CBS REPORTS "WALTER LIPPMANN, 1962"

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP67-00318R000100140001-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 45
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 2, 2013
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 7, 1962
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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CBS REPORTS
Nalter Lippmann, 1962"
As Broadcast Over
THE CBS TELEVISION NETWORK
Thursday, June 7, 1962
10:00 - 11:00 P.M. EDT
REPORTER: DAVID SCHOENBRUN
PRODUCER: GENE DE PORIS
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER:FRED W. FRIENDLY
All copyright and right of copyright in this transcript and
in the program are owned by CBS. This transcript may not
be copied or reproduced or used in any way (other than for
purposes of reference, discussion and review) without the
written permission of Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc.
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ANNOUNCER:
Walter Lippmann is in hi a seventy-third year. Two years ago,
America's distinguished newspaper man whose column appears in the
New York Herald Tribune and more than two hundred other newspapers
throughout the world made his television debut with a one hour
conversation of leadership. The Louisville Courier-Journal called
it a "Television Landmark," and many newspapers stated editorially,
that Lippmann should become an annual television tradition. He has.
Tonight, the Lippmann range. extends from the turning tide in the
cold war to what happened in the stock market and from evaluations
af young President Kennedy to old Chancellor Adenauer and General
de Gaulle --- from Nikita Khrushchev's failures to our own
intelligence breakthroughs. "Walter Lippman 1962" for an uninterrupted
hour immediately after this announcement.
Now, here is Walter Lippmann and. CBS Chief Washington Correspondent
David Schoenbrun.
SCHOENBRUN:
MY. Lippmann, a year ago, you returned from
Russia and reviewed the world situation, and
now you've just returned from Western Europe.
Many things have changed in this past year.
Would you review the situation now?
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LIPPMANN:
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I think there are signs would permit one to
say that the balance of forces between East
and West his shifted somewhat in favor of
the West. When I say shift in our favor, f
don't mean that the situation has shifted
in our -- the way we'd like it to shift
everywhare in the world. What I mean is, that
as between the two great blocs, the coalitions
that confront one another -- the Communist
coalition and the Western coalition, the balance
of forces, military, politically, economically
and psychologically, is rather more favorable
to us than it was, or seemed to be six months
ago. We have developed the power, through
various measures we've taken, to survive any
attack that the Soviets could make on us with
such a devastating reply that they'll never
make the attack, and it is now universally
recognized in Europe, as far as I can make out,
that that is the situation, and one of the
signs of this change is that it's a long time
since anybody talked about a shelter in this
country.
SCHOENBRUN: If the balance of power is turning in our:
favor, just how do you determine that?
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LIPITIANN:
First of all, the period when we felt that we
were in danger of being struck, which is the
period you know when everybody -- when people
were talking about the so-called missile gap,
and when the Soviet was supposed to be powerful
enough to knock out our whole military
establishment in one great blow -- that was --
we now know that that was an absolutely false
estimate. We were the victims, in part, of
mistaken intelligence, which I must say at .
once did not come from Allen Dulles and the
CIA, but probably from the Air Force. But
anyway, the country was tremendously taken over,
and of course, as you remember it, it went into
the campaign and all that. Well, we now know
that isn't true -- that never existed.
The Soviets never built the missiles that they
?. were supposed to be able to build, and we didn't
have the knowledge of what exists inside the
Soviet Union that.,,we have today. And one of the
? evidences of how much better our intelligence
is, is in something that sounds rather technical,
our strategy in nuclear war is no longer based
on the idea of just destroying Russian cities,
but in destroying the actual striking power of the
Soviet Union, and that takes a lot of good
intelligence, and we seem to have it.
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SCHOENBRUN: Mr. Lippmann, what's the thing that has
convinced us, and maybe even the Russians,
that things have changed?
LIPPMANN:
I think the best proof that that estimate is
accepted in Moscow, not merely in Paris and
Bonn and in Washington, is that they resumed
nuclear testing. They resumed nuclear testing,
because they knew they were behind us in
nuclear power. And they were told -- Khrushchev
undoubtedly was told by his scientists and his
military men, that if they made one more or
two more series of tests, they might get asgreat
breakthrough. They might be able to develop an
anti-missile missile, or some kind of bomb that
was so powerful that nothing could stop it, and
in one shot, it would finish everything. And
think it's like that. I think that's the best
proof that they know. Well, the other proof is,
that they really have become much more prudent
in their dealings with us, both in Berlin and
Germany, and in Southeast Asia, for example.
SCHOE-NBRUNN: You're suggesting, it seems to me, that something
must be happening with the Soviet thinking?
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LIPPMANN: Well, I wouldn't like to pretend to say what
their thinking is, but if we take what the
facts are, and the balance of forces, it isn't
only this military matter which we've been
? talking about, but the -- in economic thing,
they see Europe becoming a very prosperous and
rich society, and not communist, not even
socialist, and the example of the recovery of
Europe and. its really great booming condition,
is a very, impressive example all over thevcrld
for small countries that are not well developed,
or are very much under-developed, they can see
that. this can be done. They can become rich,
not by being like the United States, which
nobody can imitate, and not by imitating the
Soviets, which they don't want to imitate, but
by a method which the Europeans, small countries
and large, and not merely Common Market countries,
but Austria, for example, and the Scandinavian,
they are all showing that there is a way. to
become -- raise the standard of life and become
richer, and so on, which is neither one or the
other. The example of this thing is very
impressive everywhere, and it constitutes much
more than any amount of making anti-communist
speeches and denouncing this and that and the
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other thing. It exerts an influence on
the thinking of people who have to run
governments all over the world.
SCHOENBRUN:
LIPPMANN:
If the affluent society in Europe is evidence
that the tide is turning in our favor, does
it follow, then, that Communism has been
stopped in Western Europe?
Well, yes, in all of Western Europe, the
Communist parties have lost their connection
with Moscow as instruments, and the left wing
parties, including the more moderate -- even
the moderate socialists, find themselves living
in a continent where Socialism is out of date.
Europe has outlived Socialism. And you go and
talk to the French Socialists, talk to the
British Labor, German Social Democrats, they're
wondering what does Socialism do now that it's
over -- its period is over. It'll go on,
because the world needs people who are not
conservatively interested only on the side of
property, but are on the side of people who
don't have property -- and the fafmers -- but
the decline of Sooidliem in Europe ie a vory
striking thing.
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SCHOENBRUN:
LIPPMANN:
Now, withthis point you're making about the
decline of Communism and Socialism, perhaps
you could talk to us a bit about what's
happening inside the Communist bloc. What
are their stresses and strains?
Well, there are a good many. The biggest
stress and strain comes from agriculture
the agricultural failures. A country like
on the other hand, a country like Poland
manages to escape that only by not being
Communist in
well evident
And then, of
disaster, so
and we don't
inside China
its agriculture, and that's pretty
to everybody in the Eastern bloc.
course, in China, it's a terrific
great that it's producing a famine,
begin to know what the consequences
will be, but we know it's very
serious, and we know that even in the Soviet
Union, where it's not so bad and where people
are not hungry, it's still sufficiently a
failure so that they have no exports. Russia
used to be a wheat exporting company -- country.
Well, today, it is really not able to help
China, for example, its ally. That makes a
very great difference. Most of the people who
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SCHOENBRUN:
live on this planet live on the land and live
by farming of one kind or another, and to see
the Communist countries with shortages of food,.
while in the Western world and in Canada and
Australia, and South America, you have surpluses
of food -- that's a tremendously impressive
spectacle, and it's part of what you might call
the turning.of the tidEo. Then, I think beside
that, it's quite clear that the younger
intellectual generation, the young students and
the people who are coming out of their universities,
and under forty, and their artists and poets, are
very tired of being shut out of thevorld and
want to make contact with the Western world.
Very hungry for it. And they are pressing
Khrushchev very hard to liberalize the regime
more than -- he's liberalized it a great deal as
compared with Stalin, but it's still a long way
from being a liberal regime, and they want to
liberalize it mores, and that's where his greatest
internal pressure comes from, I think.
In your trip around Western Europe, I'm sure
that you spoke with many Soviet diplomats.
What explanation do they give about American-
Russian relations today?
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Well, I was talking to one not long ago, and
I said -- I asked him -- I said, "What would
you say was. the biggest change that's occurred
in our relations? They're obviously not as .
dangerous as they were a year or two ago."
And we both accepted the impossibility of
nuclear war between us, and so on. And he said,
"Oh.,, I think I can tell you." This was a fairly
young man but very important. He said, "I think
I can tell you. We both have gotten over the
idea that the other is omnipotent." I said,
"Well, explain that." And he said, "Well, when
anything went wrong in the world that we didn't
like, in Russia, we said that's Washington and.
Wall Street." And they just manipulated. No
matter where it is, Nigeria9 any place, and you,
when anything went wrong, said, "Well, that's
made in Moscow." As a matter of fact, we can't
even run China, or Albania, much less the world,
and we know that we are not omnipotent and we
know that you aren't.
LIPPMANN:
SCHOENBRUN: Mr. Lippmann, you've seen all the le6,ders of
Europe -- most recently, de Gaulle. Do you find
that the Europeans are more aware of this shifting
balance of power, and take it into account in
their policy?
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LIPPMANN: Yes. ;You take, for instance the attitude of
SCHOENBRUN:
LIPPMANN
General de Gaulle and Chancellor Adenauer on
dealing with Berlin. Now, they may be right
or wrong about this or that in it, but they
feel perfectly confident that they can defy
the Soviet Union without precipitating a nuclear
war. Well why? Not because they have any
power. It's because we've got that power.
Well, why does General de Gaulle ask for more
nuclear weapons? I'm sure you must have
discussed that with him? What kind of power
is he looking for?
The French nuclear striking force which he is
beginning to build up, is by American stanlards
and by Soviet standards, negligible. It's
something in the ratio of perhaps fifty to three
thousand, somewhere in that order of importance,
and that's going to take years to produce. It
doesn't exist nov, It has two purposes. They
both are political and they both have to do
with Washington - not with Moscow. And he thinks
if he gets the kind of force he believes he can
get in some years -- (a) that if he decided that
bombs had to be used in the European conflict;
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he could do it, and of course, we'd have to
come up -- cane in and finish it, but he could
SCHOENBRUN:
start it, and that's by the way, a power we're
never going to give him. And the other is,
that if we got into a nuclear war, say, in the
Far East, where France is not interested, he
might be sufficiently too hot to handle to be
dealt with directly by the Soviet power, and
therefore, might be able to sit it out. It's
all rather political speculation -- not really
military reasoning.
Well, General de Gaulle has used that technique
for the last twenty years, and every time he
has, it's because he's judged the world situation
has provided.an opportunity for France. Would
you suggest that your own theory that the tide
is now running in our 'favor is General de
Gaulle's analysis too?
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LIPPMANN:
SCHOENBRUN:
LIPP-MANN:
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Baically, yes. It's running sufficiently in
our favor so that it is become possible to
contest make a contest for the leadership
of the West. Remember, during the world war --
the World War II, things -- the tide of battle
began to turn after Stalingrad and the British
victories in North Africa, but as soon as the
tide began to turn, the rivalry within the
anti-Nazi coalition, between Great Britain and
Russia, and the United States, broke out, as
to who was .going to make the peace. Well, that's
a little bit far-fetched -- the analogy.
You mustn't always reason from analogy, but
still, something like that is what is
happening today in Europe and in the world.
As you see the tide running in our favor
now, would you say that to a large extent, for
Europeans, that the Common Market is their
magnificent Stalingrad?
Well, for those Eropeans Who belong to the
Common Market, which is only six out of I
don't know how many -- fifteen, sixteen
countries. The thing is, that Europe has
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recovered -- that it's now a booming, affluent
society, which the Common Market is a very
important expression, and will be more so if
it can be enlarged. But the change in Europe's
feeling that on the one hand war has been
deterred -- nuclear war, and, therefore, other
kind of war, really, as far as Europe is
concerned, and that it is now able to raise its
own standard of life, has found the way to do
this, yes, that marks the change, if you want
to call it, the Stalingrad.
SCHOENBRUNt r Well, then, is General de Gaulle striking
out for leadership of this prosperous Common
Market in European societies at this opportunity
now?
LIPPMANN:
Yes, he -- General de Gaulle believes that
France, as of historic right, should be the
leader of Europe, and from General de Gaulle's
point of view, Great Britain is not part of
Europe. When you ask him about Great Britain,
he says, "No, that's an island." What he's
talking about is Europe on the continent.
Another point about it is, we have to remember,
for him, Europe begins at the Atlantic and
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SCHOENBRUN:
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extends to the Urals. In other words, it
includes most of what is now Russia. And I
know, I'm sure, because he said this many times,
his vision is of a Europe led by France, with
great statesmanship and wisdom, power and so on,
coming eventually to a Europe which extends and
includes the Soviet Union and all of Eastern
Europe and all that. That's the vision.
Mr. Lippmann, if I'm not mistaken, in a previous
talk of this kind with Howard K. Smith, didn't
you once say that General de Gaulle was perhaps
one of the greatest men -- one of the greatest
leaders in the world?
LIPPMANN1 I did.
SCHOENBRUN: Do you still feel that way about him?
LIPPMANN: I do. He's one of the greatest men of our time,
and I must say, when you see him, he hasn't lost
any of his fascination. He's a fascinating talker
and all that. But\that doesn't mean he's always
right, and I think he's wrong in his conception
of Europe, especially since lt involves the
exclusion of Great Britain from Europe, and the
exclusion of Great Britain mottos the exclusion
of Scandinavia and a tight, little Europe,
organized around France and (1rmany. I think
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that's a wrong conception, and it wouldn't be
the first time that somebody differed with a
very great man. I don't think that he's any
less a very great man.
SCHOENBRUN: He's a very difficult man to differ with,
as President Kennedy has discovered.
LIPPMANN:
SCHOENBRUN:
LIPPMANN:
He is. He doesn't -- as far as I know him --
my experience with him goes over many years.
He never argues anything. He pronounces it.
If the balance is now in our favor, where -
does that leave us with the great unsolved
problems of the world -- Berlin, Laos, China?
Perhaps we can begin with Berlin?
Both sides have recognized the existence of the
stalemate. That's the big change in the past
yaar there. You remember that a year ago, when
the President saw Khrushchev in Vienna, that
was in June, a year ago, he came away with the
distinct impression that Khrushchev was going
to use force of some kind to compel West Berlin
-- to make us give up West Berlin, and there
was an ultimatum at the time -- you remember
that it had to be done by the thirty-first
of December, and if it wasn't done by the
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thirty-first of December, he was going to make
a separate treaty with the East German Republic,
and they were going to strangle the access,
and he was going to back them up, and so
everybody said, "Let's build shelters for the
war that's coming." Well, what happened? Two
things happened. First of all, he didn't strangle
Berlin. He cut off East Berlin and Eastern
Germany from the West, by building the wall
across Berlin. Just the opposite of a blockade,
and on the other hand, he withdrew the ultimatum.
He took the time limit away, and once that
happened, the fuse was taken out of the Berlin
crisis, and we were in then for what we've.got
-- a long period of talk. We, on the other hand,
gave up, although we never said so, we accepted
the wall. We didn't try to push it over as some
people think we should have tried, but the
answer to that is, of course, that the Russians
would have built it one street back, and tlien
we would have had to invade them to knock it
down the second tim. We accepted it, protesting,
but we accepted the fact that that was the way
the world was, and they were able to live with
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that situation. Now, we've got to that. It's
not nice. The wall is a horrible thing to
look at, and some day it'll come down, and
some day the two Berlins and the two Germanys
will come again, coalesce, but that time isn't
now and we are living, both of us, Soviet
Union and the West, with the fact that that's
the way it is, and we're not going to have a
nuclear war about it.
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SCHOEBRUN: Well, why is it necessary to negotiate? Why
don't we just sit still on the status quo?
LIPPMANN:
SCHOENBRUN:
Becausa it isn't safe. You see, Berlin is one
of the places in the world where Soviet and
American troops are just across the street
from each other. It's the only place. Other
places, the thing -- there's a big, empty
space somewhere between them, and it's too
dangerous. Somebody could start something,
a scuffle or a row, or a captain gets drunk,
or something, which then -- the tanks would
begin to come up. We'd put up tanks and then
they'd put up tanks and then somebody shoots,
and we have to avoid that. At least, we have
to be talking, and as long as we don't have an
agreement with the Russians, we have to be on
talking terms with them, so that in case some
trouble comes, we can always explain it to
each other.
Would you care to hazard a loess as to what
price the Soviets would be willing to accept
for an accommodation in Berlin?
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LIPPNANN:
SCHOENBRUN:
Well, yes, you don't mean a final settlement,
but an accommodation by which we could live
without being worried from day to day whether
there's going to be another Berlin crisis.
Basically, it's the degree of recognition
which we're willing to give to the East German
state.
There is such bitterness on both sides of the
wall -- such hatred in the West for the East
'Germans. Could we possibly grant them any
degree of recognition?
LIPPMANN: Well, we can't give them and won't, of course,
give them formal recognition in the sense of
exchanging ambassadors with them and so on,
but, of course, you know there's a.great deal
of recognition already. You take all the trade
between West Germany and West Berlin. It comes
by road, it comes by railroad, it comes by
\
canal. That's all controlled now by agreements
between West Germany and East Germany. If you
like, between Doctor Adenauer and Mr. Ulbricht,
and that is ninety-five per cent of all the
traffic between Berlin and the West. The part
that is really being argued about is the five
per cent, which is really based on our military
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rights there as the victors in the war, and
that's where Khrushchev is raising questions
now that we're negotiating.
SCHOENBURN: ? I wonder why Doctor Adenauer gets so angry
every time Americans talk about negotiations?
LIPPMANN:
SCHOENBRUN:
LIPPANN:
He doesn't -- he cannot agree to anything that
sehms to fix and sign and seal the permanent
partition of Germany. That's what it's alociut,
and it's perfectly understandable. It's perfectly
natural that he should feel that way.
It seems to me that Doctor Adenauer's bitterness,
his intensity of feeling, must be based on
something more than just the fear of partition.
There must be other roots to it. Wouldn't you
think?
Oh, well, there is such a -- yes, there is
emotional basis far it, and you know the fact
?is, that Doctor Adenauer has become a very
.old man, and a very old man doesn't like the
things he's used to, to change, and he became
used, under -- When Jean Foster Dulles was
Secretary of State, and even before that, when
Acheson was Secretary of State, to having -- to
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SCHOENBRUN:
LIPPMANN:
being the most consulted man in Europe on
European affairs by the United States. Well,
he isn't that any longer and that is a. hard
thing to get used to, and it -- the fact that he
isn't always the first consulted, that we
also consult the British, and we consult other
countries in Europe, makes him very suspicious.
He thinks things are being arranged behind his
back, which it doesn't -- nothing is being
arranged behind his back. We don't make a:move
that we don't tell him about, but he's
irritable and suspicious about it.
Well, isn't it always true that when we do
make a move and consult him, that we often
quarrel with him perhaps more than we did in
the past?
Well, I -- yes, because we are trying to get
an accommodation about Berlin -- we were talking
about you know, "something that will work for a
few years until the dAy comes when we can begin
seriously to deal with the question of the
reunification of Germany, not by abolishing
East Germany, but by making the two coalesce
and grow back together into one nation, and
that day won't come while Doctor Adenauer is
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in office, and it won't come while Ulbricht
is in office in East Germany. But when those
two men go, and I don't know when that'll be,
it will begin, because the pull of union
between them is very much stronger than any
other force and will prevail.
SCHOENBRUN: Well, is it your opinion that there is really
a different American policy vis-a-vis Germany
and Europe and not only a different attitude?
LIPPMANN:
There's no different policy on anything essential.
We haven't -- this administration is just as
committed a he one before to keeping American
troops in Berlin, keeping the air corridors and
the others open to access, and we'll go to as
great lengths as anybody. The President, last
July, thought he was on the verge of war over
the thing and was prepared to face it. Nothing
has changed except in that respect, and we
haven't given up any of the vital interests
of the German people, which are our interests
too in a sense, but we cannot tack and zigzag
our policy to suit German internal politics,
as we have in the past. Novi, Germany, inside,
is not nearly as inflexiblf as Doctor Adenauer
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? makes it sound, and we know that and we're
interested in a lot of Germans, both on the
right and the left, and in the center in his
own? party, who we see them and talk to
them. And that is disturbing, of course,
but that it doesn't represent a radical
change unless you want to regard aS a radical
change as having a one man relationship.
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SCHOENBRUN: Well, if the tide is changing, just where
does this leave the third area Africa?
LIPPMANN:
Well, I tlaink we have euoceeded -- well,
that sounds too boastful. I think it has
happened, through good luck and good:
management, that Africa will not become the
scene of a great conflict between the Soviet
Union and the United States that's been
pushed out of it. The instrument, of course,
has been the United Nations in the Congo.
I don't think the Soviet Union is now in the
position to intervene in any effective,
important way in Africa. It's too faraway.
Her wealth isn't great enough. Her military
reach isn't great enough, and I think if
that's played wisely, we have averted that.
Now, that doesn't mean that the problems are
settled, because what's going an in Africa,
and to some degree also in, say, Indo-China,
or Southeast Asia, as it's now called, and
there's other parts of the world, Latin
America, to some degree is something that
didn't start in Moscow and it didn't start in
Washington. It started right in the soil of
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the country. It's a revolutionary condition.
Just as, why couldn't there be a revolution
in Russia? There was no Russia to start the
revolution in Russia. Those things grow out
of the soil and that will go on, even if we
do get to reasonably good,co7existence with
the Soviet Union and get China hedged in,
and so on, still, that'll go on. Africa will
probably be in a turbulent state for a hundred
years.
ANNOUNCER:
You are watchiing "Walter Lippmann 1962" - interviewed by David
Schoenbrun on CBS REPORTS.
SCHOENBRUN:. I wonder if you could talk to us a bit about
LIPPMANN:
Southeast Asia, and the great danger spot
that's in the news all the time -- Laos?
Well, there's a long history to Laos, which
I think we won't go into. The most important
thing about Laos is to know where it is, and
Laos is a country which has no harbors. It's
locked inside of Southeast Asia. It's a country
which was created fifteen years ago, or less.
It never -- there never was a Laos before, and
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it has no nationality, just collections of
tribes and feudal lords and princes, and so
on, and it is the neighbor of China. It
borders on China and it borders on North
Viet-Nam, which is the part of Viet-Nam that
stayed in Communist hands, under Ho Chi Minh,
so in the norm of things, you'd expect that
China would be the great country acting in
Laos, but what we find is, that Russia is the
country that is acting. Now, Russia is almost
as far away from Laos as we are. They've got
to come all the way around and it's not easy
for them to get there, just as it isn't easy
for us. It's easier for us, maybe, than for
them. And the question is, what are the Russians
after? Why are they so interested? Not because
they think Laos would be a gold mine for then
if they could somehow or other put up a
Communist -- Russian Communist government there.
The country is a miserable affair. No use to
them -- anybody. It's a liability. I think
they ought to keep the Ctlinese from coming in,
and I think their object there is, primarily,
to prevent the Chinese, who are reckless and
inexperienced, from doing something that would
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SCHOENBRUN:
LIPPMANN:
produce a war between the United States and
China, just as we had one in Korea. They
don't want to -- cause they don't want to be
in that position, because they'd either have
to abandon their ally, which would be very
difficult, as a Communist, or they'd have to
got into a war with the United States, which
would be even worse. So I think they're in
there for preventive reasons, and if there's
any hope of getting any kind of a working
arrangement. It's pretty hard to deal with
these people to get anything stick, because
they promise something and then it goes unstuck
the next day. It's because we and the Russians
have agreed that neither of US wants to be in
Laos provided the other stays out, and that
means a neutral Laos.
'How do you evaluate the President's decision
in sending armed forces into Thailand?
I think it all is related to the hope and
belief that we have, that we have a basic
understanding with the Russians about Laos. If
so, it's no more than -- it's about the equivalent
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in the old days of sending a gunboat to
some place that's in trouble. They're not
there to fit anybody, and whether it's
good to send a gunboat or not, is an arguable
question. It all depends on whether our
judgment of our real -- of the real relations,
which I tried to describe, with Russia, is
correct.
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SCHOENBRUN: There's a very different situation, of course,
in South Viet-Nam where there's a war going on.
How do you evaluate that?
LIPPMANN:
I don't think the Russians have any great
interest in making South Viet-Nam Communist, and
I don't think they greatly resent our helping
them to defend themselves against the guerrillas,
because they are old-fashioned in their views
of diplomacy, and that's our sphere of influence,
and we're behind the line, and it's -- the
interesting thing about Viet-Nam is how little
they have protested about it, not anything else.
They begged through a formal statement, but
otherwise they didn't do anything.
SCHOENBRUN: Isn't that also ...
LIPPEANN: Whether our policy will work, nobody can say.
I couldn't say today, certainly. We're trying
to do something extremely difficult, which is
to make a very unsatisfactory government work --
be acceptable to the people of this country, and
I don't know whether that'll do.
SCHOENBRUN:
Perhaps we can make a quick jump to another part
of the world - to Cuba. You suggested about a
year ago that we were making too much of a fuss
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about Mr. Castro. He really wasn't a very
important fellow, just let him alone and
he'd fall down. How do you feel about Mr. Castro
today? ?
LIPPMANN: I feel more than ever I think it's worked fine.
Castro is much less important than he was a year
ago. His prestige in South America has gone down.
His power to harm us have proved to be negligible.
We have problems enough in South America, but
they don't come from Castro.
SCHOENBRUN:
LIPPMANN:
Let me ask you this, Mr. Lippmann.
Could you evaluate this Kennedy administration
now? What has it succeeded in doing? What las
it failed to do?
I would say that since last summer, since the
administration, so to speak, collected itself
after the shock of Cuba first, and then the
shock of the meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna,
and the building of the wall, and so on, and
began to re-asses S its military power and its
economic power, the style has been very good.
I mean, the tide is favorable, and Kennedy is
proving, I think, a very admirable mariner, a
navigator in that kind of sea. He -- instead
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of using his great power to threaten and to make
himself tougher, he's made it -- he used it to
promote an'accommodating policy, which, of
course, improves his position, and I consider
that very successful, because he knows that
there's no such thing as victory in a nuclear
war, and so, he doesn't talk about it, and doesn't
try to 8p -- act as if he thought it was possible,
so on that side he's very good. Now, in the
alliance, he is faced with problems that are
going to be -- that are very difficult, because
what is really happening there is, that while
our military supremacy or leadership, let's say
pre-eminence inside the alliance is undisputable,
nobody can touch it. The course -- it'd be
utterly beyond Europe to challenge it. Our
economic and financial pre-eminence in the
world, relative to Europe, is declining. Our
great creditor position in the world, has of
course, been liquidated through wise policies
the Marshall Plan and Foreign Aid, and so on, so
that we no longer have a surplus of gold, which
we can sort of feed out to the world to restore
it. And we have done that, and it's been one of
the great, historically, I think it will be
regarded as one of the great achievements,
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disinterested achievements of a nation after a
great war, and Europe's recovery could not
have taken place. I don't say it took place
because of it -- it could not have taken place
without it. Now, it's becoming a serious drain
on us, that's very important, from the European
point of view. They are much more powerful,
financially, than we are. They have surpluses
and we have deficits. Then, another thing that
plays a very great role is the fact that they
have found ways, through financial policy and
tax policy, and so on, budget policy, to produce
much higher rates of economic growth than we
have. We conduct a fiscal policy, have been
conducting it under President Eisenhower, and
we continued under President Kennedy, which does
not fit the growth of the modern world, the
growth of the economy in the modern world, and
under General Eisenhower -- President Eisenhower,
we had three recessions, and each one, each
recovery from a ecession lasted a shorter time
than the preceding one. Now, we've had a
permanent mass of unemployment and under-use of
capital plant. We've been running way below our
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potential, and at a growth rate which have been
around three per cent, which is very low
compared to any other great industrial power in
the world. This has not been corrected under
Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy has made moves during the
? recession to alleviate distress in certain areas,
to raise some palliatives\, but the basic
condition, the basic financial policy of
prematurely balancing the budget, which is what
I think he has done, is based on the fact that
if he doesn't do that, he will be attacked by
the Republicans and by a large part of the
Democrats as an irresponsible, disreputable,
and so on. We are throttling our own development
by a refusal to allow the economy to have
enough stimulus from public as well as private
investment, to keep going at a high rate.
SCHOENBRUN: I wonder if you could be specific about that.
What should we do that we aren't doing?
LIPPMANN:
I would Ep this far as to say, the immediate
thing to do, I think, is to make a drastic
reductions by drastic, a very severe and
substantial reduction in direct taxes on incomes
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and corPorations, and that will unbalance the
budget, not merely the budget that everybody
talks about, but the real balance of payments
between the different parts of the economy
favorably. It will act as a stimulus, and that
is not merely a shot in the arm -- that's really
nourishment for the economy. I think we're
trying to make too big a part of our tax
revenues come by direct taxes, by income taxes,
and I think the people feel the weight of that
where they have to pay into it where they
don't feel indirect tax like the gasoline tax
and tobacco tax, and so on. I think we've gone
beyond the endurable limits of direct taxation,
and I think it causes a lot of political unrest
in this country too.
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SCHOiNBRON: Do you think that it's possible, with all the
tremendous burdens of our commitments at home
and abroad, to cut government income, or to
replace direct taxes by indirect, or is there
some other way of generating the means for
our commitments?
LIPPMANN: Well, if we can raise our annual rate of
economic growth from three and a little of
what it is now -- three and a half, to four
or four and a half, four and a half let's say,
the revenues that the production, the income
that'll generate will, under lower taxes produce
more revenue, and we can then -- it'll mean that
we'll produce probably thirty or forty billion
dollars a year more wealth than we do now. And
that'll pay for all of these things. We're a
country that is trying to carry tremendous
burdens, defense and foreign aid, and nuclear
'weapons, and all that sort of thing, and
operating way under its capacity, and that isn't
possible, the weight -- the thing gets too
heavy a burden on the people, because they have
to spend too much out of too little product.
A country where steel capacity, steel production
is running something like sixty per cent of
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capacity and where there are unemployment in
the labor force of five -- five and half per
cent, is not able to take on the burdens of
leadership and. pre-eminence in the world as
it is today.
SCHOENBRUN: ' How do you evaluate the President's fight
LIPPHINN:
with U.S. Steel?
The real cause of the violence of the flare-up
over the steel increase was based not so much
on economic considerations, in my view. It
was based on what looked like bad faith. The
steel company kept back its announcement of
price increases until every union had been
signed up for a year, so it couldn't increase
wages, and then it announced the fact. That
wasn't playing ball, and I think that the anger
at that, that the President was put in the
position of having made labor take less than it
wanted, on the assumption that prices wouldn't
increase, he was made to look as if he deceived
them, and I think that's the cause of the
emotional flare-up. Now, there were certain
things he did in that, which I didn't altogeer
like. I didn't like bringing the FBI into it,
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to call up newspapermen, and of course, I'm
a newspaperman, in the middle of the night,
to ask them questions about the steel business.
That was excessive, and was bad judgment, and
caused a bad reaction, but of course, it has
nothing to do with the main issue. If he .
if the steel corporation -- companies had been
able to raise the price of steel after the
settlement with the trade unions, we would have
had an impossible situation with trade unions
all over the country, and maybe the President
reacted too angrily, but he had to react. He
had no choice in the matter. They gave him no
choice.
SCHOENBRUN: Did the steel crisi ,have any effect on the
LIPPMANN:
stock market sag?
No. I think it's absolutely certain it is not
the cause of it, because the stock, the bear
market, the fall 'in the stock market prices
began, thiS is a matter of fact, on the sixteenth
of March. The explosion with steel -- the steel
thing broke out on the eleventh of April, or
the tenth -- eleventh or tenth of April. Before
that, there was no -- nothing had happened with
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SCHOENBRUN:
LIPPMANN:
38
steel except everything was going well, so
that, obviously, the steel thing didn't start
the bear market. Now, the bear market has gone on
since steel - maybe it's gotten a little
sharper, but I think the reasons for the bear
market are not because Mr. Blough felt hurt,
or somebody felt sorry that Mr. Blough had
been handled so roughly, it's because the
underlying conditions as to what our recovery
from the recession of '61 is going to be, and
what the possibilities of another recession
next year are, point to a bear market.
Perhaps we could talk about some of the people
around the President. For example, it has
been suggested that it was not the President.
who sent the FBI around to call people at
three and four in the morning, but it was his
brother, Bobby. How do you evaluate the
Attorney General?
The Attorney General, Bobby, is a very
attractive human being, but he is -- his
greatest weakness -- I'm afraid, the thing
that I worried about before he was appointed,
is that when he's bent on what he thinks is
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SCHOEYBRUN:
39
the right course, he's rather ruthless in-
action, and I think this FBI thing was an
example of.thato And I assume it was he -
it must have been he because he's the boss
of that.
Well, now, what about some of the other
people in the Cabinet? Secretary of Defense
MacNamara and Dean Rusk - could you talk
about them?
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LIPPTANN:
Well, Dean Rusk has proved himself, I think,
since, roughly speaking, last summer, in
his -- to be a really first-class negotiator
with the Russians .? He's got one quality that
is indispensable for dealing with the Russians.
He never gets bored. He can say the same
thing and listen to the same thing. The
Russians say the same thing ten times in the
course of an hour. He can listen to it and
say his thing ten times, and he says this,
himself, and it's a great quality. And,
therefore, I think he's been a very successful
'negotiator with the Russians. His negotiations
with Gromyko, end of August I think it was,
after the wall business, resulted really in
taking the ultimatum out of the Berlin situation.
SGHOENBRUN: What about the Secretary of Defense,
Mr, MacNamara?
LIPPMANN? MacNamara -- Secretary MacNamara is the ablest
man who, has come into the Pentagon since it
was built. He's the man who more than any man
who's ever occupied the post, understands the
whole problem just as well as any general does,
and he's quite able to talk to the generals and
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SCHOENBRUNg
41
the colonels and the strategists in the
Pentagon on even terms. They can't just talk
down to him as a layman. The result is, that
you have what we're supposed to have in this
country civilian control of the military
in a way that I don't think we've had it since
the war.
One of the big decisions that Mr. MacNamara
had a big part in was our decision to resume
nuclear testing. How do you feel about that?
LIPPNANN: Well, we did that to re-insure ourselves
against a Soviet breakthrough.
SCHOENBRUN: There was a great split inside this administration
on whether we should resume testing or not. Do
you think that the President, himself,
exercised complete leadership, that it was his
decision alone?
LIPPYANN:
Yes, I do. I think it's one of the most
admirable performances, because he really did
.study the thing and, listened to it, and went
through all the agonies of this awfully technical
and hard thing to understand. He's not a lazy
man - President Kennedy.
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7
SCHOENBRUN: Mr. Lippmann, you've been telling us the tide
is turning in our favor. A lot of citizens
in this country would really disagree with you.
There's Laos in which we look very bad. There's
Turkey uncertain. Algeria blowing up, France
in trouble. Brazil, Argentina. What do you
say to people who are genuinely worried about
all of this?
LIPPMANN:
Well, I didn't say that the world was going to
8p just the way we want it to go. What I say
is, that as between our world, the Western
world, with us in a military sense in the center
of it and the Communist world -- the Soviet
Union, the balance is more in our favor than it
was a year ago. Now, -what happens in Cuba and
what happens in Brazil, and so on, is going to
? go on for a century in one form or another, and
anybody who thinks that out of a favorable turn
in the balance of power, he's going to get
Utopia, or the wcirld just as he wants it, doesn't
understand the nature of thing. When history
goes on, who won the modern age -- it's gone on
for five hundred years, changing. One power
was up. Another power was down. You don't win
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ages. I mean, you can Irvin a battle on the
ground, but it's just foolish to talk about
victory in a thing as large as the process of'
history on a global scale. I believe our
society, while it is aping to change from -
within, and is changing, is not going to be
overwhelmed or buried, as. Mr. Khrushchev once
said, bythis other society. It is -- if
anything, I think its influence is growing,
or has been growing in very recent times. It
was going down. Now, I think it's begun to
go up. But.I don't think we'd better be
complacent about it. I'd keep my fingers
crossed.
SCHOENBRUN: Thank you very much, Mr. Lippmann.
ANNOUNCER:
A word about the next CBS REPORTS in a moment.
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ADENAUER, Chancellor Conrad
AFRICAN BLOC
BERLIN
44
INDEX
COMMON MARKET
COMMUNISM:
in Western Europe
Stresses inside bloc/
DEGAULTR, President Charles
EUROPEAN ECONOMY
P.P.19- 23
P.P. 24-25
P.P. .15-23
P.P. 5- 6
P.P. 6- rL
P.P. 7- d
P.P. 9-11913-5
P.P. 5- 6
KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION:
Evaluation
P.P.27,-28
P.P. 29-42
Kennedy, Robert
P.P. 3d-39
MacNamara, Robert
P.P. 40-41
Rusk, Dean
P.P. 39-40
KHRUSHCHEV, Premier Nikita
P.4,8,15,20,43
LAOS
P.P.25-27
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
P. 49 10-11941
SOUTH VIETNAN
P.P. 29
STALING-RAD ANALOGY
P.P. 12-13
THAILAND
P.P. 27-28
"TURNING OF TE TIDE"
P.P. 2-699942-43
UNITED STATES:
Domestic Problems
Intelligence breakthrough
Relations 'with Russia
Stock market lag
Taxes
U.S. Steel
P.P. 30-38
P.
P.P. 9
P.P. 37_3
P.P.
P.P. 36-38
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