The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; 2075; Young App't

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Yesterday Jimmy Carter named Andy Young, his close friend, the black Congressman from Georgia, to be Ambassador to the United Nations. The appointment has been greeted with general enthusiasm, but tempered with some sympathy. For example, the New York Times says the appointment may well turn out to be a great boon for everyone but the appointee himself because the job has become a political graveyard for some previous incumbents. Tonight, with Jim Lehrer in Atlanta to talk to Congressman Young, we look at the implications of his appointment. Will it change American policy, especially towards black Africa? Will it mollify black Americans dissatisfied at the shortage of blacks in high cabinet positions filled so far? Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Andrew J. Young, Robin, already had a couple of titles in front of his name -- Congressman and Reverend. Now he adds Ambassador. Young is 44 years old, born the son of a dentist in New Orleans. He went to Dillard and Howard Universities, and finally Hartford Theological Seminary, graduating as a Congregational minister in 1955. That same year he joined Dr. Martin Luther King`s bus boycott effort in Montgomery, Alabama. Later he went on to full-time work with King`s Southern Christian Leadership Conference; he was with King through all of the major civil rights events of the 1960`s and he was with him in Memphis when he was murdered in 1968. Young was elected to Congress in 1972 from Georgia`s fifth district here in Atlanta, the first black Congressman from Georgia in over 100 years. His friendship with Jimmy Carter runs deep and goes back several years. Young has been given a large measure of the credit for generating widespread black support given Carter in the primaries and then in the general election. Before we talk to Congressman Young himself he`s going to now have the pleasure of listening to some other people talk about him. Robin?

MacNEIL: One of those who feels Jimmy Carter has some unpaid political debts for black support in the election is Jesse Jackson. Jackson is Director of the Chicago-based Operation PUSH -- People United to Save Humanity. He`s an old friend and associate of Congressman Young, and he`s with us this evening in Washington. Mr. Jackson, are you pleased with the Young appointment?

JESSE JACKSON: Well, I have mixed emotions; on the one hand, I`m exceedingly happy for Andy because Andy`s such a capable person, having a very rare combination of integrity and intelligence, and involvement and commitment, and if the major appointment for blacks were to come in the international arena, in my judgment Andy should have been appointed Secretary of State. Number one, the Secretary of State position is a policy-making position and would give Andy, in my judgment, the kind of access to the rather frequent meetings held here in Washington. I am concerned about the fact that Carter`s palace guard is all white, of Hamilton Jordan, and Watson and Jody Powell, and therefore there is no black at this point with Andy`s credentials with the kind of day-to-day access to Carter that would make me feel more comfortable.

MacNEIL: Do you still feel blacks are being neglected in the Carter appointments?

JACKSON: Absolutely. I remember we had a meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina; black people raised the proposition that we were 26.7 percent of the national Democratic vote for McGovern, and therefore we should be considered for at least 25 percent of his jobs. Carter said at that time that he agreed with that; furthermore, based upon our historically being discriminated against that perhaps blacks should demand even more. And yet as these key Jobs have rolled around, all of the key economic posts have virtually gone now, and blacks have been cut out of that. We should have had some priority on one of those economic posts. And the Labor Department; the most handsome antidote to welfare is jobs and jobs training, and certainly black people were the first to come to Carter`s rescue -- had it not been for Andy being the bridge for Carter to run across, Carter would still be in Georgia tonight with a broken heart. I think the record needs to show that we selected Carter over Wallace, we elected him over Ford, but at collection time there appears to be a turning away from the original enthusiasm.

MacNEIL: How effective do you think Mr. Young can be in the United Nations in that job?

JACKSON:I think that Andy will be most effective, based upon his own integrity and the strength of his personality. The job itself, as many of us as his friends have advised him, is wrought with mines, basically because, in this situation, Andy`s boss is Mr. Vance, and Mr. Vance`s boss is Jimmy Carter, and therefore the one in the U.N. must basically articulate finally U.S. policy as opposed to personal policy. The only salvation, in my judgment, is, Andy has this rather unique and innate capacity to reconcile the most antithetical forces. And certainly those of us who are with Andy and love him will support him; but there is, in my mind, a growing resentment to the kind of maneuvers that Carter is making at this point.

MacNEIL: Do you have a little feeling that Mr. Young is being used?

JACKSON: No, I wouldn`t say that, basically because I think in order for Andy to be used it would assume that Carter`s intelligence would be superior to Andy`s and I do not believe that to be the case. I think Andy made a choice that is a good choice for him as a person because it fulfills his kind of global approach to most problems, and I have known him down through the years to use that kind of the sense of the universal. I remember too well when many of us were caught up in the effects of the racial polarization; somehow, Andy never lost his sense of balance even when the storm was high. But now that Andy has that position, which is a non-cabinet, non-policy-making position, black people still deserve at least two of those cabinet posts. We had one cabinet post under Kennedy with less than two million registered black voters; we had one cabinet post under Ford, and none of us voted for him, and now under Carter we certainly can expect no less.

MacNEIL: Thank you. We`ll come back. Internationally, perhaps the most important reaction to the Young appointment will be that of the Third World, especially black Africa. A key representative in this area is Leslie Harriman, Ambassador from Nigeria to the United Nations. Ambassador Harriman is Chairman of the Apartheid Committee and of the Peacekeeping Operations Committee. Mr. Ambassador, do you and your fellow representatives of the non-white world welcome Mr. Young`s appointment?

Amb. LESLIE HARRIMAN: Certainly we do. As soon as the appointment was announced we had a feeling that Mr. Young might come across the firing line of many of the Third World countries, and particularly the black African countries. I think I know Mr. Young, I know what he represents, and I don`t have that feeling. I do believe also that in spite of the grave difficulties he will encounter -- because after all, Mr. Young is first and foremost an American; his skin is secondary -- I believe also that foreign policy objectives of any country is a non-variable. In other words, that these objectives of security, well-being of the people, prestige and power -- these are not negotiable in any form. So I see the appointment of Mr. Andrew Young as one that would have a greater bearing on areas that are variable, and foreign policy influences in the United Nations and the feedback to the administration haven`t been exposed to the freedom and civil rights movements in this country. I think he`ll be very responsive to what we`ve been talking about for years. The United States, for instance, this year did not vote for a single resolution on South Africa; we hope that there will be this change.

MacNEIL: Okay. Now, you said he might come across the battle lines. For instance, there`s a big debate on South Africa coming up in January, I believe; it might happen that another boycott of arms to South Africa is suggested, or embargo. Now, if the United States chose to repeat the veto that it cast in this session and Mr. Young had to, as an act of policy, cast the veto, where would his credibility be then with black nations?

HARRIMAN: I would say that we are not as stupid as that, to confront Mr. Young. As I said, I know him -- I met him recently; he`s taking a great interest in Africa. We don`t expect that he will be more African than American, but we do hope that when we do confront him with the question of South Africa and apartheid late in February he would have articulated his policies with the United States administration and that he`ll have a clear chance of going against the grain of our objectives for basic human dignity in South Africa in support of his government. Obviously -- the question you asked -- I don`t think his credibility will be lost, but we hope that as he said yesterday that he came into this job with his eyes open and that he will not be seen to take positions that do not satisfy the wishes of the African continent.

MacNEIL: Well, we`ll come back in a moment to see if that is a flexible area, as you put it, a variable- area of American policy. Andy Young just returned from Africa, where he participated in the Seventh African Study Conference of the African-American Institute. Bill Cotter is President of the Institute, and for the past ten years has organized conferences on and traveled extensively in Africa. Mr. Cotter has also just returned from that conference in Lesotho. Mr. Cotter, will Mr. Young, from what you know, have more policy-making freedom than other ambassadors to the United Nations in the past?

WILLIAM COTTER: My guess is that he has the potential for having a greater impact on what the policy will be. Obviously, the policy in the United Nations will reflect a joint policy of the Secretary of State and of the U.N. Ambassador. The thing that`s unique about Andy is that I have never heard a President before - President elect -- talk about the appointee to the U.N. in the personal terms, in the highly laudatory terms which President-elect Carter has described Andy...

MacNEIL: Not even Mr. Kennedy appointing Adlai Stevenson?

COTTER: No; no, and I think also that Adlai Stevenson was in some ways a consolation prize. Andy is in a very different kind of position. I think Andy`s problem is a little different. Andy`s own positions on Third World issues, as the Ambassador has said, and on southern African issues in particular, has been very forthright; it has been very positive. His problem will be that expectations may be too high, and Andy at the Lesotho Conferences two weeks ago made that point, that the administration must be given some time to get its policies in order. But I know that he`s working very closely with the Secretary of State; he is a cabinet officer -- I have to disagree with Jesse -- he is a black cabinet officer, the U.N. position is a cabinet position in our government, and I suspect that Andy will have more policy-making influence than recent U.N, ambassadors have had.

MacNEIL: To follow on what I asked the Ambassador, will the issues coming up -- particularly in the African continent -- soon put Mr. Young to a crucial test of principle in relation to continuity of American policy?

COTTER: Absolutely. The United States in the last eight years, at least, has been opposed to the Third World on almost all of the major issues coming up in the United Nations. Andy`s own commitment, his own sympathy to Third World views, his own view that the world is all of our boat and that Africa in particular is needed by the United States and not simply vice- versa, the importance of Nigeria that he has emphasized as opposed to our traditional emphasis on South Africa -- these kinds of things personally Andy is committed to. But the issues in the U.N. are tougher; it will be difficult, I think, Mr. Ambassador, for Andy and the administration to support all of the resolutions that come out of the Africa group, and the question will be whether a dynamic can be set up between you and him in policy formation which will begin to get the African view and the United States view together so that we`re not in this position of vetoing time after time things the African group has recommended.

MacNEIL: Can I ask you this: for Mr. Young to be really effective, to capitalize on the symbolism of appointing an American black man to this job, won`t American policy have to change substantially lest he turn out in African eyes, for instance -- black African eyes -- to be a mockery in the ,job?

HARRIMAN: I don`t think we look at his appointment in terms of being black. As I said earlier...

MacNEIL: You really don`t?

HARRIMAN: Yes. I see it as an appointment of someone, an American, who`s going to execute policy. But I would say that where I give great credibility and why I emphasize that his appointment would be important is in the area that being responsive to the thinking of the Third World generally, and to the black continent or to his own background and his own struggles for human dignity and civil rights in this country, he will be able to feed back and influence the administration to stride forward and not be bogged down...

MacNEIL: I see. Do you see the important communication as back through Mr. Young to the White House, rather than from the White House through this man...

HARRIMAN: He will have all the cooperation from me and my committee as far as I can influence. But obviously -- and as I said earlier, we do not intend to confront the new administration not only be cause Mr. Young is black but principally because we know that Mr. Young is already on our side -- but we do not expect him to bulldoze American policy overnight.

MacNEIL: All right. Well, let`s see what Mr. Young himself, who has been patiently listening, has to say about some of these things. Jim?

LEHRER: Yes. Congressman, are you sure you still-want the job now, after listening to what these three gentlemen have laid out for you?

ANDREW YOUNG: There`s nothing they`ve mentioned that I haven`t agonized over for months. And this was a job that I started thinking about long before it was offered. It was, frankly, a job I wanted, and given a choice of all the jobs in the administration the only one I was possibly interested in was the United Nations. I had sense enough not to ask for it, because I don`t go around asking for that much trouble, but it was one...

LEHRER: One time you said it was a suicidal job.

YOUNG: Well, in some ways it is, and yet on November 2, American foreign policy toward Africa changed, and it changed with the election of Jimmy Carter. Even before Jimmy Carter announced for the Democratic nomination, before the primary trail started, he and I sat down together and talked about South Africa. In the middle of his campaign, when the Angola uprising occurred, he called me again, asked me to meet him out at the airport as he was on his way to make a speech; and we went over what was happening. He`s kept in touch with African affairs better than any other President I know anything about.

LEHRER: Have you been given the assurances by Jimmy Carter and by Cyrus Vance that there is going to be a fundamental change in the U.S. policy toward Africa?

YOUNG: Yes, I have. Cy Vance`s countenance (ph) on Africa, and South Africa in particular, at one point sounded more militant than mine, and I feel very comfortable with that foreign policy team. The other person I think who is a key foreign policy participant is the Secretary of the Treasury. Ambassador Harriman will know very well that the Third World issues are by and large essentially economic issues, and if we can`t make some headway in the Council on International Economic Cooperation -- in fact, I think many of the resolutions that are anti-American and also anti-Middle East are a result of our refusal to deal equitably with the Third World on economic issues.

LEHRER: All right, but the point that Jesse Jackson made a few moments ago that your appointment is one thing, but it`s now "collection time," to use his phrase, and that there should be two other cabinet members who are black and that there should have been a black involved in one of these major economic appointments -- the point that you just made. How do you feel about that?

YOUNG: I think there will be additional cabinet persons. I think there will be...

LEHRER: How many?

YOUNG: Oh, I don`t know. As far as I know, there are at least three people that were considered for posts that they could have had that have turned them down. I`m in the process of trying to talk one of them into reconsidering.

LEHRER: Who`s that?

YOUNG,: Franklin Thomas in Brooklyn.

LEHRER: Is that for a cabinet position?

YOUNG: Yes, it was. For a cabinet-level position. The President-elect was very impressed with him, and everybody else has been, and yet he`s committed to the Bedford-Stuyvesant redevelopment project in Brooklyn; and you`ve got to admire that kind of commitment. He`s been there for nine years, and that certainly isn`t a glamour post, so it`s a sense of responsibility that keeps him there, and not a running from responsibility.

LEHRER: How much say-so have you had personally in the cabinet selections?

YOUNG: Oh, I doubt that I`ve had very much.

LEHRER: Did you expect to have some? Are you disappointed that you didn`t have more?

YOUNG: No I`m not. I tell you, what I have been able to do and what I have done, on a regular basis, is consult with the President-elect on the types of persons. For instance, in terms of the Secretary of the Treasury, I was frankly talking about somebody else, but -- and I hope Mike Blumenthal doesn`t mind that I didn`t know him at the time -- but what I said was, we needed a businessman of impeccable business credentials that also produced a product, that was familiar with the markets of the world and that was sensitive to the problems of the cities. Now, even though Mike Blumenthal was not the guy I was talking about, he fills that bill perfectly.

LEHRER: I take it then, in a nutshell, you are not as upset as Jesse Jackson is about the cabinet appointments in terms of blacks at this point, right?

YOUNG: I`m not, only because I know a little more about what`s going on inside the Carter administration, and the six members of the Congressional black caucus that met with the President-elect yesterday came away feeling very reassured that there would be black cabinet appointments in addition to this. And of course, before I accepted this -- in fact, without even asking for any special privileges -both the President-elect and the Secretary of State have assured me that they want me involved in the selection process of other members of the State Department, of staff, of the decision-making, regular participation...

LEHRER: In the formulation of policy itself.

YOUNG: In the formulation of policy -- well, you see, I know something about policy. I mean, I`m also a politician. Policy doesn`t come from the top down. Jesse and I formulated policy on civil rights; when President Kennedy was not really able to move the Congress, we were able to move the Congress from completely outside the system. I think I bring some of those policy-making skills from outside the system into the system, and I intend to formulate policy anywhere I am; and nobody gives me that right, that`s a right that I take on the basis of what I know about the American body politic and what I know about what this country needs.

LEHRER: Let me ask you, if you feel that you`re not being listened to when it comes to the formulation of policy, are we going to hear about it?

YOUNG: Oh, I`m sure you will, but I`m not the kind to make a whole lot of noise.I`m not saying I win on every issue, but the two things that I had some clear understanding that I just would not compromise on were South Africa and Vietnam, and...

LEHRER: What are your clear understandings?

YOUNG: My clear understanding is that both the President-elect and the Secretary of State-designate want to normalize relations as rapidly as possible with Vietnam, and also that they want to move as rapidly as possible toward majority rule throughout southern Africa and they see the United States as having some role. Now, we haven`t quite defined that role yet, but there`s a commitment that it`s in the national interest of the United States.

LEHRER: But the crucial question, of course, that everybody`s asking, so I`ll ask you, is, are you going to be involved in defining what that role is rather than just going to the U.N. and saying what it is?

YOUNG: No, I don`t read speeches; I mean, I haven`t read a speech since 1965. And I always work with people; and I may get fired, but I will have something to say about what goes on. And I don`t think I`ll get fired -- it`s been the most cordial relationship possible; in fact, it`s been embarrassingly cordial with Cy Vance, because we have not known each other very well; but it was very clear to me that he wanted me in this ,job. I knew -- well, I didn`t want to get caught in the same trap, say, that Henry Cabot Lodge got caught in, where his personal relationship with Eisenhower was very tight, but he got the rug pulled out from under him by John Foster Dulles on occasion.

LEHRER: Well, this has happened, as you know -- I mean, the record has not been very good in this. There have been a lot of ambassadors to the U.N. appointed through the years both by Republicans and Democrats and they were very close to the President, and before they knew it they were getting the word from Washington about something that had already been decided.

YOUNG: Yes, but there were a couple of things that I think I bring, and one thing is an experience of their problems; the other thing is a very close relationship with the Congress. I not only tend to mobilize for my positions in terms of talking directly to the Secretary of State and the President, because we agree on those positions -- there`s no disagreement on those key issues. The problem in foreign policy is, how do you move a nation? That means moving the Congress, that means moving the American people; and I think that I have as much experience in that capacity as anybody that`s ever been in this job.

LEHRER: Moving, say, as Ambassador Harriman and Mr. Cotter were saying a moment ago, toward a resolution of this constant friction between the United States` position and the Third World position in the U.N.? Can you move the nation -- our nation -- that way?

YOUNG: You have to remember that the way the nation has been going was a Nixon-Kissinger direction. We moved Kissinger in the last few months, with a lot of help from the Cubans, frankly; but the Congress constantly opposed and gave new directions to that foreign policy and I think finally brought Mr. Kissinger and, reluctantly, Mr. Ford, along.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Jesse Jackson in Washington wanted to come back in. Mr. Jackson?

JACKSON: One of my concerns is that Andy`s essential constituency is African-American; and I know in many instances the economic interests of this country help to establish U.S. policy. And that is on a collision course with many of the aspirations of African-Americans. Again, my concern is that Andy, with his ingenious way of approaching things, is not allowing foreign policy to ride on the back of his personality and energy, when in fact there are other interests back here in Washington that will be determining foreign policy in the final analysis.

MacNEIL: We`re just about out of time. Could we get Mr. Young`s reaction to that -- Congressman?

YOUNG: Yeah. I think we`ve reached a situation where, for instance, the volume of trade with Nigeria is twice the volume of trade with South Africa. So the economic interests are shifting toward a more positive policy on Africa. I think businessmen are waking up to that. Nay role can be to help people realize what`s happening in the world, and that the United States has to be in harmony with that.

JACKSON:. My point is -- again, I reiterate -- I think that you, Andy, are the right man at the right time to be a kind of world bridge. But from where I stand, which centers outside of the administration, the blacks were brought from Africa based upon economic necessity, and we didn`t get much out of that deal; now we`re being sent back to Africa by diplomatic necessity. And I am concerned that based upon the investment that we have put into this administration that we get at least our principal and some interest; right now we`re not getting our principal -- certainly not our interest.

MacNEIL: Congressman?

YOUNG: I say that I think that out of the U.N. and out of the formulation of foreign policy we`re going to get our interests represented. We`re also, I think, since I don`t intend to stay out of domestic policy, I tend to be very active on the domestic scene and concerned about those employment issues and the development of our cities, education, health care, that I`ve always been concerned about. It just seemed to me that we were not going to be able to deal with those kinds of problems that basically grow out of a sense of economic stability and economic growth in this country until we stabilize the world economic order. And that means a new cooperation with the Third World and the rest of the nations...

MacNEIL: Gentlemen, I`m afraid that`s our time for tonight. Thank you both very much, and thank you, Mr. Cotter and Mr. Ambassador. Jim Lehrer and I will be back on Monday night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.