The U.S. Senate Class of 1975; 5; Senator John Tunney

The most important way of representing people to stay in age is to one have a sense of compassion a sense of compassion for people's problems and the other on the other hand to be tough minded enough and to be pragmatic enough to try and work out solutions to the problems that we face. And I think that if you can combine in the proper mix compassion and tough mindedness I think that you can be a good senator. I want. The United States Senate. Class of 1970 was. The Amul. You all. Want the. World. The world. This year 11 the freshman five Republicans five Democrats and one

conservative joined the ranks of the 100 and America's upper house of the legislative branch of government. Here for the national educational radio network with a profile of one of these new United States senators. Is your host Bill Moroney. The youngest member of the Senate was elected to that body in the last election from the state of California. His name is John Tani the son of the former world heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney. He was born in New York City on June 26 1934. He graduated from Yale University in 1056 and from the University of Virginia Law School in 1959 was at law school that Tony developed a close friendship with a man he would later join in Congress. Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy. John Tani also attended the Academy of international law at the Hague in the Netherlands. It

was there that he met his wife make up the tunnies now have two boys and a daughter. On his return to the United States he practiced law in New York City until he joined the United States Air Force as a judge advocate in 1968. He was stationed in California at March Air Force Base near Riverside. He would later make the military is home his home and eventually represent the area in Congress. So it was the Air Force that gave John Toni to California while in the Air Force he taught business law at the local campus of the University of California. He was discharged as a captain in 1963 was admitted to the California bar and briefly practiced private law in Riverside in 1964 John Tani ran for and was elected to the US House of Representatives. He was re-elected by ever increasing majorities in 1966 and 1968 in the house. Tony was fortunate enough to serve on the influential foreign affairs committee and at subcommittees on foreign economic policy. The Far East in the Pacific and State

Department organization and foreign operations. He also served on the interior and insular Affairs Committee. The combination of these two assignments appeared to have had a strong influence on John tunnies areas of specialization. In 1970 congressman Tony ran for and won the California Democratic senatorial nomination. Is opponent in the general election was an incumbent Republican senator George Murphy. It was a tough race. Pundits predicted it would be decided by the closest percentage of any Senate race that year. As it turned out Californians gave Tony the largest plurality given a Democrat in that state in this century. He won by 600 and 19000 votes. Part of the credit for his victory may have been his opposition. President Nixon took a very special interest in the California Senate race Richard Nixon holds a special relationship with California in 1962 that state rejected the then former vice president and just defeated presidential candidate in a bid for the governorship abundance a Mr. Nixon made his presence felt so heavily in the

1070 campaign. That was some ego effort to show himself that he could win or influence the winning of a California race. Observers said that toward the end of the campaign it appeared that John Tunney was running more against Richard Nixon than his opponent George Murphy. Well there were times that I had the feeling those many Instead President Nixon because we had. The entire cabinet I think with the exception of the secretary of defense Mel Layard in California at one point or another either publicly campaigning against me or in private sessions as was the case with Secretary of State did Bill Rogers a small private group that he appeared at with Senator Murphy. So there were points when I thought that we were up against the entire administration. But on the other hand I wasn't really very much worried about it because in California there has been always a feeling that a man ought to stand on his

own. And one of the reasons I think that George Murphy got elected in 1964 was because Senator Salinger had emphasized so much his Kennedy connection. And I think that that hurt him in the general election when George Murphy beat him and I was one of the things that George Murphy of course emphasized so then when he brought in a lot of outsiders to campaign against me I think he fell into a serious trap. And I just couldn't ever really get himself out of it once the ones we were able to create the impression that he was relying on the rescue squad to pull him through. Tony's election like that of almost half the other freshman senators physically meant moving office and staff across Capitol Hill out of their house office building into one of the Senate office buildings. But there's more. And Senator Tony sees the change as one for the better. I think that the major differences are that number one

instead of representing 500000 people representing 20 million people and that's a vast difference in and of itself. The second major difference I would say is that a junior senator has far more influence on legislation than a junior congressman and a senator has a much larger staff and a congressman which means that a senator can become interested in a much wider. Spectrum of legislation that a congressman can because after Will a member of Congress is very limited in his staff and he can't personally research everything. So I would say that that those are the three major differences. And as a fourth I would say that because there are fewer senators and there are members of the House the

press the media both electronic non electronic newspapers pay much more attention to senators when they speak out on issues than they do to Congressman and therefore a senator has a much greater capacity to educate people in the country than does a member of the House of Representatives. How would this new senator use this new educational power. I have a very great interest as far as foreign affairs is concerned and the war in Southeast Asia which I think is a disaster and I have spoken out very strongly against the Cambodia thrust allows through us to and very strongly in favor of eliminating South Vietnam as a cause of the international commitment. And I think that we have got to. Get out by the end of this year. As far as domestic areas are concerned I am terribly concerned about employment. And in

California the aerospace industry is perhaps the best example of an industry which has been badly hurt by the recession and we lost two hundred thousand people in the aerospace industry in the last three years in California. So I have focused a great deal of attention there. I have by necessity been been forced to give a great deal of attention to the problems of public disaster relief. Because of the terrible earthquake that we had in California and I'm working on legislation to provide for the federal underwriting the earthquake insurance of the average citizen living in California can get earthquake insurance and to provide other benefits for people who suffer from such calamities hurricanes earthquakes etc..

Internationally the Indochina War stands highest on the congressional agenda of problems to be solved. Sen. Tony sees a vital and challenging role for the United States Senate to play in achieving the universal goal an end to the fighting. Senator Tony's view is however laced with a greater immediacy than those who hold the reins of power. Well I think that the Senate is going to debate the issue very thoroughly when the military appropriations bills come up when the military foreign assistance bill comes up. When even when the Food for Peace bill comes up because apparently we're doing a lot of military financing through the Food for Peace program I think that the Senate is going to debate the issue and he's going to try and develop a national consensus a very strong national consensus to get out of South Vietnam. And I think that if President Nixon wants to be re-elected that he is going to be required to

get us out. I think Laos was a tragic mistake for the American commitment to peace in the Middle East is established. Senator tunnies pro-Israeli sentiments are equally established like the Indochina War. It is a problem seeking solution but unlike the South-East Asian conflict the United States is not an active belligerent and therefore the Senate's role is limited. Well I'm of course very deeply concerned about the Middle East and deeply concerned about the survival of the state of Israel. I think at the moment that it's really up to the parties themselves to resolve their own differences I don't think that there's anything the Senate of the United States is going to do other than to make sure that Israel has the necessary military equipment she requires for survival that it can do to affect what's going on over there. I think it's going to be really a question of negotiations. And like all American citizens I am hopeful and prayerful that

there's going to be substantive progress with the jarring talks domestic late Tony agrees with the most well that the economy is the number one issue. The major effect of our weird combination of recession and inflation is increased unemployment. The obvious way to alleviate joblessness is to create jobs but that is easier said than done. Last year the Congress passed a manpower bill that would have created thousands of public service employment opportunities. But President Nixon vetoed it he said it was inflationary. John Tony's a stubborn man and he still supports manpower legislation. I strongly support the concept of public employment for those people that are on welfare or lost their jobs. And it would be my hope that the Congress would pass a manpower bill again this year that like the one that was vetoed by the president last year. Which would provide job training which would provide education

which would provide jobs themselves for those people who are presently unemployed in the public sector as well as in the private sector. The ninety first Congress show the White House it wasn't afraid of a presidential veto. It overrode to last year the man power of veto was not one of them. If Congress does give the president another man power bill to chew on and Mr Nixon once again does decide it is in his and the country's best interest to veto it. John Tony for one sees that veto. You know a very good position to be overridden. I think there's an excellent chance that it would be what with unemployment about 6 percent in the country. Will public opinion poll showing that people consider the state of the economy to be the number one issue. I think that the Congress would read the handwriting on the wall that the American people want a responsive Congress and by a responsive Congress I mean a Congress that is going to develop the kind of manpower programs that provide jobs.

When this interview was recorded the Senate had not yet called the roll on the SSD. Supporters of the supersonic transport abound in the aerospace industry a major element in Senator Tony's home state. However California's aerospace efforts are not directed along SSTV lines. In fact they are an almost direct competition. This large power base at home has influenced their new senators stand in opposition to the SS team. Well I have voted against the SSD and will do so again on several grounds. Number one it probably will take more aerospace jobs out of California than to bring to California. This is because two of the major aerospace companies in California at the present time are building air busses Douglas and Lockheed. The DC 10 and the el 10 11 BS programs in vision selling a minimum of 500 planes for each company in order just to break even and hopefully

they will sell more planes than that. Well if the ss t is built. In all probability between 3 and 4 billion dollars will be diverted from the purchase of air busses to the purchase of the ss t. Which would mean that in the case of California you would perhaps gain 12000 jobs for the ss t. But you could lose substantially more jobs by the elimination of the DC 10 program and the el 10 11 program. Over the next 10 years. In addition I'm opposed the SSD because of the fact that it's economically unfeasible and many of the leading economists in the country both conservatives like Milton Friedman and liberals like Walter Heller and all shades in between Nobel Prize winner Samuelson have all said that they think that it is economically

unfeasible and finally there are environmental problems which I feel have got to be overcome. Before the ss t or any version of it the French Concorde or anything the Soviet Union is working on should fly in the United States. John Tony fits very easily into the glove of the liberal Democratic mold. That is an all but one of the fingers. I never would have been elected if he hadn't been sensitive to this one area of local necessity. They obstacle to Tony's perfect achievement of democratic liberalism is again California's aerospace industry telling us not abandon them with his election to the Senate and the problem probably causes you more headaches than any other single issue most notably among John Tony's constituent Aerospace Industries is a Lockheed cooperation and they serve as a prime example of Tony's dilemma. Lockheed is a major defense contractor receiving enormous sums of military money heavy defense spending is an issue that counts Tony narrowly on the opposition side. Yet he must represent hundreds of thousands of defense workers recently Lockheed announced that cost overruns on several defense projects

including the C-5 a jumbo jet were forcing the company dangerously near bankruptcy. The Pentagon reluctantly stepped in declaring that the Defense Department would absorb these cost overruns. Lockheed is building the commercial Tristar Airbus also known as the El 10 11 jumbo version of the 747 jumbo jet. Rolls Royce of England was building the jet engines for the Tristar but they too have now fallen apart financially putting Locky deeper into monetary trouble. Both the British and American governments are again looked to to absorb the financial losses. The appearance of government subsidizing defense contractors is not a pleasing picture in the American free enterprise system. To Senator tunning it presents an intricate dilemma with greater than normal conflicting loyalties and convictions are both equally proper in their demands. How does the junior senator from California find his way out of this seemingly inherent political maze do you that. Probably the most difficult economic question I think that you could have asked me because.

What we're faced with is that Lockheed is a company that has had over the past two decades a tremendous amount of experience in developing military weapon systems and it is one of the prime defense contractors and it's working on a number of very important military programs right now and Lockheed is in real trouble not only with the C-5 Bay but now with the El ten eleven as a result of rules Royce forfeiting its contractual obligations and saying that they just cannot deliver the engines for the price that was agreed upon So Lockheed is in just terrible trouble. The question is whether or not we can allow if it should come to that Lockheed to go into bankruptcy. And if we cannot afford to let it go into bankruptcy. And

if we should finance at the federal level a part of the deficits that the red ink that Lockheed is running up at the present time. What about the other space companies that are in competition with Lockheed What about financing them giving them the same benefits. It's a terribly knotty question and it's one that I at this time. Without much much more information. Study cannot give you a precise answer to why I recognize an almost a Gordian Knot type of problem. On the one hand Lockheed probably if it went bankrupt would take down with it about a billion and a half dollars with the bank loans. Which would be unsettling to say the least to the economy. On the other hand if the federal government bails

Lockheed out what about the other aerospace companies and then also what about the the basic concept of the free enterprise system the private enterprise system. I can't give you the answer to it at the moment I am going to have to give it far more study to be able to develop an opinion which would enable me to state precisely the course of action that we should follow. One of the rarest phrases heard from members of the United States Congress is the simple direct and honest. I don't know John Tony will not face the voters of California again until 1976. During this time he may make decisions that will either destroy his political future or build one of the strongest constituency supports in the country. Time Events and John Tony's conscience will shape that. A few senators are immediately faced with such a mammoth quandary such as the one Tony's home interest present to him. If Californians worry they showed a definite problem does exist but they can worry a little less about their young liberal senator because he does care.

My ambitions are to be a good senator. I want to be as good a senator as I possibly can and that means an awful lot of hard work means a lot of learning. And it means I think always recognizing that the most important way. Representing people in this day and age is to one have a sense of compassion a sense of compassion for people's problems and the other on the other hand to be tough minded enough and to be pragmatic enough to try and work out solutions to the problems that we face. And I think that if you can combine in the proper mix of compassion and tough mindedness I think that you can be a good Senator Johnson a United States senator from California.

This is Bill Moroney. Play. The United States Senate class of 1971 was produced in Washington D.C. for the national educational radio network with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.