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GARY EICHTEN: Thank you, Karen. Six minutes now past 12 o'clock. And welcome back to Midday on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Gary Eichten.

A former Minnesota Senator, Eugene McCarthy, is back in Minnesota this week. His new book of poetry, called Selected Poems, has just been published by Lone Oak Press. And Senator McCarthy, who lives in Virginia these days, is back in the state for a few readings.

You might want to mark this down. Tomorrow night at 7:30, he has a reading at the University of Saint Thomas, which is free and open to the public. As a matter of fact, people who attend might be part of a movie being made about the senator's life called, I'm Sorry I was Right. Senator Eugene McCarthy, two-term Minnesota senator, former presidential candidate, has been good enough to stop by our studios as well today to talk about poems, and politics and whatever else you'd like to discuss. So we invite you to give us a call today.

227-6000 is our Twin Cities area number, 227-6000. Or if you're calling from outside the Twin Cities, you can reach us toll free and that number would be 1-800-242-2828. 227-6000 or 1-800-242-2828. Senator, thanks for coming by today.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: OK, Gary.

GARY EICHTEN: First of all, a belated happy birthday. We missed your birthday by a couple of weeks.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Yeah.

GARY EICHTEN: Do you still celebrate?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: What's that?

GARY EICHTEN: Do you still celebrate?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, I celebrated a year ago. I kind of skipped this one.

GARY EICHTEN: The big 80th.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: I think about every decade now is often enough.

[LAUGHS]

GARY EICHTEN: The new collection of poems, I know some of the poems have been published in the past. Are they all previously published?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Not all of them. There are some new poems. Yeah, actually, the Lone Oak Press people made the selection, but I had a collection put out by Doubleday about '69 or '70. And another one, the Harcourt Brace, about 10 years ago.

And these are just ones that weren't in those publications or that have been added since. Sometimes you keep a poem around until you have nerve enough to publish it. You'll miss the first two publications and you get to the third one, which is Selected Poems, while you can blame the publishers.

GARY EICHTEN: You're still writing poetry, aren't you?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: The good thing about poets, once you're declared one-- and to get that, you have to get three established poets to say you're a poet. It's like being installed as an Episcopal bishop.

[LAUGHS]

So then you're a poet forever. And you can't be a former poet, which is a good place of retreat. You could be a former politician, and a former Senator, a former lot of things, but you can't be a former poet. So you're always a threat.

GARY EICHTEN: Can you declare yourself a poet or does somebody else have to bestow them on you?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: You can't really do it yourself? Some people do. But as I've worked out the rules, you have to get three people at least, who are established as poets, to say you're a poet, like the bishop thing.

And I was kind of lucky I had Robert Lowell, who campaigned with me in '68, said I was a poet. So then almost other poets, lesser poets, rushed to say that I was a poet because Lowell had said I was a poet. It's like the pope.

So I've been a poet since. But I've never lent my name to a trio approving someone else. I don't think I'm quite ready for that. I was asked to do it for Jimmy Carter, but I said I didn't think I would.

GARY EICHTEN: On the face of it, it doesn't seem like poetry and politics have a lot in common with each other. They seem to be different tracks. Are they more similar than they appear to be?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, in the United States, poets haven't received much political recognition. But in the Irish tradition, you practically had to be a poet before you could be a politician. So you had a lot of bad politicians and a lot of bad poetry.

[LAUGHS]

But the principle was established. There was no contradiction there. And actually, in some of the European countries like France, not necessarily poets, but they have people who are academics and literary people. But our tradition is pretty much one of prose.

And it isn't just a question of poetry-- I'm going to talk about that-- but our politics is pretty much without images or metaphors. And you really can't have good politics unless there are some images and metaphors that people can look to. You can't run a government on adjectives.

And I'm going to talk about language as well as about poetry. But I say about Senator Humphrey that he got into trouble because he would say things in such a manner that people remembered he'd said it. Whereas, a lot of poets or a lot of politicians can talk on and you don't know who said it after about a year, for example.

GARY EICHTEN: So the good turn of the phrase can get you in big trouble.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: You can really die for a metaphor, but not for an adjective. And the sight of Senator Humphrey and the Eisenhower second term and the word was out that Hubert had changed, that he was restrained. It was the old-- it was the new Humphrey and he was not going to be extreme. And it was building up. The press was saying he has changed.

And he went to some place in Ohio and gave a speech. I think it was a labor group. And the press carried the report.

And I read it and I saw him. I said, what's going on? I said, what's happened to the new Humphrey?

He said something like, Ike is a bird in a gilded cage. He said, the Republicans keep him in the front window singing to the passers by. While back in the kitchen, the blackbirds are eating up the public pie.

And he said, oh, I just heard the whistle blow. So his metaphors frightened people. But if you're careful, for example, some of the things Kennedy would say, as long as you kept it in ordinary prose, why nobody remember who said it or even anybody had said it.

GARY EICHTEN: I want to get some callers involved here. But I can't help but ask you, what do you-- does it serve a useful function to have a lot of politicians out looking at flood damage? We have quite a group coming around these days, of course, you might imagine.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Yeah. Well, I was looking at some of the pictures. And I don't know what the people expected, but the practice is pretty well established. If there's a disaster, the politician, the senator has to go out and look at it, or at least the remains.

And I didn't mind going out to look at what was left after a tornado because you could act as though you'd been there. You could have stopped the wind. But when you go to look at a flood, it's going on by. And you say, God, there goes my pig. And you say, I should jump in and save it.

So we had a picture here of flood one year and it was a very sad picture. Rolvaag was the governor and Estes Kefauver was running for president. And I was there and I think Hubert was there.

And the four of us were standing on the bank. And the stuff was going by us and we looked very sad. It was raining. So I usually try to stay away from the flood observation.

I'll see how Gore does. I say he's coming out to look at the water and we'll see what happened. But it's kind of a high-risk appearance to come to look at a flood.

[LAUGHS]

GARY EICHTEN: Our guest today, former Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy. And if you'd like to join our conversation, let me give you the phone numbers. 227-6000 is our Twin Cities area number, 227-6000.

Outside the Twin cities, 1-800-242-2828. 227-6000 or 1-800-242-2828. Jim?

JIM: Yes, Mr. McCarthy. Of course, I remember you ever since the Clean for Gene campaign back when I was a college student in the '60s. The question I had to ask you, it had to do, I guess, with perhaps you're a dinosaur in this era, in that you were always known for having an academic and a witty side.

And I wondered, is that dying now? And I wondered in regard to that about the whole issue of academic education and liberal arts and the fact that it's really under siege, I think, both from the political left and the right in many respects. And I wondered if you had fears about what type of education, higher education, liberal arts fear for whether it will actually survive into the future.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, of course I'm not unprejudiced, I guess, because my education was essentially liberal arts. And I think it's a good preparation for service and government or in the united-- in the Senate or almost anyplace else. And I've suggested that one or two of my books-- they really ought to just read the index and make comparisons between the index in my book and that of other publications by politicians. And I think I can win on the index standard, which is really just a reflection of a liberal arts education that I think is directly translatable into proper historical and sometimes principled judgment.

GARY EICHTEN: Do you think the education system has essentially broken down in this country, or is it much ado about nothing, all the hand wringing?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, I don't know. It goes on forever. You're talking to someone about the cost of Medicare and they say it's out of control. It really isn't.

And there's some limit on what you can spend on medicine. There is a cap. People die. But when you start trying to get rid of ignorance, there's no limit to what you have to spend.

So I anticipate that education will always be subject to criticism. But the only thing that I see that has stood the test of time is the liberal education. When you begin dealing with particulars and new sciences that have not been proved why, the odds are that you're going to be wrong as often as you're right or maybe more often.

GARY EICHTEN: Keith, your question for Senator McCarthy, please.

KEITH: Senator McCarthy, I'm just in the process of writing a book about the '60s and especially Madison in 1968. I believe you went to campus in Madison during that time. Can you remember when it was? I say you were there.

[LAUGHS]

GARY EICHTEN: Can you hear that?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: I couldn't quite hear that.

KEITH: I'm sorry. I'll speak up a bit. Can you hear that? Move in on the microphone.

GARY EICHTEN: Well, we're having some problems here with his headphones. Does this sound a little better for you?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: I can hear you, but--

KEITH: Can you hear me, sir?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: No, just about the same.

KEITH: Oh, dear.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, just speak up. I got the last question all right.

KEITH: Well, we'll try it this way. I'm talking about the time period in 1967, '68 at Madison, Wisconsin. We were very excited about your anti-war efforts and were supporting you a great deal. It seemed to me that we were trying to get you there to speak at the campus. Do you remember when you were there, sir?

GARY EICHTEN: Madison in 1968, do you remember being there?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Oh, I was at Madison, yeah. I was at the big rally just before the election at the Coliseum, and I was in and out of Madison. It was a strong point in our campaign. The Madison Capital Times was one of about three or four papers in the whole country that supported the effort.

KEITH Was Bob Kennedy there?

GARY EICHTEN: Was Kennedy there? Bob Kennedy?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, Bobby didn't come in until after Wisconsin so he didn't campaign. He came in so late that he couldn't qualify in the Wisconsin primary. He didn't come in to primaries until after Wisconsin.

KEITH: But was he there pitching at all against the war even before he got into the campaign?

GARY EICHTEN: Before he started running, was he there talking about the war?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, I don't know. Bobby didn't really join with the various groups in the Senate when we first took a position against the war. He stood out. And I don't like to get into the whole Bobby thing, but I met with him before I announced in January. And he said he wouldn't run and he said it publicly.

And we thought he wouldn't run because some of his people joined my campaign, which would suggest that he didn't intend to run. And somewhere between January, as it was, and March the 15, he changed his mind and announced that he would run. And our feeling was that-- and he said that things like, well, McCarthy's going to get beaten so badly, it'll set back the anti-war movement. But as we approached the Wisconsin primary, the polls showed that I was going to win over Johnson by 2 to 1. And it was our judgment that that's what really moved him to enter the campaign, that he knew that Johnson was vulnerable.

And there was a long-standing feud between him and Lyndon and that he was prepared not to lose to Johnson. But when the chance of beating Johnson was there, that he made his announcement that he was coming in. But he wasn't in the Wisconsin primary.

GARY EICHTEN: Any more, Keith?

KEITH: Well, just tell him we thank him very much. And I miss him a lot on the national scene. I keep trying to listen for his words.

GARY EICHTEN: Thanks for your call, Keith. That was a caller from Hancock, Michigan. And before he hung up, Senator, he said he just wanted to make sure that you should know how much he appreciates all you've contributed and keeps listening for comments--

EUGENE MCCARTHY: For the word.

GARY EICHTEN: --from you on the national scene. We're talking today with former Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy. And if you'd like to join our conversation, let me give you the phone number.

In the Twin City area, it's 227-6000, 227-6000. Outside the Twin cities, you can reach us toll free at 1-800-242-2828. 227-6000 or 1-800-242-2828.

Senator, does it ever bother you that so many people, about the only thing they know about you is the fact that you ran for president on the anti-war platform? Because of course, you were in politics long before 1968. You've been active in many, many things since 1968. But for a lot of people, that's the one thing they know about you.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, it's the one thing they remember. I think that's part of it. It was an overwhelming act and that the reputation that was building before that was pretty well overcome.

Beyond that, I just blame it on the press for not having appreciated what I was doing. But I don't want to-- I didn't really choose this title for this documentary, I'm Sorry I was Right. But I had done in the House of Representatives pretty much what Gingrich had done with his contract.

It was not as flamboyant, but in '57, we put out-- John Blatnik, and I and a few others put out something called the liberal manifesto, in which we laid out a program of legislative action for the Democrats because they were drifting along, getting along with Eisenhower and so on. And it really established the basic platform that the Democrats pursued through the 1960s. And it's fair to say that the initiative was principally mine.

And there were half a dozen other legislative matters in which I provided significant leadership into critical areas. I did two or three things that tried to stem the tide of McCarthyism and the anti-communism. In fact, a campaign against me here in 1952, the whole issue was that I was soft on communism and the dupe of communists, which was insulting. I don't know if they'd called me one, but to say I was a dupe was pretty offensive.

[LAUGHS]

And that I thought was a significant effort. We weren't very successful. But it was difficult to do it because the academic community was hiding on the communist thing. They were informing on each other, and covering up and making excuses.

And the press, I talk about times, particularly The Washington Post, headlined almost every charge that Joe McCarthy made, whether it was accurate or not. And until he was wounded, then they came in at the battle and shot the wounded man and said, look at us, we finished the fight. But they weren't there when the going was tough.

Same thing was true of the war in Vietnam. And I suppose since that time, the most significant effort I've been making was, first of all, to carry the Federal Election Act as far as the Supreme Court in 1975 and '76 with other people. We really predicted all the complications and difficulties they're having with the electoral process now is almost certain to follow if the federal election law was passed.

GARY EICHTEN: What do you make of all of the stories about campaign fundraising in the past couple of years, the Lincoln bedrooms, and the dialing for dollars and the rest of it? Are you surprised by any of that or has that been going on forever?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, it's sort of like I was on the committee that held the hearings on Tom Dodd, which you may not remember, but Dodd was accused of abusive fundraising and campaign activities. And the fact was that he was, but there wasn't anything he had done that hadn't been done by somebody else. But he did everything that others did and a little more of each.

And this is the Clinton thing. He said, well, they're doing it, too. But I don't know anyone who has done as much or who did it quite the same way. So it's sort of a you're making up the law after the action has taken place.

I don't see that as the most serious problem. I think the whole question of campaign reform is once you establish that the First Amendment holds, it's pretty difficult to set limitations on campaign expenditures and fundraising. Although New York Times, and others and the advocates of reform try to say that they can limit freedom of speech in politics, but not any place else. And you can't really-- the freedom of speech is not a separable right, it seems to me.

And actually, the best dissent we got from the Supreme Court was Warren Burger. He was a sole dissenter on the Supreme Court. And he made the case of freedom of speech and how you couldn't separate it out. And that to limit money was to limit speech and limit communication.

And there were eight justices who voted. Seven of them voted to give us what we got. And Burger wrote a very good dissent and was the sole vote against the federal election law when the court had it in '75 or '76.

And what he said and what we'd been saying, illogical stuff, the advocates would say things like, think of how much influence Clement Stone was a big contributor to Nixon, $2 million. And we said, well, there's no way you can limit it anyway. It's freedom of speech.

But what's wrong with having some outside influence on Richard Nixon? What do you want? Pure Richard Nixon? Any outside influence would probably be on the positive side. But there was a internal lack of logic or reasoning that ran through the whole thing.

GARY EICHTEN: Isn't it unfair, though, that this fellow should have essentially more speech than this one because he's got more money?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, there's this inconsistency, Perot can spend-- the court said if you spend as much of your own money on your own campaign, but you can't contribute more than depending on what the cost, $1000, $5,000 of somebody else. And that, in my judgment, was the real problem. If you want to spend $100,000 on somebody else, you ought to be allowed to do it. Put your money in the campaign.

If you take the other thing, so you say, well, you've got more money so we're going to equalize the money. And you say, but you're a better speaker. So we're going to make you use a voice changer so you sound like Gerald Ford. Or you might not be as good looking and so they'll say, well, put a sack over your head kind of like the old Romans did. You wear a white garment and stand in the marketplace with a sack on your head and a voice changer and say, well, now the people can make a choice.

When I was in Congress here in Saint, Paul, some of these things you run into. There was a campaign. Somebody was running for like county commissioner. And they found out that-- and I think you'd say, well, you will now hear the words of whatever his name was, John Jones or Carlson. And they found out that he had somebody speaking in his place, but they were using his words.

And he said-- that in his defense, he said he didn't think there was anything wrong with what he'd done, that it wasn't as bad as having somebody write your speeches for you. That in this case, they were his words and his ideas. He just had a different voice because he had a very bad voice. So this is the ultimate principle of equalization that you'd have to accept if you're going to press this federal election law any farther than they have.

GARY EICHTEN: Mike, your question for Senator McCarthy, please.

MIKE: Yeah. Hello there, Senator.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Hello.

MIKE: Could you share a couple poems with us? Maybe "The Maple Tree," which I love very much, and some other one?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, I guess I could plug in. That's not a real political poem, but it's a short poem, which would say that-- yeah, I wrote a poem called "The Maple Tree." I write about trees and I wrote about the tamarack, which is a Minnesota tree.

The maple tree that night, because it's time had come, without a wind or rain let go its leaves as they fell, brown veined and spotted like old hands, fluttering in a blessing upon my head and shoulders. And then down in silence to my feet. I stood and stood until the tree was bare and have told no one but you that I was there. There's a nice line in it is the old hands fluttering in a blessing, brown veined and spotted. But it's a nice little poem, yeah.

GARY EICHTEN: Another one? Mike, do you have another suggestion?

MIKE: Anything goes.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Anything goes. Well, let me see. I'm trying to think of a political poem that's short. I have one called the "Public Man."

It says, He walks even in daylight with arms outstretched. Fish-like he shies at shadows. His own following nose to the ground like a blind bloodhound.

Gray mist drifts through the cavities of his skull. He feeds the sterile cows and steers with no desire on the mast of bitter grapes. His voice rises like water from a cistern pump twice used, and then goes out like beagles in search of rabbits in a wavering line.

Like a gull crying with tired voice, he looks back often into the fog. Each night he holds his stone head between his hands while his elbows slowly sink through the tabletop. That's kind of negative on politics, but it's an image of some politicians.

GARY EICHTEN: Selected Poems, that's the name of the new collection from Lone Oak. And tomorrow night, you have a reading, we should mention that again, at University of Saint Thomas.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: One in Saint Thomas tomorrow night. And there's one tonight or early evening tonight at the University Club.

GARY EICHTEN: Can people still get in? They were supposed to have responded--

EUGENE MCCARTHY: I don't know. They're still getting calls. I don't even know what the facility is at the University Club. I've been waiting to be invited to the university, but they've sort of banned me--

GARY EICHTEN: They did?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: --as a dangerous person. I protest regularly that they trust me at Princeton, and at Harvard and at Yale, but the university proper has not really had me speak there since 1967. So they've missed my wisdom for almost 30 years now, which you can understand why the university is in some decline.

[LAUGHS]

I thought maybe with the basketball team winning now, they might be more secured and let me come on campus.

GARY EICHTEN: They're just waiting for the football team to turn around too.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Yeah, I guess that's the long wait.

GARY EICHTEN: We do have-- we got word, by the way, that one at the University Club, the reading tonight is open so people can go by, 5:30 to 8 o'clock over at the university club on Summit Avenue in Saint Paul. And then tomorrow night, 7:30, University of Saint Thomas at the library O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library Center. And that's 7:30 and they're part of the movie they're making about you.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: I guess the documentary or whatever that is, yeah.

GARY EICHTEN: By the way, one other word here, if you're interested in going to the reading tonight with Senator McCarthy, let me give you a phone number that you should call in advance. That would be 224-6866, 224-6866. That's if you would like to attend the poetry reading tonight at the University Club.

Meanwhile, if you'd like to join our conversation this noon hour, 227-6000. Twin City area number 227-6000. Outside the Twin cities, 1-800-242-2828.

Senator, what is it about Minnesotans in the Senate, specifically Minnesota Democrats in the Senate, that makes them all want to run for president? Now, I noticed there's been rumor and speculation that Senator Wellstone was going to throw his hat in the ring.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, I don't know. I expect to stay here Sunday and go to a program honoring Harold Stassen, who was supposed to have started that precedent for us all. And I've been a defender of Harold and of myself, and I see about, Wellstone.

But I always pointed out that Harold, at least the first three times he got involved, he was right. The first time he said, if you nominate me instead of Tom Dewey-- it was in '48-- I can win. And they nominated Dewey and they lost.

In '52, he ran when Eisenhower was running. And as I recall, he said, well, I know more about government. If you elect me, I'll be a better president or the odds are that I will be than Eisenhower. And I think he would have been. So he had the first two times.

The third time, you may remember. I guess you wouldn't, but he really took an anti-party stand and said, get rid of Richard Nixon as vice president. Because you got him in line to be president and he shouldn't be president. And he was right.

So the first three times out, I said Harold was on the right side. And the party really never forgave him, I think, for the opposition to Nixon. They made him nominate Nixon for vice president as a kind of punishment and evidence.

And I felt the same way. In my case, it was really always an issue rather than wanting the president. In fact, I was accused of not wanting it enough. And I said, well, I never really did want it, that I was willing to take it. And that willing to do something is a much more responsible motivation than simply saying I want it.

But I hadn't heard this about Wellstone. It's not all bad if you're in politics. You reach a point where you say, well, maybe I ought to run for president. And that's what I did on the war issue. I said nobody else would do it.

And so if you're in the Senate, I think you have special responsibilities with reference to the national good. Sounds self-serving, but I don't know whether Minnesota's that way. Tennessee is almost as bad.

Estes Kefauver ran a number of times from Tennessee and Albert Gore Sr. ran from Tennessee. And Albert Gore at least is in line to run. So I think if you looked around, why you'd find a number of states or at least politicians in some states in which the same drive for the presidency has been evident. I say you have to watch a politician. If he has no further ambitions, he may run for president.

[LAUGHS]

GARY EICHTEN: Dick, your question for Senator McCarthy, please.

DICK: Hi, Senator. How are you?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Fine.

DICK: Good. Have you pitched any baseball yet this spring? Have you pitched any baseball yet?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: No, I haven't this year. I haven't been invited. I think the last time I did any baseball was back at my home town of Watkins about three years ago. I stopped by for an old timers game and took a couple of swings.

DICK: Well, considering what happened after 1967, I hate to ask you a question about Senator Humphrey, but this is something that I've been dying to know what you think about it. And that is, do you think that if Humphrey's people had approached some of the mobilization committee anti-war people in the spring of '68 and opened up some real lines of conversation that perhaps we wouldn't have gotten beat by Nixon?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, it's hard to say. Humphrey was in a bad position. First of all, he'd been an advocate of the war and he was not apologetic.

In fact, on one occasion, he said that those of us who were opposing it were racists, which was a pretty rough kind of statement to make. And we pointed out to him that the Koreans were not really all white and we'd supported that war. But he was also his own commitment, but also he was in a tough spot as far as Lyndon was concerned.

Because he wasn't tolerating any dissent, although his recent exposure of some of his tapes said he didn't believe in the war himself and he was trying to figure out a way to get out of it. The way to get out of it would have been to make some concessions to what we were saying in the campaign. But it was a tough spot.

DICK: Do you think that Robert McNamara's book bears out that if bigger negotiation channels with North Vietnam had been opened towards negotiations, that Hubert might have found himself in a very different position?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: He might have bigger negotiations. We were ready to. They didn't even negotiate with us so I don't know why they would have been expected to negotiate well with the North Vietnamese.

The McNamara book was interesting in that-- as he said in the book, that he knew and he was never insecure. He said he knew that the war was not going to work in '66, but he didn't tell us that. So in affect, he was saying that he lied to us, but he knew he was lying. So he'd rather be known as someone who was not honest than someone who had bad judgment, which is a rather strange defense to make. But that was the real thrust of his book.

And to talk about the negotiations-- and we suggested negotiations-- and I don't recall that he ever-- he never came. We had something called the Nicodemus Society. We said you can come after dark and leave before morning the way Nicodemus did, but none of those guys ever showed up.

GARY EICHTEN: Burt, your question for Senator McCarthy, please.

BURT: Sir. What's your reaction here with the Palestinian-Israeli crisis getting hotter by the minute here? What is your reaction to Prime Minister Netanyahu's flat out rejection of the request by the administration to put a hold on construction, housing construction in East Jerusalem?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, I think he was wrong. I thought after he got elected that he might have been like Menachem Begin, that he could do things by way of reconciliation that Peres couldn't do. As Begin was able to give up the Sinai, whereas the more liberal or compromising prime ministers and presidents couldn't do it. It didn't turn out that way.

If it had, I would have sustained a judgment I've made recently that when you're-- recently in the last 10 years that you really don't have to pay too much attention to a presidential candidate when he says he's going to do something that he can't do anyway-- it doesn't make any difference-- or that he won't do something that he couldn't do. Like Muhammad said, I'm not going to make the mountain move. You say, well, good for you, Muhammad. I'm very much relieved, the idea of you moving mountains around.

What you look at is what a man says he will do that he might do, and you decide whether you like it or not. But what you really look at in hard situations is what he says what he won't do, that he could do, and might be the only person who could do it politically and he might do it. And so, example, if you wanted to recognize China back in the '60s or '70s, why the thing to do was vote for Richard Nixon. Because he'd said for 20 years it was the last thing he'd ever do if he were president and it was. He did it, though. You never know when a politician will fulfill a promise.

And the other example I've used is Ronald Reagan. If you were really concerned about nuclear disarmament or some kind of compromise, Jimmy Carter was not the person to vote for. Because of course, he said he wouldn't do it. But the fact was, politically, he probably couldn't do it.

But Reagan, in effect, said he wouldn't do it pretty much, but he did. He was the first president we had who said, let's not just stop building, let's cut back. And I thought the same thing might be true in Netanyahu, but it didn't work out that way.

And I think our government was at fault in not voting with the UN in the motion of censure that we talk about the declaration of independence, a decent opinion of mankind. Here was a case for the UN, which were supposed to have the most decent kind of judgments we can get in the modern world. And every other nation said, right. And we said we're going to stand separately from it. That's the principal thing.

The other thing is we have progressively, since the state of Israel was established, at least by declaration, forced other nations out of involvement in protecting and defending Israel. The French and the British at the time of the Suez Crisis. The United Nations at the '67 war. Until now, we're the only nation left of those that endorsed establishing the state, which is taking responsibility. And in this case, we demonstrated again that we were going to take a stand that was independent and different from that of every other nation.

GARY EICHTEN: Bob, your question for Senator McCarthy, please.

BOB: Yes, Senator McCarthy. Very honored to speak with you, sir. A quick question and I'll hang up and listen to your response.

I'm just curious what your feeling is about the current crop of right-wing talk show radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh or here in the Twin Cities, Jason Lewis, and their claims that the liberal social agenda of President Johnson and the Great Society of the 1960s was an utter and complete failure due to the fact that we spent hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars? And here we are 30 years later, and we still have the same problems. They have not been fixed. And I'll hang up and listen. Thank you.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, it's a long case. The liberals have been under fire since the early '50s. Bill Buckley began about that time and others have followed him. And my feeling is that we haven't fought back.

Taking the challenge and saying, look, you're talking nonsense. Things like Social Security or where we would we be without Social Security? How many old people would be on welfare? What would the-- unemployment compensation, it serves to stabilize the economy when you have a recession of limited shape. That what we've got left over, the problems are really things that the liberals never could deal with.

The welfare program was there before. And when Nixon says work fair not welfare and Clinton says we're not going to have welfare as we know it, we're going to have it as we knew it, as though that was an advance. And the liberals were on the defensive from the Conservatives. And then especially the Dukakis campaign, the liberals began to attack themselves.

And before they got done, they were about six different kinds of liberals defined. There were Roosevelt liberals. There were sane liberals. The mayor of New York said he was a sane liberal as that distinguished him from the others.

And Dukakis said he was not a traditional liberal. And somebody else said he was a neoliberal. So you had to make your choice among these various kinds of liberals.

I was in a debate with the editor of the National Review, and he said and asked me, what kind of a liberal are you? I said, well, I'm really going to wait about seven years until the word clears up a little bit. And until that time, I'm a neo. So I'm a pure neo. Not a neoliberal or liberal neo, just a neo without.

But I said-- and I thought I wrote a book called The Liberal Answer to the Conservative Challenge, which was published in the time of Goldwater. I campaigned in '64 and it still stands up. So my point is the liberals really let themselves be beaten off and put on the defensive so that they don't know where to come back.

And it's sort of-- a woman in Wisconsin wrote a poem called "The Rise and Fall of the Goat," which reflects the history of liberalism. She said "The goat started out as a useful animal, was good for milk, and meat and pulling carts. And gradually it worked its way up until it became a deity and then a constellation. And then it began its decline until it wound up as being the name for a lewd old man or the guy that lost the baseball game."

And the same thing had happened to the word liberal. It was a good adjective. When I first met the word, it was an adjective. And progressively it let itself be made into a noun.

And whenever an adjective becomes a noun, why it's gotten itself into real difficulty. And then once it became a noun, you could begin to attack it with all kinds of adjectives until finally it's abandoned as it is today. But I think another two or three years as a neo and I think we'll be able to try to rehabilitate the word liberal.

GARY EICHTEN: A couple of days from now, we're going to be marking the 50th anniversary of the breaking of the color line in baseball. Of course, you're an old baseball player. And how important was that when Jackie Robinson stepped on the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the big scheme of things?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, I guess, if you weren't prejudiced against them, you didn't realize how significant it was or if you hadn't suffered as the Black players had. I remember when I was a boy, there were Black batteries that would travel around in Minnesota. They'd usually be a pitcher and a catcher. And if the local team had a catcher who could hold a pitcher, why they'd let him catch and the other Black would play outfield or first base, wherever they needed him. If the local catcher couldn't do it, he'd catch.

And you wouldn't know where they were going to show up. They'd appear in Minot one Sunday, and then probably on Wednesday they'd play for a team in Duluth, or Fargo, or Saint Cloud or Minot. So you couldn't really bet on the games until you found out which Black battery was pitching. Around where I grew up in Minnesota, Saint Cloud and Little Falls, there were two pitchers, one named McDonald and one named Donaldson, who roved around that area every summer. And we just took it for granted.

But I remember going to the Southern Congress and going to the first all-star game in which the Blacks participated only in the National League then. The American League hadn't hired them. And he was a good liberal, but starting he said, look at them. Say what is it, Bob? He said, they're singing our song, the national anthem.

This went on a while and he nudged again. He said, look at them. And I said, what is it, Bob? He said, they're better than we are.

[LAUGHS]

But there's an interesting political side to it. The Washington Senators at that time were the most Southern baseball team. And the owner--

GARY EICHTEN: Clark Griffith.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Clark, what you had here, wouldn't play American Blacks. So he was one of the first to send people to Central America for players. And it's pretty well documented.

He sent scouts to Cuba. And they scouted a number of players, but they scouted three pitchers. And he took two of them.

One was Camilo Pascual who pitched here. And the other was Pedro Ramos, who also came here, I think, when the twins came. But they rejected the third prospect.

Supposedly, they went to scout Fidel Castro. So Fidel is a frustrated Major Leaguer. And if they'd picked Fidel, why, he'd probably be dictator or czar of baseball now. And I don't know what Cuba would be like, but--

GARY EICHTEN: They don't have a commissioner in baseball. And I guess--

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, I've recommended Fidel.

GARY EICHTEN: --they could bring him over and do that and solve two problems at once.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Two problems. That's right. Eliminate the last dictator in the Western hemisphere and make him commissioner of baseball.

GARY EICHTEN: Robin, your question for Senator McCarthy.

ROBIN: Yes, thank you. I live here in Minneapolis. I'm active in the DFL, but I would have to say I'm a dissident. I'm very concerned about the erosion of civil liberties in this country.

And I would like the senator's comments on this, particularly with issues like government surveillance. My understanding is the Clinton administration is considering the idea of a national ID card. And it rather annoys me that Democrats do the bidding of the right wing in terms of erosion of the First Amendment and the like. And I'd like your comments.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, I think you're right. In some ways, it's similar to what began to happen in the country back in the '50s when the communist threat, real or imagined, became a dominant force. And we began to compromise on traditional bill of rights protection and constitutional protection.

And you see it now. And especially the internet and some of these things, the so-called right of privacy, they've begun to say, well, you can't do anything about it. You can do something about it. But the invasion of privacy is an example.

The general move to encourage people to be informers in the name of-- inform on drug people, inform on runaway fathers, and inform on people who've stolen cars, whatever it may be, and plea bargaining, inform on other people. Even though they're criminals, say, well, you can inform on somebody who's a criminal. But the next thing you know, you can inform on everybody and everybody becomes an informer. Or suggestions that we-- sort of bounty hunting.

You watch television, every private detective practically violates the Constitution. They break and enter. They wiretap. They bug people. They enter under false pretenses.

And we legalize it, saying, well, it's all right for these purposes. There are proposals around now to let people who say-- or police, people say, well, we're after drugs, therefore the Bill of Rights doesn't apply. And even suggested tax farming. The IRS is talking about farming out the collection of taxes, which was one of the abuses that brought on the French Revolution.

If we go back traditionally, and accepting the posses could go out and administer justice in their own way, that is serious threat to what we accept. What we ought to be trying to do is to define these rights under modern and differing technological situations. But instead of that, the general decision is to yield to it, say, well, you can't do anything about it.

It's good for the society to violate privacy, to encourage informers, to farm out tax collection. The privatization of prisons, for example, rent prisoners now or take them and get paid for taking care of them. So you're quite right. It's a pretty confused picture.

GARY EICHTEN: What would you have done do you suppose, if you had not gone into public life, if you'd not become a politician?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: I suppose I was committed to teaching at the time. I would have continued on at the university and gotten my PhD and become an historian, I guess, which is not a bad thing to be an historian. You just tell people what happened if you can. Unless you get to Arthur Schlesinger, you write history as an advance man.

[LAUGHS]

That's the new role for the historian.

GARY EICHTEN: For young people who might be listening, do you think it's worth their time, and energy and effort to become active in the public arena, public life? Or is it you get beat up so bad it just really isn't worth it?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Well, I don't know. It's like you talk about the good old days and they never come again. But I think the problems that the country faces, and it's going to take some time to sort them out, that it really requires some commitment from young people now. Because as I see it, both with the issues we just talked about, but also the whole political process and actually the constitutional operation of government as was intended, as I said, it's going to take some long-term attention. And to do that, you've got to get started when you're young.

GARY EICHTEN: I think we've just about run out of time here, but I'd sure like to thank you for coming by today, Senator. And we should mention again now you've got two readings that are open to the public, poetry readings. One tonight at University Club over on Summit Avenue in Saint Paul. And if you'd like to attend, those of you listening, the number you should call to make arrangements 224-6866.

If you are-- there's also a reading tomorrow night at the University of Saint Thomas in the O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library Center, and that starts at 7:30 tomorrow evening. That's free and open to the public. And as a matter of fact, they're making a movie about the senator. It's called I'm sorry I was Right and you'll be part of that movie. So that's tomorrow night at University of Saint Thomas.

And if you'd like a copy of the senator's book called Selected Poems, let me give you a phone number to call to get that lined up. Lone Oak Press is the publisher and the number is 507-280-6557, 507-280-6557. Senator, thanks for coming by today. I really, really appreciate it. You're going to go out and look at the floods, maybe do a little old senator work looking over?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: I think I'll wait until I know the flood is receding.

[LAUGHS]

GARY EICHTEN: And then take credit?

EUGENE MCCARTHY: Then I come and say, look at that, it dropped an inch since I arrived here.

[LAUGHS]

GARY EICHTEN: Thanks a lot for coming by.

EUGENE MCCARTHY: All right. thank you.

GARY EICHTEN: Our guest today, former Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy, former presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy. We'd like to thank all of you who've been with us through the hour, especially those of you who called in or tried to call in with your questions and comments. Really appreciate your effort.

I should remind you that programming on Minnesota Public Radio is supported by Hamline University, presenting España, a festival featuring the art of Francisco Goya beginning April 13. Information available at 612-641-2216. Also, a reminder that we will be rebroadcasting this program at 9 o'clock tonight, the conversation with Senator McCarthy. So you get a second chance to hear the program 9 o'clock tonight here on Minnesota Public Radio.

On Monday, we will continue our special series called, Will the Circle be Unbroken? That's the new documentary series recounting the civil rights struggle in the South. And so part two comes up on Monday here on Midday. Mike McCall-Pengra is the producer of our Midday program, helped this week from engineer Randy Johnson and Sarah Meyer. Gary Eichten, thanks for tuning in today.