Washington Straight Talk; Charles E. Goodell

Charles E. Goodell, chairman of the presidential clemency review board, former Republican Senator from New York, close friend to President Ford. Tonight, on Washington St. Talk, Charles Goodell is interviewed by the Washington Bureau Chief for the Chicago Daily News, Peter Lissa Gore. Mr. Goodell, the American Civil Liberty's Union of which you've spoken well in your book, Political Presoners in America, has called President Ford's clemency program and I'd like to quote it, offensive in its moral and political assumptions and outrageous in its implementation, it is punitive and demeaning, end of quote, true or false.

False. Why? Well, I admire the American Civil Liberty's Union and I certainly respect those who feel very strongly that we should have nothing but unconditional amnesty. That's essentially the position of the ACLU. I don't agree with them. I think, first of all, there were tremendous divisions in this country. We lost a great many men, 55,000 deaths in Vietnam and many hundreds of thousands of casualties. People suffered who went in that war, many of them, most of them reluctantly. And I respect those who said they couldn't participate in the military under those circumstances. But at the same time, everybody has an obligation, in my view, to serve his country. And respecting the fact they felt they couldn't discharge that obligation, the war in Vietnam. President Ford has now offered them an opportunity to do it in a

peaceful way. Did you not at one time your self-favor unconditional amnesty? No. I did not. I was asked to join several of the unconditional amnesty groups in the last three or four years. And I refused. I believe this is a fair program, which with some alternate service in most cases would permit somebody to come back. Those who are returning would have no criminal record if they served the alternate service. And I think that that's fair. The most difficult part about the program, frankly, is the part that comes under the clemency board. Because we deal only with those who have been punished. They've either gone to prison or been discharged from the service. Now, anybody can apply to the clemency board without fear. We have no power to punish anybody. If we offer them alternate service and return for a pardon or for some kind of clemency, if they don't want to take it, they don't

have to. And so I urge everybody who has any questions about this program to get in touch with the clemency board in the White House. We have indicated that any information given to us will not be given to any other agency, the government. We're not out to find somebody to locate them, to pursue them or to prosecute them. We'll give them information about the program. And if they have been punished, if they've either gone to federal prison or been court marshal or discharged from the service for these absence-related offenses, then we may be able to give them clemency. How many people have applied to the board? First of all, let me ask you how many people does the board cover? How many people have been convicted or given less than honorable discharges? And secondly, how many have actually come to you? Well, we have to take the estimates of the defense department and the justice department in these

areas. They know how many people were convicted. For instance, in court marshals, there were over 500,000 in this nine-year period. They themselves have to estimate how many of those 500,000 would be eligible for our kinds of clemency. Why wouldn't they all be eligible? Well, because that's all the people who have been convicted for all our offenses. Yes. And ours is limited to those who were really AWOL, we call up to serders. It's people who were either discharged or were court marshals and discharged because of absence-related offenses. And the military estimates that number is around 111,000. Justice Department, however, in the group that never went in the service, the draft resistor or the draft evader, 8,700 in this nine-year period. So you come roughly with the civilian 8,700 in the military 111,000 at about 120,000

total. Now, the applications to our board as of last week was 560. Now, why is that? Why does this program appeal to so few people? Well, you know, there's been a lot of discussion about that in terms of the other two programs for returning individuals who have deserted or who have just left the country and never been prosecuted. Since our program is a program where they have nothing to lose and we've had very few applications. I would say the answer to that is it's a communication problem and a problem of understanding and trust. A very large number of the potential applicants to our board, for instance, are of low education, low IQ. Their individuals had just got followed up with the system. They didn't maybe send their address. It could have been in a kind of an

itinerant family moving from place to place. They didn't realize how they go about applying for conscientious objection. A good many of them are from religious sects that will not fight in wars. Not very many in the first group we've had who are actually Quakers, but Jehovah's Witnesses and other sects of that nature. They just didn't apply on time. The classic stereotype of the long haired college war resistor is just not the kind of person we're getting for the most part. There's some of them there. It's going to be hard for us to get the message across to these young men that look you can apply it as a clemency board and it's quite possible with some kind of alternate service so you can improve your situation. And we're going to do our best to get that message across. The truth is, isn't it, Mr. Goudale, is that they just don't

trust the government. They're afraid that if they come before you somehow as I think the ACLU and the United Church of Christ has said about all draft delinquents, they just are afraid they're going to be somehow shanghyde. I think the way the two groups put it that they would be unnecessarily shanghyde into the punitive clemency program as they put it. Doesn't trust a lie behind this? Yes, I think it does. Trust plus the lack of information. For instance, that does appear, the Defense Department has told us that some of the first ones going through said they were sort of scouts that were coming through to check the program out. Point man. Yes, that's right. And if so, you should get somewhat increased application because at least the ones who admitted they were point men as you put it said that they were going to recommend that the others come through. As far as I can tell, the Defense Department has been handling their end of the program extremely well. They've been very fair

about it. An individual can even write to the Defense Department to find out if they have other charges that wouldn't be eligible. And the Defense Department writes them back as they say they will. They said, yes, you hadn't better come home because we'll court Marshal for robbery or assault or whatever else. It's not covered into this program. I think as far as I can tell that end of the program is working very well. In our case, the clemency board, it's going to take us a while to demonstrate to them our fairness because we are not going to make any final decisions until the individual applicant has had an opportunity to contradict what's in his file. We don't want to just go on the basis of information that's given to us from a government file. So we have written to all of those who applied and told them the kinds of evidence that they can submit that they ought to get an attorney, somebody else to represent them. They don't have to appear personally, but they can submit their

own statement and their own evidence for us to consider. In a general way, Mr. Gidele, what motivated most of the draft resistors, draft evaders, the boys that went AWOL, where they motivated out of some ideological concern about the immorality of the Vietnam War or did some of them simply want to goof off or was it a question of cowardice? In your experience, what was the main motivation? Well, let me say that I'm speaking now from knowledge of about 103 cases that we've really concentrated on thus far. They are the 103 individuals who were in federal prison at the time of the President's Proclamation and they've been temporarily most of the temporarily released, so we've given them priority. Now in that group, you could not say that the overwhelming motivation was any single factor. It's just like every other war, every other peacetime period, there are hundreds and hundreds of reasons why kids go AWOL or why kids

get tangled with their draft board. A sick mother moved out of the house at 18 and didn't keep the draft board advised. In some instances, it was drugs, but not a large number that are obvious and in some it's just draft resistance. We had one case for instance of a young man who was from a very poor family, very low IQ. His two brothers were both Jehovah's Witnesses. His father had been Jehovah's Witness and the conscientious objecture in World War II and he got his notice of induction and wrote to the draft board and said, I am a CEO. I'm a Jehovah's Witness and the draft board wrote back that under the regulations you have to apply before you get your order to report, which is

true and the kid just didn't know it. They prosecutor didn't convict him and he's been three and a half years in prison. That's the kind of case that we are dealing with here. You can see he was a CEO, yes, but certainly he wasn't to ranting and raving from the platforms in 1969 debating the merits of the war. On this business of less than honorable discharge, suppose I have less than an honorable discharge, why would I want to apply to the clemency board? Why wouldn't I want to go on about my business, go on about my work? Why would I bother with your group? Well, if you have a dishonorable discharge or a bad conduct discharge, that means you've been court-martial and discharged as a result of your court-martial. Does that hurt me when I go looking for a job? That does very much and it is a stigma that stays with you for your entire life. In many ways, subtle ways it hurts you as well as the direct way is

implying for a job and you're ineligible for certain types of benefits and employment. Now, the undesirable discharge is an administrative discharge. That's when you haven't had any court-martial and it's harder to make an argument, frankly, for the upgrading of an undesirable discharge to a clemency discharge. This depends entirely on how the the potential employer's view a clemency discharge. The president has said from the government's view point, a clemency discharge will be completely neutral, that it doesn't involve any blame, any fault, of any nature. And if the people generally view it that way, then it can help an individual to get a clemency discharge rather than undesirable. I'd like to switch you to your relationship with President Ford. You were one of the original cabal that had sold him as minority leader of the house, I believe. And you're now said to be something of an unofficial advisor. Does President Ford have a vision of what he wants to do in the White

House? Well, let me clarify. I've known President Ford for a long time. I did participate in putting him into the minority leadership with others, Bob Griffin and Senator Nal from Michigan and others. But I'm not what you would call an advisor. I do chat with him on occasion. And certainly I'm not in the inner circle of planning what his administration will do. You're one of the few of that old crowd that doesn't claim that, by the way. Well, frankly, I had a little more contact with what was going on in the White House until I got over there in the clemency board. That says something about the way a White House operates. But the answer to your question is does he have a vision? Yes, I think he does. He was more fortunate than most vice presidents in that he had eight months there when he knew there was a pretty good chance he'd be taking over as

president. And particularly the last three or four months it became very obvious that it was likely that he would take over. And I think what Jerry Ford wants to do as president first of all is to solve the basic economic problem. That's the context in which this administration must either succeed or fail. They can't do that if they can't keep the economy running and get inflation under control. They're going to sink. And he knows that. The second thing I think overall is Jerry Ford feels very strongly that there has been an ugliness in our dispositions in this country for the last ten years. Related to the war, yes, but related to other things too. And as he put it, I noticed recently he said that the American people seem to have a self-destruct mechanism operating. We're always going to put ourselves down as a country and as a people. And Jerry

is a man of great decency. And he respects other people. Does that decency run to the reason he gave the pardon to Mr. Nixon? And I'd like to back up a little bit on the pardon question. How does the pardon question affect the Vietnam-related draft resistors and the like? Do they feel that because the pardon was granted to Mr. Nixon that this program that you're involved with is therefore unfair to them? Some of them do. I don't think the two things are, well obviously they're not directly related. They were not related in other words. You don't believe that Mr. Ford proposed the clemency program as a prelude to make acceptable or palatable for the Nixon part. Absolutely not. I do not believe that. That's not Jerry Ford's nature. Plus I was involved in conversations with the president in that period. And he is not

a duplicitous person. He's not a hypocritical person. And he was very direct on why he was doing each of those things. You tell me about the pardon question. I was going to ask you. Did he ask you whether he ought to pardon Mr. Nixon? No he didn't. If he had what would you have told him? No. Not at that time. I like I think almost everybody. Even the severest critics of President Nixon said well we didn't want to see him go to prison. But we questioned the timing of the pardon. And I must say in that connection I questioned the timing. I found out about it when I was coming off the golf course on the afternoon. And he didn't talk to very many other people as far as I can tell even in the White House about it. But I think the the reaction the negative reaction has been very much over exaggerated in this case. If all we're upset about is the timing they do come back to the point that the president made. I was going to do it eventually anyway. Why not do

it? Mr. Goodell you once or you were recently quoted as saying that Melvin Laird who was another member of the original group that installed Mr. Ford as House Minority Leader. You said that Laird has a real gut instinct for power and then added but Ford does not. Can you be an effective president if you don't have an instinct for power? There was one sentence after that. I said the Ford does not have a gut instinct for power. It's an acquired capability on his part. It's an acquired talent on Ford's part. He works he's worked hard at it. When he first came in as Minority Leader everybody was his friend and he was sometimes unrealistic about the motivations of people and he got cut up a little bit by others who they weren't being mean or ugly. They just have very strong things that they're fighting for. Whether it's power positions in the house or power positions in an administration that doesn't make a great deal

of difference. But Ford now is I think learned. He still perhaps will have a weakness in being too nice to people that he ought to be tough with. Nice guy's finished last you know Leo DeRosha I said. Yeah but Jerry Ford isn't unrealistically nice. He's learned to be tough and I was very impressed when I first saw him after he became president. The self assurance, the strength that he displayed. He came into that office with ease. He knew what he wanted to do. He felt fully confident of his capability of doing. Why didn't you suspect that in him? You were close to him in the house. Well you know it's a very awesome thing becoming president of the United States. And I thought about the way Harry Truman even Lyndon Johnson, the savvy Shrewd Lyndon Johnson was was pretty much shaken. Of course those were different circumstances with assassination. And I

thought Jerry Ford would be a little less certain of himself for a while when he got in just because he wasn't used to this. He wasn't. He was very sure. Very smooth. And I must say that I think a good part of the explanation for that is that he was there for that eight months period watching Richard Nick's in the White House. It's odd that you say he was preparing in his own mind eight months earlier or three months earlier when he was still going out and professing the innocence of President Nick. And I take your word for that. I'd like because time runs on us to switch you over to Governor Rockefeller. He Governor Rockefeller appointed you to the United States Senate. And he's now in trouble as the vice presidential nominee for his generous gifts, which in my view are better than a gold watch if you leave an employer. But there have been some questions raised about it. And I'd like to ask you whether you're bothered by

the charge that he laid out an awful lot of money to faithful retainers to buy I think a Senator Goldwater has suggested their loyalty or their support. Well, look, I knew all of those people. Some of them I knew very well. I know when Nelson Rockefeller very well, he wasn't buying their loyalty. They were very loyal to him. If anything, he was rewarding them for the loyalty that they had displayed in the service they had given over the years. And some of them met some considerable sacrifice in terms of the other income that they might have made if they had not stayed in government service. No, I'm not bothered by it. And although I'm somewhat bothered about the Goldberg book, you have to say that the worst they were doing was hiring somebody to write what he thought was the truth and a tough book about Mr. Goldberg. I haven't seen any indication that Rockefeller was telling him that he had to write untruths.

He expected him to write untruths. Nelson was not really involved very directly. But why did he deny knowledge of that book? I don't know. That's a kind of thing that went on during the Watergate affair. I don't know, except that the truth often is very obvious. I think it's quite possible, as he said, he'd forgotten about it. It wasn't that big a thing. He wasn't directly involved that much. When you were defeated for the Senate, re-election, that the governor sways your pain with a gift of some kind. No. No, I've never received a personal gift from the governor. The governor has been generous in the support of my campaigns. In the past, he was a very major contributor to my campaign in 1970, but as far as personal gifts are concerned, I never received them. Why in 1970 was there this impression at least that the governor somehow in collusion with the Nixon administration, particularly Vice President Agnew,

was in collusion to connive to defeat you? Was that an unfair charge against the governor? Yes, it was. The governor supported me very strongly. He helped in fact, he brought about my nomination, his influence on the convention, and he contributed heavily to my campaign. He regularly supported me. He called the president. He called John Mitchell trying to get him to call off Spiro Agnew. They didn't succeed, though, did they, Mr. Gidal? You are the original radical lib, as I recall, aren't you, that Mr. Agnew? That's right. Mr. Agnew and Mr. Nixon succeeded in drying up most of my campaign contributions and dividing campaign and making it legitimate for Republicans to vote for a conservative party candidate. And yet, in your book, Political Prisoners in America, you dedicated it to my friend Richard Nixon.

May he do more than listen? What do you mean by that? I don't take politics in a personal sense of being mean or ugly or indicative. I understood why Nixon and Agnew did what they did. And I did know Richard Nixon quite well before he was president. And I played golf with him a number of times. I belonged to the same child and marching organization that he belonged to in the hill. And I felt that I would emphasize that I still regard him as a friend, even though I have thematically disagreed with him on great many issues, passionately disagreed with him. And I wanted him to read this book, which is about civil liberties, and the importance of those civil liberties to our future in this country. Also, on the issue of civil liberties, in the book, you wrote that eight Army agents followed you around when you were a United States Senator,

monitoring what you said and what you did. What did they hope to accomplish by that? Is there a vengefulness in that that would put a man beyond the pale of friendship? Well, I don't know if the president really knew. I doubt if he knew they were following me. What happened is that was the period, if you will recall, when the military was ordered to keep surveillance on what was happening internally in this country. A very dangerous thing to do, but it was a reaction to the riots, and to the unrest, and the demonstrations. And among other things, they apparently, this came out of Senator Irvin's committee, some committee investigation on that period that they had these Army agents who were going around and monitoring what I was saying. Yes, I think it was dangerous. I think it was a very bad and ugly thing. In that period, Senators, United States Senators, hesitated to talk to each other over the phone. There was an assumption that even our Senate phones were probably tapped.

Was that a Nixon phenomenon on Mr. Goodall or did it exist earlier? I have to say, I think it was primarily a Nixon phenomenon. I didn't serve in the Senate prior to President Nixon being there, except a very brief time. I don't know of no other period when Senators thought their phones were tapped. A quick question. You've been rumored as a possible attorney general in the Ford cabinet down the road. Would the conservatives in the Senate accept a kind of backslider like Charles Goodall as an attorney general or even any other cabinet officer? Well, I don't know. Let me say that the President and nobody on his behalf has talked to me about being attorney general, so I'm really not too worried about that. I think if it happens, they probably would question me very thoroughly and should, because they want to know what kind of an attorney general they're going to get. Thank you very much, Mr. Goodall. Washington is straight talk.

From Washington and back to his brought to Charles E. Goodell, chairman of the Presidential Clemancy Review Board and close friend to President Ford. With Peter Lissagore, Washington Bureau Chief for the Chicago Daily News. Next week on Washington Straight Talk, Democratic Senators Sam Urban is interviewed at his North Carolina home by impact correspondent Carolyn Lewis. Production funding provided by Public Television Stations, the Ford Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This has been a production of Impact, a division of GWETA.