The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; "Interview with Andrew Young, U.N. ambassador"

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Tonight we take an extended look at the views of the man in the Carter administration who has attracted almost as much attention worldwide as the President himself: his U.N. Ambassador: Andrew Young., Since his appointment the forty-five7yearold Atlanta preacher, civil rights leader and former Congressman has. traveled in the eye of a publicity storm, most of it stirred up by his controversial statements. The latest flap grew out of Mr. Young`s use of the word "racist.`` Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, the Ambassador has used that term in connection with the Russians, the British, the Swedes and the people of Queens, New York. But the freshest use -- and thus the freshest flap -- is over what he said in an interview with Playboy Magazine. In discussing how racism influences foreign policy he said Presidents Nixon and Ford "did not face` racism in their lives and tended to rule it out. Nixon and Ford did not face it because they were in fact racists." Then he added, "They were racists not in the aggressive sense but in that, they had no understanding of the problems of colored peoples anywhere... There`s a sense in which every American, black or white, is afflicted by racism. You cannot grow up in the United States. of America in the twentieth century and not be tainted by it."

MacNEIL: In all the to-ing and fro-ing of the past week and this flap that we`ve talked about, you`ve said that you were taken out of context in describing racism. Would you tell us fully what you mean, by racism in the context you mean?

ANDREW,YOUNG: I think you did something that the press has very seldom done: you read the whole quote. I think it`s- very clear what I meant. What was taken out of context was simply a headline that said, "Nixon, Ford called-racist". I think if we had gone on a little further in that article I would have -- I did explain that I was not trying to make any moral judgments about the character of either gentleman, but merely to suggest that in our world there are cultural differences and we tend to be much more comfortable with people who are just like ourselves; and when we`re insecure about ourselves we tend not to face up or appreciate the value of people who are different from ourselves.

Now, in a sense :..I call it "ethnocentrism." That`s a little too academic, though, to make sense, but on an intellectual show like this..

MacNEIL: It`s what a friend of mine used to call an out-of-town word.

YOUNG: Yeah. On an intellectual show like this I ought to be able to get by with that. But people who are limited by their own cultural context and never. appreciate the Value and virtues of other cultural con texts that make up an entire world I think are responsible for many of the problems we face.

Now, let me go on and say that this wasn`t a conversation either in Playboy or the remarks about Sweden and Russia; this wasn`t a value judgment about people or races or nations. It was basically a discussion of foreign policy, and I .was saying that one of the missing ingredients, especially amongst liberals and intellectuals who come out of a background where we were taught that race did not exist and that we ought to forget about it, and we`re not prepared. to face, those differences.

And when we don`t face differences that are real we find ourselves victims of lots of problems that I think could be dangerous to this nation For instance, in one of the most important negotiations this country has been involved in relating to Common Fund, the debt crisis, the international economic issues, the majority of nations in that conference were colored peoples, all who had a heritage of colonialism, who felt as though they had been exploited by whites. The U.S. representatives there were complaining and were having difficulty making the American point of view known, and our representative from the White House began to say, "Well, do you know so- and-so from Jamaica, do you know so and so from Nigeria, do you know this one from Tanzania,. and what about the Indian ambassador?` He didn`t know the came of a single one of the key intellectual influence: from the third world. I say that that`s because of a limited cultural upbringing that didn`t allow him to feel comfortable with people who are different. Now, in a world like ours, where for the last 400 years people have been divided on the basis of race, not to consider race in foreign policy decisions is to court disaster.

MacNEIL: I guess what struck me personally as rather odd about your definition, or at least unusual, is that you were accusing Ford, Nixon, Kissinger, whoever, of a lack of sensitivity to racial differences, whereas I think the conventional definition of "racist" or "racism" is people who are overly sensitive to racial differences, who feel too acutely the difference of a person who`s with them with another colored skin.

YOUNG: I would not call them white supremacists...

MacNEI:L: Which, is the dictionary definition of racist.

YOUNG: Yeah; and we don`t have a term that`s somewhere between the harsh moral connotations that go along with racism and the .cold, academic term "ethnocentrism.."

MacNEIL: But the point you`re trying to make, is it that you want` people to be-more sensitive to racial cultural differences in their dealings with other parts of the world and not to, pretend that they`re all the same

YOUNG: Exactly. And to be sensitive to the history that creates tensions between people. You see, any time we isolate people,. any time we ignore people - well, there are probably no better people in the world than the Swedes in terms of reaching out to try to do good and to be idealistic about other peoples in the world. Next to them might come the Dutch. And yet, their. insensitivity politically to the tensions of the Moluccans has got them in difficulty or has created a difficulty. Now, I`m not trying to justify nor to judge, but only to say that we have constantly got to be sensitive to isolating other human beings within our society and. we`ve constantly got to be sensitive to various kinds of cultural-isolation in the world., because cultural isolation produces antagonism, antagonism leads to-hatred and fear and violence. And my job at the U.N. is to. avoid violence- and bloodshed. And I think in the `struggles that we`re facing in southern Africa, where-they are very obviously racial tensions, a key to avoiding violence and bloodshed is understanding the racial dynamics of the. situation. And that`s hardest for good people to do. It`s hardest for liberals to do who have been brought up not to think in racial terms,. And so there`s a clash there that I think I got caught in.

LEHRER: In the Playboy interview -- back to that for a moment,

Mr. Ambassador -- you seemed to exempt President Carter from that label, "racist," and yet he of course grew up in the twentieth century in the United States of America. Why is he different from all the rest of us?.

YOUNG: I think a little different, and I would exempt many Southerners because Southerners who from infancy have had to struggle with race have tended to overcome it better than people who have never realized that the problem exists. Now, I think for President Jimmy Carter to survive in Plains, Georgia, his life, his family; right on through to the minute he left Plains with the conflict in his church, his fifty-two years have been `a struggle with racism. And he`s come out on the right side. I think. that, not making any judgment, perhaps had President Ford been born in that environment a person of his decent kind of instincts would have also come out on the right side. But not having had to face that kind of problem in essentially a racially isolated-community in Michigan, he was not as prepared to deal with it as, say, a southern President. Lyndon Johnson, of course, I -think came out on the right side and worked against it. And one of the things that he said at the time of Martin Luther King`s assassination which was reported in Jet Magazine was a long explanation of how racism had infected and contaminated America`s domestic and foreign policy.

LEHRER: What you`re almost saying., then, Mr. Ambassador, is that you almost have to have a bad experience and kind of be born again in the area of racism, is that right, sir?

YOUNG: No, it doesn`t have to be a bad experience because I think that many people who grow up in a multicultural environment, where from childhood they are accustomed to live and work with people, who are different, can cope with problems of differences. The difficulty in the United States is that we still live essentially in racially isolated communities.

MacNEIL: That leads me to a point I was going to -ask you. When Jimmy Carter used the words "ethnic purity" during his campaign you were one of those who jumped on him, saying, "Well, I understand what he means, but the connotations of that word can be misunderstood by a lot of people or understood in a different way by a lot of people."` Don`t you agree that that is a buzz word, like racism, and your use of the word "racist" could be misunderstood as a buzz word and have caused all this furor?

YOUNG: Oh, I agree.

MacNEIL: Do you regret having, used it-for that reason?

YOUNG: No, I don`t. And the reason I don`t regret having used it, is, the only reason I think it became a big issue was that it is a problem for America. You know, I was scared to death of the Playboy inter view because I .was afraid people were going to drag me into a whole discussion of sex, and I didn`t want to get into the whole lust in my heart thing. And so I kind of deliberately deflected the interviewer to something that I thought was not controversial. (Laughing.) .

MacNEIL: Why didn`t you want to get into the lust in your heart thing?

YOUNG:. (Laughing.) I don`t know.

MacNEIL: Jim?

LEHRER: Look, you know, this whole thing has led to other things, too. You`ve probably already read it, but let me read again what Carl Rowan had to say. He said, "Of course there is blatant racism in the Soviet Union, Sweden and Queens. Racism is everywhere. So even if Young spoke the truth about these areas it was truth without purpose. His comments did nothing to implement his mission of helping the U.S. to fashion a decent and just world order." Do-you feel that your truth is without purpose?

YOUNG: No, I don`t. And I think, using the Russians as an example, I`ve contended over an over again that the United States should not overreact to the Soviet Union`s presence in Africa because their involvement, in Africa is -- I mean, they are even less prepared to deal with the problems. Of colored peoples than we are, not because they are any worse or any better but because. they`ve not had the experience .that we`ve had. We`ve been fighting. about race for 300 years in this country, and in spite of the fact that we still haven`t -solved the problem I really believe that we`re better off than most people in the world. The Russians are just beginning to understand this. And one of the reasons I don`t fear the Russians in Africa is their racial awkwardness.

Now, the purpose there is, here we`ve got a nation which is very uptight and insecure about every time a Russian vice president moves to Africa we think that all black people are going communist. That is stupid and anybody that thinks that way ought to be corrected. And at least we ought, to discuss it. I think the discussion of racism -- and the reason. that the Swedes and the Russians got singled out was not because they`re worse than anybody else but because being up north they have had fewer encounters with the colored peoples of the south.. And the Swedes try very hard and I think do a very good job of overcoming that, but the point I made was that we as Americans should not think of ourselves as being bad and we shouldn`t fear Russians, Swedes, Cubans. And I think there is an-element of insecurity on the part of the American people about our relationships with the rest of the world. It`s almost as though we`re so guilty about Vietnam and we feel like we`re sort of blundering, we`re lapsing into a kind of isolationist phase-which is disastrous for our economy and our foreign policy,

Now, part of my job is to help get us out of that, help us to realize that we can be really leaders in this world and that in fact the rest of the world is looking to us and depending upon us for leadership.

LEHRER: Well, what about to the general point, not just the racism comments but others that you came out with before? The question n has been raised whether or not you are losing your effectiveness because of your outspokenness, and that`s really what Rowan is saying and what others have said. How do you feel about that?

YOUNG: Oh, I think that when I made the comment about Americans being paranoid about communism we had a seeming breakdown in the SALT talks we had three Soviet fishing vessels seized over a weekend, and then we heard about the Shaba invasion. Now, I `could just see the old cold war is. going crazy and talking about military intervention in Zaire., j If we had gone into Zaire. in any kind of military way, it would have really been disaster., see? By making fun, in a sense of the paranoia about communism, people think. And in a sense it encouraged some of the people in the private discussions within the State Department, I , think, to take a more measured response which in fact has proved to be, the most successful response. I think the way we reacted in Zaire was a marvelous example of a restrained and intelligent foreign policy..

LEHRER: Is there anything of all of` these things that have caused Andrew Young flaps over the last several weeks and months -- is there anything you have said that you wish you had not said, that you felt was irresponsible or you regret saying?

YOUNG: Oh, there`s a lot that I regret, there`s a lot that may have been ... but I hate even to use the word "irresponsible`` because I take the responsibility for my statements and I was taught never to cry over spilt milk.

MacNEIL: In spilling this milk you`ve been spilling, do you regard your job as the Ambassador as to think of yourself as a diplomat or as an irritant - - a deliberate irritant, a kind of burr under the saddle blanket to make people more aware of the kind of message that you`re... are you deliberately going out of your way to be provocative?

YOUNG: No, I`m not deliberately going out-of my way to be provocative, but neither do I think that there`s any virtue in being a successful diplomat and have your country go to hell; that if I see my country making or moving or slipping in a direction which I think is wrong, I`m going to scream and holler and cause all the controversy I can.

MacNEIL: What do you think your Job is as the U.N. Ambassador? You agree that you interpret it differently than your predecessors.

YOUNG: I really don`t think of myself as a U.N. Ambassador, maybe. I mean, I think of myself as an American citizen who`s been put in a position to protect American interest and to as well as I possibly can help the United States of America to resume the rightful leadership role that we ought to have in the world. To do that we`ve, got to relate to the so-called third world. Of the 147 nations in the U.N. system, forty-five of. them are African; you add to that the Arab bloc, the Latin American bloc, a number of the Asians -- you have a majority of the world:

We can`t talk about nuclear proliferation; we can`t talk about law of the sea, we can`t talk about North-South dialogue, new economic order, we can`t talk about our Common Fund for agricultural commodities unless we can relate to that so-called third world bloc.

MacNEIL:. So you`re trying to educate us,. is that what you`re trying to do.?

YOUNG: Well, that`s one of the things. I`m just trying to get us to assume the leadership role, and in order to do that I have to say things as I really see them., And I said the other night if diplomacy is the art of lying for your country, I`m never going to be a diplomat, because I think this country has always stood on truth in our finest hours; the President ran on a campaign that he wanted a foreign policy which was as decent, as honest and-as open as are the American people;.

I think I`m carrying out that kind of foreign. policy, or helping develop it.

MacNEIL: Are you continuing to be outspoken in part because you fear to have it thought, as some people said when you were first appointed, that you as a kind of symbolic black man in the administration had been sort of co-opted, pre-empted, made safe., whatever? Are you attempting defensively to prevent people thinking that?

YOUNG: I tell you, I would like nothing better than to have a few quiet months didn`t ask for any of these controversies. They started even before I got to be Ambassador. The comment about the Cubans as a stabilizing influence in Angola -- I think I hadn`t even been sworn in. I had just been nominated a week or so before. But the fact remains; my understand of Angola -- and I`ve been watching Angola since 1953 -- I would have to say that that`s the case. Now, it you look at the controversial statements that I`ve made, it`s very hard to find anywhere in the press where anybody, either in the government or in the press, has refuted those statements and said they are wrong. What they`ve said, in fact, is that a diplomat shouldn`t talk- that way, he`s too controversial, he`s not effective. I don`t care about being controversial, I really don`t care about being effective. I am effective.

MacNEIL: You don`t care about being effective?

YOUNG: No -- well, that`s not the prime issue. The prime issue is doing what`s right for this country. Now, the truth of the matter is, if you were talking about the world community, my telling it like it is has given this country more credibility than we`ve had since before the war in Vietnam. And diplomats around the world are worried; they think I`m going to get fired because I`m speaking too much truth for an American, and they`re not sure that we`ve come far enough so that Americans are willing to be honest about what`s going on in the world. I say I really don`t care. I think we will. I think that an overwhelming majority of the people consider what I`m doing somewhat refreshing and we`ll see.

LEHRER: Do you feel any constraints at all on what you might say? In other words, a situation develops and do you go through a process, "Hey, I`d better not say that because that could cause diplomatic problems here," or whatever? Or do you just,, whatever occurs to you, Andy Young, you talk?.

YOUNG: No, I think I consider everything I say. I usually know who I`m going to make mad before `I say it. Every now and then I slip and realize that some things that I say matter-of-factly become headlines, but you notice in the sensitive areas where we`re moving forward I think fairly well; you haven`t heard me say anything about the Middle East, not because I don`t have very strong opinions about the Middle East. I haven`t said anything about Cyprus. I did one of the early papers on the Panama Canal, but those things are going well. And the whole question of new economic order we are involved in -- I`m not talking about that because the process is working. The only time I think I`m obligated to speak out is when I think that the process is breaking down for some bureaucratic reason that`s going to endanger the, public the American public.. And then I`ll go public.

MacNEIL: Let`s come to today`s news for a minute, stories today that white Rhodesia is near breaking point, that through the military costs and the economic strains the regime is in serious trouble there. What do you think. we should do about that? Should we just sit back and watch, or can we do something to further the process?

YOUNG: That`s the reason for the whole conversation on racism in the first place. It was an off-the-record conversation on the plane, I thought, and I was worried about this, very thing; that there be a sudden collapse while we`re in the midst of these constitutional talks, which are-scheduled to stretch out for eighteen months. I don`t think the Rhodesian government can last for eighteen months.

MacNEIL: How long can it last?

YOUNG: I don`t have any idea. But I think we`ve got to have contingency plans for what happens if it breaks down. Now, those contingency plans can`t be just British and American, because essentially the new government coming in is going to be predominately black African. I .think in a sense that the front line presidents have got to be involved and have got to be a part of the process that`s going on much stronger than they are now.

MacNEIL: Those are the presidents of the five surrounding African states.

YOUNG: Because I think we can`t deal with those problems 5,000 miles away from home. The people who are right there on the border are going to have to take the responsibility, for instance, of dismantling a guerrilla army and training them into a national police force or military.

MacNEIL: Does the information reaching our government suggest that these reports are correct, that the Rhodesian government is very near the breaking point?

YOUNG: Our reports projected that kind of breaking point almost two years ago, that by this time .we would be approaching that. There was a feeling, though,` that. things were stronger, and there were a couple of propaganda moves -- for instance, I think the preemptive, attack into Mozambique that Ian Smith used to try to prop up morale. But I don`t know that we have any accurate figures and I don`t know whether anybody can project when the breaking point will be. We didn`t know when Portugal was going to break. Had we known thirty days ahead of time that the Portuguese government was going to collapse we could have had a contingency plan that could have had a rational transfer to majority rule there would-have been no Cubans, no South Africans in Angola. But we didn`t have a plan because we didn`t anticipate the collapse.

MacNEIL: Jim?

LEHRER: Finally, Mr. Ambassador, you`ve been critical of the way reporters and headline writers have treated your comments in the past. Let me ask you, if you were a reporter or a headline writer,, what would you single out as the most newsworthy thing you`ve said tonight?

YOUNG: You know, that`s my problem: I don`t have any idea. I mean; I think of myself more as, a person who`s trying to communicate ideas and help people understand what`s a very. complicated and difficult situation.

And anything I say in a context like that can be taken out of context. and become news. I tell you, I :wake up at five o`clock in the morning. every morning worried to death about -- you know, waiting for them to drop the newspaper at the door, because I want to see what I`ve done today.

MacNEIL: (Laughing.) We`ll have to leave it there. Thank you very much, Jim. Good night, Mr. Ambassador, and thank you. That`s all for tonight.. Jim and I will be back tomorrow night and other news permitting, our story will be what Congress is doing to President Carter`s energy proposals. I`m Robert MacNeil, Good night.