AN INTERVIEW WITH WALTER MONDALE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000100410003-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 18, 2007
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: October 25, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/05/21 : CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100410003-7
RADIO N REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 656-4068
STATION W R C T V
NBC Network
October 25, 1982 12:00 Noon CITY Washington, DC
BILL MONROE: Our guest today on Meet the Press is
Walter Mondale, Vice President of the United States under the
Carter administration, former senator from Minnesota, and, to
all outward appearances, a 1984 presidential candidate. Our
reporters today are Ken Bode of NBC News; Elizabeth Drew of the
New Yorker; Robert Novak of the Chicago Sun Times; and, to open
the questioning, Marvin Kalb of NBC News.
MARVIN KALB: Mr. Mondale, over the last couple of
months you've been criss-crossing the country, speaking rather
regularly. And a number of people have the impression you're
trying to cultivate a new, very tough image. And people have
raised the question as to whether this is tactics or, indeed, you
are undergoing rather profound changes in your own thinking.
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT WALTER MONDALE: Actually, what
the press is now picking up is what I've been saying for a long
time. And one of the issues that is often discussed in this
context is my position on trade. I think you know for some
twenty years now I've been involved in trade issues. I used to
chair the International Finance Subcommittee. The Export Ad-
ministration Act was a bill that I led through the Senate. And I
have some very deeply held views that I've been expressing for
some time for all kinds of audiences.
I think the American trade policy today is a disaster.
I think that fact is reflected in the fact that August was the
worst trade month in American history. For the first time in 13
years, American agricultural exports are dropping. All across
the board we're doing less well for many complex reasons. And I
think we've got to get much smarter and much tougher.
OFFICES IN: WASHINGTON D.C, ? NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
Material supplied by Radio N Reports, Inc. may be used for file and reference purposes only. It may not be reproduced, sold or publicly demonstrated or exhibited,
Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100410003-7
 Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100410003-7
KALB: Are you proposing forms of protectionism?
MONDALE: There are three or four key points. Number
one, most important of all is that Reaganomics has so distorted
the value of the dollar as against the currencies of our major
trading partners that it is as though we've put an enormous tax
on all exports and used the revenues to protect an enormous
subsidy for all imports. It's an absolute disaster.
Secondly, our export administration policies in both
agriculture and in manufacturing goods has increasingly made
America a supplier of a uncertain source. That is, we're an
unreliable supplier, are seen to be such. That is hurting us
terribly.
And finally, the Export-Import Bank policies of our
country are such that all of our major trading partners -- Japan,
Western Europe -- are repeatedly and almost consistently under-
bidding American products, particularly big ticket items --
airplanes, generators, and the rest -- and this is hurting us
terribly.
And finally, in many, many ways, other countries have
open access to our markets while we are sealed off, in whole or
in part, from their markets. And we need a much tougher and more
effective trade policy.
KALB: You're describing a bad situation. But is your
remedy going to take the form of protectionism? Are you going to
stop imports of foreign goods?
MONDALE: I would do several things. Number one, I
would get a much more balanced fiscal-monetary policy so that
our dollar bears a much closer competitive relationship to other
currencies. That's crucial.
Number two, I would stop trying to fitfully use export
administration policy to control sales in a way that undermines
our reliability as a supplier in both grains and in manufactured
goods.
Number three, I would take that Export-Import Bank and I
would tell our competitors we're going to compete with you toe to
toe. You're not going to get one more sale around this world
because you've low-balled credit terms.
And finally, I would tell nations that won't let our
products into their countries, that are selecting what they'll
buy and what they won't buy, that we're going to get much tougher
with them, because we insist upon access.
Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100410003-7
 Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100410003-7
There're many, many other things we can do. But that's
the direction in which I would go.
MONROE: Thank you, Mr. Mondale. We'll be back with
more questions for Walter Mondale.
MONROE: Our guest on "Meet the Press," former Vice
President Walter Mondale.
ROBERT NOVAK: Mr. Mondale, Mr. Kalb twice asked you if
you were moving in a protectionist direction, and you declined to
answer both times. I'll try it in another method.
Are you supporting the bill that is sponsored by the
United Auto Workers Union and other aspects of organized labor,
which would require a certain percentage of domestic content,
that is a certain percentage fabricated by American union labor
in the United States on any automobile?
MONDALE: Yes, I am, and let me tell you why. In some
30 countries now, they have so-called local content legislation.
In most of the countries of Europe, they say specifically to
Japan and others "This is how many cars you'll sell in our
nation." There is a world pattern of this practice, and the
result has been that nation after nation has determined, in
effect, how many American jobs will go to those other countries.
And even in Japan, it's almost impossible to sell an American car
because of a range of policies.
Recently, for example in Vancouver, Japanese ships came
up with Japanese built cars, and the Canadians announced that
they were going to inspect each of those cars individually unless
Japan agreed to a certain very severe limit. In other words, we
are about the only open market in cars today. And I believe our
communities and our workers have some rights too.
NOVAK: Well, sir, you and the other Democrats,
including the Democrats who are running for office November 2nd,
are, in effect, are you not, asking the American workers and
consumers to subsidize UAW wage scales by not having an oppor-
tunity to buy the lower priced foreign automobiles?
MONDALE: No, they would still have access to the
markets. For example, what I'd like to see more of is what
Volkswagen and what Reneault has done. Volkswagen has opened up
a plant in America. It provides American jobs. Reneault has
bought into AMC and is providing jobs. It's a question of
Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100410003-7
 Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100410003-7
balance. It's also a question of whether there're going to be
any rights for communities and workers in this country, or
whether American workers or communities are just going to be set
up for sacrifice.
NOVAK: Well, just so the viewers might have some appre-
ciation of what you're saying, what you're saying is that these
foreign cars will be built by American labor at the high priced
spread. Isn't that correct?
MONDALE: Some will and some won't. Right now the
American market is open to foreigners, regardless of price, and
American cars in many, many markets cannot get into those markets
unless we meet the local content in those countries. There
simply has to be a fairer shake for American workers. That is
one part of it.
There's a much broader context in which my policy fits.
The currency valuations issue is very crucial. The failure to
use the Export-Import Bank to be competitive is losing billions
of dollars' worth of sales. The, I think, erratic way in which
the Export Administration Act has been used to make us than a
reliable supplier: all of these things are hurting this country
desperately. As I said, August was the worst trade month in
American history. It's going down, and we've got to get much
tougher.
ELIZABETH DREW: Just to clear up one thing, I think I
heard you say in response to Mr. Kalb, in part of your answer,
that you think we should be a steady supplier of, among other
things, grain.
DREW: Does that mean you support President Reagan's
action in supplying more grain to the Soviet Union?
MONDALE: As a matter of fact, I don't think that's what
he's doing. He's dealing with the politics of the problem just
before the election....
DREW: But do you support grain sales to the Soviet
MONDALE: Yes, absolutely. And what I would do, in
fact, and have proposed, is that we reach a long-term agreement
-- excuse me -- with the Soviet Union providing for at least
8,000,000 tons of grain per year so that we become a reliable
supplier again.
Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100410003-7
 Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100410003-7
DREW: Changing the subject, you have offered alter-
natives to the Reagan program, cutting the rate of growth in the
Pentagon spending, cutting off the third year tax cut for people
earning $60,000, and cutting down on medical costs. But I don't
know that I've heard you say anything about Social Security. How
would you deal with that shortfall, by raising taxes or lowering
benefits?
MONDALE: Well, first of all, there are two things that
are crucial to it that we should be doing right now. Number one,
we should be getting a policy of economic growth in this country.
That's not ducking your question, because one of the real reasons
that the Social Security Trust Fund is in trouble now is that
we've gone into a deep recession, and by each 1% we have in-
creased unemployment, the Social Security Trust Fund sinks into
deficit by an additional $5 billion. The most important thing
we can do to restore the integrity of the fund is to get some
economic growth.
The second thing I would do is to put in place a very
strong hospital cost containment bill. Last year professional
health and hospital costs in this country rose by 21% while the
inflation was approximately a third of that. And the reason is
that federal support through Medicare, Medicaid, Blue Cross, Blue
Shield
is provided in a way that provides no restraint on
these
soaring
costs. This year I think it will cost something
like
$5
billion
people
there.
out of the trust fund to pay for the same number
we paid for last time. There's big savings to be
of
made
We are now waiting for the results of the conference,
or
that special study group to figure out what other things should
be done to restore the integrity of the trust fund. What I
disagree with, and what I think has to be made very, very clear
in 1982, and, if I can do it, from there on out, is that I don't
believe we should tamper any further with the benefits to the
Social Security recipients of this country. There are 35,000,000
-- excuse me -- Americans who are full of anxiety and fear
because they've seen attempt after attempt to slaughter Social
Security benefits.
I think we ought to say that those benefits are a part
of a basic contract, the senior citizens are entitled to those
benefits, and that we stand as a nation behind the protection of
those benefits and in other ways make up for the Social Security
problems.
DREW: So if there is a deficit, that leaves raising
Social Security taxes.
MONDALE: It might. It might. In other words, we'll
Approved For Release 2007/05/21 : CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100410003-7
 Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-01070R000100410003-7
have to see the final study of this -- results of this study.
But we may have to do that.
KEN BODE: Sir, we're right on the eve of a midterm
election. The first midterm when a President takes office, the
usual range of losses is in about the ten to fifteen seat range.
Would you say if the Republicans do that well this year that the
American voters have returned a mandate to stay the course?
MONDALE: What I say, and I get this question asked
everywhere, as you might guess, Mr. Bode, is we'll know whether
the voters have voted for a change or not. I have some diffi-
culty going through the numbers, because I don't know what they
mean. Some people say the average loss at this time of the year,
at this point in a new term, is about 12. I don't know. But I
think we'll know based on governors, senators, congressional
races whether this result was one which called for a change of
course or did not.
I personally think it will. I think the suffering
around this country is so tremendous. The American people do not
believe these policies are working. And now there's an added
element that I think will drive the electorate, and that is this
strange pattern by which this administration seems to be telling
the American people that they're doing better, that workers who
are unemployed are not suffering. They have attempted to punch
holes in the safety net and other suggestions that indicate that
they're out of touch. I think Americans see that.
[Mondale coughs.]
I'm sorry about this.
MONROE: Since you have a cold, Mr. former Vice
President, you're allowed to use a handkerchief.
MONDALE: I'm sorry.
BODE: Mr. Mondale, let me ask you a question while you
do that. In this election, just about every Democrat in the
country is campaigning against Reaganomics. And there's an
impressive show of party unity around the country, with the
exception of one person, and that's the man who holds the title
of titular head of the Democratic Party, Jimmy Carter, who has
made a couple of campaign appearances, but for the most part has
been out hustling a book. And when he does make campaign appear-
ances, he goes to the trouble of suggesting that Ted Kennedy's
not fit to be President, that Kennedy can't make a decision under
pressure. Now that's what the Republicans have often said about
Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-01070R000100410003-7
 Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100410003-7
Ted Kennedy, and here's poor Kennedy up in a reelection contest
up there.
Can you explain this odd behavior from a man who you
were once very close to?
MONDALE: Well, let me tell you what I'm trying to do.
I'll try to explain my own position.
I went up to Massachusetts the other day to campaign for
Senator Kennedy's reelection, which I doubt is in any challenge.
I think he's been a good senator. And I said so. I would like
to see the 1982 election one in which the Democrats are as united
as they can possibly be, so that we can present the real issues
of '82 -- economics, the assault on the environment, the constant
attempt to undermine Social Security benefits, the many, many
other issues, education and so on, that bear on our future.
That's what I'd like to see the '82 election concentrate on.
BODE: Why is it that Jimmy Carter is not regarded as a
major asset in a heavy campaign year by the party he led in the
last election?
MONDALE: President Carter, when he left office, said he
intended to go home, write his book, raise money for his library,
and at some point he'd begin to speak out. I don't think he's
really started that yet.
MONROE: Mr. Mondale, as you're probably aware, a lot of
experts feel that the local content legislation, which you say
you favor, is sheer protectionism. And I wonder if you would
answer those who say it will bring retaliation. If we require
Toyota and Datsun to build 90?0' of their cars here, local content,
the Japanese can require, or Europeans can require, IBM to make
90?0' of their computers in Japan or in Europe, and the same can be
done to Boeing and other American companies.
MONDALE: Well, let me say two or three things. First
of all, we are the purest market for cars in the world. Thirty
other countries have local content legislation now. The Japanese
who sell some 2,000,000 cars to us buy only 2,000 cars. We are
in a position where increasingly all the investment, or most of
the investment in car production is occurring in other nations
while the basic auto, car and steel industry of this country is
diminishing.
I have for many years resisted local content legisla-
tion. But I've come to the point I don't know what other defense
there is. I don't know how we get beyond the talk stage into
some situation where we get some access to their markets as well.
There are product after product in which American products are
Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100410003-7
 Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-01070R000100410003-7
better, cheaper, more reliable, but where we're sealed out of
other markets. But there's just talk and talk and talk. And
what I've decided, and I've said this for several months now, is
that I think we're getting to the point where talk is not enough,
where we've got to get tougher in order to get these other
countries to open up.
MONDALE: Let me say what my basic strategy is. I am
not a zero sum, beggar-thy-neighbor protectionist. I've never
been that. My whole policy here is to try to get America in a
position where she can reassert her economic strength in an
international competitive environment that's fair. Right now I
think -- I believe in international competition, but I'm not a
sucker. And I think we have to take tough stands. Otherwise,
we're going to just see a constant erosion of product line after
product line.
Part of it is the approach to trade in this area. But
even more importantly, it's currency evaluations, Export-Import
Bank, export administration. All of those things are much more
important.
MONROE: What about retaliation, Mr. Mondale?
MONDALE: I find it very hard to believe that you'd have
retaliation when we're the last country to try to do something
about the car market.
KALB: Mr. Mondale, there were a lot of economic pro-
blems when the Carter administration was in power and you were
Vice President, and there are continuing economic problems. And
listening to you -- and you used the expression a moment ago
about talk, talk, talk. A lot of political figures when they're
on television sound as though they know the answers. But a
larger question might be involved here, since both sides don't
really seem to know the answers, whether there may be some
systemic change in the economic system that is required, that it
is no longer a question of simply tinkering with the old mer-
chandise; it may not be working.
MONDALE: I believe very strongly that what your
question states is, in fact, the case. I think there're some
short-term steps that need to be taken. One is to undo Regano-
mics. This radical notion that you can somehow solve all of our
nation's problems by creating a deficit of historic proportions
simply hasn't worked, and it won't work. We have to get a more
sensible fiscal-monetary balance.
Approved For Release 2007/05/21 : CIA-RDP88-01070R000100410003-7
 Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-01070R000100410003-7
But once you've undone that, there's a lot of basic
things that have to be done over the long run. Number one, you
have to make certain that this next generation is the best pre-
pared, educationally, scientifically than any in American
history, because the competition from our ever-more competitive
foreign economies, the need to defend our nation in an ever-
more sophisticated defense arena, the need for security for
this next generation requires the most advanced education,
scientific effort ever.
Secondly, in my opinion, we need to tilt our laws and
our economic policies toward more entrepreneurship. That special
American instinct for small business, for competition is one of
our major long-term advantages. Right now, small business is
being destroyed, in my opinion.
Thirdly, we need a much tougher international com-
petitive trade policy with the elements that I've discussed, but
with some others we don't have time to go into. Product after
product line, first radios, TVs, videos, machine tools, now
airplanes, now microchip, one after another, we find American
products, which are often better and cheaper, losing market
shares and finally disappearing from the world markets. And if
this continues and if we don't have an all-out attempt and
strategy to reassert America's competitiveness in international
trade -- and it's a very complex and tough issue, but we've got
to get with it -- we're going to find that our children are
getting the dead-end jobs and the future, the high technology,
the growth is going overseas.
That has been going on for a long time, but with
increasing velocity. And under current Reagan policy, it is
becoming a disaster.
MONDALE: I just want to make one point. People always
ask me, what are your plans for the future? And I'd like to talk
about that for a minute, because we have a lot of plans for the
future, and I think Americans ought to.
The final point is infrastructure. Our decaying roads,
bridges, ports, sewage systems, and so on, if uncorrected, will
be a very serious problem for our economy.
NOVAK: Mr. Mondale, last month in New York, you deli-
vered the keynote address to the Human Rights Campaign Fund,
which is a political arm of the homosexual community. Some
people felt this was a signal that the homosexual movement in
America had become part of the Democatic Party's coalition, as
much as Hispanics, blacks, organized labor. Is that correct?
Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100410003-7
 Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100410003-7
MONDALE: I don't know what the politics of it is. But
I know why I was there. I wanted to speak out against discrimin-
ation against homosexuals. I did it. I think it's right. I
think most Americans agree with that.
NOVAK: Some people, some friends of yours, told me they
were very profoundly shocked by that. Has anybody expressed that
opinion to you?
MONDALE: Yes. But I did what I thought was right, and
I think that's what leadership is all about.
NOVAK: Why did you refuse to do it five years ago?
That's the question. Aren't they part of the Democratic
coalition?
MONDALE: Was I invited five years ago?
NOVAK: That's what I was told. Isn't that correct?
MONDALE: Well, you know something I don't know.
NOVAK: Would you have spoken to them five years ago?
MONDALE: The position I took the other evening is
exactly the same position I've taken for years.
MONROE: We have less than three minutes. Miss Drew.
DREW: Mr. Mondale, you've talked about the future in-
dustries and industries that you think are going to grow. What
would you do about the old basic American industry?
MONDALE: I think there're some -- first of all, I think
we have to decide whether or not we're going to have basic indus-
try in this country. And my answer is clearly yes.
Secondly, we have to have a policy that makes them more
competitive. I think we need a tripartite arrangement where
management, labor and government sits down and sees what we have
to do to reinvigorate these basic industries.
Finally, just basic good economic sense will make a
difference. A lot of the trouble in steel, in autos, rubber and
the other basic industries in America is the result of these
disastrous Reaganomic policies that have run interest rates
through the sky. And everything that people have to buy on
credit, whether it's cars, autos, appliances, whatever, they
can no longer afford.
DREW: No inherent problems in the industries them-
selves?
Approved For Release 2007/05/21 : CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100410003-7
 Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100410003-7
MONDALE: There are some inherent problems, and that's
why I say we have to have a trade approach; we have to have some
basic changes within the industry in terms of labor-management
relations. I think government has to approach it differently. I
think we have some capital acquisition problems. There're a lot
of basic problems. But I think we have to begin by agreeing that
basic industry cannot disappear from this country. We've got to
have it. We can't defend ourselves without it.
BODE: Mr. Mondale, the Democratic Party's platform now
opposes discrimination based on sex or sexual orientation. At
the dinner at which Mr. Novak referred a moment ago, so I read
any way, you endorsed the gay movement's demand that homosexuals
be included in federal laws as a minority against whom it would
henceforth be a crime to discriminate.
First, is that accurate? And secondly, if so, would you
bring the machinery of federal civil rights enforcement to bear
on behalf of homosexuals as it is now for blacks, Hispanics and
women?
MONDALE: I endorsed the Democratic platform in its
entirety. I will have to pass on that question, because I am
just not sure what the implications of that provision is. I
believe we should stop discriminating. I think government,
particularly, within its own functions, should stop discrimin-
ating, which we have been, for example in immigration and so
on. What instrumentalities or approaches beyond that might be
needed, I'm not prepared to say right now. I'm not trying to
duck your question, because I'm just not sure what the signifi-
cance of that phrase is.
MONROE: Do you support the President's peace plan for
the Middle East, Mr. Mondale?
MONDALE: I support the notion that we should sit down
within the context of the Camp David Accords and get negotia-
tions. What's missing today, and what is needed above all, is
for King Hussein to sit down and be willing to negotiate.
Negotiations are everything. In the absence of negotiations, I
don't see much progress.
MONROE: Thank you, Mr. Mondale, for being with us today
on "Meet the Press."
Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100410003-7