Dilemmas of power; John Kenneth Galbraith

Would you be in Baltimore in cooperation with the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting and Johns Hopkins University. Present the annual undergraduate student project. The 1971 Eisenhower symposium. An 11 part series of featured speakers presenting formal addresses followed by an informal question and answer sessions. This year's topic American relations dilemma is an hour on this program Dr. John Kenneth Galbraith Harvard economist will discuss the role of the Third World as it is affected by competition between the great powers. Doug Wright and our LADIES AND GENTLEMAN Good evening welcome once again to the Milton Eisenhower symposium the United States and the Soviet Union. The dilemmas of power. Dr. John Kenneth Galbraith prefaces his book The affluent society with a quote from aphid Marshall.

The Economist. Like everyone else must concern himself with the ultimate aims of man. This is aptly described the life of Dr. Galbraith economist professor author ambassador Dr John Kenneth Galbraith has held public offices and has participated in several presidential campaigns. A Canadian by birth. Dr. Galbraith has resided in the United States since his graduation from college in 1980. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California. Where the Social Science Research Council fellow at the University of Cambridge and has taught at the University of California Princeton University and Harvard University. He holds numerous honorary degrees from colleges and universities in the United States India and England. A former editor of Fortune magazine has written many books spanning a wide range of topics including economic social criticism politics and Indian painting. In addition he has written a

collection of short stories and novels and it's well-known in literary circles as an essayist and book critic a teacher of agricultural economics and economic development. Dr. Gahl served as an advisor to the governments of India Pakistan and a line. From 1961 until 1963. He was ambassador of the United States to India. A period recorded in his book ambassador's journal. A personal account of the Kennedy years. A diary in which he deals with a variety of issues including Berlin Vietnam the Congo the European Common Market tackles in the United States and agricultural policy. Described as an enormously unorthodox ambassador. He was responsible for American policy during the Chinese Indian border conflict in 1982. This term is in common with President ambassador. Prime Minister

for the help. Of my coach and my. Doctor. Madam Chairman let's examine. My friends. May I say for my part that I'm very happy to be here this evening at Johns Hopkins. Very happy to be here at the Melton Eisenhower symposium. Renew old acquaintances among others with my old friend. Dr. Eisenhower. One of the things

I may face on one of the very few things that was omitted from that very graceful and pleasant introduction. Was that in the 1930s I served for a time in the United States Department of Agriculture as did Dr. Eisenhower. We started at rather different levels. He was a rather senior figure you in your in years but senior in the hierarchy. I was doing your and yours an appropriately junior in the hierarchy but he was the name to be contact with. I was telling him at dinner how how sternly we younger people were warned to avoid association with. The and reign with Milton Eisenhower and Martha K. I see Theo and Louis bean and the other group of radicals who are around Henry a lot of. Well in the ensuing years I've stuck to the middle of the route.

Dr Eisenhower of course has continued to go after. Keeping keeping abreast of the students in this respect and I suppose that is explains why he has survived as the world's most durable university president. You know in addressing myself this evening to the problem of the symposium I have taken as is the right of the speaker. Some very generous. Liberties with my with the topic assigned as I have been working on this subject. I've been impressed with the fact that in foreign policy in these last years the United States

has had a dynamic United States policy has had a character and a dynamic of its own that has been separate from anything that could be immediately of a lated to our application to the Soviet Union even though. It varies very greatly on it. And since I can profess to some familiarity with what this aspect of our foreign policy. And since I cannot profess to any great familiarity with the more detailed problems of our relations with the Soviet Union it is on the purity of the marker of the American aspect that I'm going to go out by the end of my. Lecture this evening when you will all be a great deal older. I will come to communism in the Soviet Union. But I am somewhat more

marginally than the others who have gone before me on this symposium. This leads me to hope they were all right. They cuz. It's evident that I will not be correcting them this evening as I should like to have done if they had been in error. The last 10 years in the last five in particular and then ones of unparalleled under introspection as regards American foreign policy and from nearly all of this law has come the conclusion that the policy is wrong. The day is going to come when we all have to decide what is right. One prominent cause of our trouble in the twenty years following World War 2 was the habit of accepting on critically what the Pentagon the State Department in the White House. Said was needed and must be done. Let's lead to the propagation among numerous other

areas of the very large fantasy that was essential for our national survival and the pregnant detail that our right of innocent passage is being denied in the summer of 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin. But it is dangerous to suppose that the government is always right it will sooner or later be awkward for the public administration. If most people suppose that it is always wrong when the government or government does better. We should be aware of it. We shouldn't assume more or less automatically that annual design for a lot of things is replacing the old one. I'm going to argue presently that without ever quite identifying the nature of the disorder we have come some distance in correcting one of them our grievous faults of our foreign policy in the years following World War Two. It has come about partly as the

result of the Vietnam War our piety it is the sound political reaction. The man and policies which were productive a great couple. Some of the credit must also go to Richard Nixon. I am like many others sensitive about giving the Nixon credit for anything. On a wide range of matters from Supreme Court appointments to racial equality to the problems of the cities and the poor is preferences instinct. Seems to me for whatever is regressed over the visit I attend for whatever effect it may have and it isn't very great to oppose him in the future as in the past and I must say that I think very little of the tradition in American political comment which is relentlessly impelled to prove that it is even handed that tradition which I'm encountering some categorically regressive comic or obsolete figure like Metro Fire oh Agnew or J Edgar Hoover feels obliged to

remind people. Of the redeeming tendencies of the particular person as a husband athlete are. Our one time nemesis of Baby Face Nelson. But Mr. Nixon does respond to public opinion even when one suspects that it is in conflict with his longtime preference. When this brings better results one cannot deny him the credit. In most capitals of the world the diplomatic representatives of the smaller countries are rather more pleasant and popular than those who speak for the great nations including the two superpowers the United States and the Soviet Union. This is not because Swedes Danes Canadians Mexicans or tsunamis are intrinsically more amiable than Americans or Russians. It is because their countries have little power. And their officials in consequence do not have the unfortunate and often repellent Association which is the style of the man who

are associated with power that is not their own. I doubt that Americans exercising such power any more in unpleasant than have been Roman Spaniards Englishman Germans or Japanese. Similarly circumstanced in the past but we must notice that they also all had a bad reputation and our bureaucracies have been much larger. So we have had more people in these last years with this unfortunate style that is involved when people to print pretend to power that is not their own. Power execs exercised through a bureaucracy has other objectionable features which mark this. It is the will of our going to station not that of the individual that as you can see is expressed this is inevitable for everyone associated with the State Department the Pentagon or I think this is especially rewarding thought the CIA had to speak

his mind or whatever passes therefore. The result would be chaotic. Organization is only possible if the organisation man when the decision is taken are less reliably to the organisation line. Democratic Centralism isn't an imperative 40 miles away in Washington as it is at a slightly greater distance in Moscow. It follows that those who possess power must defend its use not with their own arguments but with the arguments of the organization. It follows that they will always seem in their style to be parroting an official line. That is what they must do. A skillful b r grad is not a man who speaks his own mind. Let's go for bureaucrat is a man who gives the impression of doing so while in fact making the organization case the bureaucratic style in other

words is intensely conformist. For that is the only way a bureaucracy can function if it is doctrine that communism is the original sin. Castro is a world menace. That conflict with the Soviet Union is inevitable. That if the North Vietnamese were not stopped at the de-militarized line they will proceed. The whole why. One must have one must have a man that will go along with the stuff. One cannot have individuals who will go before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and admit the fault right that it is all a lot of nonsense. I need to accept the official line in the style that goes with having to do so. There's not in principle exclude the expression of individual

opinion before the organization position is established in practice. However it does a man who goes along in public feeling develops the habit of going along in private. The consequence of this is very far reaching. It means that on the question of the conformist style. There are never any very strong internal pressures to change the substance of official policy. Here is another place where we move quickly from style the substance. Once it is established that something becomes policy it remains policy. This would seem to suggest that a bureaucratic policy would be a cautious policy. This cannot be assume the policy is what it is whatever is being done already. And if that is reckless the policy will be reckless. I'm here long last I come to the communists

in the 50s and 60s it was the accepted line that the communist countries in general in the Soviet Union in particular were conspiratorial and relentlessly expansionist any divisions within the Communist world the secretary rescued regularly the war concerned on only the best way of destroying the free world. This was fully accepted gospel by organization by the State Department as indeed it is still a military gospel. This was not in those years a formula for caution but a sanction and Vietnam Laos the Dominican Republic for a great deal of dangerous adventures it fostered notably in the intelligence agencies in American bond ism based on the thesis that communist disregard for international law and accepted standards of international behavior could only be matched by an

even more sanguinary immorality on the part of the United States. We have the subs coming back. Then it will affect attitudes again. But it was after the war and the occupation of Germany and Japan and the administration of the Marshall Plan and the prosecution of the Cold War. That it became evident what an association with the foreign policy of the United States would do for a man almost any man. The names that come from this period are part of the American legend Lucius Clay. John Jay McCloy Paul Hoffman Robert Lovett Christian herder John Foster Dulles Allen Dulles Arthur Dean Henry Cabot Lodge. Oh man who I would their eminence but the eminence of American foreign policy in these years and many younger man lawyers college professors in the main acquired a less cosmic but in their own more limited circles. I'm not less impressive reputation for their service in

Berlin Paris or Washington where in fact they did much of the hard work there after they were revered figures on their campuses or in their law firms and with their clients. It was a time and notably in the case of the Marshall Plan when foreign policy seemed to work. Association with success makes a man a success. All of the great names that I have mentioned it would be invidious to say which not only owed their distinction those which not only owed their distinction to their association with foreign policy but owed it entirely to the stars. I think the word may be said possibly if the two of the most famous the two dollars brothers both of these gentlemen were deemed the lawyers. John Foster Dulles in particular both in especially John Foster Dulles had the confident manner that is essential to the senior standing and the American establishment.

Both of these men had a simplistic conspiratorial view of history in general and communism in particular. I think it is a fair statement that neither of them had any knowledge of the social factor shaping nations that went much beyond the revelation that communism was a wicked and free enterprise not a good but righteous and consistent with the strongest positions strongest tenets of the Presbyterian Church. Mark than anyone else. Mr John Foster Dulles was responsible for making these beliefs the basis for policy for the decision that we must every Very stand guard against communism or anything so designated them for the doctrine that so disciplined and comprehensive as the communist conspiracy that it could be contained only by the threat of massive retaliation against Moscow with a corollary that any disorder anywhere in the world. And he had a conspiratorial view of history might invite this retaliation.

It was he who denounced neutrality in the cold war as immoral. It was he who bound the poor countries of the world the United States in a complex of military alliances which burdened them with costly and useless armies and burdened us with a catastrophic commitment that in the next decade brought us disaster in the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam I'm not suggesting that that commitment was so irrevocable that it couldn't with better sense have been broken. But that was where it all began. Allen Dulles proceeding in accordance with exactly the same doctrine authored in quick succession two of the greatest foul ups. In our national history. The shooting down of the U-2 in the Paris summit in the summer of 1960 and the incredible comic tragedy of the Bay of Pigs. Just one year later foreign policy could make statesman of material like this man who were so error prone. And if it even could even get an airport named for one of them.

It was surely obvious even to the most retarded citizen that foreign policy could do something for almost anyone. The realisation of the rewards of association with foreign policy then became very strong and it came rather early dose of Jones in his book on the Truman Doctrine a very good book. Now of the joy in Washington when word came in one thousand forty seven that the British were giving up responsibility for Greece and that the United States would soon have to take over. Now the United States would have to quote someone who is saying world leadership with all of its burdens and all of its glory. And he goes on to say that the people in the department felt called to a higher mission. These are his words tenseness and controlled excitement filled the room when Dean Acheson expound the emerging expounded the emerging policy at that

meeting. All felt that a new chapter in world history had opened and that they could be present where the most privileged the man. This was as I say taking grease under our wing to ensure that it would henceforth have a democratic government. Much of Mr. Nixon's some of Mr. Nixon's foreign policy is at best a puzzle even granted the enormous power of the bureaucratic momentum related to the bureaucratic style that mention the slow withdrawal from Vietnam. Coupled with the Cambodian enlargement and the relation of episodes are inexplicable and especially in the way in which they have allowed potential democratic and tagging us to inherit right and just play the peace issue. I'm a Democrat but forgive the Democrats their past sins on this issue I think it's something that may well be premature.

I say a personal matter Mr. Nixon's adherence to the old Ellis line in support of Pakistan and he spend all this unnecessary uncivilized cruel and provocative of decent opinion Vice President Agnew this recent visit to the Greek Vice President Agnew's recent visit to the Greek winter was equally reprehensible to the extent that it cannot be interpreted as a review. But. But elsewhere Mr. Nixon and his people have shown it seems to me a commendable tendency to avoid the crises and the tensions which so rejoice the practitioners of the earlier style. They have so far refused to become unduly aroused over the communists in Chile or the left wing government to cancel a visit of a warship

was better than to send several in which would have sent certainly have been suggested 10 years earlier. You know any person who is seems to have lost his head on this issue as John Connally and some Democrats at least have to take responsibility for him. Evidently the administration did some settlement with the Soviets in the matter of nuclear submarines in Cuba. They have been patient in the Middle East by not sending troops to help Hussein in 1970. I avoided doing something very wrong. And getting a lot of blood on the sand. I remember the administration when I complimented that it helped a lot but there were no helicopters available. But still they didn't go. The administration has ignored the call of the Democratic elders and by goners this time with their has the

contact really described him their call for a crackdown. On the urge to politic. On the reconciliation policy in the east of Chancellor Brandt an act an action which if the administration had gone through with it would have kept transfer brand out of the clutches of the Nobel Peace crowd. The administration appears to made some progress. Will that be ratified in making life more tolerable in relations with the Soviets more tolerable. On Berlin. And perhaps something will happen as the result of the SALT talks. We should not be in doubt as to what the problem in the go ahead. There is both sides. The negotiations go on immediately under the eye of the military people which is the equivalent of putting negotiations for the suppression of negotiations with France for the suppression of the heroin

traffic under the command of a whole group of narcotics addicts and the whole of our. Oratory and communist wicked wickedness which was already in the Klein and a Kennedy and particularly under Lyndon Johnson has disappeared. The old China policy has been dramatically reversed a step which I can think involved was taken without some. Of the rather considerable political risk that was that was present there. Perhaps it was all an accident. That. China now is the result of this ends up in the United Nations. Which is where it has long been long as I say it was entirely an accident. But at least one must give the administration credit for having accidents and some accidents that

turn out well. And now. The president has got to announce a trip to Moscow which removes the suspicions of some. I think beyond just suspicions that this was the whole move toward China was some kind of an anti-Soviet ploy. When anybody described anything as being a rather complicated operation in Washington. You should suspect because anything that complicated people would already be boasting about when the China and China when the Democrats were in power. We must say that they they had. The mobility of a man who was up to his neck in concrete. Communist bureaucracy was committed to the belief that the Communists were wicked but they were interlopers who were intransigent they hostile

and alas they didn't wish to bully the Chinese to be otherwise. Until his last days in office Secretary Rusk. But the stubbornness that had a certain amount of worldly charm about it declined even to concede that the Communists had possession of the national capital. He continued to the end to refer to Peking as a thing. So I must say without Seems to me beyond question that the Nixon initiatives of course a kind of reconsideration of our foreign policy for which we should be grateful. Think me also beyond question that they forced a major position a major problem for the opposition to which I belong. The Democrats that they come up to the election next year and then as will be the end think that many that nothing much has happened. The president's ability to inspire like

this like seems to me to be undiminished. And notably among the black and they are on the porch and had a three day with the war in Vietnam the bomber still fly that edify themselves but that what is happening there and in Cambodia and a lot that will be hoped will be enough to cause people to forget the earlier Democratic complicity in disaster and perhaps even the role of the some of those who are still around and had a part in it. Alternatively it seems to me that the opposition can recognize that they have been rather badly play by the president as has all but been true on economic policy and. Recognizing that they can make clear their intention to reform ranks on the sensible side of the Nixon policy and this means. A even stronger position of

the sun on the several problems which you're dealing with on this symposium. This means an even more positive commitment and even more affirmative commitment to the principle of coexistence with the communist countries. It means a much more determined effort than anything we have seen in the past to get the military competition with the Soviets under control. And this means a much. A much firmer very much firmer grasp. On our own military establishment and its spending than we have had achieved or had achieved in the past under the Democrats. It means. Abandoning Africa. It's too late. Castro Senator Kennedy said the other day that it was not a commercial and then the president can go 1000 miles to Peking. It should be possible

for. Either. President Nixon or his successor to make a 90 mile trip to Havana. It means abandoning the sub imperial ambitions in the Third World. And recognizing as I said on life tonight that there's little we can do to influence political development in this part of the world. And let. That we need to do so. And it means this is the most important of all by far the most important of all eliminating the intelligence and the military and much of the diplomatic bureaucracy both in Washington and in the field. That these changes in policy make we've done because it is the bureaucracy and the making of policy by great organizations by the great organization of the Pentagon and the State Department the intelligence agencies that is the source of the style and the source of the contact content the substance.

That I argue tonight. We have now learned it's dangerous foreign policy made by an organization I could put the whole thing in one sentence is a contradiction in terms we must have it on the scale which again it can be made by individuals and subject to the judgment of individuals. And finally again a recurring for the cosmetic detail it means making Washington a center of straightforward administration making the White House not a symbol of the nation and not a symbol of anything but a place for a sensible sensible man who lives and does business with the least possible ostentatious and the greatest possible accessibility. I think it's still uncertain how. The opposition how the Democrats will react. Democrats have a strong sense of tradition here in Baltimore and know this extends to the man and the policies that have been it's

doing. There's a certain conditional affection for Democrats even those who have been architects of disaster. While I have very little. Doubt as to how the decision should go. As to whether it will be hope to coast on the past or do the Mr Nixon one better I think will not be in any doubt as to what I feel should be the course. Mr Nixon has made life very much more difficult for the Democrats in these last months and I think we should all be very grateful to him for doing so. May I say that your you will now realize that I didn't come all the way down here from Cambridge to give you a fairly perfunctory speech.

You are you have aged since I began. But may I say that as compared to a Harvard undergraduate Schork comportment and particularly the way you wish strain from shuffling your feet is absolutely commendable. Thank you very much. Each. Professor Galbraith will entertain questions to facilitate our procedure

we have microphone set up in the aisles. He'll take questions alternately. Please limit yourself to one question and don't touch the microphone. I'd also like to remind you of our next speaker in the symposium Lieutenant General James Gavin Professor Galbraith. For many years the United States succeeded in keeping China out of the UN. Not even a vote was taken and then all of a sudden the United States lost very badly on the vote to even keep Taiwan in retch in the UN and I have no understand exactly how the United States loss of badly could you offer any idea. Oh I don't know but I'd say this could be one of the best manufactory and recent history. As long as the facts come out that well I'm prepared to give some minor applause to whoever it was that

mismanaged this operation. I. Thank you. Sir I would like to challenge you. As an artist story and I very much appreciate the skill with which you do style as significant. I mean that's what we do very much we can't discuss content very well so we discussed. Formal appearances of things and presented as a very serious discussion and I also appreciate your entertaining quality. Maybe you should stop right there. Right On the plus side. Let's turn to the other side. As a member of the National Congress of labor committees I also have an obligation reality and that's what I'd like to challenge about. Since that's what. Does not appear in the course of your long discussion. The point is this. You tell us. And sort of love this audience with a sense of what is

happening on the basis of style some kind of appearance of reality. And at the same time what is actually happening is very different. It is actually happening of the north through substantial changes in the most significant kind in the recent period. One is the floating of the dollar and the second is the imposition of wage price and wage controls primarily as we've not seen or exclusively as we've seen so much of in the recent continued rise in the cost of living index. And you. This urban gentleman is one of the most. Strongest advocate of the disciplining of the society through increasingly rigorous wage controls. He was one of the earliest advocates of it and certainly Nixon's final agreement with that is one of the things most embarrass the Democratic Party although there are still concerns as to whether he will apply Phase 2 in such a way so that we will get to Phase 3 a real disciplining of the wage force in this country. So on the one hand we have this seemingly serene atmosphere of accommodation. But on the other hand we have an

increasingly disciplined society which is going to have to grow to offer tremendous internal struggle in the country. So. The trial of that I would like to put is is it not the case that with the disruption of the world economy in the shrinkage of world trade that what is really behind the reality of this period is not a question of style at all but a question of whether we will succeed in imposing the most rigorous kind of discipline on our workforce in this country and work forces in other countries such as in Japan. Which is already in decline. Such factors as the. I get the gist of my mous I would like to know whether that is really the question of reality that faces us in this lying I think that there are more questions than one can talk about one night plotting a dollar I regard as relatively unimportant thing the what's the matter the steps taken on wage and price control are really of major importance. Also the subject of a rather of another discussion at least as long

as the one I've just had and I doubt that the patience of the audience survive that. Let me let me say that I don't think that the problem is in the action itself but the problem grows out of the appearance in our economy over the last 50 years. Very powerful corporations which have the power to sap and move their prices juxtaposed to less strong but still very effective unions and the tendency to reach to reconcile and the 10 increasing tendency of the one to reconcile the two to reconcile their disputes by passing the cost on the public. This is the underlying reality. A further step to control wages and prices is in a substantial degree in my view an accommodation to that past development. It was the past development which made it more or less inevitable. So I think you're I think you're quite right in assuming that there's a that this is a step

of major importance really very great importance. But the step also of accommodation the underlying change rather than a step change is much itself. I submit the underlying change is the decline of real productivities in this country and in the western world as a whole and that's what underlies this crisis that we're entering into and this this I think takes us onto another topic that perhaps is a bit longer than that and we should spend tonight. Earlier in the symposium Professor William Appleman Williams articulated what can be called the revisionist viewpoint of foreign policy which basically state it says that no matter how universal our universe was that premise is that our foreign policy is based primarily on the desire to maintain a congenial atmosphere for American capitalism. He did submit to the audience the premise that in order for us to scale down our involvement in the world and in and therefore scale down our military involvement we would have to make a fundamental change in

American capitalism at home and you know I don't agree with that. There will be evident. And what I was talking about style tonight that I relate the style for the substance. Of policy that is associated with organization with bureaucracy. I don't no one should. Entirely diminish diety deprecate the role of economic determinism economic imperialism as a factor in our foreign policy and it's a much more important however. These are the European views of the Japan that it is these are the Vietnam of Asia Africa. The actual truth of the matter is that it's a capitalist state one can use that term in Indochina as the minimum as it swept under Japanese control in World War Two. I was gone for five years. We never missed it

for a moment. We never miss China. It's impossible for me to think that the American economy has the depth of the stake in the third world that this fuel holds. So I come back to attributing much of the dynamic much of the movement there in the last 25 years to show the ideology that they had to an ideology which misinterpreted. The American possibilities in need and which got deeply into the bureaucratic structure and I would put much more emphasis on the Pentagon and this whole seems to me that a lot of the revisionist view indeed has the effect of exempting the

State Department from the Pentagon and the CIA from responsibilities which should damn well be put right. Well I guess if I would rather say something and actually ask the question directly and ask you to respond to it. If in fact I had a question if I had a question to ask I suppose it would be sir. What did you say. I'm not quite sure what you said. Now if I were you. I would not have said anything tonight either that is anything in the area of my competence economics that's supposed to be your area of competence. You are after all the same John Kenneth Galbraith who wrote the affluent society which in 1971 seems to be a rather silly book. I would not pronounce I would talk about style if I were you as well so. Because so that just to address the question the gentleman earlier why you did not address what you have

been applied is the two major topics today. Your. Your support for wage gouging in this period on the brink of World oppression and the other related important economic issues if I were you I would only speak publicly on such seemingly unrelated issues as foreign policy and so forth I would try to avoid any answer to my question. That's a good point and I think out I'll take it under advisement but. Stop talking in my profession is harder than it seems. The question about India and Pakistan has visited Moscow and peeking in troops are massed on the Pakistan borders and were making nice noises to China and Russia now can you see the three superpowers acting together to prevent conflict in India and Pakistan. You know I don't think it's entirely impossible. Hello. I've just been back out there. This is this is a tragedy in the world almost beyond imagination.

It's I don't think there's any way of conveying that ghastly business that is when 90 million people pick up or leave their homes and move over into camps in another country. I don't in some ways I don't think that they. Are. The problem of war are terrible as it is. Should is the central on the central one there is. That as far as we're concerned is first of all. To support. The effort to provide a little more food shelter and medical care subsistence for these people who are just on the fringe of starvation. And the second most important thing is to cut off our military aid and our economic aid. Brinker pressure to bear on the Pakistan government to give the U.S. and all the South government the autonomy

possibly even the independence when they come to that without which those people will not have the sense of security that allows them to go home. That's a much more urgent issue. In all your years of the State Department and Washington who is absolutely the greatest quote unquote backroom politician you've ever seen. Backroom politics. Yeah. Wheeler Dealer that type of politician. I'm sure we do have them there. Well as you know as the come as a complete politician. Exclude the whole question of foreign policy and confine him to matters of domestic policy and off. The. Bat. And considering the crowd and considering only the craftsmanship of politics which is to get things get the possible accomplished let's define that then I would then I would suppose that

and I think I can't think I've ever seen anybody that was the equal of Johnson and the tragedy of Johnson was that. When this was his area of personal knowledge with terribly good when he left his area of personal knowledge and had to rely on advisors which was true of. Foreign policy in general. And Southeast Asia in particular then under the area of personal disaster. But you know we must keep a balance on these matters. Evers lost the race for Mississippi but he ran and if it hadn't been for Johnson he wouldn't even have been running. That was where the great thrust on it was from Johnson that the great thrust on civil rights began was that on voting rights in particular

is about six months ago I was watching educational television and I saw a debate at Oxford University between us and we met Buckley Jr. which I believe he won. I'd. Like to hear a much more serious and that it was that I wouldn't mind it losing at Oxford. I couldn't recall which it was but I'd like to hear your opinion of well enough. Thought he was better prepared than I was that night. I would suppose that broccoli is the I think there are no views of Buckley's with which I agree with which I agree I think it's fair to say however that Buckley is the only reactionary in our history with a sense of humor.

Well that's slight praise it's not significant praise as I would like to answer an earlier question and ask the professor whether my answer would agree with his views namely the question what exactly he said earlier this evening and I would say that that really it was quite simple. And the first part of his address Professor Galbraith the created with power and success become known as powerful and successful. And then the second part of his address he said are associated with failure become known as valid and therefore it was quite reasonable that during the question period in describing in answering questions about the factors that will affect American foreign policy such as. An incipient depression which the leaders of many major countries are now talking about especially the finance ministers would not have. Would not have the same effect. On the politics of the 70s and the Great Depression of the 30s pattern the

politics of the third from the fourth century a correct summary professor. Yeah I think it would be if we have a depression on the scale of the 30s in the 70s. So I would suppose that we would have the Connelly art gallery right next to the Mellon art gallery as part of an effort to retrieve. Provided John can get the money. Whoever is associated with with that sort of a disaster isn't going to come off any better than Andrew Mellon or Herbert Hoover. I really think the prediction is there's maybe a bit premature I. Mean I think we have the technical capacity here and in other countries to arrest that kind of

disaster and understand better how to do it than we did in the 30s and that this will be done that the problems in the society the problems of inequality the problems of the problems that are associated with the. Enormous needs of urbanised existence problems of how the individual relates himself to great public and private organizations. Oh I think more serious. And more puzzling than the problems of remedying or. Depression in some ways I think the problem of inflation is still a more stubborn problem. So that I could be wrong. There is a God somewhere that slays people who makes predictions of this sort. I still am unwilling to. I would still be cautious about making a prediction of a return to the thirties but could you comment or speculate on the

possibility the probability in the proper ability of their ever coming into being a comprehensive world government that would supersede the power of existing Nations and I hope that this is not the last stage in the development of man. You know this is a this is a point that we must not ever imagine the tendency to assume that the present form of the national state like the present form of General Motors is the highest achievement of mankind. The degree of conservatism which I'm not quite prepared to accept and I'm glad you don't either. Professor Gallagher to what extent are presidential politics and decisions particularly based upon real election goals rather than the dilemmas of the society in which we live. Well I'm not sure that they're entirely inconsistent. They. Present the United States was able to fill very recent

times two and four at the deep and pious conviction of economists that unemployment was a price that we could pay for curing inflation and is. And it was only as the election got closer and closer and closer that this curious combination of inflation and depression or inflation and recession which they had managed to create nobody previously thought impossible. As a result of pursuing old fashioned policies that became intolerable pain became too great. I somehow think that that. Politicians facing elections may be better than politicians ignoring elections. I'm not being but I could even make a bipartisan point on this. I have the feeling that Lyndon Johnson prior to 1964 had a more civilized

view of the use of bombers than he did after 64. Professor For those of us who don't have time to read your review and Senator if you don't know now listen good mark you're not that busy are you. For those of us who seem not to have the time then could you give us the gist of your if it was a great deal to be said for Lyndon Johnson as a as a president on the mastic policy. I think he could well have been the most effective of the century even the overriding the disaster of his administration was when he fell into the hands of the cold warriors and I gather that you believe in the future of the capitalistic system I wonder if you could just explain how we're going to avoid stepping on a larger larger percentage of the world consumer market. And you know what I would what I I think we have already entered a stage of

post capitalism and the technocrats have extensively taken over in large corporations and I would hope to see this evolve and into increasing public form I don't believe in the future of the capitalist system but I am on the whole of evolution this rather than a revolution. OK good night. Next week Lieutenant General James M. Gavin former ambassador to France will speak on the Atlantic community and relations with the Soviet Union. WB Jacey FM in cooperation with Johns Hopkins University and the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting as presented the 1971 Milton F. Eisenhower symposium. Soviet American relations the dilemmas of power. On today's program Dr. John Kenneth Galbraith Harvard Economist

spoke on the role of the Third World as it is affected by competition between the great powers. The executive producer and editor is Thomas Egil that. Original theme music by Donald sure a printed copy of this program send $1 to dilemmas of power. Transcript. Number six Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting. Owings Mills Maryland 2 1 1 1 7.