The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Interview with Bob Kerrey

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Veteran's Day this year is an event lasting several days in Washington, and that's because in material and symbolic ways the nation is beginning to pay the veterans of Vietnam the due many of them feel they've been denied in the nine years since the war ended. There were the traditional ceremonies for all war dead yesterday at Arlington Cemetery. Tomorrow, they will unveil the new Vietnam memorial bearing the names of all Americans who died in Vietnam. For two days all those names have been read in a vigil at the National Cathedral. Tonight, with a particular Vietnam veteran, we look back at the nine years since Vietnam. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, there was a familiar face in the crowd yesterday, that of Bob Kerrey, the newly elected Democratic Governor of Nebraska. In 1969, he was leading a Navy commando unit onto a Vietnam beach. A grenade exploded at his feet; despite severe injury, he led his unit to safety, heroic action that won him the Congressional Medal of Honor and lost him his right leg below the knee. He's familiar because we interviewed him in January, 1973 as part of a public television special on the end of the war as seen by the people in one American city, Lincoln, Nebraska. Bob Kerrey was then out of a Philadelphia naval hospital and back home in Lincoln. Yesterday I interviewed him again here in Washington. But first, Bob Kerrey in 1973, reacting to peace in Vietnam.

BOB KERREY: I was enormously excited that it was going to end, and felt a relief that it was going to end. It was hopeful that the POWs would be returned within the 60-day period and that the suffering would stop, and that we would make some attempt to rebuild the war area. At the same time I pause and think about my original purpose in going there and what we were trying to accomplish in the force and the sacrifice, and I think about Jim Gores and some people I knew that died there and I worked with them. I think of the Lewis Prullers and the John Deeres -- people I knew in Philadelphia who had been severely injured, and I can't help but being very sad that it all happened.

LEHRER: You think this war was worth it? Worth the cost?

Mr. KERREY: No, no.

LEHRER: Do you have any personal bitterness about the price you paid?

Mr. KERREY: Right now I don't. There are times when I do. Whenever you are unable to do -- whenever you're frustrated you blame something, right? And if you can't do something you want to do, you blame it -- I mean, that's she way I am. If I can't get a job I have a reluctance to blame myself. I usually blame somebody else, and so the logical thing for me to do is to come back to Vietnam because it is the source of many of my current problems. It's certainly the source of my disability. And it's certainly the source of the bad memories that I have. And, at the same time, I feel there are some good things that it did for me, like, you know, it's not -- the good things aren't worth it. I've seen people get those things without paying that kind of -- those kinds of dues.

LEHRER: Was this frustrating to you when you came back -- you had said earlier that the war didn't seem to touch the people in Lincoln. Was it frustrating to you when you were talking about the war to get people that didn't seem to be that interested?

Mr. KERREY: Sure, very -- very frustrating. I was close to being bitter at that time, for that very reason. Again, perhaps, at that time I just expected people to be concerned and to feel a part of it and feel a responsibility for what I was doing for them and that kind of thing. And, in fact, in a wartime situation, historically people, they do their own jobs. They work at what they were doing before, and their involvement is limited. And it was particularly limited in the Vietnam War where an overt effort was made on the part of President Johnson to give the American people guns and butter. He wanted to conduct this war, this conflict in an effort to -- in such a way that it would not affect the people, that it wouldn't make them mad, you know, that they wouldn't feel the pinch economically, particularly. And thus we ran up an enormous deficit and unprecedented inflation, and it did affect them, but so indirectly that I doubt that -- I think -- no, I think it was indirectly enough that the inflation then started to bother people, but the impact, for the most part, was limited to -- it was limited to consciousness, I suppose.

LEHRER: Did you find sometimes you just wanted to shake somebody, and say, you know, let me tell you what happened to me, what's going on in Vietnam? Was that the feeling you had sometimes?

Mr. KERREY: Well, I was -- yes, that's it, except more than shaking. We were talking -- I was talking to a university group once, and the Young Americans for Freedom were there on the same program. And someone from the audience who knew me stood and said, "I think I should explain to you that Bob was wounded or was injured in Vietnam." And these Young Americans for Freedom, whose goals I find abominable, said, "Probably shell shock." You know, a remark which was, you know, so cold and so ignorant that I was just completely stunned, and yet it kind of summed up to me the frustration that I was having at that time trying to bring the war back a little bit and allow people to, you know, feel a little of what was happening.

LEHRER: What did you do, just finally give up trying?

Mr. KERREY: I'd say to some extent, yeah, that I have kind of given up trying, realizing that if you're hurt and if right now your knee is hurting, you can sit here and tell me all you want how that knee is hurting, and it's still only hurting me. So I'm not going to be bothered by your pain and your discomfort and your experiences, you know? You just have to learn to live with them. I'm not sure -- I am not really sue whether I've adjusted well or not. I feel that I have. I'm happy and I can -- I feel comfortable around people and feel comfortable with nature, you know? I can still react sensitively to a sunrise and, you know, so I'm not dulled anymore and I'm not overwhelmed with guilt, and I'm not overwhelmed with shame or bitterness. There may be a little of each of those things in me, but I think I've dealt with those things fairly well.

LEHRER: And last week that man, Bob Kerrey, was elected Governor of Nebraska, and yesterday I talked to him again.

LEHRER: Well, obviously both of our hairstyles have changed since then.

Gov.-Elect KERREY: They have.

LEHRER: Yeah. Look, it was clear to me, sitting out there talking with you nearly 10 years ago, that you were a very angry man, and I think it came through in that interview. Would you agree?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Yes.

LEHRER: Are you still angry?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Oh, I think I still have anger, but I try to direct it and recognize that you just can't -- you've got to feel it and let it do things for you that are useful. I don't think there's anything wrong with being angry, and there's plenty of things about which I feel anger that are certainly unrelated to the war in Vietnam, a lot of which -- a lot of the things that got me involved in this gubernatorial race in Nebraska had to do with anger about agriculture prices and the apparent abandonment by certain people of the plight of farmers and ranchers in Nebraska -- that sort of thing. So I think it's okay and good to be angry.

LEHRER: Sure. But what about the war? What about the anger about the war? Where is that now in your psyche?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Oh, I don't know. I mean, I think it's at times on the surface, but usually selected moments, like on a day like today. I mean, as I like to pause and think and reflect very personally upon those moments and let them remind me of what I did and what others did, but it doesn't consume me any more.

LEHRER: President Reagan, you know, said that the time had come for the Vietnam veterans to take their rightful place as heroes along with all other Americans who have fought in previous wars. Do you think that's happened now?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Oh, I think individuals have always struggled to take a so-called "rightful place," and we all have rightful places as citizens, and I don't know that there is a prescribed rightful place. In fact, one of the problems with saying that Vietnam veterans are now finding their rightful place is that it sort of tends to exaggerate the frustrations that individuals might feel about that war. Have they come far enough? You know, a lot of us are hitting middle age now, and they're having problems that are associated with middle age, and I think we do not want to just blame Vietnam on problems that we may be having with our families or maybe having with an income or job. So --

LEHRER: You want to move beyond that?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: I think it's important to move beyond. I mean, it's important to remember, for me. I mean, remembering things and remembering them vividly helps us and influence our actions in the future. But I don't think it's going to do us any good to say that we have not assumed our rightful place, because that does tend to frustrate what we're doing.

LEHRER: Has comingto Washington for these activities -- for the weekend and all of that, Veteran's Day and all of that -- has that brought back memories that you didn't want to bring back?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: No. Veteran's Day always brings back memories that I want to bring back and that I don't want to forget. I want to remember the people with whom I served. I want to remember the frustration that I felt then, and I want to remember the pain. I can't, but I want to try. I want to try to remember and recall all those things that were very, very important. And I don't want to cloud that memory over with falsehoods, with statements that say, well, now we're beginning to see that perhaps what we did was something different than what we actually did. I think it's important to try to remember quietly and privately so that it can affect you, so that you then -- I can do something with it. I don't need parades necessarily, and I don't need a great ceremony and lots of crowds. I need to privately reflect upon what I did, and I did that today, just like I do it on other Veteran's Days as well.

LEHRER: But it's been largely said that there was a need for parades for you Vietnam veterans, that you didn't get the parades. In fact, you pretty well said it nine years ago, you didn't get it when you came home. People weren't paying attention to you; they wouldn't talk to you about the war. And now you're getting -- the parades are now coming. What's your feeling about all of that?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: I just want to make certain that you and I and other Americans remember what went on there. And we all have a different perspective of it; we're going to argue about it. I mean, the only thing about which we agree on Vietnam is that we disagree. And so -- but I think it's important that we don't cloud it with the happiness that you feel around a parade, and that we don't do some sort of penance. I mean, is the parade helping the Vietnam veteran, or is the help occurring for those people on the sidelines? I mean, who is being helped at this point, because the struggle is an individual struggle. We can work together -- get up in the morning and hope that our friends are going to be there to help us -- but the struggle still is an individual struggle, of people, of individuals trying to solve problems, trying to find answers to things that lie out there in the future. That, in fact, is all the government is supposed to do for us, is give us collective strength to help us solve those things. But when it promises too much, when the crowd promises too much, then it always will fail. And so the parades are not the answer. The ceremony and the celebration can provide some assistance, but it's still the individual that's got to find the answers.

LEHRER: In other words, what you're saying is that the pain of Vietnam from each person's perspective, whether, in your case, as a veteran who was wounded, as a member of a family who may have lost a member of a family or just any ordinary citizen who feels badly about the war, that pain should never be eliminated, right?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: I think not. I mean, I think it's -- I think it's a worthwhile memory. And understand that I --

LEHRER: But why is that worthwhile?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Well, because it occurred. It happened, and it happened for a variety of reasons. It wasn't an accident. It was a premeditated series of actions that human beings took, again, for a variety of reasons. They thought they were right; they meditated, thought and calculated, and it was premeditated and we did it. As a people we did it, and we need to take credit for it, and we need to try to try to remember why we did it and what happened and what surrounded it, because it will influence us in the future. If we distort it today, it will tell us to do the wrong thing in the future.

LEHRER: It's widely suggested, as you know, that the Vietnam experience -- speaking of influence -- has influenced our country forever in terms of when it's going to go to war and when it's not going to go to war. Do you agree with that?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: I hope so. I mean, I think it's done a lot of things to people. I mean, I read David Jones, the retired Joint Chiefs chairman, commenting and reflecting upon the Vietnam War; his perspective is different. I hear President Reagan's perspective. It is different. Former President Nixon the other day was commenting on it. His perspective is different. All of us see that war somewhat differently. In general, though, we all tend to reflect upon war -- that war and how we would regard a war in the future. So, yeah, I think it -- I think it's influenced, I hope, to the positive. I hope it reminds us and I hope we'll remember it the next time we contemplate using it as a means to solve political problems.

LEHRER: Shortly after we talked nearly 10 years ago out there, you got very active in the anti-war movement. Why did you do that?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Well, I think I was involved with the anti-war movement before.

LEHRER: Yeah, but you weren't as -- my recollection -- I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. My recollection was at the time that you were doing some activities, but after that you went around the country and you got more active after that. Is that right or am I wrong?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Well, I think the film there -- the strip that you had there was afterwards, because I had just started in the restaurant business not -- a couple months after this thing was shot.

LEHRER: So you had already got pretty active in it? Why? Do you remember why, what it was that caused you to get so active in that movement at the time?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Well, I don't -- in fact, it became a part of this campaign for me in Nebraska.They said, "Well, you were an anti-war activist." Well, I felt then and I feel now, what I was doing was to bear witness. I was a witness to something, and I stood up and said, "Here's the way I saw it. One individual, one person at one place at one period of time, and here's what I saw. Here's what I felt; here is what it did to me. Now, I don't know how that affects you, but that's what it did to me." And I bore that witness a number of times, sometimes more angry than people thought I should, but I did it. And I did it because it was important for me to do it. It's important for me to come back and relate to people who thought something else was going on. It's important for me to come back to them and say, "This is what I saw." Because we were still all wrapped up in the thought of trying to figure out how to end the darn thing at that time.

LEHRER: In other words, you just felt compelled; you had to do that, you felt so strongly about it?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: That's right.

LEHRER: Bring me up to date. You went into -- you were already in the restaurant business when we were talking. But you were just beginning, right?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Yeah. I started in 1973.

LEHRER: And what happened? I mean, what happened to your business and what --

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Well, we started our first -- we built our first store ourselves, my brother-in-law and I, in Omaha. We were about 18 months into it and a tornado blew us away in '75.

LEHRER: Oh, great. What kind of restaurants are they?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: They're Midwestern cuisine. They're full-service restaurant and lounges.

LEHRER: And have you been active in local and state politics in Nebraska since?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: I ran a man's campaign for the state legislature.

LEHRER: When was that?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: In 1974, right after we had opened. Contributed to a couple of local candidates, but I've not -- been involved in the Democratic Party, nor have I been a candidate myself.

LEHRER: Did you do anything in public life at all?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Well, yes, as a businessman, you have contact -- as small as it might seem, you have contact with the city, county and state government, and you see people doing some things that you don't like, and so there builds up in you a frustration with the government. I ultimately made the jump this year because I -- you know, I just believe --

LEHRER: That's what I'm building up to.

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Oh, you mean wait?

LEHRER: No, no, no, no, no. Go ahead. Go ahead. How are you today? Yeah, that's what I want to know. I mean, when and why did you decide you wanted to run for governor?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Well, I feel an obligation to this society, and it's an extraordinary system. No one told me in '73, "Bob, go to Omaha and build a restaurant." And I did it on my own. And in '75 when we were blown away, I wish they had told me how I was going to rebuild it, but I had the freedom to do that. And it's because we've got this system of laws that say to us that we can do this thing, but it also places upon us certain obligations, and I feel those obligations very much. I feel also that one individual citizen can make a difference, and I don't think right necessarily triumphs over wrong. I think you've got to make it work. And so I had the time, I had the inclination and the drive to do it, and so I simply --

LEHRER: Why the governor's seat? I mean, it was the first time -- this was your first time you ever ran for public office, and you decide to go for governor? Why governor?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Oh, a number of things. One, I mean, I'm an administrator. It's an administrative position. I felt the position was good for me. I felt that I could do a good job at it, so I was -- it looked like a job that was well-suited for me. I wasn't terribly happy with the performance of the incumbent. And I felt the time was right.

LEHRER: I mean, you weren't fulfilling some boyhood dream to be governor, you rising up in Nebraska -- "I want to be the governor some day"?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: No, I wouldn't have made a good governor in 1973 when that was taped, for example. I mean, it took the business experience that made me an administrator, took the experience of learning that you set a goal, you pull people together, recruit good, strong people, and you work towards it. You may not have a plan as to how you're going to get there step by step, but you believe you can. You have confidence and belief in yourself. And so it took those things and that experience to be able to qualify me to feel, at least, as if I'd be a good governor. Now, we're going to find out if I'm going to be a good one over the course of the next four years.

LEHRER: Okay. What is it that you want to do as governor of Nebraska?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Well, I think there's a number of things that I see in our state that are hurting us that I think, again, we can correct. And the most notable one is that farm prices are just miserably too low. It's not fair that farm prices are where they're at.

LEHRER: It's one thing to say that, and it's another thing to do something about it, though.

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Certainly. It's one thing to say that you're going to be profitable in the restaurant business and another thing to be it. It's one thing to say that you're going to be successful and another thing to be it. I mean, but to set the goal is important, and I think the goal that I've set, which is that we're going to get farm prices up. I don't know how we're going to do it, but we're going to get them up. And what has to happen is that people have to first of all want to get that done, secondly, believe that they can get it done, and then we'll figure out a way to do it.

LEHRER: And you have confidence that as the governor you can do that, right?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Yes. I feel -- I have confidence that I can bring people together to get that done, yes. I'm not going to do it myself. I'd like to be able to do it, but I can't.

LEHRER: Does your experience in Vietnam have anything -- does it influence in any way the confidence you have, that, "By God, I can get those prices -- I'm going to run for governor. I'm going to bring down farm prices"?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Bring up farm prices.

LEHRER: Bring up farm prices. Sorry about that.

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Yeah, it influences me in a number of ways. One, I know, as I've said, it doesn't happen on its own. Things don't always get better. We had a secretary of agriculture in Nebraska last spring and he said, "Well, things will get better. They always have." That's not true. Sometimes they get worse. And when they get better it's because people make it better -- not government; but people as a part of that government make it better. They just have the confidence and they roll up their sleeves and they get to work and make it better. Now, that lesson I've learned in Vietnam, that you just can't expect things to work out on their own. I also learned, not necessarily through Vietnam, but through the service, that you can look in the future and you can say how you're going to go from point A to point B and get there, even though you may not have a master plan to accomplish it.

LEHRER: Do you think that -- I don't know how to put this, other than just straight. Do you think that you're a different Bob Kerrey sitting here now than you would have been had you not had that awful experience in Vietnam?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Yes.

LEHRER: In what way?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Oh, a middle-class, suburban white boy who had never hurt, who had never suffered, who had never felt any pain, who had never realized that there was suffering and pain outside of my life. And I saw it, felt it, tasted it firsthand. And I know it exists right now as we sit. Even though I may not feel it myself. Even though you and I are comfortable and [looking at Lehrer's stomach] well-fed --

LEHRER: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Gov.-Elect KERREY: We still know it's out there, and I know very much that it's there. So it's affected me that way.

LEHRER: And it's affected your decision to go into politics, run for governor. And you think it's going to affect you when -- January 6th is when you're inaugurated, right?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Right.

LEHRER: And it's going to affect you when you sit down in that chair?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Yeah. I don't want to overestimate the impact. It will have an impact on me. The upbringing of my parents has had an impact on me. My church has had an impact on me. Lots of things have impacted me. But, yes, it will influence me. It has not qualified me to be governor. The first qualification is that I was born a citizen. I mean, I'm a citizen of this country, and that's the principal qualification. I had people during this era that wouldn't -- we'd have a debate, and they would say, "Well, at least you're qualified to speak out against the war," and I'd say, "No, that's not true.Any citizen is." You don't have to go to Vietnam to be able to tell people what you think about Vietnam. You don't have to be in the Pentagon to talk about the Pentagon or don't have to be a doctor to talk about medicine. You can have an opinion, and, in fact, need to and need to exercise it. And so that part of my citizenship and that part of my responsibility, I believe I acquired before Vietnam.

LEHRER: In the most narrow sense, do you think you have a political philosophy?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Yes.

LEHRER: What is it?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: It's that, as it relates to our system of government, it says that people answer the questions, people solve problems. We put this government together initially to give us collective strength, to give us the ability to solve certain things that we can't solve individually, to provide us with laws and law enforcement, with transportation, with education, with lots of other things as well. It gives us tools and information. My philosophy says to us -- it says to me, "Don't expect that government to do too much. It can be strong and needs to be strong. It doesn't have to be big. But it's got to be recognized as a part of us."

LEHRER: Finally, why is it that 10 years later you look the same age and I look 10 years older?

Gov.-Elect KERREY: No, you look fine, Jim.

LEHRER: Oh, well, thank you. You look better. Congratulations, and I certainly enjoyed seeing you.

Gov.-Elect KERREY: Thank you.

LEHRER: Thanks a lot.

Gov.-Elect KERREY: I appreciate it.

MacNEIL: That's all for tonight. Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: We will see you on Monday night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.