Washington Straight Talk; Sen. Henry Jackson

Senator Henry M. Jackson, Democrat from the State of Washington, a strong proponent of gas rationing, a longtime friend of Israel. One of the defeated candidates for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination, and already mentioned for the 1976 Democratic race for president. Senator Henry M. Jackson answers questions put to him by, syndicated columnist and Washington editor for the Conservative Weekly, the National Review, George Will. Tonight on Washington State Talk. Senator Jackson, it's cold in Washington today, and it's still hot along the fighting lines in the Middle East, and Americans are inevitably making a connection between their energy problems and the problems of being an ally of Israel's. Do you think we're going to have to back off our support of Israel in any way? I would hope not. I think it would be a great mistake. The problem that we are faced with now in the area of energy transcends Israel.

I think the American people up until the Middle East conflict had no appreciation of how weak we were getting as a nation. When we permitted ourselves to be postured in such a way that we were dependent for 35% as we are at the present time for our energy supply from overseas, I believe that the development in the Middle East can be a lesson now that we can capitalize on, a blessing in disguise to get this country to understand if we are to be a great power, a great power for good, then we need to be self-sufficient in energy. Did you know six weeks ago that we were dependent for 35% of our oil? Have been. Yes. This has been my... Government knew this? Yes.

Not 35% for the Middle East, but 35% for all of our supplies from overseas, and from the Middle East, actually, it was the smallest share of the supply, but looking down the road, the way we were going, we were headed for a 50% dependency overseas by 78 and by 1980 it would have been 60%. But Senator, the project independence, as the president calls it, becoming self-sufficient. If at all possible, and experts argue about that, that's a long ways off. The Alaska pipeline is a long way off, other offshore development. In the meantime, we're talking about 8% unemployment, 500,000 jobs lost in a plastics industry. People are saying if we make certain concessions to the Arab powers, they'll turn the oil back on. George, we don't need to have 8% unemployed. What they're saying is that because the administration has failed to relate the energy problem to the economy, no specific plan is to where the cuts are to take place in industry could

result in a loss of $100 billion in the gross national product. And I believe this is true, but I would hope that with the announcement today setting up a new agency which takes into consideration the secondary impact of the energy shortage, which is really far more serious than the primary impact, namely the impact on the economy, that we can now get some recognition as to the need for a system of priorities in applying the energy shortages. For example, it seems to me that the administration has to make the decision which industries, steel, copper, plastics are going to get the feedstocks. If they don't, then you have the ripple effect, which it hits every other industry. They've not been willing to face up to it.

You're not saying that this is going to be painless, that there are no such things. Oh, no. It's not going to be painless, but it does not need to be disastrous. And if we plan to meet this situation, head on, we've not been doing it either in relation to the allocation of fuel itself, including gasoline, if we hit it head on, we can avoid what otherwise could be a catastrophe. But do you think it is wrong, independent of the energy crisis, for the United States to put pressure on Israel to partly meet some of the demands that the Arab nations are making? Well, if the demands are right, in the sense of bringing about a stable peace, I don't think we should just do whatever Israel wants to do, I believe, though, that we should not do what the Arabs want to do with the gun to our head. I feel that if the United States gets itself in a position, this goes beyond the Middle East, that when a country, in effect, tells us to knuckle under or else, we knuckle under.

Do you think this will become a patsy? Do you think this will be the political effect in the country? The country can go two ways. People can get up on their legs and say, we don't want a gun put to our head. Or they can say, we want to drive on Sunday. No, which way is it going to go? Well, maybe I have too much faith in the American people. I believe our people are proud people. And they are proud enough to say that we're not going to be blackmailed. We are, by some potentate or some tinhorn kernel like Qaddafi. I think the American people are that proud. I really do. As, look, forget about Israel in the Middle East. What if something develops in the Far East were dependent on Indonesia? We've had problems with the Canadians. And they are our best ally. They have their own problems. They start, they want to cut back and they are cutting back. They are our largest single employer.

We have problems in Venezuela. Are we going to get ourselves in a position where someone can move against the source of supply for the United States, put a gun to our head and get what they want? It's a form of global hijacky. Well, you know, we've had enough of that. We're being hijacked. That seems to be a sort of effect. Well, but it's a manageable. It is, at this time, it's manageable for us. It could be disastrous for Europe and they have knuckle under. But we don't want to get to 80 percent. 80 percent dependent as Europe is, Japan, 90 percent. All I'm saying is that as we talk about maintaining a strong economy, a strong strategic deterrent, we've forgotten all about the energy problem. As you know, I've been pushing for a year and a half now to get a strategic reserve. Just a 90-day strategic reserve in the administration wouldn't listen. And I must say that some of this could have been avoided. I confess that the public wouldn't listen. They wouldn't believe when we gave these figures out as to what was going on.

Well, Senator, you say this is a manageable crisis that didn't be managed with diplomatic concessions. But as you want to manage it, it is with gasoline rationing. Why? I don't like rationing. I've looked at all of the options. It's a bureaucratic jungle when you get into it. The options are, for example, to have a tax and an effect say that if you can pay a 50-cent tax or a dollar a gallon, then you can get all the guess you want. It seems to me that if this were just a short period to be something else, but we're really talking, George, about, I believe, a minimum of a three-year pattern, three to four years of shortages. Now, it should a person be able to buy their way. That's the question. Senator, first, the government never does anything for just three years. This will be here. Well, an emergency becomes permanent. That's right. Or like the emergency farm programs for the Korean War. I'll be with us at the tri-centennial.

So if we're going to have rationing for a very long time, that indicates that for a very long time, the politicians, and there's got to be a political element in this, are unwilling to allow the price of gasoline to increase. Why don't we do that? Why don't we let the market forces allocate? Well, the market forces, of course, would mean, first of all, that you'd have, if you allowed them to go loose, you'd have unconscionable profits. This is where they go right through the roof. About half of them would come back to the government and corporate income. Oh, no. You see, they're only, with depletional losses, most oil companies are paying about 20 percent tax. Get rid of the depletional loss. Well, but you have to do something about the taxes. There are ways of coping with that. We don't need to go to rationing just because someone might make too much profits. We can tax it away from excess profits tax. But why this terrible bureaucracy? What I'm concerned about is whether or not you're going to maintain the kind of morale of fairness in this country by saying to a person, if you can pay a dollar a gallon,

you can get all the gas you want. Now, what about the poor and the working groups that have a long distance to travel? Well, pretty rough. I mean, if it's a dollar a gallon, then they consume 12 gallons every couple of days, some of them have to go that far too well. It's hard for me to believe rationing is good for morale. I mean, obviously, there's a regressive element in a price rise like this, and measures would have to be taken gas stamps, perhaps the equivalent of food stamps, for poor people. But what you're saying is that the fewer shortage is permanent, at least into the indefinite future, it's not caused by the Arabs alone, which I tend to agree with. But if you're saying that then, how is rationing going to spur new development? Don't we need a price incentive? You don't need a price incentive. The Arabs have done that. They're raising the price of oil so fast it's doubled in the last year per barrel cost. It's going right through the roof.

They're setting the world price on oil because they control it, and that in turn affects the price over here that is paid to the man at the gas pump. For example, I mean gasoline is just going up every day. Every week there's a center to arrive. It's here in Washington, it's over 50 cents a gallon now, 51, 52 cents a gallon. And you agree it has to go up further. Well, there must be adjustments in price in relation to what we are paying abroad. That is a fact of life, but I don't want to see the lid taken off, because if you do that then it goes right through the roof, and the average person just can't pay that kind of price. Now, is it right? The average Englishman does? Well, they have a lower per capita income than we do. Yes, but they have an entirely different tradition. Gasoline has always been expensive in Europe, but rent is cheap. But isn't that tradition part of our problem where profligate consumers of energy? Well, we've been on an energy binge for all too long a period of time.

I would agree with that, but the decision we must make is to decide whether or not we're going to say that the average motorist will be given a coupon allowance to take care of his average needs. Maybe beyond that. Should the coupons be transferable? That's something I think that ought to be really looked into to avoid the black market. Right. Have a white market in the couple. Right. I think this is a worthy lesson from the experience of World War II. Senator, you say that should be decided, and this brings me to that question that never ceases to puzzle me about Congress. Congress won't decide these things. Here we have a president who's widely distrusted, terribly weak. The country is obsessed with the question of the eclipse of congressional power and the increase of presidential power, and Congress is in the process of turning over to the president vast discretion to allocate to ration, and Congress won't even set the broad contours of policy.

What's the matter with you guys? What a mask. Well, I was disappointed myself, but I voted and spoke for rationing, and it lost, I think, 48 to 40 by seven or eight votes. And I believe Congress must share the burden, whether it is a happy or an unhappy burden. I don't believe in running from this issue. I think we ought to meet it head on. There's no way, George. What's the matter with your colleagues? Are they scared of the political? Well, they say, you know, listen, they're being reminded of what happened after World War II with all of the controls, and they threw the rascals out, so to speak. The public? Are there rascals in the Senate? Well, I'm just drawing on a historical descriptive reference, I guess. But the point is that people do not like controls. It's true with economic controls, the Congress turned the power on the President. We're used to the free market, and we just don't like them. And it's not popular to be associated with them. But I must face the question of what are the options available to solving this problem.

I've been saying right along, George, that the shortage is far greater than been admitted, and it's being proven every day. Now, I would like to see a more effective solution to the problem, but there's none available as far as I can determine. May I say on granting authority to the President? Congress cannot try to run these programs. They must delegate authority, but what we have done is to retain in the Congress. It may not be constitutional, but we can't try to adjudicate these things while we're legislated. We've retained the right to veto any move that he may make, which in the judgment of a majority of the Senate in the House is contrary to what we intended, we can do it. So we have delegated the authority with that stipulation attached. But you do think that Congress should have set the broad controversy? Oh, I do. I think that we should have mandated rationing. You can mandate it.

When do you think we should have gone to rationing? Well, I believe over a year ago, I asked the administration, do you have a rationing plan to deal with the emergency when it arises? They said no. I said, well, you certainly should have your tickets printed. You ought to have a standby capo billet. That standby capo billet, it should have been set up a year ago. Well, part of the problem, obviously, or maybe it's not, maybe you disagree, is that we've been wallowing in Watergate, and people say one reason the President won't make these decisions is they are hard. They involve sacrifices in these two weeks, and this brings us to a very pressing question. If the international situation is as dangerous as you say it is, and if the energy crisis is as dangerous as you say it is, and the President can't act because he's weak, should the President remain President? Well, I think the fundamental problem with the presidency is, can he govern? Can he? I think he's running into serious, serious trouble at this stage.

My own judgment is that unless he, at some point, is willing to come before the Watergate Committee and make himself available to answer all relevant questions related to Watergate, we're going to be in a growing state of instability, which is not only a problem domestically, but I believe it could be tempting for our adversaries. You're really saying as we're almost, we could be risking war, the presidency, so we're going to. They can miscalculate, and I've noticed that the Soviets now are referring to Watergate in Provda and Toss and the various ideological journals, which is an indication that they're no longer playing the other game that Brezhnev played when he was here last June. You've drawn up short of saying anything specific on this, and I'm going to press you a little bit.

Should, do you think impeachment should be brought? Now, by impeachment, I don't mean removal. I mean— No, I'm indicted. Should he be indicted? Well, I know all of no inditable grounds, and I know people are making a statement. What is inditable offense? Well, it's just what I think the founding fathers had in mind, and that is that high crimes and misdemeanors, high crimes— Are you saying it has to be a criminally inditable offense? Not technically, but it could—let's put it this way. It could be— If the chief executive of the United States can't govern, and you're indicating there's question— Well, I don't think that's an inditable offense at all. It's not. I think it could be—let's put it this way—if the act involves that of moral turpitude, and although, technically, it's not a crime, I think that is within the Constitution Congress. In 1936, Senator, the last time the Senate ever convicted a man in an impeachment proceeding, it was a federal judge.

I believe it was a judge-ritter, I don't know, I believe that was the name. They convicted him for bringing his office into disrepute and for reducing public confidence in the administration of justice. Now, surely we have evidence, hard evidence from the polls that exactly that has happened. Do you believe the Senate misbehaved in 1936 when they removed a federal official for that? Well, I, of course, have not seen the reviewed the case, but the interesting question there would be George, whether the Supreme Court would have reviewed the question as to whether or not the act was arbitrary and capricious on the part of the Senate. I don't believe—can the Supreme Court in your judgment review a Senate impeachment? Yes, I believe that the Supreme Court could review the question of what constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors—I'll be reviewing the work of their own chief justice who will

preside at the trial in the Senate. That may be, but I've seen confidence in the Supreme Court. But there in mind, though, that the chief justice merely presides over, he does not vote. He is there in a judicial role, so he does not vote. But surely, could be—look, suppose—you get a president elected and you—then the next Congress, you elected an overwhelming adverse Congress, and they're made up, it's never happened before, but made up of men and women in both bodies who are just out to get the guys. So they can trump up the charges, impeach them in the House, and then try them over in the Senate, even though it's agreed that it's an act of vengeance. You see, I think there are limitations. I don't believe that you can impeach a president and remove him from office on the basis of arbitrary and capricious acts that have been laid out by—but is this arbitrary and capricious to remove a president in the United States because he's so weakened, as you

suggest he may be, that he's running the risk of involving the country, not him directly, but his weakness of bringing the country into a nuclear war. Well, that's an extraordinary blow. No, but I don't believe you can impeach him and remove him simply because he can't govern. Now, maybe we ought to have a recall system, but I'm trying to follow the Constitution. I don't— Okay, well, let's go back them to the idea that you only impeach for an indictable offense. You're a former prosecutor many years ago, long time ago, long time. But are you saying that if a common citizen had the kind of testimony given against him and the kind of evidence that's been brought out so far about Mr. Nixon and the Watergate and ITT and the milk and all this stuff, campaign finances, that the normal citizen wouldn't even get indicted on the basis of this? And that's what an impeachment is, isn't it?

Yes, but the problem on all of this is to obtain the testimony that ties the president directly. It's all around the president, but there's yet to be the testimony— The president's counsel saw under oath that the president was involved in the destruction of justice. John Dean. Now, that's— He's the only one. And I think John Dean, the question there is whether you're going to believe John Dean. And he alone— He alone? John Dean? Well, I believe him in some areas, and I— Which areas? Well, I believe in areas where he has testified where you have corroboration independent acts that do tend to corroborate his testimony. I believe him in those areas, but this man was involved so deep and for so long. Do you believe the White House explanation of the missing 18 minutes on the tape? I sure don't. Okay. Now, I'm sure don't.

You're saying we can't— I don't think that so. You're saying we can't impeach until we get evidence, but the problem here is a cover-up, which is the covering-up of evidence. Aren't we in a vicious circle? I'm saying we'd prosecute this cover-up— Sure. And cover it up. But I think Mr. Bizarre pointed out on that 18-minute tape matter that he's not fully satisfied with the explanation. But we're not trying Rosemary Woods for impeachment. We're not trying Bizarre. The issue must be the president, and we must relate these two. Okay. And this has not been done. This is all I'm saying. It's swirling around him in every direction. The Democrats control both houses of Congress, all the committees. Only the Democrats really can impeach the president. How do we avoid the suspicion that the Democrats have the president exactly where they want him, twisting slowly, slowly in the wind to coin a phrase? The fact is that it might be politically bad to bring in a fresh face who might be a good candidate in 76.

No, I believe that the problem that the Democrats face is an obvious one. If the Democrats get too far out in front on impeachment, the public will get the idea that they're being all-out partisans. American people have great respect for the office of the presidency. And this is what's holding Mr. Nixon together. It's respect for the office as distinguished from the individual. Let me ask a personal question. That's the last book you read. One that I'm almost through with on the Middle East about the Arabs and the Middle East by Bernard Lewis. That's business. When was the last time you read a novel? Oh, I haven't had a chance to read a novel in years. Maybe politicians ought to be required to read a novel. Once a year, write book reports. How do you... Well, you know, we've got a lot of fiction here in Washington, it goes out all day long. But do you know what I'm worried about?

I think a lot of Americans are worried less and less about what politicians believe on the issues and more and more about their character. And I know journalists are worried about the fact that maybe we don't present the character of the people who are running for public office because Lyndon Johnson's character was more important than what he believed in shaping policy. And Lord knows the current problems a lot to the character of the president. Do you think reporters ought to report more about the character and how do you do it? How do we find out about the character of Henry Jackson who might run for the presidency? Well, you almost have to be an investigative reporter, really. I think it's so important. They know the full background about a congressman or a senator or public official and so on. And we are in a goldfish bowl. I've had a number of the reporters that are out to my state and my hometown where I was born and they go around and talk to the neighbors. Did you hit it on your paper route?

Yeah, everything. And when I think is good, I'm going out this coming weekend for appearance. This type of background, I think, effort should be made more and more by reporters to get the whole history of an individual to find out that they're just human beings, that they're not perfect. And more than anything else, what I despise in politics are the phony things, the phoniness. Can you give an example of this phoniness? You know, the kind who go around and are making claims that they have always been involved in only what is good I'm talking about. I'm not getting down anything specific. I noticed that. And I don't know. But when I know of an empirical role, for example, I watched in Congress over the years wanting to ban all outside income other than lawyer's fees, professional fees. A lot of lawyers in the Congress.

That's right. You know, this sort of thing that is so obvious to me and that makes me sick to my stomach. Thank you very much, Senator Jackson. I'm Jim Lair of Impact, and what you have just seen is the first in a new series on public television. This program, Washington Straight Talk, will be bringing you each week a sort of double barreled offering. First, it will present people who are in the news, like Senator Henry Jackson. People you might like to know more about because what they do affects you. Second, on Washington Straight Talk, will be the journalists who ask the questions, like George Will. Washington reporters, whose bylines you may have seen in major publications, men and women who know a lot about the guests they interview. Next week, I'll be talking with George Bush. He has one of the toughest jobs in American politics during these Watergate times. He runs an outfit known as the Republican Party. I've known George Bush since he first began running for office in Texas when I covered politics for a Texas newspaper.

What is George Bush's survival plan for the Republican Party? We're going to find out. Now a week after that, Haines Johnson of the Washington Post will interview former Attorney General Elliot Richardson. Washington Straight Talk is part one of impact's new programs this season. In January, Washington Connection will premiere. Now this series is designed to make clear the connection between the things that happen here in Washington and the people they happen to, namely you. Of course, we will continue to bring you each week background and analysis on the news and the nation's capital on Washington Week and Review. After all, it's your Washington we're talking about. So join us. From Washington, impact has brought you Senator Henry M. Jackson, Democrat from the State of Washington, and George Will, syndicated columnist and Washington editor for the National Review on Washington Straight Talk. For further insight into what goes on in Washington each week, be sure to watch Washington Week in Review, a half hour of informed reporting and analysis from regular panelists Peter

Lizzagore, the Chicago Daily News, Neil McNeil of Time Magazine, Charles Cordray of the Baltimore Sun, and a fourth veteran Washington correspondent. The preceding program was made possible by a grant from the Ford Foundation. Washington Straight Talk is a production of Enpacked, a division of the Greater Washington Educational Telecommunications Association.