Asia Society presents; 44

President this is a series of interviews with experts on Asian affairs designed to strengthen our understanding of Asian people and ideas. Your most on this transcribed series is the noted author and award winning broadcaster Lee Graham. Here now is Mrs. Graham. As you know the Asia Society is dedicated to the idea that Americans and Asians must understand one another better and that we put the burden of that upon ourselves. Since Asians make up almost two thirds of the human race I don't think we can possibly be too aware of these fascinating complex artistic and attractive people. And so when we have as our guest on this edition of The Age of society presents a new president I feel especially pleased and I know that you will to hear what he is like. But you'll soon be able to tell and hear what some of his ideas are about how we in America can become more aware of Asia. He is Phillips Talbot. Mr. Talbot was a former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs United States

of course and United States ambassador to Greece. And since January of 1970 he had been the new president of the Asia Society. And Mr. Talbot a man of your competence and excellence I think John Gardner would use that word could do many things at this point you SOB if he wanted to. Are you accepting the presidency of the side it must have meant. Do you think this is the most important thing that you could possibly do. It seemed rather simple and straightforward to me earlier in my life I had lived nearly 10 years in different parts of Asia and coming. Now I have a very strong sense that in the 1970s will become increasingly important to the United States. It's where the action is. There is going to be in many respects and I mean to get back into the Asian affairs now fairly fully when as I read in your biography which is what I think what you've done now you have about 30 years of experience in Asian affairs. What are some of the things you did

in the past. When I started out as a student on a fellowship in India in 1939 and I lived in a village and I lived in an ashram and I studied at a university there and then during the war I was a naval officer in Bombay for a couple of years and then in Chongqing and afterwards I was a correspondent in Asia for the Chicago Daily News and I covered the the Indian and Pakistani independence and partition at that time. Then to go ahead with a record in the 1950s I was one of the organizers and the director of a university based foreign service the American University's field staff before going into government in 1961. You are a physician assistant secretary of state for Asian Affairs. The exact title anybody included. What did that bring you or into what kind of situations did that bring you. That was near Eastern and South Asian affairs. The State Department.

Divides the world into five parts. This particular part with which I was dealing extends from Ceylon and India and Pakistan and netball westward as far as Israel and the Arab countries and Turkey and Cyprus and Greece. So it was that part of the world with which I was dealing in terms of our national relations with the 18 countries and hundreds of millions of people in that region. Is that still used in the same manner Near Eastern and South Asian affairs. We like to think that they are miles apart and cultures apart. Well it's still used that way. There is no tidy way in which the world can be divided. The area that I was dealing with as assistant secretary of state did not include Southeast Asia or East Asia. I had previously is a newspaper correspondent and visitor been in a

number of those countries. But really when I went around just a year ago and saw about 14 countries of Asia a number of them were places I hadn't seen for 10 years. Since I've become associated very proudly now as they were the Asia Society I have an increased awareness of Asia and maybe the members do and some people who are in the press do. But on the whole and growing American awareness of Asia except to be worried about the Vietnam law. Oh I think there is. And I think it's remarkable. Having been off in government for most of the 1960s I'm just recently coming back to look at American awareness of Asia. I would be quite astonished at the way in which universities have increased and broadened their programs for example. The association of Asian Studies which is the professional association used to have literally a handful of

members now it has thousands of members. I think any good college now has courses on Asian affairs as good as the best universities and only a few of those might have had 15 or 20 years ago. I think our business firms and our banks are much more interested and they have reason to be because many of these Asian countries are now growing sufficiently vigorous only in economic terms as so that they become better prospective partners for American businesses than they were in the late 40s and 50s. Now I I find. Interesting American views about Asia now. Many people of course being so deeply disturbed by the Vietnam war seem to me to think that perhaps we should withdraw from involvement with Asia. But I'm struck with a number of people and in many different fields

who do recognize as you were saying that Asia has the large majority of the people of the world and that after Vietnam we will still have reasons in fact we'll have stronger reasons to be sure that we understand how to deal with them so that we can deal with them effectively. Would you say that it takes a special kind of investment not just to have well in an Asian country must be different to a large degree from an ambassador who would serve in the western world won't after all in which he feels more at home. Oh I don't know. In a sense Americans who visit Asia are ambassadors regardless of whether or not they have any official position. And I think for any American in Asia it is so important to use the ears and to use the eyes more actively than using the tongue. We have

many things that we're not familiar with that we need to understand as we deal with Asians. They have some unfamiliarity with our way of life too. But I I do think that because Americans moving into Asia are moving outside their own traditional culture a higher degree of perception of sensitivity of awareness is needed than is the case when we just go across to one or another of the countries from which most of our people came originally. So this may not be true of you Mr. Talbot nae doubt it but perhaps you don't mind this question anyway. Did you feel that you now if you look back if you had certain misconceptions about AIDS yet which were cured once you spent some time in those countries now. I'm sure not only that I had misconceptions but that I still have in the same way that one doesn't always feel he knows our country well in

terms of the immediacy of events and forces and trends. So even people who spend years trying to understand some aspects of Asia and perhaps particular to those people who spend years are acutely conscious of how little they know. Nonetheless communications bridges can be built and that seems to me that Americans do understand this and that more Americans are working at it not just to understand Japanese or Indians or Indonesians better but also because of this very lively awareness now of that. We do live in a global village but that what happens around the world and does affect does that in terms of environment in terms of ecology in terms of the envelope around this globe in which we all live. We cannot separate

ourselves from what is going on in Asia and therefore we had best relate ourselves construct of late rather than destructively. I like that phrase very much global village that on future occasions you certainly may and I do not read it. If you want to read a Mr McLuhan I see. All right. Our role in it will be one of diminishing military representation and perhaps diminishing economic aid. What will we be doing in Asia in the future. I think it's perfectly fair to say that over these last couple of decades a very heavy proportion of our total American presence in Asia has been governmental and I suspect that during the 1970s this will be a decreasing proportion. It seems to me therefore that it's even more important than it has been for private organizations Americans who are concerned outside of

official governmental channels. Relate to Asia do involve themselves in activities that link them with age. And I have no doubt at all that both in the business and economic fields and also if you will in the cultural and the academic and the intellectual fields relatively speaking are private Americans through their private organizations will have a larger part of the total relationship in the 1970s than they've had in the last couple of decades. So the official governmental role will be less. And the private sector role will be large and relatively speaking. I'm not suggesting that there will be private sector replacement of aid at the levels that was given officially but relatively speaking perhaps some in some cases augmenting it or expanding it or even playing a different part. But you see that the private sector playing a larger role relatively speaking a larger role and a somewhat different role.

It won't be that there are so many American soldiers in Asia but it may well be that there be a greater can sense of American concern about Asia through scholars students through visitors. I suspect for example that our tourism to Asia will be increasing very substantially as we get these larger airplanes and as we get more hotels out there. I think many points of contact are being opened up and will be opened up in the coming years and that a larger percentage of these will be non-governmental. We hear that there are many Asian countries who are distressed and depressed by the fact that America might pull out too soon or might pull out altogether and see if they become so dependent upon. Maybe not our philosophy but certainly upon our economic health. Was that the impression you got last time you were in Asia.

Or there are security anxieties and there are economic anxieties. And I think. It's not always easy for us to realize what a great economic distance there is between our standards and the standards that some Asian peoples have achieved. I would think that an average person in India or Pakistan for example earns as much in a year now as an average American earns in a week. Well now that's a tremendous gap. At the same time there are highly intelligent Indians and Pakistanis. There are highly acute and able business men in India and Pakistan and there are there ways in which these links can be built up. I think it's to our own interest very much to our own interest that they should be built up. And I suppose economic development is something which is necessary I would love if we could live without it. And some countries need it more than others. We know that's true. So

what would you say has been a deterrent in some countries perhaps more than others in this respect. Is it a question of climate. This is a question of superstition and tradition. What has held some countries back more than others. These are big questions of yours. There are matters of population pressure matters of limited resources matters of traditionally a lower level of education and various kinds of social restraints and difficulties. I would say that. 20 years ago and indeed through the 1950s many observers of the Asian scene felt that it would be a long long time before there were breakthroughs even partially. The thing that struck me last year revisiting so many of these countries and Asia was that a number of the problems which seemed the

most adamant and difficult of solution in the 1950s are yielding now disillusioned rather more rapidly than some of us had anticipated for example the agricultural revolution is rapidly changing the whole food picture in one country after another. It should be how does that come about through mechanization of agricultural methods through the through the scientific breakthroughs that have occurred in corn and in wheat and in rice cultivation really really quite an extraordinary degree of increased yields has become possible through cross breeding and new strains developed originally in Mexico for corn. And then at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines for rice. This is an extraordinary change but I was struck also in these travels with the way in which businesses of various sorts

have evolved in a number of countries and suddenly they're producing more. They're exporting more. Their general economic level is moving more rapidly than in many countries outside of Asia. One thinks of several But just to mention Korea Taiwan Singapore is a remarkably vigorous city at the present time and there are many more one could mention would you say recently that it's sensitivity that Asian nations have had in the past is declining. They know now that their nations they know they have their independence they don't have to worry about colonial masters and now they're going to concentrate on something else that they're going to look for cooperation and they won't approach this with the hostility and sensitivity of the past. Is that a trend. Well one can overgeneralize of course on any of these questions. I remember in the late 1940s and early 50s as I travel through this part of the world that the the Bright Young People of one

country after another were particularly preoccupied with getting political independence and then once they've gotten it whether it was a real or whether they were still under a neo colonialism of some kind I must say I'm traveling now I found much less of this. On the contrary I found really well educated young people middle aged people people to carrying heavy responsibilities in Asia thinking not so much about whether other people other countries were pressing down on them or whether the ex colonial European countries were pushing at them but thinking. About their own national problems about what to do how to proceed with them. I founded a vigorous and healthy by a large and really very stimulating as a visitor to talk with these bright and articulate people in one country after another and hear their versions of their problems and their opportunities and what they hope to do.

Yes I think they are maturing in in a number of countries and that this is an impressive trend that has occurred over the past decade or decade and a half. It's like any child that is grown up and finally finds that he's 21 that he can vote and he takes it for granted doesn't have to prove his grown up ness any longer. So I guess that will be free I think to free these Asian countries wanted from a lot of emotional strain and worry about the past for them to do something more constructive than ever want it. I think it will free up a lot of their people to do something more constructive. Of course in an Asian country as in our own country one can see a great many different trends at the same time. And some of them are cross trends moving and different or even opposite directions. So I'm not suggesting for a moment that suddenly the whole of Asia has become completely modernized and that they're no longer any drags from the past. There are but at the same time there is

this vitality. The sense of moving forward visible in one country after another that impressed me greatly as I traveled through them. Well since some Asian countries have a very unfortunate climate problem. Has that been tackled in any way is a much more air conditioning for example in Asian countries that people don't have to suffer in this torrid humid climate. Oh of course the big cities have air conditioning. That is available to those who can afford cars I think yet. But you can still in Calcutta for example go to that a theater which consists of seats and the bare earth. And you sit in that hottest most humid climate imaginable and see some really quite lively drama going on without anybody in the audience apparently thinking about air conditioning a top.

Yes you often wonder though how much this holds people back from their industrial output you know how much you know sit back just an every day job is to get up and go in that heat and do what you have to do when you come home. It would be so nice if they're more air conditioned factories or places for people to work. Certainly the climate is a factor but those who felt that it would completely impede the modernization of some of the Southeast Asian countries or South Asian countries I think are now revising their earlier estimates. Which countries Mr. Talbot did you visit on your last trip. Would you say it was about a year ago. Oh 14 of them in Asia starting in Afghanistan and going through India and Pakistan Nepal and Ceylon and then down through Southeast Asia through most of the countries there and then on up through Hong Kong and Taiwan and Korea and Japan. Would you say you have a good memory. Would you say that there is a difference in attitude on the part of Asians towards Europeans different from how they feel towards

Americans. Are they closer. Is there a better bond between those two worlds than the American and the Asian will. Well first let me say something that I should have said immediately which is perhaps one of the most forceful impressions one has got in Asia in the past and still gets is the diversity. Writers have said there is no Asia in a very real sense to talk of Asia as if it were an entity. It is a mistake because people do differ so very much. I think that in a number of countries one would find attitudes mixed about Americans and mixed about Europeans that now much more than before a people distinguish between Americans and Europeans for example in India. In the earlier years when I was there anybody who was from the West was

called a European. Now a number of Indians we will talk about Americans as distinct from Europeans. I think the fact that the United States has been so active on the international scene and been so deeply involved has greatly strengthened direct impressions about the United States in most Asian countries. I'd like to make a suggestion although nobody asked me. My suggestion would be that more people to join the society I think that a very good springboard towards American awareness of Asia. I could not disagree with that. And anyone interested it goes. Just write to me and I'll explain to you how that can be accomplished. I thank you very much Mr. Talbot and I congratulate the society on having you for its president. Our guest of the new president of the Asia Society is Phillips Talbot. It is as a former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs and former United States ambassador to Greece. Thank you and goodbye. That concludes tonight's edition of the Asia Society presents with Lee Graham.

The series comes to you through the cooperation of the Asia Society. If you would like to comment on tonight's program or would like further information about the society and how you can participate in its many interesting activities please write to Mrs. Graham at WNYC New York City 100 0 7 and make a note to join us again next week at this time for another edition of the Asia Society presents. This is the national educational radio network.