about it. It seems to me that we have a question, which is almost black and white of, shall there be any morality in this world at all? Or shall everything go down the drain and we all behave in essence like animals?

HANS MORGENTHAU: In other words, we are really not interested in the domestic politics of the Soviet government. If the Soviet government were to engage only in the kind of despotism with which the Tsarist regime has acquainted us, we might morally deplore it. We might hope that they will mitigate their despotism, but we would not raise our voices against it.

You would say, if the Russians wanted to support the government, that's their business. But we are dealing here with something much more profound. We are dealing here not with what you might call a normal despotism. But we are dealing here with a totalitarianism which runs counter to the basic principles upon a dignified, decent human life is based.

We are dealing here not with a despotism, like you find in many periods of history in many countries. But you are dealing with a denial of the very foundations of civilization. And those two things have to be separated.

We are not wanting to interfere in the domestic affairs of the Soviet Union per se. We only want to call attention of the Soviet government to the fact that there can be no genuine, lasting détente if there is no foundation of a common morality. If the two countries who want the détente to aspire toward relaxation of tensions.

Do not have certain basic moral principles in common. How the Soviet government can declare that such a position is tantamount to the revival of the Cold War or even to warmongering. It seems to me to be inconceivable, unintelligible.

HARRISON E. SALISBURY: I think that the extremity of their position is well illustrated by the attack which they made on Sakharov, in which they accused him precisely of being a warmonger and wanting to return to the Cold War.

Sakharov, with the enormous courage which he has demonstrated so often, thereupon revealed what I think every intelligent person well knew, that far from being a Cold War advocate, he himself personally in a series of memoranda to the late Nikita Khrushchev had pushed Russia on toward taking the first steps toward détente, which were many years ago in the signing of the first Test-Ban Treaty.

I think that there is no question that so far as principles are concerned, they run against the Soviet government. Were the analogy to be carried forward that you advanced, Dr. Morgenthau, of the contrast between the late Tsarist government. And the present government, I would point out that public opinion in this country never supported the Tsarist government in its oppression of its peoples.

It was the Americans were in the lead all during those years of criticism and campaigning. And when the Tsarist government encouraged and conducted pogroms on a vast scale in that country, the greatest indignation meetings anywhere in the world were held here in New York and throughout this country.

And while we continue to trade with the Tsarist government, we did not relinquish our right to criticize, bring pressure to bear. And one more thing which is important. Even the Tsarist government permitted millions of oppressed peoples to leave the Russian Empire and seek refuge, where most of them in this United States of America. This fundamental human principle which is denied right down the line by the successor government.

HANS MORGENTHAU: Exactly. For this reason, I have tried to make the distinction between Tsarist despotism and the totalitarianism of the present Soviet government, and to come back to what you said about American reactions to Tsarist despotism, where on the occasion of the pogroms, I think it was in 1912, the House of Representatives with one dissenting vote asks the president to cancel the trade agreement between the United States and Russia, which had existed for many decades.

And President Theodore Roosevelt immediately canceled the trade agreement. So if we reacted to the-- you might say, relatively mild despotism of the Tsarist regime in such a fashion, we are certainly entitled to react at least as strongly to something which is much worse, the totalitarianism of the Soviet government.

HARRISON E. SALISBURY: I think there's no doubt about it. And it's a very interesting analogy that our own Congress only a few days ago, acting very similar to the Congress in Theodore Roosevelt's time, passed unanimously a resolution calling upon our government to take the precise position, which we are advocating here in this discussion.

That is to say to use its full influence with the Soviet Union to attempt to ameliorate the situation within that country, and at least to achieve for these suffering people the basic fundamental human right of freedom to leave if they can no longer bear to live under those conditions.

HANS MORGENTHAU: In other words, we are accused of interfering in the domestic affairs of the Soviet Union. And in actuality, we really have enough to do to interfere with the domestic affairs of the United States. We are not interested in what kind of government the Soviet Union has. Certainly not on political grounds, perhaps on philosophic or moral grounds, we might be, but not on political grounds.

On political grounds, we are only interested in one thing, the compliance of the Soviet government with certain minimum standards of civilized behavior without which détente is impossible in the long run, and without which what we now call détente will only be a fleeting spell in a continuing and dangerous confrontation.

HARRISON E. SALISBURY: I think that's true, Dr. Morgenthau. And I for one would be delighted, would welcome with profound enthusiasm, and I think many Americans would, if instead of organizing mass meetings in Moscow and getting petitions signed by boilermakers or members of the Academy of Science, and this is really, I think, an appalling thought, attacking Sakharov or attacking Solzhenitsyn.

If indeed within the Soviet Union, there was a ferment of popular public opinion addressed to the moral ills which exist in this country. I would like to see the Soviet citizens and indeed citizens anywhere in the world who feel that conditions are deplorable in the United States. And there are many things that are deplorable.

I might say that almost without exception, those who are raising their voices in this country, in the United States, against those conditions in the Soviet Union, have been in the forefront of an effort to improve the situation in the United States. We're not seeking foreign targets for our moral condemnation. We have done our homework first.

SPEAKER 1: That was Harrison E. Salisbury, Associate Editor of the New York Times, and Professor Hans Morgenthau of the City University of New York. Their conversation was recorded and broadcast by Radio Liberty.

SPEAKER 2: Senator Mondale, do you enjoy being up here? I ask you that because I just noticed in the paper today that Senator Saxby says this place is boring. He's not going to run again. He's going to go back to his family business because he thinks he'd be happier. How do you feel about it here?

WALTER MONDALE: Well, first of all, I think if he feels that way, he should act on it. I find it very exciting, very challenging, and very important. I think there's some tendencies that you have to watch out for if you want to become cynical.

There's plenty of material to support that view. And you can become wrapped up in cynicism and despair. And if you follow that course, I think you've got to quit before you hurt somebody.

You never have exactly your way around here, and sometimes you're terribly disappointed. But this is the body, which has something to say about war and peace, about the chances of justice in America, about our environment, about practically every aspect of American life. And I feel enormously privileged to be here. And I feel a great responsibility, and I'm still excited.

SPEAKER 2: But you must have within your character, the ability to accept some kind of less than total answer because the Congress is really powerless to do just about all the things you mentioned.

WALTER MONDALE: I don't think we're powerless. We share power here with 500 and some people. And then whatever we do can be vetoed or tempered or impounded by the president. And thus the frustrations, particularly now for a person like me, when you have a president, whose philosophy collides so much with what I believe in, whose economic policies of inflation and unemployment, whose social policies which asks that decent education and decent health all the rest pay the full price while other things go untouched.

That's very frustrating. But we'll have our day. And I think we've prevented a lot of damage, if nothing else.

SPEAKER 2: What about your background? You know, success is based on many things. So I think intelligence is one variable, chance, luck, maybe. You were appointed attorney general of your state, and then elected.

You were also appointed to your present position when Hubert Humphrey became vice president, and then elected. Have you manufactured your own success? How has it come? What in your nature has made you successful?

WALTER MONDALE: I don't know. And I wouldn't even be sure that I've been all that successful. I have always been interested in government from my early teens. I've always been active in politics. I think it's very important. And I think when these two openings occurred, I was one of those who had shown enough interest to be considered.

I was a close friend of Governor Freeman's when I was appointed attorney general. I was then-- I think I had a record that in a following in Minnesota that made me one of those considered for the vacancy when Senator Humphrey became vice president, and I had the support of the vice president and of course, the governor.

SPEAKER 2: But what in your nature has made you successful being with you here today? I don't mean to compare you with the people who've done the things on Watergate, but they look like they're the types that would be successful, attractive, in command of themselves. Articulate you look the same way. But are you very ambitious?

WALTER MONDALE: I don't know about that. I've got a sense of drive, I think, like most people in politics. But I also try not to be an egomaniac. I try to keep some perspective.

SPEAKER 2: Is that hard?

WALTER MONDALE: Yes, very hard. Politics can devour you. It can destroy your family. It can destroy your personality. It can destroy your perspective. And you can do a lot of damage if you don't keep-- not everything in the world is politics. There are the arts, there's sports, there's the love of out of doors, there's your family. There's the need for rest and perspective. There's the need to read.

There's so many things that must be in a healthy person's life in addition to politics. And also, I think you need a certain sense of that it's just possible that the world could get along without you. Not likely, but possible.

Learned Hand once said that the spirit of Liberty is to be found in among other things in the notion that you might be wrong. And this is me telling you about myself, but I've always had that possibility in mind. It's not that I don't assert my ideas as best I can. But I enjoy hearing other points of view and trying to reconcile them.

SPEAKER 2: I've heard about you for years and years I worked up here on the Hill myself many years ago. And a lot of people say that you're the up and coming senator. Right now, you talked about as being a presidential candidate.

But to my knowledge on the outside, haven't made really any moves, just a little bit of moves in getting their going on Meet the Press or whatever once. But you haven't done what someone who's really interested in the job does. I don't think yet, have you?

WALTER MONDALE: Well, I suppose you could say in the last nine years, that's about how long I've been here. I've been basically a Senate type. I've worked on Senate problems. I haven't sought publicity. I've been very close to my own state, and I have not tried to establish a national popular following.

If I decide to run for the presidency, obviously, I've got to deal with that. And to try to become better known and to know more about problems in other states, and other regions, and more about the things which the president must deal with. And that is true.

I've been looking around, I've been giving some speeches around the country and talking to public and political leaders all over the nation, not only those who come to Washington, but I visited a good number of states. And if I decide to run for president, which I might, then obviously I have to move more in the area that you mentioned.

SPEAKER 2: What entices you to the presidency? Is it pressure people are putting on you, or is it from within yourself?

WALTER MONDALE: Partly, I guess, the five years under Nixon, six now, has shown me the enormous power of the presidency. And it's also scared me about the abuses of those powers. But it's obvious that if we're going to have the country, the kind of country that I want, that we need a president who wants to go in those directions. It doesn't have to be me, that's for sure.

But, for example, and I could give you hundreds of them. I worked for nearly three years hard on a Child Development Act, which I thought and think is terribly important in this country to help families, help their children have a better chance at life, particularly the poor and working people, who have to work and need someone to care for their children.

And what I got for that was a veto and no progress. And a good deal of I thought, cheap, harmful rhetoric out of the White House. And I would much prefer to see a president who would try to help people, rather than to draw on the worst of us to divide us and to paralyze social progress. And so I've decided that part of my job as a senator is to try to deal in that area, too.

SPEAKER 2: What would it do to you as a person to run for the presidency and say be elected? And wouldn't it completely dislocate your life?

WALTER MONDALE: I don't know. Your speculation is as good as mine. The presidency is an enormous task. It's probably larger than any person can really handle. And yet, every office that a human being occupies has to be capable of being handled. And I assume it would involve, should that ever happen, a tremendous change in living patterns and so on. But that's not serious, I don't think.

SPEAKER 2: Are you a completely different person at home? Is there a private Walter Mondale and a public Walter Mondale?

WALTER MONDALE: Yeah, my wife says I'm a monster. But I don't know if that's correct or not. I don't know. I try to be the same person.

SPEAKER 2: What I mean to say, I guess, is that are there characteristics of your unpublic self which you suppress in public?

WALTER MONDALE: Well, if there were, I sure wouldn't tell you.

[LAUGHS]

I don't think so. You better ask my wife. Maybe I'm different than some I. I don't think there need be any difference. I think there's a lot of posing in politics, a lot of posturing, a lot of artificiality. That's baloney. And I don't think the public buys it, or even likes it. I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be the same on or off the platform.

Whatever may have been political styles years ago, I don't think there's any reason why you can't be yourself at home and in politics.

SPEAKER 2: Say this were let's shut up, we're in your office now with all the panoply of power, the seals of your state and flags. Let me ask you this question. Say we're in an encounter session, which is very popular these days. And I said, Walter Mondale, use one word to describe yourself. What would it be?

WALTER MONDALE: I couldn't do that. I don't know what it would be. I have great difficulty describing myself anyway. I mean, other people have to do that. I just try to do my best. And beyond that, I think others have to say.

SPEAKER 2: Why? Are you uncomfortable in that mode?

WALTER MONDALE: No. But I spanked my children for bragging, and I don't think I should.

SPEAKER 2: That's so American. Why? What's wrong to brag? Really?

WALTER MONDALE: Well, first of all, I've been brought up that way. If a person is honest, I think other people have to decide that.

SPEAKER 2: You must be. You're probably the best judge, though, not other people--

WALTER MONDALE: Well, I think I am. But that's not for me to decide. It's for others to decide, as they watch me and see what I do. If I'm able, that's for others to say. I really can't. I really don't like to get into that because I just don't feel I can describe myself. And I think it's for others to decide.

SPEAKER 2: Am I making you uncomfortable?

WALTER MONDALE: No. I was just saying I just heard a noise on my desk. I guess that bug is making noises or something.

SPEAKER 2: I ask you this because I don't think people treat senators like people. At least the press, they always come and ask you about legislation. But what about you as a person? And I think people are more interested in you as a person.

WALTER MONDALE: I thought that's what we were talking about?

SPEAKER 2: Yeah, but you don't like to talk about that.

WALTER MONDALE: Well, I don't like to describe my personal characteristics because I think in a real sense, others in politics have to decide. The people have to look at you and decide what.

SPEAKER 2: But not the public characteristics. I mean, the private. Like, do you consider yourself a warm person?

WALTER MONDALE: Yeah.

SPEAKER 2: How do you like people when you meet people for the first time?

WALTER MONDALE: I like them. I feel sorry for people in politics who don't like to be around people. Because politics is people. And it's liking them, it's enjoying them, it's wanting to hear what they say, it's laughing with them, it's crying with them. It's an enormous source of strength.

Many times when I really get depressed, I find the best thing is to get on an airplane and go home and just move around for a while and see people. You feel better right away.

SPEAKER 2: You know, I was reading a book by Kenny O'Donnell and David Powers about Kennedy. Kenny O'Donnell said that Kennedy always judge people by appearances. If they didn't look put together well, he didn't really like them. Are you like that?

WALTER MONDALE: I try not to judge by first impressions. Often you're wrong. And it's not fair to a person. I noticed a lot of those people in Watergate were handsome, strong.

SPEAKER 2: I compared you to them.

WALTER MONDALE: All American just wonderful looking people. But they did some awful things. And their explanations were very hard to accept, and they said so. So I don't think how a person looks is necessarily determined. I think you have to know somebody and watch them and before you pass judgment.

SPEAKER 2: Are you a good judge of people?

WALTER MONDALE: I don't know. I try very hard not to be critical or condemning. And sometimes I'm too much so. But I think there's merit in most people. They may look at life differently than you. They may have different strengths or weaknesses. But it is the variety and the differences in humanity in people that I find exciting.

And so how do you judge people? Are they supposed to be brilliant? Are they supposed to be hard workers? Or are they supposed to be-- what is it? I think people go at it differently.

SPEAKER 2: What is the technique of impressing people when you only have a limited amount of time? So when someone comes to see you, they have to be articulate, put their point across quickly, do it succinctly without too many pauses, act self-confident. I'm sure, that is the way to make a point with you, isn't it?

WALTER MONDALE: Well, I'm sure it helps. But you asked me whether I judge a person on that first meeting. I try very hard not to. Everybody makes a first judgment, I'm sure. Whether you do it consciously or not, you do. But often those judgments are wrong.

And generally speaking, whether it's in business or labor or co-op movement or religion or the arts, if a person is recognized for some achievement, usually they've got something. And that isn't the only thing either.

I remember talking to a doctor one time. He said, I never cease to be amazed how smart some people are, and where you find those brains and that wisdom. He said, the smartest man I know never takes a bath. He lives out by himself and is sort of a recluse. And he said, every time he comes, I have to open the windows.

But he said, I look forward to that man because he is so wise. He said, I just can hardly wait till he comes in again and I can hear what he's been thinking about.

SPEAKER 2: Well, that's true. Our society as a whole doesn't tolerate deviance too much. We expect everyone to speak the same way, dress the same way, and look the same way.

WALTER MONDALE: And that's too bad. I think we should get over that.

SPEAKER 2: What about your parents? Did they instill these characteristics in you? Were they kind of-- your father was a what? Was he a preacher?

WALTER MONDALE: Yeah. He was. He grew up in what they call a Hauge Lutheran Church. It was a very strong Norwegian Lutheran group. And then he became a Methodist minister. And I think, very fortunate. We had a very strong family. Mom was also a very strong person. And we had a good family life. We were all busy and active and had a lot of fun.

SPEAKER 2: Was it success-oriented?

WALTER MONDALE: Oh, I don't know. There were certain principles that were more important than what some people mean by success. In terms of money, not at all. Dad didn't have any money. He hoped that none of us ever would, or it wasn't important. But truthfulness, respect for learning and ideas, a sense of justice and fairness, human rights, civil rights, an international interest, a lack of selfishness. Those are the kinds of principles that we got at home.

SPEAKER 2: Was there any ability to let off steam be gratuitous and kind of uncontrolled?

WALTER MONDALE: Oh, yes. We had a lot of fun. We always had a lot of laughs at home. We were always busy in all sorts of things-- sports, and music, and in the church. And there was always plenty of fun. We weren't a fierce, rigid, kind of highly disciplined family.

SPEAKER 2: Would it be wrong to say that you're a very controlled person? Disciplined?

WALTER MONDALE: Maybe so. I'm not flamboyant. I'm not suppose a very colorful or charismatic type. I like to know what I'm doing. When I do something here, I want to know that I'm prepared, that I've got the best answers that I can. I like a good competent staff. So the materials I'm working with are well-prepared from that standpoint. I don't like to spill emotion aimlessly.

SPEAKER 2: What does that mean?

WALTER MONDALE: I'm not sure. But I guess I said it earlier.

SPEAKER 2: You don't like to talk about yourself. That's what I'm having difficulty.

WALTER MONDALE: That's what I said earlier. No, I don't. Others can describe me. I don't like to describe myself.

SPEAKER 2: But isn't that going to be a disadvantage for you in running for the presidency? I don't know how to say this. It's kind of embarrassing. But the adjective used about you is that you lack charisma. You know that?

WALTER MONDALE: Sure, I've heard that.

SPEAKER 2: But with television charisma, maybe the people are fed up with charisma. I don't know. What do you think?

WALTER MONDALE: This may sound strange. I just am not going to worry myself about such things. I'm going to try to be myself, and I'm going to try to say it the way I want to say it. I'm going to try to honestly be the kind of person I am. And if that isn't work, I don't know how to be somebody I'm not.

And I think there's too much, as I said earlier, too much structuring and posing. Too many make up artists who are sort of deciding what the public wants. And then they take some plastic person, they try to push him around like putty to be what people might want to see and hear. And I think the public is a lot brighter than that, and they can see through it.

SPEAKER 2: I agree with you. But I wonder why so many people, for instance, in television, don't. The way they depict you people in the Senate is really unrealistic.

WALTER MONDALE: Oh, they like, and that's part of their job to analyze us.

SPEAKER 2: Well, but I mean, the fact is they set you all up as seers and as experts on everything.

WALTER MONDALE: They shouldn't do that. And the better reporters don't, in the same way that we have greatly exaggerated the president and the presidency. I think often exaggerate other public institutions. We shouldn't do that. We should all be considered human beings with strengths and failures and nothing else.

SPEAKER 2: What are your greatest failures? Weaknesses?

WALTER MONDALE: I've often thought, maybe I overemphasize the mechanics of politics. But I don't mean the campaign. But I spent an awful lot of time preparing issues and so on. Maybe it would be better if I spent more time on the human political side of an issue. I don't know.

I sometimes think I could discipline myself better so my days were more efficient. Democracy is inherently inefficient, and maybe it's always that way. You've always got to have time for people. But maybe I could be better organized than I am.

Those are some of the observations. I'm sure my staff could fill you in on a lot more.

SPEAKER 2: What about on the human side?

WALTER MONDALE: I don't know. I try to be understanding and tolerant. Once in a while, perhaps I get angry like everyone else. And once in a while, maybe I'm not as understanding as I should be. But I work at that. And I think I'm doing better than I once did.