Conversation 702-002

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in my view, was, uh, Rosio.

It's too bad that his party was so small.

But if Rosio, Rosio was the kind of a man Italy needed in the 60s, and, uh, but he was, you know, the Secretary General, but if he could have gone back, but they never had that strong power figures.

Don't you think he would have done it then?

Well, they don't have any party, really, that is strong enough to govern.

or any personality that .

The other one I think could have run the thing.

Of course, if he had had the power of a surrogate, he was a strong man.

But, you know, the French president, the Italian president has called.

Yes, he's not much forward, not hard, not hard.

A little more of an influence.

He talks to everybody.

But Sargent was a strong man, a good man, a good man.

But, well, maybe you can go down there.

Seriously, I don't know.

I don't know.

Seriously, I don't know.

I'm not sure.

I know him well.

Well, I suppose the question is whether, at this point, take another language.

Nobody trusts him.

Nobody trusts him?

Not at this point.

That's what we hear from the Italians.

Yes, I said because I read these things, because I don't know enough of which Italian police, and I have to learn the language.

I know some Italian, but very little.

So at the time I was a siesta, I tried to brush up my Italian.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, you're a... Yeah.

I was thinking about your residence.

Oh, that's a wonderful place, Mr. President.

It's called Palazzo Farnese.

It was Pope's residence at the Renaissance time.

It was built by Michelangelo.

One of the things about it...

It's a beautiful place.

That's what you forget about my wife.

Yes, yes.

This is twice or three times as large as I remember seeing this.

But anyway.

Charles has been a good friend of the United States.

Yeah, well I want you to know that we are aware of that.

We are aware that through the crises we've had, we've been abused.

I've been here before, of course.

But that you haven't.

We're very grateful for that.

We're grateful for your friendship.

And I'm also very glad that after the period that I was here, we got the French-American relationship reestablished on a proper basis.

We did it really by grasping it early, you know, that it's a visit from President de Gaulle that he came and turned the thing around.

And also the opportunity of a very good relationship.

I'm sure he will be going back in time.

Yes, let's see.

My very best wishes.

I'm very close.

As you know, we have very close contact with him.

Well, yes.

And he's been extremely helpful to us on our diplomatic ventures and other matters as well.

And we appreciate that.

And we think it's very important to continue to

But it changed completely when you sued De Gaulle.

It was a complete change.

Remember at the airport, I'll never forget, he said, I accept, I will go.

And everybody was so thrilled about the possibility of his visit to this country.

And then came, of course, his election, which was the right thing for him.

Very clever and very much a sense of destiny.

And then he knew he probably was dead.

And that was all.

I remember flying from Florida over to the General.

A great moment there was one that I, that many will not forget because there was so much shuffling around and so forth, but it was, we were leaving the cathedral, and I was leaving, and of course we were milking and pushing and everything, and walking down, a great organ struck up in the March of May.

It was a great feeling, you know.

The French people have been deeply moved by the President when he went to Paris for this occasion.

I must say, if I dare to say so, they have great admiration for the foreign policy.

Which is your trade to China as well, you see.

But we'll charge very much of it.

Well, no, we have now, we have another problem with Vietnam.

We will act accordingly, very strongly.

Yes.

And I think we will slip through.

And then comes the Russian trip, which will also be important.

This whole period is one where great opportunities must be seized because we allow things to drift.

The time will pass in which we can do anything about the course of world events.

I know the Secretary of State is going to .

We want to be sure that prior to the Russian trip, that the major European, we can't see them all.

I, of course, have seen them in January, December, January.

He will go, I guess, to the major capitals, the four major capitals.

Henry, as you know, is going to Japan.

He may be taking some other trips, too.

We never know.

I never know where he is.

I can't keep track of it.

I never know he's there.

Be sure he gets some good telephone numbers before I go wrong.

I hope, by the way, when you come to Rome, if it's not too secret, you will let me know.

Unfortunately, there's never anything political going on in Rome.

I'd like to go see the Pope.

Yes, I'd like to go.

Yes.

Well, I tell you one thing.

We are all working in the same cause.

Yes.

I think I was reading last night some of the accounts of the poor Orgo and the terrible, terrible sacrifices

made by the French and the Germans.

That's right.

And for nothing.

I mean, there was no real issue in 1914.

There was no issue.

Well, Frank wanted us to...

Yes, he wanted us to do it.

He wanted us to do it.

He wanted us to do

Let's think a little country, you know, nice people, but, you know, here they are, and somebody, some crazy fellow shoots the Archduke, and then... Well, actually, after the assassination of the Archduke, everybody went on vacation.

The French president went on a ship to St. Petersburg.

Yes, one government was in St. Petersburg.

One government went to St. Petersburg, the German emperor went to Norway, and to the Fjords.

The German chief of the general staff went to Karlsbad.

In other words, there were no leaders available until July 20th.

The only ones whose leaders were available were the Austrians, unfortunately.

They used it to give an ultimatum to Serbia.

It was a fatality.

Well, we will, as a matter of fact, Henry, you will be able to, when you do get over, I make a decision.

But if we do, you can be sure to remember you're there.

And I would appreciate your keeping in close touch, if you would, with our ambassador.

Yes, sir.

I don't know any person in the person who will be my...

He's a very intelligent fellow.

Not a very great social fellow, but he's very intelligent, knows things.

And I think that you...

Because we all have an interest in a strong village.

I mean, we really have, keeping that country from...

I mean, they're such fine people, but just that lack of leadership is what they need.

And there might be a coup there if this chaos continues.

Either the right or the left.

Let's hope the guy is the right.

Yes, I have a man called Almirante.

He was the former minister of Mississippi.

I want to give you, bring on one of those little ashtrays.

This is just a treatment for this.

We have little loss of the little ashtrays of the presidential sealant that you put in your drawing.

But we, this is the

We are very proud to have known you over these years.

We will meet again.

This is what it is.

See, it's a little, it's just not, it's very interesting.

See, that's the President's seal, which is their signature.

Oh, you got it done.

Oh, wait a minute.

We'll send you the picture, too.

We'll send a picture to the ambassador.

On the way back.

Well, their only place is Tehran.

And beyond that, not in Europe.

Probably not in Europe.

Because Rogers will see it will be a tornado.

Yes, of course it will be a tornado.

I can't get involved with that.

That's our only plan present there.

Of course, there are all sorts of invitations out there.

We won't even know where it's going to go.

Thank you.

And our best wishes to you.

Uh, well, I will, uh, see if I can get this out of your head.

Just a second, Mr. Maxwell.

This is Mason, Mr. Maxwell.

He's here to see you.

We're waiting on issues.

Wait a minute.

Yes, how are you?

Good, how are you?

How have you been?

Good, how are you?

Are you living in Mississauga?

Yes, I'm still living in Mississauga.

Yeah, yeah.

And I remember the last time I saw you, you were at least on the left from some of the streets in New York.

Yes, yes.

And about 61 was the front of it there.

That was just before you started your campaign.

Yeah, around 67, I think.

87 or 68.

Well, I wanted to say that I had just...

I don't know how many times...

I'd like somebody, would you like some coffee, tea, Coca-Cola?

Coffee would be nice.

Yeah, fine, coffee.

I'll just invite somebody.

Not for the purpose of interviewing, that sort of thing.

You can't, obviously you wouldn't catch that anyway.

But I've been very interested in rereading

which I sent around to some of the staff, because I thought it was quite relevant to some of our modern problems.

But the, which was your second little audit, you know, I say little, but very, you know, certainly my program, the Conservatives.

And I, I wondered how relevant you think it is

I realized how, even though that was, well, it was in the early years of the Eisenhower regime, after the period was over, the recession on the large came before and first, but it was by a very narrow margin.

But you were able to see there some of the problems that were coming up.

But I'd like to hear Tommy just kind of talk on the top of your head, if you will, as to how you see .

Mr. Kirk is a very rare person.

Very rare.

He is a newspaper man, but conservative.

Can you believe it?

I just said it.

I said, listen, I believe it.

But I think perhaps of all the things that I've read the

Your analysis of the modern American education, particularly college education, the critique is the most devastating.

The trend away from excellence.

I suppose that you

We, as I, in this connection, there isn't anybody that has any answers.

I was getting this busting message out and I had to put in something under compensatory education and I have to show this to Richard and the rest of us because of their work.

And that's what we can't prove.

And I said, well, I don't think it will.

I said, I don't think, I'm not sure that it will.

They said, the only problem is we're not sure.

We're sure what we have won't, so we've got to try.

But talk a little about the education and what you, are you a little more hopeful now?

Is there any good happening in the educational front these days?

The college, the campus accrues some, but is that just a temporary?

Let me start it off by saying my daughter is married to a Harvard Law school student.

She makes an interesting observation that the Students for a Democratic Society had a convention here last weekend.

She said they had come full circle.

It was on racism.

And that's where they all came in in 1963 and 64.

And then they went through the war and all that business.

And then the environment.

Now it's racism again.

You know, this kid and the other.

But go ahead.

Give me some of your feelings.

Well, Jeff, let's go keep breaking in.

Sanguine by temperament, I suppose, although customary to that principle.

But in the, in education, and I thought it was the chief, the chair of the Sanguine Church, but the chief cause of chervilness is the, there are a great many people now concerned about it.

And one of the studies we had 20 years ago, that they didn't know something was wrong.

And the beginning to think in terms of something other than quantity, if we all love terms of quantity, until very recently, we've seen that all it means is more money, more books, more money in the balance.

So, of course, the more quantity there was, the worse things got in terms of quality.

So, in terms of paid quality, quantity automatically would solve the question.

So, I find this a response to the columns of my writing of education.

I doubt it's of very large interest in the

In vocational, graduate education, the question might go in a rather unhealthy way.

That interest might simply be inclined equal toward the virtual abolition of liberal education and the substitution of .

In one sense it's needed.

It doesn't make any sense to take .

who are black, who are white, et cetera, et cetera, people of modest mental capabilities, and tell them, one, you should be sitting behind the desk.

And also, it just makes sense to not at least give them the training to make some reasonable contribution to society, and also so that they can be reasonably happy in whatever they do.

I've often said some of the, and I said, you know,

I want somebody that can change tires, because I used to change tires when I was working in service stations.

I can't do it now, but I'm very happy.

I'm always going to need a good tire changer or a plumber or a fellow that can fix the car or a fellow that can repair the damn television or something of that sort.

You know, these things are all important.

We must, of course, allow education to become so pragmatic and oriented toward the material that loses its

It could do that, but I don't.

I think the problem we have at the present time is the establishment.

When I look at the NEA, when I see these squads come in here, and I hear them, and I talk to the public education, it's a frightening thing.

Yeah, well, they talk about it.

More money.

They never talk about how.

They never talk about what they're going to change.

They never talk about how they're going to improve this or that or the other thing.

They just want more dough, and none of it.

There is the misconception, doesn't it?

This year, I've been invited to speak at two different state conventions of elementary school principals.

And these people are... School principals.

They tend to be more sensible.

They realize that you need some kind of ethical instruction on campus.

This is the first time I've seen in my life, in all the writing about education, they've invited me.

And they ask me to look for alternatives to what they get from the ADA.

some side note there.

But again, what can be done in the way of occasional training?

That's what really has to be done, mostly outside of the school, or something inside of it.

Those students who want to get out, and ones who are about to be allowed to get out, it's part-time, in apprenticeship programs.

That's where it comes, and it operates at another level, at college, too.

Many are in college,

We need to want some kind of training, but there's not a particular training in college, or at least not a full-time college.

You need to have at least time in college to get some kind of apprenticeship or in-service training program.

But of course, there are all the artificial obstacles in the way.

There's the regulations, and of course,

post-retendance laws in the present form, and all that sort of thing, and the need to release time from school.

What we have now is a special account, there's a great mass of young people who were there.

I haven't finished reading some of them.

I'll write it there, except that's not the thing to do.

They had no leader.

It'll actually work on vocational, technical, and college.

Therefore, they're out on the board.

Therefore, they'll follow anybody.

Any company that comes out over here says they're ready for the board.

That's what it all amounts to.

The ideology is superficial.

They'll follow anybody.

They don't get anything in the classroom.

They get nothing from the spires and so forth.

So they've got to find something to go out and do to make it all relevant.

The only way to be relevant is to go out and burn a bank, right?

That's relevant.

Or go to a march in the White House or something for $6,500 to, I don't know, 30,000 or $4,000 or something like that.

I used to be a consultant, first of all.

For the time being, I was really troubled by the virtual abolition of the draft.

That was the only real practical agreement that they had.

They were really very excited to move up in the NFL.

Boy, that was what they talked about.

It was a personal concern.

A personal sense of guilt, perhaps, of the draft.

And we all understand that.

Some of them were too, but there's been a great number of people who have been critical of that.

My point is that, who wants to go and shout at me, my point is that when only a few go, they don't want it to be one of that few that say, what about these other people who are studying here?

And I, we all understand that.

But you're, you feel there are some glimmers of hope in education then.

What about higher education?

What about the colleges and universities and the rest of it?

What concerns me there are not the

not the old blind profs in the rest, and not those in the hard sciences, although some of the most miserable types of people are some of the physicists in the rest who are opposed to doing what is necessary to maintain adequate defense in the rest.

In other words, when they get out of their field, they are totally without morals, principle, or anything else.

But what really concerns me the most are the associate professors and the assistants in the rest.

Kissinger often speaks about them.

in very brutal terms.

It's a greed, probably, that went into him.

And came out of a certain generation, from the 50s and so forth.