Playboy Interview: Jack Anderson

There is no commonly accepted view of Jack Anderson. Easily the best-known--indeed, most notorious--newspaperman in America, Anderson is seen by his supporters as a tough cop on a tough beat, shining a searching spotlight into all the shady nooks and crannies of official Washington. His enemies see him as a journalistic mugger lurking in the shadows, waiting to rob all passers-by, guilty or otherwise, of their virtuous public images. For Anderson, there is no venality too small, no corruption too mind-boggling to rail against. His columns about generals shoplifting trinkets from Army PXs and mayors biting call-girls on the knee are written in the same high dudgeon as his headline-making revelations of political scandals on Capitol Hill and in the White House.

Even by Anderson's splashy standards for attention getting, 1972 has been a spectacular year. Never far from the center of one controversy or another, he won his first Pulitzer Prize for releasing, in January, highly classified secret documents revealing that the Nixon Administration had been less than candid with the public about its pro-Pakistan bias in the India-Pakistan war. Next, he made the cover of Time after his series of columns based on the now-famous Dita Beard memo charging that the International Telephone & Telegraph Corporation had pledged $400,000 toward the costs of the Republican Convention in return for a favorable settlement of an immensely important antitrust suit against I.T.T. Anderson also claimed that then--Deputy Attorney General Richard Kleindienst had lied in saying that he had taken no part in the I. T. T. settlement. Kleindienst, whose nomination as Attorney General was then before the Senate, requested hearings to remove the "cloud" over his head; and although the Senate finally confirmed him, 64--19, the cloud remains in place not only over him but also over the Administration and I. T. T.

After his two extraordinary scoops, it was Anderson's turn to be publicly embarrassed. Shortly after Senator Thomas Eagleton, George McGovern's original running mate, announced that he had undergone psychiatric treatment on three occasions during the Sixties, Anderson claimed that Eagleton had also been ticketed several times in his home state of Missouri for drunken and reckless driving. It was a story that Anderson couldn't prove, and he was forced to apologize and finally retract amid the most serious barrage of attacks he had ever faced on his own credibility.

Though Anderson is a veteran in the investigative reporter's nether world of charge and countercharge, personal notoriety is a relatively new development in his career. For two decades, he labored anonymously as the chief reporter for Drew Pearson and was responsible for many of Pearson's most sensational stories, including the series on Senator Thomas Dodd's misuse of campaign funds that led to Dodd's censure by the Senate. When Pearson died in 1969, Anderson took over his syndicated "The Washington Merry-go-round" column. Many editors predicted that the loss of Pearson's marquee value would lead to a decline in the column's popularity, but Anderson worked at becoming a celebrity himself and improved on Pearson's shaky reputation for accuracy and fairness by checking out stories more thoroughly than Pearson had, and by eschewing personal causes. Unlike Pearson, Anderson didn't protect his friends; he simply went after everybody--conservatives, liberals, Democrats and Republicans alike. The formula worked and the number of subscribing newspapers has risen from about 600 at the time of Pearson's death to 750 today in the U.S. and abroad. That makes Anderson the most widely read political columnist in the world. To find out why he does what he does, and how he does it, Playboy assigned Larry DuBois to interview Anderson.

DuBois writes of the experience: "The first thing to say about Jack Anderson is that he's a nice guy. All his snarls are in print, and you can't find a fang anywhere on his person. His friends know him as pleasant, easygoing, mild-mannered company--sort of like Clark Kent before he steps into the phone booth--and that's how I found him to be. Most of the interview took place at Anderson's weekend home near Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, just a few blocks from the hell-raising, beer-drinking, bikini-watching atmosphere of that swinging resort town. But it could have been another world, because Anderson's style is sedate suburban. It isn't difficult to see why he doesn't fear having his own life investigated by his adversaries. What they would find would put a gossip columnist to sleep. Anderson is a devout Mormon whose wickedest indulgences are ice cream and soda pop. He doesn't drink or smoke, and most of his spare time is taken up by his role as the father of nine children (aged 4 to 21). Neither he nor 'Livvy,' his wife of 23 years, cares much for the kind of partygoing that most Washingtonians thrive on.

"Driving back to Washington with Anderson, I asked him if he was ready to break any major news stories, and he sighed that these were pretty slow days--just the routine batch of CIA documents dealing with U.S. involvement in Asian heroin smuggling and the like. Nothing extraordinary. A few days later, Anderson made public his charges against Tom Eaglet on. Shortly thereafter, following his almost as widely publicized retraction of the charges, I visited Anderson again--this time to listen to his side of the story."

[Q] Playboy: How and when did the stories about Eagleton first come to your attention?

[A] Anderson: It was in 1968. True Davis, who is now a bank president in Washington and had been an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland, had political ambitions and was going to run for the Senate in Missouri. In the Democratic primary, his opponent was Tom Eagleton. Davis had long been a close friend of mine and, as a friend, he sought my advice about his campaign, telling me that Eagleton was said to have an alcoholic problem. I advised him not to get into that kind of stuff, and he didn't. In fairness to True, I should add that he had no desire to run that kind of campaign, and he didn't have to be talked out of it. That same year, another high Missouri politician involved in the campaign independently told me some of the same stories. So I heard them from two different sources. But I thought no more about it.

You've got to understand the environment in which an investigative reporter functions. It's a hurricane of whispers, stories, rumors and charges. We're at the eye of this furious storm of rumors about people in power and people who seek power, because an investigative reporter has the capacity to wreck careers or to make them. We have an awesome responsibility to separate the facts from the rumors before printing anything. My personal opinion of Tom Eagleton and his record as a Senator was highly favorable. When he was named the Vice Presidential candidate, the last thing I wanted to do was to hurt him. I had no intention of checking out the rumors I'd heard about him to see if there was a story. Even if it were true that he had a drinking background, it hadn't affected his performance in the Senate and I could see no reason why it would affect his performance as Vice-President. I really wasn't interested in the story.

[Q] Playboy: When did you become interested?

[A] Anderson: After his joint press conference with McGovern describing his psychiatric treatment. Eagleton denied emphatically and unequivocally that alcoholism had been any part of his past problems. He used very strong language in his denial, so strong that it became a question to me of credibility, of his truthfulness, and, remembering the background I had on him, I thought this should be looked into. The question was no longer simply whether he had been a drinker or not, which I didn't see any requirement to publicize; the question was whether he was being truthful with the public. If he wasn't telling the truth, I felt the public had a right to know; and if he wasn't telling the truth, I felt this would come out at some later time and become a major campaign issue.

[Q] Playboy: What did you do to check out the stories?

[A] Anderson: I believe in being open and candid and normally I would answer any question you asked about my methods and my evidence. But in this case, I've retracted the charges that I made against Eagleton. There is no way I can review my investigation without reviving the charges. In the end, I didn't have the proof. It was improper for me to have gone ahead with the story and I want to avoid rehashing it. I very definitely would like to explain my own actions, but I consider the case a closed book.

[Q] Playboy: Will you explain, at least, the circumstances surrounding your use of the story?

[A] Anderson: Well, it looked like McGovern was going to back Eagleton, and I thought that since the issue of drinking would be raised in the campaign, it had better be raised before McGovern made an irrevocable decision to keep him on the ticket, and I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to go ahead with the story. That's no excuse, because a good reporter shouldn't do things like that on the spur of the moment. There I was, though, in the studio, waiting to tape the five-minute network radio broadcast I do six times a week, and I had in front of me a story that one of my reporters had written about how the media were busily investigating Eagleton's past. I penned in one line saying we had "located" photostats of traffic citations charging him with drunken and reckless driving. It was just one sentence, and I really didn't give it a lot of thought, I was so positive in my own mind that the citations existed.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't you have any misgivings about claiming to have "located" the photostats?

[A] Anderson: Not until I was driving to the office after taping the show, which was to go out over the network 30 minutes later. I'd written the line in haste and I decided "located" was too strong a word. By the time I got to my office, though, the show had already gone out over the network. So I issued an immediate statement clarifying that I hadn't actually "located" them. My statement made clear that I had traced the traffic citations but had not seen them myself. Technically, this was a true story, since three sources had told me in considerable detail how the citations had been collected, photostated and distributed. I was distressed by the coverage the story received, because both networks and newspapers told the same story I had broadcasted, without going into all the clarifications that I'd given them. It certainly was my fault that the item was used in the first place, but it wasn't my fault that the press didn't carry those clarifications. It wasn't for lack of trying on my part. Even then, though, for one line on a broadcast, I thought I had done enough research. But the photostats had been collected in 1968 when Eagleton was running for the Senate. I should have taken into account, therefore, that they could have been forged for the purpose of discrediting him. This was my first mistake. I already had very tight rules in the office about evidence, but I've tightened them even more now.

[Q] Playboy: You say the broadcast was your first mistake. What was the second?

[A] Anderson: When I appeared with Eagleton that Sunday on Face the Nation, I apologized to him for running the story prematurely, but I refused to retract it. If I didn't have the proof, I should have retracted immediately and completely. I was wrong not to. But I felt I had to resolve a number of incidents before I could retract, so immediately after that program, I apologized to Eagleton for refusing to retract and told him that I had withheld a retraction because of these questions I still had. I asked for an appointment to go over the incidents with him and he scheduled one for Tuesday. That morning, I went to his office and we reviewed all the incidents. He was cordial, he was generous, he made no attempt to embarrass me, there were no recriminations. He handled himself like a gentleman and a pro. And he denied everything.

So I said, "Senator, I apologize to you. I retract the story." In fact, I said, "I want to apologize to your face, and then I want to apologize in public and I want to retract it in the way you want me to. How do you want me to retract it?" He said, "Well, there are some cameras outside. How about stepping out and doing it right here?" That's what I did, and he made a very courteous and generous statement accepting the apology. On top of that, I retracted the story on the same broadcast on which I had originally broken the story, and when the Today Show asked me to appear, I went on. I certainly didn't enjoy that appearance, but I decided that I should do it in order to give the retraction as much circulation as I could. That appearance was painful. It's not pleasant to eat crow in front of the camera, with the nation watching as you do it. But I felt I owed it to Eagleton.

Quite frankly, I object to the way many newspapers retract their mistakes, and I refuse to do the same thing. Many newspapers print an error on the front page and then do a tiny item retracting it on the back page. I wish that all the newspapers in the country would acknowledge their own mistakes on the front page, as they do mine. I figured I had done a front-page story and the retraction should be on the front page also.

[Q] Playboy: Many less experienced reporters might have made the same blunder you did. But how could this have happened to someone with your investigative background?

[A] Anderson: This is a business where mistakes are made every day. I'm human. I never claimed to be otherwise, and this isn't the first mistake I've made. The only thing I can say to you is that I hope I never make another one, and I'll try not to. But I suspect I will. And when I do, I'm going to see that it's well advertised and not hidden away. I think slip-ups should be corrected as loudly as possible, even if that hurts your credibility. I want people to believe what I write, and I take great pains to get a story correct. I consider that a sacred obligation, and when I don't get it straight, my conscience makes me straighten it out.

[Q] Playboy: How seriously do you think the Eagleton story damaged your credibility? The reactions generally were very indignant. In an editorial cartoon, The Washington Post, which runs your column, pictured you joining I. T. T. down at the bottom of "Credibility Gap."

[A] Anderson: I think it damaged me very much. I think we had a good reputation for accuracy, and the people believed what we wrote. I think a lot of people will now wonder whether I'm telling the truth. The only answer I can give is the answer I gave a moment ago. I'm human, and fallible. I take every precaution against errors; but when I make one, I'll admit it. Even the greatest newspapers make them. In the 1968 campaign, The New York Times made an almost exactly comparable blunder. It came out with a big exposé of the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate that just didn't hold up. It was just as damaging to Spiro Agnew as my story was to Tom Eagleton--and equally unprovable. Though the Times is one of the most responsible newspapers in the world, it made almost the same kind of mistake I did. But I didn't hear any talk about never being able to believe The New York Times again.

[Q] Playboy: In your opinion, why did the press attack you so sharply?

[A] Anderson: Obviously, it was a serious matter, and I deserved to be criticized. But I think also the press is very defensive these days. I think there has been a concerted effort by the Administration to discredit the press, and I think other journalists feel I hurt them as well as myself, so the press was dissociating itself from my problem by running an unusually strong attack on me. What happened will help Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew blacken the name of the press. I think I helped them do that in their campaign, and I'm sorry about it. But it was only one mistake, not a whole series of them. There are doctors who make mistakes, lawyers who make mistakes--and politicians who make mistakes. Yet they continue to practice medicine, law and politics with respect and prestige. I see no reason why I shouldn't be allowed to do the same.

If I started making errors regularly, every day, then I would think my readers should become skeptical of me, but I'm going to go right on trying to tell the truth--and admitting it when I'm wrong rather than lying about it. I've always felt the public would rather have a politician confess an error than hide it. I've been told that the next major story I break, like the I. T. T. story, won't be believed by the public. But I think it will be, even though an awful lot of people are going to try to discredit it for their own selfish reasons. The same thing happened during that I. T. T. story. I've just given them more ammunition to use against me, but I'm going to try as best I can to see that that's all they get.

[Q] Playboy: What effect do you think your story finally had on the decision to drop Eagleton from the ticket?

[A] Anderson: If the story had stood up, it would have been extremely damaging to Eagleton, but since it didn't, I think it probably helped him. I think it created sympathy for him. It ultimately hurt Jack Anderson, not Tom Eagleton. Which is as it should be.

[Q] Playboy: How do you feel McGovern handled the situation, first backing Eagleton "1000 percent," then dumping him?

[A] Anderson: I thought he handled it indecisively. He jumped too quickly to endorse Eagleton, then backed off. That lays him open to political charges. Which illustrates one of McGovern's problems: His heart is much stronger and sometimes sounder than his head. I don't mean he's stupid. I think he's a brilliant man, but he has such a good heart, and so much compassion, that he sometimes does the decent thing without thinking it through. The decent thing was to support a man in trouble. I think McGovern put himself instantly into Eagleton's shoes and tried to wrap a public arm around his shoulder. He was responding as the very decent human being 1 know him to be. For his own sake, he perhaps should have been more cautious and let his head rule his heart, which he eventually did.

[Q] Playboy: Do you agree with those who argue that McGovern's failure to discover Eagleton's past psychiatric care demonstrates that McGovern is a careless or incompetent administrator?

[A] Anderson: I don't think McGovern was any more careless about choosing his potential Vice-President than Nixon was about choosing Agnew. I don't think Nixon had gone thoroughly into Agnew's past, nor had he a real understanding of the kind of man he was choosing. McGovern didn't explore Eagleton's past thoroughly enough, but you've got to remember that Eagleton and McGovern had served in the Senate together and that the Senate is a gentleman's club. Its members become quite close and they know one another. McGovern knew Eagleton well; he knew what Eagleton's philosophy was, what was in his heart. He just didn't know about the hospital record, because Eagleton had withheld that. Only those in this Senate gentleman's club, and those who have been close to it, as I have been, understand how it operates, how binding are the unwritten rules, and one of those unwritten rules absolutely forbids one Senator to go poking around too closely in another's closet. So all McGovern could do was ask if Eagleton had any skeletons in there. That's as far as one club member can go with another and, being a gentleman, the other is expected to respond with a forthright answer. The onus for not having come forth is on Eagleton. The question was asked according to the rules, but there wasn't a full answer. It was up to Eagleton to throw the closet open and expose the skeleton. It wasn't up to McGovern to break the lock and pry the door open.

[Q] Playboy: How damaging do you think was the whole Eagleton episode to McGovern's chances of winning the election?

[A] Anderson: Extremely damaging.

[Q] Playboy: Fatal?

[A] Anderson: If the election had been held then, it would have been. I think McGovern has the capacity to overcome it, but I don't know if he will. Personally, I will tell you that I plan to vote for McGovern, and I tell you because I feel the public has a right to know my own political leanings, although I want to emphasize that I consider it my duty as an investigative reporter to not allow my politics to interfere with my job. When Drew Pearson ran the column, he tended to get in and fight for his favorite candidate. I don't, because I don't think that's my function. What I think isn't important. I don't look upon myself as an oracle. It's what I find out that's important. My counsel isn't essential to the public, but I do better than most people in finding out what's going on, in exposing things that Richard Nixon and George McGovern would both prefer I didn't find out.

[Q] Playboy: Why do you plan to vote for McGovern?

[A] Anderson: Put most simply, because I believe McGovern is a leader of the future, that he would lead the nation down the path of progress. I believe that Nixon represents the past--the old politics, the old faces, the old alliances, the old special interests--and that this country is at a crossroads. We've got to begin turning away from those old politics. I believe we must take better care of our poor; we must do more to stop the systematic pollution of our air and water; we must simplify our tax system; we must return integrity to public office and restore faith in Government. I know both men, and I believe McGovern could do more for those goals than Nixon.

[Q] Playboy: With the limitations on a McGovern Presidency that would be imposed by a balky Congress and a stubborn bureaucracy and with much of the public skeptical of change, how much do you think he could accomplish in his first term?

[A] Anderson: Oh, I don't think George McGovern is the Messiah; I don't think he's going to save the nation with New Testament miracles. The millennium is not here and any lambs of my acquaintance I would advise not to lie down beside the lions just yet. I think McGovern would have great difficulty translating some of his great compassion and idealism into hard-boiled practical programs and, as you say, Congress would drag its feet. I think McGovern understands that. He knows he might lose a lamb or two before he really comes face to face with the fact that the change he wants would be very slow in becoming reality. I don't think he's an impractical man about that.

But there are two reforms of fundamental importance to the future of this country, and Nixon is opposed to both of them; McGovern supports both of them and I think he could make some real progress in these areas. The first is the tax system. We hear a lot of political rhetoric about living in a welfare state, a lot of unfavorable publicity about the poor living on the dole. Well, with the present tax system, we've got more rich on welfare than we have poor. Not in numbers, but in the amounts they get from the Government in the form of subsidies and tax loopholes. According to an Hew report on the impoverished areas of America, we have about 23,000,000 people living in poverty in the wealthiest country in human history. These people are not properly nourished or clothed. Meanwhile, the American people are dumping billions of dollars into the well-tailored pockets of thousands of millionaires and millions of the well to do with these indirect tax subsidies.

Two of the wealthiest men in the world are J. Paul Getty and H. L. Hunt, both of them Texas oil billionaires. I haven't seen their tax returns, but a friend of mine has. He went over them for a ten-year period. In case either of these men challenges me, I want to make it clear that this check was made three years ago, and my friend told me that during the preceding decade, neither Getty nor Hunt ever paid more than $4500 in personal income tax in one year. I was paying that much and a lot more. That means I'm paying their share of the taxes, and I resent it. That means I'm subsidizing Cadillacs and villas and that I helped build the replica of Mount Vernon that H. L. Hunt built for himself out on the Texas prairie. I happen to know enough about welfare to know that most of the people on welfare either are sick or are dependent children. Yet we caterwaul about the money that goes to them and say nothing about subsidizing Getty, Hunt and thousands of others like Senator James Eastland of Mississippi.

[Q] Playboy: Where does Eastland come in?

[A] Anderson: A couple of years ago, McGovern, as chairman of the Nutrition subcommittee in the Senate, set out to dig up evidence about malnutrition in America. He found plenty in the heart of Mississippi, including children with bloated bellies, which is a symptom of starvation, and he got doctors to testify that malnutrition existed in Mississippi. Senator Eastland got up, roared out in defiance that they were maligning the great state of Mississippi and denied there was hunger in his own state. So I set out to investigate a little. One fact I dug up was that dependent children in Mississippi were allowed $9.30 a month from the Federal Government. At the same time, I learned, Eastland himself was collecting from $160,000 to $213,000 a year for not growing cotton on his plantation in Sunflower County. Well, I didn't grow any cotton that year, either. There were a lot of people who didn't grow any cotton that year. Including the poor. The point is that you can't collect $213,000 in Federal aid unless you're rich. Farmers get it; oil millionaires get it. There isn't a big industry in the nation that doesn't get Government subsidies in one form or another. I think we ought to throw out the whole tax system as it is and just start all over again. Under the new system, the rich should pay their fair share, and so should everyone else.

The second critical reform is to abolish the present method of financing campaigns. This may be the greatest evil in our political system. The average member of Congress must begin his career of writing the laws by violating them. It's almost impossible for a Congressman or a Senator to be elected today without violating the Federal Corrupt Practices Act. A man can't get elected to Congress today without making commitments and deals that no one should have to make, because the money that elects Congressmen, Senators and Presidents comes mostly from special interests--from the big corporations, big unions, trade associations and wealthy individuals--and these groups and individuals don't contribute heavily to campaigns because of their civic virtue. They want a return on this investment. They demand a return on this investment. And they get a return on this investment, or else they invest in someone else next time. They get their payoff in the form of special legislation that benefits them at the expense of the rest of us. Clearly, it would be cheaper in the long run for us, the public, to pay the hundreds of millions of dollars in a national election year rather than let the oil industry pay a huge share of it and then make it back with interest in the form of special tax benefits variously estimated at from two to eight billion dollars annually. And that would end a lot of the corruption, both financial and moral, in our elected officials.

Nixon got into office in 1968 in part by making deals with many of the special interests that oppose these reforms. He promised those people that his whole philosophy was not to interfere with their privileges and not to regulate them any more. Nixon is never going to lead us toward these reforms. At best, he will reluctantly follow along behind if the public puts on enough pressure. McGovern agrees about the importance of making these reforms, and he would lead the way, using the power of the Presidency to create public pressure for them. When the pressure builds enough, Congress would have to go along with McGovern, whether they liked it or not. These are some of the reasons I plan to vote for McGovern.

[Q] Playboy: If Nixon wins, what kind of President do you think he'll be during his last term, freed from the constraints of facing re-election?

[A] Anderson: It's hard to predict. He started his first term as a conservative and he's winding it up as a liberal. On the issues, he is sometimes a conservative, sometimes a moderate, sometimes a liberal. He's a political opportunist with a wet finger always in the air--one of the few politicians I know who can get into that revolving door behind you and come out in front of you. I'm talking now only about the political Richard Nixon. In fact, there are two Nixons; one is the politician and a quite different one is the human being. He is a Dogpatch-style politician who always aims his knee at the groin, who scratches the eyes of his opponents and karate chops them in the neck. His style is to slash and slam. To use his own language, "Rock 'em, sock 'em." He is a shrewd enough politician to know that this style is not becoming to a President, so he's tried to elevate himself above the brawl to Olympian heights and let his subordinates do the slashing and the slicing. But he's been in the political gutter for so long that he finds it difficult to restrain himself, and so in the 1970 elections, with the taste of political conflict in his mouth, we had the spectacle in California of the President of the United States standing on a car shouting out denunciations, baiting people. He looked like a Congressman running for office for the first time. But Nixon usually learns his lesson from mistakes. According to his friends, he realizes that he hurt his cause by flailing out so wildly.

The other Nixon is shy and introverted, a warm, decent human being who is quietly, and without their knowledge of where the money is coming from, putting a black medical student and a black architectural student through college. He is a patriot, by his own lights, who believes he would sacrifice anything, even his tremendous political ambition, for the sake of his country. He believes in his heart that he has done necessary things that were good for the country but bad for him politically, which hurts about as much as cutting his throat.

[Q] Playboy: What necessary things?

[A] Anderson: Nixon felt that the mining of Haiphong harbor and the bombing of North Vietnam could cost him the 1972 election. But he thought that course was the only way Hanoi could be stopped from overrunning the south. He felt it was essential, and he did it. I'm not arguing that it was essential; I think it was a mistake. He also demonstrated his definition of patriotism in 1960 when he lost to Jack Kennedy. There was evidence, and pretty conclusive evidence, of massive election frauds in Chicago, Indiana and one or two other key states. If those frauds had been proved, the election could have been overthrown, and there was good reason to believe that could have happened. There was certainly enough evidence to justify going to the courts. The partisans around him urged him to do so. He flatly turned them down. He said he wouldn't be a party to a constitutional crisis. When he called on Kennedy to pay his respects, Kennedy said to him, "Well, I guess the outcome is in doubt." Nixon said, "No, the outcome is not in doubt. You are the winner." Nixon's biographer and close personal friend, Earl Mazo, had been working for the New York Herald Tribune and had researched a series of 12 stories on these election frauds. Nixon called him in and asked him to stop the series. For Richard Nixon, that was a sacrifice second only to giving his life. He was willing to lay down his political life for his country.

That gives some idea of the deep contradictions in Nixon. I should add that even he seems to agree that there are two Nixons. He loves to talk politics with friends he can trust; he loves no subject more dearly and he'll sit and talk about it for hours. When he does, he refers to himself in the third person. He discusses the issues that would be good and bad for Richard Nixon, as though he were another man, as though the political Nixon were not the real Nixon. The political Nixon is an actor on the stage, the attorney in the courtroom, the performer.

Perhaps the most telling example of the political Nixon, and what kind of man he really is, happened after he was defeated by Pat Brown for governor of California in 1962. He went down to Key Biscayne and had a long talk with his old friend George Smathers, who was then a Senator from Florida. Nixon described some of the disasters that seemed to add up to the end of his political career, which for him was a deep tragedy. He could have been hit by a truck and it wouldn't have pained him more than being hit by Pat Brown in California. Recounting his mistakes, he thought that probably his greatest one had been originally registering as a Republican. He told Smathers that he should have pursued his political career with the other party; he should have registered as a Democrat. This, then, is a man without any political convictions at all. He would have been equally ready, willing and eager to have been a Democrat if he had thought that was where his future lay. That's why he can be a conservative anti--Communist one day and a liberal flying to Peking the next. God knows what he'll be next year. There's no way to know. He'll do what's politically expedient, unless the inner Nixon feels it's imperative for his country that he sacrifice.

So I wouldn't want to predict too much about his next term. I'll just go along with one of his closest friends, a man who works at the White House. He said: "Nixon is capable in the next four years of being one of the best Presidents the nation has ever had, or one of the worst." This friend, who is a decent and honorable man, feels that Nixon has within him a mean streak. He may decide that since it's his last four years and there's no higher spot that he can aspire to, this is the time to reward his friends and punish his enemies. He may decide this is the time to indict, to take revenge on all those who have abused him. Or he may decide to be a great President and throw political caution to the winds and do what's best for America and go down in history as a great President. He might just throw aside all obligations and all political considerations and spend his last four years making difficult and great decisions that he thinks would be best for the country.

[Q] Playboy: What sort of great decisions do you think he might make?

[A] Anderson: Well, when Nixon talked about achieving a generation of peace, he was speaking from his heart, and he would like to go down in history as the man who achieved it. I know from his associates that he expects peace in Vietnam. I know he believed in his moves to reduce tensions with Peking and Moscow. Clearly, he is a man with sufficient vision to earn a position of greatness in international affairs if he continues to pursue that vision, and I have no reason to doubt that he will.

The problem is in domestic affairs. Nixon has the handicap of his own shortsightedness, a lack of understanding of the problems of the ordinary people in this country. Will he try to overcome that and begin solving our domestic problems? Will he, in his cautious way, tackle the problems of the ghettos, or will he be content to suppress the ghettos? And certainly, one of the crucial problems facing this country, one of my dearest crusades, is the problem of Government secrecy. I fear that Nixon will choose to slam down even harder the iron curtain of secrecy around Government, rather than show a new-found respect for the people's right to know.

We've allowed the "secret" classification of documents to become a device by which those who govern us protect themselves. They don't set out deliberately to make blunders, but when they launch a program or a policy, they always have in mind that it could go astray. To protect themselves from that possibility, they classify what they're doing. Nixon is hardly the first President to hide behind that system, but he actually carried this notion of security to the lengths that he got a court injunction to shut down the presses to stop publication of the Pentagon papers. If he had gotten his way, the Pentagon papers would never have been published. When I printed portions of the top-secret India-Pakistan papers and handed out the entire transcripts to the press, I received a few "friendly" calls from my sources in the White House telling me to watch my step. Now, what kind of attitude is that in a democracy?

[Q] Playboy: The Administration would argue that publication of the Pentagon papers and the India-Pakistan documents threatened national security.

[A] Anderson: If classified documents mean what they say, the President is the worst security violator in the country. Because any time he has a policy that he wants to sell the public, any time he needs a little more cash out of Congress, he takes the most highly classified document and makes its contents public. If a document is secret one day and the President is announcing it the next, he is either a security violator or it shouldn't have been secret the day before. In fact, it was never secret; it was just censored until he chose to put it out. And he puts out only those portions of it that he sees as advantageous to himself.

In the India-Pakistan papers, he declared, for example, that he had adopted a pro-Pakistan policy because he had intelligence that the Indians intended to invade West Pakistan, and it was essential to deter Indian aggression. I saw the same documents that the President did. I know what information he got. He got a highly classified intelligence report warning that this might be India's intention. He released this part of the information. But he didn't release the rest of it, which went on to say that it wasn't likely that India would do this. It was unlikely because of the logistics of moving the Indian army from East Pakistan to West Pakistan; unlikely because the Indians had given assurances to the United States, the United Nations and the world at large that India had no territorial ambitions and would make no territorial claims. These reasons were spelled out. Did Nixon release the whole document? No. He omitted the bulk of the report, the most compelling parts of it. In other words, he misrepresented it. Now, is that security? Or is that censorship? I say it's censorship. Blatant censorship.

It shouldn't be hard to understand. Every government seeks to control the flow of information to its people. If it's a dictatorship, it does that by taking over the press. If it's a democracy, it can't officially do that. But the government in a democracy is no less determined than that of a dictatorship to control information, because that's how democratically elected leaders stay in power, too. But these democratically elected people can't control information at my level, because I have freedom of speech. And so do you. This isn't a special privilege for the press. Freedom of the press grants the right for every individual who feels the Government is oppressing him to write a pamphlet or a letter to the editor. This is a tradition we've had for some time in America. Freedom of the press gives us the privilege to disagree with the Government; but we can't do that effectively unless we possess the information to dispute what it tells us.

Presidents, of course, feel that what they do as President is their own private business, even to the extent that when they depart the White House, they pick up all their papers and take them with them. Lyndon Johnson did the most massive vacuuming of Government files known to man since Noah rescued the animals from the flood. All those files have been carted off to the Pedernales, although they were prepared at Government expense for the purpose of serving the public. Johnson thinks he owns them. He has physical possession of them. Well, I have to say that it's the citizen who owns those facts, and the citizen must have those facts. The citizen, taken collectively, is more important than the President. So who deserves this information? The President? Or the citizen, so he can perform his function on Election Day? Who has the greater right to it?

[Q] Playboy: How much right would you grant the Government to maintain its secrecy? Isn't some secrecy necessary?

[A] Anderson: Of course. For the protection of the citizen, some information must not be public. Certainly, it's in the interest of all of us that we have this strategic-disarmament agreement with Russia, and we could never have obtained that with open sessions. I recognize that, I accept it, I encourage it. But in a democracy, the citizen's right to know is paramount and drastic reforms are necessary to ensure his right to know, so I would shift the whole emphasis of Government secrets. Instead of having to go to court to prove that the public has the right to information, I would force the Government to prove that the public doesn't have the right to it. Since it's obvious that some negotiations must be conducted in secret, that battles must be planned in secret, that weapons must be developed in secret, that Presidents have the right to make policy in secret, I would say we should give the Government a maximum of two years after an event and then all documents concerning it must be made public. Then, if there are some among those documents that the Government feels could jeopardize national security, it must prove it to a citizens' commission.

I would also require that the commission be subject not at all to the Administration in power. It would listen to petitions from Government agencies, and if those agencies couldn't persuade the commission that classification should be extended, the document would automatically be made public. Let's say the President sold out in the Salt talks with the Russians. I have no reason to believe that he did, but let us say that he was so eager for political reasons to come back from Moscow and say to the American people, "Look, I'm bringing you peace in our time," that he made concessions that would be absolutely dangerous. If he had done that, then I think the citizen would have the right to know about what really happened in those closed sessions.

[Q] Playboy: By that reasoning, anyone should feel entitled to leak the results of any negotiations. Surely the Government has a legitimate right to prevent that from happening.

[A] Anderson: The Government can't be trusted with that right. It has forfeited that right by withholding too much from the public. If we had a Government that knew precisely what security was and withheld only legitimate security information, then I might be willing to go along with it. But I talk all the time to people who have access to secret information. I've been dealing with them for 25 years, and I know that 90 to 95 percent of the information that's classified is information that the American people are entitled to. Does this mean information might come out occasionally that could hurt the country? Yes, perhaps even in my column, though I try not to put out such information. But what newspaper story do you know, my friend, that cost 55,000 American lives? What newspaper story can you cite that cost 120 billion American dollars? I can tell you of some secret Government (continued on page 226)Playboy Interview(continued from page 102) decisions that have cost us that much. We can't tolerate these kinds of secrets' being kept from us. We can't afford to continue drifting toward total Government control over the flow of information.

[Q] Playboy: In a country that takes such pride in having a free press, why do you think this has happened?

[A] Anderson: World War Two; that's why. Everyone knew Hitler was a maniac. Everyone understood that Japan had attacked us at Pearl Harbor, so it was patriotic to fight during World War Two. The United States was menaced. We were forced into it. It was a different kind of war than we've understood in the last decade. It was a war in which all the kids I grew up with went off to fight. It became unpatriotic to say anything or do anything to jeopardize, let alone oppose, the war effort. You would see signs all over America: Loose Talk Sinks Ships, The Walls have Ears, and so on. A loose word, a German spy picks it up and we've lost a ship in the middle of the Atlantic. So we developed an aura of patriotism around security, around secrecy. We drummed into the minds of all Americans who emerged from World War Two this great patriotic fervor about keeping the enemy from knowing what we were doing.

Then, having defeated one madman, suddenly we saw the specter of another in the Kremlin--Joseph Stalin. We came to regard his system as a menace equal to the Nazi menace, and we were swept by a wave of fear: Even your neighbor could be a Communist in disguise. We couldn't trust anyone, so we trusted the Government to classify anything and everything. Presidents and Cabinet officers who grew up during that era came to recognize as their special privilege the right to decide what the American people would be told.

Obviously, Lyndon Johnson didn't want to tell us about Lyndon Johnson's damfool mistakes. He only wanted to tell us about Lyndon Johnson's great achievements, so secrecy became censorship, not national security. The press still has enough of its own freedom to break through the censorship, and sometimes it does, but not often enough. Increasingly, the Government is tightening the censorship--by disciplining or prosecuting those, like Daniel Ellsberg, who give out the unpleasant, unfavorable facts; and now the press must live with a Supreme Court decision that can jeopardize reporters who speak with sources the Government doesn't want them to.

[Q] Playboy: The press allowed that Supreme Court decision--which compels a reporter to reveal his sources under oath in court--to pass without much controversy. What effect do you think it will have on press freedom?

[A] Anderson: I think the Supreme Court decision is disastrous. It's the first step in imposing a Kremlinlike censorship on the United States. The irony is this is all done in the name of patriotism, in the name of our 200-year-old traditions, when in fact what they're trying to do is destroy our traditions. We've allowed the Government to reverse a fundamental truth about democracy. The fundamental truth is that the individual has the right to know everything about the Government, but the Government has the right to know only very little about the individual. Now, the Government seems to think it ought to be able to snoop into every corner of a man's life, while keeping its own activities secret. This has got to be set straight, and that's what I try to do in my column, and that's what I think the rest of the press sometimes doesn't try hard enough to do.

[Q] Playboy: What specifically do you think the press ought to do that it isn't doing?

[A] Anderson: The press has the duty under the Constitution to be a watchdog on Government. When we give men the power to wage war, the authority to tax and to confiscate property, the power of life and death, those men need a watchdog. It's our duty to expose, to oppose and to dig behind the press handouts, behind the press conferences. But I think very few of the press fulfill that responsibility. There is a tendency on the part of the press to become a megaphone for the power structure. Too many reporters adopt the ideas and the attitudes of the people they cover. Those who govern us try to seduce us, and here in Washington, they take us up on the mountaintops, and in this heady atmosphere, we actually participate in making these earth-shaking pronouncements and decisions. We get up there and look down upon the world and agree on what is best for the Middle East, and what is best for Vietnam, and what is best for the impoverished, peoples, and what is best for racial tensions. We tend, at their invitation and urging, to become part of their circle.

I think many reporters enjoy their associations with the high and mighty and try to rationalize that, by spending their vacations with the Kennedys, by being such a close friend of Muskie's, they gain an insight that allows them to write better stories. They persuade themselves that this is the reason they buddy up to these people, when, in fact, they're just enjoying being able to say in their private conversations, "Ed Muskie was saying to me the other night...." This isn't really making them better reporters. You can get the same information from other sources. In fact, I can get it from the same people they're hobnobbing with. I talk to the high and mighty the same as they do. These people know that if I catch them lying, I'll report it whether they talk to me or not, so they talk to me, because they want to influence me with their side of the story. That cooperation doesn't mean they love me. If they loved me, it would mean I wasn't doing my job very well. Journalists shouldn't be beloved by the people they write about.

[Q] Playboy: Many Government officials, especially Vice-President Agnew, argue that the press, far from being as friendly as you describe it, is actively hostile to the Administration.

[A] Anderson: Well, it's a rule of politics to stay on the offensive, and when Nixon found his Administration being criticized by the press, he unleashed Spiro upon us to discredit that attack and throw the press on the defensive. What the President sought was to undermine the press and confuse the public. He wanted to get the public angry at the attackers instead of at the attackee. It's a standard political ploy and the press did respond defensively, which I think helped Nixon and Agnew. That's a great tragedy. Nixon has no grounds for complaint; in fact, the press has been almost benevolent toward the Administration and the Government in general, faithfully recording their statements and accepting their assumptions. Reporters and commentators vie with one another for the privilege of entertaining these bums. They seek the favor of Henry Kissinger. They consider news gathering to be an exclusive interview with Bill Rogers or Mel Laird. These are the people Agnew should embrace.

[Q] Playboy: How do you account, then, for the press criticism of Administration policies that angered Nixon in the first place?

[A] Anderson: A certain amount of criticism and opposition is tolerable as long as it's kept within establishment limits. But those journalists who thrive on the mountaintop, when they criticize Kissinger, do it in the context of having had long and anguished discussions with Kissinger, and even their criticisms of Kissinger's policies are shaped by Kissinger. This is a gentleman's disagreement. They don't point out that Kissinger has been juggling 12 international crises at the same time, that, brilliant though he may be, he isn't quite that brilliant. It's physically exhausting. He stays up late at night working and partying, and this has an effect on him that people inside his office talk about openly. Those who know Kissinger well know that he goes into temper tantrums, that he hurls books and objects at aides and otherwise behaves irrationally.

That seems to me part of the story of powerful men making policy, but that's something that's never told. That's against the rules. There are polite complaints and Presidents get upset, but this gentlemanly journalism isn't really damaging to the structure of power or to the party in power. Democrats and Republicans alike balk at talking about each other's real embarrassments and blunders, for fear that the same thing could later be done to them by the other side. The first thing to remember about power in Washington is that the relationship among members of Congress, like the relationship between the press and the whole political establishment, makes it a sort of gentleman's Cosa Nostra.

[Q] Playboy: Would you explain what you mean?

[A] Anderson: Senators debate each other, sometimes heatedly, but after the debate is over, they retire arm in arm into the cloakroom for a drink and expressions of their respect and admiration for each other. They know that in order to survive, they have to play by some unwritten rules, one of which is that there shall be no fatal back-stabbing. Under this code of silence, you can disagree, but you can't expose wrongdoing on matters that could do real damage. Every politician knows that in order to get into power, he has at some point compromised more than he would like the voters to know about; and since they're all in the same boat, they form a mutual-protection association.

Let's take two of the most dissimilar Senators and show how this works. John McClellan of Arkansas is a crusty old conservative who would probably support Wallace, and Abe Ribicoff of Connecticut is an outspoken liberal who has been for McGovern since 1968. Well, they both sit on the same committee, and I found out that McClellan, who's running for re-election, had requested that action be held up on a consumer-protection bill. He didn't want to openly oppose the bill for fear of alienating a lot of Arkansas consumers who wanted to be protected by it; and he didn't want to support it for fear of alienating big-money interests who've been contributing to him for over 30 years. Ribicoff is a subcommittee chairman, so McClellan called Ribicoff's staff and asked them to hold up the bill until after the Arkansas primary. I found out and called Ribicoff. At first, he said he didn't think the bill had been held up in the subcommittee. Then he went and found out and said, "By golly, you're right. It is." I asked if McClellan had requested that it be held there. Ribicoff went off the record and asked that his name be left out, and then told me that the answer was yes. We ran the story.

McClellan saw it and got hold of Ribicoff. Ribicoff then issued a statement saying that McClellan had nothing to do with holding up the bill. Ribicoff himself took the responsibility for delaying it. He issued a statement that completely served McClellan's purposes in getting re-elected. This is the kind of cooperation you get from Senators in the mutual-protection association, even if they don't agree on anything else in the world. Ribicoff didn't want McClellan or one of his buddies turning around and doing the same thing to him the next time he runs. But let me tell you: Ribicoff is going to get hoisted anyway, because I'm identifying him here as the source of the column. It's the one time I've done that, but he double-crossed me. When a source tells me one thing and then denies it all publicly, I have no obligation to protect him. But that's the gentleman's Cosa Nostra for you.

It was the same in the recent I. T. T. case. The Senators knew the facts. They knew Richard Kleindienst was guilty as hell, yet they voted resoundingly in his favor. It was an exercise in pure cynicism. The facts were ignored. The public may have had the impression that Kleindienst was appearing before some kind of objective tribunal that would, in courtroom fashion, examine the evidence and judge accordingly. Well, an objective American jury would have convicted Kleindienst for malfeasance--and nailed John Mitchell for perjury at the same time.

[Q] Playboy: On what grounds do you charge that Mitchell committed perjury?

[A] Anderson: He told obvious lies. He said that he had disqualified himself from deciding on the I. T. T. antitrust case because his former law firm had represented some I. T. T. subsidiaries, and then he acknowledged under oath that he had met with Harold Geneen, the president of I. T. T., and also with Felix Rohatyn, the man I. T. T. had empowered to settle the case. What in the world was Mitchell discussing with these men, if he had disqualified himself from the case? He said he had discussed philosophy with Geneen. Well, Harold Geneen is a blunt, no-nonsense businessman who is on the job practically every waking hour. Mitchell isn't much different. They're the two least likely philosophers in all of America. Mitchell lied again under oath when he said he knew nothing about the arrangements for the Republican Convention in San Diego. He'd been calling the political shots for over a year, and the lieutenant governor of California even said that he had called on Mitchell to discuss the whole convention, before he realized he was contradicting Mitchell and changed his story. Mitchell was clearly lying through his teeth, so here we have the man who was in charge of law and order violating the law.

Republican Senators paid no attention to the evidence in the I. T. T. case. They voted to protect a fellow Republican and the Administration. Partly because this is an election year, and partly out of real outrage, some Democrats did seize on the evidence and try to make something out of it; several other Democrats went ahead and voted for Kleindienst because there's a tradition that the President should be able to choose whoever he pleases for his Cabinet. These Democrats want that tradition intact when they take back the White House. They were just scratching Republican backs. A few Democrats had still another motive in voting for Kleindienst. They told me privately they were astonished that the President would put a man as tainted as Kleindienst in such a sensitive position during an election year, and they didn't want to deprive themselves of such a fat target.

[Q] Playboy: Does that kind of political cynicism and back-scratching prevail on most issues in Congress?

[A] Anderson: Most people with power in Washington have convictions, but there is no way a U.S. Senator can push through all his views. He must learn to compromise. Frequently, as during the I. T. T. business, you see the principle of compromise degenerate into cynicism, but you can't think of the Government as a monolith. It's made up of individuals, and some of the individuals who have to make the biggest compromises are the best people overall.

[Q] Playboy: Whom would you include in that group?

[A] Anderson: The best example would probably be Bill Fulbright. It was Bill Fulbright and Bill Fulbright alone who stood up and challenged Joe McCarthy early on; and, coming from a state like Arkansas, full of McCarthyites, that was an act of absolute political heroism. He really took on McCarthy, and he will forever have my admiration for that. It was also Bill Fulbright alone who stood up against the Bay of Pigs invasion and called it folly. And he came out leading the opposition to the Vietnam war at a time when it should have been considered political suicide in Arkansas. Fulbright is an enlightened Senator. He is an excellent Senator, a conscientious and courageous man.

Yet through the Fifties and early Sixties, Fulbright consistently voted against civil rights legislation, even though he believed in it. Back when Orval Faubus was still governor of Arkansas, I had a conversation with Fulbright about his civil rights record and I said, "Bill, how can you do it?" And he replied, "Well, if I didn't vote against civil rights, I'd lose my Senate seat to Faubus. I'm conceited enough to believe that I make a better Senator than he would." He went on to explain that by voting against civil rights, he was also admitted to the Southern caucus, where he could exercise a restraining influence on the James Eastlands and Strom Thurmonds, so he felt that, given his situation, he could best serve the cause of civil rights by voting against it. He felt the same way about the oil and gas interests that are so powerful in Arkansas, and so he didn't vote against them. These were the two things on which he was willing to compromise, and I understand that and sympathize with it.

I'd also include Ed Muskie here. I know Muskie to be an honorable man with a granite integrity. In the area of campaign funds, he has been honest where many other Senators might have been willing to wink. He was for a while chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, a committee whose main function is to try to collect funds to help elect Democratic Senators. Democrats in the Senate quickly learned they had made a mistake by putting Muskie in there, because this committee had previously been used to pick up money from big corporate and other special interests. Then it would be distributed to the various Senators and all they would have to report was that they had gotten this money from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. That way, a guy in the North could take money from the oil industry without its ever appearing anywhere on the records. Not under Muskie. He insisted on recording every donation that came in and giving receipts, demanding checks and giving a full accounting. He has that kind of integrity.

And yet Ed Muskie, too, has compromised--even in the area that he specializes in, which is the environment; he heads probably the most important environmental subcommittee in the Senate. When I raised some hell about his compromising, he sat down and talked to me about it. He said, "Now, look, I believe I'm as strongly against pollution as you are. I believe I'm as concerned a citizen as you are. The difference between us is that you write a column and you can throw bombs and raise Cain. But I sit on a committee. I know each member of that committee. I know the pressures he is under. I know how far he will go. I want to get some legislation through and I know how far I can push that committee. If I go any further, I get no legislation at all. I would rather have the legislation than the satisfaction of delivering diatribes on the Senate floor. Now, who serves the cause of the environment better? You, who yell, or I, who get legislation through, even though it's a halfway measure?"

[Q] Playboy: How did you answer him?

[A] Anderson: I said we have different functions. I'm the hell raiser. I'm not going to stop shouting. If it weren't for people raising hell over the rape of nature, Muskie wouldn't be able to get even halfway legislation through.

[Q] Playboy: Using whatever criteria you want--intelligence, honesty, performance--who else would you rank among the best Senators in Congress?

[A] Anderson: It's hard to categorize, because a Senator who's good in one area may be bad in another. I've discovered that the worst Senators have some good in them and the best have some bad. I tend to be influenced by their general philosophy. I have very little use, for example, for Strom Thurmond, because I disagree with almost everything he stands for. Yet Thurmond is one of the most honest men in the Senate. He has a sense of integrity and devotion to duty second to few. But I couldn't possibly consider Thurmond one of the best men in the Senate. Intellectually, he's light, and he's terribly prejudiced racially. As a Senator, I would have to rate him as one of the lowest.

Or take Phil Hart of Michigan. He is so fair, so scrupulous, so honest, that he sometimes becomes ineffective. Every truly honest man recognizes that there are two sides to an issue, and Hart tends to put himself into the shoes of the man appearing in the witness chair. You found Hart asking sympathetic questions of Kleindienst in the I. T. T. affair. Not that Hart tolerated in any way what was going on; but he saw Kleindienst's side and he could see the human element involved, and he wound up voting for him. He shouldn't have. He, above all, understood that Kleindienst had violated the public trust. But he also felt that Presidents are entitled to the legal advisor of their choice, and he opted to give the President the Attorney General he wanted. Would you say, then, that Phil Hart is one of the best Senators? Certainly, he's one of the most admirable, but far from the most effective.

Then you have the Mutt and Jeff of the Senate: tall, rangy Democratic leader Mike Mansfield, and short, elfish Republican George Aiken. In stature, they are both giants. Aiken has been in politics about 45 years and the road in front of his home in Vermont is still unpaved, which is a great testimony to his integrity. Mansfield is such a gentleman that he doesn't lead, he tries to persuade. When Lyndon Johnson had Mansfield's job, he punished those who disobeyed him and rewarded those who went along, so he was a more powerful and effective leader than Mansfield, though not nearly so likable.

Most Senators are prima donnas, the central stars in their own solar system, around which all other bodies revolve, so you have to treasure those who don't feel that way. I've always had a warm spot for Barry Goldwater, who is one of the most likable Senators, though certainly one of the laziest. Even in 1964, when he was running for President, Barry really just wanted to be tinkering with his favorite toy--a ham-radio set. At the convention, while his lieutenants were out beating the bushes for delegates, there he was discussing all sorts of inane things with ham operators around the country. And he likes to fly. In the middle of the convention, he would slip off to go up in his plane. He wasn't taking politics all that seriously. Lyndon Johnson told Drew and me that Gold water paid a call on him in the White House during their campaign against each other--one of those visits where the challenger comes to exchange views with the President. Johnson could hardly believe it. The main thing on Gold-water's mind was getting permission to fly the latest Air Force jet.

[Q] Playboy: We asked you to name the best Senators, but you seem to think that most of those you've mentioned--however likable or admirable they are as men--are less than totally effective legislators. Is there anyone to whom you'd give high grades professionally as well as personally?

[A] Anderson: Well, Hubert Humphrey is a thoroughly decent human being--and a good Senator, too. Even if he wouldn't make a great President, he'd make a great neighbor.

[Q] Playboy: How about Ted Kennedy? After Chappaquiddick, you were very critical of him. How do you appraise him--and his future Presidential chances--now?

[A] Anderson: I think Kennedy is a fine Senator. I watched him in the I. T. T. hearings and he was masterful. He probed expertly, in a gentlemanly way, using the rapier instead of the meat ax. He asked disarming questions that drew from witnesses some confessions they clearly hadn't intended to make. Then he very quickly drove home the points he wanted to make. I have seldom seen more skillful cross-examination. He has good judgment, better than Bob Kennedy had, and his political instincts are sharper. He manages to get things done without earning the adjective "ruthless," as Bob did. Bob went after his goals like a tugboat down the East River--everybody got out of the way or else he rammed into them. Ted isn't like that. He's a better politician.

I think his record is excellent and that he shouldn't be disqualified from the Presidency. He obviously displayed poor judgment at Chappaquiddick, and the public is going to want to know whether, as President, he could be depended upon in a crisis. My belief is that he was roaring drunk at Chappaquiddick and that anybody in his condition might likely have behaved as he did. He exercised poor judgment in getting drunk, but a lot of people are guilty of that. One story I get is that he really didn't know the girl was still in the car. He got out and thought she had, too. There is some reason to believe he made the decision to let his cousin Joe Gargan take the responsibility--which is what I was told they were planning to do--without knowledge that the girl was in the car. In his confused mind, he thought she had escaped, too.

The next morning, a retired ferryboat captain ambled up to him and said, in effect, "Senator, did you know there was a body in the car?" Witnesses to that event have told me that Kennedy turned white and that he walked away clenching his fists, as though he had had no idea that this was the case and was trying to keep hold of his emotions. He then caught the next ferry right back to the mainland, as though something had caused him to change whatever plan he had, and witnesses said that when he jumped off the ferry on the mainland, he was in such a hurry that he almost knocked a man down; the man had to jump out of the way to avoid being knocked over. Then he half ran to the police station and when he got there, he kept repeating: "I was the driver. I was the driver." Again, this seemed to verify that the plan had originally been to let Gargan take the rap.

At that point, Paul Markham, Kennedy's lawyer friend, who is not noted for his good judgment, wrote out a statement, and Kennedy, according to witnesses, glanced through it and signed it. You have to understand that the Kennedys have long since learned to rely heavily on staff members, so it isn't unusual for them to accept a statement written by somebody else. After he signed it, according to witnesses, Markham actually made changes in it that Kennedy never saw. This was the statement that was turned in to the police.

When all the advisors arrived at the Kennedy compound, they came to the conclusion that Markham's statement wasn't true. He hadn't told the story as it happened. But they decided that the Senator was stuck with it, that no matter what he said, he was in trouble, and that he would only be in worse trouble if he put out a second statement after signing one for the police. It would look like an afterthought, and the first one would appear to be the truth; the actual truth would appear to be a scheme cooked up later on. The advisors argued that he'd better stick with the original statement, and that's what he did.

So while I may have been rougher on him than anybody else at the time, I didn't have all those facts and I might have been easier on him if I had. There's no excuse for what he did, for planning to blame it on Gargan, as I was told he was going to do, but there were extenuating factors: the fact that he was probably roaring drunk; the fact that once he did understand there was a body in the car, he immediately headed straight to the police station; the fact that he then insisted on taking full responsibility. I'm not sure that one incident like this should becloud a man's career forever. I think it's been proved again and again that in times of crisis, the same man can be either a hero or a coward, wise or stupid. Maybe this is one case where we ought to think of Christ's admonition about he who is without sin casting the first stone. How would you have acted in the same situation? Who among us might not have panicked, or, being drunk, might not have responded with a clear head? This one incident should not forever prohibit him from the Presidency.

[Q] Playboy: Getting back to your opinion of various Senators, who would you say are some of the least admirable men in the Senate?

[A] Anderson: Perhaps the most insufferable would be Roman Hruska, the Senator from Nebraska, who has replaced Everett Dirksen as champion of the special interests. There's probably not a major special interest in need of a Senate speech or a Senate vote that can't get it from Hruska. Ev Dirksen used to do this with some skill. You know, he had a very thriving law practice, though he was never known to practice law. He didn't even become a lawyer until after he became a Congressman. Clearly, he needed a law firm to be a repository for the loot. And you discovered very quickly, if you went down his list of clients, as I was able to do, that his law firm in Peoria, Illinois, drew an amazing number of big corporations looking for legal talent. Some of the greatest corporations in America suddenly had problems out there in Peoria. But Ev was always able to laugh at himself. You could sit in private with him and he would acknowledge that he was a scoundrel, and there is something disarming, even charming, about a fellow who'll admit that.

This Hruska has fewer saving graces. He is a thorough hypocrite, the kind of man who made pious statements against pornography at the same time that he held a half interest in a movie chain that was exhibiting pornographic movies. He is an offensive man who screws up his face into a kind of holy scowl and takes off on verbal flights in an effort to make even the most sordid causes seem honorable. Worst of all, he is inclined to be stupid. There are very few Senators who are dumb. Some are less bright than others, but to get into the Senate, you have to be reasonably bright. But Hruska is just plain dumb. If you remember, he's the one who distinguished himself by declaring that the mediocre people of America should be represented on the Supreme Court, and by suggesting during the I. T. T. scandal that conventions are always being bought by corporations, so what was wrong with the Republican Convention's being bought? Dirksen had the verbal skills and mental agility to perform such gymnastics, but Hruska is no high--diver. I even have the impression that he sells himself cheap. Dirksen came expensive, but I think Hruska gets used more by the lobbyists than he uses them. I suspect that they don't even pay him much.

Nebraska's other Senator, Carl Curtis, stands in equally low esteem as far as I'm concerned. The voters of Nebraska have managed to elect about the two worst Senators that any state has sent to the Senate in my time. I don't know how they do it. You wonder what kind of standards they go by in that state. Curtis hasn't been caught in any major scandals, but my files have a lot of minor matters in them that he's been involved with. And if it's possible, Curtis is even less likable than Hruska. He's a mousy little guy who darts around the Senate poking in and out of holes, squeaking up every now and then for the insurance industry. You don't have to check very far to find out where the head offices of Mutual of Omaha, one of the largest insurance companies in America, are located.

There are a lot of phonies like that. Russell Long of Louisiana is the unabashed champion of the oil and gas interests. He admits openly that he supports them because they increase the prosperity of Louisiana. What he doesn't mention is that he has a lot of oil and gas holdings of his own. And there's old John McClellan, who poses as a great investigator of corruption, while he tends to his own private business on the Senate floor. He has even used the committee intended to investigate corruption to help his own banking interests. This sort of thing goes on all the time.

[Q] Playboy: Why doesn't the public rise up and throw these men out of office if they're as bad as you say?

[A] Anderson: Why do people buy the wrong brands of gasoline? Why do they pay more for Esso when they could buy the same octane at a cut-rate station for ten cents a gallon less? Why do they buy particular brands of aspirin? Why do they buy a highly advertised breakfast food that has less nutritional value than an unadvertised cereal available to them for less money on the same market shelf? Because they know the name. It's been packaged and it's been sold to them. It's not surprising that people should be taken in just as badly by politicians who can put on a better campaign and hire a better agency and spend more money for advertising. We don't look behind the campaign promises. We are more impressed by a TV personality than by what the man really stands for, if he stands for anything. We vote too often from emotion rather than from reason.

Part of the problem is that the public is indifferent. A case can be made that we have more men in Government truly dedicated to public service than we deserve. Quite frankly, I think we are better governed than we deserve. We don't pay as much attention as we should to our duty as citizens. Most Americans are concerned about themselves. They have their own personal problems and their own families. They have their own obligations and they just don't want the Government to interfere with them. They also don't want to do anything to interfere with Government. They're cowed by power. When they see the Government abuse power, they deplore it. The majority say, "It's too bad about this Daniel Ellsberg they're trying to send to jail. It's too bad about all those tax loopholes and about the I. T. T. scandal. But they're not doing anything to me, and there's nothing I can do about it, anyway." Maybe they say, "Hooray for Ralph Nader." But that's about all. This just isn't enough, if people want their democratic institutions to work more honestly and efficiently. It's this attitude that has allowed such enormous defects, both personal and institutional, to creep into Congress.

[Q] Playboy: You've discussed some of the personal defects. What are the institutional weaknesses that you feel need to be reformed?

[A] Anderson: Congress has become almost an anachronism. It's an institution of the late 1800s and early 1900s. In a nation where half of the people are under 25, the committees of Congress are commanded by men between 60 and 90. In a nation of teeming cities with an aggravated urban problem, the committees of Congress are controlled by men from rural, small-town backgrounds. In a nation divided by racial tensions, the committees of Congress are commanded mainly by white supremacists from the segregated South of the past. At a time of deep ferment over the war, all the committees dealing with military appropriations for the Vietnam war are commanded by hawks. The young men in Congress who are more abreast of today's complex problems have no power. They arrive at the bottom of the seniority ladder and by the time they rise to any influence, they are old men, too. The result has been that the committees have come under the command of men who don't understand the problems they're supposed to legislate. It's become a system of Government by geriatrics.

[Q] Playboy: With what would you replace the seniority system?

[A] Anderson: Certainly, a merit system would be better. I recognize the difficulties in that; there's more involved in politics than merit. But I would recommend that committee chairmen be selected by secret ballot of the committee members, and I would hope that the members of the committee would reward the man who was best qualified. I would call for an age limit on chairmanships. I would give the voters the right to vote for old men if they wish, but I would not allow Congress to permit these old men to control the levers of power. If a man wants to serve in the Senate after he reaches the age of 65 or even 70, fine. But not as a committee chairman.

Reforms like this will come slowly, but they must come. I've been covering Congress since 1947, and I think I've learned the lesson of patience. We ought not to tolerate these abuses of power, but we shouldn't be talking about destroying the whole system just because it doesn't correct its flaws overnight. We've got to learn to live with frustrations and failures. The Asians learned this centuries ago. Twenty-five years ago, when Drew Pearson and I began writing about the oil-depletion allowance, no one had ever heard of it, and certainly no Congressman would have dared oppose it. The last time the allowance came up in Congress, it was reduced, which was a little like altering Sacred Writ. We have even got now, in both the House and the Senate, the first Congressional codes of ethics in the history of the United States. They're as full of holes as a medieval fortress, but at least they exist, and every year a loophole or two gets closed. Because of the code of ethics, we caught Senator George Murphy taking money, and we'll catch others.

[Q] Playboy: How did you catch Murphy?

[A] Anderson: I had learned from a source that Murphy was collecting money from the right-wing millionaire Patrick Frawley, through Frawley's corporation, Technicolor, Inc. I learned this because Murphy had become concerned that he might be in violation of the new Senate code of ethics, so he called on the chairman of the committee, John Stennis, and described the situation in confidence. Secondhand, I got the information. I knew from past experience that Stennis wouldn't tell us anything, so I called Murphy and said, "Senator, I have evidence that you're collecting $20,000 a year from Technicolor, that all or part of your apartment is being paid for by Technicolor and that you use a credit card belonging to Technicolor. I called you as a matter of courtesy to hear your side of the story." Senator Murphy said, "You're wrong. You have been misinformed." I said, "Senator, I like you. I like your personality. I used to enjoy your movies. Because I like you, I'm going to give you another chance to answer that question. I don't think you want to go on the record with the answer you just gave. So let's do it again." I asked him the question a second time. "Yes," he said, "damn it, I am." Those who remember Murphy's election contest against Senator John Tunney generally agree it was that story that cost Murphy his Senate seat. Of course, I couldn't have printed it without Murphy's confession, but I wouldn't even have known about it except for the code of ethics.

[Q] Playboy: How do you feel when one of your stories damages or destroys a man's career?

[A] Anderson: It's not pleasant. It can be a cruel thing to do, and most of the people in high public office are men of charm. That's why they're in public office. They're easy to like. I wasn't lying when I said I liked Murphy. It's difficult to put someone you like through the wringer. But it's vital that it be done. A public office is a public trust. Those who abuse a public trust do so at their own risk, and it's my function to catch them, to expose them, to throw a spotlight on them. I didn't ask Senator Thomas Dodd to seek public office, but when he did, he should have accepted the responsibility of the public trust that goes along with it. Dodd violated at least six Federal laws, and I know a lot of people hate me for what I did to him, but I'm sorry. Lawmakers shouldn't be breaking the law.

Years ago, I investigated two embezzlers in Mobile, Alabama, who had chiseled the Army PXS. I wrote a column or two spelling out the facts against them and the Justice Department brought an indictment against them. They were convicted, and either one or both of them, I'm not sure which, committed suicide. Almost the same thing happened back in the Fifties, when I caught a Federal Communications Commissioner named Richard Mack taking money from an attorney who represented an applicant for a TV license. The scandal ruined Mack's life. He became a hopeless drunk and derelict and the attorney eventually committed suicide. How do you think I felt about those men? I felt remorseful. In each case, I was sorry I had written the story. These were nasty scandals, but they certainly weren't capital offenses. I certainly didn't think these men deserved to the for what they had done. I've long felt bad about those stories.

[Q] Playboy: Yet they don't seem to have tempered you in your writing.

[A] Anderson: I'm not impervious to the pleas I receive and the human tragedies a scandal can cause. I once caught a Congressman who was taking dope. This Congressman held a highly sensitive position as chairman of an important committee. This wasn't long after the Joe McCarthy era, when we were concerned about people being blackmailed for Government secrets. As I always try to do with anyone I write about, I made a routine call to give him an opportunity to respond to the charges. He broke down and wept. He told me that he had been severely injured years ago, and he had taken morphine to kill the pain for so long that he had become dependent on it. Sometimes an aide would inject it through his pants leg under the table in the middle of a committee meeting. That's how bad it was. His story was a touching one. He recognized the possibility of being blackmailed for secret documents, and so he said that if I didn't write the story, he would quietly retire when his term was up. It was near the end of his term anyway, and I didn't see anything to be gained by printing it, so I didn't.

But if I caught another FCC Commissioner accepting money that he shouldn't, I would write the story, because that kind of corruption needs to be exposed. On the day he was to become the sixth man in history to be censured by his colleagues in the Senate, Thomas Dodd carried a gun onto the Senate floor, contemplating a dramatic finish. If he had done it, that would have appalled me. It would have made Drew and me look like murderers, to have driven a man to that kind of desperation. But if I started feeling responsible to protect these men from the possible consequences of their own violations of the public trust, then I'd have to quit writing the column, and, quite frankly. I think our Government is a little bit better, a little bit more honest, because of the work we do. Sometimes you don't get a traffic light at a dangerous intersection until after somebody has been run over, and sometimes we have to run over somebody in the column before we can get any reform. Sometimes our exposure of a person causes others to be more wary about doing the same thing.

It's astonishing the number of people I run into in the Government who tell me that one of the real considerations in every Federal agency when men get together to plan something that isn't quite according to Hoyle is: "What if Jack Anderson finds out about this?" Not long ago, we exposed the case of Congressman Collins from Texas, who was taking kickbacks from his staff. He put people on his payroll in exchange for some of their salary. That is a violation of Federal law. Collins was a new guy and must have forgotten what we'd done some years ago. We exposed this kind of kickback by three or four Congressmen, and right after we did, I ran into Congressman Charley Halleck in the corridors and he said, "Jack, I know at least 20 Congressmen who were taking kickbacks. I'll tell you, they aren't taking kickbacks today." Obviously, we didn't completely eradicate the practice, but we sure stopped a lot of people from doing it.

[Q] Playboy: Your critics argue that you don't limit yourself to this kind of serious corruption, that much of what you write is merely a gratuitous invasion of someone's privacy in minor personal matters.

[A] Anderson: It's true that I sometimes catch minor bureaucrats in a minor offense, and I print it. Their names don't usually make news and their offenses are likely to be minor. That's the only kind of offense they've got the power to bring off. But I think they should be nervous. I consider it an extremely healthy exercise for an anonymous Government official to squirm just a little bit. I've seen the powerful become so godlike in their insulation that they forget they're supposed to live by the same laws and rules as the rest of us. I'm not eager to invade anyone's privacy, but I do believe the press should be the hair shirt of the powerful. Too many bureaucrats in Washington have developed an elitist attitude. They are our servants and they want to become our masters. I just want to deflate them a little, remind them of their proper place, keep them on their toes. As a public service, I'll write occasional stories that don't have any significance except perhaps to bring them back to earth.

I've written about the halitosis of Senator Vance Hartke; I think it was a needle worth sticking into a man who takes himself so seriously. Then there's Senator Talmadge of Georgia, who splatters the walls of the Capitol with chewing tobacco as he walks down the halls. He doesn't look for spittoons. He just lets it fly wherever he happens to be, and so we get chewing tobacco all over the Capitol's ornate walls. The cleaning crews practically have to follow him around.

[Q] Playboy: How do you feel about exposing the sex lives or drinking habits of men in public office?

[A] Anderson: I see no reason for doing that unless these things affect their official performance. Recently, for example, I wrote about Arthur Watson, who was then our ambassador to France. He got on a plane drunk at ten in the morning. He was flying to Washington to get his instructions on some very delicate diplomatic negotiations with the People's Republic of China. On the way over, he let forth abusive torrents of language at the stewardesses, tried to stuff money down their blouses, and finally he passed out, foaming at the mouth because he was mixing booze and digestive pills.

On another occasion, Watson got drunk on a flight and tried to recruit the stewardess as a mistress for his teenaged son, and when she declined the honor, he began pelting her with grapes from a fruit basket. This kind of performance from a man who is supposed to negotiate with the Chinese becomes a story, in my opinion. I spent a year and a half in China, and one of the greatest sins is public drunkenness. You are dishonored for that, and to have a drunken bum negotiating high-level matters there is something to be concerned about. I also made a thorough investigation of J. Edgar Hoover's trash once, which was generally misunderstood. Many people thought that was bad taste. They couldn't imagine why I'd do a thing like that.

[Q] Playboy: Why did you?

[A] Anderson: Because I felt he had acquired almost divine status in Washington. I thought it was essential to strip him of his divinity, make him a human being. Everyone in Washington was terrified of him and his power. The "responsible" press wouldn't lay a glove on him. Government officials would say in hushed tones that it was terrible what he was doing. But they were afraid to criticize him out loud. That is intolerable in a democracy. We can't be afraid of our public officials. So I told my staff at a meeting in 1970, "Let's investigate Hoover. He's been investigating everybody else for 45 years, so let's imitate his methods as nearly as we can."

When I went through his trash, I was burlesquing the way his FBI agents went through the trash of their subjects, and we found empty Gelusil cartons and other evidence that led us to weightily conclude that he was suffering from gas pains. We found that he had five bulletproof limousines around the country and that he always crouched down in one corner and put his hat up in another. We found that he wouldn't get out of his car in front of his house if there were any long-hairs around. Well, this is hardly the picture of a scary individual; this is the picture of a scared old man. The closer you looked at Hoover, the less formidable he became and, sure enough, a year later, Hale Boggs and a lot of journalists who had told me they doubted my ability to survive an attack on Hoover were out there attacking him themselves.

By then, Hoover had become the greatest threat to democracy in our time. He would surely rotate in his grave if he heard me say that, but he was responsible for giving the FBI a political ideology. That's one of the most pressing reforms we have to make--getting the FBI out of politics and back into investigating crime. It's a literal fact that Hoover had more FBI resources devoted to investigating Jane Fonda than any Mafia chieftain. Conservatives thought Hoover was wonderful, but what if McGovern became President and appointed Ramsey Clark to run the FBI? What if Clark, following Hoover's precedent, decided to investigate the undesirable ideology of conservatives and stuck his agents onto John Wayne? I would suggest that John Wayne is no more suspicious than Jane Fonda, and the FBI has no business investigating either of them.

The Hoover investigation I conducted, by the way, was followed by another one that I took even more personally. During the I. T. T. affair and the India-Pakistan affair, Robert Mardian, the head of the Internal Security Division of the Justice Department, launched an investigation of me. I told my reporters: "Well, if Mardian wants to investigate me, let's investigate him, and don't be too careful about who you let know about it." My source in his office told me he was climbing the walls, saying, "Now he's after me! Now he's after me! What do I do?" I liked that. Mardian enjoyed wielding the power of the United States, and all of a sudden, we turned on him. He didn't think that was fair. Well, a newspaperman has far more right to investigate a Government official than the official has to investigate a newspaperman, and Mardian damn well better be clean. We're not going to manufacture anything, but any Government official who decides he's going to investigate me had better not have anything shady in his past, because he's going to get investigated right back.

[Q] Playboy: You sound confident that you don't have any skeletons rattling around in your own closet.

[A] Anderson: I feel that as a public figure, and as one who exposes others for their misbehavior, I have to conduct myself in the same way I expect them to. I think I'd lose credibility for denouncing a Senator for something that I myself did, even though I don't draw my salary from the taxpayers. So my life isn't in a closet. I try to operate it in a goldfish bowl, because I expect Senators and Government officials to do the same. A reporter from The New York Times Sunday Magazine did a piece on me not long ago and I threw open my tax returns to her for the last 25 years. I didn't like doing that. I'd like to have kept a few financial secrets.

[Q] Playboy: Like what?

[A] Anderson: Like the fact that I took a fee once from the National Enquirer, the scandal sheet. I'm not proud of that. I did so because the owners of the Equirer also owned the syndicate that Drew Pearson and I were writing for. They were personal friends and they asked me to turn over some information to the Enquirer. I submitted the information and got paid very well for it. If I had to do it now, I wouldn't, but I did, and it's in my tax return. I could have hidden that from The New York Times, but my business dealings are wide open to the press if it wants to inspect them. But don't get me wrong. I don't take a holier-than-thou attitude toward myself. I simply try to abide by the standards I expect our public officials to abide by. There's nothing really pious about that, though it probably comes out sounding that way. I don't want to leave the impression that I'm austere or rigid or some kind of pilgrim. I'm none of those things.

[Q] Playboy: You do have a reputation, though, for being a strait-laced Mormon who neither smokes nor drinks. Doesn't that, perhaps, make you intolerant of the peccadilloes of people who don't have religious prohibitions against those things?

[A] Anderson: I don't think so. I don't look down on people who drink, as long as it doesn't affect the performance of their jobs. But I was brought up in an orthodox Mormon home; I follow the church's teachings completely, and I must admit to a little disappointment in people who consider themselves practicing Mormons, yet drink. Clearly, the church has had a strong influence on my views, but I don't consider myself intolerant at all.

[Q] Playboy: Has the Mormon church influenced your political philosophy?

[A] Anderson: Mormons look upon the struggle between good and evil as a struggle also between freedom and force, and the church looks upon the Constitution of the United States as a divine document because it's a charter of freedom. It sets forth the right of man to determine his own faith, his own life. My Mormon background has made me an intense believer in freedom and in individualism. The bigness of business, labor and Governmental institutions in this complex society exerts a tremendous pressure upon all of us to conform, and I grate against that. I encourage people to stand up and speak out against this massive machinery. Mormons tend to be self-reliant, in favor of standing up against the pressures to conform, against Big Government. That helps account for my philosophy.

[Q] Playboy: Yet your political views are distinctly liberal. You spoke earlier, for instance, of the Federal Government's responsibility to the nation's poor people. How do you reconcile your espousal of self-reliance with your call for a larger Government role in social programs?

[A] Anderson: There's such massive hunger in the U.S. and the world that the Federal Government is the only institution in the world large enough and rich enough to end it. We have problems that can't be solved at the family level, the local level or the church level. How can you say to the kids in the ghettos: "Call on your family and have them take care of you"? Because their families don't have and can't possibly earn the resources to take care of them. In those instances, I think the Government should give them not a handout but a hand up.

I don't have any perfect answer to these problems, but I believe the Federal Government is less corrupt than most local governments. The great corporations are much more likely to dominate a state legislature or a governor's office than the Federal legislature or the White House. So I think the way to curb corporate excesses and union excesses is with the full power of the Federal Government. Big business and big labor are getting too big for local governments to handle. Unfortunately, it takes Big Government to cope with these other big institutions, and dealing with Big Government can be like dealing with a Frankenstein monster. You have to watch it very closely or it'll stumble right over you.

[Q] Playboy: After 25 years of investigating the Government, exposing its minor flaws and its major corruptions, are you discouraged about the prospects for reforming and improving the system?

[A] Anderson: Who isn't at times? But I'm not in this to be a chronicler of America's downfall. I want to be the chronicler of a bright new future. Despite all the bulldozers and back--scratchers, scoundrels and cheats who infiltrate the Government, and despite the businessmen and labor leaders who try to subvert the system with their lobbyists and campaign contributions, I think we've got the best-governed country in the world. That's not to say we're well governed. We're badly governed, but not as badly as any other country I've ever studied. We still have a lot of freedoms and opportunities for reform. Ralph Nader has proved that the consumer can win; the individual can influence the institutions. Nader hasn't won every battle with the nation's corporations, but he's beginning to get a better break for the average citizen. Gradually, members of Congress are beginning to comply with a code of ethics that was previously not required of them.

I'm not one of those who believe that the young are hopeless drug abusers who no longer care about the nation's future. In many ways, they are brighter, more alert and more responsible than the older generation. In fact, much of our best leadership is coming from the young, from people like Ralph Nader. Like them, I don't plan to stop raising hell with what's wrong. That's my function. I don't think I can change the whole country, but I can sure inform the American people about the wrongdoing and hypocrisy in the dark places of Government. I can encourage them to do something to correct the wrongs in our society. I think that role is a vital one. I admit it's easier than being President, but he's got his job and I've got mine. I plan to sit right there in the grandstands, yelling, "Throw the bum out!" until all our public officials become incorruptible. Then I'll be out of business, and I'd like that a lot.