Playboy Interview: Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

Of the 90-odd books written about John Fitzgerald Kennedy in the 30 months since his death, many have been inane, unabashed eulogies with little to recommend them other than their charismatic subject. And more than a few have been morbid, commercial quickies—mostly about the assassination and its aftermath—designed to cash in on the nation's grief for its late President. Only a handful of the Kennedy books can be said to have revealed, with any measure of eloquence or insight, the depth and dimension of the man behind the myth; and the best of these, in the opinion of most critics, is the longest of the lot—amonumental 1031-page volume called "A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House." It isn't difficult to understand why it's become the best selling of the many best sellers on Kennedy, for the author—a history professor named Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.—brought to his task a unique blend of personal experience and professional expertise: At the late President's request, he served as a top-level White House advisor and confidant throughout the Kennedy Administration. No less uniquely, he also brought to his task a reputation as one of the world's great historians—and a degree of national notoriety (despite his deceptively mild demeanor) as one of the stormiest political petrels in American public life. The reasons for both his reputation and his notoriety were reaffirmed by the product of his arduous 14-month labor: not merely a chronicle of the Kennedy years, but a compelling portrait of a man all too often idealized into pasteboard sainthood since his death. On another level, the book offers an astute assessment of the ideals Kennedy articulated, the blunders he committed, the victories he won, the goals he set but never lived to reach, and the legacy of renewed national purpose that he left behind; and an incomparable insider's view—brought dramatically to life with intimate, often disquieting and occasionally damning eyewitness glimpses behind hitherto closed doors—of the process of history in the making.

Excerpted in Life late last summer, the book's provocative, brutally candid revelations about Kennedy, his brother Robert, Lyndon Johnson and particularly Dean Rusk (whom J. F. K. regarded as indecisive and planned to replace as Secretary of State after the 1964 election, Schlesinger revealed) had already stirred angry reaction in the White House, the State Department, the Capitol and chanceries around the world even before it appeared in bookstores last November. And its author found himself the recipient of not only kudos from critics and fellow historians, but also such indignant editorial and Congressional epithets as "sensationmonger," "character assassin," "White House tattler" and "peephole historian."

But extravagant abuse is nothing new to Schlesinger (pronounced "Schlayzinger"), who greets it with a characteristic mixture of mild annoyance and ironic amusement. His boldly unconventional scholarship, his encyclopedic knowledge of and outspoken opinionatedness about everything from politics to pop art, and his passionate partisanship as a Democratic ideologue have earned him a wealth of unflattering appellations. Even his severest critics, however, respect the keen cutting edge of his intellect, the power of his prose and the courage of his libertarian convictions.

A well-bred, academically omnivorous product of Exeter and Harvard (from which he was graduated summa cumlaude in 1938), Schlesinger began his career as a historian at a precocious 22, when his erudite senior thesis on Orestes A. Brownson, an obscure 19th Century theologian and reformer, was published as a book. Not surprisingly, though the Saturday Review prophetically discerned in it "the hand of a young master," this worthy but weighty tract turned out to be something less than a best seller. His next book, however, a massive work on "The Age of Jackson," sold more than 60,000 copies, won for its 28-year-old author a Pulitzer Prize in history, an appetizing first taste of fame and fortune and, a year later, an associate professorship at Harvard.

Refusing to sequester himself in the past, Schlesinger soon began to speak out—in his S. R. O. classes, on the lecture circuit and in print—on the pressing social and political issues of the day. A staunch anti-Communist in the early post-War years when Marxism was still fashionable among the intellectual left, he became a founding member of the Americans for Democratic Action, an organization that has been a bete noire of the G. O. P. ever since; and he turned from history to political polemics in his third book, "The Vital Center," which has become something of an ideological handbook for the anti-Communist liberal. An ardent New Deal Democrat, he was among the first to join the Stevenson band wagon in 1952—as the candidate's leading advisor and speechwriter—and again in 1956. After the second defeat, however, Schlesinger returned to Harvard, where he spent the years of Eisenhower's second term in office writing the first three volumes of his still-uncompleted work, "The Age of Roosevelt"; separately published, all three were best-selling Book-of-the-Month-Club selections.

Chafing restlessly after his four-year sabbatical from politics, he surveyed the field of Democratic Presidential prospects early in 1960—and promptly volunteered his services as a campaign advisor to the man he considered most likely to succeed in defeating Richard M. Nixon at the polls that November: John F. Kennedy. The young Massachusetts Senator found much in common both intellectually and ideologically with his fellow Harvard alumnus, and proceeded to make use of Schlesinger's skills as a speechwriter, strategist and idea man on the campaign trail.

After he was elected, Kennedy decided to keep Schlesinger on, and for the next three years, in the amorphous capacity of Special Assistant to the President, he occupied a ringside seat from which to observe, and often to participate in, the making of high policy. He also served Kennedy as a kind of walking encyclopedia on everything from deficit spending to Chinese land reform; and he was the Kennedy Administration's unofficial bridge to the intellectual community and the world of art. There is little question, however, that his most enduring service to Kennedy was the one he performed after the President's death: the task of chronicling the accomplishments of his Administration. Today, he has abandoned the political arena once again—though perhaps not for good—this time for a term at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study. Before he sat down to resume work on his long-neglected remaining volumes of "The Age of Roosevelt," however, the 48-year-old scholar agreed to grant Playboy an exclusive interview.

Arriving precisely on time at the New York apartment of interviewer Alvin Toffler, Schlesinger decided to make himself comfortable before getting under way: He took off his jacket, loosened his bow tie, ensconced himself on the living room couch, propped his feet on a chair, lit a Havana cigar—the first of a dozen. In the course of the eight-hour conversation that followed—ranging across a wide spectrum of world events, past and present—it became impressively evident why Schlesinger's former Harvard colleague, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, called him "one of the best-informed men in America." We began with a discussion of the most serious and urgent issue then facing the nation: the war in Vietnam. In the two months since this interview went to press, it's possible that the fastmoving and unpredictable tide of events in southeast Asia may have overtaken a few of Playboy's questions and Mr. Schlesinger's replies, but the interview should nevertheless serve to illuminate informed liberal thinking at the time.

[Q] Playboy: Your fellow historian Arnold Toynbee has denounced the U. S. decision to intervene in the Vietnam war. He has charged that "in refusing to recognize that the Viet Cong represent a national liberation movement made by the South Vietnamese themselves, and in attributing the war wholly to Communist intervention from outside, the United States is unintentionally making herself the heir of European colonialism in Asia." Is there any truth to this charge?

[A] Schlesinger: I don't think so. Toynbee has his facts wrong. He talks about our attributing the war "wholly" to Communist intervention from the outside, but our 1961 white paper on the subject makes it quite clear that the problem was the combination of a local civil war in South Vietnam with increasing support from North Vietnam. Whatever some of our Government officials may have said since then in moments of rhetorical exuberance, everyone in Washington must realize that this began as a civil war—although it has taken on other dimensions now.

[A] Nor do I think, as Toynbee alleges, that we have assumed the burden of European colonialism. I do think there is a possibility, however, that as we increase our visible presence there, this may be a perceived effect, an unintended effect. President Kennedy, who had visited Indochina in 1951, was very much aware of the extent to which French policy had alienated all Vietnamese nationalists. He was always concerned not to enlarge our commitment to such an extent as to change the character of the war. We had only 20,000 troops in Vietnam before the recent build-up. Now we have 235,000. At some point, just through increasing visibility of our presence, the war may cease to be seen as a Vietnamese war and come to be regarded by others as a colonial war, a white man's war. But if Toynbee implies that an honest South Vietnamese nationalist couldn't be a nationalist against the North Vietnamese and communism as well as against the French and the Americans, he's wrong. After all, Diem, whom we supported, was a very strong nationalist in his way, while at the same time strongly anti-Communist.

[Q] Playboy: Doesn't the succession of unstable regimes in Saigon since Diem lend support to the notion that the U. S. is the real power there, that this is a colonialist enterprise?

[A] Schlesinger: I think it does. So does the Honolulu tableau, with our President summoning the Saigon leaders to a meeting in an American state. Yet I believe we really want a stable and independent Vietnamese government in Saigon.

[Q] Playboy: Are our efforts likely to be successful without more support from the South Vietnamese people, many of whom are reportedly pro-Viet Cong?

[A] Schlesinger: No, they aren't.

[Q] Playboy: As things now stand, what are we offering to the South Vietnamese people that the Viet Cong aren't?

[A] Schlesinger: Damn little. Many of the peasants are more eager for peace than anything else. They've been fought over as long as they can remember.

[Q] Playboy: Toward the end of winning over the people, has the U. S. been successful in articulating a national program of social reform?

[A] Schlesinger: Well, we certainly need one, and this is a point that Robert Kennedy has made effectively. But the problem, of course, is that merely articulating a social program doesn't produce one. Simply talking about it won't make much of an impression on the peasants. We have been talking about it for a long time. Indeed, if you look at the original Eisenhower letter to Diem in 1954, it suggests that American support ought to be associated with the performance of needed social reforms in South Vietnam. Well, Diem never did anything about them, and it was awfully hard for us to bring pressure.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Schlesinger: People have an illusion that because we're a great and powerful country, we can give orders to our "client" governments and that these orders will automatically be carried out. It's not, alas, that easy. In our own country, we can't even get Negro children into public schools without resistance from some of the states; and the problem of getting the results we want in other countries is even more difficult.

[Q] Playboy: There have been several regimes since Diem, but still very little has been done in the way of social reform. Do you have higher hopes for the government under Premier Ky?

[A] Schlesinger: Ky was quoted widely before becoming premier to the effect that he was an admirer of Hitler. But his recent statements have been very hot on the subject of social reform. Whether he means it or not, I don't know, but the very fact that he's talking about it is bound to have some effect in legitimizing it.

[Q] Playboy: What steps do you think Ky should take to win the support of the Vietnamese peasantry?

[A] Schlesinger: For one thing, he should stop the kind of pro-landlordism that prevailed during the Diem regime. For example, when the regular South Vietnam army would come in and retake land from the Viet Cong, often the first people to follow them would be the agents of the landlords, who would immediately want to collect back rent. I'm not a great expert on the economic situation there, but I imagine land and tax reforms are essential, plus rural development. We've had excellent rural-development programs for a long time, but it's awfully hard to conduct land reform when the land reformer may be knocked off any night. I don't think there's been any disposition on our part to slight social reform or to impose George Humphrey [Secretary of the Treasury, 1953–1957] theories of free enterprise or anything like that, but the problem of making reforms and fighting a war at the same time is a difficult one.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think U.S. bombing raids have brought us nearer an end to the conflict?

[A] Schlesinger: I'm not sure how much difference the air raids on North Vietnam have made on the war in the south; the difference is probably only marginal. The rate of infiltration from the north increased fourfold during the first ten months of bombing. And certainly no amount of bombing in the north is going to end the war in the south. That war can be fought only with ground forces. Moreover, I doubt whether bombing is likely to lead Hanoi toward negotiation. The studies of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey in the Second World War showed that bombing—short of the point of total obliteration—had the effect of stiffening the morale of the country under attack. That's why I think the bombing of North Vietnam is a mistake. It's less likely to demoralize the North Vietnamese than to anger them and solidify them behind the regime. Here again, ground forces are more relevant.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Schlesinger: Obviously, there would be no disposition to negotiate on the part of either Hanoi or the Viet Cong if they thought they were going to win anyway. Therefore, it would seem that the indispensable condition for getting them in the mood to negotiate is to convince them that we aren't going to pull out. But air strikes are not convincing, because air strikes come from airfields and carriers. Planes can fly away very quickly. Using them isn't a great evidence of permanence or of a determination to stay. Bringing in ground forces, on the other hand, is quite another matter. Ground forces do signal a determination to stay, and they make it clear that we aren't going to allow ourselves to be pushed out. But the danger of American ground forces, as I mentioned earlier, is that if you get too many there, you may reach the point where you transform the character of the war, and it becomes a white man's war. I think President Johnson was correct in increasing the ground forces, but I think—or I hope—Washington understands that there is a very sharp limit beyond which this cannot be done.

[Q] Playboy: Are we close to that limit now?

[A] Schlesinger: I would think we are, yes.

[Q] Playboy: What, if anything, do you feel would justify our use of bacteriological warfare or tactical nuclear weapons against the Viet Cong?

[A] Schlesinger: I can't conceive of any circumstances that would justify the use of either. The use of nuclear or bacteriological warfare or something like that would be politically disastrous, and I'm not sure how effective it would be militarily.

[Q] Playboy: What about tear gas?

[A] Schlesinger: Tear gas we use every day in the U.S. It's more humane to use tear gas than to kill people.

[Q] Playboy: Should commanders in the field have the right to decide when to use such weapons?

[A] Schlesinger: Absolutely not. Anything that is likely to embarrass the political objectives of the war must be cleared with Washington.

[Q] Playboy: With or without our resorting to the use of such weapons, how likely is it, in your opinion, that the Chinese will intervene directly with military force?

[A] Schlesinger: It seems to me most improbable so long as the war centers in the south. They might fear that intervention would give us the license to take out their nuclear plants. On the other hand, remember that General MacArthur assured President Truman on Wake Island in October of 1950 that there was no chance of Chinese intervention in Korea—at the very moment Chinese forces were massing for a powerful assault on MacArthur's army. Still, the Chinese, while very tough in their rhetoric, have been rather cautious in their policy.

[Q] Playboy: Cautious in what way?

[A] Schlesinger: I mean that they have been careful not to overcommit themselves or to rush out on limbs. Their attack on India, for example, was a strictly limited operation. Indeed, for all the toughness of their language, they've made no serious attempt to take the islands of Quemoy and Matsu, which lie only a few miles off the Chinese mainland. It appears that they will react directly only when they feel that their own borders are threatened—as was the case when we decided to carry the war to North Korea in 1950. This must be kept in mind when we consider our strategy in Vietnam.

[Q] Playboy: You have said that it would be wise for the U.S. to regard Ho Chi Minh "not as an agent of a unified Communist conspiracy but as a man with problems of his own, who has been historically anti-Chinese and pro-Russian." Are you implying that there are differences between Hanoi and Peking that might be exploited by the U.S.?

[A] Schlesinger I was saying that it's a great mistake to suppose that Hanoi equals Peking. It's also a mistake to suppose that Hanoi equals the Viet Cong. That was the Dulles thinking of the Fifties—the idea that communism is a great coordinated entity all centrally controlled. It's perfectly evident that within the Communist empire there are all kinds of national divergencies and antagonisms and conflicting interests. It's highly probable that the Viet Cong have different interests from Hanoi. For example, Hanoi talks about a united Vietnam, while the Viet Cong have called for a separate South Vietnam. They are dependent on Hanoi, of course, and the fact that they have different interests may not prevent Hanoi from actually controlling their operations in some effective way; so it may be difficult at this point to separate the Viet Cong from Hanoi. But I think it's important to recognize that it's not just a great undifferentiated mass, that Hanoi has different interests from Peking, and the Viet Cong have different interests from both.

[Q] Playboy: Can we realistically hope for a peace settlement if we insist on negotiating, as we have, only with Hanoi and not with the Viet Cong?

[A] Schlesinger: No; though the Administration has already made it clear that we'll talk to the Viet Cong if they come to the conference table disguised as North Vietnamese. But that's not enough, of course. Obviously, the Viet Cong are parties to the conflict and should be recognized as such—just as the Pathet Lao were recognized in the Geneva negotiations of 1961 and 1962.

[Q] Playboy: If the Viet Cong or Hanoi, or both, were to agree to negotiations, what possible terms might be the basis for a stable settlement?

[A] Schlesinger: The eventual solution might be something along the lines of the Laos solution. The Laos solution was a coalition government that included both the so-called right wing, which had been supported by the United States in the Fifties, and the Pathet Lao—the Communists. Rather quickly, the Pathet Lao broke out of the coalition and resumed the civil war. But by doing that, they isolated themselves. The neutralists, with whom they previously had been allied against the right, in defense of Laotian neutrality, now turned to defend their neutrality against the Communists, and the Pathet Lao were reduced to being a dissident group. We might be able to arrange something of the same configuration in Saigon—if we knew enough about the Viet Cong to distinguish the honest nationalists in its ranks from the Communists.

[Q] Playboy: In his book Why Not Victory?, then-Senator Barry Goldwater wrote: "When the Communists join in any kind of a coalition government, it is always with the intention of dominating and taking over the government." He and other commentators have since expressed the view that a coalition government in South Vietnam would really constitute a victory for the Communists.

[A] Schlesinger: They always have that intention, of course; but they don't always succeed. There have been many cases like Laos, where Communists have joined coalition governments and have themselves been used by the leaders of that government. For example, De Gaulle had Communists in the French government after the War. Maurice Thorez, the head of the French Communist Party, was vice premier, and the effect was to neutralize the Communists for a time. The same thing happened in Italy. It's one of the most common and historically false propositions that whenever there's a coalition with the Communists, the Communists always win. Sometimes they do; sometimes they don't. It all depends on how skilled they are—and how tough the other people are.

[Q] Playboy: Arnold Toynbee has proposed that the United States should immediately "stand aside and allow self-determination in Vietnam...even if this leads, as it most certainly will lead, to...a Communist regime." Even if a national election or referendum were to reveal that most Vietnamese actually prefer communism, could we afford to permit a Communist government in South Vietnam?

[A] Schlesinger: It all depends on the conditions under which elections are held. In any case, I don't know what "self-determination" means in a country that has been fought over for a quarter of a century. At this point, the removal of U.S. troops would simply lead to self-determination through Viet Cong terror, which I do not regard as self-determination, but as conquest. At the moment we have no alternative but to stick around.

[Q] Playboy: Do you believe in the so-called "domino theory"? If we were to pull out and South Vietnam did fall to the Communists, Laos, Cambodia and the rest of southeast Asia would also inevitably fall?

[A] Schlesinger: Well, I don't think the domino theory was true when the French were thrown out of what was then Indochina in 1954. Had the Communists taken all of Vietnam, north and south, at that time, this would not necessarily have meant that Thailand or the Philippines would go, or that we would have been driven back to Malibu Beach. But again, these things acquire a certain reality after a while, and I think the test of the domino theory today is what the people in the neighboring countries think. Laos, for example, seems to me very important. In Laos we changed our policy during the Kennedy Administration. We took Souvanna Phouma, whom you will remember the previous Administration regarded as a neutralist—and therefore as a secret Communist or something—and decided to back a neutral government under his leadership. This has worked moderately well, in the sense that the neutralists in Laos, who a few years ago were fighting Americans to defend their neutrality, are now fighting against the Communists. And Souvanna Phouma is very strongly in favor of our actions in South Vietnam. He obviously thinks that if we pulled out of Vietnam, the neutrality of Laos would go. So from his viewpoint, the domino theory works—at least as far as Laos is concerned. In general, though, I think you have to look at each specific country rather than make blanket assumptions.

[Q] Playboy: In Senator Fulbright's recent speech criticizing the Administration's policies in Latin America, he said that we misread prevailing tendencies in Latin America by overlooking or ignoring the fact that any reform movement is likely to attract Communist support. We thus failed to perceive that "if we are automatically to oppose any reform movement that Communists adhere to, we are likely to end up opposing every reform movement, making ourselves the prisoners of reactionaries." Do you agree?

[A] Schlesinger: Yes, but I'd go a step further. If we are going to oppose every revolution just because Communists support it, we are going to breed Communists. In one phase of any revolution, obviously the Communists will support it. But that isn't reason enough for us to oppose it. For example, the dictatorship of Perez Jimenez in Venezuela was over thrown in 1958 by the Democratic Action Party led by Betancourt. He was supported by the Communists; if we had followed the theory of our Dominican intervention and rejected Betancourt because of this and stuck by Perez Jimenez, it would have been a fatal mistake. For Betancourt was a strong anti-Communist. He led a socially progressive reform regime which attacked communism by tackling the problems that breed communism, and when the Communists became terrorists, he suppressed them.

[Q] Playboy: What kind of policy might we have pursued to prevent the rise of Castro in Cuba? Was it a mistake to align ourselves with Batista during the revolution there?

[A] Schlesinger: It wasn't all that clear-cut. There was a division within our Government over what ought to be done. We stopped our military aid to Batista early in 1958, and later in the year an effort was made by our ambassador in Havana to get Batista to resign. But even in Latin America our capacity to influence these things is limited; the best you cando is to strengthen in whatever way posible the progressive democratic parties and leaders of these countries.

[Q] Playboy: It has been charged by some critics of U.S. policy that we drove Castro into the arms of the Communists, that, in fact, he was friendly to the United States in the beginning. Do you think that's true?

[A] Schlesinger: No, I don't. Sometime in 1959, Castro—who is a kind of romantic Marxist nationalist—decided for reasons of his own to take Cuba into the Communist camp. Partly, this was because running a government is different from running a revolution, and the one disciplined body of fellow Cubans who could help him were Communists. And partly, it was because he thought it valuable to have American hostility.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Schlesinger: Well, I think he felt that friendship with the U.S. would simply bring American influence back into Cuba, whereas hostility toward the U.S. would solidify the people behind him and, moreover, would probably gain him support in Latin America. I think there is no question that he had determined to go East, so to speak, long before the U.S. did anything to provoke it. It is not true, for example, as some have said, that he sought aid from us and was turned down. In fact, when he came to the U.S. in the spring of 1959, the Government was quite prepared to discuss economic-assistance programs with him, but he declined to bring the matter up and instructed his people not to ask for aid. He boasted of that in his speech before the National Press Club. He had obviously decided already that he didn't want entangling connections with the U.S.

[Q] Playboy: How can we avoid finding ourselves boxed in again between a corrupt dictatorial regime on one side and a Communist-led revolution on the other?

[A] Schlesinger: The only thing to do is to explore and exploit every possible alternative long before the choice narrows down to that. We ought to support governments like the Leoni government in Venezuela and the Frei government in Chile. We ought to provide aid and we ought to use what influence we have—as we have been doing through the Alliance for Progress—to get Latin-American governments to do the kinds of things that will bring about economic development and social change. The Communists know this, which is why the governments they fear most are the progressive ones. The government that Castro hates most in Latin America, for example, is the Venezuelan government. He doesn't worry about the dictatorships in Latin America, because the longer you have a dictatorship, the more Communists it's going to breed. What he's afraid of is that the progressive democratic solution may work. That's why his major objective for several years now has been to overthrow the government in Venezuela. And that's why I would modify Fulbright's statement. In the moment of revolution, Communists may join a reform movement, but they basically fear the reform movement more than the reactionaries they're helping to overthrow. If the reform movement works, their cause is lost.

[Q] Playboy: Must we remain committed to the overthrow of Castro, or is there, in your opinion, some possibility of an eventual rapprochement between Cuba and the U.S.?

[A] Schlesinger: The answer depends on the progressive democrats in Latin America. Castro would be a threat to the United States only if, in association with the Soviet Union, a model of the Cuban missile crisis were to be repeated. He is primarily a threat to democratic development in Latin America.

[Q] Playboy: The Bay of Pigs invasion took place before the missile crisis. If Castro was no threat to the U. S., why did we support an attempt to overthrow his regime?

[A] Schlesinger: God knows. It was something the Kennedy Administration inherited from the Eisenhower Administration; it had already achieved such momentum by the time Kennedy became President that it was very difficult to stop. I suppose the argument for it was that if we didn't stop Castro he would foment revolution throughout Latin America. In point of fact, after the failure of the Bay of Pigs, we began a policy of containing Castro, and this has worked quite well. He is no longer a revolutionary threat in Latin America; we've kept him fairly insulated from the rest of the hemisphere. What Castro is a threat to, as I started to say a moment ago, is the progressive democratic solution throughout Latin America. I would therefore like to find out what men like Betancourt in Venezuela or Frei in Chile think about a rapprochement. It may well be that such a rapprochement would strengthen the Fidelistas and Communists in their countries, and thereby make it harder to achieve a progressive democratic solution. The test ought to be whether the people in Latin America who believe in social reform within a democratic framework think it would help them or hurt them. My guess is that they would not welcome such a rapprochement, because they know that the struggle for the future of Latin America is not between right and left. The right is essentially dead; it has great power in local circumstances, but it is doomed. The struggle for the future of Latin America is between the progressive democrats and the Communists, and that's a very deadly struggle. So I think anything we do with regard to Cuba has to be weighed first of all in terms of its effect on that struggle.

[Q] Playboy: Would you say there is any likelihood that the Castro regime will fall by itself, through internal revolution, in the foreseeable future?

[A] Schlesinger: Anything is possible. If someone had asked that question six months ago about Indonesia, a lot of people would have said absolutely no chance: Sukarno has firmly locked Indonesia into the Communist bloc. But today Indonesia is out of the Communist bloc. The Indonesian Communist Party, which was one of the most powerful in the world, has been destroyed and over 100,000 Communist Indonesians have been massacred, though Sukarno himself is still nominally chief of state. The same thing may happen in Cuba. At this point, there is no knowledge or indication one way or the other. History is full of surprises.

[Q] Playboy: You have said that we ought to supply economic and military aid to those governments that favor a "progressive democratic solution." We have invested several billion dollars' worth of aid in Vietnam without being able to bring about a stable democratic regime in Saigon. India and Pakistan, both of whom have received substantial U. S. military aid, have directly or indirectly used it to fight each other. In view of such examples as these, some Senators and Congressmen feel that the foreign-aid program has been a failure. Do you?

[A] Schlesinger: You have to distinguish between forms of aid. This massive aid you speak of has been mostly military assistance, and the India-Pakistan thing, as you point out, certainly reveals the defects of the military-assistance program. A lot of liberals who have turned against foreign aid have turned against it because of the military-assistance side—Senators Gruening and Morse, for example. I don't think there is any easy solution. I don't think we can say that we're simply not going to give any more military assistance. Nonetheless, that part of the foreign-aid program desperately needs very critical reconsideration.

[A] But there are various forms of aid, and military assistance is only one of them. There are also technical assistance and what is called development assistance. Development assistance is designed to get countries through the period of what Walt Rostow calls the "take-off"—to move them into self-sustaining economic growth. The foreign-aid program of the Fifties consisted essentially of two things: military and technical assistance—plus a certain amount of direct budgetary support to help bail out friendly governments when necessary. What the Kennedy Administration did was to reshape and reorganize the whole purpose of foreign aid, to make development assistance the main thing. It doesn't achieve miracles in the short run, but this is the most important and essential kind of aid from a long-term point of view. In Asia, as in Latin America, the future is between the Castro way and the Betancourt way, and our development aid must go to the Betancourts. In Asia, obviously, the great contest is between China and India, because all Asian countries that seek national development have either the Chinese model, which uses repressive methods, or the Indian model, which aims to bring about development through democratic means. India is an extraordinary country in that it is a moderately genuine and effective democracy, in spite of having a tremendously high degree of illiteracy, tremendous poverty, tremendous internal conflicts of language, caste and everything else. So I think it's essential to the future of Asia that the Indian experiment succeed, and everything we can do in the way of development assistance to them will be very much in our interest.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think we should be shipping nonmilitary aid—wheat, for example—to Communist countries?

[A] Schlesinger: That depends on the country; but anything that can weaken the dependence of the eastern European countries on the Soviet Union is to our advantage. Also, in general, I'm in favor of feeding people, rather than not.

[Q] Playboy: How do you interpret the recent row between Castro and Peking over Chinese shipments of rice to Cuba?

[A] Schlesinger: I think it's because the Cubans need rice, and the Chinese aren't going to deliver. It may also be conceivably related to Che Guevara. I think that Guevara always represented the pro-Chinese wing of the Cuban Revolution, and the Cuban Communist Party represented the pro-Russian wing. Fidel himself seemed to vacillate, temperamentally having more affinity to the Chinese, but dependent on the Russians for major economic assistance. The disappearance of Guevara may well represent a defeat of the Chinese faction in the Castro revolution, and this may have made the Chinese feel less impassioned about sending rice to Cuba.

[Q] Playboy: But the actual amount of rice involved was relatively small. Why do you think Castro became so incensed about having it withheld?

[A] Schlesinger: Either the Cubans were desperately in need of the rice or the Russians are aiming for a major break with China and encouraged Castro to take the initiative. If Castro, who is identified as one of the most successful revolutionists in recent years, were to run interference for them in making the break, it would make any formal action they might later take against China much more acceptable to the revolutionary Communist parties in the underdeveloped world.

[Q] Playboy: What can—or should—the U. S. do to expedite this break?

[A] Schlesinger: It seems to me that our capacity to affect relations between the Russians and the Chinese is limited. The internal dynamics of the Communist empire are what determine these relationships. But we ought to put ourselves in a position of benefiting from them. Had someone in 1945 said we should try to split Tito off from Stalin, I don't think all our concentrated efforts could have achieved that result; in fact, we might have delayed it. But because of problems within the Communist world, Tito and Stalin broke in 1948. And because we followed a policy of restraint toward Yugoslavia, we were in a position to use that break to our advantage and to help strengthen the independence of Yugoslavia. Remember that in 1945 and 1946 Yugoslavia was much tougher toward the West than Stalin was. They were shooting down our planes, and all that kind of thing. If we had taken a very tough policy ourselves and broken off diplomatic relations with them, we wouldn't have been in a position to benefit from the split when it came.

[A] What we have to do today, as we did then, is follow a policy of restraint. Even so, of course, there will be a danger that the bitter competition between Russia and China for leadership of the world Communist movement may drive Moscow to take more radical and intransigent positions than it otherwise would. Nonetheless, on balance, the democratic world clearly stands to gain from the Russo-Chinese quarrel. This split has shattered the appeal of communism as a creed above national and ethnic interests and uniquely capable of resolving international conflicts and assuring peace. And obviously the more Russia and China are engaged in thwarting each other, the less time and energy they will have to thwart us. The important thing is to keep our cool and let events develop—remembering that, though China is much the more militant and fanatical of the two countries, Russia is the more direct threat to our most vital interests in Europe and Latin America; and recognizing that any overt intervention on our part with respect to China and Russia might bring them closer together again.

[Q] Playboy: This, according to Professor Toynbee, is what we are doing. According to him, "nothing but American pressure is holding these two nationalist-minded Communist powers together now." Is he right?

[A] Schlesinger: No, I think he's wrong on that, too. The great preoccupation of both Russia and China is the international Communist movement, and it's for the leadership of that movement that they're competing, as I said. The Communist parties of the developed countries are, on the whole, on the side of the Soviet Union. The Communist parties of the underdeveloped countries are emotionally drawn toward China; but in many cases, because China cannot help them, they're dependent, like Castro, on the Soviet Union. The problem the Soviet Union faces is that though it does want a détente of some sort with the United States, this isn't going to be possible as long as the Vietnam war continues at its present level of intensity. The more deeply involved we become in that war, the more the Russians are going to be forced to line up behind Hanoi; they can't afford to take the position of appearing not to give all-out support when a Communist state like North Vietnam is in trouble. To do so would be to risk losing the support of the Communist parties of the entire underdeveloped world. But contrary to what Toynbee seems to feel, I don't think the Russians would welcome our pulling out of Asia; they're quite happy to have an American presence there—as a means of helping them to restrain the Chinese.

[Q] Playboy: As you know, your views about the depth of the differences between Russia and Red China are at logger-heads with the so-called "monolithic" concept of world communism held by ex-Senator Goldwater, who regards "peaceful coexistence" as impossible and "total victory" as imperative. Which course do you think the U. S. should pursue?

[A] Schlesinger: Both of those terms are elusive. If, by "total victory," he means the unconditional surrender of the Soviet Union and Communist China, this seems to me an unrealistic aim. Nice as this might be, the cost necessary to bring it about would be such that it's absurd as a serious policy objective. And if total victory means anything less than the unconditional surrender of the Soviet Union and Communist China, then the term is misleading. It seems to me we should aim at what President Kennedy used to call "a world of diversity," a world in which you have a variety of social systems, economic creeds, political philosophies, religious, faiths—a diverse international community united by respect for certain ground rules and an allegiance to peace.

[Q] Playboy: In view of their ideological commitment to world dominion, would the Communists accept this kind of world?

[A] Schlesinger: Communism has become a much more various thing since the Manifesto was written. The forces of diversity have already wrought a considerable transformation within the empire itself. It's perfectly obvious, for example, that Communist states like Yugoslavia, Poland, Rumania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia would fit very easily into the world of diversity. The Soviet Union remains a question mark; it might or it might not. Communist China obviously wouldn't. But I think it's a great mistake to suppose that ideology, abstract ideological commitment, is more powerful than national interests; that because Russia and China profess the same ideology, they will therefore always work in absolute harmony. The fact of the matter is that the experience of the 20 years since the War Shows that, even within the Communist empire, national interest has become more powerful than ideology, and that, when the chips are down, Communist states are going to respond to their national interests rather than to the dictates of their ideology. This shouldn't surprise anybody, because in the years before the War, when the Soviet Union was the only Communist state, whenever it had to make a choice between its national interests and its ideological interests, it always chose the former. So I think that we can foresee a certain diversity within the Communist world; and we can foresee, as Communists leave their revolutions farther and farther behind them, that the messianic quality of their ideological commitment is going to fade, and they will act more and more like nationalists, and, in the end, the ideology of their social religion will become as nominal as that of communicants of other religions. We still talk about God and the Devil, heaven and hell, but these things are no longer decisive and vivid factors in our everyday lives. The same may become true of Marxist ideology for the Communists.

[Q] Playboy: Is this what you meant when you wrote in 1960 that "Soviet youth today are Communists in somewhat the sense that American youths today are Christians"?

[A] Schlesinger: Yes. I meant that they are Communists because they've been brought up in a Communist environment and it's never occurred to them to be anything else. They don't have that deep, revolutionary, fanatical commitment that the men who made the revolution had. More than that, in the years since I made that statement, it has become evident that not only are they Communists in a rather perfunctory sense, but also, in many cases, they're actively chafing under the system, and they're tremendously excited about what seems to them the vividness, the variety, the excitement of life in the West.

[Q] Playboy: In 1960 you also suggested that the Soviet Union might move toward a "more genial and pragmatic form of communism." Is there a more genial and pragmatic form of communism, and do you think the Russians have moved toward it?

[A] Schlesinger: I think there is. It's too soon to say whether Russia is moving toward it, but in eastern Europe this more genial and pragmatic form is certainly developing in Yugoslavia and Poland. I gather that in Czechoslovakia and Hungary we are also getting a more open form of communism, a communism that applies to the economic and social structure of these countries, but that does not—not yet, at least—affect their cultural and intellectual life as deeply as it might. There are many signs of it. For example, in eastern Europe you can buy copies of American and English newspapers, Magazines and books without any trouble, whereas you can't in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is still a much more controlled, "theological" society, in my judgment, than the Communist countries of eastern Europe.

[Q] Playboy: There have been many reports lately about the introduction of the profit motive in certain sectors of the Soviet economy—the so-called Liberman reforms. This has led to the suggestion that Russia may gradually become more capitalist, while America moves toward a more socialist economy. The theory is that the U. S. and the U. S. S. R. will meet somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, with both countries employing some from of mixed economy. Do you regard this as plausible?

[A] Schlesinger: Well, I think there are limits to this sort of thing. I doubt very much whether private property is going to be restored in the Soviet Union, and I doubt very much whether we're going to nationalize very many things in the U. S. In eastern Europe, on the other hand, there is much greater argument, discussion and experimentation. Yugoslavia for a long time has been experimenting with a kind of free-market socialism. The Liberman proposals in the Soviet Union represent an adaptation of certain elements of the Yugoslav experiments. But I think the Soviet Union has a long way to go before it gets away from its all-encompassing dogmatism.

[Q] Playboy: If the Russian economy prospers under free-market socialism, do you agree with those who foresee a possible realignment of power blocs among the "have" countries—including the U. S. and Russia—versus the "have-not" countries, rather than between the Communist and the non-communist worlds?

[A] Schlesinger: I don't think so, because I don't think there is going to be enough unity of purpose and interest among the underdeveloped countries, and I don't think any unity between the "haves" (continued on page 202)Playboy Interview(continued from page 84) will take the form of a war of exploitation against the "have-nots." Rather, it will go in the direction of trying to help the underdeveloped world and thereby prevent any alignment of poor versus rich.

[Q] Playboy: Are you saying that the U. S. and U. S. S. R., as "have" nations, may be able to collaborate, rather than compete with each other, in aiding the underdeveloped world?

[A] Schlesinger: Well, my guess would be that they will tend to work more and more together as time goes on—if only because both the U. S. and the Soviet Union are getting awfully weary of foreign-aid programs. It has become evident to both sides that foreign aid is not a quick means of attaching a country to one's own side in an indissoluble bond, that foreign aid takes a long time to work, that it is filled with frustration and, moreover, that when a recipient nation has a chance to play off the U. S. against the Soviet Union and vice versa, it becomes economically wasterful for the donor countries. So I think that if the Vietnam thing could be resolved, there might be reason, just through motives of mutual self-interest, for the U. S. and the Soviet Union to stop competing financially for the allegiance of countries in the third world and thus prevent them from playing one off against the other. There would be reason to work together, or at least to work along parallel lines, in dealing with the third world.

[A] One of the great misfortunes of the 1950s was the planting in American minds of the notion that we were in a permanent, dogmatic cold war in which we had fixed friends and fixed foes, with everything working in a very mechanistic way. It's clear that history is much more unpredictable than dogmatists of either the right or the left imagine. There are some very interesting things going on now. Another potential way in which realignment might go would be for the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union to move off in one direction, while France and China move in another. France and China, as the rebels within each of the blocs, have a common interest. Both refused to sign the test-ban treaty, for example. De Gaulle always talks about rebuilding Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals. That implies that he expects Russia to split, with the part from the Urals to the Pacific becoming a Chinese sphere of influence.

[Q] Playboy: Do you consider this possible?

[A] Schlesinger: It seems unlikely, but we will probably witness changes of equal magnitude in the years ahead. De Gaulle thinks in extremely large terms.

[Q] Playboy: Is De Gaulle, in your opinion, the great historic figure he believes himself to be?

[A] Schlesinger: Certainly not so great as that—but he is a great historical figure, unquestionably. If he had been killed in 1935, the history of post-War Europe might have been considerably different—perhaps for the better. But only De Gaulle could have brought about the liberation of Algeria without a civil war in France itself. And only De Gaulle could have given France its present capacity for making mischief. De Gaulle is mistaken in many ways, but he is clearly a great man with a very clear, consistent and rather lofty conception of the movement of history.

[Q] Playboy: Are there any other great men on the world scene today, in your estimation?

[A] Schlesinger: Well, Kennedy is dead. Nehru is dead. Nasser and Tito are considerable figures, but they have not had quite the stage on which to operate as have De Gaulle and, say, Mao Tse-tung.

[Q] Playboy: You include Kennedy in the list. Do you think he was a great President as well as a great man?

[A] Schlesinger: Absolutely, yes. We need to measure his accomplishments as we would those of Roosevelt had he died in 1935, or Lincoln had he died a few months after the battle of Gettysburg. Kennedy changed the history of this country and of the world. The task of the next generation will be to carry forward the policies he initiated, to meet the problems he identified, to achieve the aims he set forth. The energies he released, the standards, he set, the goals he established have reshaped American political life and are destined to dominate the politics of the next generation.

[Q] Playboy: What do you feel was his most important achievement?

[A] Schlesinger: He transformed the image of the United States that was held by both Americans and the outside world. In the Fifties the impression was that we were a tired old nation, governed by old men and old ideas, committed to the status quo everywhere in the world, fearful of change. What he did was to show the world that the process of discovering America had not come to an end, that America was a young nation with strong new purposes and objectives. In a sense, he restored the mood of the early Republic.

[A] More specifically, he reorganized the whole basis of American defense, and by diversifying our defence strategy, got us out of our intolerable and predominant commitment to nuclear weapons. He reorganized the foreign-aid program and transformed our whole policy toward the third world. He destroyed the notion of the Fifties that neutralism is immoral—that those who are not with us are against us—a notion that forced neutralists into the Communist camp. Kennedy redefined the issue as whether or not you are for national independence, not whether you're for or against the United States. This shift gave the neutralists and ourselves a position on which we could unite in resistance to Communist expansion. This policy change had a tremendous effect in Africa and Latin America. I don't know whether our new policy toward Latin America will work or not, but it is the only policy that can. Another significant Kennedy achievement was the détente with Russia for which he worked during his whole Administration. This policy involved great risks, first in Berlin and then in the Cuban missile crisis, but finally it began to pay off with the test-ban treaty.

[Q] Playboy: What do you feel were Kennedy's most important home-front achievements?

[A] Schlesinger: There were two. First, he brought about an extraordinary revolution in our fiscal policy. The notion of planned deficits in a time of general prosperity, not during a depression, would have been shocking a few years ago, but is now commonly accepted—thanks to his initiative. And secondly, the civil rights revolution—which by 1963 he had placed himself at the head of. We could also say a lot of things about the quality of cultural life in America, which he helped to elevate not only by personal example but by fostering a closer relationship between government and the arts. It's a great misconception that Kennedy only "defined" and "inspired." He did that—and he did that in an enduring way—but still, in the very brief time that he had as President, he achieved a tremendous amount. Clearly, in both senses, he was one of our great Presidents.

[Q] Playboy: What about Lyndon Johnson? Would you regard him as a great President?

[A] Schlesinger: It's too early to tell. One can't venture any judgements until the end of an administration. Unquestionably, however, he has already proved himself to be a very considerable President.

[Q] Playboy: It's been said that he lacks the personal charisma that Kennedy had. Do you feel that's true?

[A] Schlesinger: It's like sex appeal in women. Some have it and some don't. Johnson may yet acquire it; he may not. It's a matter of personal chemistry. Presidents can be very effective Presidents without it. The shift from Kennedy to Johnson was not unlike that from Roosevelt to Truman, but the fact that Truman lacked some of the charismatic qualities that Roosevelt had didn't mean that Truman was not an extremely effective and able President.

[Q] Playboy: Johnson has been described by his critics as a rather vain, willful and sometimes vindictive man. Are these characterizations accurate, in your opinion?

[A] Schlesinger: Well, he's a character larger than life, and he has both the virtues and the defects of that.

[Q] Playboy: What are the virtues?

[A] Schlesinger: He understands that to be a great President you must do great things, and he is determined to do just that. He is a man of great power and persistence in achieving his purposes, and he is a man whose instincts both in domestic and in foreign policy are sound and generous.

[Q] Playboy: And what are his defects?

[A] Schlesinger: His defects stem from his past experience, which has involved dealing more with domestic than foreign issues, and more with the reconciliation of various proposals than with the substance of the proposals themselves. Presidents like Roosevelt and Kennedy, who also were determined to do great things, had more of a sense of what those things should be. Johnson is less interested in, less possessed by, the substance of issues.

[Q] Playboy: Are you saying that Johnson is lacking in convictions?

[A] Schlesinger: Oh, no. Johnson has very strong convictions of a consistent sort. Johnson's orientation is very clear. He cares deeply about equal rights for Negroes. He cares deeply about doing something for the poor. He cares deeply about peace in the world. These are very powerful and very genuine emotions, and they provide a very consistent orientation in his life and in his policy. But he has less of a natural instinct than Roosevelt or Kennedy would have had for the exact character of the program necessary to achieve these objectives—though he's bound to develop more of one.

[Q] Playboy: Yet Johnson has been more effective than Kennedy in getting his program enacted. Why?

[A] Schlesinger: Johnson's legislative successes are, first of all, an expression of the size of Johnson's victory in 1964. If Johnson, rather than Kennedy, had been elected President in 1960 by a margin of 100,000 votes and in 1961 had sent in programs for Medicare and for Federal aid to education, he wouldn't have done any better than Kennedy did. If Johnson had been murdered in 1963 and Kennedy had taken over, and if in 1964 Kennedy had whipped Goldwater at the polls and then presented a program with this tremendous electoral victory behind him, he would be passing all these bills, and the pundits would be writing about Kennedy's magical skills with the Congress.

[A] Second, these are programs that have been submitted, discussed and put through a long process of preparation. Medicare, for example, was first brought up in 1961. There were hearings; people got used to the idea; changes were made in the bill; the A.M.A. shot its ammunition; and people finally stopped worrying about it. The passage of something like that becomes inevitable after a time. Johnson does have relations and resources in Congress that few Presidents have had, and he uses them with tremendous skill and effectiveness. But I think the success of his program—which is really an extension of the New Deal—is not the result of those talents. It's simply the result of fortuitous timing.

[Q] Playboy: You said that Johnson's defects stemmed in part from his experience in domestic rather than foreign affairs. To what extent do you think the various military and diplomatic crises of the past two years are a reflection of his inexperience in this field?

[A] Schlesinger: It's hard to say. Obviously, his whole training and experience, as the former Senate Majority Leader, was much more in domestic than foreign affairs. The Dominican thing, for example, in the first few weeks, was a mistake. The situation there was largely retrieved in subsequent weeks, but we don't know yet whether he has learned as much from that as Kennedy learned from the Bay of Pigs. The great thing that Kennedy did during the Cuban missile crisis, after his earlier Cuban blunder, was to be very precise in the use of power. He used just enough to achieve the results he wanted. The person who fully understands power is precise in his use of it. What was frightening about the Dominican crisis was Johnson's lack of precision in the use of power. By sending in all those Marines, he overreacted—and that understandably worries the world.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think we were wrong to have intervened as we did?

[A] Schlesinger: I don't exclude the possibility of intervention to save the lives of American citizens—but we didn't need 30,000 Marines to do that. If you look at the long history of Latin-American revolutions, you'll find that practically never have any American citizens been injured in them.

[Q] Playboy: The reason subsequently given by the White House for sending in so many troops was to forestall a Communist coup d'état.

[A] Schlesinger: If there had been evidence that it was a Communist take-over attempt, the evidence would have been persuasive enough to get a number of other Latin-American nations to act with us—so it wouldn't have had to be a unilateral intervention. But there never was convincing evidence, in my judgment—or, apparently, in that of the Latin-American nations at the time—that it was a Communist revolution. If I had believed it was, I would have supported intervention.

[Q] Playboy: Why, then, did we react the way we did?

[A] Schlesinger: I think we did it partly on the basis of information that turned out to be wrong.

[Q] Playboy: Information from whom?

[A] Schlesinger: Our embassy in Santo Domingo.

[Q] Playboy: How could they have been so misinformed?

[A] Schlesinger: The atmosphere was probably scary, and our officials at the embassy probably had limited contacts with the local people. The people they did have contact with either panicked or had interests of their own that they wished to serve. In any event, the "information"—a lot of stuff about Communists taking over and people being beheaded and all that kind of thing—was passed on to Washington, where it was uncritically accepted, and this led, I think, to some significant miscalculations. We can only hope that Johnson will profit from this mistake as Kennedy did from his.

[Q] Playboy: In the 1964 campaign, many liberals strongly supported Johnson's opposition to Goldwater's call for a step-up of the war in Vietnam. Some of these liberals now charge that in escalating the war, Johnson has adopted the Gold-water foreign policy. Do you feel this is true?

[A] Schlesinger: These people underestimate the extent to which the choices have narrowed. I'm not in agreement with everything Johnson has done in Vietnam, but it's a damn difficult and complicated problem, and I have no doubt that he would like nothing more than a resolution of the war and a departure of the Americans. He is doing his best, and I don't think he is at all adopting a Gold-water, or radical right, policy.

[Q] Playboy: You wrote in 1962 that "the radical right lacks a major calamity to drive masses of people to angry despair." Do you think there is a possibility that the Vietnam war may escalate into such a calamity?

[A] Schlesinger: Yes, if we begin to have casualty lists the size of those during the Korean War, it might well. We might find ourselves confronted with the same kind of emotional climate we faced during the Korean War. The war enabled Senator McCarthy to make contact with large numbers of Americans at home who found it difficult to understand why Communists were being permitted freedom in the United States while other Communists were killing Americans in Korea. If our involvement in Vietnam were to continue for, say, three or four more years, with an increasing toll of American lives, it's possible that a new McCarthy could exploit the idea not only that Communists were killing American boys in Asia, walking the streets in America and agitating in the universities, but also that the United States was not using her full power to end the war in Asia. It could be a very troubling situation.

[Q] Playboy: Is there anyone on the political right today, in your opinion, who looms as a possible new McCarthy?

[A] Schlesinger: I see no one. But who in 1949 would have predicted Joe McCarthy?

[Q] Playboy: Do you consider the radical right as great a threat in the U.S. today as it was then?

[A] Schlesinger: No. I would say that the radical right had far more power during McCarthy's reign than it does now. Through the brilliance and unscrupu-lousness of his demagoguery, and because of the weakness and complacency of the Republican Administration, McCarthy had considerable power to affect our foreign policy, to affect our reputation in the world, and to affect the workings of the United States Government. In many localities, the radical right still retains the power to terrorize teachers, librarians and newspapermen, but it's no longer a national political threat— not since the Goldwater debacle. No national political party is going to nominate another right-wing candidate for a long time.

[Q] Playboy: There's been some talk of the right wing dropping out of the G.O.P. and regrouping as a third party. Do you think that's likely?

[A] Schlesinger: Not very. The extreme right consists of a collection of people all of whom represent what Theodore Roosevelt used to call "the lunatic fringe." And each of them is so convinced that his own policy, and his own program, is the right one, that it would be difficult to imagine them getting together even for a convention, let alone agreeing on a candidate. So I wouldn't lose any sleep over the prospect of a unified right-wing movement—in or outside the Republican Party.

[Q] Playboy: Before World War Two, the extreme right was identified with isolationism. Yet today the "conservatives" call for a militant anti-Communist stance in the international arena. Has the right wing abandoned isolationism?

[A] Schlesinger: Isolationism is taking different forms. The isolationist emotions are not dead, but right-wing isolationism now tends to mean unilateral action by the U.S., isolation from our allies or from our international commitments.

[Q] Playboy: Do you agree with those who feel that an isolationism of the left may be developing—particularly on campuses, where student-protest movements are calling for U.S. withdrawal not only from Vietnam but from all overseas military commitments?

[A] Schlesinger: My impression is that the left in the colleges doesn't have much political doctrine of any sort. It's an emotional thing. There's a kind of understandable emotional feeling about Vietnam on the part of the young men who would have to fight the war: They don't want to fight it. But this is hardly a considered philosophy of isolationism.

[Q] Playboy: How do you think the law should deal with students who advocate draft dodging or burn their draft cards as a protest against the war in Vietnam? Should they be fined, jailed—or perhaps drafted and sent to the front, as some have suggested?

[A] Schlesinger: In my judgment, anyone who urges draft dodging, or who otherwise violates Federal law, should expect to be proceeded against. But he should be prosecuted directly for that violation and not indirectly through drafting. I would consider joining the Army an honorable act, not a punishment; so unless there is some sinister plot to fill the Army with groups of disaffected people, I see no merit in the notion that people who protest against the Vietnamese war should be drafted.

[Q] Playboy: Almost 20 years ago, in The Vital Center, you wrote: "A Thoreau or a Gandhi, who has gone through intense moral ordeals, has earned the most profound moral respect. But it is a far cry from Thoreau and Gandhi to the ineffectual escapists who in their name engage in such practices as conscientious objection in time of war." Do you feel the same way today about college students who seek to avoid military service in Vietnam by registering as conscientious objectors?

[A] Schlesinger: My point about conscientious objection—and perhaps I was un-necessarily harsh in the way I phrased it—was directed at conscientious objectors who feel that they should not be penalized. As a matter of fact, however, most conscientious objectors are penalized and take their punishment. So I regret my severity on that point. If people engage in civil disobedience, they should be willing to go to prison, as Thoreau did. In other words, they should be willing to pay the price. They certainly have no right to break the law and then complain about being arrested. The civil rights people who disobey the law don't complain; as a matter of fact, they go quite joyfully to prison. They expect to pay the penalty, whatever that penalty may be, even though they may consider the law an unjust law—even though the law may, in fact, be a bad law.

[Q] Playboy: Do you feel that such acts of civil disobedience are morally justifiable?

[A] Schlesinger: If, in the tactics of a given situation, defying a bad law and going to prison is going to help get rid of that law, yes—their actions can be defended as tactics.

[Q] Playboy: How about sitting down in the middle of the street to block traffic, marching without a permit, or stalling cars on the Triborough Bridge in an effort to block attendance at the New York World's Fair? Are these defensible tactics?

[A] Schlesinger: Well, stalling cars to block traffic going to the World's Fair isn't a very sensible tactic.

[Q] Playboy: In the forefront of those who have participated in such demonstrations, along with the various civil rights groups, have been a number of student-protest organizations. If their only aim, as you seemed to be implying a few minutes ago, is to avoid the draft in the name of pacifism, how do you account for their militant involvement in the civil rights struggle?

[A] Schlesinger: I didn't mean to imply that draft avoidance is their only purpose. Obviously, a lot of the student agitation has to do with civil rights, which is an extremely legitimate issue. I think the more students involved in that, the better. Beyond civil rights, however, it's hard to know what else they really want.

[Q] Playboy: One of the professed purposes of the student demonstrations in Berkeley was academic freedom.

[A] Schlesinger: Contrary to what the students said—or perhaps even believed—the cause of the Berkeley riots was not really the cause of academic freedom. It was the oppressive anonymity of a factory university that has 25,000 students who never see their professors except through a telescope. The students have no sense of taking part in an educational process. There is a great deal of free-floating resentment in a situation like that, and it fastens onto one thing or another; it seeks issues on which to protest against the sense of rejection. The reason the protest was so vehement is that students today are brighter than ever before; they are therefore more articulate—and more resentful.

[Q] Playboy: Ten years ago some liberals complained that American youth was too passive, too conservative, too conformist, too materialistic. Today, with students rioting, participating in sit-ins, walk-ins, lie-ins and teach-ins, many of the same critics are complaining that they've become too militant, too radical, too nonconformist, too idealistic. How do you feel?

[A] Schlesinger: Well, I haven't been connected with a university for five years, but in general, I'm more in favor of ferment than quiescence on the campus.

[Q] Playboy: Would you say that the teachins in which many professors have attacked U.S. policy in Vietnam are a responsible exercise of their right to free speech?

[A] Schlesinger: The only teach-in that I took part in was all right. There are good teach-ins and bad teach-ins. An irresponsible teach-in would be one that represented only one viewpoint.

[Q] Playboy: Do you agree with the National Review that in the teach-ins "no more than a small minority of teachers and students made all the noise"?

[A] Schlesinger: My impression is that there is a great deal of honest perplexity among many thinking people about our policy in Vietnam. I haven't run into the kind of wild hysteria about it that apparently was expressed in some of the teach-ins.

[Q] Playboy: Political commentator Irving Howe wrote recently in Dissent that the "new left" is characterized by "a vicarious indulgence in violence, often merely theoretic and thereby all the more irresponsible." Do you think he has a point?

[A] Schlesinger: I'm afraid I do.

[Q] Playboy: With riots erupting on campuses and in Negro ghettos, Ku Klux Klan killings mounting in the South and the national crime rate reportedly on the rise, do you sense what one sociologist has called a new climate of violence in the country?

[A] Schlesinger: To what extent this represents a real increase in violence and criminality and to what extent it represents an increase in the reporting of crime is disputed by sociologists, but I do have the feeling that even at the bottom of the Depression, when people were starving, there wasn't this kind of insensate violence. You didn't have kids finding some old tramp and kicking him to death. I have the impression that there is more of that going on these days.

[Q] Playboy: How do you account for it?

[A] Schlesinger: Well, violence has been an ancient theme in American life. Violence was inseparable from life on the frontier, and we now have a kind of urban violence based on, among other things, the sense of alienation and aimlessness in life. When one reflects that half a dozen Presidents in this century have been targets of assassination attempts, the notion that we have been a great, virtuous country of law and order is hard to sustain. But I don't think this is solely an American phenomenon. We're in the midst of a universal revolt of youth. This is obviously true in England, with the Mods and the Rockers. It's obviously true in the Soviet Union, and there have been recent reports of unrest among the young in China. I think this kind of rebellion may be a phenomenon of urban and industrial society at a certain point in its development.

[Q] Playboy: To return to student protest for a moment: Do you think the scope and vehemence of the campus demonstrations against the war in Vietnam have been or are likely to be heeded by President Johnson?

[A] Schlesinger: Well, he's certainly not going to heed any naïve admonitions for unilateral U.S. withdrawal and abandonment of South Vietnam to unconditional "self-determination." But by the time most of the teach-ins and student demonstrations had taken place, the President had already declared his support of negotiation and thus to some degree cut the ground from under them.

[Q] Playboy: To what degree is it possible for intellectuals such as yourself, who have had the opportunity to counsel the President directly and officially, to influence Government policy?

[A] Schlesinger: Quite a bit, if they have relevant and sensible suggestions, and if the Government is one that feels things must be changed rather than kept the way they are. Liberal Government is dependent on intellectuals for ideas and programs and policies; status quo Government finds intellectuals a nuisance and a threat; so during conservative administrations, intellectual influence is nil.

[Q] Playboy: Is there any justification for the Republican accusation that President Kennedy relied too much on the expertise of intellectuals?

[A] Schlesinger: The great mistakes of the Kennedy Administration, like the Bay of Pigs invasion, were all due to underreliance on intellectuals—and overreliance on the established bureaucracy.

[Q] Playboy: Some commentators have said that Kennedy's use of intellectuals, in his campaign and in his Administration, was merely an effort to establish his liberal credentials in order to attract the support of the intellectual community.

[A] Schlesinger: That's nonsense. Kennedy, like Roosevelt, like any President who feels that things must be changed, knew that to accomplish changes he had to have fresh ideas and programs, and that the intellectual community was a likely place to find them. Moreover, my impression was that Kennedy personally liked the world of ideas, as Roosevelt did. It stimulated him; he found it agreeable.

[Q] Playboy: How would you characterize the intellectual style of the Johnson Administration?

[A] Schlesinger: President Johnson recognizes the value of intellectuals, wants to use them, wants to enlist them, but lacks the natural rapport with intellectuals that Kennedy had. He may also have something of a mistrust of Eastern intellectuals. It's like the shift from Roosevelt to Truman. Roosevelt and Kennedy were Easterners; they felt at home with Easterners. Truman is a Midwesterner from a border state; Johnson's a South-westerner, and both feel more at home with other kinds of people.

[Q] Playboy: There have been numerous articles lately about intellectual disenchantment with Johnson. To what degree do you think this has been inspired by his nonintellectual Southwestern style?

[A] Schlesinger: Well, I don't think very much, because the contrast between Kennedy and Johnson is, again, no greater than between Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Truman was a very popular figure among many of the liberals who are now somewhat reserved about Johnson; and Truman had his accent and idiosyncrasies, his homely qualities—so I don't think Johnson's manner is the critical factor. As a matter of fact, some liberals were quite prepared to like Johnson better than Kennedy. There was a time when you felt an undercurrent of that sort because they thought Kennedy was too much like themselves to be a really good President.

[Q] Playboy: Do you mean that they regarded him as a thinker rather than a doer?

[A] Schlesinger: Some intellectuals are awfully naïve about power. Since they can't see themselves in positions of power, they assume that those who exercise power must be very different from themselves, and I think they saw in Johnson the kind of man who could exercise power. If you look at the liberal comment in the first year of the Johnson Administration, there was a certain amount of respect for, and a great deal of acceptance of, the Johnson personality. No, I think it's Johnson's foreign policy, not Johnson's manner, that has caused the disaffection.

[Q] Playboy: Is either the reason you chose to resign your White House post and return to academic life?

[A] Schlesinger: No. I went to Washington not because I enjoyed working for the Government, but because I wanted to work for President Kennedy. My usefulness was really in a personal relationship with President Kennedy. On the whole, I prefer to be my own master.

[Q] Playboy:Life's serialization of your book on Kennedy has drawn not only praise but sharp criticism for sensationalism, tastelessness and breach of confidence. Is any of this justified, in your opinion?

[A] Schlesinger: The uproar was out of proportion. Now that the book is out, people will be able to make a judgment on the basis of the book itself rather than on the excerpts Life published.

[Q] Playboy: Do you accept responsibility for what appeared in Life?

[A] Schlesinger: Of course. I wasn't rejecting responsibility for it. I was asking people to wait for the full evidence before they reach drastic conclusions.

[Q] Playboy: Has the book's negative reception in some quarters given you second thoughts about the wisdom of including the controversial disclosures you made in it?

[A] Schlesinger: My only second thought is about the wisdom of Sir Walter Raleigh's remark in his History of the World. He said that the historian should pursue truth, although this is a very dangerous thing to do, and that "whosoever, in writing a modern history, shall follow truth too near the heels, it may haply strike out his teeth."

[Q] Playboy: Some of your critics have questioned the propriety of your reporting confidential White House discussions in the book—particularly those in which President Kennedy expressed his dissatisfaction with Dean Rusk as Secretary of State, and confided his decision to replace him after the '64 elections. In the aftermath of these revelations, it was suggested by several Congressmen that there should be a moratorium on publication of inside reports on still-active participants in the making of high Government policy. We assume you don't agree.

[A] Schlesinger: That all depends. Obviously, anything that affects national security or the national interest should be withheld. But for the rest, in the first place, the people in a democracy have a right to know these things. And in the second place, from the point of view of the historian, it's much better that accounts of this sort be published when the participants are alive so that they have a chance to set forth their own version. This enriches the record. The notion that it would be much better to write these things and then lock them into a safe until everyone is dead means that there is no opportunity for correction and amendment. I don't know how these Congressmen suppose history is written, but it's only written because the participants make a record; if they didn't there would be no history. If the participants didn't make records of sorts, how would anyone ever know how decisions were made?

[Q] Playboy: President Kennedy himself once criticized Emmett Hughes for writing an unflattering insider's account of the Eisenhower Administration after serving on Eisenhower's staff. Do you feel that Hughes was justified?

[A] Schlesinger: Kennedy's criticism of Emmett Hughes wasn't based on the fact that he had written an inside account, but rather that Hughes had a special relationship with the President and had used his "inside" position to denigrate Eisenhower. President Kennedy felt that this was a betrayal of a personal relationship. Kennedy assumed that Eisenhower knew Emmett Hughes was a writer and that Eisenhower was willing to run the risk. The thing that offended Kennedy was the fact that Hughes used this opportunity, in effect, to destroy Eisenhower.

[Q] Playboy: By 1968, eight years will have passed since Eisenhower—our only Republican President since 1933—left office. In the last election, the Republican candidate was defeated by the second-greatest plurality in American history. And registered Republicans are currently outnumbered two to one by Democrats. How long do you think this political one-sideness is going to last?

[A] Schlesinger: Until the Republicans come up with leaders and ideas that are going to make sense to anybody.

[Q] Playboy: Is it good for the country to have what has been called "a one-and-a-half-party system"?

[A] Schlesinger: It all depends on what the Government does. If the Government has good policies, it's good for the country.

[Q] Playboy: Is there any danger, as some pundits predict, that the Republican Party might wither away?

[A] Schlesinger: If there is, it's the fault of the Republicans. If they can't win enough votes, they deserve to go the way the old Whigs and the Federalists went. Some other party that has a better sense of what the country needs will rise to take its place, and that will be all to the good.

[Q] Playboy: You sound slightly partisan.

[A] Schlesinger: Not slightly. I'm not going to shed too many tears over the difficulties that the Republican Party may now find itself in. When parties reach a dead end, they either develop a new program or they're replaced. Or history shunts them aside and they linger on as insignificant cults.

[Q] Playboy: It has been suggested that Democrats should support a move to rebuild the G. O. P. around new leaders.

[A] Schlesinger: Why?

[Q] Playboy: Presumably, for the sake of having a viable opposition.

[A] Schlesinger: So long as a liberal Administration is doing a good job, it isn't the liberals' responsibility to make it harder for them to do that job.

[Q] Playboy: Do you see any men on the national scene who might emerge as effective leaders of a revitalized Republican Party?

[A] Schlesinger: A few years ago I would have thought Rockefeller might have been able to do it, but he's passed his time. There are some admirable Republicans in the Senate, however—notably John Sherman Cooper and Tommy Kuchel, who are both men of great ability and wisdom. And John Lindsay is obviously a very promising figure.

[Q] Playboy: With the G. O. P. centered on a man like Lindsay—who is widely regarded as ideologically indistinguishable from many liberal Democrats—some commentators feel that the electorate would have a choice between what Barry Goldwater has called "Tweedledum and Tweedledee." Do you think they're right?

[A] Schlesinger: No, I think that there would be plenty for Lindsay and Lyndon Johnson to disagree about. But the disagreements would relate to the real problems of the country for a change. There is no point in debating such fantasies as "total victory" and "states' rights" just to have an argument. To maintain differences merely for the sake of difference would be wholly artificial.

[Q] Playboy: According to some Washington columnists, a few very real differences of opinion are beginning to appear within the Democratic Party itself. Allan Keller recently reported in the New York World-Telegram that "the whole Kennedy clan is even now engaged in a sort of guerrilla war against the Johnson Administration."

[A] Schlesinger: I don't think that's so. It was, after all, Senator Edward Kennedy who recently managed the Administration's immigration bill. The relationship between the liberal Senators and the liberal Administration is mixed. Some Senators wish the Administration would go a little faster, but I would say the relationship between the Kennedys and the Johnson White House is not unlike the relationship between Hubert Humphrey and the Kennedy White House: friendly, but now and then wondering why the Administration doesn't do more. But there is certainly no guerrilla warfare or anything like that.

[Q] Playboy: You have written about the distinction between "quantitative liberalism" and "qualitative liberalism." Is this what divides Johnson from the Kennedys in Washington?

[A] Schlesinger: No. Quantitative liberalism has to do with supplying the stark necessities of life—a job, a roof over your head, meals, clothes and that sort of thing. Qualitative liberalism has to do with the kind of life people live, the capacity for self-fulfillment in society. Programs for natural beauty, aid to education, civil rights and Government support for the arts are all part of what I would call qualitative liberalism. Both the New Frontier and the Great Society have done a good many things to improve the quality of American life—and of American lives.

[Q] Playboy: To what extent do you think it should be the function of Government to concern itself with the quality of life? In the opinion of some conservatives, this puts the Government in a position to "meddle" in matters of personal belief, taste and conviction and all the other areas of private concern that they consider to be outside the province of Federal control.

[A] Schlesinger: I agree with John Quincy Adams, when he said, in his first address to Congress, that the duty of Government is the moral and intellectual improvement of the citizens.

[Q] Playboy: Do you see any validity in conservative complaints that "big government" is stifling individual rights?

[A] Schlesinger: If you look at the record of the last half century, you'll find that the only freedoms destroyed by an increase in national authority have been the freedom to hire little girls to work ten hours a day in mills and sweatshops, and the freedom to market fraudulent securities, and the freedom to deny equal opportunity to people of another color—things that our country is much better off without.

[Q] Playboy: Do you disagree, then, with the Jefferson maxim: That government is best which governs least?

[A] Schlesinger: In his day, that was fine. But we're not in his day anymore. The fact is that "big government" in modern America is the only way to protect the rights and enhance the welfare of the multiplying millions of individuals whom it represents.

[Q] Playboy: Can you be more specific?

[A] Schlesinger: Well, only the national Government can carry forth the fight for civil rights; if it hadn't been for the national Government, we would have made very little progress. Only the national Government can protect and develop our natural resources and do what is necessary to save our rivers and lakes and forests and wilderness. Only the national Government can produce and provide the revenues for the expansion and improvement of our educational system. Only the national Government can be responsible for maintaining the high level of business activity and fostering economic growth. I would even say that only the national Government can provide the means of assistance to make our megalopolitan cities livable. Most of our primary problems are national problems, and it is only the national Government that can really do anything effective about them.

[Q] Playboy: In last year's State of the Union Address, President Johnson proposed long-range Federal programs in all of the areas you mention. Yet this far-reaching blueprint for social progress and reform was received with misgivings even by many liberals, according to some commentators. In the Washington Star, Frank Getlein wrote recently: "Liberal thinkers...wander the gleaming aisles of the Lyndon Johnson supermarket and know in their hearts that this isn't quite the way they thought it ought to be.... The liberal in success is like the antipolio organization in success. They need a new disease in a hurry or they'll be out of business." Is there any truth to this, in your opinion?

[A] Schlesinger: No. This implies that all of our problems are solved. As long as you have segregated schools, riots in Watts and poverty in Appalachia, there will be more that can be done. When people complained that the unemployment benefits in England were destroying all incentive in life, Winston Churchill used to say that even with unemployment benefits, there will still be enough grindstone in life to keep people keen. Well, even with all the wonder drugs and supermarkets, there is still plenty of grindstone in American life. So I'm not worried. Liberalism will continue in the future, as in the past, to try to strengthen individual freedom and opportunity in this country and to make this a decent and civilized society. I don't think that we'll ever achieve this, but it's the process that is valuable.

[Q] Playboy: Why do you think we'll never achieve it?

[A] Schlesinger: Well, I'm just not a believer in the perfectibility of man or of human institutions. Obviously, the abolition of slavery was a very good thing, but it's awfully hard to see any steady and irresistible drive toward perfection, or even progress, in a century of genocide, napalm bombing and nuclear warfare. I don't think we can claim that the 20th Century is more civilized than the 19th was; indeed, the 20th has committed much worse crimes against humanity. So I don't find the concept of inevitable progress very meaningful. We have progressed in some things; but we have retrogressed in others. I think there are many things we can do to make this a more humane society, however. We've already done a good many of them. But given the imperfections of man, there will always be many more things left to do than have already been done. It is the struggle to do them that is likely to be the enduring benefit, rather than a notion that someday the struggle will come to an end and we will all be in utopia.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think the struggle will be successful?

[A] Schlesinger: One can always hope.

[Q] Playboy: Are you ducking a judgment?

[A] Schlesinger: Yes, I am. But then, historians ought to stay out of the future.