North Carolina People; William Leuchtenburg, William Rand Kenan Professor of History, UNC-CH

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. William Luxembourg is one of the great scholars of our country a teacher a network commentator and a man who knows more about the office of the presidents of the United States and is a living figure that I know very fortunate having meet and talk with us a senior North Carolina people meeting in just a few seconds. North Carolina people is brought to you by walkover banking investments and financial services for individuals businesses and corporations. We are here. Let's get started. Good friend it's good to have you back home after that summer up in the Northeast it feels good to be back in the south yet surely nice to be here again Bill I think the last time I was on the show I said we began doing this in the presidency of James Buchanan and

I think that's not far off. I think you have now exceeded even Vermont Royster for which we are profoundly grateful that we've all read listen and talk. Have you ever in your study of the presidency seen a situation as if this event as complicated as this was getting to be. No I don't think so Bill. The Election Night comes to mind with respect to a sexual issue was of course 1884 with the allegation that Grover Cleveland fathered an illegitimate child. But there was no radio let alone television talk radio. There wasn't George Will on the recent column called The carpet sweeping cough and he thought of television where you can turn to channel after channel and do you hear nothing but the name of

Monica Lewinsky. This is creating serious problems for the Democrats and trying to figure out how to respond to that with these upcoming midterm elections. Serious problem for the country to be a very serious problems for the country. You were asking about parallels I think what comes to mind is the Profumo affair and they and the Macmillan government where a matter of this sort could actually shake the acceptability of of the government but we were at a point now where a whole series of American institutions are being brought into question. And this unfortunately is adding to the populist cynicism about democratic institutions and that surely not good for us. Let's talk about that for a moment in this process now. We've seen a change in the way the grand jury operates in that in the use of what happened before the grand jury and it's made being made public. The due process

that's been accorded people charged with things in testimony. The right of cross-examination of these procedural things where you along with of the four much you just mentioned. Well in one sense Bill Clinton had an advantage which the ordinary citizen would would not have he was permitted to have his attorneys present. He was permitted to restrict the number of hours in which he would be cross-questioned what is disturbing though is the the far reach of the prosecution how far removed this appears to be from the original allegations about Whitewater and then the release of the testimony. The detailed material where as you say you don't have the kind of opportunity for cross-examination in the press they direct participation of your

counsel that you would have in a normal jury trial. Now the independent counsel phenomenon that you just characterized the roaming around all over do you expect that Roeder survived after all this is over that this is so divisive the reaction toward it across the country. Will Congress mitigate this in some way I am in the end so to speak. I think there's no doubt about it. I fact I think the only two choices that I can see whether they will be as you say hemmed in or whether the the office of the independent counsel will be abolished altogether. We have the the reason of course that it arose as they did the old problem of of course custodians could study at who who's going to watch the stand in judgment of the president of the administration you can't have the administration be responsible for wrongdoing within the administration. And

yet we've had all kinds of examples in the past where a Department of Justice did in fact. Bring prosecutions against powerful figures in the administration and there may be a decision to rely on that once again feeling that the independent counsel is simply a run amok. The role of the media now we have been walking around that a little bit but have you ever seen so much preoccupation with this the way you see it. Either the television or radio the whole channels of this done nothing but whip this issue over and over again and accountable responsible as you see it in history. Well you know I do think the media two or two and three would greet have been criticized on unfairly after all. What we have here are two phenomena. One is the possibility that the president of the United

States may be forced out of office so that's a story that the media are obliged to follow and important. The other is any person with any reasonable sense knew that when the president faced the American people faced each of us and said I never had any sexual relationship with that woman from her tiny couldn't remember her name Miss Lewinsky was lying and I think it was. That unwillingness to let him get away with a piece of deceit that accounts for that both those things having been said it it's clear that there is something obsessive this 24 hour round the clock coverage when there are a whole lot of other things going on in the world a possible meltdown of the international economy cost of Owen and matters of that sort.

You know that that's the really serious issue that we've now drifted into it as well. We said here there's a big economic conference going on the stock market is down another hundred sixty points at noon. The economy the whole global perception is weakening. Here we see military problems of a major war of what. When the president said the United States is weak and like this is that communicate to the world community that we're just not as strong as we were felt to be or how can we reassert that. Well I think so I think Bill Clinton's leadership role is seriously damaged. What moves on the other side of that is that the United States is so much the big gorilla in the world that whatever the president of the United States says or does is going to be taken very seriously by the rest rest of the world. We have such a disproportionate share of the world's resources

that this this give strength to Clinton no matter how he behaves. But it. When the United States wants other nations to take action that the leaders of other nations to take actions to bolster their economy that are going to be unpopular at home. And that's the that's the kind of situation where Clinton does not talk with the kind of moral authority that we would like to present the United States to be able to talk with. Do you fear a military confrontation like with Iraq again one of these issues rising up here all of us. Well you recall the line in Shakespeare's play. Too busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels as this is and there isn't isn't an easing us about this possibility that Clinton might try to pull out of his current situation by some kind of foreign diversion.

I think there are a lots of things to be critical about about the president but I don't see him taking on. Deliberately that's sort of role but it is quite possible. I think that a figure like Saddam Hussein would believe that he was now coping with a crippled president would try to dare something that you know under other circumstances he would know no better than to try the loss of each must have had some of that thought and Central Europe the way they have. But they're backing away apparently this week. Yes of Oh that's right. And there are of course we've had a long record of futility that is quite divorced from the from the president's personal problems. And in fact in the last few weeks it looks as though the threat of some kind of NATO

action has gotten Milosevic to pull back at least to an extent that's only in the short run we have to show that NATO can pull together in some kind of effective way or for that matter that the administration has a policy in the in the former Yugoslavia that's likely to be successful. Setting Mr. Clinton aside the office itself the this process has had a measurable impact upon that particular office and as our leader in Carnally as well as internationally. You feel it's been more than we would really suspect in the long run it's been very damaging. Well a few weeks ago I wrote how long maybe an hour long phone interview from the London Observer they were doing a piece on exactly that bill and he was the person correspondent at the White House

that a series of developments that the grand jury questions that you've just been raising the willingness of the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision to commit to Paula Jones. Case to go on something I think was a very bad decision for the for the court to have had made leaves the president as an institution the presidency as an institution more vulnerable than it has before been before and it's also possible that in the relation of the White House to Congress a Capitol Hill is going to have increased strength as a result of this. But I'm not gloomy about the long range prospects for the institution of the presidency. I remember being at a conference at the Smithsonian and in 1982 with Jimmy Carter and at the time it was said that the presidency was

in terrible trouble that since 1960 the first president had been murdered the next man Lyndon Johnson had withdrawn from running for re-election the next demand after him Nixon have been forced out of office. He had not been succeeded by his Vice President Agnew because he had had to resign his successor Ford had lasted only a year and a half or so. Carter was a one term president. And yeah. Once Reagan had gone through a two year presidency people stopped talking about the institution being in and danger. And I think if we can find the right kind people and we're fortunate we we will. Early in the next century we'll have forgotten the kind of anxiety that we're feeling today. Let me broaden that question a little bit. You know I pick up the paper we see that the public's response to the Congress itself is probably lower than it's been in a

long time. You just characterized the executive branch of government the judicial process itself has come and put some real criticism of the jury verdicts and so on. Does it trouble you to see these three components of our federal system under such cynicism and sarcasm in some quarters in this country. Oh it certainly does Bill. When I was 12 years old I was living in a little apartment in New York City and I earned enough money tutoring children in the neighborhood to get on a Greyhound bus and ride for nine hours down to Washington D.C. and I wanted around that city looking like Jimmy Stewart. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and you know I still do I get off the train at Union Station where I come in from National Airport and I see the Dome of the Capitol lit up at night or I walk up the steps of the Supreme Court where I was fortunate enough to be able to lecture a few months ago. I have that same feeling that I had as a 12 year old boy and I don't like to see this happening

to our institutions. I once heard Robert McNamara say that standing in front of the White House and it was never a time when he didn't walk and then he felt a sense of elation and grandeur about the United States of America. And I hope all of us can can you do that. It's a major problem and we've got to get to work at this with young people I suppose to help turn this around. How do you see this impacting now that you say that you've seen the election participation go down almost on a solid straight line of late. This is this too is a serious problem gets agitated by this kind of presidential experience doesn't it. Yes. More and more people have a feeling of what we're all corrupt and. And Washington look what the president has done. Congress is behaving in a partisan fashion. Why bother to go to the polls. It's one of the reasons why this forthcoming set of

elections mid-term elections in November are so hard to predict how time because we don't know what the turnout is going to be or which groups of voters are the most looked likely to turn out although we have a pretty good guess who that we are going to be. That's one of the interesting problems here that these polls that keep showing popularity above 50 percent. To the skilled observer like yourself with all that we've been saying how is it that he manages to survive like this what makes it what makes it curve that way. Well this is something nobody predicted certainly out of me expect that this was going to happen I remember when I first heard about the Monica Lewinsky affair I got a phone call in my office from the editor of the U.S. News and World Report and I could hear in his voice that he was feeling what you've just been talking about Bill a sense of my gosh what's happened to this this country a feeling of sadness and expecting that this

was going to be very hurtful to Clinton announced. As you say it it's not turned out that way. With each new allegation he gains a few more points and in the polls but nobody truly knows how to explain this is something that we have changing moral standards in this country. That seems to me rather doubtful. The most logical likely expert explanation of it is that a president's popularity rises and falls with the state of the economy and Clinton has got two things going for him. One prosperity of the sort we've not seen in many years past and the other that we were at peace and you put those two things together and that's what most of the country is hoping for this saying under this president. Times are good don't rock the boat. We don't know what a change in office might might bring us is certainly not going to get any better than this. Peace Prosperity

and it could get worse. What about that old principle that we grew up with you know that what you do live and say in your private life is really what conditions you for public service. Has that been abandoned then from all of this that we're seeing now people really trying to separate the two so that one can't be looked at with reference to the other. Certainly Clinton's defenders are trying to do that to say well this was simply. An extramarital dalliance and it has nothing to do with affairs of state. But you know Bill a story that I often think about is in World War 2. Winston Churchill comes to this country and has a dinner with President Roosevelt and at the end of the dinner Churchill raises his glass in a toast to the president and it's now Roosevelt's turn and he raises his glass in a toast to the king because he understands his counterpart is not this man who

happens to hold hold the prime ministership. It's the king who is the head of state and in our country without a monarchy we have a figure who is both our chief executive and the head of state and how the head of state conducts himself and his personal morals. That is very important in setting an example to the to the whole country and indeed the world of the kind of people we are. That shift over now to look into to what I have weak some of them as heirs. The religious right what missed film Get Sunday on the impact of this and the organization of it. The argument about separation of church and state is that in the band and so on. How do you read this now. What do you see it in. I know in our region of the country the south it's a very strong issue being debated but you think it's going to impact this this election term midterm election seriously.

Well I think one has the sense of the religious right is not nearly as strong now as it was just a few years ago that people like Jerry Falwell for example have fallen from grace. They're not as ubiquitous on the airwaves. But this this could affect turnout it's the religious right that is the most likely to be upset by Clinton's behavior by this challenge to so-called family values and is most likely to go to the polls. And I think that's going to be a considerable source of strength for the Republican candidates with whom the religious right largely identifies as necessarily followed all we've been saying that say in a given state like ours our neighbors. Any history of associations Mr. Clinton is going to really impact Democratic candidates in the November elections would you guess it would follow. Well if you if you would think about a particular congressional district that

you and I live in Bill. If I go to the polls and vote for David Price and November the last thing in my mind is that I'm a dork endorsing President Clinton's actions I'm doing this because I want to see David Price return to Congress and the interpretation nationally I think of this may well be that it's some kind of referendum going to say if the if the Democrats lose a considerable number of seats it is certainly going to bolster New Gingrich and push the drive toward the door toward impeachment. But I would not anticipate that most people as they walk into the polling booth are going to have that uppermost in their minds. It is rather that it may be people who care most about that issue who are most likely to be voting. That's the way I think it will work out.

What about then the impact of Social Security health care crime. These issues. Is this thing diminishing in intensity to the point that some of that might begin to service I know with the older citizens Social Security is going to be the voting mechanism in lots of ways. Health insurance is getting to be even more than it was in the past you read you read that as a force. Well what what's happened is that the same polls that show that Bill Clinton's popularity is remains very high and the Times has even been rising. Also show that the country says that the biggest issue in these forthcoming elections is morals. And the attempts of Democratic candidates to turn the country's attention to these important issues of health care and Social Security have been largely drowned out by all of the noise of the Lewinsky affair

and that has done is putting the Democrats at a disadvantage. The circumstance that the country faces is that in every midterm election save one in a century they party in power has lost seats in a midterm election. The only exception was 1934 when Roosevelt and the New Deal proved so so popular. So in this election the question has been how many seats will the Democrats lose can they can they can hold their losses down as recently as early August. The Democrats thought that the popularity of Clinton in the state of the economy might actually result in the Democrats regaining control of the house. Virtually nobody suppose it's likely now.

This total experience led Governor Bush of Texas to make an interesting statement last week which I know you read is that it you think more people who are possible presidential candidates are going to take a second look now out of all of this. Well one thinks of how many people in the United States Senate in their in the prime of life certain to being re-elected or at least highly popular candidates George Mitchell in Maine Sam Nunn in Georgia Bill Bradley in Virginia David Boren in Oklahoma have wood drawn from the United States Senate numbers of people in the house of have have done the same thing. And so even even in the congressional races there have been people who say it's just not worth it anymore. It's so difficult to raise money to to face all of this abuse and to feel once you get to Washington that you're not achieving very much for a president. The probing thought to be a presidential candidate.

Is it is so on are is so so grueling. Remember Fritz Mondale once said he wasn't going to run for president because he couldn't face the thought of a year of Holiday Inns. He later changed his mind. But it's hard enough to go through that ordeal of all the primaries. A state by state without this kind of attack on on your person. But through it all you know faith is strong in the Old Republic. Oh surely I thank God. I think both of us are always of good cheer. We we've seen worse. This happened in the Depression war in our lifetime. Thank you for being such a teacher once again on North Carolina people build and we're grateful for your time. Great to talk to again. North

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