(00:00:00) You're listening to ksjn 1330 Minneapolis. And st. Paul. Good evening. I'm Kathy Wars ER and welcome to the repeat of today's midday program former Minnesota. Senator Eugene McCarthy was in the Twin Cities this past weekend to note the 20th anniversary of his campaign for the presidency. It was in the height of the Vietnam War in McCarthy became the Democratic alternative to the policies pursued by then President Lyndon Johnson Johnson is you'll recall subsequently dropped out of the race for re-election in the 1968 contest on the Democratic side, ultimately came down to to minnesotans McCarthy and vice president Hubert Humphrey Humphrey won the nomination, but went on to lose to Richard Nixon in the general election of 1968 a bit more history than necessary to be sure but all of which is bringing me around to mention that McCarthy appeared in the Minnesota Press Club a week ago Monday, November 30th. He spoke for about 20 minutes and then took about a dozen questions from members of the audience McCarthy rent two more times for president and challenged Mark Dayton for the dfl endorsement for A senate seat but McCarthy's most active political days ended after 1968 and he spent much of his time since then in rural Virginia writing essays magazine articles poems and books. His latest book is up till now a reflection on some of the political leaders. He's known over the years. He spoke at the Minnesota Press Club on the topic the United States the number one colony to the world with that introduction here now is Eugene McCarthy (00:01:26) I'm not sure that I can say I don't need it or duction 's and he more I was crossing the street in New York about six months ago and man seemed to recognize me said your Senator McCarthy art should I said well, yes and just as the light changed he said but you're not as much against the Communists as you used to be and I said no, we all have all eased up a little bit. I said you've ever said that he sort of agreed with that and went on across the street. I love most on I don't know what you really came because I was allowed to speak on whatever subject I wanted to which left it open. You might have assumed I'd speak on myself as a favorite subject, but I was glad to have some Choice the last three or four times. I've been out of had to give eulogies and I concluded that. Politicians that the ordinary order of tents and verbs is past present and future but with politicians its future present and past and so I cannot speak for these people 30 years ago saying what they would be 15 years ago saying what they were and recently say what they have been so it's kind of a reversal that he case I'm not going to speak about myself today other new probably mention that the title of my book up till now is really a threatening title. I was suggested that I called Memoirs and I said no I won't because back in 68. I was being criticized by Dean Acheson and Paul Douglas both of whom had written their memoirs. And the Press said what do you think of their criticism as well? I don't think much of it. But I said no politician has written his Memoir should be consulted on any current subject and I've held to that as a kind of absolute rule ever since and refused to write my Memoirs. He even though up till now may carry us. So pretty close to the to the to the end. I the other day. I was just spoiled and Biden didn't plagiarize anything for me. It was it was a serious exclusion. I I've reached a point where I'm starting to plagiarize myself and a way for people to recognize. Hey, somebody else said that 30 years ago. He must have a mental discover that actually I said it I thought have I talked about the Press but Ivy I think the Press is going to serve. I have and I talked about it too much. I have a general thesis out of though is sort of a theme from Spangler who said that the never more than two Estates that any society that are really stable the church and the state and if there are any other second and third and fourth Estates, they're unstable that eventually if the church doesn't hold on to what it's supposed to be some other institution takes it over and if the state doesn't hold on why some other institutional take it over sometimes the church takes the state sometimes the state takes the church but in our society, the Press has really taken over the function of religion the pope isn't sure he's infallible now, but editors are so we've got of absolute judgment in colonists have what we used to attribute to the clergy or at least the higher clergy something called Grace of office which gives them Social Privileges and it really it comparisons are almost to Pat. I hate to give them but you know, the church had the index and the New York Times. / it's what's fit to be read. They kind of index and some of the press has a kind of Inquisition. They put people on the list but more serious in recent times has been the exemption of the press from public exposure back in the Carter Administration. It was published size that his director on drugs had had a pot party and the New York Times printed it and it later turned out they were to edit two reporters from the times at the party. They weren't there as reporters. They were there for the party. So they then told another New York Times Reporter because they wouldn't break confidence so they confessed it in a way. And he wrote the article, but they then said they wouldn't tell who had been at the pot party because it would have broken the Seal of the press. And also they said it might reflect adversely on the newspaper business and no one wanted that to happen. So that in five or six major points that comparisons are almost identical and I pursued this question of editorial power and influence and if you're hard-pressed we decided that it really originated when Moses came down from the mountain with the first unsigned editorial and from that time you had no problems. If you just go back to the beginning and you can run it. Well, I'm not going to talk about about the Press. I'm and I thought I might talk about the presidential choices, but I've worked at down to such a fine point that I can give it to you very quickly. I was asked why I endorse Reagan in 1980 and I said was the application of the absolute principles which are these one you don't really vote for someone because he says he Do something that he can't do you can scratch that but what he tells you he won't do something that he couldn't do. Anyway, it's irrelevant it take kind of a look at what he says he do that he could do because he might but what you really look at is what he says, he won't do that he could do if he decides to do it, especially it was something you wanted very badly and you couldn't get it any other way and so in 19, well, actually it develop is so observing Nixon or 20 years in politics. Nixon said the last thing he'd ever do was recognize the red Chinese and it was just you never know. When one of these people will fulfill a promise that you'll always be hopeful and it was important that he did it. And as I looked at Ronald I the one thing he said he wouldn't do That he could do. What I wanted done was to reduce nuclear arms. Jimmy Carter said he would but he couldn't so it didn't make much difference and it looks to me as though this great principle of mind is being demonstrated as valid and if it if it so happens while say I really was ahead of my time with that judgment and you can keep applying this to the other candidates as they come along in the next election. I don't know quite what any of them are promising but most of it's in the range of saying what they would do that they can't do and what they won't do that they couldn't do anyway. So you're you got the major area of decision and choice still open. I don't know whether I need to explain my move to Virginia. I really have still legal resident of st. Paul. But I have been pressed on that by Bernie and I did explain that one reason I least moved was that Minnesota has become the mother of democratic vice presidents. And Virginia was once known as a mother president. So I thought if one had any higher Ambitions why the thing to do was to sort of move to more suitable environment and something might happen in any case what I will talk to you about the announced subject, which is one that I would like to see addressed since at least in its parts in this campaign, which is the title was something United States the number one colony to the world. And that unless we began to look at our real position and state we're not going to make very good judgments. And again without oversimplifying I was a said I was accused of oversimplifying I said, no, I just refining things which is significantly different. But if you if you sort of list the characteristic sort of of classical colonialism as these five or six things one lack of control over your own foreign policy and military policy with the mother country or whatever the superior Authority may be determining or dominating that policy with loss of control over the ownership of productive property and real property in your own country with loss of control over your own monetary system or a great dependency with you becoming a country that exports raw materials that Imports manufactures or if you look to things like loss of control over your own. Orders or even control over your own language. You have the six or seven major standards by which historically and traditionally Colonial status has been determined if we apply these to our own State. I think we have to concede that we really have not had significant control over our own foreign and military policy for some time the forces that have limited sort of historical determination of what our policy have been are at least three or four of some significance first. We established that foreign policy and military policy could be determined on Purely ideological lines. If it was Communist on the other side why we didn't have to ask any questions in historical context, but could just move ahead and if that wasn't enough we had under especially with John Foster Dulles. We went around the world or he did signing up entreaties for Already one would sign whether it was Seto or Cento or anyone else that would sign on. He was probably the greatest coveter since John Calvin and he established in each case are said he did legal and moral obligations for us to do what he said we'd agreed to do and whereas Eisenhower didn't do much of what bell has recommended her agreed to subsequent Administration. Unfortunately Democrats felt or at least accepted or acted as though they accepted this obligation and where the treaties and Covenants didn't quite Supply why we passed resolutions the Middle East resolution and eventually the Tonkin Gulf resolution, but in between their work remotely and Matsu resolutions and Formosa resolutions, all of these having the effect of foresee, or at least 10 need to force foreign policy into an ideological mold almost like the religious wars of of past centuries, and that didn't survive enough. We got into something called. Doctrines starting with Monroe, but he didn't know he had proclaimed the doctrine. It was subsequently said he had he wasn't here to deny it George Kennan said he had no Doctrine but others who wanted to use George his defenses or use George as a defense said he did have then we got the Eisenhower Doctrine on the Middle East which said if you're invited in while you can go and that eventually got to wear if you are invited you have to go and finally in Grenada. The Reagan Doctrine was least not formulated but acted upon which was even if they don't invite you and you don't have to go you can say they should have invited me and I should have gone. So by that time it's it's all over it was it was like the Cambodian incursion. I mean, if you can't do it in the framework of ideological differences and treaties and resolutions and Drones you can have an incursion. First encouraged in our history was the Cambodian incursion. We never never done an incursion before it's a it's hard to do with there's no verb. You cat in curse, you know, it's the opposite is an Excursion and it doesn't go with an incursion. So it's a kind of a lost word in its own world. It's existential and Nixon's Administration invented to explain Cambodia said we didn't do it. It's it's like an incursion of cockroaches. It's just it's it's it's an existential experience. And so Grenada was the same sort of thing. It was they started to called incursion. Then someone said no that's called an invasion because I think if it works out, well you caught an invasion but in any case foreign policy determined in the context of ideological distinctions treaties, which may have some relevance to may not doctrines and resolutions and finally almost at a kind of absolute unrelated to any historical framework the incursion the second general area. Of our of our Colonial status. It's significant of course is economic dependence and don't have to state that for you describe it. It's in the Press almost every day the balance of payments the dependence of our economy upon other economies, not a mother country, but several countries principally Germany and Japan the loss of control over our monetary system, which formerly was acknowledged in the next Administration when they devalue the dollar and went off the gold standard But continuing in a whole range of economic interest moving us to the position of dependency the shipment of raw materials the importation of Manufacturers, which was an issue in the Revolutionary War protests on the part of the colonies that they were being exploited and and abuse yet. We have it now and it's sort of accepted us. Is the operation of some kind of absolute economic laws until we've reached the point where until recently under still rotting the most popular investment in the world is future tax collections in the United States the national debt, you know that the the kind of taxpayers who are just coming in think they're the now generation. They're either then generation that Ronald is the now generation. It's all going to be spent. Now if somebody else is going to have to pay for it not the next generation of they're too smart, but the one after that so it's the absolute politician who can bird not the Next Generation but the second and third ones after it but in any case this is the reality of it and it's essentially the same substance of condition that you had in classical colonialism the third or fourth who run the economic ones all together is that we Actually lost control over our borders. This is another condition of colonialism. We we have no real control over immigrations in the papers today and these days about the Cubans and the rather curious they were invited in and we're treated almost like Georgia used to be the invitation came from Jimmy what it was a prison Colony said come on in will put the Ireland to her scribbles were sent to New Zealand and Australia, but we haven't control of our own borders, whether it's immigrants or illegal entrance or whether it's a lack of control over materials drugs, particularly. That are coming into our country. And finally we recently begun to compromise even on the question of a national language and in most Colonial battles the British tried to impose their language and they did on the Irish. We got to Revenge by speaking it better than they do but that's it. It's a hard way to go is a lot of suffering along the way but the Boer War it was involved in that in almost every the Portuguese did at the Spanish did it and we are now accepting that we should be bilingual or multilingual. So the only kind of condition of colonialism that we haven't fully exploit. Is that of becoming a tourist attraction for those who have the money to come in and actually some people in talking about the balance of payments to say we have to emphasize tourism. So we'd have someone go out and meet the airplanes when they landed have dancing girls on the beaches and so on to sort of establish our full Colonial status Well that I think not an over simplified description of the reality and in a way a definition of what I think are issues that ought to be more seriously considered in the campaign not just in the campaign, but by the press as we come into an election year, which is a year in which you sort of hope that that some real attention will be given to Serious matters. I read where Minnesota has eyes rate of literacy in the country. I did wonder what they're reading since they started to vote Republican since the literary rate got up that high the must be something to be question to be raised about what's being offered to them. But I said suggest that some of the things I've talked about here if you want to raise questions about them in the Question period I think I have at least some proposals that would be would be helpful. But generally I'd say that we sort of face what Albert Schweitzer talked about if you refuse to foresee and forestall trouble why it's bound to happen and I think to didn't five or six areas that what it's called. What I've called a public debate and public responsibility of the country is in need of pretty serious attention from the press and from the politicians and from the academic community and I'd include the church is still operative. Thank you very much. (00:20:45) After his speech Eugene McCarthy fielded questions from the audience, which of the current Democratic candidates for president might you endorse. (00:20:55) Well, I don't know about the time I settle on one something happens and I sort of have to back off. I think I'll wait is the story of old Usher Burdick used to tell about being a public defender and recorded North Dakota in and the judge had someone who needed defense and he said there for public defenders here five radio sign to the court before here. Why don't you go out and talk to them pick? What out of the phone out and talk to us you're in the other three and came back and said I've made my decision and he said which one do you want? He said you said they're five. He said that's right. He said I'll take the one that isn't here and I think it's still pretty open. No, one of them is asked me for an endorsement yet. And and so I think I'll just go around laying down these kind of categorical rules for for myself and for anyone else who wants to pass serious judgment on. presidential (00:22:01) candidates what could heal differences in the Republican party and the Democratic Party? (00:22:08) The party has been pretty divided for roughly 20 years and to put it back together is very difficult for the problem within the Republican Party are never complicated the difference between a liberal Republican and a conservative one in the bush or a dull whichever is the conservative for the day are minimal. We used to say when I was very partisan. The Republicans are like the lowest forms of plant and animal life. They didn't have much Vitality at the full point of their existence, but they never die. They like boss like moss on Iraq. They turn slightly Green in the summer and Gray in the winter, but but they survived and so when Republicans start rethinking themselves, it never takes long. It's just kind of a quick treatment and it comes out about the same room matter what they do and the Democrats are more difficult. I I don't know. I was looking for an image for them of four or five years ago and finally found what I thought applied then it was a discovery in the remains of a glacier of five prehistoric pigs. They were frozen to death in a circle. You've minnesotans who raise pigs don't with it when it gets cold a pig will do almost anything to keep his nose warm. And because it it perspires to its nose nose gets cold gets down below zero. So these five pigs trying to keep their noses warm formed a perfect circle and they died with slightly warm noses. And it's my suggestion is the Democrats have been trying to close the circle for about 10 years and it almost succeeded. But unless they began to break out say look, we've got to go someplace else to do some other things why this is sort of the the image of the of the party right now and you sort of see it the candidates and the forces in the part each one trying to kind of keep its own particular interest most advanced and and generally I say losing sight of what I would say kind of outside directed (00:24:25) purposes. Your speech talked about the u.s. Becoming a colony to dependent on world markets and other factors, but are you advocating that this country become more isolationist and (00:24:36) protectionist? Well, that's what the American Revolution was about did want to become more self-contained. This is not a non-american procedure in the you were kind of kept from thinking of the bill. They say competitiveness well competitiveness with what or no protection is and when we're dealing with protectionism, we're looking at the wrong kind I think for example the Japanese and the Germans have the real economic advantage over us that they spend scarcely nothing on defense and about half of what we spend probably a hundred and forty billion dollars is for the defense of Japan and Germany, so it would be fair to say that if a tie we did the right thing right after the war they couldn't make a contribution, but now that they're established it's unreasonable for us to pay. I suppose 90% of the cost of the defense of Germany and Japan and yet have this reflected in the trade advantage they have on everything they ship in here we could say I think we could have a defense Levi. It would not be unreasonable or unfair that's the classical one. I should of some of it not so that that we ought to deal with I think the great significant valence of payments burden is for imported oil and we ought to deal with that by somehow controlling our own consumption. It's inexcusable that we go on consuming not just that it's a wasting asset but that it's the great burden on the balance of payments and we probably waste two hundred billion dollars a year just because our automobiles are overbuilt and overpowered and the the automobile companies are back into pushing big cars and some of you are old enough to know that before World War II we had reasonably powered cars a hundred horsepower was considered enough for most You had three or four models after the war. We got into 200 horsepower 300 horsepower you had to you had totem animals. You couldn't just buy a sedan you get to decide whether you were a cougar or an Impala or a Cutlass or a whole range of history or whether you were Capri don't ever had a car called the Coney Island. It was still Monte Carlo and it was a whole new culture of the automobile was totem animals in images of social standing and we've been paying for it and still are and they never stop. I saw Dad recently for Plymouth that had a family-size trunk you say, you know, who needs a family size truck. What do you do with it? You've had if I say even in New Jersey that never put more than two people in the truck is if they said this is a new jersey size trunk you'd say well, that's it. You're both size truck, but they don't say that and in the third thing is this is the great overconsumption. I say it's a serious matter just to waste it but it's a serious matter because of its bearing on on the balance of payments and the other are the to go sociable things more or less standard and it's rather interesting. You see the administration said it said of say we're going to impose some duties or protection to Stacks. They say to the Japanese. Why don't you eat more? They're about 5 pounds underweight. We're 15 pounds overweight on the average. You could say look until you guys fatten up. We're going to impose a duty on everything you shipped in if we if we're going to have to eat all this stuff for the world. We ought to be paid for and tell the drivers to drive more cars unless you drive as many cars per capita as we do why we're going to be a duty you can't ship us the cars that you're not using if you're not using as many as we are per capita, these are factors that bear upon. I don't know how we get directly to it. But but almost everyone is asking us to consume more the Central American countries. They consume more sugar wheat a hundred and thirty pounds of sugar per capita in this country every year. That's a lot of sugar and a hundred thirty pounds of fat and the Japanese are five pounds underweight as I said just being healthy outliving us but five years we could we can put a death tax arms. They look you guys are going to make you Play fair with us our pea (00:29:10) salad. The youth today seem apathetic. What have you got to say to the Youth of this generation? That gives them some (00:29:17) hope I've started tell it but I think is wrong with the with the country in the world and some of the things they ought to do and I'm not as discouraged. I think in the in the 70s there was a sort of a I don't know what it was. I wouldn't explain it. But I think that now that students and young people are concerned. They don't know what to do adults don't know what to do rather than apathy. I don't think it's apathy. Although that's a big word with the Press. I was about five years ago when it was it was bigger than it is now, but I was on the campus in Columbus Ohio the university and there was a crew there from ABC. I think it was I said, what are you doing? They said we're studying apathy I said, do you know and I said, are you going to cover my speech? They said no I said well, you know good could be apathetic. Why don't you think they should know it's not there and a couple weeks later. I was in Wisconsin University and it was CBS. What are you doing? He said oh we're doing a feature on apathy. So how do you do apathy on the film? You know, what you do this as they were going to cover anything? I think what as I see it now, it comes closer to what the philosopher at Stanford some years ago called entropy which is a state of Randomness chaos and disorder out of which it's very difficult to pull anything, but I reassured there's now a science of chaos that they somebody having his party would try to create chaos at a computer. And he almost succeeded and then the computer began to develop forms of order. And we and now the study of chaos is become a special discipline and I think it's been manifest really in the political order for some time and that you just sort of have to break out of its like is likely the Vietnam they were they said you can't make any decisions about this. It's set you got to do it Josh would say I'm only doing what three presidents before me were doing and Nixon said he was only doing what for before we're doing so that the general argument is that you just have to accept things as even in the chaotic condition because there's there's no way to make it outside historical personal judgment about anything at least in the political order or to trade they say well get are protected. Why not? You know, they have to have competitors why not don't be isolated to the only say the smoot-hawley Tariff was responsible for the depression of 1929, which is Church (00:31:55) McCarthy was also asked about his thoughts on nuclear weapons proliferation and disarmament. (00:32:01) The president of Pakistan I think maybe the ultimate argument on nuclear weapons when he said that Pakistan he thought was going to have to build one because Islam was the only major religion that didn't have the bomb. He said all the others had God and the bomb but Islam only had an hour and and daddy pig that they were that they were had an unfair we're at a disadvantage. And so he thought they ought to he said Christians have it Israel. You have it and the Buddha's had a Buddhist have a bomb he said and Nobody none of the big religions were left atheist had a bomb but Muslims had none. So he said it was a strong argument for maybe it is this is it is reasonably some of the other things that have been said about nuclear weapons and maybe a little more reasonable than I don't know really where you break in it 80 the big argument was it's another speech but we went all through the 60s and 70s with the idea of mutual assured destruction. And first it was said if we could assure the Russians we could kill twenty percent of them. They wouldn't do anything and supposedly we wouldn't if we they could kill 20% of us and then they moved out of that that was Mutual assured destruction McNamara's time in Nixon's period we got into strategic superiority, which was hard to Define Melvin Laird at he came close as he said it was a matter of having enough military power puts be nuclear not only to Should exceed what we knew the Russians had but to match the exceed their potential, but he said we don't stop there. We going to have enough to match and exceed the momentum of their potential and this is assured destruction it got to the question of how many more ties could we kill all the Russians and they could kill all of us and you say well after you know two or three times it wouldn't make wouldn't make that much difference it always turned out that we could kill the Russians at even number and they were always there always a half short. It was like they can kill all of us one and a half times a we could kill them three times and and so the imbalance continued until they proposed the salt to which was that by the year 2000 we could kill all of them 60 times and they could kill all of us 60 times and that was supposed to level it off. Then we got into percent of gross national product in 1980. And you say and it was a serious proposition Henry Kissinger was for 5% James Schlesinger. I think was for he was a careful military thinker he was 44.5 72. I think it was but he had it refined was roughly it and there were serious arguments about 5% or 6% of gross national product as a measure of success. If they said we have to spend so much for these weapons. You say okay, but don't give us percent of gross national product. And someone figured out that if we figured this in Rubles taking into account the exchange rate that we'd be all right in Rubles. We were secure but if you did it in dollars why we fell a little short, the Russians were spending more of their gross national product in dollars that we were but in Rubles we were spending more than they were so if you couldn't sleep you could just say well, let's switch into rubles for tonight and I raised the question with Admiral Zumwalt and he was a 5% I Thinkin unfortunately, I read going to the to the debate of business week or so. If you had a piece by the American pickle Institute, which said that 1 billion dollars of the gross national product comes from pickles. So I said to the Admiral would it help your formula if we just excluded the pickle Factor? So we wouldn't have to spend five percent of the Pickled billion on defense. We could we could keep the percentage where it is, but lower the base or the payment and then the rate would go up. If you kept the payments where they are and change the size of the base. The percentage would improve is simple arithmetic. And then I got into all the other things I didn't want to defend and you could really reduce the gross. I said, I'd spend 10% of the gross national product that I want to defend. But if you're going to make me spend 50 million for techel's you said, you know, let them go. It's it's all right. Well now we've turned around and we're starting the space Defense Initiative, which is supposed to go the other way instead of deterrence. Now, it's defense and that's unlimited. I mean once you get a defense, there's no there's no no (00:37:04) restraint. Did you cool your heels at the White House while LBJ considered you as a vice presidential candidate? And would you have accepted an offer to be vice president in (00:37:14) 1964? No, actually I didn't I didn't go to the White House. I sent him a telegram saying I didn't want to be considered. This is part of the Tom dot was taken in to cool his heels, but I had said Johnson a telegram some time before that saying I didn't want to be considered as I anticipated. I might have been cooling my heels there and he wouldn't he wouldn't I don't do it for do all these I got him my book, but it was a curious thing. You know, he that vice presidential thing in 64. He was really afraid of Bobby Kennedy coming on. And so he named Humphrey as a possible vice president. I think he'd aimed every other Catholic he knew every Kathy politician that he knew so they say well, I'm not anti Catholic. Anyway, if I'm for all these guys for vice president which isn't much of an offering but it was what he was doing. And and anyway, I told the press that when Lyndon said he was going to give new meaning to the office. That's what I lost interest. I said, I had a pretty good idea. I said I was I had the Jeffersonian concept he said it was a good office because in the summertime you could study nature and in the winter, you could contemplate philosophy and I said when that was my position when Lyndon was going to give it a new meeting I said, it's I don't think he wants me but I did send him a wire saying take me (00:38:45) out. What do you think of men of the cloth running for president now in both (00:38:50) parties? Well, I could have added one more religious functions been taken over by the press that is judging the morals of everyone. It didn't used to do that so much in the old days in Congress. You were protected on three counts one was sexual excess one was alcoholism and the other was real stupidity this stupidity while you had a really be over the edge if you got caught in between you might you might be attacked, but if you were safely over the over the line Y press was respectful and so self-defense and that's where it was. I don't know. Bernie it's the whole kind of morality stuff and self-examination we get into it every so often is what Macaulay said nothing is observed as the British people. He said in one of their periodical bouts of moralizing and self-examination and we get into that every so often I think in that tradition the only mean the I've said about the Press recently was because he had ever seen the press in self-examination the makes the British people look responsible to restrain the almost every time they're they're into it on this stuff. They've been doing about presidential candidates and saying are we right? They always say Ya Allah to the only suitable Again, these animal who's like the monkeys at the zoo. They get into that every so often they start examining each other and themselves, they scratch a lot and they find things and they look at Taste and they scratch the other monkey they scratch it back and then they quit then they go right back to what they were before and that sort of the press when it gets into these things. They will have a good time for his doodle scratching act and self-examination and and Life Goes On (00:40:56) Should mr. Gorbachev have been allowed to speak to a joint session of Congress during his Summit visit to the US. I think it was hiding for him not to (00:41:04) do it. I mean you can address the people but think of them. I just don't know it's one of those things that I think the president started right and saying this is between the executive branch of the government and the Russians and so let's just play it that way. He won't invite him back some other time. Why why bring him back? I thought when I was there, we occasionally use the Congress or the Congress was use the administration would ask the Congress to listen to somebody and we should have said no thanks, you know. And in this case the Congress Avenue say, I don't know if the Russians even offered or whether somebody got the idea that he should but I sort of sympathetic to the to the administration saying look this is not the game and where to go she ate him with them and that's that's enough for now and what it's one of those protocols things. I have means much in the in the long run or not. For example Johnson, you know brought Westmoreland back and had him address Congress during the War. I thought Congress should have said, you know, it's not the right thing to do with the military person but the administration wanted to set up Westmoreland of public forum and the Congress were there and they they knew he'd applauded and after Johnson invited some was to the White House and and he said Westborough tell you more and And they put him on at the same time at Linden also had Martha Raye there and Martha talked to his first and you know, I'd rather her address a joint session. We should what is that sort of game being played both ways and I think that any way that this one is not (00:42:46) yes, sir. Do you think we would benefit by legislating the length of presidential campaigns to make them more similar to a parliamentary system where campaigns only last for a couple of months? I think the parliamentary (00:42:59) system is quite different and you can live it as they do in England, but I think if we're going to keep the open system we have I think that the you probably could have a rule saying the primaries at least have to be in the year of the election. You know because New Hampshire is said they're going to have their primary before anybody else does so you can start backing up until the primary was, you know, right after the inauguration you could start it over again, so I think it but it's I think the rule of Reason has to apply die. I'm against most of the limitations that are federal election law is as you know was one that he might not but with some other people we took it all the way the Supreme Court on the grounds of the interfered with freedom of speech and freedom of the press and freedom of assembly and almost every constitutional right to Due Process equal protection that you really have to leave the system pretty open. I think in this country we could do something about the Electoral College not to do away with it. But the perfect it as a way of picking a president, but I don't see much hope of our of are doing that. It's part of the end Tropic situation. We really picked presidents. Almost in a state of (00:44:13) chaos now. Could a political leader such as yourself with a lot of experience being encouraged to help the Democratic Party come back together and could such a thing be (00:44:21) done? Well, I would like been plowing on the front 40 like Cincinnatus for 20 years waiting for the messenger from Rome and he hasn't come so maybe I'll maybe I should go to Rome Beyond see if they hear I am. Yeah, I don't know just how you again. It's without a really compelling issue. It's hard to see how you can not how I could but how anyone could have a very direct and measurable effect on the state of politics. Not just at the (00:44:51) party. In the last question that mr. McCarthy answered last year at this time. Did you envision that the Minnesota Twins would become world champions? I don't know whether I did but I had (00:45:02) talked to soon after they moved into the Dome with one of the managers and they said it's going to take us a while to get a team that's adjusted to playing in this kind of circumstance. And when we do we'll win the will win the World Series and they finally got a team that plays just right in the dome, but I'm not very sympathetic to I don't mind the Dylan but I think the artificial turf they ought to have altogether different statistics. I think those that are compiled on that I've ever the first radio broadcast. I heard of a game there and I that's when they had the Old Turf for the balls bounced higher than they do now and I was listening in the announcer said it's a long fly the outfielders running in that didn't sound right and he said it's a short flight. He's running back and once I saw a game there I sort of understood. Figured that they'd have to get that you'd get Short Stops at the day of the of the short shortstop was gone. The what you do would be good guys are about 66. Who could they say? Oh, he doesn't have any any lateral movement, but you vertically he's great. I mean he couldn't even today all those High bounces and he reached it. Okay, you didn't have to move and so everybody who ever was was mad at that time had the thing figured out pretty well, but I thought the basic show that was glad they won the Cardinals the Cardinals play on artificial turf to and it on the to the basic thing was with hitting and pitching and on those. Those are the only two things that survived in a hippodrome like that Fielding is incidental that the Twins hit better and Pitch better. So they deserve the World Series you see them. (00:47:00) You've been listening to former Minnesota senator and presidential Contender Eugene McCarthy speaking to the Minnesota Press Club on the United States. Number one colony to the world. This has been a repeat of today's midday program. Midday can be heard each weekday beginning at 11:30 right here on ksjn 1330 tomorrow on the midday program John sculley. CEO of Apple Computers will speak to the Commonwealth Club of California on competition with foreign countries, the global economy and US education in a speech entitled preparing America for the 21st century. That's tomorrow on the midday program.