Bill Moyers Journal; 313; Hubert Horatio Humphrey: A Conversation

What really was the tragedy of the whole thing for me at that time was the Chicago experience, the riots in the streets, the trouble with the police and the students. The whole environment of politics had come apart. I mean, it had become polluted and destroyed and violent and bad, just bad, and I tried to put it together. I'll never forget that day before when I went to the convention to give my acceptance speech. I had an acceptance speech written and I had to rewrite the whole thing because of the circumstances that had taken place. Literally prayed that I could get a hold of that audience and not have them walk out on me, because of the humiliation of it, the incredible humiliation of it, and I did get a hold of them. I tell

you it was a moment of triumph for me for a few moments, but I knew that there had been lasting damage done there. There were battles fought in that convention that never needed to be fought. You know, we did work out with the anti-administration forces, a compromised Vietnam plank, which I had cleared with Walt Rostow and Dean Rusk, in which the president said no. My man out there was David Ginsburg, and he had called me and told me the plank that they'd worked out, and I cleared every word of it. And our mutual friend, Marvin Watson, came to me on Monday, as the convention opened and said it was unacceptable. And I again was constantly posed with the problem, what do I do under these circumstances? And we tried to make some other adjustments, and by maneuvering around, we began to lose even more ground with the people that we needed. Now there are a lot of other things could

have happened that would have been helpful. I've often said that if Bobby Kennedy had lived and he had received the nomination, I think he would have won because I would have backed him, not only because I would have backed him, but he was a regular. He was, even though he was a man that was very independent, and many times people didn't like him, he would have been a regular. He would have, he would have carried our banner in one. Had I received the nomination, and he lived, he would have backed me, and I would have won. But Eugene, he was a maverick. He was different. And that made a little difference. I also believe that we didn't ask the President to do as much as we should have. There was a tendency on the part of people around me to want to keep away from Johnson. And finally, I forced the issue. They didn't even want to go to Chicago. I said, what do you mean? You mean that a Democrat can run for President and not go to Illinois or to Chicago? Or we can't be with daily? I said, Dick daily is the mayor of Chicago. He's the Democratic leader.

And there's no way in God's green earth that a man can be elected President of the United States and not go and take his campaign into the second or third largest city of this country. In the next hour, Hubert Humphrey talks about politics, fate, and Hubert Humphrey. I'm Bill Williams. For Hubert Humphrey, 1976 will tell the story. Either he becomes president, something he has wanted for years, or he will go on to finish his public career in the Senate, one of the men who also ran. I've known him since 1960.

We were close for one intense bell when I was part of the Kennedy Johnson era, and he was assistant majority leader of the Senate, and then vice president. I left Washington in early 67, since then he missed by a hair-winning the presidency, came back from defeat to when his old seat in the Senate, recovered from a critical illness when he thought he might die, and reportedly has come to terms with himself and his fate. Like many of his friends I've been curious, how does he feel now about his life and ambition? Recently for this final journal of 76, I invited him to my homelong island, and we talked not so much about large issues, as about the forces, events, and people who shaped him. I was with Robert Penn Warren last week, and he, the novelist in poet, and he said he's convinced now that the secret of almost any driving successful person's life is that at some moment in that child's life, a human being touched that life forever, and the child had a sense of worth, and a sense of value, and never forgot it.

Was there one person who did that for you? I was with my father from the day I was old enough to walk, so to speak, because he had a little family business, and as a little boy I come to the drug store. The one thing at my, remember so much of my father, was that how he'd get me to do things, never by chastisement, but always by praise, and even to this day it works, when somebody comes in and works me over, and help a bit, I just firm up, and I mean is a billy goat. But if somebody comes in and it's, you know, and lets me know that I'm doing a good job, and I want to do a better job, or if they indicate to me that, you know, you've been of help to me, then you want to be of more help. I remember of an incident, when I was a chap I suppose about 10 years old, or 11 maybe, because I started taking inventory in the drug store when I was 11 years old, and my father taught me how to take the inventory that we had to take every year. I did some of it, just a little bit. We used to have these traveling salesmen that would come through, and I'd always listen

to what my father was saying to them, and I'd be in this adult conversation, you know, just kind of listening around, and I heard him say one time, and I know he did it on purposes. I looked back, somebody there, salesman remarked how nice the store looked, and dad said to him, oh, he said that's son Hubert of mine, he said, you know, he keeps this store so clean, he just dusts up everything, straightens things up, and he keeps his floor swept up. He is just, he's just my marvelous boy. I tell you, I just grew, I was swelling up, you know, like a poison pup about that time, you know, I heard that, I didn't let dad know, but oh, I was so proud, and I was just out there with that broom and dusting up from there on out. What kind of father would name a boy, her ratio? Well, I don't know, you know, we've had a lot of jokes about that. I've asked him, why did I ever get named Hubert? Well father said that was because, you know, I was his son, and he wanted a boy named Hubert, Jr., but the name Horatio was in the family, in the family name, and there was an uncle, Horatio, somewhere back, I mean, some great uncle, wasn't Horatio Alger?

No, no Horatio Alger, but I've had a lot of fun with my grandchildren about that. I have a little granddaughter by the name of Cindy, she's a little pixie, a little rascal, she's really something. One day she said to me, grandpa, what's your name? She wanted a little attention, you know, I was paying too much attention to her sisters. Well, I said Cindy, you know what my name is, and I said my name is Hubert, Horatio Humphrey. She chuckled and she says that's a funny name, grandpa, and I said no, now I want to tell you about it. So I told her about Hubert, where it came from, and I said there was once a saint Hubert, I said that's not grandpa, even though the Pope didn't take him off the list, I want you to know. Then I pointed out there about Horatio, and I said, Horatio was a Roman, and Horatio was the man that stood at the bridge, and I have to explain to her the good guys and the bad guys, you know, the Romans were the good guys, and the bad guys were trying to come across the bridge, and Horatio kept all the bad guys away from the good guys, this

is the way you talk to this little girl, and when we got all through and I said down, you know what the Romans said, they said, Horatio is the greatest Roman of them all, that said that's grandpa, and she says, Grandpa, you're not a Roman, you're a Democrat, you told me that's a little girl, four years old, and I never forgot that story. When did your father die? 1949. Before he died, did you have a chance to tell him what he had meant to you? Oh, yes, we were very close friends, I mean did you talk very openly, yes, very openly, and dad was a friend, this is an interesting thing, he wasn't just my father, we were friends, the kind of friends that you could talk almost anything with, and of course he set a very big standard, high standard for me, I was always afraid that I would disappoint him. I think that that was more that governed any moral qualities I had or any student qualities, I always wanted to do well, I didn't want him to be disappointed in me, he had a way

of making people want to do better, and that is leadership, how you can do that is the most marvelous thing. How to make people want to do better? Do better, do better, if I didn't have something to strive for and work for, I wouldn't think it was very worthwhile, it's a difference between a frenzied desire, and I think in a more and a more reasonable pace of what you're trying to do, you know, as you grow along in years you realize you can't do everything, but I think the thing that ages somebody is to give up, the high hopes and the big objectives that you have, if you give up, then you really age as long as you are dreaming and hoping and as long as you are planning and looking ahead, you're still a reasonably young man, I mean you must not think of the day you're not going to be here. Did you think of that when you were recently quite ill? Did you think that I may not be here?

The S somewhat, but I also made up my mind that this could not be. What do you mean? I just said, it's just hard to be in sick, you know, let's get with it Humphrey, I've had enough of this nonsense. But did you think I might die? Yes, I was in such pain for a period of time. How did you come to grips with that possibility? Because I didn't think I was supposed to, I just didn't think it was in my destiny at that time, honestly that's the truth. For me, this all just seemed nonsense, you know, I mean, I was brought up to believe that you shouldn't indulge in self-pity, that that's a very debilitating experience and a set of attitudes of self-pity will get you no place. So in a very real sense, I sort of spank myself and I said to the man upstairs, hey, let's get with this together, and get me out of this mess. Do you still pray? Yes, not as loud as some people do, but I am essentially not denominationally so much, but essentially a religious man.

What do you think happens when a man does? I don't know, but I've decided to leave that up to divine providence. I figure that's where it all worked out, I can't figure that out too much. That's one of, I think I'm on this earth to take care of things here and I think that the good Lord's going to take care of things there, and so I'll leave it up to him. But if you see the good Lord, what would you say? I say how to do, I really, really would, you know, and I'd hate to get the answer sometimes. The particular, are there moments when you question that there is a purpose, that there is a divine overseer? Yes, I suppose, that that's true. But then I figure, well, how did it all get put together? There's got to be something that happened here, and I don't believe you can understand everything, and that's why you have to have faith. That is not a cop out. There's just a time you can drive yourself up a tree trying to understand, trying to figure out how this all happened, this universe of ours, this, the Milky Way happened, you

know, I used to think as a boy that the Milky Way was, each star was a little place, was sort of a light for somebody that had died, that was a beautiful thing for me when I was a little boy, I used to go pick up the milk, you know, we didn't have the milk delivery in those days. I'd go over to Dreyers, the Dreyers dairy, pick up a gallon of milk, and I'd come back, I can remember out in South Dakota, those cold, wintry nights in Blue Sky, and I'd look up and see that Milky Way, and I think every time anybody died, they got a star up there, and all the big stars were for the big people, you know, like Caesar or Lincoln. It was a childhood fantasy, but it gave me, even that was a comforting thing, but getting back to this, this religious business, I think every man has to have something beyond himself, because you're so fragile, every person is so fallible, you're so limited, no matter how good you try to be or how good you think somebody else is, there's always

these terrible disappointments. And you've had your share of disappointments? Yes, I've had, but not too many, you know. But people say to people who admire you politically, nonetheless say of you personally, you know, I just don't know about a man who doesn't doubt, and Hubert Humphrey never seems to doubt. Well, I doubt, but you have to reconcile your doubts, I have to do that in the Senate all the time, I can't vote maybe, I'm not a maybe guy, I got a vote yes or no, and we've got an awful lot of people that just go agonizingly through life, you know, trying to figure it all out. And somewhere along the line you have to make a decision, and you may make a wrong one, but you pursue a course, and if you think you've made a wrong one, you try to straighten it out. But I've seen all these people at Hammond Hall, I call them the Hammond Hallers, they never quite get around to saying where they are, who they are, what they are, what they want, where they've been or where they're going. And I don't say that it's easy, and I don't, I'm not trying to pretend that you always know who you are, what you are, where you're going, but you have to make some judgments, you just can't keep waiting for more evidence.

I know a lot of people tell me I'm not tough enough, listen, there are enough tough people in the world. Some people say you're too happy, and that this is not a happy world. Well, maybe I can help make it a little more happy. Happiness is contagious, just exactly like, I mean, miserable, misery is contagious. I'm not a, I don't run around here like a buffoon or a polyaneid with a polyaneish attitude, I realize the sense, the realities of the world in which we live. I'm not at all happy about what I see when the nuclear arms race, the power, the machinations of the Soviets, of the Chinese, or what's going on in the Middle East, the misery that's in our cities, the pathetic problems that our country faces individually and collectively of people in our country. I'm aware of that, but I do not believe that people will respond to do better if they are constantly approached by a negative attitude. People have to believe that they can do better. They've got to know that there's somebody that's with them, that wants to help and work

with them, and somebody that hasn't tossed in the towel. I don't believe in defeat, Bill. Do you remember what went through your mind when you woke up that morning and realized you hadn't missed by ever? Well, first of all, I've been conditioned in my life to accept defeat if it happens. At least to accept it in the sense that you don't complain. I don't like complainers about my personal life and so on. What is is, and you do, you make the best of it, and then don't surrender. You proceed to look ahead. I realized by two o'clock that night that I had was defeated. My supporters didn't think so. They never want to give up. I went to bed. Not all I heard are true, but I did. I went to bed. I asked to be alone. I just went to sleep, and I woke up about 830, and I saw then that it was all over, and I talked to Mr. Nixon, congratulated him on his victory, and then waves of thoughts went

through my mind that day. The first thing I wanted to do was to go home, get out of that hotel, get out to my place and wait for me, get my mural by the hand and get away, and go out there to be together just to walk around together. We've got a lovely place, Billy, and I can get out and walk in the trees, and along the lake shore, it does something for me. And then, of course, I couldn't help but think of what had happened during the time if we just had a little more time. I knew that if we just had a little more time, that we might have, I felt that we could have done it. And then you think about all of something that happened here, if this had done, that people had lined up and helped. But the one thing that I made up my mind was that if I had won, everybody would have said, oh, Mr. Humphrey, you ran a brilliant campaign and you pulled off a miracle, and I'd got all the honors, wouldn't I? It would have been my honor, and I lost, and why go around blaming other people? I'm not trying to be the nice guy.

I've had a lot of people say, this fellow could have done more, Johnson could have helped you more, McCarthy could have done this, and all of this, that's true, all of that could have been. But why just spend your time figuring out that other people were responsible for your trouble? So, I'd be honest with you, I'd let it flash through my mind, and then I'd sort of flush it away, you know? And then Johnson used to say of you occasionally privately, Hubert's problem is he trusted his enemies too much. Yes, not as much as I used to bill, that is true. I think that I was true in my earlier life. I think that I'm a man that has matured later in life. That is fact, as a young man, even when I was a younger man, I thought I was really younger than my age, emotionally, in terms of my sense of maturity. And I really feel that I'm at my age now, maybe at about what I would call the 50 year of maturity, I feel that way.

I think I've kind of come into my own. I'm much more at peace with myself than I've ever been. I'm not overly confident, I don't mean arrogantly confident, but I'm quite confident. I think I know what I'm up to. I think I know what I'm doing. I think I have a better appreciation of the people that I work with. I don't have many deep and real, you know, intimate friends. Public life doesn't lend itself to that, it's too hurried. But I have some that are very close to me. And my family has become more precious to me. I know that I keep mentioning that, but that's very important in my life. Let's come back to the morning of November 1968 when you knew that Richard Nixon and not Hubert Humphrey were going to be the next president. Yes, but I remember even more during the mornings I woke up when I knew that it was a terrible uphill battle and most likely would be a disaster. I remember so well in September of 1968, after the convention.

I was heartbroken. It was the moment of my life, the convention, and all at once there was this total disarray. At least I was able to speak to the convention. That, to me, was a great test to me to be able to put that convention back together. And I used the prayer of St. Francis of the CC when I came to that convention. Nobody could find it, but I got it by telephone on the live from the library in Chicago. And I put that in myself because I thought somebody needed to say something of that nature. But during that period in September, I used to say to Muriel Muriel, we had no money bill. You know that. We really were just down flat. The politicians were leaving me like I was a contagious disease. I don't blame them. I was a loser. I was 20 points behind in the polls. Many people have said to me, weren't you angry with people when you'd come to such and such a state that the governor wouldn't be there or the senator wouldn't be there? And I'd say, no, I, you know, I looked like I was, I was bad news. And I understand that in politicians that people don't want to be that close to you.

But I used to say to Muriel, I say, honey, if there's just two of us, that's all. Just you and I. And if we have to get our own car and we travel across this country, just you and I alone, we're going to do it. Because this is a great privilege that we've been given in a tremendous honor and responsibility. And I've no one's for us. We're going to carry this banner until that election day. And I know that's sustained us. Because I knew that we could put it together if we just had time. Because we needed to break through the noise, through the static, to get people to see what the differences were, to see what was ahead. I couldn't get people for a period of time to understand that they were not just electing a man. You elect a president, you elect a court, you elect ambassadors, you elect the Securities Exchange Commission, you elect the Federal Reserve Board, you elect a precedent and tradition that stays with you for a decade or longer.

People have to understand that the presidency is an institution, and the man that occupies it is, but an instrument within the institution, things flow from that. And when these chant would come up and say there's not a dime's worth of difference between my record in Richard Nixon's, I'd given a whole life over to what I call the social aspects of politics. I'd fought my heart out for food for peace and peace corps and disarmament and arms control and civil rights and civil liberties and education. And Richard Nixon had never been identified with anything but investigations. Didn't all this make you think it's all unfair and history is blind and life is tragic? Everything you believed in was coming apart in 1968, but I felt we could still put it back together. Of course, that's an optimist business, and we almost did. You know, we almost did, because you know, I found that people wanted to believe when I made even a partial move at Celtic City, which was much more fundamental than people

knew at the time, because it really revealed what I was going to do. People came to me by the thousands. All at once it was like that there was seed in the ground waiting to spring up that the sunshine and the rain had fallen on it and there it was. And it was coming on like gangbusters, and then do you remember at the very end? Mr. Nixon and Mrs. Shenulte. Mrs. Shenulte had gone and talked to the people in Saigon and told Chu that Nixon's going to win. You don't have to send. You don't have to go to Paris, and we were trying to get him to commit that they would be in Paris immediately after the election, and that no good so-and-so would not commit even though Lyndon Johnson had poured the blood of this country out and the treasure of this country to help him. And here I was, the Vice President of the United States, and been a defender of our policies in Vietnam, and that President Chu of South Vietnam listened to Mrs. Shenulte and I never was able to prove that Nixon had his hand in it, and I didn't dare accuse

him of it for fear that I had no proof. I'll tell you, when that fell out, he got no sympathy for me when he was ousted. Do you remember what you felt in terms of this tremendous loyalty you felt toward Lyndon Johnson, and at the same time these strong feelings you had about the war? How did you feel? There was a terrible tussle, but Bell, you know, during the period of the war, particularly after 66 and 67 up to the time about the ten offensive, I supported our efforts, I've never been a hypocrite about it. I said I'd rather be called stupid and wrong than to be called a hypocrite. I spoke in behalf of the administration's policies. I believed that we were trying to do the right thing, that we were above all searching for a peaceful settlement, and that we were looking for a way to negotiate our way out of this struggle, but I became convinced in 68 that we simply had to withdraw. Did you go to the president and tell him that? Only late in the mid-summer, in the summer of 68, I discussed with him the necessity

of phasing out, not precipitously, but reducing our commitments, reducing our forces, reducing our bombing, and leaving this struggle to the people in Vietnam themselves, and trying to negotiate our way out of it. And it didn't sell. As you know. Did you ever seriously consider a public break in that summer of 68? Well, I did, as you know, in the Salt Lake City speech. But that came very late in the fall. Yes, that came in the fall. No, I did not. Not a total break. I thought a very rational and reasonable break. But I knew we had to do it. And as you may know, Bill, I tried to do it earlier. There were times that I had gone to the president about it in September and in July even. The president was deeply involved in the war. But I think for his, you must keep in mind that he desperately wanted peace. He was trying every way that he knew to get it.

I can still think about him and see him there in the cabinet room and his head in his hands looking over the maps and reading the cables, and he tried so many ways through the Vatican, through the Canadians, through the British, through the Poles. He sent missionaries and emissaries all over trying to get peace, and there was no way. There was no way to get peace under the terms of continuing the conflict. When I came to him in July with a proposal that I said that I might want to surface, if I could became the nominee and maybe even before the convention, he frankly was furious with me because it was a proposal of phased withdrawal. What do you say? Well, Bill, I've often kept, I've kind of kept this private, but you and I work there and you know that my affection for the president and for Mrs. Johnson. I remember what he said, he said, you know, I have two son-in-law's over there, and your proposal would lead them at the mercy of the enemy, and he became very personal about

it. And I said, well, Mr. President, this is nothing but a proposal that I wanted to talk with you about it. I do not intend to do anything that will impair your efforts to find an honorable end to this war and to gain peace. Also on another occasion, I remember that he said to me, you were at anybody can get a headline, and you can get a headline by some proposal that you make. It's different than what this administration is pursuing, but I can get you peace, and if we get peace, you have won this election. Well, that was pretty hard, you know, to resist, and I knew he was struggling with four pieces. Avril Haramann and Cyrus Vance were in Paris, two of our finest citizens, two of our best people. And I had to be very careful that I didn't say anything during that critical period, that would jeopardize their efforts, that would show a break in the administration. I don't think people realized that it was a very tenuous time.

But some people were saying that if you had made that break, if you had shown that there was within the administration a powerful peace factor, that you could have ended the war sooner. Well, I think I could have ended it sooner had I been elected, but I'm not at all sure that at that time that if I had made a complete break, that it would have helped me or helped the peace effort. As a matter of fact, I think if you discuss it with Avril Haramann, you would know that I kept in touch with him. And there were times that there was a word of caution. Don't do this. Don't say this. Things are developing here. And I had to decide whether I wanted to play a very dramatic political role here in America on the political hustings or whether I wanted to rely upon the processes of negotiation under the president and the two negotiators we had at Paris to bring us peace. It was a tough deal, really very difficult for me, and I felt a great sense of responsibility. I didn't want to jeopardize anything that was happening. You know, I sat there where there were men that I really admired. The cabinet, I think, is ought to be known that in that cabinet, I find people from Ramsey

Clark to Orville Freeman, from Sandy Trollbridge to Dean Rusk, that there was no basic disagreement that is, but it was verbalized as to the administration's policy. There were nuances, yes, there were some differences, but no basic disagreement. And I had great respect for these people. But they pursued, we pursued, a policy that turned out in retrospect to be wrong. Yes. How did that happen Senator? I spent a lot of time trying to think what went wrong. Well, I think what went wrong is a very complicated story, but I'll give you one simplistic response. We were a world power with a half world knowledge, and we still are. We could still make same critical mistakes. We didn't understand what was going on in that part of the world. We envisioned that part of the world as if it was Western Europe. We related the experiences that were taking place in Southeast Vietnam and South Asia and Southeast Asia as if it was taking place on the Rhine or the Danube or the Rural Valley.

But it wasn't the same. There were different people, different cultures, different values, different histories. Do you remember one time where there was a Buddhist uprising up in Hawaii? We didn't have anybody that knew the Buddhists, where our religion, our whole pattern of religious life here in America was foreign to that experience or unrelated to that experience. Prior to World War II, there were fewer than 15 universities in this country that had major courses in the Far East. We didn't understand anything about the Japanese or the Chinese, and we still don't understand much about the Chinese except that Mao is over there and Chauenlai is dead, and the man that we thought was going to be that new premier didn't get to be, that's about it. Well, the American public gives us its public servants. Our universities, our schools give us our people. And even to this very day, Bill, we do not understand Russia. We know something about the Communists, but Communism is a veneer.

It's a thick veneer. It's a hard veneer. It's almost a marble top, to be sure, over the base of the Soviet Union. But the Russian people and the peoples of Russia have a heritage, and isn't it interesting that when Joe Stalin was standing there at Stalingrad and the Nazis were beating at the gates, he didn't call on the Russian people to die for Marx and Lenin. He said, die for Mother Russia, fight for Mother Russia. He understood that even though there had been an intensive effort to make the Soviet Union and the Russian, and the different republics of the Soviet Union, and that great country, to make it a Marxist, Leninist society, deep underneath there was something else. There was the art and the literature and the music and the peasants. There was still the church. There was all these things that were there and they're still there. In order to understand, even understand contemporary Russia, you have to understand historical Russia.

But are you saying, Senator, that the American society created the war in Vietnam? No. No. I think that our judgments that came out of the American society, or the people that came out of the American society, came out with the experiences of Americans, primarily in a world that was in Western Europe, a world that was not Asian, and surely not Southeast Asian, we had no acquaintanceship with it. We couldn't even spell their names or pronounce their names, knowledge as power, as we used to say. But we didn't believe that. We began to believe that power was knowledge. We got upside down. We began to think because we had power and money and firepower that somehow another that would stop it. But there has been people who have said it repeatedly. I think it was all meternick that once said that an idea can spring over any wall. And there's no way that you can build up walls enough that stops an idea. Even the Russians are finding that out today.

But the Democratic idea hasn't been jumping over any walls like this. Yes, it has, but it's a very fragile plant. It's got to find a very, it's got to find a certain kind of a soil. And we're in, the Democratic idea is in summary treat, not the idea, but the Democratic experience. Because we're living through very difficult days, days of turmoil and of uncertainty. There are storms all over the world and storms do things to fragile and to tender plants. It's hard to make a democracy work. Democracy is the most difficult task of all. It doesn't take any brains to be a totalitarian. It doesn't really require great competence to be an authoritarian. But it does to be a Democrat with a small D. How all these years later do you assess Lyndon Johnson? He's the most complex man I suppose I've ever known in public life.

There were times when Lady Bird would leave town and he'd get loansome and he'd call up and say, get out of bed. I want you to have breakfast with me. And he went out of his way to be nice to Muriel. I think you know that always was very nice to Muriel. And you know, to be a vice president in the United States, to be honored at a state dinner as the president did was great. When I travel abroad, ever so often, one sometimes he'd be very worried that I was going to do the wrong thing. But on the trip, I remember to Europe, particularly in 67. He thought I did a good job. When I came back, you would have thought I was a conquering hero, Caesar returning. They had the guard out, the troops out, the band out. When we landed at the White House lawn, it was just marvelous. And then sometimes when I'd come back from the far east, there wouldn't be anybody out. You remember those times at Cabinet meetings? When he thought he'd maybe hurt me somewhere before he'd tell the Cabinet, I was the greatest vice president of the country that ever had and he'd give you an embrace like a bear hug,

you know? And everything was in the Capitol letters with Lyndon Johnson. It was in large figures. He was a large man. And then he could be tough. And he could actually be real mean to you. But by and large, the old my relationships of that man were about as good as you can have between a president and a vice president. I want you to know that most vice presidents and presidents don't have a good relationship. And you know why? Because the incumbent is the king. He doesn't want anybody around who can test with him. And if you don't learn how to walk one step behind and keep yourself under control. If you show yourself to be anywhere near a dynamic or an attractive personality in any way, you are suspect. And his staff helps make him suspect, too. And because the man is there, the people are feeding him information and decides that he's very sensitive. He was. And this man in particular was exceedingly sensitive. He was almost paranoid about leaks in government, you know, and he was the biggest leak of the

crowd. And they will forget the time that a story appeared in the Minneapolis paper, which we subsequently found out came from another source. But he thought for two weeks that you, because it was Minneapolis, you'd given Chuck Bailey that story. Absolutely. He ordered us not to speak to you. Oh, I know. I'd be put in the dog house in the cooler, the deep freeze. I'm the living example that a man can be in the deep freeze for at least two weeks and still live. And he would, but then he'd give you that quick ball. What was it, at the wedding that day, oh, when Lucy was married, prior to that, something had happened. And I hadn't been invited over at the White House for a period of time, except in the most, you know, where I was, maybe the cabinet meeting, but there was no particular show of, well, Hubert, my friend is here, you know, just there. And they got into the press that Humphrey was conspicuously absent in certain meetings that were being held. So I went, Lucy is married, and I was loved little Lucy and, you know, the family ladybird and Lucy and Linda, what, you know, I mean, this wonderful people.

I love that ladybird, Johnson. She's, I told you, she's one of the nicest people I've ever known in my life. Well, I was sitting there with Muriel and right on the aisle and now President Johnson and Lucy come in. Lucy's on her father's arm coming down the line. And he hadn't spoken to me. He hadn't spoken to me. He hadn't been a cool, cool period. And the press is all off over there, you know, and they got the cameras on and everything. And as he's coming down, he gives me a wink with one of those eyes. It was just like two symbols coming together, just clapped. You could almost feel it in the church. And he looked at me and right away I said to Muriel, I'm back in good stand with the man. And the press caught it too. He'd forgiven me in one flick of the island, why he'd apparently forgotten why he had been angry with me if he had been and he had been. And I was back in good shape when we went back over to the White House after the wedding for the reception at all. My goodness, I was just like his son. You know, I'm all he had his arm around me. I said he often reminded me of my father-in-law, the way he used to treat chill-blames.

Grandpa Buck would get some chill-blames. He'd said the best way to treat him is put your feet first in cold water than in hot water. And sometimes I'd feel myself in hot water than I'd be over in cold water. I'd be the house, the household hero for a week, and then I'd be in the doghouse. What are your regrets of that era, Senator? Well, I guess I regret that I didn't see that some of the people that were the dissidents, the people that were opposed. I didn't often see them as constructive critics. I began to see them as most people in the administration did as enemies. When I came, when I got out of government, and got away from the walls of the executive office building, and got away from the constant conversations and dialogues that we had within our limited group, I began to see that there was something else. There was something on the outside. And I think that this is the greatest problem in government today, Bill.

What was going through Hubert Humphrey's mind in 1968 when he was going to places where he'd always been accepted before, Yale, and other universities around the country, and being told to go back, get away, get out of here, I felt terribly. I was hurt. I want to tell you that was the hardest period, the most difficult period of my life. And let me tell you that war on me physically and emotionally, because I love the college campus. I'd always been well accepted at the college campus. I had such mixed emotions too, on the one hand I felt so sad, so unhappy, but you become defensive. You know, that kind of the vulgarity, by the way, of the demonstrations, almost the brutality of it, the crudeness of it, the physical part of it, I resented. Did anybody ever say to you that their vulgarity and barbarity was in reaction to what they

saw as the vulgarity and barbarity of official policy? I don't consider that two wrongs make a right, I've never felt that, and there are other ways of demonstrating. But I have to tell you, that's the defensive part, the defensive part. But there were obviously very legitimate reasons for protests and demonstrations. And I think as to the everlasting credit of our society that we came through that, and in a very real sense, while civil liberties were abused for many, there were still the right for people to protest, there was the right for people to speak out and even to do it in a way that the establishment didn't like. Did you think something's wrong with me or something's wrong with the country or something's wrong with them? What did you think? At first, I think that you, and the early days, you sense that there must be real reason for this. But after a while, you feel like you're under siege.

And Bill, when people feel like they're under siege, they don't reason. You build your defenses. You see in that opposition, not, as I said, not legitimate, constructive opposition. You see them as the enemy. The last two presidents we've had, including a Democratic president, stood in the country for two of the most traumatic experiences this nation has ever endured, the war in Vietnam and Watergate. Don't you find the cynicism that exists and adapts toward the country and adapts toward the government? Justifies? I don't say that there isn't, that there is not reason for the disillusionment, the doubts, the suspicion, because I think we've all contributed to it, in some degree, with the kind of lack of standards that all too often has been evident in recent years. I don't think that you can do much else, but to admit that, first of all, you have to admit air.

You have to be willing to admit your transgressions. Or there's any way of a country or an individual to reform or to change. You have to admit the air that you've made, the mistakes that you've made. I guess that's even an old religious experience. It's sort of like confessing your sins, but surely, politically, it's exactly the same way you have to be reborn. This is a religious experience for many people, and it has to be a political experience. If all you're going to do is spend your time crying over the days that went wrong, over the tragic mistakes that beset our country and our economy, you're not going to be able to ever resort, you're not going to be able to save yourself. When we declared our independence, you know, we think of those marvelous men and the continental armies and so forth, but Washington used to have an awful time keeping people in the army. They'd quit fighting, they'd go on home, they'd leave and leave their guns and go back to the plow. One third of the people in the colonies were for independence, a third were neutral waiting

to see who was going to win, a third were Tories. And even in the first couple of years of the war, some of the patriots of today that we worship were hoping for reconciliation with the king. Washington and Valley Forge, I was mentioning this to you earlier, down in his knees, that marvelous picture of Washington praying for help, and that dark winter of Valley Forge. We often speak of our lives, having the period of the Valley Forge of our life, the trouble, the incredible difficulties. Well, there was the continental congress over there in Philadelphia, all these great heroes that were talking about, what were they doing? While George Washington was praying, they were arguing. They couldn't decide whether they were going to win or lose, they couldn't decide whether he should get canon or how much food he should get, they couldn't decide whether they were going to be able to pay their soldiers. As a matter of fact, when they finally did decide, only about half of it ever got there, the black market was working, there were a few thieves along the line. Are you saying we should be surprised by the few things that happen that are progressive?

I'm saying that we ought not to be overly surprised by the fact that people get into trouble, and that we ought to put in perspective every act human activity, but out of every difficulty we have learned, I think the question of the modern society is, have we learned anything here? I think we have. The question for Hubert Humphrey, too, isn't it? Yes, of course. Have you learned anything? Oh, I think I've learned a great deal. We've had experiences in our life as a family. Look at what we used to do with there with our mentally disturbed and our mentally retarded years ago. What did we do with them? We warehouse them. We got them away from us. We called it compassion. We put them in institutions. We didn't do anything for them, but you get rid of them. It was a kind of a stigma, really a sort of a social shame. Then with John Kennedy becoming president with the problems they'd had in their family, it started to come out. People began to talk about these things, and we took this whole business out from under

the shadow, out of the darkness, put it into the light, and the sunlight. Our first granddaughter, Mangaloid Child, what it was an unbelievable blow. You know what I mean? Why us? Why should this happen to our family? There had been no reason for it. Never had it in our history of our family. We couldn't understand why it hit us. But out of that came a whole new sense of values in our family. First of all, this little girl taught us more love in her few years and all that Sunday school teaching I've had all my many years. I began to really understand what it means to love and to be loved. And another thing we learned to help other people, to share, and out of this, what's come? Let's not just get away from the individual for a moment. People that used to be disabled, physically or mentally, blind or death, or so-called mentally retarded, different degrees of retardation.

Those people were, many times, left to be unproductive citizens, unhappy people, put aside. What's happened now? They've been brought out. People today that were really unproductive only a few years ago are self-sustaining, a sense of dignity, independence. Look what the wine can do in America. Look what the death can do in America. Look what we've done with our mentally retarded. It's incredible. And we've also learned something else, how we can prevent so much of this. So that out of a disaster, out of pain, out of suffering, out of sorrow, a whole new world opens up for you. And this is true of so many things. That's true of what's happened in our country. America is much more prone today to be careful about its commitments. We're not around. We can't be, though, as we've said, the world's policeman. But we can be the world's idealist. You don't think that greats to hear somebody talk about the world's idealism after the death and destruction and tragedy of Vietnam and the Chicanery and corruption and scandal of what a gate for us to come and say, we are an idealistic nation.

We don't just say it. We need to practice it in our public attitudes and our public position in our public standards. Surely you can't, but you can't get people to do great things unless you offer them great goals. Why do people, why do people have religion because of the promise that's in it? Why do people read the Bible amongst many reasons? I'm sure there are many reasons, but one of them is that there's such great hope expressed there. You asked me about, after life, you asked me about, you know, how do I feel about these things? Well, the reason that people read and study the Bible and believe in their religious faith is that there's great, it's a great commitment. It's an ideal. It's a hope. It's an expression of almost the impossible. But have it Democrats like you and when I was a practicing official of the government, have it, have it we perhaps raised expectations? Nothing wrong in that.

But yawned our capacity as a society. Ah, there's nothing wrong in that. Listen, there were people that said they could run the four-minute mile and they said, no, that's impossible. And one day somebody did it. And then somebody said, look, we can run a mile in less than four minutes and they did it. I'm not saying that in my lifetime we will eliminate poverty. We may never eliminate poverty, but we'll never even cut it down unless we try to eliminate poverty. If we accept it, then we will put a certain group of people out here and say, hey, don't bother us, you're the poor, you're the illiterates, you're the less productive. Just don't bother us, we'll send you a check. You know, we got a computer that can write these checks out, we'll see that you have enough to live on. That's the way to go broke. But if you say to them, hey, wait a minute, how about you participate in, or you won't maybe do so well at first, but you can do it. What I'm saying is that we have been setting goals since you were a boy in the new deal back in the 1930s.

And that's why we've done so well as we got. One third, poor, one third, real house, one third, real clothes, hairy trumans, goals of full employment, John F. Kennedy's goals in civil rights, Lyndon Johnson's goals of housing and anti-poverty. Against that, we now have to face some new altars, don't we? Don't we have to say there is a legitimate argument in the size and scope and weight of the federal government? Oh, that's a different thing. I'm not talking only about the federal government because goals are not strictly federal government. I want to tell you something about what you just said. That one of the reasons that we've made as much progress in this country as we have, and we've made a lot of it, we can always point out the inadequacies, and there are plenty of things that are disturbing. But there are more, one of the reasons we've made the progress we have is because we have had people that articulated goals that did challenge us, that asked us to do things. That's why we've done things. Now, we've had disappointments. We elected a president in 1968 that says this war on poverty has got to stop. If he'd equipped the war in Vietnam, as soon as he'd equipped the war on poverty, we'd

have been all better off. But he threw in the sponge. He surrendered. And when we wouldn't let him surrender, he put people in charge, generals in charge that didn't want to win. And when we passed in the ammunition, he locked it up. And now all these same people are running around this country, selling you and others on the idea that these programs didn't work. Of course they don't work. I haven't bought a thing, but let me ask you this. They don't work if you don't want them to work. How can you exempt a democratic party for this? After eight years in 1968, when we left office, we left the war in Vietnam, raging. We left inflation that was running. We left a little bit. Well, let's stop a little bit. The rate of inflation when we left it was slightly over 4%, unemployment was 3.9. We had had over 10 million people work their way out of poverty. But the chief victim of inflation the last few years of studies show has been the middle class. No, not entirely so, but even that, may I say, can be combated by an effort on the part of this country to get productivity. I've been listening on Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee.

I've listened to all these witch doctors that come down there and tell us these things from the administration. Now, what's their argument? They say, if you do too much and try to push this employment too much, you're going to have more inflation. In other words, if you move too hard, you'll get inflation. Now, what's been happening? Inflation has gone down from about 12% down to 6.9. Unemployment's gone down from about 9% down to 7.8. As the unemployment went down, the inflation went down. Inflation in this kind of an economy is the product of low productivity, the failure to use your plant and the capacity of your manufacturing plant and the failure to use your labor. There is so much evidence today against the doctoral thesis that if you combat inflation with stimulation of the economy to provide jobs, all you'll do is get more inflation. They're dead wrong.

They have no empirical evidence. All they have is a theology. And I tell them they ought to get their economics and their theology separated. The economics of it is that as you improve productivity, as people go back to work, as your plant capacity is utilized closer to full capacity, the unit cost of a product goes down and that's the only way to combat inflation. Not price controls or wage controls and not to bleed the patient, not to bleed the patient that's suffering from the fever of inflation by having people out on the relief roles and the welfare roles and the food stamp offices and destroying them, making them recipients of public charity. You don't want that, Bill. If you feel this strongly about this and not only to set goals, but to worry about developing the means to achieve those goals, why don't you run for president? Because maybe at this particular time in my life, just being the open and free spirit that I hope I am, I can speak out without seeking anything, I don't need anything, I don't

want to delegate, I'd rather be, I've got a good forum. But if my ideas are worthwhile, people will listen to them and maybe there's another way to become president. Maybe if you're asking for it, you don't get it. Maybe if you're scrambling for it, you'll lose it. Maybe if you're begging for it, it'll be denied. Not that I am planning for it, but I want to say this that I am not going to scramble, beg or ask because I've been doing that a long time in my life. I've asked too many people to help me too long. I've scramble too many times. I don't have to do that now. And I have a sense of inner peace about what I'm doing or satisfaction. Do you want to be president? Well, I would like to be president of the country, I think I can do a good job. But I'm not at all, I don't want to be, I don't want that office enough to literally go on out and destroy myself or destroy what I'm for in what I call this suicidal primary race.

I've gone, I've done this so much, you know, I've been, I've talked to Muriel the other night. We've been in the campaign every year since 52 and 52 I worked for Stephenson. 56, I travel all over this country for Stephenson. In the meantime, I ran for the Senate again in 54 and then I ran for the Senate again in 60. I ran in the primaries of 60 with Kennedy, God beat. I ran for vice president in 64. I ran for president in 68. I ran for the Senate in 70 and I ran for the primaries in 72 with presidential primaries. What a joy it is this time, not to be running. I'm working, I'm doing, but I'm not running, I'm not running for something. I'm not running after somebody. I'm not running away from anything. I'm just in there doing what I want to do and I'll tell you something. I feel better physically, emotionally than any time in my life. And I don't know whether I'm doing what some people say that it's all planned out.

I can assure you that it isn't. All it is is just what I wanted to do. I just said this time in my life, I'm going to do it my way. I'm not going to have somebody organize me and tell me that I have to do it this way. I don't have to be president. The government will get along. I think this country's got lots of talent. It isn't as if Hubert Humphrey is the only person that could really do the job for this country. Maybe I couldn't do it. I think I could. But what will in this instance will be, if my party needs me and wants me, they know where I am. And the best thing that I can do is to demonstrate in these months what a public servant is all about. I want to demonstrate that I know my business and that I care about my business and I care about my country. And I don't care about Hubert Humphrey that much. I don't want to be going around saying, look at here I am, Hubert Humphrey, wouldn't you want me for president. I'm sick of it.

I don't want to do that anymore and I don't have to. I really don't even have to be senator. I have a full life and there are many things that I can do except public life. I'd like public life. If I weren't in public life, I'd love to go back only to the university again. Because there is the ferment of ideas, the working with the young people, being with your peers in the intellectual field. That's it. Are you really at peace with yourself or you're just telling yourself you're at peace? No, no, I know what I am. I'm as peaceful as a man of my nature can be. I'm not, you know, I'm not the most peaceful man. From Long Island, this has been a conversation with Hubert Humphrey. I'm Bill Moirees. OK. For a transcript, please send $1 to Bill Moyer's Journal, box 345, New York, New York

or 1-9.