Interview With Senator Pete Wilson.

Senator Pete Wilson of California is now in his 10th month in the U.S. Senate the most powerful legislative body in the world. Thus far he's earned a 98 percent plus attendance record for a roll call vote. He's been credited with doing a lot of quiet homework learning a role in the Senate but he's been outspoken too on issues ranging from offshore oil drilling in California to the U.S. presence in Central America. Republican Senator Pete Wilson that age 50 is now in his 17th year in political office. He served as mayor of San Diego for 11 years previously five years in the California Assembly where he held the assignment as GOP minority whip. He ought to be a degree from Yale and a law degree from UC Berkeley. He served as an infantry officer in the Marine Corps for making 55 to 58. He serves on the Senate agriculture and Armed Services Committee and the Special Committee on Aging. I think Senator I'd like to start with asking you something about your personal style of this awesome job of being a United States senator. You have the unique perspective of having been in a legislative body and one of the America's great cities San Diego. And then a legislative level in Sacramento and now this.

As I say enormous and formidable job of being a U.S. senator how all of you adapted your style to that. Well I think that one of the pleasant surprises. Not altogether surprised but at least it was confirmed when I got here was that people were quite prepared and even eager to be helpful. I spent as you mentioned quite a bit of time learning the people in the process I think you have to do that in order to be effective. And that's I think as important initially is learning a little more about the issues presumably you know something about the issues when when we go. But. It is a great educational experience. That's part of the stimulation of being here. We were talking before the show began about the long hours and they are long hours. But the stimulation is such that I find my energy level remains pretty high. As for a style I like the people here I think that. Another one of the pleasant things that was confirmed it's not a

surprise is the high caliber of the people with whom I'm dealing both among my colleagues in the Senate and also those at the staff level and those for the most part in the executive branch. What are some of your private vexation your frustrations and how have you accommodated to those. That's an easy time. It is it is the most difficult thing in the world for someone who is used to ordering his own time and managing his own schedule to suddenly find that you were at the mercy of the whim of the collective whim of a hundred people. The schedule of events and then you find that your schedule gets knocked a tad by the roll call votes which you mentioned earlier and that is a vexation that's very frustrating because you try to organize your time and your staff's time to make the maximum use of it and it's constantly interrupted. But you adapt to that and. Find that it's nigh impossible to concentrate on

one thing for five minutes and then immediately switch gears and look at some something else for the next 10. You can do it. The system itself is quite formidable with more than which thing that sometimes is an issue that you're concerned with me wind up as an amendment to something good that has absolutely nothing to do with nothing to do with you deal with that too also by staying in the situation that's what you have to do and that that requires a little adaptation I was used to a very different kind of legislative process in the state legislature. From my standpoint a more orderly process has its points. It is possible for this to move very quickly. Most of the time I move very slowly. But I think it has its faults as well. I think to a considerable degree the state process is often more deliberate. In that respect at least that. Here you can you have the possibility

that major amendments can be offered on the floor which I have never seen the light or never never had to be in committee that's correct. You have an advantage also of having worked with the president when you were both in California. How do you get along with the president how would you describe your relations with the White House. Well it's very warm and I have a great respect for him. I. Was convinced that we needed to have him as president in 1980 and intend to again in 1984 I have to anticipate what may be a question they have no doubt that he will run. I would be shocked if you did not. And it is my expectation that he will run and that he will be nominated and that he will win re-election. And I think you would you intend to play a role in that. Yes I do. I think it is extremely important for the country that he have a second term to be able to complete. Really the two major themes that impelled him to run in that persuaded the

American voters to vote for him and that is the restoration of some stability and. And. Strength to our economy and the restoration of some strength and direction to our foreign policy. Yet you haven't always agreed with him on something different. Right now many people are hearing some of the Republicans speak out Senator Dole for example in the Senate. Calling for the president to seek the resignation of Secretary rock for some of his intemperate statements. Having to do with women blacks and Jews in the handicapped. Do you share that wish that he would call for the resignation of the secretary. I share a great frustration with Jim Watt. I think he has administrative skills. Rather considerable I think although I disagree with him violently on a number of policy decisions most relevant to the audience is the subject of offshore oil drilling and exploration.

But as far as the intemperate statements frankly there are inexcusable and this is not the first. I am not going to vote for a resolution that calls his resignation and tells the president what I'm sure you already know is I think he's had enough advice informally. And I think it is a presidential prerogative. He was a presidential appointee so I would not vote for a resolution that expressed the sense of the Senate to be that Mr. Watt should resign I think it clearly is the sense of the Senate. But I don't think that's Is it your sense that he should resign. I think he has seriously impaired his effectiveness. I think that there really is no excuse for the kind of. Insensitivity of which he has been guilty and it's. And I'm at a loss to explain it. Let's talk about the national scene the biggest question that you alluded. To is the. Piece. The many faces that the president attempts to seek peace. The most recent example of his. Initiative before the United Nations trying to

seek verifiable nuclear arms controls nuclear disarmament with the Soviets. Is he going about it in the right way. Should he be more aggressive. Is he. Is he going about it in a way that you think it affected. I think that he is increasingly effective and I think increasingly the world audience is discovering that Ronald Reagan is not bellicose not strident but that is that he is firm and strong and that he is going to be very purposeful in the steps that he is taking for world peace including most significantly but not alone arms reduction. I think that speech to the United Nations General Assembly was an excellent speech. His tone was right. He was firm. He didn't spend an enormous amount of time berating the Russians for what they have deservedly been rated for by him and others already. He would have been derelict had he not mentioned it as an illustration of the brutality. Of their own policies and as an example of why it is that we must in

fact deal with them on the basis of strength at the same time. He did not lose the opportunity to really summon the EU into a challenge. Now I'm personally very skeptical of the UN's ability to respond. But I think the president was right in issuing that challenge to them to attain the moral authority which really was the underpinning of the UN when it was founded. The basis for all the hopes and aspirations I must say I don't think the U.N. has lived up to that expectation. But it is a proper form certainly in which to express not just hopes but specific steps to be taken for world peace and the president did that and I thought he did it very effectively. Should the U.N. be asked to leave us. I am often tempted to do that in the past when I thought they had. Completely undermined their moral authority by such hypocritical steps as passing a resolution that equated Zionism with racism.

I expressed the sentiment that we should no longer be involved with them. I will certainly say this when Mr. elect and Steyn made his comments recently I thought they were refreshing in their candor and I am convinced that he expressed the feelings of a great many in the United States. Expressed my and I will take it as an idle threat on the part of the United Nations that they will pick up and leave. We've been a lot of debate agonizing debate in both the Senate and in the house about keeping the Marines in Lebanon and having them there in the first place. Suring that they'll be there for 18 more months. Without invoking the War Powers Act. Exactly where do you stand on that. I will vote to support that resolution I do so with misgivings but perhaps not of the same kind that will prompt others to short term that would be a terrible mistake. A resolution that does not for a sufficiently lengthy period. So it is in effect to give the president

considerable room for him to form an ovary would be a grave error. There should be no deadline in that resolution because obviously if you have a deadline and especially if you have a very compact timeframe all you're doing is signaling your opposition that all they need do is wait you out and then they won't have you to deal with. That clearly is not a very clever negotiating position. So what I think is that. The resolution is a mixed bag. I personally think the War Powers Act isn't realistic legislation. Every president has ever held the office would have violated the terms of that act has violated it if he was in office at a time when he actually deployed American troops. And it is one thing to say that the Congress should have a role in foreign policy. That's quite true the Congress has one it is given by the Constitution but by the same token. The role of conducting foreign policy is also given to the

president of the United States and one of the instruments for the conduct is that. One of the instruments for asserting the United States political pressure is the deployment or the threatened deployment of our armed services our armed forces and to try to micromanage the deployment of that in the two Houses of Congress frankly is a great mistake. You're comfortable then with having the Marine Corps. I'm not comfortable I'm not comfortable there. Frankly I think that our situation there is not a pleasant situation. The question is is it tenable. Is it necessary and is it. And considering the alternatives if we were to have a precipitous withdrawal what would the impact be now. I think that the answer is we are there in order to try to assure some stability to the regime and specifically to afford time for the Lebanese army. To gain

sufficient strength. And efficient ability to control the region so that we can safely see all the armed services our own. The Syrians the Israelis all the other partners in the multinational force withdrawn from Lebanon without imperiling and immediately with the threat of the RE and filtration of the PLO or other foreign powers that will seek to use it as a base for their own purposes as did the PLO against the Israelis which is what occasioned this entire episode. You don't see that. That the epithet that some people try to lay on this whole action is the beginning of the start. The insidious start of another Vietnam. I get awfully tired of people who toss that off very lightly they're saying the same thing about Central America a company that has utterly no application to Central America except one which I talk about. All right. But coming back to this you tell me that ominous threat. There is a threat of hostilities at any

time that you introduce armed force into any situation. That is a given. If you're talking about people who are either themselves combatants or who may be threatened with becoming combatants you can argue that all combatants even though assigned a noncombatant role. May be in danger and therefore there is the danger of escalation simply because you cannot deploy troops without having it understood that they are entitled Who in fact under a duty to defend themselves if fired upon they must fire back. That obviously is true. That doesn't say that because that danger exists you're going to tell the world that you know the United States is never going to threaten or use armed intervention because that isn't true. If we are faced with the necessity to do so then we are faced with that necessity and we better not indicate to the world that

we're not going to get into a fight where we can't. Have every assurance that there will be no nosebleeds. Now I have been in the Marines. I am not comfortable with the situation in Lebanon. But neither would I be comfortable with a precipitous withdrawal. I think we've got to keep the Marines there. I think we've got to protect them. I don't think we've got to allow them sufficient latitude and support. So that they are in fact in a position where they are not simply sitting ducks. And I am hopeful that the current cease fire is going to lead to a permanent ceasefire and an agreement where we will withdrawal them or withdraw the Marines long before the 18 months considered in the resolution has run. So then would you support this with misgiving that you just three sided in the reluctance that you just for us are nuts which were from Lebanon where we have 16 hundred as we're doing this program. To a place where we have 55 people. It's a dramatic difference in numbers of support and yet you have indicated that Central America is what

I'm talking about is an extremely pivotal important to this country. Those are the very numbers of support strike you as being proportion. It's totally out of proportion Jim because we're talking about people who are strictly noncombatants they are trainers unlike the Marines in Lebanon who are in potential combat situation who in fact exchanged fire. We're talking about people who are advisers. And to say that having. More than 55 threatens us with imminent hostilities is frankly hogwash. It doesn't and what it has done is totally artificial. Limit the number which has no relevancy to anything that we're doing there. Has simply imposed a great hardship to 55 US advisors are doing a superb job in El Salvador training the Salvadoran Army training them in small unit tactics training them in in first aid

and one of the examples that I would cite as to the lack of wisdom of that artificial limit of 55 is that in order to bring in a medical and military medical training team so that we could teach Salvadorans to be a medical corpsman. We had to rotate out other essential trainers. And that simply means that we will take longer to train the entire Salvadoran Army to the point where they can be effective as in fact they have that with American training and are beginning to prevail against the insurgents. You had the extraordinary experience of not only being in Central America or on a recent trip but of talking with heads of state even with the heads of the Nicaraguan government the Sandinistas which are certainly Unical to our. National interests at this time. What about what would you like to say to the people of the United States having had that on this site experience. I would sum it all up in this way I would ask the people of the United States to emphatically urge their elected representatives in the Congress. To support

the administration's initiatives because what I found to my surprise and pleasure. Was that whether I was talking to the government or to the opposition and all of the states all of the nations surrounding Iraq. I've found that whatever their differences they were united in one thing they were prepared to make common cause against the common threat. Of the violent export of the Sundanese to revolution by subversion if not by overt aggression. And the one doubt they have is as to whether they can depend upon the United States to be a reliable ally. They need military support not troops. They have requested troops the president has made clear we're not going to send any. But they need military aid they need economic aid and we are presently supplying about $3 of economic support for every dollar of military support. And they need our diplomatic support I think because it is the neighboring states to Nicaragua El Salvador Honduras Costa

Rica and Guatemala the friendly for the friendly for because it is their future which is at stake. They have every right to insist that it will be they that drive this so-called Contador a process of negotiation. And what they told me very clearly is that they are not willing to see anybody within the Contador group Mexico or in Israel or anyone else to accommodate the Sandinistas the Nicaraguans and the Cubans. A false peace. That indeed is no peace because it provides them with no real safeguards no verifiable security arrangement. For their security and I don't blame them but that they should insist upon a very hard bargain with the Sandinistas and if they don't get it then they should declare this process failed and take an appeal. To the form that is proper the United or not the United Nations but the Organization of American States. One of the indictments laid against the administration's handling and that against our foreign

policy. I would like to respond to and that indictment is that we're always trying to get a military solution down there rather than addressing the economic and the human needs of those people. And because we still seek military solutions instead of human solutions. That is to say improving the standard of living their medicine their health their agriculture their education their housing all of the human needs is that a fair indictment. Well that's I think an incomplete view of what is true is that the situation that we are dealing with in Central America and in Latin America for the most part. With a few notable exceptions is a legacy of generations of neglect and exploitation and abuse. A two class society where the very affluent have largely manipulated the situation at the expense of the rest of the people who have lived in they have abject poverty is a situation which is rife for the kind of communist dogma that is being spread by the Cubans. But. The

Latins also are aware of the threat that that represents. They know that the sun and these to a regime that replaced a corrupt and evil Somoza regime is if anything more requests in terms of democratic institutions or the lack of them and human rights than what it replaced. So there are no illusions I hold on the part of anybody as to the fact that we inherited a bad situation. Or more accurately those who are our allies our allies who are depending on us have inherited a bad situation. They are by no means perfect democracies. The notable exception these Coasta Rica which is a true democracy. But there is an elected government in El Salvador. It was elected in a free and honest election run monitored by hundreds of invited foreign monitors and journalists. There is an elected government. In Honduras where there is a long tradition of independent political parties. There is in Guatemala which

is perhaps the least democratic at least the hope of approaching that there will be constituent elections next July. They have abolished their secret tribunals. But I don't pretend these are perfect democracies I am saying that there is significant progress being made. You know what you might call fledgling democracies. And all of that is threatened by subversion. There is a fifth a Sundanese to this column operating in Coasta Rica. There is no question that it is Managua that is directing the terrorism against the government of El Salvador. They have intended very clearly to spread their revolution beyond their borders by violence and by subversion and there is abundant evidence. But it is true we should with the military aid that is necessary to allow these threaten democracies to survive against the threat of that Subversion. There is also the need to provide economic support and more than we have. With that I completely agree. Are you hopeful that you will get the extra 400 million that you will get up to 200 visors.

I'm not sure that that we will get the additional advisors that is a little less significant now that we are conducting training in Honduras. How about the money. I hope we will get more because we're making a modest investment and if we were to increase it by half again as much we would be protecting real American interests. In far more vital than we have in other parts of the world more remote less immediately threatened. And ultimately I would point out that it took me less time to fly from Central America to Houston. Then today from Houston to Los Angeles on the same airplane. Let's move to a couple of other areas that have a bearing on California certainly. Immigration is one of those hundred thousand a month illegally coming into our borders. Six to 12 million illegal aliens in this country no one knows whether that's whether it's closer to six million or whether it's closer to 12 million. Certainly more Central American refugees will be seeking to come in our border if if that situation collapses there.

And yet you've opposed the Simpson Mazzoli bill. You've said that propping up Mexico is the answer could you enlarge on that. Well. This actually takes us back to the prior situation. What we've seen in a wave of massive illegal immigration. Is nothing as to what we might see if in fact we were not successful in allowing the friendly for in Central America the support necessary for then the contain the Sundanese to threat. A threat which has driven capital out of the region which has cut off bank credit. And that is what is stimulating this decline in their economy is whether it is bringing people north. Now. I think that. If we were to look at Mexico alone which I think is very much threatened by the situation in Central America although the number of Mexican spokesman I resent that it is nonetheless true. If we look at Mexico alone it is a nation that is just emerging from an economic

crisis. And that of course is what is producing this wave of massive Elim thats immigration you think that help should go. And frankly the Simpson-Mazzoli legislation is a good faith effort. But the history of employer sanctions that is penalties imposed on employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens is not very promising. It has not worked in the 11 American states in the 20 countries where its been tried. And it brings with it real penalties to employers and to Hispanic-Americans. Whom it is supposed to help protect in their jobs. I think it will result in discrimination against them. Senator we only have about a minute left and I do want you to comment on offshore oil drilling. You've asked for a 10 year moratorium now you're fighting for a one year moratorium How realistic is it that you'll get that. It's very hard to say I think talking about offshore oil drilling. Yes. And I would hope we would get the year at least in order to resolve questions which otherwise will remain unresolved as to the onshore impact. Of this offshore drilling if the

leasing goes ahead as secretary Watt is scheduled it. That puts you on a head on collision with the administration through the secretary of the Interior that wants to do this drilling. What about that. I never promised to be a yes man for anybody even someone whom I greatly admired like the president of the United States. And I do disagree emphatically with Secretary Watt. In this instance. I think that we don't we're not asking for a total ban either in time or in territory. We're trying to protect California as other coastal states are protected. And that includes protection of our coastal economy as well. Realistically do you think you're going to get that ban. I think the chances at this point are probably 50/50 but it's speculative It depends on a conference between the House and Senate. The House has been very supportive of the Senate not at all. Senator Christer Cranston and I have found ourselves outnumbered by a number of other senators from the interior of the

country who frankly don't care much about California. Thank you very much Senator it's been a very enlightening discussion and certainly a lot more have to come on this. Thank you Jim. Our time is almost up and I want to thank again the Senator for being with us this has been a special broadcast for public television with Senator Pete Wilson of the state of California. I'm Jim Cooper thanks for being with us.