Hubert Horatio Humphrey has been elected 4 times senator from the state of Minnesota in 1945. He was the youngest man ever elected as mayor of Minneapolis Saturday. I think the time is right now to congratulate you on a clean bill of health and that's important isn't it surely is to me. I don't know how the public feels and yes, I do. The public has been very good about it. And I'm very grateful for pee feeling healthy and getting a good clean bill of health from the doctor. I'm not sure to what extent the public is aware of the health problems. You've undergone. They are first time in my life that I've ever been ill loved any serious very serious nature since I was a child and I was a little boy about 5 or 6 years of age by have pneumonia. But other than that, I've been well I've had that you know what one time I have a hernia repaired and that sort of thing but always been healthy and strong. They would lots of Vitality and the energy I was affected this past year with the development of a tumor, very small thank goodness one that was discovered early and it was a tumor in the bladder area. Soon as it was discovered that we have cars tested it to the doctors did. In between are what you might call that malignancy and benign. I don't know how that works out, but they have different stations or what they called trouble in my doctor thought that we are to take prompt action. So I did I went through a series of X-ray treatments and as I understand it was only then that the real discomfort that that was mainly in the middle of the X-ray treatments and afterwards I should say our for most people is not too difficult or too painful a my doctor told me that I was sort of a textbook case that I was one of the unusual ones in this and it seem that my reaction was much more severe than most people I want to say this because too many people who may have difficulty such as I had I wouldn't want them to be discouraged At All by the reaction that I had. Because I would think out of a thousand cases that I was maybe one that had the very severe reaction. It was just unusual to me. But as my depositions have told me the last few days that possibly the severity of the reaction was one of the reasons for the totality of the of the Cure because my the tumor has completely disappeared the biopsy was totally negative and that makes all the pain seemed worthwhile. I'm not going to complain about it. It's almost hard to imagine Hubert Humphrey The Optimist the happy warrior undergoing the kind of pain that you're talking about. Well, it was difficult. I don't like to talk about it too much. I told my press secretary that I'm a little bit concerned because I feel so good right now and I generally think that people are becoming rather boring when they keep tell her other folks about their operation or their their health problems and so on. I did become discouraged it for a while and I was in great Agony in tremendous pain. Read more than I ever dreamed of that a person could quite stand but I also have a strong will and I have a great deal of faith. I felt that I would be well and I knew where they were quoted as saying that you wish for death. Well, you know, I guess that's more or less. I got the phrase that you toss out. What I was saying is sometimes it do anybody has things happen to him. So bad that you just wish it was all over that, you know that and that is a fact that there were times that I felt so terribly distressed Denim & Soul caught up with pain and Agony of the pain that you just wish somehow another could all be over whatever it was but I'm a I'm a man that enjoys life and I'm grateful tote for life. One thing that I must say out of all of this other couple of things. I'd like to say to you I received letters from people from all over the country that were so heartening. People who ask their churches their minister to have prayer services for me really? This is you know, this really happened letters from people. Black people for example that had a church and they would have a special service in my behalf. Some of my friends in the Jewish community that The Synagogue Church in the Protestant churches and I do believe in prayer and I do believe that in that man's life is a or one's life is not only governed by what he does or he or she does or what the medical profession does, but there is there is even a greater power and I guess that's when you get terribly ill that you begin to understand that you're not in complete control of your life that there is a God or Divine Providence and I don't mean to overdo this This discussion with you, but out of all of it. I learned that you just have to put Faith in a higher power that somehow or another you're going to come through it and it's going to be all right. I had the best of Medical Care the very best that doctors were strung out of garden the radiologist that did the work for me is one of the outstanding man than this. And I wanted if you ever should hear this broadcast, I want to know how much I appreciate it. And the people that took care of me. I would be the right thing and I follow their orders. I follow their instructions. The only thing that I know I did not even the rain Vision was I want to be here to continue my work. I'm a workaholic If you know what I mean, I and I want to repeat a workaholic not alcohol but a workaholic I had work to do in the Senate. Also. I always I work for me as a therapy and it's in its own right? I know that it had I just gone away and gone to a hospital during this. Of time. I've been in worse trouble I went and did my I took my treatments in the morning and I came and went to work all day long. I work every single day during the time that I was under treatment. How long did this Purgatory of Minnesota for a part of that? I know only in the Christmas vacation, I went home for the Christmas vacation. That's the only Christmas that I can remember all that I can recall that I wasn't truly happy. I was glad I did to see reference to the fact that you couldn't wear shoes or didn't want to wear shoes as matter of fact as a result of these therapy. Legs and so far it's clogged up and started to swell his cause the swelling in my feet but that all went down after I got back into the I came back to Washington and went into the hospital here where my doctor why is my doctor's I should save my chief Doctor Who took his taking care of me for years and I buy the care that they came from a friend of mine, but he doesn't try to be my physician is such a gentleman. That was my doctor was dr. Jarmon. Very top urologist. Washington during the. That you were right that you were suffering vastly. And you say they're the thought of death cross your mind, even if not for very long or very seriously and to wonder about How you might be remembered as a politician? Well, I wasn't quite the same as fatalistic about what the outcome is going to be as that but I cannot be I'll be frank with you that during the time that I was ill and knowing what my problem. Why is that I began to rearrange my I mean rethink out what I was how I might design and patterned my life. I didn't have the slightest frankly. I knew I was going to happen to be a believer in the power of Mind Over Matter. I really believe that most of Manziel's are due to his thinking or lack of thinking I don't know what to call it, but bye-bye had an awful. It was a Christian Scientist and I've always had great respect for their religious beliefs and for their for their Doctrine by am the son of the pharmacist. So I maybe I'm not exactly what you would call a Christian Scientist. Even though I must say that I'm up I'm of the opinion that that if you tap into what are they great sources of power Which are both spiritual and physical that you are were able to overcome those anything at that happens to you. My father was a great believer in this so used to tell me that you could do almost anything. If you at were able to sort of synthesize or synchronize your life with the forces that were available in the universe end and I I believe that I really believe that most people themselves into illness spiritual care about the obviously but I'm unsure of yourself and take too many pills. So they even though I believe that their medication has its role but no doctor or no medication can kill you if you don't want to be cured and don't believe that you that I really believe I believe that people can really destroy themselves and I was about ready to do that. I believe I would life is too precious and I love it too much. When I had to tell my wife and my family, what are my problems with my medical problem health problem? I realized I might have to slow down. So I'm that's if I even if I got through it, all right that it might be well for me to be thinking about maybe a little more time with my family and my friends but you know, everybody gets sorted deathbed religion is life somewhere along the line is they say now that I have recovered I still love I still recognize that there are limits to what you can do. I know that I want to spend more time with friends and with my family, but I also have things I want to do in public life public life is my life for this is what I want to do and I love this country and I happen to believe that the greatest service that I can perform his to be interested in people try to sense their needs to be responsive to their request and to work with people and I love children. I truly love children in the more I actually do Thickness of anything brought me closer to children. I got a real lift out of being with little children to see them I've ever I had reason to believe that the child could do great things for you could this. Of time just to be close to little children to have a chance to talk to them? I haven't told anybody else. This is a matter of fact, I don't believe but I really felt the just being near them as I walk to the Carters of the capital and visit with him that I was getting healed is not in life and strength from them and they are their smiles just made me even when I was in misery when I was in really in there what they call a spasm, you know, you have a kind of muscle spasms with this business. It would seem that be a great help to me just to be close to little children when you were a small child. What kind of kid were you Weaver? Serious? Did you look upon yourself as a future world noisy and because my father was so meaningful to me in my life both mother and dad. There were just real friends as well as parents. My father had a tremendous influence on me, but you couldn't finish college I guess for monetary reasons. That's right. I first went to college in 1929 at the University closed in our state my father lost all of his money and the business are was just hopelessly bad. Help my father in this in the business for a year. Then I went off to pharmacy school and got a degree in Pharmacy revive the dream. That's what even when I was a pharmacist. I was he president of the young Democrats Club. I was out speaking and every election. My father was a state representative. He was the county chairman of the party. He was a member of the National Committee dad when he take his vacations would go to a democratic convention mother used to think he was a little crazy doing things like that. But the first time I remember dad taking a vacation He piled into his car in Houston, Texas in 1928 for the nomination of Al Smith, and he has to go to Every Democratic Convention where they was a delegate or not. And I was very close to my father. We always talk politics in the in the store. I literally and he was my pal even though I had a very normal childhood. I played basketball football on the track team if you were warm in my little town You didn't have to be good. If it's just that if you were alive and the body was warm and why they put you on the team and that and that's all I was saying all these things. I was in debate and the pharmacy is a very good place to be in touch with a lot of people and the particular kind of Pharmacy. My father had which was an independent the main street drug store people came in for all kinds of advice. My father took care of as many people as patients as the doctor did they lots of times and go to the doctor they went to my dad's and then the doctors in town or close to my father and I can still see old doctor Sherwood coming behind the prescription case filling up his little bag with all these pills and usually they just were doctors that actually went out to visit people at their homes. You didn't have to come see the doctor Main Street pharmacist to mayor of Minneapolis. I was brought up to believe in the customer that I was brought up to believe in people by fathers Doctor Who What's the importance of people people were all important? That's that's in the way you treated people was pretty well the way you would be responded by the by the people. We were there was an absolute for Bolton about any kind of prejudicial or discriminatory talk. My father was of Universalist in many ways race Prejudice was not in. Our home religious Prejudice was not in my father's thinking. My mother was a wonderful good mother. She took care of us and it and loved us and we loved her and dad bought us up with old-fashioned ideas with three supposed to be good to my mother respectful of my mother. We were supposed to work and that came in first the drugstore was to be taken care of and that we were a family and we were going to stick together you mention this business of racial prejudice. It seems to me that your first national identification was on that subject. Yes, you were known I think is an uncompromising idea that they found her. I believe of the Americans for Democratic and you were identified with this issue. How did that come about about the race problem? I don't think I ever really did I grew up in a small town in which there are no race problems as such but there were areas of discrimination. There were some people that were poor and some that weren't and some people were talked about somewhere not be religious Prejudice between Protestants and Catholics and I can remember even the Ku Klux Klan burning a cross out on the hillside in the little town where my father was a businessman because my dad was Ralph Smith and When I went to University of Minnesota, of course, I I came into a more sophisticated and Cosmopolitan surrounding and because I studied in political science and sociology and philosophy history. I suppose I developed an academic understanding of race problems entitled to certain certain respect and there's nothing in the Constitution that said that these rights are for white people. It just says we the people they forgot somewhere along the line to put in black people read people yellow people or white people just said we the people and when I became mayor of Minneapolis where I we did have some race problems and we had some of that and I somehow it anti-Semitism in particular the city I resolved that I would use whatever influence I had is a public official to combat racial Prejudice a religious intolerance and it's just a simple I mean Nevada convention in Minneapolis is Mayor we had the mayor of Civil Rights Commission Human Rights Commission that I set up we passed the first Fair Employment Practices ordinance equal employment opportunities with powers of enforcement. We had the cities of survey. Looking at our whole community in terms of race and religious relationships. I said, well, let's put this into the Democratic platform puzzle pack Harry Truman and set up this Commission on human rights and they'd come out with a program and the president endorse that program. I knew the Truman was going to be an omni of our party and I saw no reason that I probably should back away from the recommendations of his commission. So I just went out and did it that's all you know, and I believed in the important thing was I believed in that there was no The way there was no place for this back home because we don't have that big of black population or that as such as a matter of fact, it might have been slightly or negative because of in our rural areas in the more conservative and people did look upon me as sort of a wild-eyed fellow go in there and doing this sort of thing. But my dad was a very good Democrat you said well, son, I worry about that this may split the Democratic party and I said, yes Daddy I may do that. And we talked awhile and you said but do you really believe that what you're doing is right and needs to be done. And I said I do really said then go do it is that I have a very simple Philosophy for you do what you need to do for tickly if it does not do injury to somebody else. And that's really the way I was brought up. I mean we were brought up to be free Spirits as long as it did not hurt or damage someone else and I didn't believe that standing up for equal opportunity for the American people was going to hurt somebody I thought it was going to help somebody even when one thinks about the name your parents gave you a Hubert Horatio stand up for something other than the survey as to what names did to you and the two names that they were to hold you back more than any other two names were Elmer and Hubert and I think it's that I had that named Hubert and got as far as I did it. Would you be if your name? When were you bitten by a ratio? I'll never know. My four-year-old granddaughter asked me and you know, I told her the story Little Cynthia. She said to me she wasn't getting enough attention cuz she's got three older sisters and I was paying more attention to them. But the moment and she says to me Grandpa. What is your name Isaac name? She said no. I want to know your whole name. I said what? My name is Hubert Horatio Humphrey and she said Horatio. That's a funny name Grandpa and I said will not let me tell you how I got it. And so I told her about Horatio at the bridge and the days of Rome and I said now there was a river Cynthia and on one side of the bridge where the bad guys and on the other side of the Red Bridge with a good or the bad boys and girls on the other side of the bridge with a good boys and girls and then there was a man there by the name Horatio like Grandpa and he stood there at the bridge and he had a big stick. And he kept those bad boys and girls away from the good boys and girls so they wouldn't hurt them and back in those days. They were so proud of Horatio. They said Horatio was the greatest Roman of them all and she looked up at me and she says for Grandpa, you're a Democrat oldest son her grandfather on her mother's side is a Navy captain and everytime Lori would go to see that's Grandpa or Grandma. She's a little extra dose of patriotic talk and which is fine good for her and her grandfather had that brought her up to Salute just like that. She's a cute little tyke so she went to visit. She went to a birthday party with some of her little friends when she was about two or three years old and she had to go potty. So she went on into this little bathroom washroom, and she looked up on the wall in the wall in there had flags all over it with your life when she saw the flags. She's so that's what kind of life you miss the beauty of like, I know move from the potty to the White House. Well, I suppose is a very young man. I used to. Romanticize dream that I might be in politics and I wanted to be in politics that was ticking to when I was in my twenties and young very young fellow and I imagine somewhere along the line in my more fantastic dreaming why I dreamt the baby someday, I might be president but that's not an unhealthy are they pretty came over me in a serious way in the in the late fifties and about 1960 when I decided to run in the presidential primaries of that year about 950 59 and the 1960 Campaign, which was essentially against Jack Kennedy. But I guess the the focal point there will always remain in the minds of those who lived through it and watched it West Virginia. Yes. There's so many stories about how discourage you were at the lack of money. You had a cluster of money that the other fella hat that was in your backyard where I was in our backyard but backyards are not the same as your private property end of Wisconsin politics is very different from Minnesota politics and particular in primary. Yes. We are very close and they have open primaries have the opportunity of crossover voting and all that which is an Abomination which is an adult adulteration West Virginia. I when I ran there I found it every time that I be there there would be another one of my friends of the Kennedys someplace else. It would be the John Kennedy Senator Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy there be Eunice Kennedy there be Teddy Kennedy and there'd be Rose Kennedy and there'd be some other Kennedy and I said I felt like a independent Merchants competing against literally impossible cover as many places is that wonderful family could feel the same thing happened in a very big way and they in West Virginia. I felt it in West Virginia. I had that most likely a chance because of I identified in the least of my heart and spirit with money of the needs of the people there, but I was really unable to to bring my message through the people as much as I wanted to plus the kind of politics it was there since we're talking about a very organized and the political machine and then West Virginia they had what they call slating. And that meant that if you were slated by the political party that the whole party organization campaign for you you were on their sample ballot the poll Watchers were your poll Watchers. The people are at the gates of The Ballot Box were there with your literature at cetera? Well, I didn't have enough money to get slated. Can I just put it frankly the price was too high? And I remember when we were just playing payment to the political party. Just something you would if you want to do is be slated. You had to pay the political party of substantial sum of money for them to carry on their campaign before you open up the yeah. It was that one of my associates came to me and said that if we had $25,000 we might be able to get slated and I said that $25,000 of being like a tip. I mean if that isn't that what they are. It's going to be more than that and we don't have more than enough money to get from town to town is a matter of fact, I want on a radio broadcast one night and they wanted the money before we broadcast and I had done. I remember I wrote out my own personal check another time. I called up my father and my father and my brother Ralph and ask him if he could be willing if he'd be willing to send me down some money so that I could continue the campaign. We were just flat broke frankly. We were we just barely had enough to drive our car. Mrs. Humphrey was covering the part of the state and our little station wagon and I was in a little bus going around these days. We had very little money but in the stories are that you were hurt wounded also by the kind of politics it was going on but not being in the military service for the wrong reasons. I forget about those. I don't even like to talk about stuff like that at least to a person who is observed. But you know out of that defeat I gained national attention and I don't believe that you can possibly become a national political figure in the United States without some confrontation and without the both some suffering and some success Kennedy himself over in the vice-presidential. That's that's exactly what she thought the religious issue would keep him from winning and when I look back at it, I'm really I really think that I was a great help to him because I tested Jack Kennedy and gave him a hard run in these primaries and we discussed issues. Jack Kennedy became deeply interested in the poor people in West Virginia because of that campaign. He became deeply involved in the issues of Rural America because of our campaign in Wisconsin. We discussed in this campaign the arms control agency we discussed in his campaign the Peace Corps and it literally we built the program of the Kennedy administration in that campaign. And even though I had to suffer the the the defeat in West Virginia, it was in West Virginia that the back of religious Prejudice and politics was broken and I'm glad that I had a part in doing it because I would never permit any kind of religious discrimination or intolerance in my public or private life and had he not contested with me in West Virginia and have broken that that terrible terrible hold it was on American politics at a Catholic couldn't win. I think that we might have lost the opportunity to have a great leader as Jack Kennedy was when he became president right now into the years that you really made a reputation as a very hard-working Senator and I remember arriving in Washington in the early 1960s and meeting you for the first time and I was told by my colleagues in the Press Gallery. Just tell Sandra Humphrey. What do you want 30 seconds or 45 seconds or 1 minute and he'll give it to you. That was my first introduction spots. I could tie myself like that. Of course when I'm with you and I piss I'm not time at all. I'm just having a great time but that was a remarkable little kind of technical trick that that you could still do. Electronic media by the way, you just will not go up to the gallery because they're not going to use you for three or four minutes, you know the media. Does a gallon jar with audiences? I I really like the juices to run this we say and I get stimulation from people. I can go to a meeting where I before I go. I've got a case of the flu and a bad headache and look and feel like I wouldn't even make it and after I've been there 5 minutes with those people. I'm cured literally, I mean all at once so juices start flowing on the body gets warm and I drink I gain strength from that audience. I really do and I have a difficult time that I gaining strength from from the from the mechanical instruments not talking with you. Like I am now I become involved you in this microphone is before me doesn't seem to be given I frankly don't even hardly notice it but just to sit here and talk to a microphone like some actor that is that drives me up at 3. I have to see the reaction of people. I like to look in your eyes. I like to see what's happening to you. And I think the same thing is with you looking at me. There's so many phonies so much pulling as they can come into the Acting on the radio and television because it is acting sometimes but I can't really act too long. If you're looking at me all the time. You're going to spot whether or not I am really sincere or whether I memorized it for 5 minutes to do a 1-minute Spot while we go first to Sandra Humphrey because we knew that he could give us only 30 seconds if we couldn't use any more that's all I have to do everything and you know, we have to do with thinking about it. So I think you were used as as a senator as a senatorial voice perhaps more than you might have been had you not had that I think so, but also I think I've noticed in politics in his position that you have. For example, I was the majority whip at that time and it's very active Senator close to the Kennedy administration. As a legislative leader and much of the legislation that I have been long proposing was coming into was blossoming. So to speak things that I come to a point where they can be passed so that I was news copy of those. I think we're the best years of my scented life. That's 61 to 65. I think you should say that because I have the same the same impression the to return to our chronology. I guess the next Landmark is when the President Johnson fact you and Senator Tom. Into an airplane and said he's going to be vice-president. What's the is there anything we don't know about that. I think there is Atlantic City to Washington took place. I was informed by a gentleman by the name of mr. James Rowley who was an attorney here in Washington. And was watching the they convention for for President Johnson. He told me he said now the president's going to have you come down to the White House over tonight. He's going to talk to you about the vice presidency along with us. And he said I don't want you to be the only thing going in 60 for the presidency and the Democratic politics that was all involved was Rosie revolving around whom Johnson might want for vice president, and he wanted to create and he did it beautifully when we came back down from Atlantic City, but not that particular visit. I knew what was going to happen to me. I have been informed that is when I say new as a ninety nine chances out of a hundred. They always something can change the last minute. Did you have any qualms about Lyndon Johnson at that period of your life did you think perhaps that he's too demanding too much of a personality 2 unable to deal with the criticism and that I'll be to Anonymous as a vice president that everybody has their shortcomings. Are there a dios in Chris's or characteristics? Whatever you wish to call Lynn. I have been very close to Lyndon Johnson in the Senate not as an intimate social fan, but I'd work with legislative matters a great deal. I was one of the Deputy whips in the Senate when he was when he was the majority leader. I was very I was one of the Liberals that could talk with Lyndon Johnson. In fact, I was sort of a liaison between our group the liberal groups of the speak to Paul Douglas Herbert Lehman Estes kefauver Hubert Humphrey group and so far is James Murray and others. I was the man that was doing the negotiating for our group with John. We sort of hit it off together quite well and certainly on domestic matters, but he later became president and I always told my liberal friends that Lyndon Johnson was essentially a new dealer that Lyndon Johnson was was what would be a pro civil rights man? Because I knew the man that is a public figure alone. But privately I knew him in private conversation. I knew of his concern over the Mexican-American over the black people and I knew that this man if he had responsibilities would deliver as we put it and the best thing that I saw when Lyndon Johnson was after the death of President Kennedy, President Lyndon Johnson made up his mind that he would carry out to the best of his ability every pull program and policy that Jack Kennedy had placed before the Congress and he worked tirelessly feverishly to get this done and I was deeply involved with him at that. Of time. That was from 60s. 364 FM November 63 up through 64 in Vietnam War about a continuity of policies and it started and I actually from the days of the Eisenhower Administration even back with Truman. I mean there with that our assistance to the Friendship one time back in the F Kennedy Administration, you know how many eventually but I don't think that we should ever let anybody try to rewrite history. The fact of the matter is that the Kennedy administration was committed to our our presence in Vietnam and deed that even the late Robert Kennedy and speaking in Saigon was deeply committed I have right in that briefcase right there the cards the quotations that I used to carry around. The end of Robert Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy at one point volunteer to be Lyndon Johnson's ambassador to Saigon. There was something like that. Yes, but I want to get back into the my feelings about. Mr. Johnson. I knew that he was demanding. I knew that he was a strong man. He he almost overwhelmed you there is no doubt about that. But I knew that he was able and capable and I knew that he was essentially a progressive on domestic legislation and insofar as foreign policy was concerned during those Senate years. We were both born 800 and for the foreign aid program so that in the main just that one area in which there are two areas in our Senate career where we different was on the oil industry and Taxation and upon upon civil rights, but even then Lyndon Johnson was the leader for the 57 and the 1960 Civil Rights Acts as you recall the time. You were vice president to his president. He had you and I have her locked in the I mean, even if you didn't agree, what could you do? Well, that's the way everybody has their own view of how the vice presidency should work from the earliest days of this Republic after the days of Adams and Jefferson when it became perfectly and Jefferson and Burr it became obvious that there had to be a president and vice president that were like a team and we amended the Constitution to provide for their simultaneous election on the same ballot issue recall. What about the Franklin Roosevelt and I fell from Texas was his and John Vance. I've just been so I just finished reading some of these Roosevelt years and for Tiffany of the years and Harry Truman who is a Coney it is a used to say a good friend of John Nance. Garner. Garner was a Very much more conservative than Roosevelt leader in the house here in the United States Senate as to get that New Deal program through and how much of that new deal program John and starters philosophy did not Embrace but he struck but he stood by many reporters have come to me about this about Johnson. I supported Johnston's program. I think our program in the Congress was terrific. We need it. Now. We need that kind of leadership. Now we passed legislation. We cut new round the only argument that we ever that the liberal Community had was Lyndon Johnson was over the war in Vietnam. And even you nurse a quote we miscalculated. I think that's true. But when I say we I think many people in our government miscalculated and I want to tell you something else we're going to miscalculate a lot of other things from here on out because neither you and I know anything about China. Neither you nor I know much about Russia neither, you know, I know much about the Arab states either, you know, I know much about anything except Western Europe in the United States and we have representative government and who's going to be our president in 1976. What's he going to know about the world in which we live and yet he's going to make decisions just like this President is making decisions and those decisions live with us who's going to be president in 1970 became a world power literally overnight without the depth of understanding and the chance to have the depth of understanding. It was necessary about this complex World in which we lived and we were compelled to make decisions in areas where we had little or no knowledge and we substituted power for knowledge and that is the great mistake and that's why I think the miscalculation we thought that's what did we do wrong? And in what way would you revise your own participation in those in those years? I could live it all over I'd like to stop. Back in about 7 years of age but I can't hear you're in the white house. Would you have done the question is what do you do when you have to do it? You can't always wait for who they disagreed quite strongly at times with the Vietnam policy talking about Townsend hoops and fill Goulding over the Pentagon. Even Dean Rusk is now said to have been a moderating influence on Lyndon Johnson in some respects. I sat in on the cabinet meetings. I was a member of the National Security console and I sat in on a lot of things not all of them, but not all of it. But all the time that I hear about these people that were telling Linda Johnson that he was wrong. They must have done it when they were going with him to the closet because I sure didn't hear it around the table. I don't know whether Lyndon Johnson. I thought you were a couple things. I had my disagreements on bombing of the north for example, but you're still pretty tough on the vehicle. You still think that they deserve to be repulsed long are nothing but of course I do. I mean I never changed my mind about that the question that I think that's why I have to ask herself as we look back is whether or not the effort that we made was worth the sacrifice. I was struck recently by a statement of someone made about Elliot Richardson. it was said that Ellie Richardson was the first High United States official in god-knows-how-long to resign on a point of principle now that made me that much I might have resigned but you see what happens with people like yourself is you're trying to tell me what I thought I was not a hypocrite about Vietnam I thought what we were doing was basically right now I may have been wrong and history will have to prove that I may have been wrong but had I felt that Lyndon Johnson was wrong wrong wrong I would have broken with him I would have done that now you're coming from Minnesota senator Mundial is a hoping to be president and one of the crosses that he must bear among the parties liberals is that he stayed with you and you say as use David Johnson Senator Mondale didn't become a dove until I think 1969 stayed with himself. He did what he believed was right. He didn't have any obligations to me. I possibly had some obligations to the president because of Vice President talking about his votes in the Senate and I surely am not critical of them from 64 to 69. Those were his boat's not mine and he never consulted me nor did I consoled him a lot of misses a different. Of history and a very different it is my present judgment that as a South Vietnam and South Vietnam that we'd miscalculated overcommitted. And that the effort that we made there will have to be judge basically on the long-term of history. When I say that what's going to happen in that part of the world. I have to ask these questions what would have happened if we were not sure what would have happened to India? If we were not there what would have happened to Malaysia if we were not there. I don't know whether or not they'd gone down. The drain is free and independent countries. It would have been injury has and I can't predict that they would have gone down if we weren't there but some of them fought so our relationships with with Russian with China have changed so profoundly over the past few years. Now, you've lost by an eyelash to Richard Nixon in 1968 and it has been said by wiser heads than mine that it did needed a republican to make the approaches to Peking and to muscatatuck Hubert Humphrey been in the white house. He would have had people like Richard Nixon snapping at his heels. Tried to do it. No doubt about it would have been possible for you to a Shiva rapprochement with laughter that there's a sort of us. In politics, I believe that it was possible for us to go to be able to make the Breakthrough with the People's Republic of China to open that door and to have a chance to walk through primarily because the man who was the president is the man who spent his whole life building his political career on opposition to the People's Republic. Remember that Richard Nixon was the anti communist candidate year after year, not so much of Russia as he was a China. He was the one that worked with the China the China first or what was that that they China Lobby or whatever. It was close to Chiang Kai-shek Etc. But when he became president to his Everlasting credit, he rose above those that parochial interests in that prejudice the point of view of history and he proceeded to try to establish relationships of China. I was willing to support him in that effort. I would I doubt that I would have had support from the African leadership or from Mr. Nixon had I tried to do that myself and I've been pressing the United States. Have you understood the nature of this man this individual Richard Nixon for a long time or have the Watergate Revelations changed you and your perception of him? I don't think any of us really understand other people to the depth of we should have done I had I was never particularly surprised that the that the Richard Nixon would run a tough campaign and there would love to paint background. I have not been Vino towards the president and I for one and for several reasons, first of all, I want to have a man whoever's in the White House be respected and I don't want to contribute anything to the lack of respect. He can do destroy himself Watergate or the role of Richard Nixon. I think it is incredible. I think they the president Nation of abused powers of government have violated the Constitution. I have I have openly attacked. These are the abuses but I have tried to do it without there being two per his policies in Fords active activity ridiculous misbehavior in dirty tricks by Donald segretti. I need to rehearse so what they were but you didn't take that personally you don't you don't respond in a problem. Yes. I didn't like it but I think that proves that they are not what I am, sexy guy. I think you have to live above what I call scum. Leslie Bobbitt one point that Donald segretti made that I'm not sure many people heard very well was it he wasn't out to affect the voters in Florida and elsewhere. He was out to fragment the Democratic candidate in that respect not very well. He didn't need to give us much help. The Democratic party was doing a pretty good job amongst his self. He was overpaid. He was overpaid by the way Mister segretti. Send me a letter of apology. A very Frank and then sentimental or I'd say it a very honest and open letter of apology and I believe that that the man wants to apologize. I thought to accept it. I look I I mean I could be bitter about a lot of things in public life is one of the dangerous dose of understanding and love not a big dose of bitterness and hatred and I'm not going to spend my life hating people because they did something to me do unto others as you would have them do unto you is not something just to read on Sunday my dear friend and I think the best asset that I have in my life is that I don't become hateful and bitter towards people the 1972 campaign was also marked by confrontation between you and Senator McGovern and I'm wondering if you have any second thoughts about the challenge that you issued in the California primary after the votes were all in and after you had play Committed yourself not to make that no, I have none whatsoever. Because I know that the other ones were already written an article that if things didn't go right he was going to leave the party for the Life Magazine. Now, I happen to like George McGovern and I think I didn't even great favor in the California primary. I got him off that kick on a couple of programs that he was on that we're going to be rolling asteroid. George is a good man. He's a decent man and despite all of the things that people try to say about us and get us to fight and by the way the media sometimes Really? That's one of the problems in the world today. We've got people that are constantly promoting hostility. Washington is full of them. There are hundreds of them for square block a few people that are trying to promote understanding promoting forgiveness. People make mistakes. Everybody makes him just cuz you're in public life, you don't recognize that there are differences of opinion that people that were fallible that we make mistakes and somehow another you got to try to bring people together to move ahead. Is this what you said yourself as you read the White House transcripts of the Watergate business ever happened with people who are normal and intelligent and educated. I consider what's in the transcripts to be at to leave more questions opening questions that they answer it's just outrageous. No one could have written a scenario like that. You have been touched. Lightly, I think but unless touched in a couple of ways in the Watergate business one has to do with the fact that you also are at donator of papers, but I think you would claim that there was an enormous difference between the way you donated your vice presidential papers and the way Richard Nixon donated. I mean I did mine within the wall. And that's a regular difference. You know, I mean is a d a deduction is a deduction if it's legal if it is not legal. It is not right and I gave within the time frame of the wall and they're not after those not after the law so to speak and I given by the way the papers other than those that were claim for deductions. I'd started out even with my marriage papers in my send the papers and so on Down the Line. How about your relationship with Dwayne Andreas who is a contributor to your political campaigns, you're fine man and like many other people he got in some difficulty cuz he tried to help a man and politics the curse of politics is money. And I say that until we get public financing of campaigns are going to have it. We never had enough money had we had enough we've never been in trouble with our problem was that we always were short and we always had to go on out looking for it and find desperately to get somebody to loan him some money or to help us just a little bit remember in the 1968 campaign. We spent 1/4 of what our opposition spent according to our reports. I filed my reports on time the 1972 campaign. I spent 1/6 in the primaries what was spent by some others. I just didn't have it. I didn't have it. But again, I want to say that until the American public is willing to come down on public financing like the check off on the income tax where you can put your little of your income tax money off in a trust fund for political activity until we're willing to clean up that financing of campaigns. The stench will be there. This is the source of infection. This is the source of Suspicion and doubt you would never believe me. I know if I told you that people who contributed to me did not own my vote here this past week. I've been exported by organized Labor All My Life. They were bitterly opposed to standby controls bitterly opposed to keeping the cost of living console active. I was for it and I voted for it. I do not let people run my life. I'm an independent man and I make my judgments run right along with somebody else's but when I am ready to and I feel that I've got something to do I do it. I want to cancel it this way. You have been vice president and you have lived through it. In which vice president has disgraced himself and disgraced his office. I believe you are now instrumental. Are you not in finding a new way of choosing vice presidents? We've established in the Democratic Convention National commission to look into the Improvement of the selection of a vice president. Yes, and we had we had a commission of about 50 people we came up. Some proposals which I think will be helpful. We extended the time for example in the convention so that you didn't have to hurry in the picking of a vice president. Also, one of the things that I think was most valuable we permit the convention to adjourn so to speak and you have a mini convention made up of the total National Committee which will select the vice president so that there is no rush so that you have a chance to take a look at all the credentials. So we're not going to have another Spiro Agnew or another Tom Eagleton anyway on the Democratic side if your plan goes through without you can't be sure of that. But let me say we're trying to put up as many protections and precautions as we can and let me just say a word for Tom Eagleton. Tom. Eagleton is a fine and good man. And I think a great Injustice was done to this. I really do because if a man that is going that has to seek a medical assistance. That's his some psychiatric care is denied the opportunity to serve in public office and off a lot of people are going to be I have looked at some facts. I knew what had musky was and I knew what some others were. I figured I might get the nomination. And since I did I'd looked around to see what kind of a man we might want for vice president. And I think I made a pretty good selection pretty honorable fellow and Edmund Muskie. Thank you for congratulations.