A Word on Words; 2927; Peter Edeleman

once again welcome to world war i guess is the element my old friend peter alden how are you welcomed or awareness on the levy it's great to have you talk about searching for america's heart and i should just say the audience at the outset that you once worked for robert kennedy i once worked for robert kennedy only full disclosure undergoes as we search for america's heart the old peter nye another sore spot for oregon and he's all your book yes it is the theme of your book robert kennedy's search for her before it is an absolutely is that this is a book about what we've done and what we haven't done for poor people for people who are and less than a fair share of the state in america and robert kennedy of course was my inspiration about those issues and contributed to huge amount to the policies that we get dry in the nineteen sixties and so for me it's the inevitable place to start

upbeat isn't those of fascinating antidote you had gone or form when you worked in the camp and you will surely the keating yes pioneering research and getting was over grandfatherly type little a centrist republican from new york voted with liberals in his day out of tripoli and was a very tough campaign for for our economy and it was over the question was when he would go to work for and the antidote i was talking about is an anecdote in which you go into this into this job interview dr three years i was never practiced or the end the question is will you will also be listed so your thought move

toward because i think it's it's a classic it's certainly a major event in my life as it turned out and guzman who was your friend of mine who had been bob kennedy's press secretary in the justice department phoned me and said what i do possibly one of the work for him in the senate for robert kennedy and endo was unavailable to come in have an interview so the interview took place at the white house for lyndon johnson's president but kennedy had heard is meatless is an equine touch football of course and he had gone to see a janitor well the position of the white house to have her look out because she here alicia went back to jfk days so the rich a place on the fender of a cart between the white house and the old executive office building enough to move rubble will not i thought that but what

i thought he's going to ask me what books i've read lately ari what are my strengths and weaknesses and so on and the united union contracts so he starts by saying when i come to work for that was the first question and i was completely taken aback and i asked well how much would you pay me and he said boy you can work that out with eddie here so that that didn't help me very much as a way of this problem i've been on law school's three three and half years and i haven't practiced law and he said welcome i mean they're probably a little interview it is so typical way people think of digital monster and ruthless and you know you can look at his career in an environment you walk there but for me that that anecdote my mind nelly belle isle near the the book of

really reflects it seems to me baby for phone service on your part that we were on track there was a pill but in the right direction along the way we lost that for you there came upon this knock on defining moment ministration annoying get to that but i think in order to set the same the lack of interview discussing it in adoption but then you come back to athens second part by to set the scene for that will look for a moment at what the vision the dream of the search was about to close when he went into the us that serve buffett it was a new role for him new mission and you talk about the things that immediately gripped

by his interest union voters really nice as crusty loaves of land crow laws so it slows federal slows tax laws and here he was a lawmaker but beyond making along those chance to investigate and put his own unique spotlight on problems and those problems are what would grant him immediate he is you know john had the beginning of this vision a well it was attorney general from the very first day that the vision was really a vision that we would be one america that that in racial terms an economic terms that everybody would have a fair shake and a fair share in this society and he installed i think people think about him in terms of the kind of dead body in the good bobby and couldn't know i'm in and have

that kind of that kind of bright line between the time the president before president kennedy died and after because he was always such a three dimensional human being with with so much caring about people as well as the prosecutorial side but i think it's it's it is absolutely true that after president kennedy died there were two things one is that he went through a period of deep grief and in soul searching in finding more they're inside and he was really is on land he was he was not having to protect the politics of the present but in terms of poverty and of course it's all connected the race is well he installs david hackett is his childhood friend there in that little office right off the big attorney general's office to work on what they called juvenile delinquency and it was very

centered around young people because that's where every kennedy's passion was about children and young people and was about opportunities so it really was about poverty and dave worked at what we could do in terms of national policy to combat juvenile delinquency and there was a group of people and i'm sure you saw the year coming in out of the office meeting at odd hours they all had soda day jobs in other parts of the government and people came in from universities and people who are working in neighborhoods settings in new york and elsewhere around the country i'm a man and an a they realized that they were talking about poverty in this from that sad of discussions that robert kennedy really was the the he supervised kind of dipping in an hour but he had that incredible quality of being able to catch up with the discussion and lead it without missing a beat from that came the the war on poverty that's what it was that planning that he cheered if you will that lead to a so he was there three nineteen sixty three on the subject of the attack and his warriors and euro zone are

absolutely but then he goes into the senate and it's a growing running low quality issues he's an appalachian within no time he must've had in mind that one way or another that that the question i don't know how he characterized it to himself but to the question of people who have less less was going to be a major theme for him as a senator and so the first opportunity that presented itself was around a president johnson's proposal would have been debated in the senate before to have economic development for the appalachian counties up and down the via the country from north to south and so he was able to get an amendment added right away was within the first two weeks that he was a senator to include it took some study but basically to include the new york counties four counties along the pennsylvania border in that appalachian legislation that was any party legislation anyone on from

there and you point out he went on to win the citadel and hunger he went to the indian reservations he was with the farm workers in california you briefly with says osha rosen and the what you call the bonding of those two men you might just talk about how those two he's a bonded because it's an you know i think of their background talk about diverse backgrounds mean the idea that that joseph p kennedy son would find heroic lives so fasting protesting negotiating labor leader in a four movement is inconceivable robert kennedy believes so strongly that one person can make a difference he said that over and over again and he would meet people and it's not was in ramallah size he understood

the oven for politics he understood interest groups he understood the way in which decisions are made by like congress and other entities but he he had this strong belief that one person mattered so much and so he could meet russian poets or or so activists of one kind or another and very often in his history transcended political lines he admired general macarthur for example but here was this man cesar chavez who he had heard from walter ruther the heavily on a worker is that telephone call that come to me and that's yeah i was involved or that this this the man was leading a new movement a new effort to organize farm workers which had never been successfully done in our country in the mid nineteen sixties the minimum wage still been a part of farm workers they still didn't have federal coverage in fact a solo to this day to be able to organize the way other workers can't

and so we're in bob kennedy go out to california for some hearings that a federal subcommittee was going to hold to the least get try to get cesar chavez more on the national stage they were trying to organize shanley that was the first or get in there in the family owned a vineyard and gently was of course a major conglomerate that produced whiskey and all kinds of other things and so chavez had correctly concluded that it didn't matter to mr shanley whether a vineyard would that they owned was organized or not unionized and so we one out there and then he was skeptical he he got after me on the plane on the way why are we going on a quite that well but i repeated the explanation and and he got there and he just immediately took to openness he again one of his one of his hallmark qualities was this intuitive ability to grasp things in him to just kind of instantaneously know whether something was writer only was he was very solemn wrong in those initial conclusions

and so the sheriff from from kern county was there testifying as kennedy was a little bit late from family's post that that morning and he was telling everybody how was that he and his men were arresting the pickets to protect them because of the decades of course we were despicable and kerry said let me just get this straight you're arresting these people haven't done anything and you're arresting them serve so yes we want to keep them from any harm coming to them so just about that time was the time for lunch break in an tony says i suggest that over the lunch break sure if you read the constitution of course the room erupts so you know mrs kennedy was clear that it's a big think so he goes out into the parking lot right then and gets into you know that meeting chavez for the first time and it was the most

amazing thing because you could just watch them kind of connecting to each other you could almost you could see the waves going back and forth and the crowd gathered at first it was you know and one deep and pretty soon it was about ten deep people straining to hear them and i don't know what they said to each other it was just you knew a little conversation about how as the strike going and what problems are you are encountering but after that they were absolutely bombed in and robert kennedy was willing to just do anything that was necessary in washington to try to get support for chavez and talk to him quite regularly and offered political advice and then of course they were in the campaign in nineteen sixty eight chavez was a huge supporter when talking to him repeat a computer along the law to just turn and beer is the author of the new book searching for workers art griego for an interview to talk about to talk about the delay we knew and worked for and work with the loved and

i knew that after his death i worked on another pursuits but kept the faith that it's only you get the faith that you're commissioner of houston new york state and go and then along the fast wrote in oakland and you thought that was great hope their buck and enjoying the illustration with non issue in the end things went well for a while and then again a moment of crisis of conscience for you and assists focusing on that moment if you weren't because it seems to me as i read the book knowing you it seemed to me that their role the controversy over the oatmeal of

welfare that was one thing and led strikes me that the offense was in doing so he quoted robert kennedy more about i didn't actually known that he had done that and until somewhat later on after i resigned from the government because my wife and i had gone on a long schedule mckay show wife marian wright edelman so so that other will actually found out about that is that rory kennedy is bob's daughter who was born after he died i wrote me a letter in which she was very very critical of the president signing a bill and usually don't mention that and i started really i hoped without illusions about bill clinton and i i didn't think that we were about to have how are you wanna call of some restoration neither in personal terms or an issue terms of the nineteen sixties

i understood that these are very different types of that that we were running huge deficits as a country at the time since companies surpluses that were going to dissipate here with the bushes tax cut in and that clinton himself was was more conservative than i am a more centrist but what i thought was here is a young man who does project and idealism and who does whether he would have different solutions he stands for a notion of fairness and justice in and basically trying to take the country in the right as a leisurely is a pointless his cabinet and it's again it reflected a regular very much so on and so it was an outstanding cabinet i thought and think and if you look for it is to appointments to the supreme court i think there are there outstanding people who have been really low for good force on the court so there was a lot to say that was that was cut

in the first two years with with a whole list of legislation we could name i participated in drafting americorps that i'm very very proud of her and usually but there was this issue about welfare and of course the other thing that happened which preceded that his signing a bill of nineteen ninety six huge thing was that the republicans led by newt gingrich took over congress in nineteen ninety four and i do think that clinton's reaction to that was most unfortunate it i think if you if you go back to when he lost the governorship of arkansas in nineteen eighty nine came back jason two years later and got reelected that this was very similar i think he decided he'd been too ambitious his first two years in office and that there are some evidence that with the effort to reform health care there's some evidence that that was an idea that could awaited and certainly certainly misread the country on gays in the

military and as as conflicted as that policy things to me today there was some evidence that he moved too fast in a couple marathons right although a long conversation we would examine the health point and it was not only overly ambitious but not very well carried out sept eleven by criticism so his reaction i think to the republicans coming in was not to stand up and say i'm harry truman you know bring out all your proposals i'll be told the man that we democrats stand for a b and c and let the chips you know one of a free and open encounter with the chips fall where they go instead he really said it well you want to do this i could tinker with that band and it was a slow this major radical conservative revolution was already a fait accompli and he was gonna just nibbled around the edges now he can't back his political

legs because of the republicans shutting down the government and so you know educational yet as man tragic in education and the environment medicare and medicaid but in this one area of welfare he really i think believed that that i'm not sure some combination of either we need in the policy change which a lot of people i think we needed to radically change our welfare system with jere and says factory and maybe he just thought he needed to survive politically which i don't think he did and i i think we have evidence that political advisors thought that that he didn't have to do this while comes to nineteen ninety six and finally the republicans decide for their own purposes that they will give him a welfare ability consign bob dole's than lose anyway the only way they're going to win it so that's a kind of a devil's bargain that the one the house back if he signs the bill and i'll let him it'll help him get reelected president of course he has to see it exactly the same way when he signs the

bill so they sent him this vote and then in the summer of nineteen late summer of nineteen ninety six and in i think it was and is really bad legislation it it said and that was this is not a conversation about what we do want poverty that audi our conversation this isn't only about welfare and it essentially said we're going to let the states are due to two families that's four women with children whatever they want because it was a block grant it said states don't have to have a program at all they can be as tough means a wannabe and too many states have taken that invitation although some of them good things and it said you can only be needy for five years out of a life of bringing up your children whether there's a recession whatever it is you're only allowed five years with federal assistance and i thought that was just too radical a departure in the very punitive direction and so i resigned so and you're shocked and you're only or less

and just take a minute to a minute something you know we're learning of lenders use it later look at the numbers which indicate that well first down by three million people off the roads working baby and then you make the argument that someone you just made quite eloquently then the question is so your question is where we go from here and cam i mean the gap between haves and have nots is greater and as we look at it it's probably going to be greater still there are the haves have a lot more and the rising tide has not lifted all boats is can only recapture the ring can you can you invigorated this country with a sense

that neither of those you have so little i think we can i think it's a very very difficult challenge i do think if you look at the sweep of history in this country that the sixties were very unusual time we finally head and as a consequence of of the war or of both the general we have great confidence in ourselves as a country which is very important and we had people saying that the racial separation the legal segregation that we had in this country was rock and of course here you are you bore witness to that and in a very personal way and so we we we were inspired as a country to to do things that we don't often get inspired to do by a calculus of history and and the activism of people who said when i can stand for it anymore and in the supreme court was helpful just a number of forces and again they're an out of that came a kind of parallel understanding that it was important to do something about low income people as well which is

disproportionately racial issue but obviously not all art that ended for a variety reasons that related to president nixon coming on changes in the economy and the war in vietnam for changes in our attitudes about government because of watergate as well as vietnam and so we've really been ian gone and an interim different set of directions to this more conservative time today my optimism that we could do something stands from how many people around this country are our help are both doing things in a volunteer way and if we can get them to see then in addition to that we also need some government policy both at these and this is a really american thing people go out and help each other and in its terrific and we shouldn't of course will lose it but also people who were organizing there are people both both the kind of revitalize labor movement with john sweeney a leading

and people who in connection with their faith are doing are organizing in communities around the country in other is icy icy young people i know i personally i was pleased about the young people at harvard who stood up and said look you you've got to five hundred workers plus others on contract who are being paid a living wage in an institution with a nineteen billion dollar endowment and you can fake afford to pay nine hundred or thousand workers ten dollars in our own community very recently fourteen august is the global where the city council to raise the salary of the of the least paid city workers that sort of thing is happening in and use a lot of it those george bush was a faith based us as listeners and so when when we hear a politics that's kind of conservatively based in

religion and we should remember that there's there's also that on the progressive side well that's where my optimism comes that that people can really make a contribution and and it's just you know the ripple going on out to but other people know that we have got to respond better that we have these huge gaps in this country and that we really cannot and i have i have some optimism that we really will do a better job as this new century unfolds well rough time i'd love to stay here and let you answer the question you ask and book was robert kennedy a conservative in the end that's another fascinating subject for another day we'd been talking two miles from peter adam about his new book searching for americans are peter thank you for joining us and thank all of you for joining us and thank you for watching were no words announcing on keep reading