The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Interview with Alan Cranston

[Tease]

Sen. ALAN CRANSTON, (D) California: I come here today to announce my candidacy for president of the United States.

ROBERT MacNEIL [voice-over]: Tonight, a conversation with Alan Cranston, the first Democrat to enter the presidential race.

[Titles]

MacNEIL: Good evening. For several months six Democrats have actively been running for the privilege of challenging President Reagan, assuming he seeks a second term, in November, 1984. Although they face another entire year of campaigning before the Democratic nominating convention, we though this a good time to have a quiet look at each of the Democrats. So tonight we begin a series of interviews, the order determined by the candidates' availability.

[voice-over] We start with Alan Cranston, the 68-year-old senator from California. A graduate of Stanford, Cranston was a foreign correspondent before World War II. He headed the foreign language division of the Office of War Information for three years, then refused a draft deferment and served as an Army private. After the war he combined careers as a real estate businessman and author, with involvement in the World Peace and Federalism Movement. In the '50s he entered politics, working to revitalize the California Democratic Party and being elected the party's first state comptroller in 72 years. In 1968 he reached the U.S. Senate. The next year Cranston set a world record for 55-year-olds in the 100-yard dash. In 1980 he was elected to his third Senate term, outpolling President Reagan in California. Since 1977, Senator Cranston has served as Senate Democratic Whip. Jim?

LEHRER: Robin, not only is Alan Cranston the oldest and fastest man in the race, he's also the most liberal. His votes as a senator and his positions as a presidential candidate put him to the left of the rest of the field. HisSenate vote ranking last year with the liberal Americans for Democratic Action was 95%, 100% with the AFL-CIO; while he voted right only 6% of the time, according to the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action; 5% as scored by the American Conservative Union. His positions on nuclear power, abortion, gay rights, draft registration, defense spending and most other issues are generally those labeled liberal. The key one he has emphasized in the campaign thus far has been his support of a nuclear freeze, which helped him win victories in three of four state straw polls taken of small groups of Democratic Party activists. There's still some dispute over the meaning of those victories, but the fact that they caused many in the political world to pay attention to the Cranston candidacy is undisputed.

Senator, welcome.

Sen. CRANSTON: Greetings. Glad to be with you.

LEHRER: It's been suggested, as I'm sure you know, that you're too liberal to be nominated, much less to be elected. You disagree with that, I assume.

Sen. CRANSTON: Of course. It's true I have a liberal voting record, but the issues I'm running on for president are mainstream issues -- peace and jobs. I don't think that it's liberal or conservative to think that it would be wise to avoid being blown up in a nuclear holocaust. And I don't think it's liberal or conservative to feel that we should make the free enterprise system work so that it's productive, so the people have a reasonable opportunity to make a profit, and to hold a job. In California I've won overwhelming victories time after time; I hold all the records. I've won with the support not only of a united Democratic Party but with a great deal of Republican and business support because of my practical approach to problems. In the Senate I've been elected Whip four times running without an opponent; no Democrat ever achieved that before. That means I had the support of Southerners, Northerners, Easterners, Westerners. And Senate Democrats don't elect ideologues to leadership posts. They elect practical people who know how to build coalitions and to work with everybody.

LEHRER: So you're no ideologue.

Sen. CRANSTON: No, I'm not. President Reagan is the ideologue.

LEHRER: I see. What, in your opinion, distinguishes you from these other five Democrats?

Sen. CRANSTON: I think, first, my experience. I've had a very rounded experience. I have been involved with the nuclear issue since 1945, when the bombs fell at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I met Albert Einstein then. He educated me on the dangers of nuclear war. I've been seeking to understand how to cope with that issue ever since. No one else within reach of the presidency has that background with this issue, and no one else gives it the absolute priority that I give it, the priority that a president must give to that matter. Some of my other competitors have no business experience. I have a great deal, and that will help in dealing with the economy and bringing the business world along in ways that that is necessary to achieve an economy of growth, of full production, of jobs for everyone.

LEHRER: Much has been said, as you know, Senator, in the last several years about the character of the man or woman who would be president. Do you think you have the best character? Are you the best man of all these six who are now running?

Sen. CRANSTON: Well, I would not be running for president if I didn't feel that I had the strength of character and the capacity, the experience and the judgment to lead our country in a very perilous and difficult time. You only acquire experience by putting in some time and having a breadth of experiences. And I've had that, more than anyone else within reach of the presidency.

LEHRER: Why do you want to be president? Is it because you want to lead the nation, or is there any particular thing you want to do? What drives you? As Robin said, you were the first to announce, you've still got at least a year ahead of you. There must be something that's driving you. What is it?

Sen. CRANSTON: Well, I got into politics and government because of my concern about issues. You can do a lot in the Senate; I do. But you can do more in the White House if you get there and know what to do. Unfortunately, we now have a president who does not know what to do with the great powers of the presidercy. I would like to have the opportunity to serve as president, to seek to lead our country to an end to the arms race, to a reduction of the grave danger of a nuclear war, and to straighten out the economy and lead us to full employment. There are many, many other issues that are important -- education, environment, equal opportunity for women, blacks, Hispanics, handicapped Americans and others. But all of those issues will not mean very much if we destroy ourselves in a nuclear war. And if we spend ourselves silly in the arms race we won't have the wherewithal to really cope effectively with many of those issues.

LEHRER: And you believe you're the only man who can do all those things.

Sen. CRANSTON: No, I don't make any such claim that I am the only man that can do all those things. I think I am best qualified of those within reach of the presidency.

LEHRER: Are you in this to win? When you first announced in February, did you announce to win? Are you in it to win or are you trying to make a point? You know a lot of people announce for office and run for things because they have another agenda. What is your agenda?

Sen. CRANSTON: My agenda is to win and to have the opportunity to do what a president can do in that office. I didn't enter the race for any other purpose, and the way things are going, I'm more and more confident that I will win.

LEHRER: But was it the nuclear issue, the -- I don't mean necessarily the nuclear freeze specifically, but was it the nuclear issue or anything else that specifically said to you, "I must run for president"?

Sen. CRANSTON: The nuclear issue played a major part in my decision. I feel that it's not yet been handled adequately by an American president. The state of the economy and many other issues had a lot to do with my decision. Also the fact that I ran way ahead of Ronald Reagan in 1980; the fact that Ronald Reagan, according to his political right arm, Lyn Nofziger, did not choose to run against me for the Senate in 1974, even though he wanted to be a senator, because he felt he might not beat me. That fact led me to feel that perhaps I was the one that might beat Ronald Reagan. And, after watching Ronald Reagan turn the clock back in California for eight years and then start doing the same thing nationally, I decided I would like to seek to replace him.

LEHRER: But to get to replace Ronald Reagan you have to go through all these other Democrats. At the time you announced, most of these folks, who are your fellow Democratic candidates -- it was already pretty clear that they were going to run. How did you evaluate that, too, as to why you were needed to run against Ronald Reagan?

Sen. CRANSTON: Well, I felt that I had a better opportunity to carry California and carry the west and beat Ronald Reagan. I think he's very, very vulnerable for many reasons. And I felt that I had a better opportunity than others to win the nomination and to have that opportunity. Opinion polls make no impression on me. I've been behind in opinion polls before. Opinion polls do not pick the winner of the presidential race.The frontrunner in the opinion polls hasn't won since 1956.

LEHRER: But you must have also thought you'd make a better president than the other five.

Sen. CRANSTON: Of course.

LEHRER: Robin?

MacNEIL: You've said, Senator, that the first thing you'd do as president is sit down with the Russian leader, the Soviet leader, try and end -- achieve a nuclear freeze and slow down the arms race. What would you consider in the domestic front the most urgent task facing you?

Sen. CRANSTON: I think the most urgent task domestically is to straighten out the economy and lead us to full production and full employment, a job for every American who needs one. How do we do that? Well, first, I think we have to take a new look at the role of government. I reject two extremes: I reject the extreme that government should plan and control everything, and I reject the Reagan extreme that the government should keep its hands off the economy, be an nonentity, a nonplayer. I believe the government should be a parther with business and with labor to promote fairness, productivity, full employment and full competitiveness. We need our government to work in partnership with the economy to enable us to compete with the Germans and the Japanese and others who are penetrating our markets, taking them away from us in many respects, and beating us in foreign markets.

MacNEIL: What you've just said is what a lot of other people are saying in the country right now. What specifically would you do to create or find employment for every American who needs a job?

Sen. CRANSTON: Let me cite three examples of the form of partnership that I envision. First, the government must take steps to get interest rates down and keep them down. That requires a change in Federal Reserve Board policy, and it requires moving toward a balanced budget. Secondly, we need a reconstruction finance corporation, like we had in the Depression days, to provide low-interest loans to basic industries and to new industries to get the old ones going again and to bring new ones on line that can create jobs and not joblessness. We cannot get along without a steel industry, a machine tool, a rubber, an aluminumand an automobile industry. We need it for jobs; we need it for a balanced productive economy. We need it for national defense. If we not only had to import so much oil, which we do, but depended on foreign nations for steel, for machine tools, for rubber, for aluminum, we couldn't build tanks because we can't build autos, we would be in serious straits in any protracted test of our strength with another nation. Another form of partnership is with working men and women. We have to take into account the human factor. We have to provide better conditions at the workplace; a better, larger voice in decision-making for working men and women in appropriate ways; and we need to give those who produce an incentive to be as productive as possible through profit-sharing, bonuses for productivity and the like. Those are examples of the sort of steps we need to take.

MacNEIL: There are approximately 11 million people unemployed at the moment. Many economists say that something like half of those are structurally unemployed.They wouldn't find jobs even if the economy were to rebound marvelously. What do you do for those people who will not be able to find work even in a recovered economy?

Sen. CRANSTON: Well, first, let me use a larger and more unpleasant figure. The present number is really 20 million Americans who are unemployed or underemployed -- just working a few hours or days a week. As to those who are structurally unemployed, they need to be retrained. They need to be given the skills needed in the transition time in our economy to hold down jobs, and that can be done; it must be done, and the government must help see to it that it is done.

MacNEIL: Have you estimated the cost of what you are proposing to give every American who needs one a job?

Sen. CRANSTON: Well, I don't think the cost would be immense because full employment will lead to a balanced budget. It will move us in that direction. For every one million people you put back to work you reduce the deficit by $30 billion because those people are paying taxes on their earnings, and no longer requiring food stamps and other forms of assistance. So the task is to get the free enterprise system working to provide jobs, not to hire them all by government. Government can't hire 20 million people who need fulltime employment. So it's not going to be terribly expensive. In terms of what the RFC would do, that would not be a budget item. There would be bonds sold to provide the funds for the low-interest loans to revive, retool, retrain our basic industries and bring new technologies on line.

MacNEIL: Don't you also propose a large public works program, a program of jobs provided by government?

Sen. CRANSTON: Yes, I do. There used to be the Humphrey-Hawkins full employment bill. There is now a Hawkins-Cranston bill that would provide one million jobs at a cost of $10 billion. That is needed to ease the pain for some of the people who aren't going to be employed soon in the free enterprise system in the private sector. But the basic thrust of my economic program is not to have government doing everything; it's to have the private sector flourshing once again and a stable, sound, growing economy.

MacNEIL: What do you estimate the net cost to the Treasury or to the federal government would be of all your schemes put together, including job retraining and providing public works employment, of the various other parts of your scheme?

Sen. CRANSTON: I don't have any precise estimate that I can give you, but in long-range terms the cost to our economy would not be great because we would have a recovered economy with revenues coming in from people who now are needing assistance.

MacNEIL: All the other Democrats are talking about full employment or something like it, too. What makes your ideas different from theirs?

Sen. CRANSTON: Well, first, I have not heard anyone else stress full employment as one of the two prime issues that they are campaigning on and that they will give priority to in the White House. And no one else has spelled out a concrete, detailed plan, as I have, to achieve full employment. And I'm convinced this plan can achieve full employment; however, I grant that it's very tough to do while we are engaged in this incredibly costly arms race that undermines our economy, costing, if Ronald Reagan has his way, $2 trillion -- $2 trillion -- in the next five years. It's very hard to straighten out the economy when that vast diversion of treasure and also of time and talent is occurring, and that's why the two issues relate one to another.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: And, Senator, in the foreign affairs area, that is clearly your number one priority, right? To reduce the arms race?

Sen. CRANSTON: Well, in the foreign affairs realm, yes. My objective is to seek an end to the arms race that is threatening to wreck our economy, that is undermining it drastically, and threatens to destroy our country totally and conceivably wipe out the human race if we wind up in a nuclear war.

LEHRER: How would you do that?

Sen. CRANSTON: It requires negotiations with the Soviet Union, creative, constructive, absolutely determined and fair, the like of which we've never seen. I envisage something analogous to Camp David, where Sadat and Begin were brought together. They'd never had a serious conversation. Their countries had had three bloody wars in one generation, but after 12 days at Camp David a peace was forged that now endures between Egypt and Israel.

LEHRER: You think that could be done between the United States and the Soviet Union?

Sen. CRANSTON: I do. We do not have a marrige counselor like Jimmy Carter was between Sadat and Begin, so the American president should take the initiative. Previous summit conferences have failed primarily to produce any really significant results because they've been prenegotiated at the staff level. So there's no big breakthrough, no new understanding. You achieve a lowest common denominator agreement, and then the heads of state come together for show-and-tell ratification of whatever somebody else worked out with a show of progress that is only skin deep and not substantive. I think the American leader and the Soviet Union leader must get together, must lay their cards on the table, must face the fact that we both face a common problem. We have deep differences; those will continue. We will have confrontations in the future.The task is to manage our relationships so that they do not culminate in a war that could destroy us all. We both have economies that are being undermined by the present process. We both face destruction. Therefore we have a common interest in working it out, and I believe we can.

LEHRER: Do you believe that the Soviet Union would share this common belief, the leadership of the Soviet Union?

Sen. CRANSTON: I do, and that isn't just based upon supposition. Ever since the arms race began, going way back to the '40s, I've studied the Soviet system, I've visited that country, I've met many of their leaders. And they are paranoid about war. They've been through much worse experiences than the American people, with invasion after invasion from Napoleon to Hitler and other unhappy events in their lives. Incredible numbers of people who have perished. They have a grave concern, I am convinced, about invasion and about war. They know that nuclear war would be an absolute catastrophe. One man I talked with awhile ago, accompanied on that mission by Senator Charles Mathias of Maryland, a Republican, is Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff of the Soviet Union, the man who would be in charge of destroying us should war come. I asked him, "Can either of us win a nuclear war?" and he replied in three chilling words, "No, mutual suicide."

LEHRER: Well, what do you say to President Reagan and others who would say what's the point in sitting down and talking to the Soviet Union about arms control when they are fomenting revolution in Central America, the situation in Poland, Afghanistan -- all of those things?

Sen. CRANSTON: It's because we have differences, because we have the potential of a collision that could lead to a holocaust that we need to achieve arms control, to limit the costs and limit the dangers. I'm not suggesting the Soviet Union is going to reform anytime soon, that they will suddenly become peaceful. I have no illusions about them. They're regressive, repressive; they do not understand, nor do they value freedom. But they are human beings, despite Ronald Reagan's impressions to the contrary. They have children and grandchildren; they have fears and hopes and dreams. And I think we can reach an understanding that while we're going to pursue our different views, we're going to maintain our different philosophies and principles and purposes, it makes common sense for us to avoid steps that could lead to a nuclear war.And the way you reduce that danger is by arms control agreements that are verifiable, not based upon trust -- I don't trust them, no one really trusts them; they don't trust us. They have to be verifiable agreements, and those are achievable.

LEHRER: But in the meantime, specific things come up, like Central America. If you were in the White House today in the current situation, what would you be doing in Central America?

Sen. CRANSTON: Well, I would reverse Ronald Reagan's policies just about 100%. He mistakes the parasites on revolution -- communists -- with the causes. The causes are poverty, deprivation and right-wing tyranny that the people there decided they wanted to get rid of, and the communists come in and try to ride that to power of their own. It's a policy that doesn't work, to always stand for the status quo as long as it is not a communist status quo. We tried it in Cuba, backing Battista; we got Castro. We tried it in Nicaragua, backing Somoza; we got the Sandinistas. We're now backing a right-wing tyranny that stamps on their people; that, according to the Catholic bishops, has assassinated some 30,000 political opponents, most of them unarmed. They torture; they imprison without warrant and without trial, and what do we stand for when we back that kind of a regime? What we should do, in my view, is tell the government of El Salvador in absolutel clear terms, "Either you shape up on human rights, civil rights and economic opportunities, begin to grant them, or we end our military aid because it's a hopeless case." And my view is that the present course will probably lead to American military involvement there and ultimately to a communist takeover, as it did in Vietnam, when we backed the right-wing tyranny in Saigon and got left-wing tyranny in Hanoi.

LEHRER: Robin?

MacNEIL: Senator, on to politics for a few moments. Some commentators have compared your campaign with that of George McGovern in '72. Opposition to the Vietnam War propelled him to the Democratic nomination. Can opposition or can your position on nuclear arms propel you to that nomination?

Sen. CRANSTON: No, and I don't expect to be propelled to the nomination solely on the issue of nuclear war, and I'm not stressing that issue alone. I'm stressing that issue and the whole nuclear peril and the effect of the arms race on our economy and the economy itself and the need to straighten it out. And I'm stressing, as I did earlier tonight, that all other issues hang on that, on those two issues. If we destroy ourselves, other issues don't matter. If we spend ourselves into bankruptcy, we cannot cope with other problems.

MacNEIL: Commentators see another parallel with George McGovern: the most liberal candidate gets the Democratic nomination, but then gets decimated in the general election because the base of his appeal, even within the party, but certainly in the electorate, is too narrow. What do you say to those who raise that fear?

Sen. CRANSTON: I say that the mainstream issues I am running on -- jobs and peace -- with emphasis, too, but less, on education, the environment, equal opportunity and other needs in our society, are mainstream issues. And I stress my electoral record in California, where I hold all the vote-getting records, where I won with a lot of Republican and business support as well as Democratic support, and I stress the fact that I've run stronger that Ronald Reagan in California, that he didn't choose to compete with me in a California Senate contest, and that in the Senate my reputation is not that of an ideologue; it's that of a practitioner of the art of finding votes, building coalitions and passing important legislation.

MacNEIL: How quickly does your strategy or do your tactics demand that you knock off the other liberal senator in the Democratic race, Senator Hart, in order to remain viable, able to raise funds and attack the people in the center, for instance, former Vice President Mondale and Senator Glenn?

Sen. CRANSTON: My first objective when I entered the campaign was to become one of the three top contenders for the presidency, and I believe that is now the case. The other two are Walter Mondale and John Glenn. I'm not sure who is first of those two at the present time. My next objective is to get it down to a two-man race by April 1, when about half of the delegates will have been selected. And I think we are well on our way to that goal.

MacNEIL: What would you predict -- which of the two men, or which is the other person in that two-man race, would you predict now?

Sen. CRANSTON: I think it will be John Glenn, and I would then be the progressive alternative to John Glenn.

MacNEIL: What do you see as your principal weakness right now?

Sen. CRANSTON: Well, I don't see any, and if I saw any I certainly wouldn't reveal them on nationwide television with you.

MacNEIL: You said a moment ago you thought Ronald Reagan was vulnerable. The general political wisdom at the moment seems to be, at least in the press, that he would be very hard to beat if he ran again. Where do you see him vulnerable to a Democratic candidate like you?

Sen. CRANSTON: I think he's vulnerable because he's pursuing a domestic policy based on privilege and a foreign policy based on paranoia. The American people are very concerned that his saber-rattling, his gunboat diplomacy in Central America will land us in a war there or a devastating war with the Soviet Union. There's a widespread view that his economic policies are unfair and that they are not really working. We have tremendously high unemployment still, rising bankruptcies, rising foreclosures. And in middle America, I find that where it used to be that each generation thought that they would do better than their parents and their children would do better than they, that hope and that confidence has been totally shattered. Now new young families think they may not do as well as their parents, and they fear their children will not do as well as they.People are concerned about the environment, education, black needs, Hispanic needs, handicapped needs, veterans' needs, senior citizen needs. On all of those counts, Ronald Reagan is very vulnerable, and I believe he can be defeated and defeated by a wide margin.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you, Senator. Thank you for joining us, very much, this evening. Good night, Jim.

Sen. CRANSTON: Thank you.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That's all for tonight. We will be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.