Playboy Interview: Charles Percy

The real-life incarnation of the legendary all-American hero--a poor but honest young man who earns fame and fortune through gumption and stick-to-itiveness--has seldom been more arche-typally embodied than in the blue-eyed, clean-jawed person of 48-year-old Charles Harting Percy, the junior Senator from Illinois. From an impoverished boyhood--at one point during the Depression, his family was on relief--he rose before turning 30 to head a major camera company and become a millionaire many times over. In politics, he's zoomed ahead even faster, from fundraising front man in the late Fifties to red-hot Vice-Presidential--or even Presidential--prospect in 1968. Despite his own disclaimers and the fact that he's spent just over a year in his first elective office, politicians, pundits and pollsters now uniformly rank Chuck Percy right along with Richard Nixon, George Romney, Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald Reagan in the 1968 sweepstakes. Their reasons are sound: He is abundantly endowed with all the essentials for success in the political big time. These days, for better or for worse, a man's image is powerful political capital; and young, handsome, personable Chuck Percy is every inch the ideal politician--just as his photogenic wife and children look exactly like the proper family. On television, he comes across smoothly; with his deep, resonant voice and pear-shaped articulation, he pours forth thoughtful and polished phrases on almost any topic.

But Percy is more than mere façade. He reads widely, works diligently from dawn till late at night, thinks fast on his feet and has the business background so highly regarded by much of the American electorate. Liberal Republicans regard him as one of their own; yet conservatives remember that in 1964, unlike many party liberals, he reluctantly but officially backed Barry Goldwater. Thus, any one of the major Presidential contenders, left or right, might well give the nod to Percy as his running mate. And if a convention deadlock for the ticket's top spot should develop, the ensuing search for a mutually acceptable compromise candidate could well add the most successful chapter yet to Chuck Percy's rags-to-riches success story.

Brought up in northeast Chicago, Percy demonstrated early a singular compulsion to get ahead. At the age of five, he was out selling subscriptions to Country Gentleman and won a plaque for lining up more than any other city salesman in the nation; at eight, he was an area captain, with the largest route in the Chicago region. Then, in rapid succession, Edward Percy lost his job when the bank where he worked as a cashier failed; and he was completely wiped out in the stock market. In order to help the family in its long, difficult struggle to recover, Chuck had to work even harder; he sold still more magazines, marketed the cookies and cakes his mother baked and started a shopping service for women unable to go to the store themselves. Usually busy with several simultaneous jobs throughout high school, by the time he reached college, he had learned the cardinal creed of capitalism: You can make more by using other people's labor and services than by selling your own. At the University of Chicago, where he went on a half scholarship, Percy perfected a cooperative agency that pooled the buying of food, clothes, linen, appliances and the like--at large-volume discounts--for the campus fraternities; by his senior year, his fee for this service was $10,000. He also worked for a group of small colleges seeking potential applicants among area high school graduates; they paid Percy five cents a name for each prospect and ten dollars for each student who actually signed up with one of them. Farming out the work to classmates, he paid them three cents a name and five dollars a sign-up.

But Percy's big break came when he asked Joseph McNabb, his Christian Science Sunday-school teacher, to hire his in-and-out-of-work father. Head of the small Bell & Howell camera company, McNabb took a liking to the industrious youngster; he found a job for the father and offered another--plus scholarship help--to the son. Percy worked for him during summers and vacations and, after graduation in 1941, was put in charge of a new Bell & Howell division that handled defense contracts. The division expanded rapidly and McNabb saw to it that Percy was on the board of directors by the time he was 23. Kept on as a company officer during his three years in the Navy, he was awarded hefty stock options and was ultimately designated as McNabb's successor. When McNabb died in 1949, Percy became head of the company shortly before his 30th birthday. He did a top-notch job of expanding the company's sales at home and abroad, diversified manufacture into new lines and generally built the corporate image of a responsible, forward-thinking business concern. While most camera manufacturers supported high U. S. tariffs--to keep out German and Japanese competition--Percy preached tariff reductions, arguing that the carrot of U. S. tariff cuts would persuade foreign countries to reduce restrictions on American cameras. (Bell & Howell subsequently acquired sole U. S. distribution rights for Japan's Canon camera company.) His lobbying for this unusual position--along with activity as an Illinois Republican fund raiser--brought him to the attention of President Eisenhower, who decided that Percy should be encouraged in public service and installed him as head of a prestigious Republican Committee on Program and Progress, designed to shape long-range party policy. This position helped push him into the spotlighted job of platform-committee chairman at the 1960 Presidential convention, where he unfortunately got caught in the sharp cross fire between Nixon and Rockefeller forces, found himself in deep water and turned in one of his rare less-than-impressive performances.

But Percy's taste of political high life had whetted his appetite to run for office--and he typically decided he might as well start at the top. He fixed his sights on the Illinois governorship; but months of arduous campaigning found him running far behind a popular political veteran, then-Illinois Secretary of State Charles Carpentier, for the G. O. P. nomination. Carpentier, however, suddenly suffered a heart attack, pulled out and threw his support to young Percy--who won the nomination and seemed securely aimed toward victory and a brilliant future. But a funny thing happened on his way to Springfield: The National Republican Convention nominated Barry Goldwater for President. Hoping to escape the preconvention infighting between the party's liberal and conservative wings, Percy promised to go along with whatever might be the majority decision of the Illinois delegation. This finally found him uncomfortably and unenthusiastically backing Goldwater in the campaign. Running dismally in Illinois, Goldwater lost by almost 900,000 votes and dragged Percy down with him. Though Goldwater was certainly the crucial factor in Percy's 180,000-vote deficit, the Illinoisian could have done more to help himself; in campaign appearances, he came across stiffly, tried to tightrope walk and often contradicted himself on key issues.

Only momentarily daunted by the setback, however, Percy soon decided on another bold stroke; rather than wait four more years for another crack at the governorship, he would run for the next major office opening in Illinois--the Senate seat of the respected veteran Democrat, Paul Douglas. Many thought Percy was courting another defeat and, with it, political oblivion; but a warmer and more relaxed Percy waged an intelligent, aggressive campaign. Douglas was hurt by his advanced age, an anti-Democratic white backlash, the Vietnam war, a general Republican tide in the nation--and a second deep personal tragedy for Chuck Percy. His first wife had died only four years after they were married, the victim of an adverse reaction to penicillin after two operations for colitis. Now, in the midst of the Senate campaign, an intruder broke into his suburban-Chicago home and brutally murdered 21-year-old Valerie, one of his twin daughters. The tragedy made more voters view him as a human and sympathetic figure.

In the Senate, Percy has shown none of the usual freshmen-should-be-seen-but-not-heard reluctance to speak out. He has been sharply critical of U. S. bombing policy and has suggested that the President be required to submit annual reports to Congress outlining the nation's foreign commitments. He sponsored a widely supported bill that would provide funds for slum dwellers to remodel and buy their homes at low down payments and low monthly carrying charges. Ultimately, his persistence forced the Administration to accept a watered-down version of this proposal as part of a housing bill now making its way through Congress. He's also emerged as a leading Senate advocate of more commercial and cultural contracts with Communist nations. Almost immediately upon election, too, he began traveling the speakers' circuit, addressing groups ranging from bank presidents (whom he urged to support his housing plan) to students at Berkeley (where he talked of "changing values" and the need to protect individual privacy). In practically all appearances, he went over predictably big.

Probably Percy's greatest political handicap is a widely shared feeling among his critics that he's too perfectly drawn, too anxious to please, a little too cute and cautious, a little too ambitious and eager. In December, his eagerness took him to the Vietnam front lines, where he was caught in a mortar attack--and subsequently had to face a domestic barrage of criticism for what many constituents saw, erroneously, as a rash, headline-grabbing act. And about the same time, a brouhaha began to brew over a private fund supplied by friends. Percy quickly explained that for some time, he'd been making up the difference between his Senatorial expenses and his Senatorial salary out of his own pocket and that his benefactors neither expected nor earned any political favors for helping him out. But when his critics continued to express their displeasure over its existence, Percy announced in January that the fund was being dissolved; he returned all the money and asked all the donors to make their names public. Apart from these incidents, Percy's track record to date has been enviable and spotless.

To keep it that way, Percy organizes his time down to the split second. Perhaps because he travels at almost a dead run to and from the Senate, between committee meetings and between chamber and office, he makes a point of physical fitness; a onetime captain of Chicago's championship water-polo team, he tries to swim daily in the Senate pool. At meetings, he reads and signs correspondence while other people talk, rarely missing anything. Then, from time to time, he puts his letters aside long enough to make his own remarks.

Percy allocated three large blocks of time for Washington correspondent Alan Otten--capital bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal--to interview him for playboy in his ground-floor office (once occupied by another ambitious young political hopeful, New York's Senator Robert Kennedy) in the New Senate Office Building. One appointment was canceled; Percy had to meet with Treasury Secretary Fowler and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Martin to discuss his housing bill. The second appointment was kept but repeatedly interrupted by dashes to the Senate floor to vote. The final session broke for half an hour while Percy attended a party for Senator Dirksen.

Each time Percy sat down on the couch in his large corner office to talk to Otten, however, his mind focused completely on the questions, which he answered thoughtfully and fully. Occasionally, his secretary would come in and hand him a written query; he'd shake his head yes or no without even breaking sentence. Only two subjects were put off limits: his preference among the candidates for the Republican Presidential nomination and his chances of winning that nomination himself. That situation, he explained, kept changing so fast that anything he might say for publication could be hopelessly out of date by the time it appeared in print. We began by asking what prompted him to enter such a volatile and uncertain profession.

[Q] Playboy: What made you decide to leave the lucrative and orderly world of business, in which you were obviously very well established, for the unpredictable and not very profitable arena of politics?

[A] Percy: Well, sometimes I wonder. Some days you have such a series of frustrations--unable to get anything done--that you wonder why you would want to leave a well-ordered, structured life, where you can make a decision and then enforce that decision without the process that we have to go through in government. But it was a gradual weaning away from business that I went through. When I came back from the War, I started right in on politics with the Republican organization, trying to interest returning veterans in contributing part of their time to politics. From that I went into fund raising, policy writing and platform-committee writing; I backed and supported candidates. But then I had the frustration of seeing the platforms that we wrote not fully enunciated, of backing candidates whose performance was then disappointing, and I realized that the only place I could make a satisfactory contribution, where the factors were more under my control, would be in actually holding public office. I would have no one to blame then but myself if I lost. I had finished 25 years with one company and, having been elected head of that company at an early age, I also felt that it would be fairer to the succeeding management if I let them try their own approach and their own ideas, rather than just hang on until I had my 50-year watch and then retire with a big banquet; I wanted to leave feeling that I still had something to contribute but that I should give the fine men I worked with a chance to proceed on their own.

[Q] Playboy: To what extent were you motivated by the feeling that too many people, particularly businessmen, tend to criticize our political system without offering any alternatives or doing something about it themselves?

[A] Percy: I think there is a great deal of denunciation of bureaucracy and the high cost of government by businessmen but relatively modest involvement on their part--in contrast with the labor leader, who gets right down to the guts of politics. He organizes, he supports, he works at the precinct level and up. The labor leaders know and have learned through the years that they can gain more for labor in the halls of Congress and the state legislative halls than they can on the picket lines.

[Q] Playboy: You've finished your first year in elective office. Have you been able to get as much accomplished as you expected?

[A] Percy: When I came to Washington, I took into consideration the fact that it would be my first time in public office, that I would be a freshman member of the Senate, that I would be a member of the minority party, and I was prepared for the worst. But my Democratic associates have treated me as graciously as my fellow Republicans; and every one of my G.O.P. colleagues in the Senate and 110 members of the House supported the first bill that I put in [the National Home Ownership Opportunities Act--Ed]; I've been told it was the first time in 50 years that a major bill has had the support of every Republican Senator. I was also fortunate, of course, to have as my senior colleague from Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen, who has given me immeasurable help and support in many aspects of my career here. And the committee work that I've done has been equally rewarding. I was assigned to the very committee that I wanted to get on--Banking and Currency--and to its subcommittee on Housing and Urban Affairs, and have been treated extremely fairly by the chairman of that committee, Senator John Sparkman, and by the ranking minority member, Senator John Tower. So that part of my job has been very satisfying.

[Q] Playboy: What about the frustrations you mentioned earlier?

[A] Percy: Well, the slowness of the legislative process can certainly be frustrating. It's designed to keep any man of evil intent from accomplishing his own designs, but it applies also to men of good will, with worthwhile ideas. The resistance to new ideas, ideas that have not been tried and tested, is unbelievable. The forces marshaled to stop the National Home Ownership Opportunities Act, for example, were powerful. There was one day when I was sure the wheels of Government must have stopped, when there were about 30 top officials, from the Housing Department and the Federal Reserve Board and half a dozen other agencies, in one room for the entire day, arguing over just one feature of that bill. When you get to the end of a long legislative session like that and everyone is tired and upset and sometimes angry, everything seems almost to grind to a halt. The system is designed to slow things down and that's just what it does.

[Q] Playboy: Any other frustrations?

[A] Percy: Our staffs are inadequate, too. The staff size for all Senators is geared to some median state. It may be more than adequate for a small state, but it's totally inadequate to deal with the load in a large state like Illinois, one and a half hours away by jet and 60 cents away by phone, where daily papers flood the people with information about issues. And the number of committees you have to serve on here in the Senate is appalling. I have 14 committee and subcommittee assignments. Some of them overlap and you're never able to get your homework done the way you'd like. But despite all these problems and though the work is exhaustively demanding, the challenge and diversity is exhilarating. And you develop a very healthy respect for the quality of the men you work with. I think, even more than I did before, that a United States Senator has the best elective job in the world.

[Q] Playboy: Some of the men you work with don't seem to appreciate your eagerness and impatience to get things done. In private conversations, several fellow Republicans have called you too pushy, too much the young man in a hurry. Governor Romney, in fact, was reported to have described you as "an opportunist"; and then when news of this leaked out, he explained that he meant this in a good sense, in the sense of "recognizing the right time to act." But many people feel that the more common and less favorable meaning of the word was intended and is, in fact, completely appropriate. What's your answer?

[A] Percy: They could well be right. You have a good illustration of my attitude toward my work when I came to the Senate. The tradition is that a new Senator do nothing for the first six months to a year, that he just sit and listen. Under ordinary circumstances, I think this would be a wise thing; but today we're not confronted with ordinary circumstances. We're enmeshed in a tragic war in Vietnam; we've had an eruption in the Middle East; we've had a new crisis in Korea; we've had our cities burning. How can I sit there--one of two Senators from one of our great states--and say to myself, "I'm not going to express opinions; I'm not going to put a bill in; I'm not going to work, because I'm not supposed to." I think a tradition like that makes no sense in today's society, and I'm not going to be so false with myself, my constituents and my colleagues as to sit here and do nothing simply because that's the tradition. It's time to break a few of the traditions. When the five or six Senators who are in my class, including Senator Baker, Everett Dirksen's son-in-law, met and had lunch with Senator Dirksen and Senator Mike Mansfield early in our Senate careers, we put this question to them. They said, "Don't ever sit there if you've got something to say and not say it. You have not only a right but an obligation to start to work the day you get here." Well, that's just what we've done.

[Q] Playboy: Have your other Senatorial elders taken the same positive attitude toward this disavowal of tradition?

[A] Percy: Oh, I think they've viewed it in mixed fashion. Though I haven't had any criticism come directly to me, I can well imagine that some does exist. But you can't keep a dynamic institution such as the Congress of the United States exactly the way it was before. The times are simply too critical. There's a lot of work for all of us, and I think every member of the Senate expects us to pick up our share of the load and get about our business.

[Q] Playboy: If we might dwell on the subject of opportunism a bit longer: Repeatedly in the late Fifties and the early Sixties, you declared your admiration for Illinois' Senator Paul Douglas as a great political leader and a great humanitarian. And yet you ran against him, beat him and ended what most people thought was a very noteworthy Senate career. Some critics regarded that as a confirmation of Governor Romney's charge of opportunism. How would you reply?

[A] Percy: I don't think it was opportunism and I don't think Senator Douglas thought so, either. I called him up during the Christmas holidays in 1965, while he was getting a well-earned rest in Mexico, and I told him I had thought long and hard about this and that 16 party leaders, headed by Senator Dirksen, had asked me to run for the Senate. And I said, "I've decided to go ahead." I expressed my hope for a high-level campaign, based on issues and not on personalities--a hardfought and clean campaign. He told me, "You have no alternative." He indicated his feeling that the two-party system in Illinois depends upon the G. O. P. putting up the strongest candidate it has. He also expressed the hope that we could have a campaign that would distinguish itself for its high level. I think that we fulfilled that wish to a great extent. Now, I didn't like beating Senator Douglas, because I think he is a fine man and was a fine Senator. But I must say that although I disliked beating him, I'd have liked it even less if he had defeated me.

[Q] Playboy: Well, when you announced your candidacy against Douglas in 1966, you promised you wouldn't make an issue of his advanced age. And yet your campaign posters--

[A] Percy: I said his age, not his advanced age.

[Q] Playboy: All right. Yet your campaign posters and literature showed you in an open-necked shirt, looking about 20 years old, above the slogan "A Strong New Voice for Illinois." Wasn't this really making Senator Douglas' age an issue?

[A] Percy: I don't think so. The slogan "A Strong New Voice for Illinois" meant exactly what it said--a new voice speaking for the state of Illinois; there was no age implication whatsoever intended. And I made a public statement right at the start of the campaign that Senator Douglas later quoted many times, that a man's age in the Senate should not be a determining factor. I said that no man should be qualified simply because he was young or disqualified simply because he wasn't. There was nothing that anyone could specifically point to and say that age had been made a factor in that campaign. Senator Douglas, on the other hand, mentioned it several times; he gave a public statement on the health report that he'd had from his doctor; he was shown and depicted many times swimming. He took every opportunity to demonstrate and prove that he was in good physical condition and alert mentally--all of which I felt was perfectly appropriate for him to do. But one principle in our campaign was that we wouldn't discuss age, and I never did.

[Q] Playboy: Whether or not age was an issue in your campaign, your swift rise in politics seems to exemplify a trend toward personable young men in public office. Do you agree with those who feel that these qualities have become essential to political success in the Sixties?

[A] Percy: As far as youth is concerned, I don't think it's a controlling asset at all. Everett Dirksen is one of the most colorful personalities in public life, one of the most sought-after men by the Washington press and certainly by television. He's a man with many youthful ideas. I've known young people who are old fogies in the way they think, and I've known older men--like Senator Douglas--who have been dynamic and bold in their concepts. But I think Jack Kennedy did do a great deal to advance the cause of young men in politics, just as I hope that I have perhaps given new hope to young men in business that they can be entrusted with the management of a large corporation.

[Q] Playboy: Aren't clean-cut, all-American good looks such as yours becoming an equally important political asset in attracting the pivotal bloc of white voters?

[A] Percy: Let's take a few specific personalities: Jack Javits in New York, for instance. I have never known him to claim that his greatest asset was his handsome looks, but he is certainly a tremendously successful politician, and I'm proud to have him as a Republican. On the other hand, of course, you've got John Lindsay, who is the epitome of fine appearance; but his appeal, as I've seen as I have gone around New York, attracts the Negro in Harlem, the Mexican, the Puerto Rican as well as Broadway and Wall Street. As we drove through the streets, people would call out to him. He has associated himself with the hopes and aspirations of the poor rather than just the rich. And I think that Governor Rockefeller in New York has done the same thing, and very, very successfully. He is a dynamic man, with broad voter appeal.

[Q] Playboy: On a related theme, many commentators have expressed the view that the political success of such former show-business personalities as Ronald Reagan and George Murphy is attributable almost entirely to their marquee names and attractive TV images. Do you think there's much truth to that?

[A] Percy: Shirley Temple Black is prettier and it didn't work for her. A politician's ability has to be more than skin deep, and I tend to think that television and the press dig rather deeply. A candidate running for public office, where problem solving has to be the primary consideration and responsibility, can cover up with clichés and slogans for just so long, but then he's got to produce. I think that over the long pull, most candidates are going to have to have something more than an image that is appealing and pleasant to the viewer. There isn't any question, though, that television and radio have brought about a change. They require a new asset in a candidate, and it's one of those factors that's now taken into consideration, along with all the other factors. But I hope we'll still be looking for intelligence, perception, depth of reasoning and the ability to recognize problems, conceive alternate solutions and then decide upon and carry out the best solutions. I think in the end that's going to be the only kind of politician who will really survive--if our society is to survive.

[Q] Playboy: Speaking of political survival, a great deal has been written lately about the high cost of serving in public office--particularly in the Congress. Arizona Congressman Morris Udall, in fact, wrote an article on this subject for Playboy last November. Do you feel, as some of your colleagues do, that the mounting burden of expenses for campaigning, Congressional correspondence, official junkets, constituent relations and the like are making it increasingly difficult for men of modest means to enter politics?

[A] Percy: Yes, I do. There are many men for whom this is a far more serious problem than it is for me, but it's becoming increasingly difficult even for men of some means to enter and remain in politics. I'm concerned that personal wealth is rapidly becoming a requirement for office seeking--a requirement never contemplated by the founding fathers. Somehow, we've got to make it possible for the best-qualified men and women, rich or poor, to have an equal chance to gain and hold public office.

[Q] Playboy: A group of your friends in Illinois recently tried to raise $100,000 to help pay for the extra expenses you incur as a Senator with a large correspondence and much in demand as a speaker around the country. If you're well off personally, why did they think it was necessary?

[A] Percy: They thought it was necessary because the cost of being a Senator from a large state like Illinois far exceeds the allotment provided by the Government. Senate allotments and benefits, so far as office space and staff are concerned, tend to favor Senators from the majority party, from smaller states and those with seniority. I'm from the minority party, from a big state and a freshman. I plowed my entire Senate salary and fees back into office expenses, and during my first 11 months in office, I spent another $40,000 of my own money to do my job the way I thought it should be done--the way I promised during my campaign it would be done. The group of friends you mentioned learned of this, and they felt that public office should not entail such a large financial sacrifice and offered to try to raise some money to help offset part of my expenses.

[Q] Playboy: When the fund began to be widely publicized, there was a good deal of speculation that it might be improper, that it might give the contributors some sort of special claim on you. In the wake of this criticism, you asked your friends to call it off. Was the fund improper and, if not, why did you change your mind and decide to stop it?

[A] Percy: There was nothing improper about it or I never would have given permission to let them raise the money. Despite the fact that every step was taken to guarantee the full integrity of the fund and its use, there was widespread concern and misunderstanding about it. So I decided that until such time as the Congress has clearly defined a set of rules for activities of this type, I would ask that all the money be returned, and it was.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think the Senate should provide larger expense allowances for Senators from big states, or should make it clear that expense funds such as the one your friends were raising are perfectly proper?

[A] Percy: As I just indicated, I would hope that Congress would draw up a set of ground rules for office seekers and officeholders who now operate with inadequate funds and without guidelines.

[Q] Playboy: How can other Senators get by without this sort of fund? Isn't much of your extra expense due to the fact that you're being widely discussed as a possible Presidential or Vice-Presidential candidate?

[A] Percy: Let's be realistic. If I wasn't being mentioned that way, the expenses I incur would undoubtedly be somewhat--but not much--lighter. The day I arrived in the Senate, however, bags of mail were piled up outside my door. For months on end, I received 1500 to 2000 letters a day--85 percent from Illinois--plus 200 phone calls a day and 21,000 visitors my first year. Someone had to handle all of this, and I hired the necessary staff to help me do the quality job people had a right to expect of me. The extra cost of research and development expenses for my Home Ownership Opportunities Act amounted to only the cost of six lowcost houses, and yet we ended up with a bill that will help 230,000 families own their own home who could not otherwise. That's a good return on an investment, and I'd do it again.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't there the temptation, though, for some members of Congress who find the cost of giving official parties, entertaining constituents, etc., excessively high, to resort to testimonial dinners and other fund-raising functions where the proceeds go to the Congressmen themselves, who might then be unduly obligated?

[A] Percy: Speaking for myself, I've never had to accept a dime that had any string attached. In fact, only once did anyone try to tie a string to a gift; it was a $1000 contribution to the Republican Party in Illinois when I was finance chairman. I sent it back. As far as other members of Congress go, I don't know what they do. But for the most part, I doubt that you'd find a more honorable group of men and women anywhere in the world than in the United States Senate and the House. But I think a uniform procedure and code of ethics is long overdue, including names of contributors and an audited statement of expenditures. I also favor public disclosure of earned income for legislators and the requirement that a copy of income-tax returns be filed with the Comptroller General of the U.S.

[Q] Playboy: You were among the Senators who voted to censure Thomas Dodd for his misuse of campaign funds. Justifiably or not, some critics regarded your subsequent approval of an expense fund for yourself as an example of ethical inconsistency. Do you think that's unfair?

[A] Percy: Yes. There is no parallel at all between the two cases, and I don't see any inconsistency in my position on either. The facts about my expense fund were public knowledge; the money was never intended for personal use and no one has even slightly implied that it ever would have been so used. The only money ever spent for my official additional office expenses was my own. When questions were raised about the propriety of these supplementary monies, however, I asked for all of it to be returned before a penny was spent and requested that the donors make their names public. With respect to the censure of Senator Dodd by the Senate, I'd rather not comment about that. The proceedings and judgment are a matter of public record.

[Q] Playboy: Your critics also accuse you of contradicting yourself on a number of other important issues. At one time, for example, you were against fair-employment legislation; now you're for it. You were against open occupancy; now you favor it. You were critical of the Supreme Court's one-man, one-vote ruling; then you supported it. How do you explain these reversals in position?

[A] Percy: I hope I don't have my mind so rigidly set in concrete and my ideas so firmly fixed that I'd refuse to alter a judgment that I had made, after an intensive study of an issue, with new facts, new circumstances, new conditions confronting us. If a person can go through life without making a mistake or having cause to change his mind, I think it's to be admired, but I've never been able to. And when I make a mistake, I want to clearly acknowledge it and announce that I've made a mistake; and if I have to change course, then I do so--without any shame or apologies whatsoever. But the fact that my critics are able to point out only two or three position changes in the course of the 22 years I've been in politics, I think, shows they've had to digpretty deep to try to come up with some issues.

Let's take each one of those you mentioned. On one-man, one-vote, I think a good case can be made that this is not the only principle of democratic government, and that's the point that I wanted to make originally. We also have a tradition of unrepresentative, nonpopular government--in such institutions as the Electoral College, the Senate of the United States and the Supreme Court. But as I saw the state legislatures change, as I saw each state respond to population changes--with more and more being drawn from the suburbs and the cities, and the rural communities becoming less and less of a dominant factor in the state legislatures--I found those legislatures to be more responsive, creative bodies of government than before. It's for that reason that I became a strong adherent of reapportionment. After I saw 36 states reapportion themselves with far more creative state legislatures than they had before, I became convinced that one-man, one-vote, as it affected state legislatures, was an absolutely proper principle. But that doesn't mean, of course, that I think it should be the principle by which we elect the Senate of the United States; so my initial statement that this is not the only principle of representative government still stands.

As for fair-employment practices, I have always felt that we should have equality of opportunity as a principle of our society, but for a long time I didn't believe it would be necessary as a coercive force in law. I became increasingly disillusioned, however, about the prospects of moving fast enough without it. I recognized that in business we have virtually a monopoly on private employment and that you can't allow a monopoly of that type to discriminate against a person--as it all too often does--simply because of race, color or creed. For that reason, I changed my position as a businessman and I went to the state legislature and fought for a fair-employment-practice law at the state level. I felt it would be better to have the law at the state level, rather than wait for the Federal Government to act. There's no question that these laws have opened doors that never would have been opened otherwise. I had thought we could rely on education and voluntary action, but I was 1000 percent wrong, and I admitted it.

The same process of thought change took place on open housing. I felt initially that this could be done without law, but I became increasingly disillusioned that we would ever move fast enough in this field without the moral force of law behind it. So I publicly announced that I had been mistaken before--that the times were changing too rapidly, that we must respond much more quickly to the legitimate needs and aspirations of all our people. Since then, I have fought for open-occupancy legislation.

[Q] Playboy: There's no open-occupancy statute in your former home town of Kenil-worth. Would you support one?

[A] Percy: I did.

[Q] Playboy: How many Negro families are there now in Kenilworth?

[A] Percy: We have, I think, 3000 people and we have one Negro family. They moved in four years ago; they've been well received in the community and we've had no problem as a result of it. But I would much prefer to see every village, every city in the state of Illinois, with an ordinance for open occupancy, and I certainly have commended every city recently--Joliet, Elgin, Weston and others--that has come forward with these ordinances. More than half the people in Illinois are now living under such local laws. Progress is being made locally, but it's too slow and too piecemeal. That's why I've been working to pass open-occupancy bills at the state and Federal levels. It will take many years, of course, to bring about freedom of residence in every city and town across the country, even with Federal legislation--just as it has taken years with the various other civil rights laws--but that's no excuse to delay any longer in setting that process into motion.

[Q] Playboy: Most of your efforts in the housing area have been directed toward passage of your bill proposing home ownership by lower-income families. This would set up a Government-chartered foundation, backed by Government credit, to provide low-interest loans to unions and other groups that would acquire slum housing, rehabilitate it and sell it to poor families who would pay partly with labor and partly with cash. Even assuming that this would work as well as you think it would, isn't it a rather limited and long-term solution to the problem of urban renewal?

[A] Percy: Long-term, yes; limited, no. In the past 30 years, America has moved from one third homeowners to two thirds homeowners, but this has happened mainly in areas outside the inner city. In the next decade, we will have to find ways to increase ownership in the city itself, where home ownership is rare and getting rarer, especially in our swelling ghettos. The core cities are soon going to be all black, surrounded by white suburbs, unless we can find a way to make our cities attractive enough to lure white families back in. Just as we have found a way to develop and stabilize the suburbs, we are going to have to find a way to stabilize the cities. This will be an enormous task; but a good beginning, I think, would be to encourage ownership--ownership of business as well as ownership of housing; we've got to help our minority groups become entrepreneurs as well as taxpayers. This is really the foundation of our society--to be somebody, to have something of your own, to make a contribution. Yet millions can't achieve it.

Ownership gives a sense of pride and dignity to people; it helps them integrate into the community. If you're a transient coming into a community with only the thought of getting out of it, you haven't any roots, any stake; you don't care enough. And that feeling of not being wanted or needed is the lack that we find in the city. We have got to find a way to take the rural immigrants from the South and give them the same sort of acclimation to urban living that we gave to the immigrants from Europe when they came and landed at Ellis Island and were brought in by their kinfolk and taken into their community. The Greeks, for instance, went to the Greek Orthodox Church, and they went to the Greek restaurants and were in a community and had folklore enough to cushion them through the adjustment to their new life. There isn't that transition now. We simply assume, as we throw these individuals into urban life, that they are going to adjust somehow. Well, they haven't adjusted. The adjustment is taking place on the street now--and the experience has alienated them, from their roots, from each other and from their new environment.

The whole essence of our homeownership program is to see if we can't democratize the city to the point where you have the same sort of feeling of belonging, the same sense of being an important part of the community in which you live, that middle-income Americans develop in owning their own homes or a condominium or a co-op apartment. They participate; they decide who is going to be living there; they make decisions about their landscaping, their gardening, their improvements, and so forth. I think we have to give the lowincome city dweller the same feeling that he has something to say about the immediate environment in which he finds himself. If he has that feeling, he will have a feeling of pride and interest in the community--just as in the suburbs when you have your own home, you are immediately interested in the parks, the schools, the village administration, the police department, and the like. You can get Negroes into white communities and whites into Negro communities if everyone is convinced that each fellow will take care of the property, and keep it up, and not throw trash into the yards, and all the rest. We have an area in Chicago where it's about 50 percent Negro and 50 percent white; this neighborhood is stabilized. The one thing they all have in common is their mortgage. And all are concerned with their property and take care of it.

When I went through Bedford-Stuyvesant with John Lindsay, I saw that on blocks that were stable, the homes and businesses there were owned by the people on that block; a block away, where it was unstable, the entire block was transient. There will have to be many, many other changes before we can achieve stability, of course. I'd like to explore, for example, the possibility of Federally subsidized experiments with educational parks in the midst of the cities, model schools that will attract whites as well as Negroes. But we've got to crawl before we can run; before we can undertake such ambitious projects as these, we've got to show that we care enough about those who live in the ghetto to pass such basic legislation as a ratcontrol bill without bickering over the amount of money necessary to keep their children safe from attack by vermin while they sleep.

[Q] Playboy: The rat-control bill calls for a relatively modest $40,000,000 appropriation; but the cost of your home-ownership plan, added to that of all the other urbanrenewal and city-beautification bills currently under consideration, would run into billions a year. The Administration claims it's already spending all that can be afforded on such programs without a substantial increase in taxes, as requested by President Johnson. Would you favor raising taxes in order to pay for these projects?

[A] Percy: Yes, I would--not only to help narrow the gap in our deficit but to symbolize the fact that the Administration has been dead wrong when it has said we can have guns and butter with no sacrifice on anyone's part. Both the war and our urgent domestic programs are going to have to be paid for by the present generation, and one way to do that is with a tax increase. We must also drastically reduce nonessential Federal spending; for instance, I have proposed delaying public-works projects generally, even if they affect Illinois. But I feel also that there are many, many areas of urban redevelopment that private enterprise can be brought into, and I have talked to many labor-union heads and corporation heads about it. I've spent a good deal of time in Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Los Angeles working on that very thing, seeing how we could interest private enterprise in investing in the cities to a much greater extent than it is right now. If it doesn't invest more in some of these problems today, tommorrow it's not going to have the consumers, the educated employees, the climate for business that we've had in the past.

[Q] Playboy: Many urban experts have begun to believe that the basic answer to the ghetto problem is simply to get more income into the hands of ghetto families--with Government-provided jobs or some sort of family allowance, negative income (continued on page 164) Playboy Interview (continued from page 78) tax or other direct cash payment. Do you think this would be effective?

[A] Percy: More income alone isn't going to solve anything--we can't just hand people a check and say we've discharged our obligation. I've met and talked with enough slum families to know that a very high proportion of the extra income might go into things that would not exactly be for the enrichment of family life. Much of it would be wasted. A slum family doesn't know how to buy properly at a store. They are frequently overcharged. They don't know how to plan the use of their funds. Just a modest investment in social-welfare work to train people to budget their time, their energy and their funds more intelligently would provide a tremendous return for society.

[Q] Playboy: Then you'd put the emphasis on Government services rather than on Government subsidy.

[A] Percy: Yes, that's right--though it doesn't have to be done only on the Federal level. Again, I think it's an alliance for progress by Federal, state and local government and, to the greatest extent that we can, by private enterprise. In addition to consumer training, of course, we've got to provide incentives for ghetto dwellers to undertake some course of action other than the one they're pursuing. We've got to motivate them to, say, watch television only two hours and go to class three hours, instead of watching TV five hours. In the New Illinois Committee, we pushed adult literacy for minorities, offering the incentives of education and a job. We had no trouble getting classes filled night after night. But it has to be done in a friendly atmosphere. We found it didn't work in a school. That was degrading the adults in the eyes of their children; school was a place where children went, not grownups. So we put the classes in churches; that was fine; that was where adults went anyway. When they finished these courses, we got them jobs. This is the kind of program we've got to undertake on a national scale.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't it unrealistic to propose costly new antipoverty projects at a time when many of your Republican colleagues have become so disenchanted with the Administration's War on Poverty that they've suggested abandoning the entire program?

[A] Percy: I don't think so. But the fact that the director, Sargent Shriver, spends 85 percent of his time in Congressional relations and 15 percent--by his own estimate--helping the poor is certainly symbolic of the fact that Congress is not convinced that this program is well conceived, that the haste with which we went into it was justified and that the promise it offered, which has fallen very short in performance, has been a good thing for the country. I myself feel that, whatever its shortcomings, this kind of effort is badly needed. Though there are many programs that can and must be improved, I think some good has been accomplished. But we must do much more than we have if our cities are to be saved and the promise of a decent life for all our citizens is ever to be fulfilled.

[Q] Playboy: Most observers feel that the lack of such legislation and the nonenforcement of civil rights laws now on the books are largely responsible for the riots in many of our big-city ghettos. Do you agree?

[A] Percy: Yes. I think there's a growing awareness on the part of Negroes and the other minority groups that for all the discussions, all the reports, all the committees, all the laws, all the fine-sounding words, equality of opportunity remains unfulfilled in this country. They went through the period of demonstrations and nothing happened. They paraded for laws and, when they finally got their laws, still nothing happened. Year after year, they continue to live in the same despicable conditions. Now, we've had ghettos in American life ever since we've had a country; but in the type of ghetto developed by the immigrants coming in from abroad, they always had the feeling that they were there with a culture, a background, ties that held them to the community. Now we've taken those communities and filled them full of people who don't have the same background, the same cultural ties, the same heritage of family, the same loyalties to one another. Poor whites and Negroes have migrated from the rural South into the alien environment of the urban North in such numbers that society isn't equipped to help them--or those who already live there--adjust to the conditions of their new life. Every night, in their dismal living rooms, they see on installment-plan television sets what the world is like outside the ghetto. Before TV, they really didn't know much about it; but now this world of glamor is poured every night into a tenement slum and all they know is that they can't get their share of what everyone else seems to have more than his share of. There isn't any escape from the ghetto--the kind of escape that's been possible for every other immigrant group that's come into the city. They realize that they're locked in-- so they want to break out and grab what's coming to them. And finally, that's just what many of them do. Their growing frustration has been such that they engage in criminal acts--and that's what they are--that a few years ago they never would have dreamed of committing.

[Q] Playboy: What do you think the Federal Government should do to prevent new outbreaks of rioting this summer--and to stop those that do break out?

[A] Percy: The first thing we have to do is recognize that the frustrations that cause riots don't exist just in the summer; they exist all year long. We've got to find answers to the problems of housing, jobs and education that will last from January first to December 31st; and we've got to start implementing those answers now-- on a massive scale. But it's going to take years to undo so many decades of inaction and neglect. For the immediate future, we've got to face the likelihood of more riots--and to equip ourselves to deal with them more effectively than we have. If there's any lesson we learned from last summer's riots in Detroit, it's that the National Guard will have to undergo a great deal more training before we can expect it to cope responsibly with such a disturbance. We've also learned a valuable lesson about riots in general--that a civil disturbance turns into a riot when the looting begins. The moment it becomes apparent that you can go in and grab a television set and a police officer might turn his back and not interfere--as has happened in several cities--that knowledge becomes so widespread so rapidly that the local disorders soon turn into full-scale rioting. We're going to have to have swift, firm and decisive police action with whatever riot-control devices may be necessary to curb these outbreaks in the early stages--with a minimum of bloodshed and property damage--before they escalate out of control. We may find these devices distasteful, but the alternative is anarchy.

Most of our energy, however, must be put into preventing riots rather than quelling them. The hatred and suspicion that exists between the white policeman and the Negro ghetto dweller, for example, which has been the spark that has ignited some of the riots, must somehow be defused.

[Q] Playboy: The hostility between white police and ghetto Negroes seems to reflect a larger alienation between white and black throughout the country. Some time ago, a Chicago Sun-Times poll of Negro and white racial attitudes concluded that whites were less in favor of integration than they had been a year earlier. According to other polls, whites also feel very strongly that Negroes have to move much more slowly and to "prove" that they are entitled to more. Do you think that this failure to understand the Negro's legitimate needs and aspirations is generally true of white people throughout the country?

[A] Percy: Yes, I'm afraid I do. And it's not just a problem of general white and Negro attitudes. It's getting more and more difficult for established leaders of the civil rights movement within the white communities to communicate with the new leadership in the Negro community.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Percy: I guess it's simply the inability of the white person--even a sympathetic civil rights worker--to walk in the shoes of the American Negro. The Negro just can't believe that a white person can ever understand his problems and his handicaps. And when any person feels another person can't understand his problems, it becomes difficult to communicate.

[Q] Playboy: What can be done to open the lines of communication?

[A] Percy: I think it's a two-way street. There has to be a better understanding on the part of the white community that the American Negro is paying a price for centuries of neglect; but this goes hand in hand with an effort to cultivate in the Negro community a better understanding of the responsibilities of citizenship in a free society. It's not a question of just one community solving its problem and then the other community will have its problem automatically solved. Both have to be worked on simultaneously. In the context of dealing specifically with the problem of riots, I think we could take a giant step toward mutual understanding and peaceful coexistence between the races if the militant new Negro leaders would face the fact that they're not going to win freedom now--or ever--with bricks and Molotov cocktails, that the white support they need to win the black revolution can be regained only with nonviolent perseverance. Whites, on the other hand, must be made to understand that it's not "the Negroes" who are wreaking havoc in the streets. Those who foment and participate in riots are a tiny minority of the Negro population. Most Negroes, in fact, fear crime in the streets even more than most whites--and with good reason. More than 80 percent of all crimes are uniracial: that is, perpetrated on Negroes by other Negroes and by whites against other whites. Since the crime rate among Negroes is higher than among whites, this means that the Negro community is suffering more from crime than the white community.

[Q] Playboy: As you know, the crime rate among both races has risen markedly, in proportion to population growth, in the past few years, and many law-enforcement officials--Federal and local--blame recent Supreme Court decisions protecting and extending the rights of defendants in criminal cases. Do you agree with that assessment?

[A] Percy: Yes, I do, to a very large extent--and I think that these decisions have been in force long enough to prove I'm right. In New York City, for instance, the number of murders the police have been able to solve has dropped about five percent since the new regulations went into effect. They're unable to really question adequately someone whom they strongly suspect was deeply involved in a crime. Unquestionably, the new rulings have eliminated certain bad practices that the police themselves engaged in, so that it's not been a totally negative thing; it's brought some improvement. But I think the time has come--without sacrificing sensible safeguards against police malpractice--to move back in the other direction.

[Q] Playboy: How far?

[A] Percy: Far enough to enable law-enforcement agencies to arrest--and, if possible, reverse--the rising spiral of crime. First of all, I think we've got to institute a nationwide program of better police training and education. I think, for instance, that the investigative procedures developed by the FBI are sufficiently superior to those used by many of our state and local agencies that FBI training of state and local officials, and more money put into training, would perhaps help rectify the situation. Secondly, I think we need a program of legislation designed to facilitate the job of responsible but effective law enforcement that the courts, in their zeal for civil liberties, have unintentionally made so difficult. It's for this reason that after a great deal of soul-searching, I have cosponsored and put my staff to work with Senator Hruska in developing what I consider to be a sensible wire-tap bill--one permitting the use of wire tapping by law enforcement officials in the investigation of major crimes but outlawing any kind of wire tapping other than that sanctioned by a Federal court and done under the jurisdiction and authority and regulations of that Federal court. The legal pendulum has swung so far in the direction of individual freedom and liberty that the individual has less freedom or liberty to walk the streets today. Measures like the wire-tap bill will help bring the pendulum back to where we can really operate more effectively against crime. Too much has been done to protect the criminal against society, and not enough to protect society against the criminal.

[Q] Playboy: If wire tapping were legalized even with the restrictions you specify, wouldn't there be a danger that the extensive illegal wire tapping now in practice--not only by detective agencies, corporation spies and private citizens but also by many law-enforcement agencies--would continue and perhaps even increase?

[A] Percy: I think not; because in this bill, we would make it a serious Federal offense to manufacture or transmit any wire-tapping device across state lines to be purchased and used by any individual or company or organization or anyone other than those authorized by a Federal court. We even make it a crime for any local law-enforcement agency to do this without Federal court sanction and supervision. Actually, we stiffen the penalties for private use and make it permissible only under the most stringent types of court control.

[Q] Playboy: As documented by Frank Donner in last month's Playboy article Spies on Campus, extralegal electronic surveillance has been among the many weapons employed in the mounting campaign of official prosecution and unofficial persecution of those who protest against the Vietnam war. As you know, this trend has been seen by some not only as a concerted attempt to suppress dissent but as an ominous sign of resurgent McCarthyism. Do you think they may be right?

[A] Percy: We always stand in danger of that, of course, but I doubt if we'll ever get back to the bitterness of the McCarthy period, where you had wholesale resignations from the State Department and other Government offices, and where no one was willing to take a stand on anything that involved any controversy. But I think there has been a good deal of unwarranted condemnation of dissent from the war. And yet, even when the President made his famous "Nervous Nellie" speech, there was enough condemnation of that, too, that the pendulum swung back. And when Robert McNamara went to the campuses to defend the right of dissent in a democratic republic such as ours, I think that helped a great deal; so that I don't see the grave danger that we had during the McCarthy period.

[Q] Playboy: Are you concerned about the implications of the Government's indictment of war protesters such as Dr. Spock and William Sloane Coffin for counseling resistance to the draft?

[A] Percy: I feel that when a charge has been brought, we should leave it to the courts. It's not the American style to try a man ahead of time in the press. Anything officially before a court must be judged in accordance with law, and it is really not proper, particularly for those in the legislative branch, to prejudge a case. Clearly, if the Justice Department believes anyone has broken the law, it has a responsibility to prosecute. Now it's up to the court to decide.

[Q] Playboy: Many conservatives have expressed their concern that "Communist influences" are responsible for turning the country's college campuses into hotbeds of protest against the war. Do you share that view?

[A] Percy: I don't think communism has any more to do with the peace movement than it does with the civil rights movement. It was the young, remember, who were the first to go into the civil rights movement. They were the ones who moved down to Mississippi for voter registration drives in the summer. They had become disillusioned with the promise of American life for a people for whom they had a deep sense of compassion. They had been struck with the brutality of Little Rock, with the fact that the militia had to be used to protect the safety of a few black children. They saw for the first time--in television films of Southern white police brutalizing helpless women and children--the violence of racial hatred and injustice, and the impact, I think, was very great. Now they have seen what they consider to be the same kind of inhumanity--the mightiest power we can muster raining terror down upon a small nation, forcing a people to submit itself to our will--and they feel ashamed to be associated with it.

[Q] Playboy: A number of commentators argue that the Vietnam conflict has somehow polluted the quality of American life today. They report a growing feeling among a large proportion of the public--ranging from uneasiness to the shame you mentioned--that the U.S. shouldn't be involved in the war, and a concomitant decline in national pride. Do you think they're right?

[A] Percy: I'm afraid I do. You can't have so high a proportion of our young people, so high a proportion of our clergy, so high a proportion of our academic community feel as strongly as it does in condemning what we're doing in Vietnam, and not have an effect on the rest of the country. But this same sense of disenchantment is even more pronounced overseas. No American could travel anywhere in the world today and receive the same feeling from other people that was expressed toward the United States, say, during the time of Eisenhower or Kennedy. In an opinion poll recently taken in western Europe, I think only two percent of western Europeans said that America has achieved greatness under Lyndon Johnson. There is no question that Vietnam is tending to isolate America in terms of world opinion--not only because of our involvement but because we've put our prestige on the line in a conflict that looks increasingly to many people as though it's an unwinnable war. I think the most tragic mistake of this Administration has been its desire to swoop in, take this war over, turn it into an American conflict and promise the American people victory.

[Q] Playboy: In order to make the Vietnam conflict less an American venture, you have called for more troops from other countries to fight alongside U.S. troops. But the Administration says that it's appealed in vain for such support. How do you propose to persuade sovereign nations to do something that they clearly don't want to do?

[A] Percy: Well, first of all, I don't think the Administration has tried hard enough. I was disturbed when I heard the statement made by General Taylor and Clark Clifford that they had not asked, on their trip to Southeast Asia last summer, for extra forces and troops from the other Asian countries. It's incredible that this Administration would send two high-level people on a mission and not use it to take a small step toward making this less an American effort and more an Asian effort.

[Q] Playboy: What sort of pressures would you propose to put on other Asian countries to get them to join us?

[A] Percy: I think the President should "reason together" with them. One of the members of the Administration told me, "The reason we can't get them to do it is that politically it's unacceptable back home, back in their home." But I said to him, "When they say that to President Johnson, the President should tell them, 'Our Congress is raising all kinds of hell about it, and so are many others. I said in 1964 and in 1966--and in 1968 they're going to use my words against me--that I was not about to send American boys to do a job that Asian boys should be doing. Time and time again, they're going to remind me that I've since sent 478,000 American boys over there. Well, it's time to call a halt; we've gone as far as we're going to. We're not going to send any additional forces. You've got to start sending more of your own boys; we can't fight this war alone.' " I'd say this very strongly to the Japanese, for example. Their constitution keeps them from contributing combat forces, but they have the highest literacy rate in the world; they could help organize schools. They're fine farmers; they could help with the agricultural program. Even General Maxwell Taylor has said that if these problems aren't solved, we can't possibly win the shooting war.

[Q] Playboy: Speaking of the shooting war, you have been increasingly critical of U.S. bombing of targets in North Vietnam, but you have also said that you wouldn't halt the bombing without some quid pro quo from Hanoi. Yet the Administration says that it has had no indication whatever that Hanoi is willing to give any such quid pro quo, and that's why it keeps on bombing. Doesn't your criticism ignore the official facts?

[A] Percy: What I've said is that we should confine the bombing to supply and infiltration routes. It's been my position--and I've expressed it a hundred times--that the bombing of cities and civilian targets will not weaken the will to resist, which is stated as one of our objectives; it will strengthen morale. It will not disunite the country; it will unite the country. It will give the North Vietnamese people visible evidence for the belief--however unjustified--that we want to overthrow their government and occupy their country. In any case, with an economy that is only 15 percent dependent upon industry and 85 percent on agriculture, it's impossible for me to conceive that we could destroy their ability to wage war through bombing. The cost-price ratio is so great that I can't see what we're accomplishing by it. So I have long stated that I would limit the bombing to the infiltration and supply routes, and stop bombing population centers, and most certainly stay away from the borders of China. We must stop giving any provocation to China, which for its own reasons may at some point elect to come into this war and need only a provocation such as many of those we have provided in just the recent past.

[Q] Playboy: Hanoi indicated in January that it would be willing to undertake negotiations within a few days after the U.S. stops its bombing of the North. As we go to press, the U.S. has not yet responded officially to this offer. If it is accepted, what negotiating terms do you feel would maximize the chances of an armistice?

[A] Percy: I would agree to negotiate directly with the Viet Cong as well as with the North Vietnamese--which the South Vietnamese have so far refused to consider. Even if the North Vietnamese did sign an armistice with us, the V.C. would carry on anyway, in my judgment; so we've got to deal with them. We've got to offer them assurances not only that they won't be exterminated but that they will have a chance to gain some degree of political support in free elections. You certainly cannot expect them to think that we are making serious negotiating suggestions when we say that six months after you withdraw all of your forces, we will withdraw our forces. It's their country, after all. Can you imagine what our reaction would be if Ho Chi Minh said to us. "You draw all your forces out and six months later we will draw ours out"? When we put forward such proposals, is it any wonder that they laugh at us in Hanoi and take it as a further indication of our insincerity? We know from people who have gone in and talked to them that high North Vietnamese officials have said, "How do you expect us to believe the Johnson Administration in its representations to us when most of the people in your own country don't even believe it?"

[Q] Playboy: Do you agree with the many correspondents and foreign diplomats who have said that the Administration has rejected peace feelers from Hanoi that might have carried some hope of success?

[A] Percy: All you can do in a situation like this is to listen to the responsible people who have special knowledge on the subject. In Adlai Stevenson's famous conversation with Eric Sevareid, that belief certainly came through strongly. There was a more recent exchange between the Administration and Harry Ashmore, a vice-president of that wholly disowned subsidiary of the Ford Foundation [the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara--Ed.], that presented the same feeling. Norman Cousins, the distinguished editor of the Saturday Review, also holds very strongly to that view and has written long articles about it. But I have no personal knowledge of any rejected peace feelers.

[Q] Playboy: On your recent fact-finding trip around the world, you certainly acquired firsthand knowledge of the war during your stopover in Vietnam, where you were caught in a Viet Cong mortar attack while inspecting a native village about 70 miles north of Saigon. There have been various versions of just what you were doing there and of what actually took place. Would you care to tell us about it?

[A] Percy: First of all, let me say that this was not an unescorted flight. No one charters a plane in Vietnam and flies all over at will. I had requested to see a refugee camp at Laithieu, a camp set up for displaced Vietnamese whom our military had told to clear out of the area they lived in. I also wanted to see one where the people were refugees as a result of Viet Cong action and was particularly interested in Dakson because it had been the scene of a Viet Cong massacre of 255 natives. We took off for Laithieu from Saigon on schedule; and on the way there, I asked the captain of the plane if he could get clearance for us to see Dakson also. He said he'd check while we were inspecting Laithieu; and when we finished there, he told us we had been cleared for Dakson, that we had time to go there and still get back to Saigon for our next appointment.

As far as I knew, Dakson was a secured area. The armed refugee officer with us said he'd taken other groups there. It was broad daylight and there is a huge U.S. military installation just a few kilometers away. We circled the village five or six times and felt quite sure there was no one there. But just the same, when we took the helicopter in, we left Loraine in the helicopter, with the blades going, while five of us went out to see the burned-out areas and some of the bunkers where women and children had been killed.

I was just getting out of one of the bunkers when the first mortar shell hit. I didn't know where the helicopter was, but I started to run toward where I thought it was; apparently I ran in the wrong direction--toward the jungle. Dennis Smith, the refugee official assigned to us, steered me back and we started running and crawling toward where the helicopter had been. It had taken off with my wife as soon as the firing started. Dennis had an M-2 rifle and he passed me a .38-caliber snub-nosed pistol. We took five mortar rounds--though I counted only three, because I was so busy trying to learn how to operate this snub-nosed pistol--and about 15 rounds of ground fire. I don't know whether we were in greater danger from the mortar shells or from me carrying a pistol--or from my garters. I was wearing an old pair of red garters I'd had about 15 years; they were very comfortable. Well, we were running along after the first shell, and when the second came, Dennis Smith yelled, "Flatten," and when we got up then and started running again, the garters came undone and were flapping around. And I said to myself, "You're going to be pretty sorry if you trip over your own garters because you were such a tightwad you wouldn't buy yourself a new pair." So the next time we hit the dust, I ripped them off; for all I know, Ho Chi Minh is wearing them today.

In any case, I never got lower to the ground than I did then. We didn't know where the ground fire was coming from. I didn't realize the accuracy with which they could zero in on us, nor did I realize that we were that visible or that they would really have under observation a village that had been totally wiped out. Anyway, the shooting was over in about five minutes, and then there was deathly silence and we just lay there looking around, trying to figure out where the firing had come from, and waiting.

The helicopter with my wife had gone over to Song Be to alert them; and within 15 or 20 minutes, they had four or five helicopters providing cover for us; and our own helicopter came back and picked us up and left--with us hanging in the open door. It was the most comforting feeling I've ever had, seeing those other whirlybirds hovering around as ours came in.

[Q] Playboy: Did you have time to be frightened?

[A] Percy: Oh, sure. There was plenty of time to realize you could get killed. I can assure you I didn't have to do this to get a feel for the war.

[Q] Playboy: Congressman Wayne Hays of Ohio charged that the entire incident was staged in order to attract publicity and make you look like a civilian war hero. What was your reaction to that?

[A] Percy: I'd be happy to try to stage one for him sometime, or for anyone else who thinks that. My relationship with Ho Chi Minh just isn't that good.

[Q] Playboy: Ho has been president of North Vietnam since 1945. In 1954, President Eisenhower acceded to a request from the Diem regime to assist the South Vietnamese government by sending in a team of military advisors. In retrospect, do you feel that the U. S. was wrong to become involved even to this extent?

[A] Percy: No. I think our first mistake was when Jack Kennedy, after meeting Khrushchev in Vienna, decided to show the Russians that he meant business by gradually escalating our involvement in Vietnam from a few hundred advisors to a military force of more than 15,000 at the time of his death. That took us from a position of being advisors and helpers to the status of semicombatants. I think that was a difference of kind as well as of degree. And the next mistake came when President Johnson sent in a force of 50,000 that soon became a fighting force. I'd be very interested to know whether this decision had the full support of the entire National Security Council. Then we began that intensive bombing of the North after the Gulf of Tonkin incident; I'd like to be much more certain than I am that the circumstances surrounding the shelling of our two ships were as they were depicted to us; I wonder whether we might not have been wiser to have waited, as the Soviet Union prudently did after we mistakenly bombed their ships in Haiphong Harbor, to discuss the circumstances that surrounded that shelling, rather than to have used the incident emotionally to extract from Congress a resolution that was not thoroughly understood, certainly in the implications of unilateral and almost unlimited authority it vested in the President.

[Q] Playboy: Are you suggesting that the Tonkin shelling might have been a contrived incident or a pretext to escalate the war?

[A] Percy: No, but I think we reacted much too hastily and rashly in the succeeding months by steadily escalating the war.

[Q] Playboy: What do you consider our justification for being in Vietnam at all?

[A] Percy: We've stated so many different purposes and objectives that it's hard to know what our national objective really is. Originally, the Administration argued that our purpose there was to help another people--but now we've moved in and taken over. Then it was to give them the right of self-determination, to ensure them the form of government they wanted--but the arguments outlined recently by Secretary Rusk, and some of the dialog on the Senate floor, indicate that the Administration regards Vietnam as an outpost for the United States in the struggle against China. Maybe it's a combination of all these factors--but it would be nice if some of them coincided.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think our present China policy of hard-line exclusion, isolation and nonrecognition is sound?

[A] Percy: As far as exclusion is concerned, I hope that someday China's 800,000,000 people--maybe a billion by then--will be represented in an international organization and will have a voice and will be heard, but not under the conditions they now lay down, such as the expulsion of Nationalist China from the UN. Even though Taiwan is not a large country, it does have a population much larger than the populations of many member countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Nor can we accede to China's demand that the United States be branded as an aggressor in Korea. Those are conditions that are unacceptable to us. Nor do I really see that we would gain much even by recognition of China; I don't see why we should put an American embassy in Peking for them to use as a target for scorn, why we should put our prestige on the line and have bombs thrown at it and the embassy sacked as the British embassy was. But I think we could take a modest step toward improving relations with China--by removing the breach between us and certain of our allies who now trade with her, by withdrawing from them the implicit threat that they will be considered our enemies as long as they trade with China. We have nothing to gain, and possibly a great deal to lose, by trying to isolate China completely from the rest of the world.

[Q] Playboy: Administration spokesmen argue that if we fail to pursue our policy of isolating and containing China, it will export Vietnam-style "people's revolutions" throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America. Do you think the U.S. has the right, even if it has the ability, to police the world as self-appointed protector of the oppressed from Communist subversion?

[A] Percy: No. I think the line has to be drawn where we see that there is sufficient resolve on the part of the people themselves in any given country to wage an all-out resistance against an aggressor--if it really is an aggressor--and to go only into situations where conditions are stable enough to hold some hope of success, much like the tremendous investment we made in western Europe and its recovery program. We were investing in a known quantity--dealing with people who had a history of stable government, people with a will to work and build themselves back up; that's why our helping hand was sufficient to put them over the top. I think we have to gauge very carefully where an assist from the United States can turn the tide from defeat to victory, and that judgment would be based, in my mind, very much upon the demonstrated ability and desire of the people to help themselves.

If the Communists were to present a real threat in the Philippines, for example, I think we could feel justified in offering our assistance and support; we'd be building on something more solid than we are in Vietnam. The British built on something fairly solid in Malaysia; the Malaysians really tenaciously fought that war with the Communists. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Thailand would, too, if the threat were to become serious. Years ago, I felt that Thailand would sway whichever way the wind blew, but I've been impressed by its continuing stability and independence. If the Thais can solve their problems with Communist infiltration in northeast Thailand--really go after it aggressively--I think they can ward off trouble with the Chinese. I'm not really convinced, as many people are in this country, that China is in a position to wage a great many massive efforts even in that part of the world. Take Burma, for example. Though it shares a 1200-mile frontier with China, for 17 years the Communist Party has had to remain underground in Burma.

[Q] Playboy: Are you as sanguine about the threat of Soviet intervention and subversion in Africa and Latin America?

[A] Percy: Certainly not sanguine, but the degree of the threat depends on where you're talking about. In Cuba, for example, I think the Russians have had a good object lesson; it's costing them $1,000,000 a day. I think they'd like a way to extract themselves from that situation if they could. And they haven't gotten the return they expected on their investment in the Middle East. They've put two to three billion dollars in there, and I think they're pretty disillusioned about what they've gotten in return. Even with respect to the Aswan Dam, I noticed on the part of the United Arab Republic almost a desire to disassociate itself from the Soviet Union, which leaves the impression that it was almost entirely responsible for the dam's construction. There was a desire to minimize the Soviet role and scoff at it and point out the faults--the lack of spare parts and the broken equipment. So the Russians have run into the same problems with their aid program that we've gotten into with ours.

[Q] Playboy: If you feel that Russia and America share some of the same problems, do you agree with those who think that the American and Soviet systems are slowly converging, as the U.S. becomes progressively more socialistic and the U.S.S.R. more capitalistic?

[A] Percy: That's a rather oversimplified view, I think, because there is still a vast difference in kind as well as in degree between our two systems. But I was encouraged, when I went through eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in 1966, by the number of questions that came to me about business techniques and management, about how the cost system works and how you price your products. They're starting to run their own businesses more and more in eastern Europe; they're developing more "socialistic incentives." I'm encouraged by that, but it's still a long way from private enterprise. I'm more encouraged by the turnback of small shops and farms in some eastern European countries to private ownership and management, going away from the collective farms. But I don't think you can really say we're working toward their system and they're working toward ours. We're both simply responding to changing conditions. They're responding because their system doesn't work and it's obvious to them that it doesn't and it's stagnant--but that doesn't mean they're necessarily going to give up and provide freedom of speech and freedom of elections, and so forth. That's a long way off in most of those countries.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think the changes in Russia's economic system offer any prospect that it will become less hostile toward the West?

[A] Percy: What these changes do is shift power gradually; as of now, the political leadership still controls the economy. Just as in this country, we had a quiet revolution when the entrepreneurs and the owners of enterprise--the Mellons and the Morgans--were gradually replaced by professional management. I think the same technological group inside the Communist countries will gradually gain more control over the economy, will realize that the political hacks don't have the comprehension and understanding to run a sophisticated economy. This is really one of the reasons Khrushchev was booted out--and a high-ranking Soviet official told me this himself; he lacked a sophisticated understanding of modern enterprise. He felt you could get people to produce more simply by exhorting them to production.

[Q] Playboy: Is there any hope that more economic sophistication in the Soviet Union will make them more sincere believers in peaceful coexistence?

[A] Percy: Well, as you separate the economy from political control, you begin to put new forces and new pressures to work inside the Soviet Union. They start to divert a percentage of the available raw materials and labor away from space spectaculars and military and antiballistic-missile systems toward the production of consumer-type goods. The pressure of the people is already going to work in that direction. I saw Russians stand in Moscow's GUM department store, 15 and 20 deep, waiting to see the display of a wire recorder that was obsolete in this country 20 years ago. I think that kind of pressure, over a period of years, is going to find a responsiveness in the political leadership.

[Q] Playboy: Let's discuss the responsiveness of the political leadership in this country. Reflecting the view of those who feel that the Republican Party has lost touch with the people, most public-opinion polls in recent years have shown the G.O.P. becoming a smaller and smaller minority party. Can this trend be reversed?

[A] Percy: Yes--by making the G.O.P. a more appealing, broadly based party, a party that's attractive for young people because of the excitement of its ideas and its ideals; exciting for ethnic and minority groups because they feel comfortable inside the party; exciting for responsible leadership in the Negro community because they feel that a stronger two-party system will be a way to advance the cause of human rights.

[Q] Playboy: That might sound to some like an echo of the Democratic Party program.

[A] Percy: I think it's the essence of responsibility for a national party to want to become a composite of the ideals and aspirations of the entire country, not just certain economic or social or cultural segments of it.

[Q] Playboy: Is there a place for hard-core conservatives in that kind of party?

[A] Percy: I think there is a place for conservatives in the Republican Party, just as the conservatives of the South have found a place in the Democratic Party.

[Q] Playboy: Though your views on law enforcement and fiscal responsibility are decidedly conservative, your position on most public issues--from civil rights to Vietnam--is more liberal than that of many Democrats. Doesn't this place you in conflict with a majority of your own party?

[A] Percy: I don't think so--not in the deepest sense. I'm a Republican because I believe in the primary thrust and emphasis of our party--which is to strengthen government from the bottom up rather than from the top down. I tend to think that the over-all effort of the Democratic Party has been to place greater faith in Federal Government and centralized authority, and less faith in state and local government.

[Q] Playboy: Many moderate and liberal Republicans deplore the fact that you gave your tacit support to the nomination of Barry Goldwater in 1964. How do you reconcile your liberal-leaning philosophy with your failure to oppose him?

[A] Percy: I made an advance commitment to support whoever might be the nominee favored by a majority of the Illinois delegation. It's as simple as that. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't have made that commitment. But I did and I felt bound to honor it. I don't think you can begin a public career by breaking a public word that you have given. I supported a man whose integrity and decency I believed in. I didn't agree with many of his views, but at least I knew where he stood. I couldn't vote for a man, Lyndon Johnson, who I felt would say one thing in a campaign and do the opposite after he was elected. That is exactly what happened.

[Q] Playboy: Let's ask the question in another form: Do you think the Republican Party should have nominated someone other than Barry Goldwater in 1964?

[A] Percy: Yes.

[Q] Playboy: Would you like to say who?

[A] Percy: No.

[Q] Playboy: Did you vote for Mr. Goldwater?

[A] Percy: I voted a straight Republican ticket.

[Q] Playboy: Rather clearly, Goldwater's poor showing in Illinois helped defeat you in your bid for the governorship. Do you believe that some other Republican Presidential candidate--such as Scranton or Rockefeller--would have helped you win?

[A] Percy: I lost the governorship because I deserved to lose it. I made certain commitments that I shouldn't have made, and I wasn't as good a candidate as I should have been; I'm rather glad now that I did lose, because I think I learned more in defeat than I would have in victory. And I'm certainly enjoying my work as a Senator.

[Q] Playboy: Despite your support for Goldwater and your hard-line views on law and order, you've been the target of a number of highly critical pieces in such conservative journals as the National Review and The New Guard, a monthly magazine published by the Young Americans for Freedom. How do you account for this conservative hostility?

[A] Percy: Possibly a lack of understanding on their part of what true conservatism is. Many of them, for instance, are hostile toward me for my espousal of "radical" laws such as state FEPC and open occupancy; but I consider those to be conservative measures--measures to conserve American institutions and fulfill the promise of America. I also think it's conservative for us to have enough faith in the free-enterprise system to oppose tariffs imposed abroad on American products or imposed here on products coming in from abroad, and to let the free market run. But that's looked on by some as a liberal interpretation, simply because so many of the economists in this country agree with me on this principle. I also think it's conservative to say we have enough faith in our system that we want to export our ideas, and that the only way to get those ideas across is to be willing to trade in goods. The conservatives--at least those you mentioned--oppose East-West trade because they want to draw the Iron Curtain shut between us and the Communist world and engage in a holy war. But it all boils down to a matter of semantics. Whatever the label--liberal or conservative--none of us is less loyal as an American, though some might cast aspersions in that direction.

[Q] Playboy: President Johnson has a reputation as a man who seeks to find a broad consensus of left and right and then shapes his solutions accordingly, rather than one who makes up his own mind and then tries to lead the nation according to the policies he thinks are best. Which do you feel is the proper role for a President?

[A] Percy: Before he establishes a policy and sets the country on a course, the President has to decide how far ahead of the people he can be. Every President must take into account that he can't get so far ahead that they won't follow him. But the role of any public official is to formulate his own judgment on the major issues and to fight, and fight hard, for the principles for which he stands, even if this sometimes means defeat.

[Q] Playboy: There have been almost daily stories for a long time now about the personality of the President: his temper, his love of secrecy, his use of profanity, the way he browbeats his staff and so on. How relevant do you feel his personality is to a judgment of his general performance in office?

[A] Percy: I think the most important things are his judgment, his capability, his integrity and his qualities of leadership, which must establish a tone and inspire a people. Certainly he's an immensely capable man. He's an exceedingly intelligent man. And he's a hard-working man; no one's ever accused him of being lazy. The problem is that he lacks that intangible ability to inspire people, to give them confidence. The tone of Government has suffered as a result of it and the image of America abroad has suffered, as well as the attitude of the people toward their Government and even toward their country and themselves. Now, this inspirational ability is an important quality in a President. Jack Kennedy had it in his best days, and so did Eisenhower. Even President Truman, who was maligned a great deal, had high moments when he inspired the people with his guts and his determination. But we haven't seen much of that in this President, unfortunately.

[Q] Playboy: Whether because of his personality or his policies, or both, Johnson's popularity dropped so drastically a few months ago that some pundits began to speculate that he might decide not to be a candidate for re-election this fall. Though he's since regained a few points in the polls, some still feel that he may not run. On the off-chance that they're right, do you think Hubert Humphrey or Robert Kennedy would be tougher for the Republicans to beat?

[A] Percy: If the voting level were 18, Bobby Kennedy would be very tough.

[Q] Playboy: Only because of his appeal to young people?

[A] Percy: Not only that, of course--also because of his ability to organize, the experience he's had in running a national campaign, his ability to be concise in his answers to questions, the support he has from an important segment of the academic community and the empathy that would still exist because of the recent tragedy of the death of his brother. There would be many liabilities he'd have to overcome, too, of course.

[Q] Playboy: Such as?

[A] Percy: The greatest is certainly a reputation--perhaps an undeserved reputation, but one he has to live with--for ruthlessness, for using people to serve his purposes. And, of course, he's always being compared with his brother. Maybe some of his liabilities become his very assets. For example, because he is who he is, there is a large group of people who are willing to offer ideas and to help him, and he can sift through them and discard all but the best. He is an extremely good organizer, a man who demands the best performance. So people are going to keep on saying he is ruthless. On balance, though, I would say he is a very formidable factor in American politics, one the Republican Party is going to have to contend with for quite a number of years. And behind him is Teddy, who possesses many unique qualities of his own. Republicans and the country are not going to be permitted to forget the Kennedy name.

[Q] Playboy: Would you say one of Bobby Kennedy's strengths is that he is less closely identified with President Johnson and his policies than Hubert Humphrey would be?

[A] Percy: It's not clear yet whether Kennedy's disassociation from the President has been identified in the public mind as one of deep conviction or just political expediency. It's not clear, either, whether the presentations that he has made on Vietnam would be acceptable to the general public. But there may be the feeling--and this would also be true if a Republican were elected--that the enemy might be more inclined to negotiate with a new Administration and a new President. Humphrey, able as he is, would offer more of the same; he'd feel honor bound to carry on the same policies as Johnson, because he would owe his allegiance and his nomination to the support Johnson would give him. Bobby Kennedy might offer to the country the hope that a new approach would be taken to solving Vietnam; and for that reason, he would perhaps have an advantage--especially since, by then, an even more compelling desire to end the war would be prevalent throughout the country.

[Q] Playboy: If Johnson runs, do you think he can be beaten?

[A] Percy: Yes, I think he can--if the circumstances in which we find ourselves then are no better than they are now: a continuing Vietnam conflict, a huge deficit, an increase in taxes, lack of national prestige abroad and lack of unity at home. And Johnson's personality is not such as to weld the country together in times of adversity; there is no cause for inspiration, no apparent ability to create a sense of unity or even a feeling of complete confidence and trust.

[Q] Playboy: If the President is able to end the war by November--either by winning a military victory or by negotiating a peaceful settlement--do you think the Republicans can still beat him?

[A] Percy: In either of those events, I would guess that he'd be re-elected--unless the crisis of the cities and the crisis of the economy are so severe that the country is still in turmoil despite our progress in Vietnam. But if the war is still going on, if we have a continuing inconclusive situation--draining not 25 billion dollars but possibly 30 billion dollars a year from us here--if we have a huge deficit, mounting dissension within the country and mounting casualties abroad, I would say he'd have a very difficult time getting re-elected. This is, of course, assuming we offer a progressive alternative program and constructive, credible alternative candidates on the Republican side.

[Q] Playboy: If the war is still unsettled in November, do you think the Republicans can win with a candidate such as Governor Reagan or Richard Nixon, both of whom favor a step-up in the bombing?

[A] Percy: I think the candidate has to present a logical alternative and a course of action that holds promise of being more successful than that of the existing Administration. And I, for one, would not feel that a program of just continuously escalating the military effort holds any promise of bringing about a settlement of this war. I was pleased when Dick Nixon came out against broadening the war and assigned number-one priority to the crisis of our own cities.

[Q] Playboy: Despite the public-opinion polls showing Governor Rockefeller running ahead of both Nixon and Reagan, do you think it likely that the Republican convention will nominate him, in view of the deep hostility of so many conservatives in the party toward him for his stand against Goldwater in 1964?

[A] Percy: I think it depends very much on the mood of the delegates in 1968--whether they will cling to the past and feel that someone should be punished for his conduct of four years ago or whether they will look to the future and decide that their function is to nominate someone who can win. I think we can have the kind of convention that looks toward the future.

[Q] Playboy: So you think that Governor Rockefeller is not necessarily ruled out?

[A] Percy: No, I don't think so at all.

[Q] Playboy: How about yourself? In November 1966, right after your election, you said, "I can foresee no circumstances under which I would be expected to do other than be a good United States Senator for the next six years." Do you now foresee any such circumstances?

[A] Percy: No. I see a sufficient number of candidates in the field who have the capability of being a good candidate and a good President that there would not be any requirement on my part to enter a Presidential campaign.

[Q] Playboy: Still, most politicians seem to regard you as a compromise candidate on whom almost everyone in the party could agree if the front-runners fail. Do you think you might come into the Presidential picture that way?

[A] Percy: I haven't changed my opinion a bit that the best thing I could be doing to fulfill my existing responsibilities is to be a good United States Senator. I am not one to detract from the present by worrying about some future time.

[Q] Playboy: When you talk of some future time, are you referring to some time later than 1968?

[A] Percy: I think the best thing is to live day by day and do well the job you've been given to do. I can't see that the 1968 nomination will go to someone other than a candidate--and I don't intend to be a candidate.

[Q] Playboy: Do you agree with the analysis of some commentators that your only real chance for the 1968 Presidential nomination will come if Nixon and Romney knock each other out in the primaries?

[A] Percy: I don't know about that, but if either man were to go all the way through the primaries and win all of them and were also able to convince the party that, having won the Republican primaries, he also had sufficient appeal to win a general election by attracting the independent and Democratic votes that would be necessary, I think that that candidate will be the nominee. I don't think it's necessarily true that just winning Republican primaries--with the Republican Party being only 26 percent or whatever it is of the total electorate today--guarantees his nomination, let alone the election.

[Q] Playboy: Have you considered entering any of the primaries yourself?

[A] Percy: I have no intention of going into any primaries.

[Q] Playboy: Will you sign the affidavit--saying that you are not a Presidential candidate--that's required to take your name off the ballot in Wisconsin, Nebraska and Oregon?

[A] Percy: If someone put the affidavit in front of me today and said this is the day it has to be signed, I would sign it.

[Q] Playboy: This interview will be published in April. Will your answer be the same then?

[A] Percy: Well, I made one commitment that bound me in the future [his promise to support the candidate favored by a majority of the Illinois delegation in 1964 --Ed.]. I'm not about to do the same thing again.

[Q] Playboy: Without specific regard to 1968 or even 1972--would you like to be President someday?

[A] Percy: I've heard it said that I've always had a desire to be President, and I've really wondered where that came from. I even heard someone--an anonymous landlady of mine--quoted as saying that I had told her one time that this was my ambition. Well, I can certify that there is no one living or dead who has ever heard me say I wanted to be President of the United States, including any member of my family. I've talked about wanting to be in public life, but even that was only in recent years. Though I've long wanted to go into government, I wasn't sure that it would be the elective route. However, now that I have gone that route--and won--and now that I've begun to be mentioned in some circles as a prospect for national office, I will someday have to give that possibility very sober consideration; for I think it would be irresponsible to simply want to be President of the United States if you didn't have confidence that you could handle the burden of the office. I think you have to develop that sense of confidence as you start working and grappling with the problems of government. I should think that anyone in public life would feel that he might be qualified to solve some of the problems that would be involved in the Presidency--and yet would also feel a profound sense of inadequacy at the enormity of its responsibilities. But I would not know today of any reason that I would shirk those responsibilities if my party and my country should ever ask me to assume higher office. But I do not seek it and I have a sense of immense satisfaction in the work that I'm now doing in the Senate.

[Q] Playboy: Could we put that down as a qualified yes?

[A] Percy: Yes, perhaps that.

[Q] Playboy: You've been mentioned as a likely prospect for the Vice-Presidential slot if you don't get the Presidential nomination this year. Would you accept it?

[A] Percy: I think it would depend to a great extent upon who the Presidential candidate was, and whether I felt that I could perform best for the country and the party as Vice-President or as a Senator.

[Q] Playboy: Then you wouldn't foreclose the possibility?

[A] Percy: No, I wouldn't feel that there'd be any basis by which I had the right now to say it should be accepted or rejected. It would depend entirely upon the circumstances and the conditions.

[Q] Playboy: During the primaries in 1960, John Kennedy's Catholicism became a campaign issue when critics expressed their concern that his administrative judgment as President might be prejudiced by his religious persuasion. He said it wouldn't, and it is generally agreed that it wasn't. But if you were to become a nominee for the Presidency, it's likely that the religious issue would be brought up again. Would your commitment as a practicing Christian Scientist influence your attitude toward the allocation of Federal funds for medical research, heart-cancer-stroke centers, Medicare, and the like?

[A] Percy: Not at all. For 17 years, I've been a trustee of the University of Chicago, which operates one of the greatest medical centers in the country. I've also been a strong advocate of cancer research and heart-disease research. In fact, I support a strong Federal program in these areas, because I think it's much more effective and less expensive to have a central source for much of our research rather than have the 50 states each engage in separate research programs. I've never tried to impose my own religious views upon anyone else. And I've never found the slightest inconsistency in my saying to those who put their total reliance in medicine that they should have the best medical attention, the best medical care, the best doctors they can possibly have.

[Q] Playboy: Do you use doctors or medication yourself?

[A] Percy: I've always gone to a dentist and I have a good eye doctor to whom all the members of the family go regularly. And I have always had physical examinations--for the Navy and for insurance. When I came to the Senate, I went over and met the doctor who is the Senate physician. But I don't take medicines or drugs and have not found it necessary to go to a hospital, though on occasion my wife has. When she broke her ankle, she had it set in the hospital; and when she's had a baby, she's gone to a hospital. But I've never found it necessary to take drugs, and I seem to be surviving in good health.

[Q] Playboy: But if you or one of your family became seriously ill, would you consult a doctor?

[A] Percy: I wouldn't hesitate to, if I weren't able to handle it any other way. But I have never known of a family that faced a critical health crisis, the potential death or loss of a member of the family, that did not resort to prayer as well as to medicine. It's just a matter of to what degree you rely upon prayer--in the first instance or in the last instance. I do it in the first instance.

[Q] Playboy: Many Christian Scientists have led local fights against water fluoridation. Do you share their attitude?

[A] Percy: No, I don't. I feel that the position of the Christian Science Church is wrong in this regard. I don't look on fluoridation as a medical additive; I think it's a mineral additive. I feel that if a community decides--in whatever way it makes its decision, through a city council, through a plebiscite, through the directive of the health authorities--that fluoride should be added to the water, if someone doesn't want to drink the water with the fluoride in it, he can always buy bottled water. But since 99 percent of the people want it and are convinced of its proven beneficial effects, I think they should have it. That's why I've supported fluoridated water through the years, despite the official position of my church.

[Q] Playboy: You yourself do not smoke and are reported not to drink anything more than an occasional Dubonnet. Do you serve liquor to your guests or permit them to smoke?

[A] Percy: Yes, of course. I don't try to impose any of my beliefs upon any of my friends or guests.

[Q] Playboy: When you were at Bell & Howell, you reportedly started the morning at home with Bible study. Do you and your family still start your day this way?

[A] Percy: Yes, we try to. I think you have to take time out for the things you think are important--and not just on Sunday.

[Q] Playboy: We realize that this is a painful subject, but has the murder of your daughter Valerie changed the way you and your family live? Do you take any special precautions for their safety?

[A] Percy: Yes.

[Q] Playboy: You've had more than your share of misfortune during your life. Has it made you fatalistic about the future, or have you managed to retain your optimism?

[A] Percy: No, I'm not fatalistic. I've still got a lot to be thankful for--and a lot worth working for. I don't think my life is really any different from anyone else's life in that sense. Everyone has some success and everyone suffers some setbacks; the peaks and valleys may be deeper as you get into something like politics, but every individual story I've ever known in life has a chapter that has both the good and the bad side to it. Along with everyone else, I've simply had my share of both. Both provide an opportunity and a challenge.

[Q] Playboy: You said you feel that there's still a lot worth working for in your life-time. What do you hope to accomplish?

[A] Percy: I hope that in the course of my lifetime in politics I can contribute to a restoration of the confidence that the American people have a right to expect in their Government--the Executive branch as well as the Legislative--and the confidence the people of the world have a right to expect in American leadership. All the problems this nation faces--Vietnam, urban renewal, law and order, racial equality, fiscal and monetary responsibility--all are subordinate to the overall question of whether leadership can be restored in America. The nation needs a sense of confidence that we in government have the perception not only to recognize these problems but to shape solutions for them, and the courage to take whatever steps are necessary to bring about these solutions. The only way for a nation to be respected--by itself as well as by the rest of the world--is to be respectable, in thought, action and deed. I hope to contribute to the process of restoring that respectability-- and to the revival of America's belief in its own destiny and in itself.