The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Interview with Ernest Hollings

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Funding for this program has been provided by AT&T and the Bell System companies, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and this station and more than 260 other public television stations. It's a great man, he could be a good man for presents, and I have never heard of Senator Ernest Helen's. Tonight another presidential candidate striving to become a household name. Good evening, as regular viewers know we've been using the quieter news nights of the

summer for a series of interviews with all the Democrats running for president. We've covered Cranston, Hart, Mondale, Glenn, and Askew. Tonight we round up the field with Ernest Hollings, the 61-year-old Senator from South Carolina, whose nickname, like Mondales, is Fritz. Hollings is a native of Charleston, who entered the Citadel Military Academy when he was 16. After graduation, he joined the Army in World War II and fought in North Africa and Europe. He came home as a captain with seven combat stars. He studied law at the University of South Carolina, but soon after becoming a lawyer, he entered politics, winning a seat in the South Carolina House of Representatives. At the age of 29, he was elected speaker, and four years later, it became one of the youngest lieutenant governors in the history of the state. By the age of 36, 10 years after beginning his political career, he was the governor. As governor, Hollings oversaw the orderly integration of South Carolina's public schools,

and is credited with balancing the state's budget for the first time since Reconstruction, as well as attracting industry and capital investment to the state. Hollings was one of the first southern politicians to endorse John F. Kennedy. In 1966, Hollings was elected to the U.S. Senate. In the late sixties, Hollings did an in-depth study of poverty, conducting hunger tours of the Royal South, and leading the fight for anti-hungry legislation. Hollings has been a key insider in the Senate. He assumed the chairmanship of the powerful Senate Budget Committee in 1980. Currently, he's the ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, as well as serving on the appropriations and budget committees. Jim? Robin Winterluse, Fritz Hollings, will be remembered as the candidate who brought two urgently needed commodities to the 1984 presidential race, one is humor, the other is a new idea. The humor is in all of his campaign speeches, as he uses his southern wit to twit everyone from President Reagan to his five fellow Democratic candidates.

It was seen clearly a few weeks ago at a dinner here in Washington, where he and the other Democrats roasted Congressman Morris Yudall. When Hollings finished, he was giving the only standing ovation of the night, or having made the best and funniest speech. That was where he got off his line that Alan Cranston would look and vain for votes in Alabama, because down there they thought a nuclear freeze was a new kind of frozen dessert. The idea Hollings is contributed to the campaign is also about a freeze, an economic one. As a way to solve the federal deficit problem, Hollings is called for an across-the-board freeze of everything, domestic spending, defense spending, and taxes. That way, he says, everybody in every interest makes a sacrifice. It's an idea that has been embraced and stolen by others, but has yet not accomplished. Senator welcome. Thank you, Jim. Let's talk first about defense and foreign affairs. You had a reputation for being a hawk of defense, and yet now you're opposed to the B1 bomber.

You had problems with the MX missile, and part of your overall freeze thing. You also want to freeze defense spending. What happened? Well, I'm still at that hawk. I have in a bill for the draft, I think, more than a demonstration of military power. We need a demonstration of willpower and the greatest social injustice I know of as a volunteer army. I'm still at Hawke, but I realize having moved now into the costly 80s where B1 bomber now costs 410 million bucks compared to that B17 we flew in World War II at 97,000. It just cannot afford all the weaponry that the Defense Department would ask for, and that B1 bomber becomes obsolete by 1990. I think we ought to save that money, go forward with the stealth bomber. I think we ought to save the MX money. It's a total waste. We have a mobile survival missile in the Trident II sub. We ought to move forward with it. We ought to save these money as on sophisticated weaponry like the dive I had and other instrumentalities, and flesh out our conventional forces, operation maintenance, readiness, the Persian Gulf Command, National Guard, and Reserve 400,000 shy.

So I'm still at Hawke. I want to save those monies, and I want to balance the budget. I know that we should afford it, not just can, but we should afford it. Why do you think we need a draft now? Well, I think we need a draft because a volunteer army is not providing the skills on the one hand, and like I say, it's the greatest social injustice on the other. Now, how's that? Well, the most effluent of nations to depend upon its defenses, to come from the least advantage in our society, is that there's an acronym we're not going to have any Harvard graduates like our friend, John F. Kennedy, going forward and winning the Navy cross and then becoming commander-in-chief. It's an army, as I stated in the debate over 10 years ago, we were, you know, wondering then and suffering then from the casualty counts. The war on Vietnam was being fought by the black, the poor, the disadvantage. I said at that time, you'll have a volunteer army, the black, the poor, and the disadvantage, and that's what we have. So you would have a universal solution to that? I won't have that universal call, none of the exemptions, you know, at that time, if you

had cash, you either in college or in Canada. But we must do way and have done a way, actually, at the congressional level, with those kind of exemptions. But I think when we realized, as it was stated years ago by John C. Kelly, those who would enjoy the blessings and liberty must be willing to undergo the hardships of sustaining it. And this national defense, the eternal vigilance, the price of freedom, this national defense is what we all should be committed to and not just sluff it off as a volunteer army. And as a president of the United States, I'd be far more cautious with all my gun-built diplomacy that you're seeing down in Central America. And these other commitments, if I knew the total people were committed, not just the volunteer army, and I could sort of finesse it as commander-in-chief, like President Reagan is doing right now, down the Caribbean. Is that what you think he's doing? Oh, yeah. I think I'd gun-built diplomacy, got us in trouble. It got us Trujillo, Batista, Somosso, and this is the exact wrong signal to give. I mean, what are we really going to stop a Soviet battle going in there with some arms?

I think not. I think the other way is to approach it. And when we use that particular age-old approach, then I think we really destroy the credibility of the United States, not only with respect to foreign policy, but with respect to our defenses. What's wrong with the show of force, everyone's for us? I think it's not a realistic show of force. A show of force, as I say, would be committed. If you've been a member of the North Atlantic Treaty, it's similar like I have for the past 10 years, we always go with our amount of money. And our counterparts in Europe say, look, you're not committed. We have the draft. We are committed, but you're really not committed as a people. That worries everyone, all of our lives, it worries me more than anything else in the world. And that's not really a show of force, because the President said, oh, no, don't worry about it. We're not doing anything. It's just a little normal exercise. He immediately counters us all to show of force by saying, look, we don't intend to really do anything down there. What would you do if you were President of Central America? I'd immediately have a showdown with respect to this negotiations. I see my friend Dick Stone, the ambassador now, appointed to try to negotiate a settlement.

I was out working with the San Anistas in El Salvador. And I think that we ought to really have a final showdown to see whether they're serious and whether they're sincere. And we ought to call our hand and try to come in there with the Commodore group, and everyone else can sit down and see if we can negotiate a settlement. We have not given negotiations a fair try. Do you believe that our interests in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Central America, generally are strong enough for the United States if it ever came to that to go to war? They're strong enough, yes, they're strong enough. They're right there in Central America, and we're watching it. But there's only so much we can do. And at the present time, as General Nutting, who used to be head of the Southern Defense Command said to take 10 years to win that military victory, that President Reagan seems to have in mind. General Chaim I, the former chief of staff that just retired, confirmed that. And so you have some limits, and you must try to bring the pressures on the El Salvadorans

to have land reform as cut out the killing human rights, as President Carter was trying to do, and train at the same time. It's not an easy task, but we never have really, when they said with the Commodore group the other day that they would negotiate, let's call a hand and let's see if we can. The death of the Marines in Lebanon, some of your colleagues in the Senate and the House are now calling for the withdrawal of those Marines, get them out of there. How do you feel about that? I never felt they should have been committed. I would not withdraw under fire. I would settle terminal date, like January 1st. As an 1800 man, peacekeeping for us, it begs the question you have in Lebanon, some 13 Christian sex. You have four Muslim sex. You have the PLO that split you have 50,000 Syrians, 30,000 Israelis, 1800 Marines not really keeping the peace they're trying to maintain their lives, as we can see right now.

That's going to exacerbate the Jews against the Jamal government there in Lebanon this afternoon. And I think we ought to be realistic and let Israelis handle what they were handling at that particular time and give a terminal date and say, look, we were withdrawal by at least the first, no longer than the 1st of January. But not just because a couple of Marines get yelled at him. Oh, yeah. You should have expected it. You put them right on a hotspot right there and they blow in each other up, terrorism and everything else like that. You can't tell where the government will be tomorrow the next day. If you're really going to go in, you can't play games. Just own the job training for these presidents that come to town that hadn't had any experience in these things has been disastrous for us. Thank you. Senator, turning to domestic affairs into the new idea, Jim referred to, your budget freeze. It was put forward 18 months ago since then there have been two tax cuts and economic recovery has begun.

Is it still a valid idea? It's a very, very valid idea. The fact is that the tax cut we only received this past month cost us $33 billion. We did not have the revenues to cut. So what really is occurring is we're putting the pressure on those interest rates. When the federal government comes in with those sharp elbows into the capital market borrowing and what's really happening is we're putting all the pressure in the world on high interest rates and they're turning all of the economic turnaround and recovery. Now, how would your freeze work? My freeze would work just exactly as Jim Leas pointed out. It would be a shared sacrifice, straight across the board. It would constitute not a cut but no increase in social programs, not a cut but no increase in entitlement programs, not a cut but no increase in defense and not a cut but no increase in what I call tax spending because that's what it is. What would happen, for instance, to somebody on social security? I've prepared before the senior citizens counseled with my friend Congressman Claude Pef by and I said on a shared sacrifice basis you would not get your cost of living adjustment

for one year. I believe in freezing it all for one year and that would be a part of their shared sacrifice. Now you also wanted to forego at least one of those 10% tax cuts now that that's already happened. What would you do to replace that revenue effect? I'd go out if I were king for a day, I'd go right back to that. I certainly would eliminate the amount of tax indexing because that's going to be a revenue hemorrhage that you never recover from. Also one state that's tried it is suffering from it now, Israel is a country, has over 130% inflation. Anyone who's tried it, Argentina, knows about it. You wouldn't go to any city, go to mayor in Washington DC or the mayor in New York City or any of them and say what we really ought to do is index your revenue base with respect to inflation over the next several years. You lose your bond rating, you couldn't pay your fireman, your policeman, your be out of business. So how much of the roughly 200 billion federal deficits that we're talking about for the next few years, how much would this device of yours recoup?

It would recoup the first year, a hundred billion bucks. It wouldn't balance the budget but it would put us on a glide path, the government back in the black and by 1986 or 87 we could have a balanced budget and that's all anyone realistically can hope for America's industry if they saw we were really becoming serious and going to control those uncontrollables. They would begin immediately to invest and you could perhaps balance the budget even quicker. You'd have a true economic turnaround but they want to see us in Washington get these deaths as down because while they can borrow it now or 10% now, they're very fearful of the by 1985 it'll be back up to 18% with 200 billion dollar deficits. But you can't become president of this country at the earliest until January 1985. What happens to the deficit between now and then? Nothing. That's exactly what's been happening. We've picking up a little bit of support, 67 host members now endorsing it. The males in Denver endorsed this idea, the governors came to Washington this year for the

first time and I've been a member of that conference for years and rather than asking for more they said give us less let's go with the freeze but unless the president sets the discipline it'll never happen because when I go to a colleague and say let's freeze defense or tax banning and they said look if it was going anywhere for it so I'd go with you. I do not want to be postured as anti tax cut or anti defense it doesn't go anywhere with the president's opposition in threat and veto so nothing happens. Why if you want to freeze the budget across the board? Are you proposing a new form of federal spending to raise all teachers base pay across the country by $5,000 per teacher? Because I would say if those money is from defense I've listed the B1 bomber that calls 40 billion the MX missile that cost 30 billion and I think the school children of America are worth at least one weapons system. Yes my program would cost $14 billion but I think it's a better investment and the best

defense of a nation really is an educated citizen so within the freeze I have plenty of room you're talking to a former chairman of the budget committee I know where the bodies are buried. I wouldn't have had that 33 billion dollar tax cut we had in July. I think the school children and the teachers ought to be paid and that's the first priority rather than a tax cut. Are you not sympathetic to the idea of merit pay for teachers? Oh yes but I think the fundamental real question is base pay. Unless you have the base pay brought up to a professional standard of conduct and have the teachers certified as professionally competent on the one hand and paid as professionals. The beginning get punitentiary guard in Texas is paid what a teacher has been making or more than what a teacher has been making who has been working for 10 years. They retail liquor store clerk here in the district of Columbia gets more than the teacher. We have our priorities disordered and we ought to reorder our priorities with respect to the public school system in this country and to be competitive in the international economy in

which we live. The New York Stock Exchange found this. Not these studies by educators but the blue chip copped heads they said look the reason for the high productivity in Japan was elementary and secondary education and this is where we need to beef up in America. Once you've made an exception to your freeze for education how would the political process resist making exceptions for all sorts of other words? It would not be a reallocation under the freeze I'm not making an exception. If you had to make the exception I've told the teachers categorically at the time that they've been on the paid for 100 years I can be on the paid for 101 years I would put the priority first on bringing these deficits down and keeping these interest rates down but it need not be an exception you can do it with money saved from the defense. One domestic issue that's very much in the news at the moment is the so-called gender gap. What would you do as president to demonstrate that you are sympathetic to women's issues? The president really is in the wrong generation he doesn't understand that women really

are heads of households and they're supporting the families now and they can and should and must be paid as heads of households equal pay equal rights and more than anything else on foreign policy the gender gap of women's vote is gone away from President Reagan on account of his stridancy his confrontational foreign policy gun vote diplomacy limited nuclear war he really frightens all of us in this country but particularly the women vote. Thank you Jim. Senator let's talk politics for a minute how are you planning to win this race what's your strategy now where are you going right along well we have five more months before you have sure in the first prime right and we're building the groundwork that I have had quarters open up on the main street of Manchester I have Mr. Joe Miller met who's Mr. Democrat former head of the New Hampshire bars chairman of my staring committee and I have friends all around and been making the talks and the last little hills borrowed poll that we had there I came out number two so I'm building I'm going and growing similarly

up in Maine a very important state of caucus that we're going to have on October the first they call that they saw the Super Bowl all of us in their work and Senator Glenn says he's not but he started their back in June I started a couple of weeks ago in the governor's conference and I'm playing catch up ball I hope to make a showing there just last Saturday I was number two in the New Jersey young Democrats poll you said often in the last several weeks you know you you need to get in this race you're not in the race right what's been the problem up to me all the problem is recognition the people who cover the story and that's why I'm so grateful to be on a program of this kind they look at the front runners the recognition factor vice president Mondale astronaut Glenn they're known the nation over and they obviously jump right into that lead position on recognition but on qualifications confidence experience the actual feel to where this country is going the vision for its future is the important thing and an express and then more importantly how you beat Ronald Reagan I can do that in the sun belt the rest of

them can't you think that's important oh yeah oh I had no question about it we can hold our own as Democrats and all these but only when we win the sun belt and perhaps some of the states west of the Mississippi will we as a Democratic party regain that White House and you're not going to beat Ronald Reagan with these others in that sun belt I can tell you not any of them well John Glenn has got the nearest to the pot of voting records he doesn't have much of a vote in record he's only had one term but he's waving he's not taking the positions on it and that's not going on he can't out wave Ronald Reagan it's been us is the fact that you're a southerner an asset or is it a liability I've read it both ways well I think it's not easy it's not the area of the country you're getting right into president Carter and you can do the same thing about president Reagan they were both former governors without the 17 years experience at the national level one came to town president called and he was going to repudiate the bureaucracy in Washington

government in fact give us a cleaner government that is as good as the people he said Ronald Reagan came to town to dismantle the government I know it I'm a professional I'm ready to work with it and I know how to reach out and work particularly with the Congress on these programs and show just what I'm explaining now to Robin how you can really reallocate the funds without any increases and do a much better job by way of education and defense where is your where do you where do you and in accordance your strategy where is it that you break out of the pack where must you do that you can do it in Maine you can do it in a debate like John Anderson did or you can do it in the first primary like New Hampshire you can't tell but I think the people who become more serious after Labor Day and really looking at the presidential race only three to four percent of looked at it seriously up until now but as we move into the fall period they'd be looking at the issues and the qualifications rather than the mechanisms of politics all year long they want to know who your post is who's your manager how many states have you qualified

all of these mechanisms of politics without the issues I think they ought to be getting into the issues as you do here on this program you have gotten tired yet no not by any means I'm enthused yeah rather you've I've read it that you've said quite often when asked about following a southern or following Jimmy Carter and you say well Jimmy Carter isn't my problem he's he's Walter Mundale's problem but why isn't the problem of another southern president of man speaking with the accents of the south why isn't it your problem too well what about Alan Cranston with his California accents California gave us Herbert Hoover Richard Nixon Ronald Reagan you don't ask that of Alan Cranston under that measure Alan Cranston shouldn't have guts enough to offer for the presidency why is why well look at the California record every one of those three wrecked the country no that's not the case and it's not the acts that it's the qualifications Cranston has those qualifications to be a president I'm confident I have the confidence in the qualifications after thirty years at every level when they talk of industrial policy everyone's babbling that actually

industrial policy is educational policy which is foreign policy come right down to it I learned as a governor you could not increase the economic level of any unless we increase the educational level of all I know better than any kind of martial plan and all down in Latin America we should be reallocating to the Latin American all but the various quarters and amounts for imported goods to come from this area we rejuvenated introduced private ownership a private class entrepreneurship in Korea in Hong Kong in Taiwan in Japan in Singapore I would take a percentage of those and reallocate them down to Panama we started off and hit the ball well with the Panama Canal treaty but economically we haven't done anything down in Panama we haven't done anything in Costa Rica if you want a real revival in a freedom down there it's not a martial plan for these military dictatorships to deal money around you've got to develop entrepreneurship down under in all of Latin America and I would use my industrial policy which would be a national policy to protect

my industrial base I want to say that categorically we're in an international competition they all jump off on protectioners and free trade there's no such thing as free trade right now they're all using their governments as integral parts of their trade practices and manufacture and production and competition and we must do the same thing like Roosevelt and all of the keep the banks open and the depression days he closed the doors and today in order to remove a barrier we will have to raise a barrier and then remove them both you were talking a moment ago about Maine and New Hampshire and the Iowa Caucasus and Democratic voters at least in those early states are going to have a kind of bewildering choice this year just tell me a bit more about why you and not any of the others because I think we talk in sense to the American people I have been able to tell of the sacrifice when I go and talk of the budget the senior citizens I've told them that when I've gone

down to push with my friend Jesse Jackson and they asked the question would you stand for seniority or affirmative action I said I'm for affirmative action I'm for the goals and I'm for the time tables but when it comes down to a categorical discrimination on a count of affirmative action against seniority I would opt for seniority I've gone to the students and told them look if you're going to enjoy the blessings you must suffer the hardships so you're going to have to register the other speakers tell them differently so I've faced up to the different groups as we've gone around because I really believe there's no magical formula no new set of ideas that the ideas were there they would have already been grasped upon but we saying that on behalf of work and dedication and discipline and sacrifice are you saying that on grounds of honesty you're being honest with the voters your candidacy is distinct from all and they basis of candor in realism and balance in experience yes it's often remarked that you were the only witty candidate in this race is is this country ready for another witty president well I don't think you should

take yourself too seriously I take government as I say as a professional believing it as I do is it's the highest calling perhaps next to teaching but you never take yourself too seriously in this game I don't have to be the president but I really must come in this pack particularly looking at Ronald Reagan and wanting to be him by a guy I can stand told or told with that gentleman on the budget and remind him because I put out an alternative I know that defense budget bed and present Reagan and cap wine burger I know about education and I'm not just going to create discord around the country so these are the things that are ready made for me to really get into debate with Ronald Reagan and show this country how we can become competitive in this next generation we have to leave it there senator thank you very much for joining us good night Jim that's all for tonight we will be back tomorrow night I'm Robert McNeil good night for a transcript send two dollars to the McNeil Larry report box three four five New York New York 10101 funding for this program has been provided by AT&T and the Bell

system companies the corporation for public broadcasting and by this station and other public television station