Firing Line (Television Program) broadcast records

Episode Guide 1966-1999

Scope and Contents note

The Episode Guide is arranged by show number. Numbers that are followed by an "R" are repeat broadcasts of the same program, while numbers followed by an "E" are edited repeat broadcasts. Guests are listed with the program title, using Library of Congress name authorities, in a last name, first name sequence.

When applicable, links for purchasing full-length episodes and the availability of special order DVDs are also included. The Episode Guide also includes links to Hoover's digital collections website for each program and information about the three types of program research materials: background files, publicity files, and transcripts.

Background files include materials such as clippings, correspondence, transcripts, histories, press summaries, and printed matter, as well as other collected materials on speakers and their appearances on Firing Line.

Publicity files are available for public television shows produced by SECA and contain materials such as photographs, negatives, slides, transcripts, newsletters, and other materials, The types of materials available for each show vary.

Transcripts of Firing Line are both typewritten and printed. Also included among transcripts are two productions hosted by William F. Buckley Jr. that were not Firing Line programs. The shows have been designated as 000a and 000b. These programs are included in the Episode Guide, and the transcripts are located in box 159. Downloadable transcripts for most Firing Line programs are available on Hoover's digital collections website and can be accessed through the links that accompany each program entry in the Episode Guide.

item Program Number 1

"Poverty: Hopeful or Hopeless?"

Guests: Harrington, Michael, 1928-

4 April 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 70 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 4

Program details: President Johnson had just declared war on poverty, and Mr. Harrington, an avowed socialist who had started out on the staff of Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker, had been among the first to enlist. On this show (the first Firing Line taped, though not the first aired), Mr. Harrington begins by describing the despair and consequent lack of initiative engendered by poverty; WFB engages him on the issue of whether we can hope to alleviate either material or emotional poverty through government action. MH: "Being kicked around and being pushed down, living in dense, miserable housing, and dealing with cockroaches and rats are not the kinds of things that make one a balanced, content, normal, and adjusted healthy personality." WFB: "I couldn't agree with you more. But I'm trying to raise the following question: To what extent... can we count on [a poverty program] to alleviate all these concomitant miseries?"

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001MBTSD6

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5935

item Program Number 2

"Prayer in the Public Schools"

Guests: Pike, James A. (James Albert), 1913-1969.

6 April 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 70 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 5

Program details: Bishop Pike was thought of as the wild man of the Episcopal Church (by this time he had been put on trial for heresy, though he had emerged still wearing the Episcopal purple), but on this show he is genial and persuasive on the subject of school prayer specifically and the First Amendment generally. JAP: "I think [the Supreme Court Justices] use the First Amendment in a way it was never intended to be used. [The Founding Fathers] talked about establishment of religion. And they meant, really, establishment like the Church of England is. ... It was forbidding the federal agency, the Congress, from interfering with the existing states' establishment." ... "I personally do not see the value of state-prescribed prayer or of the reading of the Bible, for instance, without study of the background, the context, the thoughtful criticism of the passages, in school. And I think it's a disservice to the Church, too, because it gives parents the illusion that this side of life is being covered by the public agency when, in fact, it's very trivial and perfunctory."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.2

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001N0LEII

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5936

item Program Number 3

"Vietnam: Pull Out? Stay In? Escalate?"

Guests: Thomas, Norman, 1884-1968.

8 April 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 70 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 6

Program details: Mr. Thomas--the grand old man of the American Left, six-time Socialist Party candidate for President--was by this point focusing all his energies on opposition to America's involvement in the Vietnam War. This often fierce exchange, which places both men on the firing line, begins with WFB's asking why his guest supported the Korean War but opposes the Vietnam War and goes on to explore whether it is realistic even to aspire to contain Communism. NT: "Mr. Buckley, you seem to believe in cruelty as a necessary adjunct to this kind of war. Your main point is that somehow we're going to contain Communism this way, and we aren't. We may delay certain events in Communism. We're not going to contain it. We-" WFB: "Excuse me, was the war in Greece cruel? Did we contain the Communists in Greece?"

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.3

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001MBTSE0

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5937

item Program Number 4

"Capital Punishment"

Guests: Allen, Steve, 1921-

11 April 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 70 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 7

Program details: The death penalty was under heavy attack in the courts and in public forums, and polls indicated that it was the issue that most sharply divided liberals from conservatives. Messrs. Buckley and Allen begin by discussing why this should be a touchstone issue, and progress to considerations of whether the death penalty in fact deters, and whether, even if it does, it can be morally defended. SA: I think there are probably various reasons why conservatives generally favor capital punishment. I think one of them maybe so obvious there is the traditional risk of overlooking it, and that is simply that it exists and that it has existed for a long time."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.4

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001MBTSEK

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5938

item Program Number 5

"Where Does the Civil-Rights Movement Go Now?"

Guests: Farmer, James, 1920-

18 April 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 70 : 5

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 8

Program details: "Two years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, Mr. Farmer was arguing for what he called affirmative action," WFB suggests, and Mr. Farmer denies hotly and cogently--though not, as it would turn out, presciently--that affirmative action would almost certainly turn into numerical quotas. One sample: JF: "President Kennedy, incidentally, adopted the same idea. It's said that he stepped off a plane in Washington. There was an honor guard there to meet him. He saw no Negroes. He called an officer, and said, 'I see no Negroes here.' The officer said, 'Mr. President, no Negroes have applied.' He said, 'Go out and find some.'" WFB: "Well, one hopes he will find more productive jobs for Negroes than simply to make them stand parade for dignitaries."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.5

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5939

item Program Number 6

"Should the House Committee on Un-American Activities Be Abolished?"

Guests: Faulk, John Henry.

21 April 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 70 : 6

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 9

Program details: "Mr. Faulk is primarily known," WFB begins, "as a certified victim of an anti-Communist organization called Aware," which had brought him to the attention of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Mr. Faulk had sued Aware and been awarded "the most colossal judgment in libel history"; he was now seeking the abolition of the committee. On this show, Mr. Faulk begins, in his down-home sort of voice, by quoting the then-Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan as having said that "the committee's program so closely parallels the program of the Ku Klux Klan that there is no distinguishable difference between them," and we're off to the races.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.6

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001MBTSF4

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5940

item Program Number 7

"The Prevailing Bias"

Guests: Susskind, David, 1920-

2 May 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 70 : 7

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 10

Program details: The tone is set in the first few minutes, when Mr. Susskind responds to the introduction (in which WFB had said, among other things, "Mr. Susskind is a staunch liberal. If there were a contest for the title Mr. Eleanor Roosevelt, he would unquestionably win it") by saying: "I must say that I regard that introduction as somewhat rude and insulting, Mr. Buckley. I had hoped, on the occasion of your having your own television program, you would abandon your traditional penchant for personal bitchiness and stick to facts and issues; but evidently your rude behavior is congenital and compulsive. And so I forgive you." But among the billingsgate there is serious discussion of the current offerings on the airwaves, the tendency of the Jewish community to resist the anti-Communist movement, and more.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.7

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E50RQ2

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5941

item Program Number 8

"The New Frontier: The Great Society"

Guests: Goodwin, Richard N.

6 May 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 70 : 8

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 11

Program details: Mr. Goodwin was present at the creation--as WFB reminds us, "he is credited with supplying that ominous phrase, 'The Great Society' "--and he defends the Johnson program ably in this good-tempered session. RG: "Well, I think the Great Society ...represents a change or a breaking point from the ideas of the New Deal. I think the essential idea behind the New Deal was that rising prosperity, more equitably distributed among the people, would solve most of the problems of the country. . . . Now, having succeeded-not completely, but to quite a degree-in that effort ... we find it doesn't solve the major problems, the kinds of problems you talked about in your campaign [for Mayor of New York] ...and that now we have to turn our attention, not only ... to relief of the poor or dispossessed, but to the quality of life of every American ..."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.8

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001MBTSFO

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5942

item Program Number 9

"Civil Disobedience: How Far Can It Go?"

Guests: Gregory, Dick.

16 May 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 70 : 9

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 12

Program details: Mr. Gregory had been arrested many times for his civil disobedience, and he had been shot during the Watts riots. As conversation, this show never quite clicks: Mr. Buckley is trying to clarify the line between peaceful protest and civil disobedience, while Mr. Gregory is engaged in blurring it. Still, a fascinating glimpse of the worldview of an inveterate protestor. DG: When these people [the Nuremberg defendants] pleaded that they were only obeying the law ... the world's justices declared that they were guilty and that man has a duty to disobey laws that are contrary to great moral laws. One day we might have another trial, be it in Heaven, be it in Asia--I don't know if we'll be judged by the Chinese or by the angels--but I want to be able to plead not guilty."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.9

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5943

item Program Number 10

"McCarthyism: Past, Present, Future"

Guests: Cherne, Leo, 1912-

16 May 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 70 : 10

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 13

Program details: Mr. Buckley seeks, with his old friend and adversary Mr. Cherne, to explore, as he puts it, why Joseph McCarthy's oversimplifications were judged to be almost unique and highly damaging ... whereas the contemporary oversimplifications of, say, a Harry Truman, or, before that, of a Franklin Roosevelt, or subsequently of a Lyndon Johnson, are not seen as that offensive." A rich conversation, full of detail. LC: "Well, to suggest, for example, that General Marshall lied about his whereabouts on the morning of Pearl Harbor, and to suggest, as Senator McCarthy did, that in fact he was meeting Maksim Litvinov at the Washington airport when in fact this was not true--this is not oversimplification in the normal language of political discourse."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.10

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001MBTSG8

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5944

item Program Number 11

"Vietnam: What Next?"

Guests: Lynd, Staughton.

23 May 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 70 : 11

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 14

Program details: "Mr. Lynd had recently visited Hanoi--to propagandize for the Vietcong," Mr. Buckley suggests; to "clarify, if we could, the approach to peace negotiations from the other side," Mr. Lynd insists. A spirited exchange with a scholar whose specialty is "the Radical Tradition in America before 1900." WFB: "Listen, Professor, let's stop dropping these little statistical gems around the place. What Eisenhower said when he used the term 80 per cent was that 80 per cent of the [Vietnamese] people would have joined in any war against the French. He didn't say that 80 per cent were in favor of Ho Chi Minh. . . ." SL: "Well, what President Eisenhower said, in fact, ... is that at the time of the end of the war against the French, in 1954, ... 80 per cent of the people of Vietnam as a whole would have voted for Ho Chi Minh in an election." WFB: "As an alternative to Bao Dai. Ho Chi Minh had not started his rather systematic euthanasia of people who disagreed with him, however, as of 1954. He was considered the George Washington of that area."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.11

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001MBTSH2

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5945

item Program Number 12

"The Future of States' Rights"

Guests: Golden, Harry, 1902-

23 May 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 70 : 12

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 15

Program details: A lively discussion that begins with the states' rights movement in Mr. Golden's adopted South and deepens to cover the origins of our federal system and the way it has evolved. WFB: "Aren't you going to acknowledge at least this much tonight: that there are people who bear no ill will whatsoever to the Negro, who nevertheless believe that Jefferson and Madison ... had something interesting to say when they devised the federal system? ..." HG: "... The Founding Fathers could be forgiven, Mr. Buckley, for not having known that we would ... turn an agricultural society into an industrial society ..." WFB: "They can be forgiven for not predicting Earl Warren, for that matter." HG: "But, however, they were wonderful men ... because the Constitution they devised was not statutes, it was a pattern of behavior. And a pattern which in their tremendous wisdom they figured that maybe things will come about that will require constant change."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.12

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E53T1C

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5946

item Program Number 13

"The Future of the Republican Party"

Guests: Luce, Clare Boothe, 1903-1987.

26 May 1966

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 16

Program details: The first of several Firing Line appearances by the sharp-tongued Mrs. Luce, who here takes on the party she has served in many capacities--as keynoter at the 1948 National Convention, as legislator and diplomat, as Co-Chairman of the National Citizens' Committee for Goldwater. The crackling conversation ranges back to Thomas Jefferson and forward to the next election. CBL: "Well, the Whigs went out of existence on the slavery issue. And I don't think that parties make issues. Issues make parties. And the Republican Party seems to be fresh out of issues, fresh out of programs, fresh out of ideas, after a period of almost sixty years as the dominant party [from 1861 to 1932].... I don't care who the Republicans nominate [in 1968]: unless there is a war, a wounding war, or a depression, the Democrats are going to win."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.13

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5947

item Program Number 14

"The Future of the American Theater"

Guests: Merrick, David, 1911-

6 June 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 70 : 13

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 17

Program details: Mr. Merrick is not just any producer but, as WFB puts it, "the most successful producer on Broadway"--and one whom the critics have accused of "inveigling audiences into going to [his shows] ... and the audiences are thereupon so ashamed of their gullibility in succumbing to Mr. Merrick's publicity, they will laugh at bad jokes, allow their hearts to break at the sight of a valentine, and leave the theater humming untuneful songs." (Mr. Merrick asks to correct the record: "I can't recall that I've ever had a bad joke in one of my plays, or an untuneful song, or that I've ever produced a bad play.") The conversation, rich with anecdote, winds up being less about the future of the theater than about the relation of the critic, on the one hand, to the theater company and, on the other hand, to the audience--"sort of a necessary evil," says Mr. Merrick. "... So, I bark at the critics and snipe at them, that's part of the game, because I think I have the right to criticize them if they have the right to criticize my product."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.14

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E52U26

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5948

item Program Number 15

"Bobby Kennedy and Other Mixed Blessings"

Guests: Kempton, Murray, 1917-

6 June 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 70 : 14

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 18

Program details: The first Firing Line appearance of Mr. Kempton, of whom WFB says that "he is the finest writer in the newspaper profession," but "his specialty is not, in this critic's opinion, logic." On the subject of Bobby Kennedy's motivations in attacking Lyndon Johnson, however (Johnson "cannot win with Robert Kennedy because he's William of Orange"), these two old friends and adversaries see pretty much eye to eye. As Mr. Kempton puts it, "[RFK] lacks his brother's real appreciation for people who were a little older than he was and a little more stable and a little more serious. It seems to me that his radicalism is a total hangup on the young.... And what his brother would have regarded as nonsense in conduct, he refuses to regard as nonsense as long as it isn't done by somebody who is older than 25 years of age."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.15

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001MBTSHW

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5949

item Program Number 16

"The Future of Conservatism"

Guests: Goldwater, Barry M. (Barry Morris), 1909-1998.

9 June 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 70 : 15

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 19

Program details: Under Arizona law, Mr. Goldwater had had to give up his Senate seat to run for the Presidency, and so at the moment he was a private citizen--though still, even after his disastrous defeat, the acknowledged leader of the conservative wing of the Republican Party. This rich conversation ranges from the specific and immediate (Medicare, the prospects for the 1968 election) to the general (Has too much power accrued to the Presidency? How can it be curbed?). BG: "I think the country has become pretty much a two-term country. So I think it's pretty much up to the President. If he decides to run again, the chances of the Republicans beating him are not excellent. However, if he keeps on with his lack of success in Vietnam, the downfall of NATO, ... the growing cost of living in our country, the chances get better. But we don't like to win on those kinds of chances."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.16

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E52U2G

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5950

item Program Number 17

"Public Power vs. Private Power"

Guests: Gore, Albert, 1907-

9 June 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 70 : 16

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 20

Program details: Mr. Buckley describes his guest as "a tough and knowledgeable controversialist," and Senator Gore sets about proving him right with his passionate defense of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which Barry Goldwater, in 1964, had proposed selling to private enterprise. WFB: "Why, Senator Gore, shouldn't parts of the TVA be sold to privately owned companies?" AG: "... I'll ask you: Why should it? I know of no reason why it should." WFB: "Well, the presumption is, isn't it, that that which can be owned privately ought to be, in a non-socialist society?" AG: "Well, is there any reason why any part of the TVA should be owned privately? It seems to me that this is an integrated, successfully operating utility, one of the greatest successes of the world ...Unless we want to sell all of it, why do we wish to dismember it?" WFB: "Well, it seems to me that it breaks down rather naturally into component parts. I can't imagine anybody..." AG: "Well, so does your hand, but why would you sell one finger?"

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.17

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5951

item Program Number 18

"Communists and Civil Liberties"

Guests: Rauh, Joseph L., 1911-

10 June 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 71 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 21

Program details: After a bristly beginning (JLR: "I won't say thank you for that insulting introduction"), guest and host settle down for a serious debate on the best way to protect our national security. JLR: "The method of checking on everybody in the hope of getting the spies doesn't work. A Harvard professor, a physicist, said it better than I can.... He said, 'When you watch diamond rings and toothbrushes with the same intensity, it's true that you lose less toothbrushes, but you lose a lot more diamond rings.' ... Let's take the Rosenbergs. There's a perfectly good case. [J. Edgar] Hoover had leads that would have led him to the Rosenbergs years earlier, but [the FBI] had so much material,they could never get to it."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.18

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5952

item Program Number 19

"The Role of the Church Militant"

Guests: Coffin, William Sloane.

27 June 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 71 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 22

Program details: WFB and his guest--an old friend and adversary from undergraduate days and now a Presbyterian minister--agree that the Christian Church in all its denominations is in trouble, increasingly ignored by the young and regarded as irrelevant. Mr. Coffin, however, argues that this is largely because the churches have not taken up the cause of civil rights for black Americans; Mr. Buckley maintains that it has more to do with their ignoring the oppression behind the Iron Curtain. One sample: WSC: "I'll tell you, Bill, why James Baldwin is down on the Church. And Louis Lomax and also many of the rest of [the black leaders]. Because they have told me, 'Every time we see that cross we think, There's a place where they call us niggers.' The primary problem of the Church in our time is not that people don't believe in God, it's that the prosperous Church in our time has failed to make common cause with the sufferers of this world."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.19

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E50RQW

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5953

item Program Number 20

"Why Are the Students Unhappy?"

Guests: Bikel, Theodore.

27 June 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 71 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 23

Program details: Student unrest was not yet at its most virulent, but many campuses had seen sit-ins and other disruptions. WFB posits that a chief cause of the problems is adult unwillingness to enforce discipline. Mr. Bikel, who had grown up in a kibbutz in Israel but quickly rebelled against its strictures, posits that the younger generation must be left free to develop its own values, even if these do not include what the older generation would call civility. TB: "Do you really think that we live in the kind of an age where ... a parent can obstinately cling to the belief that the values of today are not substantially different from the values of yesterday?" WFB: "But the parents are right." TB: "I knew that you would say that."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.20

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E50RR6

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5954

item Program Number 21

"Senator Dodd and General Klein"

Guests: Dodd, Thomas J. (Thomas Joseph), 1907-1971.

22 August 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 71 : 5

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 24

Program details: Senator Dodd had been accused by the muckraking columnist Drew Pearson of having had improper dealings with one General Julius Klein, an agent of the West German government--as WFB paraphrases the Pearson charge, "instead of serving his constituents in Connecticut and the nation as a whole, Senator Dodd has been primarily concerned to serve the interests of General Julius Klein." This old controversy doesn't wear as well as some, but along the way we get interesting insights into the propriety of Americans representing foreign countries (as WFB points out, John Foster Dulles and Dean Acheson each did at one time or another) and into how a newspaper columnist with an axe to grind and a Senate investigating committee can work hand in hand. TD: "Unfortunately, the terminology 'foreign agent' has an ugly connotation, I think, for most people-the two-peaked-hat character who's spying on Washington. The truth of the matter is that there are many distinguished, celebrated lawyers and citizens who are representatives of foreign governments, and they serve a very useful purpose."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.21

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E52U30

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5955

item Program Number 22

"Extremism"

Guests: Schary, Dore.

22 August 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 71 : 6

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 25

Program details: A crackling debate on political extremism, Right and Left. It is our host's contention that Mr. Schary and his organization are rather more alert to the former than to the latter: "It's awfully hard to discuss these questions, Mr. Schary, because you have been, I think, so amiable and so reasonable and so soft-spoken; but when you get on the typewriter, it sort of comes out different." Why, for instance, do Mr. Schary and the ADL regularly attack the John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Klan (and point out that some of their members actively supported Barry Goldwater's campaign) but not attack the equal and opposite extremism of Women's Strike for Peace or the Fair Play for Cuba Committee or the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee? DS: "Nobody's ever asked me to write anything about it ... Not everything I say, you see, gets into print."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.22

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E52U3A

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5956

item Program Number 23

"Civil Rights and Foreign Policy"

Guests: McKissick, Floyd B. (Floyd Bixler), 1922-

22 August 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 71 : 7

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 1

Program details: Mr. McKissick had taken over the leadership of CORE from James Farmer (see Firing Line 005) and had led the organization in a more militant direction, and not only concerning race relations within the United States. As WFB puts it, his guest "proceeds on the assumption that there is a nexus between" civil rights and America's foreign policy. Hence, for example, Mr. McKissick had visited Cambodia and had determined that American bombing there was unjustified. This often heated exchange begins with the Henry Wallace movement of 1948 and goes on from there. WFB: "The point is whether you are going to exercise the kind of prudence that will keep CORE from perhaps becoming what the Progressive Party of 1948 became, which is simply a pawn of the Soviet Union." FM: "Well, I know a lot of people who worked in that campaign for Wallace who were not Communists, and ... there were many good people. I think to put a label on people, I've never been one who wanted to put a label on people ..."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.23

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E52U3K

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5957

item Program Number 24

"The President and the Press"

Guests: Salinger, Pierre.

12 September 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 71 : 8

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 2

Program details: A masterly performance from Mr. Salinger, who reacts smoothly, very smoothly, to Mr. Buckley's attempts to get him to admit that the press generally gave President Kennedy a free ride. PS: "The objective of a Presidential Press Conference is not, in my opinion, for reporters to have the opportunity to embarrass and harass the President, but rather to elicit from him the information which is of value to the country." ... "I'm getting a new vision on my ability at the White House, and I must say that I'm indebted to you for it, because if I was as successful as you say I was, then, obviously, my services should be sought by others who have not quite come around to see me since the days of the '64 debacle [when he lost his Senate seat to George Murphy]."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.24

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E50RRG

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5958

item Program Number 25

"Are Public Schools Necessary?"

Guests: Goodman, Paul, 1911-1972.

12 September 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 71 : 9

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 3

Program details: Mr. Buckley begins by saying of his guest, "Where he stands, ideologically, in conventional terms, it is hard to say. Probably no one would wish either to claim him altogether, or to disclaim him altogether." And we soon see why, in this exhilarating discussion of education, poverty, and American society. PG: "Now if we mean by literacy, knowing the art of reading and writing, where the objects of the art are imagination and truth, then, of course, to be literate is, you know, importantly to be fulfilling yourself as a human being; but if we mean by literacy, being processed so that you can understand the code in order to buy products, or obey orders, or the rest, then it's a question whether most people wouldn't be freer if they weren't quite so caught in this code."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.25

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G707G2W

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5959

item Program Number 26

"The Playboy Philosophy"

Guests: Hefner, Hugh M. (Hugh Marston), 1926-

12 September 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 71 : 10

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 4

Program details: Between these two antagonists one might have expected a heated debate, but what we get instead is a serious discussion of sexual ethics in the latter part of the 20th century. HH: "The philosophy really I think is an anti-Puritanism, a response really to the puritan part of our culture...." WFB: "I'm not worrying about whether you reject Cotton Mather's accretions on the Mosaic Law, but whether you reject the Mosaic Law. Do you reject, for instance, monogamy? Do you reject the notion of sexual continence before marriage? ..." HH: "Well, I think what it really comes down to is an attempt to establish a ... new morality, and I really think that's what the American ... sexual revolution's really all about. It's an attempt to replace the old legalism. It's certainly not a rejection of monogamy as such, but very much an attempt- In the case of premarital sex, there really hasn't been any moral code in the past except simply that thou shalt not. And-" WFB: "Well, that's a code, isn't it?" HH: "Well, perhaps. I don't think it's a very realistic one."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.26

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E52U44

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5960

item Program Number 27

"Do Liberals Make Good Republicans?"

Guests: Chafee, John H., 1922-

15 September 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 71 : 11

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 5

Program details: A sparkling exchange with a very successful liberal Republican, who, unlike some other liberal Republicans, backed his party's presidential candidate in 1964. Messrs. Buckley and Chafee address policy issues (taxation, federal subsidies) and also intra-party relations. WFB: "Suppose you were to run for President, and somebody started calling you a fascist. Presumably, you are no more a fascist than Senator Goldwater is, but are we up against here something which suggests the special difficulty of the Republican Party ... because of the excesses which the opposition feels free to use? ..." JC: "I agree with you that the Republicans just cannot spend their time chopping up Republicans, and I think this so-called eleventh commandment that they adopted out there in California, which was that a Republican shall not say an evil word about another Republican, is something we've just got to have...." WFB: "Well, what about an evil Republican? What do you say about him?" JC: "I find that rather a contradiction in terms. I haven't yet found an evil Republican."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.27

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5961

item Program Number 28

"Should Labor Power Be Reduced?"

Guests: Riesel, Victor.

19 September 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 71 : 12

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 6

Program details: Mr. Riesel, as Mr. Buckley recounts in his introduction, "considers himself... a militant unionist"; despite, or because of, this, he is relentless in his exposure of union corruption, which is what led one of the corrupted, in 1956, to throw acid in his face, blinding him but by no means putting him out of action. An illuminating discussion of the history and present of trade unionism in this country. VR: "Bill, the whole business of using the word 'metaphysical' with George Meany has so discombobulated me, I'm going to have to recollect all my thoughts. But no, seriously, the fact is that when you're talking about new laws, I mean the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act ..., you're going back 85 years to an era when ... the robber baron had the power ... Sure, you have a parallel now, there's enormous industrial power in the trade-union movement, but we have laws, and I say, enforce those laws."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.28

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E52U4E

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5962

item Program Number 29

"Communist China and the United Nations"

Guests: Lerner, Max, 1902-

19 September 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 71 : 13

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 7

Program details: Should Red China be admitted to the United Nations, at the expense of expelling Nationalist China? Mr. Lerner has come to believe it should: "It would help a good deal if we can show them [the up-and-coming generation in the Third World] that we're not fighting men. We're not a fighting nation. We do not depend upon the exclusion of Communist China from the UN in order to really show what we stand for and what we're about." To Mr. Buckley, the problem is less the admission than the expulsion: "I'm simply saying that as a pragmatic fact I don't think anybody thinks that we are 'afraid' to bring Red China in except to the extent that we are afraid of doing something wrong....And also that we are afraid of, for instance, the fate of fifteen million overseas Chinese, that we are afraid of the fate of twelve million Chinese in Taiwan, and we're afraid of the collapse of morale in the free sectors of Asia."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.29

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5963

item Program Number 30

"National Priorities and Disarmament"

Guests: Melman, Seymour.

3 October 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 71 : 14

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 8

Program details: Mr. Melman was a prominent opponent of our part in the arms race--it was he who coined the term "overkill." His opposition is based partly on an opposition to the arms race per se, partly on the assertion that "embedded in the activity that is paid for out of these defense funds is about two-thirds, or perhaps even a bit more, of the prime skilled talent of the country, research engineers and scientists of the nation." WFB takes issue with his numbers, and we're off and running.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.30

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5964

item Program Number 31

"LBJ and Evans and Novak"

Guests: Evans, Rowland, 1921-

3 October 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 71 : 15

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 9

Program details: We eventually get to LBJ, but first Mr. Buckley leads his guest into a lively though cautious discussion of how a journalist's own politics affect his writing and, specifically, whether Evans and Novak give equal treatment to liberals and conservatives. WFB: "It may sound like rather a personal question, but I think it's objectively interesting. You wrote in your column a few months ago that you had heard Nixon say that the, quotes, Buckleyites were more dangerous to the Republican Party than the Birchites...." RE: "I think that what Nixon meant was that the Buckleyites are very persuasive, they're very able, they have an outlet in the National Review and other publications, they are extremely intelligent ... whereas ... the Birchers are rather ..." WFB: "Does all that make it anti-Republican? To be intelligent and persuasive?" RN: "... I think he probably felt you should ask Mr. Nixon this ... that the Buckleyites are to the right of the mainstream of the Republican Party and because they do have this forensic and persuasive ability ... that they represent a greater threat. But I beg you to ask Mr. Nixon that question...."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.31

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5965

item Program Number 32

"Civilian Review Board: Yes or No?"

Guests: Kheel, Theodore Woodrow.

7 October 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 71 : 16

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 10

Program details: The hottest of many hot issues in New York City in the first year of the Lindsay administration--and in a period when the major cities of America were erupting with race riots--was whether there should be a civilian-dominated review board overseeing the police. Mayor Lindsay had made establishing such a board an important part of his mayoral campaign and had instituted it in July; Mr. Kheel ably defends it as affording protection (especially for minorities) against police brutality without hampering their legitimate law-enforcement capability. Mr. Buckley, who had made opposition to the board an important part of his campaign against Mr. Lindsay, quotes J. Edgar Hoover as saying of Rochester, N.Y., a city with a civilian review board, that "the police were so careful to avoid accusations of improper conduct that they were virtually paralyzed." Note: A month after this show, New York City's voters rejected the board 2 to 1.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.32

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E53T26

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5966

item Program Number 33

"Criminals and the Supreme Court"

Guests: Neier, Aryeh, 1937-

7 November 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 71 : 17

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 11

Program details: Was the Supreme Court "coddling criminals," as the common accusation had it? Or was it properly securing rights frequently trampled on by jaded police, even if this meant that some criminals went free? An illuminating discussion in which useful distinctions are made, e.g., between search-and-seizure cases, where the only people helped by the exclusionary rule are those found with incriminating evidence, and right-to-counsel cases, in some of which--Mr. Neier asserts, referring to recent incidents in New York City--"district attorneys, of all people, had to move for dismissal of indictments ...after murder confessions were secured, after between 10 and 26 hours of police questioning. In none of those cases is it clear that police used actual physical coercion. In each of those cases it is clear that police engaged in standard forms of questioning designed to, on the one hand, terrify the person; on the other hand, to make him think he's confessing to a buddy."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.33

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5967

item Program Number 34

"Open Housing"

Guests: Morsell, John A.

7 November 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 71 : 18

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 12

Program details: A civil and illuminating exchange on a potentially explosive question, raised by a proposed Federal Open Housing Law that would ban racial discrimination in the sale of housing. JM: "The ways in which people learn are also very, very diverse. I happen to believe very implicitly that the force of law is in itself an educative force, and that if it is illegal for your man who wants to be with Irishmen to exercise that preference at the expense of someone else's right to live in a decent home, then the second right, it seems to me, prevails; and in the course of time, as behavior conforms to law, people's attitudes and views will also tend to change."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.34

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5968

item Program Number 35

"The Failure of Organized Religion"

Guests: Weiss, Paul, 1901-

14 November 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 72 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 13

Program details: When Mr. Buckley meets his old philosophy teacher on Firing Line, it's thrust and parry from the start: WFB: "Tonight, Professor Weiss seeks to inform God that it was a mistake to organize religion. Organized religion, he will argue, has failed." PW: "I don't remember when God organized religion. Is there any time when God organized religion?" WFB: "Well, the situation was like this: There was God and there was Peter, you see-" PW: "I thought they were distinct." WFB: "They were." PW: "Oh, good! Now-then what?"

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.35

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E50RS0

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5969

item Program Number 36

"What to Do with the American Teenager?"

Guests: Kaufman, Murray.

14 November 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 72 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 14

Program details: A culture clash of the first order between a host who believes in the accumulated wisdom of the ages and a guest ("the Fifth Beatle, as he has been called by one of the original four") who believes that people under 25 are more honest and more perceptive than their elders-with the exception of Mr. Kaufman, whose new book was called: Murray the K Tells It like It Is, Baby. MK: "The commentary [in today's lyrics] is not on the life of the teenager. It is on Vietnam, it is on the double facades of the so-called establishment ... and I will admit that there are times that you have to dig kind of deep, beyond the maze or, as maybe you would say, the cacophony of sound ..."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.36

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5970

item Program Number 37

"Elections 1966 and 1968"

Guests: Novak, Robert D.

21 November 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 72 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 15

Program details: We recently heard from Mr. Novak's partner in column--and book--writing, Rowland Evans (Firing Line 031); this time it is Mr. Novak's turn to talk about the political scene--and to give an unintended cautionary lesson to would-be prognosticators. WFB: "I'd like to begin by asking Mr. Novak whether he thinks it likely that Mr. Nixon will be nominated in 1968." RN: "I think it's very unlikely. I think ... [the Republicans] think now, with good reason, they have a chance of beating Mr. Johnson in 1968. So this is not a throwaway election, this is a serious election. They want a winner, and Mr. Nixon is a loser. So I think they'll look primarily to George Romney."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.37

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5971

item Program Number 38

"Sports, Persecution, and Christians"

Guests: Lunn, Arnold Henry Moore, Sir, 1888-1974.

28 November 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 72 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 16

Program details: Sir Arnold was campaigning to persuade the Western world to stop engaging in sports contests (principally the Olympic Games) with Communist countries. This deep and rich conversation engages Christians' failure of nerve, as Sir Arnold sees it, in confronting what we would come to know as the Evil Empire. WFB: "Sir Arnold, the saying is that sports and politics don't mix. Do you agree?" AL: "Well, it depends what you mean by politics. The old classical Olympic Games were restricted, in the words of Herodotus, to those of common temples and sacrifices and like ways of life. The barbarians were excluded. The classical Greeks didn't regard that as a political difference, but the difference between civilized people and barbarians. When I broke off relations with the Nazis in skiing, I didn't consider the difference between myself and Hitler was a political difference. It was a difference between a civilized man and an assassin."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.38

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E50RSA

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5972

item Program Number 39

"The Warren Report: Fact or Fiction?"

Guests: Lane, Mark.

1 December 1966

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 72 : 5

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 17

Program details: While many people had been skeptical of the Warren Report's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of President Kennedy, Mr. Lane's book was the first to lay out the argument seriously. He defends himself ably in this spirited exchange. ML: "I take really the same position Alfreda Scoby, one of the lawyers for the Warren Commission, takes, and that is, had Oswald lived, he could not have been proven guilty, had he faced trial, based upon the evidence the Commission was able to secure." WFB: "And of course Warren says that he was a practicing district attorney for ten or twelve years and he could have gotten a conviction in 48 hours with the evidence. You simply disagree with him professionally." ML: "That's nonsense. It would take longer than that to pick a jury, of course." WFB: "Do you think Warren should be impeached?" ML: "I don't think he should be impeached. I think the report should be impeached."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.39

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E50RSK

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5973

item Program Number 40

"Rhodesia, the UN, and Southern Africa"

Guests: O'Brien, Conor Cruise, 1917-

12 January 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 72 : 6

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 18

Program details: The gloves are off in this debate on the role of the West in general and America in particular in post-colonial Africa. Specifically, how should we react to the Rhodesian government's Unilateral Declaration of Independence? CCO: "Would you please allow me to proceed without interruption as I allowed you? ... The [United Nations] Security Council has decided certain actions which you know of. Are you in favor of your country carrying out its obligations?" WFB: "Absolutely not, under those circumstances where the United Nations is clearly acting illegally and against the best interests of the United States." Note: The transcript lists the title of this episode as: "Discussion with Conor Cruse O'Brien."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.40

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5974

item Program Number 41

"LBJ and the Intellectuals"

Guests: Morgenthau, Hans Joachim, 1904-

12 January 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 72 : 7

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 19

Program details: A rich discussion of our political culture, starting with the Johnson Administration's confused objectives in Vietnam (HM: "Does it want self-determination for South Vietnam at the risk of a Communist takeover, or does it want to stop Communism at any price, even at the price of self-determination?") and ranging far and wide. WFB: "Well, then, how do you account for the enthusiasm of the intellectuals for Mr. Kennedy, when in fact it could be demonstrated that his own rhetoric and actions were at least as schizophrenic as President Johnson's?" HM: "It's a very good question. I addressed myself to that question in '61.... The intellectuals ... had been in the wilderness for eight years and all of a sudden, here comes Mr. Kennedy, Harvard-educated, surrounded by members of the Harvard faculty-there were a few from Yale, in order to satisfy you, but very few, so you were not very much satisfied. And of course many intellectuals, not myself included, thought this was the golden Augustan age for intellectuals."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.41

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E52U4Y

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5975

item Program Number 42

"Academic Freedom and Berkeley"

Guests: Taylor, Harold, 1914-

16 January 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 72 : 8

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 20

Program details: We eventually get to Berkeley-where the Free Speech Movement and associated radicalisms had completely broken down academic discipline--but before that, we have a never-the-twain-shall-meet discussion of which views might and which might not, under the tenets of academic freedom, disqualify a scholar from being hired by a university. WFB: "You, despising racism as much as I do, are prepared to assert that no one who is a racist actually would get into a college of which you were president, but that in fact people can be well-qualified Communists." HT: "... there is a sharp distinction to be made between a philosophy of racism, affirming the notion that there is one race superior to another, ... and a political philosophy which one identifies as Communism. I think you have to talk about those in different categories."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.42

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E52U58

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5976

item Program Number 43

"Presidential Politics"

Guests: White, F. Clifton.

16 January 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 72 : 9

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 21

Program details: WFB and a fellow conservative Republican focus on the Democratic scene, where already--nearly two years before the presidential election-it was clear that LBJ was in serious trouble. WFB: "But then aren't you really saying this: that Lyndon Johnson could force his own renomination? But mightn't Bobby Kennedy make it almost psychologically impossible for him to do so?" FCW: "Yes, he could conceivably do that, and of course ... from a Republican point of view this would be delightful and highly desirable, because I think under those circumstances it would make it almost assured that the Republican nominee would win the general election." WFB: "Why do you say that? If Lyndon Johnson stepped down in favor of Kennedy, ... why wouldn't Kennedy go on to win the election?" FCW: "Do you really think that Lyndon Johnson would step down charitably, for a Bobby Kennedy?"

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.43

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5977

item Program Number 44

"The Role of the Advocate"

Guests: Bailey, F. Lee (Francis Lee), 1933-

19 January 1967

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 22

Program details: An often surprising exploration of criminal jurisprudence with a guest who, as Mr. Buckley puts it, "if any of you should commit a murder ... is your man." WFB: "Do you believe that the right to refuse to testify is a right that is integral to the whole process of the presumption of innocence?" FB: "Yes, it's as integral as it is illogical." WFB: "... And why is it illogical?" FLB: "The most efficient way to try a man is to put him on the stand first and ask him what he knows about the case; then if more evidence is needed, put that on, too. The defendant always knows, except in very rare cases of clear insanity, whether or not he is guilty or at least whether or not he committed the acts charged. His degree of guilt may be fixed with some inference or some judgment by the jury, but he would be the easiest source of information, and in some countries he's called first." WFB: "Well, do you understand yourself to be an advocate of the cause of defendants?" FLB: "Just an advocate. I could try a case from either side of the fence."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.44

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E50RSU

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5978

item Program Number 45

"The Future of the UN"

Guests: Plimpton, Francis T. P. (Francis Taylor Pearsons), 1900-1983.

19 January 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 72 : 10

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 23

Program details: The United Nations had been energetically debating the right of Rhodesia to declare independence unilaterally and the right of South Africa to continue to exercise its League of Nations mandate over South West Africa. But was anybody listening? A serious discussion with a man whose public career began with the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in 1932. FP: "In the case of South West Africa you have that very unfortunate decision of the International Court of Justice, which after six years of deliberation, decided that it didn't have jurisdiction over the South West Africa case." WFB: "Rather, the plaintiff didn't have standing." FP: That's right. They once held four or five years ago that there were very fine distinctions here. One has to dance on the point of a pin to get them entirely."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.45

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E50RT4

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5979

item Program Number 46

"Do the States Have a Chance?"

Guests: Unruh, Jesse, 1922-1987.

6 March 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 72 : 11

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 24

Program details: Do the states have a chance, that is, to carve out some freedom of action vis-a-vis the Federal Government? "Big Daddy" Jesse Unruh was, since Ronald Reagan's defeat of Governor Pat Brown, the leading Democrat in California. Unfortunately, Mr. Buckley is unable to coax him down from a high level of generality. One sample, re states' rights: "Well, I think that's what's been happening in a great respect and I think that too much Federal Government is attuned to your Eastern establishment and the problems of the Southern states and the reluctance of the Southern states so that many times those of us who feel we have earned the right to handle our own problems are simply ignored in an overall position that is designed to fit the desires of the Eastern establishment or the problems of the Southern states."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.46

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5980

item Program Number 47

"LBJ and Vietnam"

Guests: Hartke, Vance. : Williams, C. Dickerman

6 March 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 72 : 12

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 25

Program details: As WFB introduces him, "Senator Hartke is perhaps best known, at this point in his career, as one of the leaders in the growing army of former friends and admirers of Lyndon Johnson." This crackling exchange focuses on the main source of his and the others' disaffection, Vietnam. VH: "I don't know whether you can say that or not [about the previous November's elections in Vietnam].... If you have some special information source that I do not have available to me-" WFB: "You have the U.S. Government." VH: "The government's been wrong on so many things it's hard to tell. The colossal blunder that they made in the cost of this war, for example, when they tried to ridicule my statement in front of the Finance Committee ... Well, they come back to this in January and they admit that this is true." Note: The transcript lists the title for this episode as: "Vietnam."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.47

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E52U5I

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5981

item Program Number 48

"Politics and the President"

Guests: Wicker, Tom.

7 March 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 72 : 13

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 26

Program details: A colorful discussion of that already old topic, bias in the media, in this case starting with the question, "Would the New York Times ever refer to an 'ultra-liberal Republican'?" TW: " 'Ultra-liberal Republican'? I doubt it, since there are very few such animals, but I don't know if there's any particular ban against this in the New York Times. We have some bans on certain words but that's not one of them so far as I know." WFB: "Yeah. But aren't those bans most interesting which are sort of self-enforcing and inexplicit? ... It's easy for the New York Times to refer to ultra-conservative Republicans, but for some reason you'd have to get a sort of special dispensation, the typewriters would reject it, if you referred to an ultra-liberal Republican." TW: "Well, I think so. Typewriters have a high regard for the facts." WFB: "OK. Now you're saying that there's no such thing as an ultra-liberal Republican." TW: "Well, only if you consider them in the Republican spectrum."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.48

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003GXE9Q4

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5982

item Program Number 49

"Black Power"

Guests: Hentoff, Nat.

7 March 1967

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 27

Program details: Mr. Hentoff had, Mr. Buckley tells us, written that "We must have black power to overcome white power." What exactly is meant by black power? Does it matter whether the person talking about it is the Harlem teacher who is the subject of Mr. Hentoff's book, or Elijah Muhammad? And why are the New York Times and the New York Post so chary of it? NH: "I suppose they think of the doctrine as a racist doctrine and the corollary concern seems to be that thereby the Negroes will alienate their good white friends and make things much more difficult for the coalition--that luminous coalition of labor, the Church, and civil-rights groups and the like which is apparently about to end the final verse of 'We Shall Overcome'." In fact, suggests Mr. Hentoff, what black power is properly about is the power of blacks to have some say in the running of their own neighborhoods and their own children's schools.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.49

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001MBTSIG

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5983

item Program Number 50

"Is There a Role for a Third Party?"

Guests: Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1914-1988.

8 March 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 73 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 160 : 28

Program details: Despite his own defeat, Mr. Roosevelt answers the title question with an emphatic "Yes. I think that the role of the third party has been, especially the Liberal Party- It has been often said in jest that its role in New York politics has been to keep the Democratic Party honest and the Republican Party more liberal. Now, I suppose you could turn that to say that the Conservative Party, on whose line you ran for Mayor a year and a half ago-their role, I suppose, would be to make the Republican Party more the party of McKinley, or Adam Smith, and-" WFB: "Are you against Adam Smith?" FDR: "I think that he's a bit out of date."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.50

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E50RTE

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5984

item Program Number 51

"U.S. Policy in Southeast Asia"

Guests: Fritchey, Clayton.

8 March 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 73 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 1

Program details: Mr. Fritchey was a devoted Democrat who had become more and more dubious about President Johnson as our involvement in Vietnam had escalated. He demonstrates here that there is nothing reflexive about his dubiety, as the conversation ranges across wars cold and hot. WFB: "For instance, Paul Henri Spaak, who was so much admired by Adlai Stevenson, ... said, 'I think there is a real parallel between the United States policy in 1949 and the situation in Asia now. It seems to me the same policy.' He went on to say that the United States believes that they have to defend people against Communism when they refuse to adopt Communism.... Then he says, 'I see no contradiction between what the United States did in Europe in 1949 and what they did in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.' But you do." CF: "Well, if I could be sure from day to day what the government's principal justification for being in South Vietnam was, I would be in a better position to discuss it. But, as you know, it changes from day to day."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.51

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5985

item Program Number 52

"Do We Have Anything Left to Fear from Socialism?"

Guests: Hook, Sidney, 1902-1989.

9 March 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 73 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 2

Program details: Mr. Hook answers the title question, as he answers every question, forthrightly: "Well, that depends upon what you mean by socialism. In one sense there was a great deal to fear from dogmatic socialism.... But on the whole, if one doesn't take a dogmatic position, I would say there never was anything to fear from socialism.... The... real issue that separates the Communist countries from the free Western democratic countries is not socialism or capitalism as economic systems, but the freedom to choose between them or among other economic forms of life. As a democratic socialist, I have been opposed to Communism because I believe in freedom." A rousing discussion of how best that freedom can actually be fostered.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.52

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5986

item Program Number 53

"The World of LSD"

Guests: Leary, Timothy Francis, 1920-

10 April 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 73 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 3

Program details: We all remember Dr. Leary as a proselytizer for LSD; we've mostly forgotten that he had started out as a doctor of clinical psychology and that he had made LSD the basis of a "new religion." On this show, he makes his opening statement before he ever says a word, by appearing not in a business suit but in a flower child get-up-ruffled shirt, no jacket or tie. He argues that WFB is confusing psychedelic drugs, which Dr. Leary says "intensify consciousness," with opiates and alcohol, "something that is an escape, something that takes you away from reality." WFB: "Let's go ahead and agree that LSD seems to be in some particulars different from other opiates or drugs or chemicals, at the same time agreeing that LSD is a departure from the normal world-" TL: "But what do you mean by 'normal world'? You mean Harry Truman! Is that normal?"

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.53

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E50RTO

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5987

item Program Number 54

"Censorship and the Production Code"

Guests: Preminger, Otto.

10 April 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 73 : 5

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 4

Program details: A discussion of artistic freedom and censorship with a leading producer, one of whose films (The Moon Is Blue) had run into trouble with the Motion Picture Production Code. A spirited discussion with a man who, despite the modern-Americanness of his films (including Anatomy of a Murder and The Man with the Golden Arm), retains, however unpresciently, an Old World sense of the order of things: "I have said that an immoral film could not be successful. I think there is morality built into any dramatic medium, whether it's a play or a television show. You cannot mention one successful play or film where the bad principle won."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.54

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E52U5S

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5988

item Program Number 55

"The Regular in Politics"

Guests: De Sapio, Carmine.

1 May 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 73 : 6

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 5

Program details: Mr. De Sapio was the "Tammany Hall boss" defeated in 1963 by a young "reform Democrat" named Edward Koch. WFB attempts in this hour to explore how party leaders actually wield their power, but Mr. De Sapio is wary and can't be drawn. WFB: "Suppose I had been a district leader and said, 'Mr. De Sapio, I love you like a brother, but, in fact, I want Adlai Stevenson nominated [as opposed to JFK].' What happens to me? Do I get thrown in the East River?" CDS: "You are applauded for your candor." WFB: "You are not suggesting that you wouldn't put-pressure on me? Unless you were in a position to put pressure on me, Mr. Kennedy wouldn't be so concerned to get your support-isn't that the way it works?" CDS: "Not necessarily." WFB: "I'm not necessarily against pressure, I just want to know more about the mechanics-" CDS: "I don't think that's the proper word; I think that a better word would be an understanding."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.55

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E52U62

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5989

item Program Number 56

"How to Protest"

Guests: Macdonald, Dwight.

1 May 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 73 : 7

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 6

Program details: Mr. Macdonald had recently been an organizer of the "Step Out Movement"-i.e., to step out of a hall where Vice President Humphrey would be speaking, in protest against the Vietnam War. This show offers a fast-paced duel between two longtime adversaries. WFB: "Well, Mr. Macdonald, why don't we try to isolate those forms of protest that you disagree with? You would disagree with, let's say, shooting the President?" DM: "Yes." WFB: "Would you disagree with forming the equivalent of an Abraham Lincoln Brigade to go to North Vietnam to fight on the side of the Vietcong?" DM: "Yes, I would." WFB: "Would you disapprove of discounting from your income tax that sum of money we have roughly spent on defense?" DM: "I approve of that. I haven't done it, however, because it occurred to me that the net result would be that they would get the money anyway plus a certain amount of penalties, which in effect would amount to more." Note: The title on the transcript is: "Dwight Macdonald."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.56

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E55X8O

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5990

item Program Number 57

"The Liberals and LBJ"

Guests: Roche, John Pearson, 1923-

15 May 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 73 : 8

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 7

Program details: Mr. Roche had incurred the wrath of many of his former associates by going to work for Lyndon Johnson. As WFB puts it, "One of [his colleagues in ADA] has said that President Johnson picked Mr. Roche as his intellectual-in-residence simply because he was the only ADA-er around who approved of Vietnam, and that if Mr. Johnson had found one other ... he'd have made him Secretary of State." A delicious hour with a guest who comes out swinging and never stops: "As far as the inner life of ADA, it's something which it must be very difficult for someone from a conservative background to understand because they're used to monolithicism and the leader blows the whistle, everybody lines up? ADA is an organization that is made up of strong-minded people who have been for twenty years engaged in all kinds of internecine and intestine brawls."... "A while ago a fellow named Chomsky wanted to organize an International Brigade to go fight in Vietnam. I'll be glad to help. My feeling about it was I'll go over to the State Department and help get his passport cleared for North Vietnam, if necessary, and even contribute to his passage."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.57

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5991

item Program Number 58

"The Poverty Problem"

Guests: Clark, Joseph S.

15 May 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 73 : 9

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 8

Program details: Senator Clark was one of the generals in President Johnson's War on Poverty. This serious discussion of what causes poverty and which remedies are least likely to be counterproductive starts with a smooth thrust and parry. WFB: "Do you believe that poverty is something that especially happens in a free-enterprise system?" JC: "... Of course I don't think that we could do better with poverty under a socialist system. The free-enterprise system is much the best way to deal with poverty. Franklin D. Roosevelt pointed that out when he really initiated the war on poverty back in 1937. You remember he said he found one-third of a nation ill housed, ill clad, and ill fed.... We hope that it is now only one-fifth of a nation. We hope, Bill, that by the time you and I have gone to our ultimate reward, it will be one-tenth of a nation ..."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.58

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5992

item Program Number 59

"Is Ramparts Magazine Un-American?"

Guests: Scheer, Robert.

26 June 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 73 : 10

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 9

Program details: Ramparts was one of the leading organs of the New Left, primarily known at this time for its attacks on the CIA and on American foreign policy generally. Messrs. Buckley and Scheer wrangle amusingly, though not always productively. WFB: "[Why don't you just say], "Sure, Bertrand Russell's anti-American, but he has a damn good right to be anti-American because during the 1960s we became a highly unlovely country and anybody who was pro-American at that point has an addled wit, to say nothing of an unserviceable moral sense?" Now why don't you say, "Yes, I too am anti-American?" RS: "Because you still haven't defined the term. And the reason I used the term is not because it is a term of my choosing but rather because Russell's critics accused him of being systematically anti-American."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.59

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5993

item Program Number 60

"Vietnam Protests"

Guests: Spock, Benjamin, 1903-

26 June 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 73 : 11

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 10

Program details: Dr. Spock, Mr. Buckley begins by recounting, "has said that the threat to our children from nuclear annihilation" is "a thousand times greater than all the dangers from the usual children's diseases." So, "I'd like to begin by asking Dr. Spock whether he carries in his head a comparison of the number of people who have died during this century from disease in contrast to those who have died, not from war, but from persecution, for instance the 6 million Jewish dead in Nazi Germany." (The answer is, No, he doesn't.) There is sometimes more heat than light generated here, but whether one views Dr. Spock as specimen or hero, the exchanges are fascinating. BS: "I don't know Bettina Aptheker but I have met Stokely Carmichael on a number of occasions, and I got the feeling he is a very sincere and America-loving person, even though he says things that distress some people from time to time." WFB: "He'd be incensed if you called him an America-lover. I mean that quite seriously. For the last two years he's been going around the country begging people to believe that he hates America, and here you are accusing me of taking him seriously."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.60

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E52U6C

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5994

item Program Number 61

"The Mideast Crisis"

Guests: Lilienthal, Alfred M.

29 June 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 73 : 12

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 11

Program details: Mr. Lilienthal, himself Jewish, had antagonized many Jews by arguing forcefully that the existence of Israel posed a threat to world peace. This hour offers a serious discussion of the history of the state of Israel, its present behavior towards its neighbors and towards the Arabs within its borders, and America's role in all of this. AL: "I feel that the whole problem today is not so much Israel's existence in the Middle East, but the kind of a state which Israel is and has become since its foundation.... Israel was set up... [as] a haven to the oppressed, as a small refugee state. In fact, Israel is a Zionist state, an expanding state, and were Israel only to promulgate the nationalism of the Israelis, rather than a worldwide Jewish nationalism ... we would not have the problems we have today."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.61

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5995

item Program Number 62

"The Decline of Anti-Communism [1967]"

Guests: Schwarz, Fred, 1913-

29 June 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 73 : 13

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 12

Program details: WFB introduces his guest as a "full-time anti-Communist who has never made it easy for his critics. He is infuriatingly sober and ... he has shown an understanding of the humorous dimension of it all." This show offers a rich discussion between two deep students of the subject, starting with Dr. Schwarz's brilliant account of Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin in 1956. FS: "What it revealed about Khrushchev and his allegiance to Communist doctrine is possibly more significant than what it revealed about Stalin.... Now, how did [Khrushchev] discuss their [Stalin's victims'] guilt or innocence? He didn't mention one of them by name ... He got right to basic Communist fundamentals: he said, I investigated their class of social origin, and 60 per cent were working class ... therefore it is inconceivable that there could have been 70 per cent treasonable.... And in that one statement, Khrushchev revealed that he was a fundamental Marxist-Leninist in exactly the same mold as Stalin ..."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.62

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E52U6M

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5996

item Program Number 63

"Is It Possible to Be a Good Governor? [1967]"

Guests: Reagan, Ronald.

6 July 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 74 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 13

Program details: This first appearance of Ronald Reagan on Firing Line took place six months after he had been sworn in as governor. "There is much speculation," WFB begins, "on the subject of his future, speculation which I intend to avoid, because the purpose of this program is to ask whether it is possible to be a good governor. By that I mean this: Are we now so dependent on the Federal Government that the individual state is left without the scope to make its own crucial decisions?" A meaty discussion ranging from the way the states in turn squeeze the local communities, to comparative welfare payments in different states, to a favorite subject of WFB's: as Mr. Reagan puts it, "I know I'm accused of oversimplifying, but it doesn't make sense to me for the Federal Government to ... insist that the only solution to our local problems is for them to take the money and then dispense it back to you in grants in which they tell you how to spend it from Washington, D.C. And of course, like an agent for a Hollywood actor, there's a certain carrying charge that's deducted in Washington before you get it back again."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.63

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E50RUS

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5997

item Program Number 64

"Is the World Funny?"

Guests: Marx, Groucho, 1891-1977.

7 July 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 74 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 14

Program details: The exchanges are frustrating at times, Mr. Marx being so relentlessly, well,Groucho. But it's fun and sometimes illuminating to see this mythic figure on someone else's turf. (The answer to the title question, by the way is: "No, it's damned sad.") GM: "I have said the things that no one else has dared to say." WFB: "Why? Why?" GM: "Because the audience loves it." WFB: "All right." GM: "If you have a general, like I had General Bradley on the quiz show--nice man, very nice man; might even conceivably be a good general--well, I kidded him all through the show and the audience loves that because they don't get a chance to do that to mayors or politicians or bank presidents..." WFB: "But it's very healthy, isn't it?" GM: "Yes, it is. There's not enough of it."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.64

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003GXE9QE

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5998

item Program Number 65

"Vietnam"

Guests: Vaughn, Robert, 1932-

8 July 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 74 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 15

Program details: Mr. Vaughn--who in his best-known TV role, Napoleon Solo on The Man from UNCLE, hunted bad guys on behalf of the United Nations--was on record as saying that "the war in Vietnam cannot be rationalized by moral man." His reasons go back to the Geneva accord of 1954 and the ways in which the United States abetted Ngo Dinh Diem in avoiding elections in 1956. RV: "I don't believe that we can stop the spread of Communism by sacrificing the principles of democracy." An often heated discussion that helps us focus on the whole background to the late-Sixties divisions.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.65

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G707OJW

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/5999

item Program Number 66

"The Ghetto"

Guests: Clark, Kenneth Bancroft, 1914-

28 August 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 74 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 16

Program details: Kenneth Clark's work had been cited by Earl Warren in a decision outlawing segregated schools, but on the basis of something Mr. Clark had recently said, WFB wonders whether integration is no longer his main priority. KC: "I think that what has become increasingly clear to me is the limitation of the American people in terms of concern for human beings. I think there is now clear evidence that the vast majority of Americans are perfectly willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of children who are brown on the altar of race. I think that it is clear that de facto segregated schools in the North are as damaging and detrimental to the human spirit and human potential as the segregated schools which we fought so valiantly against in the South." A sometimes-depressing show, but one that gives real insight into how our country's efforts at integration look from the ghetto.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.66

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6000

item Program Number 67

"Municipal Government"

Guests: Yorty, Sam, 1909-

28 August 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 74 : 5

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 17

Program details: It was two years since the Watts riots, and Mayor Yorty was regularly attacked by his fellow Democrats for the way he handled that situation. But, as Mr. Buckley says, "he is well equipped to fight back." WFB: "Do you consider yourself actively, or negligibly, responsible for the Watts crisis?" SY: "... I wouldn't want to consider myself responsible for the explosion, and neither will I consider myself responsible for the two summers during which Los Angeles has not had an explosion while other cities have had it." The discussion ranges productively from the vagaries of our judicial system, to the possible effects of television in stirring up racial animosities, to the details of how the LAPD handled Watts.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.67

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6001

item Program Number 68

"A Foreign Policy for the GOP"

Guests: Percy, Charles H., 1919-

11 September 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 74 : 6

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 18

Program details: Senator Percy is a bit given to the stump-speech mode ("I truly believe that we will fight Communism just as effectively, if not more so, [by not] fighting it just in Havana and in Hanoi. We have to fight Communism in Watts; we have to fight it in Newark, and we have to fight it in Harlem; and we have to fight it by building a better America there, and not giving any chance for a Communist society to point to the hypocrisy of America and say that the American dream is only available to some people"), but we do come down to earth periodically, with concrete observations about, e.g., Yugoslavia, Poland,and Red China.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.68

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003GXE9QO

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6002

item Program Number 69

"The Future of the GOP"

Guests: Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913-1994.

14 September 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 74 : 7

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 19

Program details: Mr. Nixon, attempting to come back after losing the presidential election in 1960 and the California gubernatorial election in 1962, casts his remarks so as to hold onto conservatives who had voted for Goldwater without losing the many Americans who had not voted for Goldwater. The result is mostly bland, but there is considerable historical interest in encountering the pre-presidential Nixon: "Naturally I'm a prejudiced witness... But I believe that as this campaign in 1968 unfolds, that the nation will see that the new Republican Party is one which advocates change, but advocates change in a different way from the irresponsibles. And I mean by that, that in changing those things that are wrong in America, we must not destroy the things that are right. That to me is the essence of true conservatism."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.69

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E52U6W

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6003

item Program Number 70

"Vietnam and the GOP"

Guests: Morton, Thruston B. (Thruston Ballard), 1907-1982.

25 September 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 74 : 8

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 20

Program details: Senator Morton had been known, WFB reminds us, as "a middle-of-the-roader with perhaps a little granitic anti-Communism." Then suddenly he had come out for various measures, including increasing trade with the Soviet Union and disengaging from Vietnam, that had dismayed many Republicans, not least because they wondered if this was a harbinger of the 1968 Republican platform. One may sometimes feel during this hour that Senator Morton is hedging his bets, but the conversation does bring out some of the ways in which the scene changed during the mid Sixties. TM: "When Mr. Eisenhower left office there were six hundred men in uniform. He thought, as I thought then, that if we helped these people to offset aggression--if we helped them to resist--they would do the job themselves. Now we've Americanized the war, and in my book it's an entirely different premise. They're not fighting for themselves."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.70

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6004

item Program Number 71

"Medicare"

Guests: Cohen, Wilbur J. (Wilbur Joseph), 1913-1987.

25 September 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 74 : 9

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 21

Program details: Mr. Cohen's public career had begun, as WFB reminds us, in the Roosevelt Administration, where he was research head of the Committee on Economic Security, which drafted the original Social Security Act. In this return engagement in Washington, he was largely responsible for the recently enacted Medicare. Mr. Cohen speaks compellingly of the needs of our country, although in ways that lead his host to ask, "Have you arrived in your mind at a point beyond which you wouldn't, for instance, want a tax--on the grounds that you were interfering with the free function of human beings?" WJC: "I think there is such a point. I don't know exactly where it is." WFB: "Maybe you could think of it on this program and make headlines." WJC: "Yes. It really would, wouldn't it?"

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.71

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003GXE9QY

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6005

item Program Number 72

"Is There a New God?"

Guests: Robinson, John A. T. (John Arthur Thomas), 1919-1983.

6 October 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 74 : 10

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 22

Program details: Many of Bishop Robinson's fellow Anglicans would subscribe to WFB's assertion that "if this were an age in which it was fashionable to go after heresy, I would be addressing tonight the former Bishop of Woolwich," although it would be hard to either substantiate or refute that assertion on the basis of this exchange, in which His Grace is relentlessly bland and benevolent. JATR: "Christians like myself ... feel in their bones that so much of this traditional language is not wrong if it makes God real for people, well and good, but for a good many it makes him remote and unreal. It's not basically any new scientific discovery but simply catching up on the fact that the traditional set of answers is rather like the set of answers that you got in medieval Christianity, which no longer corresponded to questions people were really asking."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.72

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6006

item Program Number 73

"The English Conservatives"

Guests: Worsthorne, Peregrine.

6 October 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 74 : 11

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 23

Program details: A bracing discussion of British politics in particular and politics in general--e.g., the degree to which a candidate, once elected, can or cannot carry out the platform on which he campaigned. PW: "And I think where I would disagree with Mr. Buckley, primarily, is that he is a great doctrinaire, a great dogmatist--passionately believes in certain things, passionately disbelieves in certain things, and thinks it's very important to send out anathemas against certain kinds of politicians and be very enthusiastic in favor of others. I don't see it like that; ... the essence of my kind of conservatism really is that it is rather pragmatic and judges by results.... It's rather an 18th-century attitude; yours is essentially a modern one."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.73

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6007

item Program Number 74

"The Union in Modern Society"

Guests: Jenkins, Clive.

7 October 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 74 : 12

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 24

Program details: Mr. Jenkins's white-collar union, 50,000 strong, had lined up with Britain's militant Left, frequently finding Harold Wilson's Labour government too soft on capitalism. To Mr. Buckley's opening question--"In a class-conscious society are there grounds for thinking of the monopoly labor unions as a class enemy?"--he replies: "But of course there's no such thing as a monopoly labor union. This is one of the favorite tricks of the anti-working-class publicists. After all, the true monopolies are those who manufacture exclusively or market exclusively. And labor unions are perhaps an ineffective but certainly the best kind of weapon the worker's got against the kind of monopolies Mr. Buckley adores," and we're off to the races.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.74

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6008

item Program Number 75

"Is Socialism the Answer?"

Guests: Foot, Michael, 1913-

7 October 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 74 : 13

Transcript: Box/Folder 161 : 25

Program details: Mr. Foot was known as a leader of the leftward most wing of his generally left-wing party. Even so, the degree of his commitment to socialism, as brought out by his host's questioning, is breathtaking. WFB: "... Do I understand that you would pass laws that would forbid him [a hypothetical retired candy-store owner] from taking his savings out of the country?" MF: "I'm in favor of the right of people to move to other countries and take what belongings they've got, and I would like to see a world in which people could move freely across all these frontiers, and indeed I would like to see the frontiers abolished. But I do not believe that you can do that until you have established a full-employment society over many years in different parts of the world." WFB: "In other words, you wouldn't permit it." MF: "No, I wouldn't permit it at the present time."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.75

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6009

item Program Number 76

"War Crimes"

Guests: Schoenman, Ralph.

13 November 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 1

Program details: We get the flavor of this show from Mr. Schoenman's reply the fourth time Mr. Buckley asks his opening question (to which our guest had yet to give an answer, even a dismissive one). WFB asks: "When last did you notice a war crime committed by a Communist nation?" RS replies: "Now, the reasons for the tribunal and the reason for the bringing together of the members of the tribunal were the enormous, overwhelming prima-facie case documented largely in the Western media concerning the crimes of the United States in Vietnam. I don't think that it is sufficiently understood that the sole object of this war is that of devastation of a small people, occupation of their land, and the rape of their resources."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.76

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6010

item Program Number 77

"The Struggle for Democracy in Brazil"

Guests: Lacerda, Carlos.

13 November 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 2

Program details: Mr. Lacerda had been known for decades as a vigorous opponent of most of Brazil's political class. Today's discussion focuses on the difficulties of establishing democracy in a region traditionally ruled by an oligopoly and on the limitations of democracy per se: CL: "In Latin America you cannot speak of freedom in an abstract sense. Freedom is connected with lots of things such as food, such as education. And such as real freedom for all-not only for those who are in power. In other words, we are a little tired of just the juridical aspects of democracy."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.77

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6011

item Program Number 78

"Do We Need Public Schools?"

Guests: Van den Haag, Ernest.

11 December 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 3

Program details: As Mr. Buckley rephrases the title question, "I'd like to begin by asking you whether the abolition of the public schools is in effect something of a laboratory discussion or whether you think it likely to emerge as a genuine public issue." The latter, replies Professor van den Haag; "However, Bill, I wouldn't call it abolition." Instead, what he is advocating--and he was one of the first to do so--is vouchers, permitting parents to exercise a choice of schools. This would eventually become a staple of national discussion, but Professor van den Haag was admirably prescient, as well as informative on the question of what was wrong with the public schools."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.78

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6012

item Program Number 79

"Mobilizing the Poor"

Guests: Alinsky, Saul David, 1909-1972.

11 December 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 4

Program details: The common aim of all Mr. Alinsky's organizations is to mobilize the poor--mobilize them by whatever mean comes to hand (marches, sit-ins)--to demand decent housing conditions or whatever the local need may be. This one is a knock-down, drag-out from start to finish. SA: "I refuse to debate with him [David Riesman], which only came up recently ... I made the remark that any time I see any of his stuff, it sort of makes me feel like a grizzled, battle-scarred dog going down the street while way back, say, six blocks back or so, this little whining Pekingese comes out sniffing, yipping, and licking and growling at my leavings. And I'm not going to waste my time turning around."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.79

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SQFQHO

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6013

item Program Number 80

"Is There a Need for Intelligence?"

Guests: Dulles, Allen Welsh, 1893-1969.

14 December 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 : 5

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 5

Program details: Why is the CIA so widely derogated? Is it merely an expression of Vietnam-era anti-Americanism, or does it have to do with a (possibly naive) perception of dishonesty? Mr. Dulles was a legendary figure: his activity on the world stage had begun when, as a very young man, he attended the Versailles Conference; he had organized the CIA, on the foundation of the wartime OSS, and had given it its shape as its first director. However, this show suffers from the degree to which, although four years retired from active duty, Mr. Dulles was imbued with the ethos of secrecy. WFB: "What is it that gave the CIA its bad name? Is it the fact that you have to lie?" AD: "No, I don't think- Let me say as to that, how do you mean 'lie'? ..." WFB: "Well, for instance, the President of the United States lied about the U-2 plane, and he was thought to have done so at the suggestion of the CIA ..." AD: "Well, that was a decision made at a very high level, by the President himself. And I don't think the mere fact you don't admit everything, that doesn't mean you're lying all the time." Note: Title on transcript is "Is There a Need for Central Intelligence."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.80

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6014

item Program Number 81

"Was Goldwater a Mistake?"

Guests: Hatfield, Mark O., 1922-

14 December 1967

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 : 6

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 6

Program details: Senator Hatfield, from the liberal side of the Republican Party, positions himself perfectly in his opening answer: "Goldwater wasn't a mistake in a parliamentary sense, because the Republican Party deliberately nominated [him] in open convention," after primaries and state conventions made it clear he was grass-roots Republicans' choice. However, "I don't think Senator Goldwater as a person was rejected so much as was Senator Goldwater's basic approach to problems. He tended to evoke fear." Much is discussed--from the leadership qualities a President needs, to the different factions within the Republican Party--but Senator Hatfield, who attributes much of Goldwater's fear-evoking to his "off-the-cuff types of responses," never says anything that could disqualify him as the Republican vice-presidential candidate in 1968.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.81

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004VGGY40

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6015

item Program Number 82

"The John Birch Society"

Guests: Draskovich, Slobodan M., 1910-

8 January 1968

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 7

Program details: As Mr. Buckley recounts, Slobodan Draskovich--who had spent four years in a Nazi concentration camp during the War and, two decades before that, had seen a band of Communist assassins kill his father--had in 1958 become a charter member of the John Birch Society. Then in 1966 he publicly resigned from the Society, on the grounds of dissatisfaction with Robert Welch's leadership. This proves to be (as one might expect from Mr. Draskovich's background) a rich discussion of how a person judges whether a flawed organization is still doing more good than harm. SD: "I thought, and I was free to take that view, that beyond the National Review there was need for an organization which would reach not only the intellectuals [and] fight the Communists -- on a philosophical level and a literary level -- but would reach many more people."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.82

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6016

item Program Number 83

"The Economic Crisis"

Guests: Friedman, Milton, 1912-

8 January 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 :7

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 8

Program details: Perhaps the economy had not yet truly reached the point of crisis, but it was beginning to feel the strain of President Johnson's attempts to keep the guns and butter coming at ever faster rates. This splendid economics lesson from one of the country's leading teachers begins with a little historical biography (MF: "Keynes, himself, was very much of a scientist. I think he was wrong on various things, but he certainly had a scientific approach. And indeed, I've always regarded it as a great tragedy that Keynes died when he did. Because one of his great capacities was flexibility"), and then goes onto the importance of monetary policy, how we might better handle taxation and welfare, and much else.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.83

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SQFQL0

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6017

item Program Number 84

"Was the Civil-Rights Crusade a Mistake?"

Guests: Cambridge, Godfrey, 1929-1976.

15 January 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 : 8

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 9

Program details: Mr. Cambridge was sometimes accused of being too unwilling to put himself forward as a civil-rights leader ("I have a phrase where I say, 'A Negro leader is anybody with $5 and a suit.' It's true, white people will listen to anybody; they'll stop a guy in the street: 'What do you feel?' 'Whitney Young, you're on today, say something nice.'' No, you didn't say it. OK, we'll go to Martin tomorrow?' "). But it's clear from this conversation--sometimes rambling, but always full of interesting detail--that while Mr. Cambridge admits that the civil-rights movement has made mistakes, he cannot agree that it was a mistake.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.84

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SQFQN8

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6018

item Program Number 85

"Student Power"

Guests: Theobald, Robert.

15 January 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 : 9

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 10

Program details: Campus disruptions, some of them violent, had been going on for a full three years and were about to escalate. Students were demanding not only an end to the Vietnam War but also significant roles in deciding what should be in the college curriculum and who should teach it. Host and guest sometimes talk at cross-purposes, but mostly this is a productive exploration of what might usefully be changed and what are the limits of change. RT: "I approve of student power in certain definitions. I very deeply disapprove of some of the definitions of student power ... I think that some of the statements of student power have essentially said, 'We have the right not only to live our own lives, but to take over everybody else's life as well.' And this seems to me to be a very dangerous thing."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.85

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6019

item Program Number 86

"The Ghost of the Army-McCarthy Hearings: Part I"

Guests: St. Clair, James. : Cohn, Roy M. : Cherne, Leo, 1912- : De Antonio, Emile.

19 January 1968

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 11

Program details: We begin each half of this two-part Firing Line by viewing a clip from Mr. de Antonio's film, which was an edited version of the Army-McCarthy hearings: first the passage known as The Cropped Photograph (which had been cropped, Joseph Welch argued, to make it appear that Army Secretary Stevens was talking alone with Roy Cohn's friend David Schine, when in fact other people were present), and then the passage that includes Mr. Welch's coup de grace, "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" Not surprisingly, the participants frequently reach the shouting stage, and they frequently rehash what they or their friends had said 14 years earlier; but for anyone who did not see the hearings at the time, or who has forgotten the details, this show gives us another chance to make up our own minds. RC: "The fact is, Joe Welch, whom I admired very much, at that point was not somebody rising to protect Mr. Fisher. He was a good, professional lawyer coming in for the kill...." JSC: "I couldn't disagree with you more, Roy. He was a good trial lawyer, and this was a serious tactical mistake on Senator McCarthy's part ... [but] there was a deal made between you and Mr. Welch ..."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.86

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6020

item Program Number 87

"The Ghost of the Army-McCarthy Hearings: Part II"

Guests: Cohn, Roy M. : St. Clair, James. : Cherne, Leo, 1912- : De Antonio, Emile.

19 January 1968

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 12

Program details: We begin each half of this two-part Firing Line by viewing a clip from Mr. de Antonio's film, which was an edited version of the Army-McCarthy hearings: first the passage known as The Cropped Photograph (which had been cropped, Joseph Welch argued, to make it appear that Army Secretary Stevens was talking alone with Roy Cohn's friend David Schine, when in fact other people were present), and then the passage that includes Mr. Welch's coup de grace, "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" Not surprisingly, the participants frequently reach the shouting stage, and they frequently rehash what they or their friends had said 14 years earlier; but for anyone who did not see the hearings at the time, or who has forgotten the details, this show gives us another chance to make up our own minds. RC: "The fact is, Joe Welch, whom I admired very much, at that point was not somebody rising to protect Mr. Fisher. He was a good, professional lawyer coming in for the kill...." JSC: "I couldn't disagree with you more, Roy. He was a good trial lawyer, and this was a serious tactical mistake on Senator McCarthy's part ... [but] there was a deal made between you and Mr. Welch ..."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.87

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6021

item Program Number 88

"The Wallace Crusade"

Guests: Wallace, George C. (George Corley), 1919-1998.

24 January 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 : 10

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 13

Program details: WFB had sharply criticized Mr. Wallace in print, both for his once-adamant attachment to segregation and for his New Deal statism, and Mr. Wallace came on Firing Line determined not to give an inch. GW: "Name one thing in Alabama that I have supported on the governmental level that you are against." WFB: "You want the state to take care of hospitalization, you want the state to take care of old people, you want the state to take care of the poor." GW: "Are you against caring for the poor and the old? ... I might say that no conservative in this country who comes out against looking after destitute elderly people ought to be elected to anything." WFB: "You call yourself a populist, right?" GW: "If you mean by a populist a man of the people, yes, I'm a populist. Let's get back to the old-age pension. Let's see, you're against Alabama's looking after the elderly destitute citizens of the state?" (The following month, Mr. Wallace would declare his third-party candidacy for President.)

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.88

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001MBTSJ0

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6022

item Program Number 89

"Wiretapping--Electronic Bugging"

Guests: Long, Edward V., 1908-

24 January 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 : 11

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 14

Program details: Senator Long, as WFB introduces him, "is regarded as the principal custodian of individual privacy in Washington.... Hardly a week goes by that Senator Long doesn't rise from his seat to demonstrate the latest use of American ingenuity against American privacy." But he proves not to be totalist in his objections, and from the discussion emerges a clear picture of the points at issue. As Mr. Buckley phrases it, "As a practical matter, I would like to know how much more certain it is that you and I can finish our lives peacefully, rather than at the business end of a mugging ... assuming that certain characteristically inclined criminals are bugged." Senator Long makes the point that many police chiefs "don't use it; they say that it's a dirty business"; his answer: only for"national security," and then "only under court order."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.89

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SQFQO2

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6023

item Program Number 90

"Philby and Treason"

Guests: West, Rebecca, Dame, 1892-

26 February 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 : 12

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 15

Program details: Dame Rebecca, who had recently published The New Meaning of Treason, was invited on Firing Line to discuss Kim Philby and his spectacular defection to the Soviet Union. For connoisseurs of a certain sort of British intellectual, this show is hard to beat. RW: "... you see, it is historically interesting that he wasn't really of a very important family. He was of a very charming family. But he wasn't of a very important family." WFB: "If he had been important, he wouldn't have been discovered yet, do you mean?" RW: "No. What I mean is that Philby had all the slight thrill that his father gave people. You see, his father was pro-Arab. And the British Establishment, the British upper class, has always been pro-Arab-I think because the British upper class has always been very fond of horses-" WFB: "No, come on." RW: "-and it all works together. Yes, that's quite true.... A great many of the English upper-class people approved of Philby because he was on the right side with those Bedouin chaps."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.90

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E50RV2

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6024

item Program Number 91

"The Culture of the Left"

Guests: Muggeridge, Malcolm, 1903-1990.

26 February 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 : 13

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 16

Program details: "He calls himself," says WFB in his introduction to the first of Mr. Muggeridge's several appearances on Firing Line, "a man of the Left... His apostasies from the Left are, however, so numerous as to leave him a member of the Left in the same sense that, say, Bishop Pike is a member of the Episcopal Church." But let Mr. Muggeridge speak for himself: "Well, Bill, I think you must distinguish between being a member of the Left and being a liberal. I regard liberalism as the great disease of our society, and when I said that people like Mrs. Roosevelt, admirable though they were in intentions, would be seen to have done more damage than people like Hitler and Stalin, I meant precisely that. Hitler and Stalin got a lot of people killed and precipitated the great war, but they are now discredited. But liberalism, which has been the dominant philosophy in the most influential and powerful nations of the West, continues to thrive despite the fact that every time it's been applied, the consequences have been disastrous."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.91

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E52U7G

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6025

item Program Number 92

"The Anti-Communist Left"

Guests: Lasky, Melvin J.

27 February 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 : 14

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 17

Program details: The gaff had been blown on Encounter magazine: this splendid journal, which, as WFB puts it, "served for a vital period as the principal link between English and American intellectuals," had been funded by the CIA. "There was a near universal dismay, and editors and writers fled from Encounter as from an earthquake or a flood. Mr. Lasky stayed on." In this illuminating discussion, Mr. Lasky defends his journal ("anybody who has looked through any one single issue and thinks that anybody pulled any strings ... has three more guesses coming") and argues that "what was terribly important," in the ashes of World War II, and with the Soviet Union just over there on the other side of that Iron Curtain, "was that liberals, democrats, and socialists ... were to come to grips with the experience of what had happened to socialism in their time."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.92

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6026

item Program Number 93

"English Youth and Vietnam"

Guests: Martin, Ian. : Sears, Hilary. : Johnson, Gerry. : Mathews, Bob.

27 February 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 : 15

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 18

Program details: Our four guests-all left of center, all thoughtful and well spoken-give us a good perspective, by way of comparison, on our own student activism. One sample, from Mr. Martin: "When I look at the Vietnam War, for instance, I tend to think of it probably more in political terms than some of the Americans ... They tend to think of it very much in moral terms, I think, and if I had moral judgments I would make them. But the decisions I would come to on the Vietnam War would be far more objective, I think, than an American would make. I think it comes back to the fact that an American young lad of 18, 19, is going to have to fight there. I'm not."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.93

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6027

item Program Number 94

"Robert F. Kennedy"

Guests: Carter, Hodding, 1907-1972.

15 April 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 : 16

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 19

Program details: This discussion of Senator Kennedy and his prospects comes to us without the blurring of hindsight that would settle in two months later. Mr. Buckley reminds us of how Bobby was viewed in those days, even by many liberals: a ruthless tactician, a cynical exploiter of his dead brother, a master of political expediency. Mr. Carter (who had come to prominence in the Thirties and Forties attacking the likes of Governor Huey Long and Senator Theodore Bilbo) defends Senator Kennedy ably-but without softening the edges of this picture. One sample: WFB: "Under the circumstances, the burden is on you to find some cosmic consistency in [someone who] has taken every position there is to take on Vietnam, on Lyndon Johnson, on Joe McCarthy, on liberalism, on Chiang Kai-shek. For all I know, on you." HC: "I'm afraid to get cosmic, but I think he has been consistent in his reaction against labor racketeering, his reaction against the Mafia. They've gone underground, Hoffa went to jail, and Ross Barnett went back to private life. And I think in every case it has been in great part because of his unswerving determination to-uh-to do these people in."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.94

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6028

item Program Number 95

"The Wallace Movement"

Guests: Perez, Leander, 1891-1969.

15 April 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 : 17

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 20

Program details: We met George Wallace himself a few weeks ago (Firing Line 088); now that he has officially declared his candidacy, we meet one of his leading supporters. Listening to Judge Perez, born in Louisiana in 1891 and a specimen of one strain of the Old South, helps us, if we can stand it, to understand what men like Hodding Carter had been fighting against. LP: "First I would like to make a comment on Mr. Buckley's introduction, because there are a couple of notable errors. In the first place, I am not a racist. I might mention I am against the Federal Government using its coercive power to force racial integration upon an unwilling free people... " WFB: "Well, ... have you been widely misquoted? For instance, you're quoted as having said, 'Yes, the Negro is inherently immoral-yes, I think it's the brain capacity.' Is that a misquotation?" LP: "It's not a misquotation. It's the truth." WFB: "Uh-huh" LP: "Because I know Negroes. We have a number of Negroes in our community, and I know that basically and mentally they are immoral."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.95

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6029

item Program Number 96

"The New Left"

Guests: Dellinger, David T., 1915-

25 April 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 : 18

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 21

Program details: Some of us have forgotten that Mr. Dellinger was not "one of the Kids": he was old enough to have been jailed for refusing to register for the draft in World War II. At the time of this show he was best known as the organizer of the big march on the Pentagon; in a few months' time he would become one of the Chicago 8 (later known as the Chicago 7, after Bobby Seale was separated from the other defendants), prosecuted for their disruption of the Democratic National Convention. Today, guest and host come out swinging and stop only at the final bell: DD: "But anyway, I think it's very important in terms of the New Left to realize that there are no 'foremost peaceniks.' Now, ... for one reason or another, the press focuses more on me than on some other people. But the strength, the heart, the guts of the movement comes not from leaders but from people who are fed up with ... American society in many of its manifestations ..." WFB: "Well, doesn't everybody say that? You know: It wasn't really I-it was all the people who provided all the work and inspiration. That's sort of an after-dinner affectation, isn't it?" DD: "No, it's not an affectation. You know, that's one of the problems-that we can't sort of take people seriously in their sincerity."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.96

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6030

item Program Number 97

"The Middle East [1968]"

Guests: Utley, Freda, 1898-

25 April 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 75 : 19

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 22

Program details: In this crackling discussion, Miss Utley takes a position vis-a-vis the Middle East not unlike that of many British and American foreign-service professionals-but with a special twist born of her study of Communism. WFB: "She feels the United States is committing a great error by its apparent hostility to the Arab world. I should like to begin by asking Miss Utley whether she believes that that hostility, if that is the word for it, is primarily a reaction to the Communist support of the Arabs." FU: "No, I put it the other way around. The Arabs only turned to Moscow when they could not get any help or any fulfillment of their national aspirations from the West. The analogy I'm always making [is to] ... the Far East.... In 1923, after the First World War, when the West would not give up its imperialist privileges in China, Sun Yat-sen turned to Moscow for aid. This collaboration between the Nationalists in China and Moscow didn't last long ... but this was the beginning of the roots of Communism in China."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.97

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6031

item Program Number 98

"Can We Win in Vietnam?"

Guests: Kahn, Herman, 1922-

7 May 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 76 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 23

Program details: The short answer to the title question is: "Yes, if we don't lose the war here at home. Mr. Kahn, a veteran student of military affairs, points out in this informative discussion that the Tet Offensive seriously demoralized our own leaders even though we wound up winning that engagement-because they had not believed that North Vietnam could, at that stage, mobilize an attack of that magnitude. As for the press, it is reflecting the culture it lives in. HK: We don't live in an heroic culture, so you can't report heroism... We don't live in a religious culture, so you can't report it as an anti-Communist crusade-that looks indecent. So you have to report it at the human level-the tired Marine, the child-mother, and so on ..."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.98

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6032

item Program Number 99

"The Avant Garde"

Guests: Ginsberg, Allen, 1926-

7 May 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 76 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 24

Program details: Some installments of Firing Line would not lose much if the video faded out, but this one is an exception: Mr. Ginsberg's hair (as WFB puts it, "he will wear his hair long until everybody else does; then he will cut it"), his glittering eyes, and the little harmonium with which he accompanies his chant of Ommm are half the story. But, agree with him or not, the words are worth hearing too, as an encapsulation of this time: "One of the problems is, critically speaking, no one can understand the problem of police brutality in America, or the police-state we are going through as I see it, without understanding the language of the police. The language that the police use on hippies or Negroes is such that I can't pronounce it to the middle-class audience. So the middle-class audience doesn't have the data or some portion of the data to judge the situation between the Negroes and the police."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.99

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E50RVC

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6033

item Program Number 100

"Governing the Cities"

Guests: Stokes, Carl.

24 May 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 76 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 162 : 25

Program details: Mr. Stokes was the first black mayor of a major American city, and he had inherited an explosive situation-due partly, as he tells us here, to the patterns of migration from the rural South to the large Northern cities; partly to the general discontent in America in the Sixties. CS: "So much of the reason I got the kind of vote I got from the Negro community-close to 96 per cent-... was because of a great investment of hope in me ... Now, however, the great burden upon me is to produce ... If I don't produce and start showing where you can touch the foundation of a new house going up or a new business within the black community that's going to produce jobs right there, then the reaction toward me, at the minimum, would be the same as toward anybody else, any other mayor whatever his color, and maybe-" WFB: "Even worse." CS: "Even worse, because, of course, of the level of hope to which I had raised the community."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.100

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6034

item Program Number 101

"The Republicans and the Cities"

Guests: Taft, Seth Chase, 1922-

24 May 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 76 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 1

Program details: This leisurely and productive discussion with a nephew of Robert A. Taft starts with the question: "Is there a 'Republican' as distinct from a 'Democratic' approach to the problem of the cities?" Mr. Taft is inclined to think there is, and that it has to do with "the individual doing things for himself: "After you're sure they care, then you can start talking about what help do you have to give them to make it worth while for them to care; what kind of elements of discrimination do you have to get rid of; what kind of historical inadequate education, so that a guy doesn't know how to use a hammer or a paintbrush to fix up his own property ... You'd be amazed at what happens if you talk somebody into growing some grass in front of where they live, or slapping some paint on a porch in front of their house-this makes a tremendous difference."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.101

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6035

item Program Number 102

"Armies of the Night"

Guests: Mailer, Norman.

28 May 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 76 : 5

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 2

Program details: This surprisingly genial conversation starts with the subject of Norman Mailer-a-s most conversations with Norman Mailer do--and goes on from there. WFB: "Oh, sure, I'm very anxious to discuss [Mr. Mailer's latest book, Armies of the Night]... [which] I think everyone should read, because I think it's an extremely interesting and enjoyable book, if that's the right word for it." NM: "Well, I wish someone on the right wing would write a book that would be as good, because it would be a great help to us on the Left. I wanted to help the right wing understand-" WFB: "You wouldn't notice it if it were written." NM: "No, I would notice it. You know I'm a lover of literature." WFB: "Yes." NM: "I think Evelyn Waugh is a marvelous writer.... Unfortunately, he's not an American." WFB: "Yeah. Unfortunately, he's dead." NM: "That too."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.102

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001MBTSJK

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6036

item Program Number 103

"Journals of News and Opinion"

Guests: Fuerbringer, Otto.

28 May 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 76 : 6

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 3

Program details: Shop talk at a high level between the man who had run the week-to-week operations of Time for two decades and the man who founded and has the final say at National Review. Time does not, as we're reminded on this show, maintain the fiction that most of our daily newspapers do-the fiction of reporting the news "straight" and commenting only in editorials or "news analyses." As for National Review, it used to bill itself on every cover as "a journal of fact and opinion." WFB: "At some point, the brass at Time magazine will decide, will it not, whether it desires the election of Nixon or let's say Humphrey ... How will that communicate itself to the readers-or am I being terribly naive?" OF: "Oh, I would say you're fairly naive, yeah. I think there's never been any doubt as to whom Time was for in any election."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.103

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6037

item Program Number 104

"Unrest on the Campus"

Guests: Boles, Allan. : Rapoport, Roger. : Kramer, Joel.

20 June 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 76 : 7

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 4

Program details: "Unrest" was becoming a euphemism for vandalism, hostage-taking, and outright rebellion-Columbia being, as WFB puts it, "the goriest recent example-I thought it charitable not to invite the editor of the Columbia Spectator to discuss the question." Our student guests place the problem squarely on the shoulders of the college administrations-and, while we're at it, the Judaeo-Christian tradition. RR: "You can start right down the line starting with Columbia and Grayson Kirk, whose idea of running a university is to start out by putting a $450,000 Rembrandt on your office wall to let everybody in Harlem know that you're there."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.104

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6038

item Program Number 105

"Violence"

Guests: Wertham, Fredric, 1895-1981.

20 June 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 76 : 9

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 5

Program details: Martin Luther King had been killed in April, Bobby Kennedy the first week in June. Dr. Wertham, a practicing psychiatrist, was a longtime clinical student of violence, and in this rich discussion he helps us cut through the rhetorical excesses. FW: "After the killing of Dr. King and after the killing of Robert Kennedy many, many people ... gave their opinions, and I would like to tell you first that everybody seems to know where violence comes from-they know where the riots come from, where the wars come from, where murder comes from. I'm the only one who doesn't know, so I'm considered an expert-at least I know one should find it out. But this particular notion that everybody's responsible, that everybody's guilty, I consider not only wrong but very pernicious. Because if everybody is responsible, nobody is responsible. If everybody is guilty, nobody's guilty. And this is just one of the great evasions."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.105

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6039

item Program Number 106

"The Rib Uncaged: Women and the Church"

Guests: Ruether, Rosemary Radford. : Daly, Mary, 1928- : Callahan, Sidney Cornelia.

24 June 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 76 : 10

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 6

Program details: This show proves to be less of a bare-knuckle battle and more of a conversation than one might have expected, ranging back and forth from the historical development of Christianity--especially Catholic Christianity--to the effect of women's changing roles in the secular world. One sample: RR: "I am more interested in this, sort of, threatening the Church with women; it's mostly a way of breaking up the clerical bag, because I don't think you can put that into it without the bag breaking." MD: "Luckily the clerical bag is falling apart. Both forces are working at the same time." WFB: "When you refer to 'the clerical bag' do you mean the series of perquisites that they uniquely enjoy?" MD: "Yeah. I think the whole concept of ministry, a special state of life ... I think that we will have much more community ministry, part of each other." SC: "That whole rectory culture. You know, Christian gentlemen-there's a whole thing that goes with it."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.106

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6040

item Program Number 107

"Obscenity and the Supreme Court"

Guests: Rembar, Charles. : Kuh, Richard H.

24 June 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 76 : 11

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 7

Program details: Our guests have both spent more time with pornography than either might have liked. As WFB introduces them, "Mr. Rembar is uniquely situated to write about those trials [listed in the subtitle to his book], since he was in all cases counsel for the defense and the author of the triumphant legal strategy." Mr. Kuh, meanwhile, "observed the anti-obscenity laws being shot down one after the other and elaborated a theory on how to write statutes that would control the traffic of smut in such a way as to get them by the Supreme Court." Mr. Rembar proves not to be a First Amendment absolutist (although he maintains that, "so far as books are concerned-the printed word-the government ought to stay out of things"), and he is willing to entertain Mr. Kuh's arguments, e.g., regarding books with highly explicit pictures, and regarding sales to children. At one point, indeed, Mr. Buckley is moved to say, "We're making progress here (we're not used to that)."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.107

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6041

item Program Number 108

"Has the Republican Party Anything to Offer?"

Guests: Ford, Gerald R., 1913-

8 July 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 76 : 12

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 8

Program details: Gerald Ford had been in the unenviable position of becoming the House Republicans' leader following the 1964 debacle, in which his troops were reduced to a minority of 140, as against 295 Democrats. Then again, as Mr. Buckley suggests, "there was nowhere to go but up, and the GOP had rebounded nicely in 1966. Mr. Ford--as the nation would learn more extensively a few years later on--is not the liveliest speaker, but he does a good job of explaining what he and his colleagues mean by constructive alternatives" to the Democrats' initiatives, and there are some good exchanges-e.g., on the minimum wage, and on Hubert Humphrey. WFB: "And [Humphrey] may have an interesting future." GF: "Well, not as interesting as he would like, but it is going to be interesting."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.108

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6042

item Program Number 109

"The Washington Press"

Guests: Means, Marianne. : Kraslow, David. : Broder, David S.

8 July 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 76 : 13

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 9

Program details: "The idea," WFB begins, "is to discuss the Washington press and see if we can throw more light on it than it sometimes seems to throw on Washington." Not much of what he and his guests go on to say is a scoop (reporters tend to be liberal; the press helps bring candidates to prominence), but they say it so well. DB: "The last four years, it seems to me, the Republicans have received more sympathetic treatment in the Washington press than their performance deserves." WFB: "Is it because of the growing probity of the press or the contribution of Lyndon Johnson?" DB: "Probably more of the latter than the former. Also, I think there is always an interest in the out party and what it's doing. They stir up the fights, and we are in the business of ... being fight promoters."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.109

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6043

item Program Number 110

"Liberalism and the Intellectuals"

Guests: Mannes, Marya.

10 July 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 76 : 14

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 10

Program details: Another go at the often-asked question, "Why do intellectuals tend to be liberal? Miss Mannes's answer may not be especially startling, but she and her host strike sparks off each other in delightful ways. And, in retrospect, an exchange like the following illuminates what would be different about the Reagan Presidency. MM: "You know, there's been awfully little fun in conservative and Republican politics, terribly little fun." WFB: "You don't think Herbert Hoover was fun, huh?" MM: "Not riotously, no....I think that the gaiety, the fun, the vitality, the feeling of adventure has resided far more, certainly in the last decades, in the Democratic end of things than in the Republican."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.110

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6044

item Program Number 111

"The Socialist Workers' Party and American Politics"

Guests: Halstead, Fred. : Boutelle, Paul.

10 July 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 76 : 15

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 11

Program details: WFB starts off by reminding us that "the Socialist Workers are the principal political heirs of Leon Trotsky in this country," and one might expect a certain amount of acrimony to follow. In fact, while the ideological edge is always there, many of the exchanges are great fun. FH: "I don't know that it's the obligation of any militant to be rude. I wish the capitalists would be gentlemanly toward us." WFB: "Yeah." FH: "Occasionally, they throw us in jail, and things like that." WFB: "Well, considering that you want to sort of, you know, do away with capitalists-" FH: "... Not with the individual human beings-with the system. I suspect that even you would find a place in the socialist system." WFB: "Well, sure. I'm a very good typist, and I'm sure you'd have a lot of forms." FH: "Maybe lectures, on the past...."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.111

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6045

item Program Number 112

"Capital Punishment"

Guests: Capote, Truman, 1924-

3 September 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 76 : 16

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 12

Program details: Some of Mr. Capote's suggestions seem more interesting than practical (never let a psychopathic killer out of prison, but never let him know you're not going to let him out), but in the course of researching his book he acquired a deep knowledge of the homicidal mind and the implications for deterrence, punishment, and rehabilitation. "I'd known this boy was a psychopathic murderer, and I had known that if he went back into the prison population that it was inevitable that he would kill somebody again. So, I mean, there he is loose in the prison population still, and, of course, cannot be returned to death row and cannot be executed, having got a commutation. So what is the answer to this problem, where you have compulsive homicidal minds who are incapable of controlling this violence of theirs?"

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.112

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SQFQRE

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6046

item Program Number 113

"The Hippies"

Guests: Yablonsky, Lewis. : Sanders, Ed. : Kerouac, Jack, 1922-1969.

3 September 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 76 : 17

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 13

Program details: Hold onto your hat for this free-for-all among four men who aren't simply coming from different directions--they're in different universes. ES: "The problem with terms like 'hippie' is that they have a definition forced on them by the media . . . And you know, you can't rely on the name 'hippie' to include a human being, you know, everything about a particular human being. You know? . . ." LY: "I kinda disagree with that. I spent last year traveling around the country, various communes and various- Haight-Ashbury, Lower East Side, various city scenes, and there was an identifiable . . . people trying, searching for some loving solutions to society's ills, trying to tune in to the cosmos, whatever that means." ... WFB: "To what extent do you believe the Beat Generation is related to the hippies ... ?" JK: "I'm 46 years old, these kids are 18, but it's the same movement, which is apparently some kind of Dionysian movement, in late civilization, which I did not intend, any more than, I suppose, Dionysus did, or whatever, his name was. Although I'm not Dionysus to your Euripides, I should have been."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.113

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/product/B001MBTSK4

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6047

item Program Number 114

"Money Troubles"

Guests: Barr, Joseph. : Burns, Arthur Edward, 1908-1986.

9 September 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 76 : 18

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 14

Program details: The federal deficits were becoming a matter of serious worry, and not only to Republicans. Although Mr. Barr is a member of the Johnson Administration and Mr. Burns is a lifelong Democrat, both agree--and give compelling supporting evidence--that we need either to cut expenditures or to raise taxes (although Mr. Barr also explains cogently why, with our system of congressional appropriations, a decision to reduce expenditures may not reduce next year's expenditures very much). One sample: JB: "You're not going to get me in a partisan whipsaw right at the start. It [the failure to raise taxes] was the fault of the American people.... Every leader in the society-business, finance, academic, you name it-every leader said we were right, but the American people didn't agree with them. Sixty per cent of the American people said, No, you're wrong, we're gonna be worse off if we pay more taxes."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.114

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6048

item Program Number 115

"The McCarthy Phenomenon"

Guests: Lowenstein, Allard K.

9 September 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 15

Program details: The Eugene McCarthy Phenomenon, that is. Mr. Lowenstein, a vigorous opponent of our involvement in Vietnam, had spearheaded the anti-LBJ campaign, persuading Senator McCarthy to enter the Democratic primaries (having gone first, as WFB recalls, "to Senator Robert Kennedy, but was turned down, then Senator McGovern, ditto"). This lively duel with a man who would become a favorite Firing Line guest starts with Mr. Lowenstein's reluctance to back the Humphrey-Muskie ticket. WFB: "No, but they won't withdraw your nomination from the Democratic Party, surely. That's yours, correct?" AL: "Well ... The problem is that the possibility of running an alternative Democrat to split the vote among Democrats exists and [may not be] accompanied by massive defections from the Republicans who appreciate my public-spiritedness ..."WFB: "You mean, do I understand you?, that there would still be time for somebody to run on a pro-Humphrey ticket?" AL: "Yes." WFB: "But your name, however, would appear, geographically, under Humphrey's, wouldn't it?" AL: "Uh, I think it's geographically right of Humphrey's, which is perhaps more sinister than it seems.""

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.115

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6049

item Program Number 116

"The Cold War"

Guests: Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 1928-

23 September 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 16

Program details: A splendid discussion of the Cold War with a man whose views are informed by his Polish upbringing, his academic studies, and his experience at the Policy Planning Council of the State Department. One sample: WFB: "I should like to begin by asking Mr. Brzezinski whether he anticipated the Soviet Union's crushing of Czechoslovakia." ZB: "... Back in June, I thought they would invade ... I thought at that time that the Soviet Union could not afford to let Czechoslovakia go the way it was going. By August I was inclined to feel that ... the Soviet Union had developed certain internal incapacities for deliberate brutal action.... On the eve of the actual invasion ... I thought that rather there would be a change of leadership, rather than an invasion...." WFB: "Now, might a careful student of your writings infer that [the invasion] took you by surprise as a result of your own apparent recent addiction to a thesis of deideologization which in fact history isn't validating?" ZB: "A sloppy reader might infer that." WFB: "Well, would the careful reader of your writing be careful not to read certain of your books?" ZB: "No, but a sloppy reader might skip passages, and just find the ones that confirm his view."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.116

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6050

item Program Number 117

"Some Problems of the Freshman Senator"

Guests: Goodell, Charles E. (Charles Ellsworth), 1926-1987.

23 September 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 17

Program details: "When Governor Rockefeller appointed Charles Goodell to the vacancy left in the Senate on the death of Senator Robert Kennedy," WFB recalls, "observers struggled to situate him in the ideological spectrum. On the one hand his [American Conservative Union] rating was very high; on the other hand, his biography handout appears to qualify him for the presidency of the ADA." On this show, Senator Goodell adroitly sidesteps any attempt so to situate him. (Two years later, Mr. Buckley's brother James, running on the Conservative line, unseated Mr. Goodell.) WFB: "I should like to begin by asking Senator Goodell whether he feels any sense of ideological obligation either to his predecessor, Senator Kennedy, or to his benefactor, Governor Rockefeller." CG: "I think my sense of ideological identification is with the things I believe in very deeply....They call me Mr. Constructive Alternative in the Republican Party, because I did feel that it was not enough to say 'No' to programs that were offered that were deficient; that we should offer a better answer."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.117

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6051

item Program Number 118

"Korean War Defectors"

Guests: Wills, Morris R., 1933- : Tenneson, Richard. : Pasley, Virginia, 1905-

7 October 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 18

Program details: Messrs. Tenneson and Wills were, as WFB relates, "captured by the North Koreans 15 years ago, and after a long period in prisoner-of-war camps, elected to abandon the United States and go to live in China. Mr. Tenneson stayed for only a few years, Mr. Wills for a much longer time, returning only in 1965." Neither Mr. Tenneson nor Mr. Wills proves to be madly articulate, but perhaps for that very reason we get something of a sense of how the ordinary GI was likely to react. One factor in Mr. Tenneson's defection was Joe McCarthy ("That doesn't make [America] that much better a place to come back to than where you're at"); in Mr. Wills's case, it was "complete, total dissatisfaction with our own side, with the way they were running things ... In fact, I was caught during one marvelous confusing event, you see, one that lasted three days, and we didn't know where the front line was and where our rear was, or anything."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.118

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6052

item Program Number 119

"Politics and Show Biz"

Guests: Bean, Orson.

7 October 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 5

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 19

Program details: Another look, deliciously offbeat, at artists' tendency to go left. One sample from Mr. Bean: "The principle of love is one thing, and love is another. Anyone who is capable of loving has to be capable of hating. And most liberals would deny that they really hate anybody in principle, although they act very hateful. A liberal is someone who will fight to the death for your right to agree with him. He is always very intolerant compared to most conservatives I know, and that's always been the case even back in my liberal days." And on to the movies' current tendency toward anti-heroes, to whether Paul Newman deserves his salary, and to farmers and the meaning of life.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.119

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6053

item Program Number 120

"Why Do So Many Canadians Hate America?"

Guests: Zolf, Larry. : Lee, Dennis, 1939- : Purdy, Al, 1918-

21 October 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 6

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 20

Program details: Mr. Purdy, WFB begins by explaining, is "the editor of the best-seller The New Romans, in which forty Canadians, including the gentlemen present, discuss America's shortcomings in prose and in verse." As they proceed to do on this show, starting, of course, with Vietnam (one of Mr. Lee's poems goes: "For a man who fries the skin of kids with burning jelly is a criminal, even though he loves children, he is a criminal, even though his money pumps your oil, he is a criminal"), going on to Americans owning industrial plants in Canada, but also to something more fundamental. LZ: "I'm going to say something that perhaps might shock you, that if you take Mr. William Buckley with his conservative views and make him live in Canada, he would be an anti-American." WFB: "All right, why?" LZ: "... Because the whole point of the conservative tradition in Canada was that we were not to duplicate the republican experiment. We wanted to have a constitutional monarchy, we wanted to evolve slowly into responsible government."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.120

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6054

item Program Number 121

"Is South Africa Everybody's Business?"

Guests: Steyn, Stephanus. : Houser, George M.

4 November 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 7

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 21

Program details: Some wrangling, some genuine and illuminating debate among Mr. Steyn, who loves his country but sees a great need to bring all its people into real participation; Mr. Houser, who favors a policy of U.S. "disengagement" from South Africa unless petty apartheid is abolished and black workers are paid the same as white; and Mr. Buckley, who objects to the "tendentious hostilities" of people who "feel a considerable passion towards the policies of, let's say, South Africa, which [they] do not feel towards the policies of, oh, any of a number of ... countries in Africa, which are also racist, and which also are imperialistic, or towards the policies of, let's say, Israel ... or towards parts of Pakistan or India ..."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.121

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6055

item Program Number 122

"The Influence of TV on American Politics"

Guests: Cooke, Alistair, 1908- : MacNeil, Robert, 1931- : White, F. Clifton.

4 November 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 8

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 22

Program details: An entertaining and informative discussion among four old pros, at a time when television as a political medium was comparatively new. A highlight, especially in retrospect, is the discussion of Ronald Reagan. Mr. White had spearheaded the effort to get Governor Reagan the 1968 Republican nomination. Although it failed, it helped make Mr. Reagan a national figure. AC: "I saw that Reagan-Kennedy debate [on the Vietnam War] and changed dramatically my feelings about Mr. Reagan ... First, I think Bobby Kennedy was unprepared, unbriefed, but that's a sort of inside view. I think the average viewer looks at it and says, He's just all over the place, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Reagan is in complete command, and he's a natural man. Now, I think this came from his training as an actor, because you have to learn to be natural [on camera]."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.122

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6056

item Program Number 123

"Cracking the Cities' Problem"

Guests: Alioto, Joseph L.

13 November 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 9

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 23

Program details: A crackling exchange with a guest who, before he went into politics, had been one of the country's leading litigators. Although on the left side of the Democratic Party, Mayor Alioto is forthright in asserting the need for order (in the face, specifically, of student disruptions). He will not budge from his unconditional support for labor unions,but the level of discourse is not what one hears every day from politicians: JA: "... if you give people enough time to talk about their differences, enough time to know the facts, all of those things happen, I think ..." WFB: "Your faith is of Platonic interest tome, and I would say ..." JA: "This is a very realistic, Aristotelian type of faith that I'm talking about--not a faith in ideas, but a faith in the realities of things."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.123

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6057

item Program Number 124

"The Black Panthers"

Guests: Cleaver, Eldridge, 1935-

13 November 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 10

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 24

Program details: Ten years earlier, Mr. Cleaver had been convicted of assault with intent to rape. While out on parole, he had been involved in a shootout in which one Black Panther was killed and two policemen were wounded. This violated the terms of his parole, and he was about to be returned to jail. Just a few days after this show was filmed, he fled the United States for Havana and then Algiers. On the show itself, Mr. Cleaver is surprisingly low-key in manner, though relentless in his rhetorical style--e.g., about whether encouraging the assassination of Richard Nixon would be consistent with the Panther ideology: "Mr. Nixon is at this moment the pig waiting in the wings to take the place of the other pig that is on his way out. I would say that if Richard Nixon was assassinated it would only result in having another pig in line who possibly would need to be assassinated. I don't see any reason for having Richard Nixon alive today."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.124

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6058

item Program Number 125

"Jerusalem and the Middle East"

Guests: Kollek, Teddy, 1911-

18 November 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 11

Transcript: Box/Folder 163 : 25

Program details: "Mr. Teddy Kollek," WFB begins, "is the Mayor of Jerusalem, the city with the longest recorded history in the world ... and at this moment [following the Six-Day War] the principal point of contact between the Arab and the Israeli populations in perhaps the most combustible area in the world." This serious conversation begins with the United Nations proposal that Jerusalem be made an international city. TK: "Well, I don't think there is a country or a city in the world who would rely on the defense of the United Nations against aggressive power from the outside, nor shall we." WFB: "Well, now, suppose that you made the government of Jerusalem conditional on great-power guarantees of defense. Would that be sufficient?" TK: "I wouldn't sleep, if I would have to depend on that." WFB: "Well, I understand you don't sleep anyway. You work all the time." TK: "Well, I would be very nervous if I would have to rely on great powers. It is a small country, and before the great powers would come to our assistance, as has been proven in the past, you wouldn't exist any more."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.125

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6059

item Program Number 126

"The Republic of New Africa"

Guests: Henry, Milton.

18 November 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 12

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 1

Program details: "The Republic of New Africa" is not a new name for, say, South Africa: it refers instead to a proposal by a group of American blacks who "don't believe," as Mr. Henry puts it, "there's ever been any historical example of a successful bi-racial society," and who therefore want to carve out a legally separate nation-formed, probably, from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. Agree with him or not, Mr. Henry is well spoken and well traveled (he draws illustrations from, e.g., Kenya, Tanzania, and Cuba, all of which he has visited): "We are a nation, a distinctly separate nation with a different set of humor, myths, way of looking at history, a totally different view of ourselves in this country from I would imagine a view which most white people have, and we are separated ... from most of the good things of American life."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.126

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003GXE9RI

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6060

item Program Number 127

"Does Science Emerge Supreme?"

Guests: Barnard, Christiaan, 1922-

9 December 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 13

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 2

Program details: In Dr. Barnard's first transplant, as Mr. Buckley puts it, "The operation, as they say,was successful, but the patient died. Not so the second transplant, who is alive today, drinking beer, writing his autobiography, and thinking kind thoughts about the venturesome Dr. Barnard." The conversation is a bit slow getting started, but host and guest eventually engage in a rich discussion touching on what fields of knowledge should inform life-or-death decisions, and what is the scientist's responsibility qua scientist and qua human being. CB: "I'll put it to you this way. Say, for example, that we from the time that we were born, we were used to the idea that when somebody dies, his organs are removed for transplantation. And at this stage, 1968, we've changed this idea now to the idea that when a patient is dead he's buried and his organs will be eaten up by the worms. We would revolt to that new idea, wouldn't we?"

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.127

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6061

item Program Number 128

"The American Challenge"

Guests: Servan-Schreiber, Jean Jacques. : Galbraith, Evan G.

9 December 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 13

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 3

Program details: The "challenge" in question being, as WFB glosses it, whether "France and Europe are permitting America to overtake them by indulging us instead of emulating our extraordinary technological and managerial breakthroughs." Despite occasional impasses (like one at the beginning over whether the differences among various countries are "racial" or "cultural"), this proves to be a fascinating three-way discussion of economic competition, how having a Protestant versus a Catholic culture affects a country's economic development, how companies in different countries in Europe might learn to cooperate. JJSS: "You see, for instance, a very Catholic country, the most Catholic country in the Common Market, is Italy. And Italy was lagging industrially, even under Mussolini--when all Italy geared up for a war effort, he could not bring any industrial results in his country. But now this very Catholic country is the fastest driving country in the Common Market."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.128

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6062

item Program Number 129

"The Uses of Animals"

Guests: Conrad, Barnaby, 1922- : Amory, Cleveland.

12 December 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 14

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 ; 4

Program details: Our guests are diametrically opposed on the subject of, as WFB puts it, "the role of the animal on earth." Mr. Conrad is a bull fighting enthusiast, the author of several books on the subject, of which Matador is the latest; Mr. Amory's club advises its members, WFB tells us, "After you have bagged your hunter do not drape him on the automobile or mount him when you get home. Merely the cap or the jacket will suffice." A brilliant three-way duel on a subject where Mr. Amory would challenge many Western traditions, as in this comment after quoting James Michener's account of a bull killed in the ring: "Well, I'm just surprised that Michener could write so feelingly of that animal in its last throes, and yet not feel the way I feel about the animal, which is, Why do it to him? What did he ever do to deserve it? He didn't decide it was an art."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.129

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6063

item Program Number 130

"Muhammad Ali and the Negro Movement"

Guests: Ali, Muhammad, 1942-

12 December 1968

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 15

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 5

Program details: When Mr. Clay joined the Black Muslims, his draft board reversed its earlier determination (made in order to keep him out of the Armed Forces so that he could continue to box) that he was not sufficiently intelligent to serve. When he was reclassified, he pleaded conscientious objection, was refused, and was about to begin a term in jail. CC: "I have to be real cool and not savage and radical, because it makes me angry when I think about it--when I see the white boys, who really are the number-one citizens, the future rulers, when I see them, by the hundreds, leaving the country, and I see the white preachers breaking into draft-board houses in Wisconsin and Baltimore, tearing the files out of the walls and making a bonfire out of 45,000 draft cards, pouring blood on them, and I see them go to court and the juries say two years, and I get five years for what's legal?"

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.130

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001MBTSKY

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6064

item Program Number 131

"The Issues in the School Strike"

Guests: Shanker, Albert.

6 January 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 16

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 6

Program details: Mr. Shanker's union had gone on strike against the New York City public schools and stayed out most of the fall of 1968. The dispute had begun with, as WFB puts it, "an explosive disagreement between [Mr. Shanker] and the superintendent of a school complex in an area predominantly Negro and Puerto Rican," the main issue being "community control," which various minority groups saw as necessary for their own "empowerment" and which Mr. Shanker saw as directed against his teachers. AS: "Well, I think that a decision has been made, and I think it's been made by the Mayor, I think it's been made by the Ford Foundation, I think it's been made by high executives in businesses, I think it's been made by some liberal reformers, a decision [in favor of] ... community control. The liberals do it perhaps out of a sense of guilt--black people have been slaves and persecuted for years, now let's give them something."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.131

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6065

item Program Number 132

"The Plight of the American Novelist"

Guests: Maclnnes, Helen, 1907- : Auchincloss, Louis.

6 January 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 17

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 7

Program details: WFB begins by pointing out that notwithstanding the success of his guests, novels were generally regarded as out of date, and the novelists present (not including our host, who was six years away from joining their ranks) take it from there. LA: "There's a constant demand for forms that are relevant to our age. The screen, painting, and sculpture can change their form. The novel tried to change its form. The French novel carried it to the point where Nathalie Sarraute has eliminated characters.... But it seems to me that the novel is not capable of this adjustment to new forms.... I really don't think Nathalie Sarraute is successful in eliminating characters." HM: "But she isn't writing a novel. Why doesn't she call it something else? People never used to get confused about what the novel was for."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.132

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6066

item Program Number 133

"The Walker Report"

Guests: Zion, Sidney. : Rumsfeld, Donald, 1932-

13 January 1969

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 8

Program details: "The dispute," WFB begins, "over just exactly what happened in Chicago during the Democratic Convention-I mean other than the nomination of Humphrey-was not settled by the so-called Walker Report, which is itself at least as controversial as the Warren Report on Dallas." The dispute on this show is at times nearly as heated as the one in the Chicago streets five months before, the starting point being the Walker Report's comparative figures for hospitalizations of rioters and policemen. WFB: "It occurs to me that this surely would be the first time in history that one talks about excessive police brutality when the figures seem to suggest the reverse [192 policemen reporting to emergency rooms, as opposed to 101 demonstrators]." SZ: "... Except that I think in that situation, most of the demonstrators were being treated by their own little Red Crosses, and probably didn't feel that they should go to the Chicago hospitals...." WFB: "Oh, come on, Mr. Zion, are you saying-" SZ: "Oh no, quite. You know, people were hysterical-" WFB: "-that hospitals were under orders to what?" SZ: "I'm not saying that at all." WFB: "Give them strychnine?" SZ: "No, but their reaction to what might have happened in the hospitals may have been paranoiac."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.133

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6067

item Program Number 134

"The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson"

Guests: Goldman, Eric Frederick, 1915-

13 January 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 18

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 9

Program details: A rich discussion ranging from Lyndon Johnson's personality to the behavior of American intellectuals in the 1960s, the link being Mr. Goldman's stint as "intellectual in residence" at the White House: "Actually, that job, and ... my being offered it, is one of the more rococo parts of my period in Washington. The President had asked me to come down. I had never met the President in my life ... The President at that meeting said that he wanted to be a very good President of this country and he needed help and he wanted help from what he called, excuse me, the best minds of our nation. That's a phrase which seems to come easily to men who are just becoming President of the United States. I notice Mr. Nixon, the other day, said he wanted help from the best minds of the United States."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.134

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6068

item Program Number 135

"How Goes It with the Poverty Program?"

Guests: Shiffman, Bernard. : Owens, Major.

27 January 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 77 : 19

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 10

Program details: In addition to more philosophical (or ideological) questions over how well the War on Poverty was working, specific questions had been raised by the discovery of, as WFB puts it," enormous graft" in the New York City office. Mitchell Ginsberg had accepted an invitation to appear on Firing Line but had been kept away by an emergency, his place being taken by two of his deputies. Mr. Shiffman begins by asking leave "to correct the record: to date ... to the best of our knowledge, there's been the taking of one-half of one per cent through what is believed to be conspiracy and fraud ... [by] a number of people who have conspired to beat a bookkeeping system, and we are hoping ... that there will be maximum recovery." An often heated discussion that ranges over anti-Jewish (or is it generally anti-white?) sentiment in the ghettoes, the state of public libraries in the inner cities, and other urban ills.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.135

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6069

item Program Number 136

"The Unfinished Odyssey of Robert Kennedy"

Guests: Halberstam, David. : Toledano, Ralph de, 1916-

27 January 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 78 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 11

Program details: Mr. Halberstam's book had been singled out by Russell Baker as a rare thing, "a book on a Kennedy that was free of sycophantic cant"; Mr. Toledano had written a book that was so far from sycophantic as to get him accused of being a John Bircher. A lively conversation at a time, six months before Chappaquiddick, when Teddy Kennedy was seen as his brothers' successor in presidential politics. DH: "Well, I think the Kennedys have been sort of particularly attractive, and romantic--you used the word romantic ...and somehow, there might be a new kind of idealism and a new sort of fresh spirit in America. This sort of myth, I think, began to build, and it has continued. I don't think there's any doubt that there's a fascination about the Kennedys, that they are somehow bigger than life. They are handsome, they are star-crossed, they achieve all and yet can be struck down...." WFB: "And this is something to which, in your judgment,they primarily contribute, or do you find it an expression of the public's hunger for these attributes which they instantly see realized in the Kennedys?" DH: "Well, I think it's probably a combination of both. I think, you know, the Kennedys are very smart politicians, and I think that they, if they see that they have a mystique working for them, that they would probably work on it rather skillfully."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.136

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6070

item Program Number 137

"The Ripon Society"

Guests: Petri, Thomas E. : Auspitz, J. Lee (Josiah Lee)

24 February 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 78 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 12

Program details: During the battles for the Republican Party in the 1960s, the Ripon Society was founded in Massachusetts to further liberal ("moderate" in the Society's own terminology) tendencies in the party--the Rockefeller, Scranton, Romney wing, as opposed to the Goldwater, Reagan, and even Nixon wing. Today's conversation changes none of the participants' minds, but it clearly lays out the two wings' current positions. WFB: "The Ripon Society certainly seems to me to have affected most people as an organization that is industriously engaged in trying to persuade the Republican Party to be like the Democratic Party." TEP: "No, it's engaged in persuading the Republican Party to do those things that will enable it to compete with the Democratic Party in states where the Democratic Party is strong. That's a bit different. We try to take Republican ideas and formulate them so that they can embrace the necessary role of government in the last few decades of this century."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.137

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G707LZO

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6071

item Program Number 138

"The Fifth Amendment"

Guests: Rothwax, Harold J. : Williams, C. Dickerman.

24 February 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 78 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 13

Program details: "The rise in the crime rate," WFB begins, "brings us to reconsider existing legal dogma and protocols, and a while ago Thomas Dewey startled the legal profession by recommending the outright repeal of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, which has lately been interpreted by the Supreme Court as an absolute guarantee to anybody to be uncooperative." A deeply instructive program, in which Mr. Buckley invites his guests to explain to a lay audience matters such as the different protections granted witnesses in a civil and a criminal trial, the reason why the Fifth Amendment applies to witnesses as well as to the defendant, and how pre-trial discovery works.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.138

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6072

item Program Number 139

"Black Anti-Semitism"

Guests: Galamison, Milton A. (Milton Arthur), 1923-1988. : Perlmutter, Nate.

25 February 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 78 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 14

Program details: Mr. Galamison is a supporter of school decentralization in New York City (AKA community control, discussed with Albert Shanker on Firing Line 131) who believes that "black anti-Semitism has been exaggerated all out of proportion to what actually does exist, and, strangely enough, [the charges have] been very well timed ... to disrupt the motion toward school decentralization"--one of the villains, in his view, being Albert Shanker. Mr. Perlmutter strongly disagrees, in a frequently heated but informative exchange: "This question of the timing. Suddenly it's almost as if Mr. Shanker had sat down with the Jewish organizations and determined that this is the moment when this conspiracy must come to bear on New York ... The fact of the matter is that the larger Jewish organizations ... have from time to time endorsed decentralization."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.139

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6073

item Program Number 140

"Restructuring the University"

Guests: Grossman, Allen R., 1932- : Conrad, Alfred H. : Hart, Jeffrey Peter, 1930-

25 February 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 78 : 5

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 15

Program details: "Probably the steadiest newsmaker these days, more even than the Vietnam War," WFB begins, "is the university. The chaos is widespread, and although all of us write and write and write about it, we are as yet without a crystallized understanding of what is behind it all." Professor Grossman proceeds to offer "the cause of violence at universities." It is this: there have been times in the world's history when social organization, when the business of civilization, promoted the well-being of men as individuals. We live now in a time when social organization, and the business of civilization, is hostile to the well-being of men as individuals. The university, and I include my own, and my own classroom, has ceased to be able to instruct in a credible way, and this has led to a response which is as vivid and as meaningful as every man's ability to care about themselves." To Professor Hart, this is "the merest cliche," and we're off to the races.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.140

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6074

item Program Number 141

"Police Power"

Guests: Heffernan, John J. : Chevigny, Paul, 1935-

26 February 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 78 : 6

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 16

Program details: To most Americans, Mr. Buckley suggests, "the main concern in matters of law enforcement is the ability of the police, or more accurately the entire court system, to keep down the rate of crime, or to prevent it from growing." To civil-libertarians like Mr. Chevigny, a far greater concern is police going too far, and specifically bending new rules intended to check their power, such as the exclusionary rule. In this discussion rich with anecdote, Mr. Heffernan stoutly defends his colleagues: "I think ... they're doing everything in their power to comply with the laws of the land, as much as we do it sometimes with a frown on our face ..."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.141

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6075

item Program Number 142

"Black Student Power"

Guests: Felder, John. : Swedan, David. : Coyne, John R.

26 February 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 78 : 7

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 17

Program details: Another look at the disruptions on campus, which, apart from the Vietnam War, have most to do, as WFB puts it, with "the demands of black students, or in some cases the demands made in behalf of black students." These involved matters such as separate living quarters, departments of Black Studies, and a voice in faculty hiring and promotion. (JF: "We feel that black students and faculty ... are most capable of determining who could teach from a black perspective"). Mr. Swedan is deliberately unresponsive ("I can only speak for what the white radical students like myself think"); Mr. Coyne, who had recently escaped from the wars at Berkeley and was working on his book The Kumquat Statement (a reply to James Kunen's Strawberry Statement), brings his recent experience to bear in querying Mr. Felder on exactly what he means by "Black Studies."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.142

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6076

item Program Number 143

"Vietnam and the Intellectuals"

Guests: Chomsky, Noam.

3 April 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 78 : 8

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 18

Program details: A matter-versus-anti-matter meeting between WFB and a man he characterizes as being "listed in anybody's catalogue as among the half-dozen top heroes of the New Left." Mr. Chomsky says nothing to belie his reputation: "I said that there are certain issues-for example-Auschwitz, such that by consenting to discuss them one degrades oneself and to some degree loses one's humanity ... Nevertheless, I can easily imagine circumstances in which I would have been glad to debate Auschwitz-for example, if there were some chance that by debating Auschwitz it might have been possible to eliminate or to at least mitigate the horror that was going on. And, I think, I feel the same way about Vietnam."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.143

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003JMFB8W

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6077

item Program Number 144

"Urban Development and the Race Question"

Guests: Innis, Roy, 1934-

3 April 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 78 : 9

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 19

Program details: Mr. Innis, a dazzling speaker in the West Indian style, had been urging separate development as the only way to allow the Negro community to shoulder its own burdens. He had recently had an acrimonious exchange with Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, who had called this a return to segregation. RI: "My style is, and that of my organization is, that, we feel that our ideology is so sound that we can persuade any brother that it is in his best interest." WFB: "And if you fail to?" RI: "We will try, try again." WFB: "How do you try-forcefully?" RI: "With the most exquisite and persuasive rhetoric." WFB: "Rhetoric. Refine the rhetoric. So that if Roy Wilkins Jr. matriculated at a college like this and said, 'I don't want to join a black student union committed to separatism,' he would not be molested, as far as you're concerned?" RI: "No, not by my troops." WFB: "And are you in control of your troops?" RI: "Oh yes, I have full control of my troops at all times."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.144

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6078

item Program Number 145

"Modernism in the Catholic Church"

Guests: Ward, Maisie, 1889- : Sheed, F. J. (Francis Joseph), 1897-1981.

21 April 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 78 : 10

Transcript: Box/Folder 164 : 20

Program details: A luminous conversation with this magnificent couple, who got their start as public figures at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, London. Mrs. Sheed sees the convulsions in the Church today as having less to do with the sort of tension that Browning chronicled ("He said that unbelief shook the believer, and belief shook the unbeliever"); rather, "with a good many [young people] I think it's only that they were frightfully ill instructed. I think nothing could be worse than the religious teaching in most Catholic schools, and when they suddenly find everything thrown open as it is today, they are unduly disturbed. But I have a kind of hope that great good will come of it in the long run." Mr. Sheed: "Well, I don't know what Maisie's view is, but mine is it's one of the most extraordinary paradoxes, that a nun will devote forty years of really dedicated sacrificial life to teaching children nonsense about God."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.145

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6079

item Program Number 146

"The Campus Destroyers"

Guests: Capp, Al, 1909-

21 April 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 78 : 11

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 1

Program details: Al Capp, a lifelong liberal, had been counter-radicalized by the Sixties and had become a campus speaker the students loved to hate. As he tells it, "Every now and then some student arises, quivering with rage, and says, 'Mr. Capp, you detest us, so why are you speaking here at Chapel Hill?' And I say, 'For three thousand bucks, and I wouldn't spend an hour with a bunch like you for a nickel less.' And you know, they're so relieved." But he is also thoughtful on the question, How is it that a small group can get away with making life miserable for the majority on campus? "This is a very, very sad state of affairs. One could ask the same question of the city of Chicago, a city of millions which permitted Capone and his gang to terrorize that city. One could ask the same of any group of decent, orderly, busy citizens who permit a tiny, active, delinquent minority to make hell out of their lives."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.146

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SQFQT2

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6080

item Program Number 147

"The ABM Conflict"

Guests: Gore, Albert, 1907- : Burnham, James, 1905-1987.

28 April 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 78 : 12

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 2

Program details: Senator Gore was Chairman of the Subcommittee on International Organization and Disarmament and a leading proponent of the proposed treaty to ban anti-ballistic missiles as a defensive measure. Mr. Burnham had been a leading anti-Communist strategist for thirty years. This show explores ABM in particular and nuclear deterrence in general. JB: "It seems to me that the history of relations between nations shows that the road to national suicide is very often laid by over attention to what one thinks the motives and intentions of the enemy are." ... AG: "We need, my friend Mr. Buckley, mankind needs to develop a formula for coexistence. Unless we can find a formula by which nations can live together in peace-" WFB: "Vote for peace." AG: "-then we are going to have nuclear holocaust." WFB: "Let's skip that." AG: "How can we skip it? That's what it's about." WFB: "Well, because it's so obvious ..." JB: "Of course from one point of view it might not be so obvious. We've had nuclear arms for a generation and not had nuclear war."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.147

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6081

item Program Number 148

"Problems of a Chief Executive"

Guests: Price, Raymond K. (Raymond Kissam), 1930- : Buchanan, Patrick J. (Patrick Joseph), 1938-

28 April 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 78 : 13

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 3

Program details: Host and guests often do address the title subject-specifically, the problems of taking over as Chief Executive in a country whole sectors of which are openly mutinous. Along the way, we get a fascinating look at the nuts and bolts of organizing a new Administration-with glances backwards at Mr. Nixon's two predecessors-from the men commonly identified as the liberal and the conservative, respectively, on the President's speech writing team. Especially interesting, in the light of developments in later Administrations, is the discussion of speech writing protocols. WFB: "I notice that there is much less diffidence about acknowledging the fact of it now than there was a few years ago, so that people point to John Jones as the author of that particular speech by the President, whereas these used to be, as you know, highly regarded secrets ... Would you feel free if somebody from the New York Times, say, asked who wrote the speech, or who drafted it, would somebody around say, Oh, Buchanan did?" PJB: "Well, what you would say, candidly, is that Buchanan worked with the President on that issue.... But you take a speech where the President is deeply concerned about it, and where he feels a great deal depends upon it, like the acceptance speech, and the more important he feels it is, the more involved he becomes."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.148

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6082

item Program Number 149

"Cornell and the Conflict of Generations"

Guests: Berns, Walter, 1919- : Van den Haag, Ernest.

19 May 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 78 : 14

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 4

Program details: Professor Berns, as WFB introduces him, was "one of several faculty members who quit Cornell in protest against the capitulations of President Perkins to the guerrilla students who took to dictating academic policy a while ago." This passionate exchange begins with the details of current events, but it goes much deeper, to the nature of the university itself. WB: "Various visitors to the Cornell campus ... remarked what was certainly true, that is to say, there was something unique at Cornell, and what that thing was, was the extent to which the administration was actually on the side of the militant students. That is unique.... Mr. van den Haag is right, that the President did manipulate the faculty, he failed to assert any authority ..." WFB: "Why?" WB: "That's an interesting question. Why would a man stand by and see his university destroyed? Of course, he will deny that it's being destroyed. He referred to this fascist-like scene that took place ... as the most constructive event in the history of Cornell.... Academic freedom doesn't mean a doggone thing to him. And he can't recognize it when it's gone."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.149

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6083

item Program Number 150

"The Trouble with Enoch"

Guests: Powell, J. Enoch (John Enoch), 1912-1998.

19 May 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 79 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 5

Program details: "A year or so back," as Mr. Buckley sets the scene, "Enoch Powell was kicked out of the shadow cabinet by Conservative leader Edward Heath, in punishment for a speech in which Mr. Powell advocated an end to colored immigration into England ... It was generally assumed that now, finally, Mr. Powell had gone too far, but on the way to political extinction a funny thing happened, namely, the overwhelming support of the British people and surprising support from the colored minority." In his first of several Firing Line appearances, Mr. Powell takes us across centuries and continents and knocks any facile egalitarianism sharply on the head: "Alone of all countries in the world, until 1962 we had no definition of ourselves ... no definition of a person belonging to the United Kingdom.... There was a definition of a British subject, but that was a person who was a subject of the King or Queen. And so as the British Empire extended, that definition included hundreds of millions of people, wherever the sun had not set on the British Empire. So there literally was no difference in the law of Britain between myself coming back from a day's trip to France, and an Indian from the Northwest Frontier entering Britain by air for the first time."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.150

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6084

item Program Number 151

"ABM"

Guests: Bethe, Hans Albrecht, 1906- : Brennan, Donald G.

2 June 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 79 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 6

Program details: A second look at anti-ballistic missiles (taken up a few weeks earlier in Firing Line 147), this time with a more technical edge. Our guests--both experts who can illustrate their points concretely--engage each other on questions such as "how likely is a Soviet first strike, how hard" are our Minuteman missiles' silos, and what is the morality of different counterattack scenarios. DB: "I think I'd like to answer that with a parallel. I think it would be perhaps as difficult as it was for the Japanese to execute a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and catch the battleship fleet at Pearl Harbor. It was very hard for the Japanese to do that, and it would be very hard for the Soviets to execute a nearly completely successful attack on the strategic defensive forces." HB: "I would remind my friend Don Brennan that the Japanese lost the war." ... HB: "I am sure if we sat by our advanced radars, if we saw that a thousand missiles were coming at us, and were coming into the areas of the Minuteman in particular ... we would not wait." DB: "I'd just say I'm mildly surprised that Hans would advocate what we call a launch-on-warning posture, if I understood you right...-my Hudson Institute colleague Herman Kahn has a term ... He used to speak of a thing called a doomsday-in-a-hurry machine."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.151

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6085

item Program Number 152

"Afro-American Studies"

Guests: Lincoln, C. Eric (Charles Eric), 1924-2000. : Brudnoy, David, 1940-

2 June 1969

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 7

Program details: The lively discussion centers on what black studies is or should be: an academic discipline like any other, or a means, as Professor Lincoln put it, "of deterring the sort of black prejudice against blackness" that he himself had grown up with. EL: "I arrived on the campus there and saw a vast sea of people who didn't look like me. They were all white. Every person I saw was white.... This is the kind of experience that you never-" DB: "Yes, I have-when I went to Texas Southern to teach, which is a Negro college.... Suddenly all my students, my chairman, my dean, my president, were Negro.... They're sort of sitting around rapping in Texanese and I don't know what they're saying, and I felt ghastly. I know exactly what you mean." EL: "No. Let me tell you the difference. You were never unaware of the fact that ...all you had to do was walk off the campus ... and you suddenly regained all the power and the prestige and the preference that is yours in this society. I cannot do that in Chicago. I have nowhere to walk-but back into the ghetto."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.152

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6086

item Program Number 153

"The Decline of Christianity"

Guests: Graham, Billy, 1918-

12 June 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 79 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 8

Program details: Much of the considerable interest in this show derives from hearing the famous preacher engaging in ordinary conversation. Dr. Graham agrees with his host that the organized churches are in decline, but he insists that in his travels throughout the country he has found "no real revolt against the Person of Christ." BG: "I think the Church is going to undergo restructuring. I suspect that the movement that is under way now is to have small meetings in homes. You know, the early Church, for the first three centuries, met in homes. I suspect the movement is in this direction now. In coming to New York two years ago we found more than a thousand of these groups already meeting. Since then four thousand more groups have emerged."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.153

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003JMFB96

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6087

item Program Number 154

"Labor Unions and American Freedom"

Guests: Carey, James B.

12 June 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 79 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 9

Program details: Mr. Carey, as Mr. Buckley tells us, had, with the help of John L. Lewis, launched a counterattack when his union, the United Electrical Union, had been taken over by the Communists. Host and guest sometimes talk past each other, but even so we get a clear idea of what is at issue between Mr. Carey's notion of "an effective union -- a union that represents the views of the people effectively and can deal with management on a basis of equality" and Mr. Buckley's observation that, in the aftermath of the New York City newspaper strike, "the few who survived ... did indeed get their 10, 15, 20, 25 percent raises, but a lot of other people who would otherwise have survived, went from let's say $250 a week to welfare."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.154

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SQFQW4

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6088

item Program Number 155

"Violence in America"

Guests: Graham, Hugh Davis. : Gurr, Ted Robert, 1936-

23 June 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 79 : 5

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 10

Program details: Messrs. Graham and Gurr had both served on the staff of the commission appointed by President Johnson to study violence in America following the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. Our guests are serious students of their subject and don't use the term "violence" as a devil word (for example, Mr. Gurr cites the vigilante movement on the American frontier as having succeeded in maintaining order in regions where there was no lawfully constituted authority). WFB: "Is it historically nonsensical to say, as for instance Arthur Schlesinger said after the assassination of Mr. Kennedy, that 'We killed Mr. Kennedy, we killed the three most idealistic people in public life during a period of three years, and we have therefore justified the odium of the world'? Or would you simply dismiss that as emotional reaction?" TRG: "I would not be prepared to share Mr. Schlesinger's collective guilt." WFB: "Would you be prepared to disavow it?" HDG: "I would disavow it." TRG: "Personally I'd disavow it." HDG: "I have been told by black militants that I killed Malcolm X."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.155

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6089

item Program Number 156

"The Population Explosion"

Guests: Clark, Colin, 1905- : Sweezy, Alan.

23 June 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 79 : 6

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 11

Program details: As Mr. Buckley introduces his two guests, "Dr. Sweezy is quite orthodox, i.e., he thinks everything is lost, or just about lost, thanks to the population explosion. Dr. Clark is terribly unorthodox. If anything he seems to be saying we need more people." What follows is a serious, though often heated, discussion of technical and moral questions, ranging from whether we ought to spread industry more evenly around the country to whether it would be permissible to put a sterilizing agent in a city's water supply. WFB: "Let me give you a reductio ad absurdum. One way to affect the population is simply infanticide. Kill the third child or the fourth child, depending on what you economists advise us at any given moment. But we do reject this for moral reasons, do we not?" AS: "Yes." WFB: "There are no functional reasons. It's rather neat, actually, a neat way of handling the problem." AS: "Well, I don't think I'll subscribe to your use of the adjective 'neat,' but I reject it." WFB: "Okay. For moral reasons?" AS: "Yes."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.156

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6090

item Program Number 157

"Marijuana--How Harmful?"

Guests: Baird, Robert. : Smith, David E. (David Elvin), 1939-

7 July 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 79 : 7

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 12

Program details: The first of many Firing Line discussions of marijuana and other drugs. The fact that Dr. Smith's practice is among the dropped-out children of the well to do in Haight-Ashbury, whereas Dr. Baird's is among the poor in Harlem, may have something to do with their diametrically opposed viewpoints. DS: "Many people in the suburbs use marijuana, at low dosages, for anxiety relief-much as an individual would come home and have a martini or a beer.... At higher dosages, particularly in group settings, it is used as an intoxicant-in the way you might have five martinis at your country-club cocktail party." ... RB: "No person who is personally well adjusted would want to take marijuana. Why would he want to take it unless he is doing a thoroughly scientific research project?" WFB: "Well, presumably because it yields pleasure." RB: "Well, the pleasure syndrome-if he has to seek that for his own orientation-" WFB: "I didn't say he had to; I said he elects to."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.157

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6091

item Program Number 158

"The Conservative Party and the Future of the GOP"

Guests: Mahoney, J. Daniel, 1931-

7 July 1969

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 13

Program details: "In New York," WFB begins, "there are not two political parties, as in normal states, but four political parties." The Liberal Party is an old-timer; the Conservative Party had been founded less than a decade earlier, by, for the most part, Republicans concerned about that party's drift to the left. It was on the Conservative Party ticket that Mr. Buckley had run, four years earlier, for Mayor of New York. For this show, Firing Line's Producer, Warren Steibel, had invited representatives of the Liberal Party to appear on this show, but they had declined. In their absence, this is a genial discussion between two old comrades in arms, five years after the defeat of Nelson Rockefeller for the Republican presidential nomination, and of Barry Goldwater for the Presidency itself. WFB: "Mr. Mahoney, would you be willing to describe the circumstances that would bring you to endorse Governor Rockefeller for Governor in 1970?" JDM: "I doubt it would take long. I can't conceive of any, at this point." WFB: "Well, suppose he went to Lourdes, or something? ... Are you the forgiving type?" JDM: "We might under those circumstances, but I don't think that he's the supplicant type ..."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.158

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6092

item Program Number 159

"The Irish Problem"

Guests: Donoghue, Denis. : O'Neill, Terence, 1914-1990

22 July 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 79 : 8

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 14

Program details: Firing Line's first look at "the Irish Question"--still very much a question fifty years after the country had been partitioned. WFB begins by saying that Captain O'Neill had resigned "in protest against his own party's failure to back him up with sufficient conviction ... in his determination more or less moderately to provide for the rights of Catholics." Captain O'Neill begins with a partial correction: "I felt that if I were to resign at the time I did that my policies might continue under somebody else, and ... in fact the reform has indeed, though I say it myself, gathered pace since I resigned." A genuine conversation, rich in anecdote, in which our guests-both born and raised in Northern Ireland, the one Protestant, the other Catholic-work to help an American audience understand this tangled situation. DD: "Growing up in Northern Ireland, which I did, the terminology which surrounded me ... in fact was a sectarian and religious terminology. You know, in the sense that I could spot a Protestant at a hundred yards, and, even more radically, he could spot me." WFB: "You being a Catholic?" DD: "I was a Catholic and am ... It was a sectarian division, it was really not a political division. Certainly, it's true I believe even yet in Northern Ireland, that one is not primarily aware of people as being Nationalists and Unionists, in a political context, but rather of their being Catholics or Protestants, in a sectarian context."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.159

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6093

item Program Number 160

"The Decline of Anti-Communism [1969]"

Guests: FitzGibbon, Constantine, 1919-

22 July 1969

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 15

Program details: "Mr. Constantine FitzGibbon," WFB starts by telling us, "is not by any means primarily an anti-Communist, but he is unflinching on the issue. A few years ago, tired of defending himself against the derogations of the Communist press, he collected his essays and published them under the title, Random Thoughts of a Fascist Hyena." A conversation full of anecdote, starting with a comparison of the protestors of the Sixties with the men of the Thirties (of whom Mr. FitzGibbon was one) who pledged not to fight for King and country; and going on to the West's "difficulty in thinking in triangulating terms, if I may so put it. The Russians never doubted for a moment that they were against both us and the Fascists. We tend to think that our enemy's enemy must be our friend"; with a delicious digression describing a luncheon at which Winston Churchill was given a medal bearing the image of Napoleon: "I couldn't help thinking at that time that if Churchill lived long enough, somebody would give him a large, gold German medal bearing the head of you-know-who on it. Because there wasn't anybody more anathema to Churchill, apart from Hitler, than Napoleon Bonaparte."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.160

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6094

item Program Number 161

"Monarchy and the Modern World"

Guests: Habsburg, Otto, 1912-

23 July 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 79 : 9

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 16

Program details: Archduke Otto had a few years earlier renounced his claim to the throne of Austria so as to be permitted to return to his native country, but in Britain Prince Charles had just been invested as Prince of Wales, and in Spain, Prince Juan Carlos had been named successor to Generalissimo Franco. A profound discussion, rich in historical detail, of the survival of monarchy in the modern world, the future of Europe, and what happens to regimes following a national debacle. OvH: "You see, the Weimar Republic died not because it was bad-it had its faults, indisputably-but especially because it was an expression of Germany's defeat in the First World War. Hitler and his people were able to hang onto the Weimar Republic the symbol and the stigma of defeat. It's exactly the same thing we had with the First Republic in Austria.... [It] began in disaster, that is to say, the dissolution of the old Empire. And consequently, there was almost, I would say, a built-in death wish in that regime."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.161

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6095

item Program Number 162

"The UN and World Affairs"

Guests: Caradon, Hugh Foot, Baron, 1907-

23 July 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 79 : 10

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 17

Program details: Lord Caradon is a true believer. As conversation this show never clicks, but listening to our guest may help us understand why the UN is as it is. Lord Caradon: "On all the great issues of race, poverty, population- The younger generation, I believe that they are going to save us, and I believe that they will do much better than we've done. But particularly on these questions, it's the division of the world between rich and poor. I believe the young people are right." ... Mr. Buckley: "The notion of you and the Soviet Union sitting around criticizing Rhodesia's imperialism or South Africa's racism, in the light of the long-documented record of barbarity exercised by the Soviet Union, is extremely hard to understand for anybody this side of Talleyrand."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.162

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6096

item Program Number 163

"Is There a Place for the Old Order?"

Guests: Brophy, Brigid, 1929- : Sparrow, John Hanbury Angus, 1906-

24 July 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 79 : 11

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 18

Program details: A delicious duel over the place of tradition and civility in the modern world. One sample: JS: "I think there is a presumption in favor of what has been tried and tested by time, and if we stopped every moment of the day to examine critically every statement that was presented to us, or every convention that we were expected to adopt, we'd never get on. I think there is a presumption in favor of what has been used in the past." BB: "But I think that two world wars in this century are a standing presumption against..."JS: "But how can a world war be a presumption? ... I may seem to just object to words, but loose phrases like that are very often the result of loose thought. Of course we all know..." BB: "I'm sorry; I was trying to put the statement in logical form. Let me substitute the word 'constitute' for the word 'is.'"

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.163

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6097

item Program Number 164

"American Popularity Abroad"

Guests: Lewis, Anthony, 1927-

24 July 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 79 : 12

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 19

Program details: A thoughtful though not flashy discussion of how it can be that America is regarded in much of the world as more repressive than the Soviet Union, and what we might do to change this perception. WFB: "It does occur to me that there is something in the American temperament that desires to be rebuffed. That is to say, isn't it true that Americans react so to being disliked that people look out for opportunities to dislike [us]? ... " AL: "I think you put it backwards, actually. We suffer from an excessive desire to be accepted. We're like social climbers, nouveaux riches, who have this terrible fear that people won't like us."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.164

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6098

item Program Number 165

"Post Office Reform"

Guests: Blount, Winton M., 1921-

9 September 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 79 : 13

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 20

Program details: Mr. Blount, WFB begins, "finds himself in the extraordinary position of seeking to liquidate his empire; for this, one assumes, President Nixon appointed him," since Mr. Blount had proposed to convert the Post Office into a public corporation. A perhaps surprisingly interesting discussion of this problem, which, as we know now, Mr. Blount's efforts were not sufficient to solve. Although some of the specifics he tells us about have been remedied-the Post Office no longer sorts mail with the technology Benjamin Franklin put in place when he was the fourth Postmaster General-Congress still sets the prices and makes the rules. "I note here that in 1789, which was the first year of the operation of the Post Office under the more or less present system, you ran a deficit of $40, thereby, somebody put it, establishing a venerable American tradition."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.165

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6099

item Program Number 166

"Where Should the Nixon Administration Go?"

Guests: Goldwater, Barry M. (Barry Morris), 1909-1998.

9 September 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 79 : 14

Transcript: Box/Folder 172 : 4

Program details: Not only did Senator Goldwater take on, in 1964, a race that he was bound to lose not so much against Lyndon Johnson as against the memory of the fallen leader but under Arizona law he had had to resign from the Senate in order to do so. In 1969 he had "triumphantly returned to Washington, escorted," as WFB puts it, "by a Republican President whose election in turn it is quite widely conceded would have been unlikely but for the race of 1964." WFB begins by asking his guest "what did he have in mind when, last spring, he chided dissatisfied American conservatives who were critical of Mr. Nixon." The Senator replies in pure Goldwater mode: "Well, nothing but the same thought that I've always had when I've chided fellow conservatives who are acting as conservatives should. To put it another way, they're speaking their own minds." And we're off on an examination of the Nixon Administration, the Vietnam War, and how one might begin rolling back "35 years of statism."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.166

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6100

item Program Number 167

"Biafra and English Foreign Policy"

Guests: Waugh, Auberon.

22 September 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 79 : 15

Transcript: Box/Folder 165 : 21

Program details: The Ibos in Biafra (the eastern region of Nigeria) had attempted to secede, the Nigerian government had cracked down with all its force-and the Labour government in Britain was backing the Nigerian government. Mr. Waugh had visited the region as a journalist and come back to write Biafra: Britain's Shame. A rich discussion of the state of Africa, how a country decides when to intervene in others' disputes, and much else. WFB: "Well, is it then your assumption that if the consequences of backing the Nigerian government had been known, neither the Labour government nor a Conservative government would have proceeded to do so?" AW: "Well, I can't honestly believe that they're either so wicked or so stupid as to dissent from that. On the other hand, when was it? About nine months ago, I was going around, because my job takes me among all the politicians in England, and telling them, 'If you go on with this policy, [Colonel] Gowon [Nigeria's dictator] is going to kill half a million people.' And they laughed at me and said, 'Where do you get that figure from?' And of course I had invented it, but it was my assessment of what it would cost. Well, now they know it's cost a million and a half. You know, one does wonder whether in point of fact they care, because politically they've got away with it. It hasn't made a big impact politically, in England."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.167

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6101

item Program Number 168

"Looking Back on de Gaulle"

Guests: Soustelle, Jacques, 1912-

22 September 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 80 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 1

Program details: If Charles de Gaulle was a mythic figure, so was his sometime friend and ally: while le grand Charles headed the Free French in exile during World War II, M. Soustelle headed the actual Resistance at home. The two men had broken in 1960 over Algeria: "Should it be a part of France, as President de Gaulle had once believed, or not? When de Gaulle changed his mind and Soustelle didn't, de Gaulle literally sent his former friend into exile. A superb hour with a man who is a genuine scholar as well as a man of action. Whether he is discussing the Constitution of the Fifth Republic or the economy of Algeria, he speaks with the voice of authority. I was one of the few people who met [de Gaulle] during those last few years before 1958, and I saw him more and more bitter, more and more let's say desperate, because he thought that he would never come back. And probably during those years a kind of alchemy took place ... so that he became more self-centered, more egotistical, more authoritarian.... And on certain points, not only did he change his mind or his behavior, but he definitely changed his doctrinal position, his philosophy of power and of politics."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.168

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6102

item Program Number 169

"The Making of the President 1968"

Guests: White, Theodore Harold, 1915-

22 September 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 80 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 2

Program details: Whether it is China in the Thirties and Forties or the presidential campaign trail in the Sixties and Seventies, Mr. White brings to the task a superb eye for detail and the ability to discern a coherent pattern. One sample, in response to the question whether he understands himself to be marching away from the dogmatism so generally associated nowadays with American "liberalism": THW: "Let's say that there is about conservatives and about liberals a quality of religion sometimes useful, sometimes offensive.... There are holy truths. The liberal holy truths at the moment are holy truths I share: that we should have peace in Vietnam, that civil rights should be pushed as quickly as possible. Now in the name of those holy truths the witch burners among the liberals will try to bum anybody who doesn't want instant peace in Vietnam, anybody who does not proclaim the cause in Vietnam to have been utterly ignoble."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.169

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6103

item Program Number 170

"The Welfare-Reform Proposal"

Guests: Moynihan, Daniel P. (Daniel Patrick), 1927-2003.

7 October 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 80 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 3

Program details: Mr. Moynihan was the architect of the Nixon Administration's Family Assistance Plan (FAP), the first attempt to rationalize the federal welfare system that had grown up under the War on Poverty. This hour offers a vivid exploration of the whole welfare mess and the plight of the working poor. DPM: "I had just left the Washington Administration of President Johnson, and I remember noticing ... a little announcement in the paper that Head Start-something new, hadn't been heard of-was going to begin this summer in New York, under the poverty program, and that the union scale for Head Start teachers would be $9.75 an hour. And I'm a good trade unionist, and I'm for those teachers, but ... I said, you know, here we are paying nice college girls ... $9.75 an hour to teach the children of men we won't pay $2 an hour. Now what kind of sense exactly is that? ... And of course five years later we find that very little got taught, that there was no change in the outcome."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.170

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6104

item Program Number 171

"Race and Conservatism"

Guests: Moss, John E. (John Emerson), 1913- : Conyers, John, 1929- : Koch, Ed, 1924-

7 October 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 80 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 4

Program details: "Some critics of this program, both friendly and unfriendly," WFB begins, "have written in to complain that the host of Firing Line is always asking the questions, so much so that the other side doesn't often get an opportunity to go on the offensive. Accordingly, we have invited three distinguished gentlemen, of indistinguishable liberal reputation, to take the offensive and put their questions on the general theme of race and conservatism." In this first of what would become a more or less semi-annual feature of Firing Line, Rep. Moss starts things off by saying that, "having just been characterized as one having impeccable qualifications for that label, I would like to have a brief definition from you as to what I am, as a liberal." After a few minutes of genial political taxonomy, the moderator, Lawrence Chickering, calls on Rep. Conyers, and we're off and running. LC: "Congressman Conyers, would you like to ask Mr. Buckley some questions?" JC: "Well, I should ask him how I got on this program. I see now that this is a nice, all-white academic surrounding here; you can't even find one black kid to put in the college crew."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.171

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6105

item Program Number 172

"Conservative vs. Progressive Republicanism"

Guests: Javits, Jacob K. (Jacob Koppel), 1904-1986.

24 October 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 80 : 5

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 5

Program details: "A couple of years ago," WFB recalls, "Vice President Humphrey accosted Senator Javits amiably and remarked, 'If you get any more forward than you are, you'll be head of the Democratic Party.'" Senator Javits fluently defends his breed of Republicans as distinct from liberal Democrats. JJ: "[The Democratic Party] seeks immediately to find a choice in government for any public ill; any, that runs the wide gamut from poverty to the necessity to encourage small business.... I believe that one can be a liberal-and I accept that designation, not because in the Republican Party we use the term particularly; we always use the term progressive,... but I accept it because it defines a way of thinking, an outlook, and I think that outlook, Bill,... is that if the people have to have something done for them, then it's got to be done, and you can't be doctrinaire about the method. I prefer, as a Republican, the private-enterprise method, either as a sole reliance or as a supplement. However, I do not go with the conservatives in refraining from doing it, or rejecting it, because I can't do it through private enterprise."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.172

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6106

item Program Number 173

"Abortion"

Guests: Ayd, Frank J. : Guttmacher, Alan Frank, 1898-

24 October 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 80 : 6

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 6

Program details: The first Firing Line, though by no means the last, on abortion, which was just becoming a major national topic. There had been agitation for years-strengthened by the thalidomide disaster-for liberalizing abortion laws, and several states had done so. Our two guests present the heart of the opposing positions as clearly as can be. To Dr. Guttmacher, "My own feeling is that the mother-a living human being, who has interaction with other human beings-her rights are so powerfully more predominant than a mass of protoplasm which she carries within her womb that there's no comparison between the two." To Dr. Ayd, "The fact of the matter is from the very moment of conception, where the sperm of the father contributes half of the chromosomes and the ovum of the mother contributes the other half,... you now have a unique individual who has never existed before and will never exist again. And from that moment on, you have a continuum until death occurs, whenever it may occur."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.173

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6107

item Program Number 174

"What Have We Learned from Socialism?"

Guests: Myrdal, Gunnar, 1898-

4 November 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 80 : 7

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 7

Program details: Gunnar Myrdal, WFB recalls, was "once described in Newsday as the sanctimonious Swede who has been paid well for telling us what's wrong with our country for a generation now." Mr. Myrdal jumps right in: "Well, let me first say after all of this you've heard about me, that's just cheap journalism, you know, which is under my level." In exchanges that frequently draw blood, we get a clear picture of asocialist's--as opposed to a totalitarian's--idea of how central planning should work: "Of course, you know that this country, which is supposed to be a free-enterprise country, you are so full of bureaucratic rules and regulations, it's almost difficult to come and visit you. Of course, we have a much freer life in Sweden.... The main thing about planning is to change the big things. To have the big controls higher up here and the purposes of planning,... then give the greatest opportunity to private enterprise in individual life."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.174

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6108

item Program Number 175

"Salvation, Rock Music, and the New Iconoclasm"

Guests: Courtney, C. C. : Link, Peter.

4 November 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 80 : 8

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 8

Program details: "Our guests are the authors and stars of Salvation, a rock show advertised and generally thought of," as WFB puts it, "as the successor to Hair." We begin by listening to a few minutes of their work, "at roughly the sound level," according to WFB, "the audience hears it at" in the theater. Mr. Courtney demurs from that description: "The playing of that music at the level at which you hear it in the theater is impossible. Unfortunately, the people at home are sitting there with three-inch speakers on their television sets, due to the desire of the television manufacturers in this country to save as much money as possible to rob you of your needed sound." And so on, through denunciations of hypocrisy regarding sex, the importance of "vibrations" in rock music, and the rest of the kid scene A.D. 1969. Where this show sometimes misses as conversation, it works as illustration.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.175

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6109

item Program Number 176

"The Selling of the President 1968"

Guests: McGinniss, Joe.

10 November 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 80 : 9

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 9

Program details: Mr. McGinniss, WFB tells us, "dropped his column in June of 1968, intending to do a book on the selling of the President. He asked the Humphrey people if he might tag along, but they said, Hell, no, you can't tag along. The Nixon people were less cautious..." The "selling" in the title refers to the PR tricks used on television: "the image-building, image-changing work," as Mr. McGinniss puts it: "They completely eliminated the Tricky Dick, the loser image, all these bad things that had been hangovers of 1962, and by the time Mr. Nixon went to Miami, I think, it was almost to be coronated, not nominated." One might question, as various reviewers had done, whether Mr. McGinniss had played fair with the Nixon people in presenting his project; but today's discussion proves illuminating on the way we choose our candidates.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.176

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6110

item Program Number 177

"Negotiating for Peace"

Guests: Rostow, Eugene V. (Eugene Victor), 1913- : Moskin, J. Robert.

10 November 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 80 : 10

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 10

Program details: "The charge is constantly made," WFB begins-most recently by Norman Cousins in Look magazine-"that the Government of the United States has not pursued opportunities to bring peace in Vietnam through negotiation." Mr. Rostow is willing and more than able to engage the argument that was put forth by Mr. Cousins and is defended here by his editor, Mr. Moskin. ER: "That affair was one of, I don't know, sixty, perhaps seventy-five rabbits that we pursued down every hole. Now, it's unimaginable, I think,... that any American President would miss a bona fide opportunity for peace,...after the experience that President Truman had with Korea, which destroyed his political career ... The temptation, the risk for the future, would be that the President would be tempted to settle for less than true peace ... Now, the episode that was recently written up by Mr. Cousins was one of a great many similar episodes in which a hint would be made to an American official in some remote corner of the world, and we would send officers ... to meet secretly in hotel rooms, and behind potted plants in bazaars, and try to open up a path to negotiation-a path to negotiation which could lead to a peace that was compatible with our treaty commitments. None of them worked."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.177

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6111

item Program Number 178

"Vietnam"

Guests: Cleveland, Harlan.

6 December 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 81 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 11

Program details: When Moratorium Day hit the campuses in October 1969, the new president of the University of Hawaii, as WFB relates, "closed down the university at 11:30 and gave a speech recounting, for the first time publicly, his position on Vietnam. We should extricate ourselves, he told his audience, not with deliberate speed but with dedicated dispatch"--which Mr. Cleveland later glosses as "speed that looks as if you mean it." From Mr. Cleveland's point of view, Mr. Nixon's chief problem is "wanting to get as much, squeeze as much out of the negotiation, if there is a negotiation, or out of the mutual de-escalation, if that's the way it works, as he can ... but that's going to be a matter of judgment as you go along, as to how important it is to hang onto that tray in your hand when you're really going to lose the trick anyway." An absorbing discussion, ranging from recent events in Vietnam, back to Korea (WFB: "You don't think we consulted Hammarskjold about it. Can you see MacArthur calling up Hammarskjold and asking for permission for the Inchon landing?"), and forward to the future of Hong Kong.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.178

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6112

item Program Number 179

"Reflections on the Current Scene"

Guests: Luce, Clare Boothe, 1903-1987.

6 December 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 81 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 12

Program details: A high-energy conversation ranging from conservatives' views on environmental pollution, to population control in the Philippines, to Middle Americans' embrace of Spiro Agnew, to the Church's understanding that even saints are also sinners. An ominous moment, in the light of developments just a few years away, is Mrs. Luce's working out of her theory of what constitutes greatness in Presidents: "I think there's no evidence whatsoever as of now that President Nixon is or will become a great President. But you know I take a rather simplistic view of what a great man is. I think a great man is always the author of a unique and significant action. So far there is no unique action of which Mr. Nixon is the author."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.179

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E52U8K

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6113

item Program Number 180

"The Future of the Democratic Party"

Guests: Brown, Edmund G. (Edmund Gerald), 1905-1996.

9 December 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 81 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 13

Program details: Mr. Brown, WFB recalls, was dubbed "the giant-killer" when he decisively defeated for the governorship first William Knowland in 1958, then Richard Nixon in 1962; "but then four years later the giant-killer ran into the sheriff of the late, late show, and was himself retired." We begin judiciously enough, with a discussion of the effect the Watts riots and the sit-ins at the University of California had on the 1966 campaign. But then we get to this real eye-opener, on one of Mr. Brown's famous campaign commercials. "I walked in with two little girls and they were obviously six or eight years of age, and I said to them, are you going to vote for me? And they looked at me rather quizzically, and ... as I walked away, I turned around to them and I said, 'Remember, it was an actor that shot Lincoln.' ... Really it was so obviously a facetious remark, and said with a smile, that anyone that had seen the picture would have laughed at it. Before we showed the picture, everybody looked at it, and I thought it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.180

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6114

item Program Number 181

"Why Don't Conservatives Understand?"

Guests: Rapoport, Roger. : Hukari, Harvey H. : Nisker, Wes.

9 December 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 81 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 14

Program details: The second installment (see 171) of what will become a regular Firing Line feature: a show where host replaces guests on the firing line. One of the guest-inquisitors in this case is a libertarian conservative; the other two are double-distilled radicals. In reply to Mr. Hukari's question about "how conservatives can escape the vicious stereotype" of being "the son or daughter of a retired Army colonel, combining the unctuousness of Bert Parks with the intellectual depth of Max Rafferty," WFB suggests that "people who are a minority in the intellectual community have got ... to strive harder to insist on the making of proper distinctions." Messrs. Rapoport and Nisker, as young radicals in San Francisco in 1969, don't need to worry about all that. Mr. Rapoport talks about the effort during the last couple of years "to exterminate the Black Panther Party": "I mean,... all of these incidents have happened the same way. The police have surrounded all the headquarters and charged in the same fashion,... and I mean if this started happening to Republican headquarters or Democratic headquarters? I just think-" WFB: "Well, I think any Republican headquarters that has in it Thompson submachine guns and grenades and high-explosive dynamite ought to be charged into, and if in the course of charging in there is resistance and a Republican gets killed, we'll simply have to accept that as one of the costs of doing social business."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.181

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6115

item Program Number 182

"Tariffs"

Guests: Wallich, Henry Christopher, 1914- : Strackbein, O. R. (Oscar Robert), 1900-1993.

18 December 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 81 : 5

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 15

Program details: Is protectionism the answer to rising unemployment? Our guests strongly disagree, but in the courtliest possible way, in an exceedingly informative discussion of the various types of trade barriers (tariffs, import quotas, internal "turnover taxes" or VATs), how they are applied in different countries, and the effect of different levels of productivity. HW: "The point about wages is this: we pay maybe five times as much per man hour as do the Japanese. We pay two or three times as much as do the Germans, French, Italians. Now, does that ruin us competitively? The answer is we use very little labor per unit of input. And if you restate these wage comparisons, instead of wages paid per hour, in terms of wages paid per unit of output, per slab of steel, or per car, or pair of shoes?" WFB: "Then we do a lot better." ORS: "... Now, Mr. Wallich has just said that there are some industries that are capital intensive, so to speak, where the labor cost is not as high. Well, now, I would like to demolish that theory."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.182

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6116

item Program Number 183

"The Kennedy Years"

Guests: Galbraith, John Kenneth, 1908-2006.

18 December 1969

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 81 : 6

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 16

Program details: Messrs. Buckley and Galbraith had been favorite fencing partners on many platforms, but this was the latter's first appearance on Firing Line, prompted by the publication of Ambassador's Journal: A Personal Account of the Kennedy Years. We get the flavor of their style of thrust and parry right from the start (JKG: "Oh, sure, it was a great piece of nonsense, I should- I was greatly tempted to take it out; but once you start improving your record by hindsight-well, you know yourself where it leads, you've done so much of it..." WFB: "Well, I may be guilty of heresies, but I don't remember deserting any of my heresies." JKG: "Oh, yes, yes, Bill-I remember that very good book of yours on The Unmaking of a Mayor, where you deserted your whole conservative doctrine ..."); but there is also serious discussion of the way the State Department bureaucracy works, how a country decides when to intervene abroad, and Mr. Galbraith's exhilarating account of China's border conflict with India that "coincided with the missile crisis in Cuba, and I had this war all to myself for several weeks ... and the effect on a middle-aged intellectual of being able to run a war..."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.183

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6117

item Program Number 184

"Agnew and the Media"

Guests: Klein, Herbert G.

6 January 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 81 : 7

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 17

Program details: Spiro Agnew had, as WFB puts it, "riveted the nation a while ago by charging that those who control the television and news media are a small, endogamous lot who moon their admiration of one another at cocktail parties in New York City and Washington, D.C. It is Mr. Agnew's spectacular charges that Mr. Klein is here to discuss, calmly as ever, because there is nobody in the whole world who is calmer than Mr. Klein." Our guest proceeds to live up to this description, and so there are no fireworks on a topic that had been exploding around the nation. However, he does provide a helpful double perspective, as someone who now represents the Administration but who knows the news media from the inside. HK: "I've heard many of those who reacted hardest say worse things in criticism of the media than Mr. Agnew did. On the other hand, it's like if you go outside of the fraternity and make this type of statement, then it's illegal."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.184

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6118

item Program Number 185

"Dissent and Society"

Guests: Boorstin, Daniel J. (Daniel Joseph), 1914-2004.

6 January 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 81 : 8

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 18

Program details: Mr. Boorstin, as WFB introduces him, is "superbly documented as a scholar ... but he is also adamant in his denunciation of what one loosely calls the New Left. Indeed one might call him the Spiro Agnew of the Highbrows." What follows is a splendid discussion, rich in detail, of how a community coheres, how America had changed in its perceptions of minorities, and how individuals now feel free "to bollix up the works" in pressing their own demands. One sample from Mr. Boorstin: "I think that if we start with the idea of community then we can easily make a distinction between dissent and disagreement. I define disagreement as the exchange of views over how to obtain the common ends of the community. Dissent I identify ..., through its Latin origin, with a feeling of separateness, the emphasis on that which separates rather than that which unites people. And I think that there has been a tendency to create a cliche, a new cliche in America, which is that it's good for people to feel and emphasize their separateness from all other people; and I think that much of what is glorified under the name of dissent is really the exclamatory expression of the self..."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.185

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6119

item Program Number 186

"Skepticism and Disorder"

Guests: Sheen, Fulton J. (Fulton John), 1895-1979.

6 January 1970

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 19

Program details: A superb conversation that ranges from Vietnam and crime in the streets to the beginning of the Cold War and the difficulty many Americans had in believing that the Soviet Union, our recent ally in World War II, wasn't a democracy in the same sense as the United States. One sample: WFB: "Well, but is it always commendable to use restraint, or is restraint sometimes an expression of cowardice or lack of conviction?" FJS: "It can be both.... Take, for example, turning the other cheek. If there are ten men in a line and I preach hate to them and say you must destroy your brother, and one man turns and strikes his neighbor, two strikes three, when will it ever stop? It will stop only at a point where one man turns around and absorbs the evil. In that sense, restraint can absorb evil. From another point of view restraint does not absorb evil; it sometimes may increase it. The crimes certainly on our streets, today, the turn of law by which there is compassion shown more for the mugger than for the mugged, more for the one who does the violence than for the victim-this is a kind of restraint which is not commendable, and which I fear will bring some trouble to our nation."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.186

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6120

item Program Number 187

"The Oppenheimer Case"

Guests: Stern, Philip M.

15 January 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 81 : 9

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 20

Program details: Mr. Stern believes (a) that J. Robert Oppenheimer got a raw deal, and (b) that our government harmed rather than helped our security by denying itself his services. A rich discussion starting with the security investigations of the early Fifties, but moving back to World War II and the development of the hydrogen bomb, and forward to the "current blacklisting of scientists by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare." Mr. Stern cites the wartime case of Edward Teller, who was almost denied a security clearance because he had relatives in Nazi Germany; Mr. Buckley cites the case of Suez in 1956, where the Soviets found out about the proposed Israeli-French-British invasion through the efforts of one of "these individuals that you simply dismiss as ciphers [but who] are people who change events." PS: "After World War II, when our armies went back in, they tried to find out where the Germans were in their atomic research, and they found that they were two years, at least, behind us, and one scientist tried to find out why. And a cardinal reason was that Germany had done just what we did in the Oppenheimer case ... They had politicalized their science."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.187

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6121

item Program Number 188

"The Mylai Massacre"

Guests: Bennett, John Coleman, 1902- : Frankel, Charles, 1917-

15 January 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 81 : 10

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 21

Program details: A serious, though sometimes heated, discussion that begins with who bears responsibility for the Mylai massacre (JCB: "Now I do also believe that if you get American troops into a long and indefinite war, going on for years and years in a strange country where they don't understand people, where they can't communicate ... if you search and destroy, and, worst of all, if you are always surrounded by people of whom you can't be sure whether they're your friends or your enemies ... statistically you've got to expect a certain number of people to break loose and do something like this") but goes on to questions such as, Was the attack on Hiroshima launched in cold blood? Where did the word "gook" originate? (CF: "We used it in World War II, against the enemy." WFB: "Did we?" CF: "Well, where I was.... We talked-" WFB: "Surely not you?" CF: "Well, yes, surely me too. If I had said 'Japanese' none of the fellows I was with would know what in the devil I meant") and (from Mr. Frankel) "Aren't both you people sort of forgetting the Hundred Years War?"

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.188

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6122

item Program Number 189

"Broadcasting and the Public"

Guests: Johnson, Nicholas, 1934-

26 January 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 81 : 11

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 22

Program details: What business does the FCC have telling broadcasters what to broadcast? Who decides what is in the public interest? At the time of this show, when cable was in its infancy, how did the broadcasting industry differ, from the automobile industry or the cereal industry? Occasional sharp clashes and much good fun. NJ: "In Great Britain there is commercial television service, and there are two channels of BBC. British television has on it the same kind of trash that we do-if anything, they have a wider diversity of trash than we and giv[e] people really a choice of gradations of trashy programs.... But the point is that in addition to that programming, there is also ... a choice, and there is more of a choice every evening on British television than probably on American television in a month." ... WFB: "Well, you see, the paradoxical thing is I really agree with you on practically everything-it pains me to do so-but it seems to me that what you really are is sort of an aristocratic paternalist." NJ: "Gee, that's something I've never thought of myself as ..."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.189

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6123

item Program Number 190

"Power"

Guests: Berle, Adolf Augustus, 1895-1971.

26 January 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 81 : 12

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 23

Program details: Mr. Buckley describes his guest as "the last of the great intellectual New Dealers"; his public career had begun at the Paris Peace Conference, and during the New Deal itself he had, among other things, drafted the Securities and Exchange Act. His newest book, Power, was, as WFB puts it, "an attempt to ... decoct from human experience some imperishable laws explaining and indeed governing the uses of power." Serious political theory and lively exchanges-with one of the most telling bits of humor being unintentional, apropos of the Berle Law ("that wherever there is chaos it will always be occupied by power"): WFB: "What about Colombia, for instance?" AB: "It is interesting to note, since ... I crossed the picket line at Columbia myself." WFB: "No, no, I meant the country." Many Firing Line guests speak from earned authority, but here is Mr. Berle explaining his support of Lyndon Johnson's invasion of the Dominican Republic: "It just happens that the Dominican Republic is a republic I know very, very well indeed. I ... drew up the land law for it, in 1924 ..."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.190

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6124

item Program Number 191

"English and American Audiences"

Guests: Frost, David, 1939 Apr. 7-

11 March 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 81 : 13

Transcript: Box/Folder 166 : 24

Program details: Mr. Frost, at the age of 28, was one of the best-known figures on both the English and the American airwaves--and presumably also airlines, since he crossed the Atlantic twice a week to maintain his double hegemony. He argues stoutly, and with plausible illustrations, that there really isn't much difference between English and American audiences--despite, as Mr. Buckley puts it,"the expectation that, because of the BBC, there would be in England ... a listening audience that is more sophisticated, more inquisitive, more demanding than the American audience." Not at all, says Mr. Frost. In fact, "I think the picture of there being ... in some curious way ... lower taste or less intelligence in the mass audience in America compared with England is either a ludicrous piece of modesty on the part of Americans or a plot by the East Coast and the West Coast to denigrate the people in the middle of the country." Much about styles of public conversation and interviewing, and a fascinating side-glance at Enoch Powell.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.191

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6125

item Program Number 192

"Public Works"

Guests: Moses, Robert, 1888-1981.

11 March 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 82 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 1

Program details: A bracing session with a man who never took "No" for an answer. WFB: "Well, a lot of people are saying about you that ... your impatience with people like John Lindsay is a failure on your part to recognize that historically he is the counterpart of what you were fifty years ago." RM: "No, I don't see anything in that at all. My criticism of John Lindsay is based solely on one thing, that he doesn't get anything done. He just advocates.... Anybody who has any capacity for administration, even on a relatively small scale, like municipal housekeeping, parks, street cleaning, goes along in a car, and he looks at his particular domain, and he passes a place that's dirty, sloppy, obviously isn't well run, and the benches are all torn to pieces, the slats are off, and so forth. He doesn't go into a long disquisition about [Black Panther] trials-" WFB: "Vietnam." RM: "-that kind of thing. He sends for the top man in the borough, and he says, 'The general foreman is out. He lives in the Bronx, send him to Staten Island for the good of the service.' Forty-eight hours, that's all over the place."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.192

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6126

item Program Number 193

"The Idea of The Great Ideas"

Guests: Adler, Mortimer Jerome, 1902-2001.

13 March 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 82 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 2

Program details: The first Firing Line appearance for Professor Adler, a buoyant thinker and teacher. The "great ideas" get into the discussion, but not separately from the way people are, or should be, introduced to them. Mr. Adler is scathing on the effect our present graduate schools have on undergraduate learning ("the college, instead of being an institution of liberal learning, concerned only to liberate the mind, to discipline it and liberate it,... becomes nothing but a channel, a conduit, into the specializations of the graduate schools." ... "My definition of a good teacher, which I have a hunch you will share, is a person who is himself dedicated to continued general learning.... I know it's kind of trite to say that Socrates was the greatest teacher, but he was. And he was, simply because his teaching was the conduct of an inquiry, in which the students were engaged in the inquiry with him. Now that, it seems to me, is the kind of teaching that should go on in college.") On to Thomas Aquinas, John Dewey, how to help the least able child, and much more.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.193

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SQFQYM

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6127

item Program Number 194

"The New Realism in Movies"

Guests: Bloomfield, George. : Kramer, Larry. : Kastle, Leonard.

13 March 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 82 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 3

Program details: Our guests' new films, WFB begins by saying, "have in common a realistic, not to say photographic, attitude towards crime and sex." We begin with a clip from each, with its writer/director setting the scene, and then move on to the discussion. Mr. Kramer has a wonderful story about how he had tried to enlist F. R. Leavis's interest in his version of Women in Love and what the great man did to him; Mr. Kastle tells of the different ways a work in progress looks depending on your perspective: "When I wrote the screenplay in this film there were many scenes that I felt were right. And a lot of it involved nudity. And when I became the director of the film, I had a terrible fight with myself. The writer is always supposed to fight with the director, and I was-I had a constant battle ... And I found that what I was doing was I was taking out things that really happened [in the real-life story on which his film was based] in order to make the movie more truthful....It's a very difficult paradox."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.194

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6128

item Program Number 195

"ROTC"

Guests: Germino, Dante L. : Bierman, Arthur.

2 April 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 82 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 4

Program details: In the spring of 1969, WFB begins, "all of a sudden students and faculty discovered that ROTC was somehow intellectually unfashionable. Their discovery had nothing whatever to do with the Vietnam War, you understand, merely a coincidence." It turns out that there are non-Vietnam-related reasons to oppose ROTC-reasons that Mr. Germino is on record as having adduced for a different government program long before we were involved in Vietnam, having to do with "extramural control" and the fact that "the courses are designed for recruitment and training for a single employer"-i.e., they are not academic in the strict sense of the word. Mr. Bierman adds that "I personally have, for example, fought not a very successful battle ... trying to remove credit for physical education at my college, precisely for the reason that you mention, in that I don't think it's an academic subject either." But more important to him is the question "whether one believes that the university should be an agent or an arm of whatever institution pays the bill. Or whether you think that it should in fact try to fight for a certain kind of autonomy."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.195

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6129

item Program Number 196

"National Review"

Guests: DuBois, L. Clayton (Larry Clayton) : Leonard, John, 1939- : Cheshire, William.

2 April 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 82 : 5

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 5

Program details: The third of the occasional programs in which the guests question the host of Firing Line (see 171). The idea this time is to examine current American conservatism by looking at National Review, of which Mr. Buckley is the founder and Editor. We start with the magazine's position on the Nixon Justice Department and individual liberties, the concerns of the young, the use of obscenity-and then the trill: WFB: "I think a conservative is somebody who has a sense of perspective ... I remember a story about Victor Borge. He was 12 years old, and he was a child prodigy, so the Royal Copenhagen Symphony Orchestra put him on to play a Schumann concerto, and .. .towards the end of the first movement, he was doing a trill, and the entire orchestra of 125 people was completely silent, and 3,000 people were completely silent, and all of a sudden he was just carried away by how ludicrous it was to play a trill while everybody was just sort of sitting, so he just went on and on, and they broke out laughing. Now, occasionally, when one finds oneself being very solemn, I think of Victor Borge, and I think it is a part of the conservative view of things to understand, for instance, that this isn't the terminal experience of any human being, we're here at the pleasure of God, and moving, one hopes, into far greener pastures, and that under the circumstances, one must be careful not to become completely obsessed." LCD: "Trill now and then." WFB: "You've got to trill now and then, yeah, that's right; or recognize the trill."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.196

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6130

item Program Number 197

"The Uses of Radicalism"

Guests: Jacobs, Paul, 1918-

10 April 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 82 : 6

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 6

Program details: Mr. Jacobs is by his own and most other people's reckoning a radical, and part of the purpose of this show is to let him tell us how a radical approaches things, which he does with some panache. "I would distinguish myself from liberals and conservatives somewhat in this fashion: the liberal ... will concede the existence of the problem, and his response to it is to go: Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk ... He says yes, the problem is there and it's pretty terrible, and we probably ought to do something about it ... The conservative ...says, 'What problem? What problem? The only thing that's wrong is that there are people who don't understand the true nature of American society and how great it is and how it's moving on an upward trend all the time.' And so what the radical seeks to do, not always successfully, is to search for the roots of the problem ... it's as if you had a sick patient and the doctors were to say to him, 'Yes, you're sick, I think aspirin will take care of you,' when in fact what's needed is open-heart surgery." And on to the history of race relations in America, and why students in Santa Barbara burned down a bank in protest against their university-supplied housing, and why people like Ted Sorensen and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. aren't as important as conservatives think they are.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.197

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6131

item Program Number 198

"Order and the Law"

Guests: Garry, Charles.

10 April 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 82 : 7

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 7

Program details: WFB begins by quoting the celebrated exchange when Bobby Seale had asked his prospective lawyer in the Chicago 8 trial, "Are you as good as Perry Mason?" Mr. Garry had replied, "I'm better. Both of us get our clients off, but Mason's are innocent." On to that trial itself, where some of the defendants' disruptions were in protest at Judge Hoffman's refusal to grant a delay until Mr. Garry had recovered from gall-bladder surgery. CG: "Oh, I think the defendants were exceedingly well behaved." WFB: "Okay. There was one defendant who shouted at Judge Hoffman for having pictures on his wall of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, because he said they were slave owners. Now was that-" CG: "Do you know why he said that?" WB: "Well, just tell me why he said it." CG: "That was Bobby Seale who said that.... Do you know why he said that?" WFB: "Why?" CG: "Because the judge said that he was not a racist himself, and stated his own background ... to satisfy the old doctrine that some of my best friends are Negroes, and Bobby Scale said, How can you say that you're not a racist when in back of you you have all of the racist so-called fathers of our country?"

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.198

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6132

item Program Number 199

"My Several Lives"

Guests: Conant, James Bryant, 1893-1978.

23 April 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 82 : 8

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 8

Program details: Mr. Conant was one of the country's leading educational theorists and had been a frequent target of the young Bill Buckley in the Fifties. Now, in the turmoil of the Vietnam era, host and guest are pretty much on the same side of the barricades. JBC: "You know, I feel, if I may say so, a little bit aggrieved at the way Fate has treated me on this question of education beyond the high school. I'm a little like a cavalry officer who got ready to write his memoirs just about the time they mechanized the cavalry." Some time is devoted to the two men's old bone of contention (whether private, and particularly Church-related, schools have a place in American society), but much more is spent on a wonderfully rich exploration of morality and bravery in warfare. JBC: "I said that I didn't see that there was any difference, really, between attacking a person with poison gas, which would attack his lungs and face, perhaps, and ripping him apart with machine guns or fragments of shell.... Once you were in a war, I don't think that you had more or less moral methods of carrying on a war, and this was very true about all of this terrible bombing ... in World War II."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.199

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6133

item Program Number 200

"The New South"

Guests: McKeithen, John J. (John Julian), 1918-

23 April 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 82 : 9

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 9

Program details: Supreme Court decisions of recent years had led to massive busing-and massive resistance, in terms of "white flight" and refusal to support school bonds. Governor McKeithen, as WFB puts it, "argues ... not the virtues of compulsory segregation, but the necessity of accepting de facto segregation.... [He] persuaded the legislature to pass a law in every way identical to a law passed in New York State in 1969, even, as Governor McKeithen likes to point out, to the point of duplicating a grammatical mistake in that law, in order to dramatize that he doesn't want anything more than what New Yorkers are treating themselves to." Integrationists had impugned Governor McKeithen's motives; on this show he argues, with much supporting detail, "I think it's going to take time. I think eventually, eventually the predominant Negro school, the predominant white school, I think will come to an end in this country. But I don't think we should force children ... into something that their parents won't do themselves."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.200

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6134

item Program Number 201

"Hunger and the Government"

Guests: McGovern, George S. (George Stanley), 1922-

5 May 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 82 : 10

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 10

Program details: Senator McGovern--who had been a leader in the anti-Johnson, anti-Humphrey forces in 1968, and who had already begun running for the 1972 Democratic nomination--was probably best known for his opposition to the Vietnam War; but his other big issue was, as WFB puts it, "the inadequacy of our war against poverty, more concretely against hunger." This proves to be a fast-moving and informative exchange, beginning with the Soviet Union's routine agricultural disasters and going on to our own "paradox," as Mr. McGovern puts it, which is hunger "at a time when we can produce more than enough to take care of all of our people." Specifics come from both the supply side (as WFB puts it, we "send great gobs of money to rich farmers, like Senator Eastland,... paying them not to grow food") and the demand side (Senator McGovern quotes "studies show[ing] that poor people, dollar for dollar, do a better job of buying what they ought to eat than the rich do").

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.201

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6135

item Program Number 202

"The Southern Strategy"

Guests: Thurmond, Strom, 1902-2003.

5 May 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 82 : 11

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 11

Program details: Strom Thurmond had come over from the Democratic Party in time for the 1968 election. He was still, as WFB puts it, "widely acknowledged as among the two or three principal spokesmen for the South. He is also widely applauded and widely reviled for having been a major factor in the victory of Richard Nixon as President," having helped persuade fellow conservative Southerners to vote for Mr. Nixon rather than George Wallace. There is some talk here about that election, but more of this often pungent discussion focuses on the South itself and the way, according to Senator Thurmond, it is misrepresented in the North, with some reminders of how he earned his standing to speak: "I remember when I was governor [in the late Forties], anybody who wanted to vote regardless of color could vote. And we put on campaigns to provide better educational facilities for the black children. And at one point I had to have some white men arrested for lynching a Negro in South Carolina, brought them to trial. I was told it was the first time in the history of the state that had been done. Well, it probably wasn't a pleasant thing, maybe, where a state is predominated by whites, ruled by whites, to do that, but it's the only right thing to do, is to give equal justice to all people."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.202

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6136

item Program Number 203

"The Hess Story"

Guests: Hess, Wolf Rudiger. : Marreco, Anthony.

8 May 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 83 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 12

Program details: As WFB sketches the background, "it was 1941; France had been conquered, and Hitler and Stalin had signed their non-aggression pact. Suddenly and secretly, Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess flew to Britain and parachuted down, intending personally to negotiate a peace between England and Germany. For his pains, Hitler sentenced him to death in absentia, Churchill put him in jail, and the Nuremberg court, five years later, sentenced him to life imprisonment." Twenty-four years after that, he remained the only prisoner in Spandau--the next to last having been released in 1966. Today's conversation is halting at times, owing to Wolf Hess's imperfect English, but illuminating on the general question of war crimes, and often moving on the specific case. AM: "I remember your father today as a very straightforward and a very simple man. And I think you'll agree, not a man of tremendous intellect. And I have always believed that it was the planned attack on Russia [by Germany] that completely unbalanced him. And he then searched back in his memory; he quite wrongly thought the Duke of Hamilton, whom he had met skiing ... before the war, was an important figure in England. As you know, dukes aren't, but your father thought he was, and he flew to Scotland in a brave, rash attempt to contact the Duke of Hamilton and negotiate a peace."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.203

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6137

item Program Number 204

"English Youth"

Guests: Roth, Peter M. : Thorpe-Young, Geoffrey A. : Gibson, Christopher. : Riddell, Peter. : Evans, Roger. : Standlen, Nicholas.

8 May 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 83 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 13

Program details: The first three young men, top students at one of England's top public schools, evince little interest in the world affairs convulsing campuses around the world; but the three university men raise the energy level with their crackling disagreements about whether there can ever be equality in England without a radical revamping of the school system. NS: "... this is why it is crucial that you should not segregate children in education at an early age, or indeed at any age, because you are thereby saying,... If you pass this exam [at age eleven], you are going to get a good education, and if you fail it, you are going to get a bad one." RE: "... If you happen to be born in a neighborhood comprehensive which is a bad school, you have no opportunity whatsoever under Mr. Standlen's system; under the old English system, if you had that spark of genius in you, you could rise."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.204

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6138

item Program Number 205

"The British Abortion Act--Two Years Later"

Guests: St. John-Stevas, Norman. : Steel, David, Sir, 1938-

9 May 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 83 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 14

Program details: Mr. Steel had two years earlier, against an opposition led by Mr. Stevas, guided through the House of Commons the Abortion Reform Act, criticisms of which, Mr. Buckley suggests, are "as relevant in America as in England." The audience may feel a bit left out at the beginning, when Messrs. Stevas and Steel wrangle over who did or didn't draft or redraft the "conscience clause" in that act (which states that doctors and nurses are not obliged to perform abortions), but eventually we get to the point at issue: "The really bad effects of the Abortion Act, you know," says Mr. Stevas, "were that it has made people abortion minded. That's what I object to. I freely can see that there's a case for carrying out an abortion in very difficult circumstances; but now it's the first option that people think of. We have this crazy social policy, in which it's very difficult to get family planning out of the National Health Service, and abortion is made easy. And you get an extraordinary frame of discourse by people who seem to [believe] the worst disaster that could overtake a woman is pregnancy."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.205

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6139

item Program Number 206

"The Road Back"

Guests: Braine, John. : Amis, Kingsley.

9 May 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 83 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 15

Program details: The road back from socialism, that is. Both guests had been Angry Young Men. "To be an Angry Young Man," WFB explains, "you had to be young, angry about the insufficiency of Western institutions, implacably anti-American, easy-going on the Soviet Union, and talented." Have Messrs. Braine and Amis benefited materially from their apostasy? JB: "I've never had a thing, not even a free ticket to Lord's." The Left, Mr. Braine continues, "never plays fair, and the trouble with the Right is that it does, because we have an entirely different set of values. That's why we're such fools, and that's why the Left is forging ahead of us." ... KA: "Anybody ... might, for arguable reasons, want the American involvement in Southeast Asia to stop, as quickly as possible. That seems to me tenable. I don't agree with it, but it's arguable. But to support the other side, the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong, to go around crying Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh, seems to me reprehensible on a very broad front, morally and intellectually and politically, in the sense that it makes political nonsense."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.206

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6140

item Program Number 207

"Politics and the Media"

Guests: Shakespeare, Frank.

9 June 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 83 : 5

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 16

Program details: There are few fireworks in this meeting between two old comrades in arms. However, they have a solid and productive discussion about how our information agencies operate, how they might be more effective, and--in the light of 250 State Department officials signing a protest to the Secretary of State over the Cambodian incursion--what are the different obligations of the political appointee and the career Foreign Service Officer. FS: "If a decision was undertaken by the President, which I felt very deeply in my heart and in my mind was wrong for the American people and would wreak lasting damage on the country, I think that I really would have no alternative except to resign and then publicly oppose the decision." For the career Foreign Service Officer, on the other hand, "over the next ten or twenty years there are certain to be a number of policies in any Administration that privately as a citizen he would oppose. He must support those, to the best of his ability, with the same degree of effort and professionalism as he would those he happens to support."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.207

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6141

item Program Number 208

"The Escalation of Student Power"

Guests: Kelman, Steven. : Klein, Alexander, 1918-

9 June 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 83 : 6

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 17

Program details: To discuss, as WFB puts it, "the causes and directions of student protest," we have a veteran observer and a young man who has had recent experience with the Students for a Democratic Society, "some of whose members, with only a perfunctory trace of sadness, hav[e] advised Mr. Kelman that shortly after the consummation of their revolution, it will prove quite necessary to shoot Mr. Kelman or to hang him." The conversation frequently changes direction, since it is Mr. Klein's thesis that "SDS and National Review and the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are all symptoms of a failure to really come to grips with the problems of America," whereas Mr. Kelman concentrates on SDS: "I tried above all to, instead of attributing motives, to analyze why their ideology degenerated in the way it did. Why an organization which started off saying, 'Let the people decide,' and which started off seeking certain things that I would feel are improvements in American society, degenerated into an organization whose model for America would be something like Mao Tse-tung's China."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.208

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6142

item Program Number 209

"The Twilight of the Presidency"

Guests: Reedy, George E., 1917-

1 July 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 83 : 7

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 18

Program details: A profound discussion of the Presidency, prompted by Mr. Reedy' s own experiences at Lyndon Johnson's right hand, but going back to the founding of our country ("They had no model for government other than that of monarchy.... In those days, while there was a British Parliament, ... the Prime Minister's] primary responsibility was still to the King"). GR: "When I say that [the President] loses contact [with the people], I do not mean that he is cut off from information. No.... In fact, he's smothered in information ... What I mean is that the man is not living in an environment of adversary personal relationships, which is something that is essential for maintaining psychic health.... Most of us go through the day plagued by unreasonable people - by bill collectors - " WFB: "Wives." GR: "by wives, who burst into tears because you've forgotten an anniversary ... by people that are quite likely to punch you in the nose when you step on their toe ... None of these things are pleasant. I don't regard exercise as pleasant, either. But, nevertheless, I think they are essential to an understanding of our fellow human beings, and this a President does not have."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.209

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6143

item Program Number 210

"The Stock Market--Ups and Downs"

Guests: Smith, Adam, 1930- : Levy, Leon, 1929-

1 July 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 83 : 8

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 19

Program details: Does the stock market go up and down because of real events in the outside world--government actions, the level of inflation, the earning power of particular companies at a particular time--or does it have more to do with the emotional reactions of investors? As of July 1970, the stock market, which had been strong in the early 1960s, had been lagging inflation for more than four years; as we know in hindsight, not until 1981 would the Dow-Jones Industrial Average match the high it had reached in 1965. This show offers a good, solid discussion of an elusive topic. AS: "And no matter what the next thing is that happens in the market-and there will be a next thing-it too is born to die. The day it starts to happen, its days are numbered. You simply don't know how many days there are."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.210

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6144

item Program Number 211

"Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom"

Guests: Burns, James MacGregor.

28 August 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 83 : 9

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 20

Program details: A rich discussion with a man who is not being ironical in the title of his book (although he admits that there are ironies in it) and who is capable of holding together both the sweep and the details of World War II. In Mr. Burns's view, for example, "the decision, made for military reasons, not to open a second front in Europe in 1942 but rather to wait until 1944 wound up virtually guaranteeing Soviet hegemony over Central Europe, because by the time of Yalta we desperately wanted Soviet assistance in tackling Japan.... Russia had us just the other way around in Asia-that is, we wanted them to create the Second Front... on the mainland in Asia, in order to cut down on our casualties. And what Roosevelt did again, in his typically opportunistic, short-run, realistic way, if you will, is to pay the price [at Yalta] to get Soviet assistance against Japan, after we had failed to come to Russia's assistance in Europe."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.211

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6145

item Program Number 212

"International Trade"

Guests: Stans, Maurice H., 1908-

28 August 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 83 : 10

Transcript: Box/Folder 167 : 21

Program details: As Secretary of Commerce, Mr. Stans was involved, among many other things, with world trade--specifically, at this time, with trying to persuade Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong to stop flooding our country with cheap textiles, and trying to persuade Congress not to respond to domestic pressure by raising tariffs and imposing import quotas. The discussion becomes quite technical at times--in terms of balance of payments and what happens to a dollar that a foreigner earns by selling goods here--but host and guest never lose us as they explore the question, as Mr. Buckley phrases it, "Why wouldn't a policy of unilateral free trade [i.e., not imposing tariffs even if others do] ultimately work out economically?"

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.212

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6146

item Program Number 213

"Marijuana and the Law"

Guests: Kaplan, John, 1929-1989. : Kleindienst, Richard G., 1923-

3 September 1970

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 1

Program details: The second Firing Line discussion of marijuana, this one an often exciting duel between a committed drug warrior and a former public prosecutor who, after working on a panel to recommend new drug legislation in California, reversed his position and came out for legalization of marijuana, on the analogy of repeal of Prohibition. Mr. Buckley starts out by asking whether "... it is possible to discuss marijuana and the law without arriving at any fixed conclusions on how harmful marijuana is." Mr. Kleindienst's first reaction is Yes; but as soon as Mr. Kaplan states that the enormous cost of criminalizing marijuana use could be justified only "if the drug were as bad as some people said it was," it becomes apparent that, in Mr. Kleindienst's words, "You have to talk about the two at the same time,... because if you took my theory that it is dangerous, then it would ... dissipate the validity of his theory."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.213

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6147

item Program Number 214

"How Does It Look for the Dollar?"

Guests: Browne, Harry, 1933- : Janeway, Eliot.

3 September 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 83 : 11

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 ; 2

Program details: Mr. Browne starts off by explaining that he isn't "advocating devaluation--he is simply looking at the world as it is" and saying that, "as an act of economic desperation," our government will have to "renege on their promise to foreign governments to pay one ounce of gold for every $35 turned in at the Treasury." (The Nixon Administration did so on August 15, 1971.) Mr. Janeway replies engagingly: "Frankly, I find myself a bit off balance being out flanked on the pessimistic side;... they pun on my name all the time and call me Calamity Janeway, and I really regard myself as the last optimist." And we're off on a high-energy discussion of the differences between domestic and international policies, or, as Mr. Janeway puts it, "the hamburger dollar available to us nationals within the sovereignty here [as against] the international dollar."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.214

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SQFR6E

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6148

item Program Number 215

"The Pueblo Story"

Guests: Bucher, Lloyd M., 1927-

10 September 1970

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 3

Program details: In January of 1968 North Korean boats surrounded the Pueblo, an American intelligence ship sailing in international waters, forced it to come into port in North Korea and imprisoned the crew for 11 months, and let them go only after the Johnson Administration apologized, as WFB puts it, "for doing something the United States Government wasn't guilty of doing." The often moving discussion with this man who had narrowly avoided a court martial for surrendering his ship ranges from the details of the Pueblo's, capture to general questions of intelligence collecting, to, as WFB puts it, "the business that you can only give your name, rank, and serial number" and whether that ought to be changed. LB: "I would hesitate at the present time to discuss actual recommendations ..." WFB: "Why would you be hesitant?" LB: "Because there are several hundred POWs over there in North Vietnam right now who are trying to live up to it, and with a statement that might be made by myself or any other military person, it would be used against those kids, and I wouldn't want to contribute to the problems they've already got."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.215

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6149

item Program Number 216

"The Supreme Court, Rule of Law, and Academic Freedom"

Guests: Fellman, David, 1907- : Pritchett, C. Herman (Charles Herman), 1907- : Kort, Fred.

10 September 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 83 : 12

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 4

Program details: Our three guests were all attending the annual convention of the American Political Science Association, whose more traditional members were engaged in fending off a takeover by something called "A Caucus for a New Political Science." As Mr. Pritchett explains, "I think the initial concept of a professional association ... was that this was a place where you came to meet your colleagues, talk about ... our professional interests, our teaching problems, our research problems." But now the association, like the campuses where its members teach, has been politicized, and, as Mr. Fellman (whose campus had been the scene of a fatal bombing at a research laboratory) puts it, "we really haven't gotten accustomed to using the skills necessary to deal with the kind of problems the association now has." An illuminating discussion among men fighting to maintain standards of intellectual discipline against the bomb throwers.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.216

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6150

item Program Number 217

"Why Are They Afraid of Bach?"

Guests: Tureck, Rosalyn.

28 September 1970

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 5

Program details: A lovely show with the keyboard artist who, according to one reviewer, is "to Bach what Marilyn Monroe is to movies." The question before the house is whether young rock fans can be shown that Bach is not dry and academic; Miss Tureck illustrates her points superbly at the keyboard, but, as her engagement with the young panelists demonstrates, she is as much at home with words as with her own craft. Miss Tureck, to panelist Phil Ardery: "I would like to ask you a question, and that is, do you feel when you hear a composer playing his own music, do you feel he's creating it on the spot? Is this the excitement that you feel from him?" PA: "It's what I feel when I go to concerts. I go to a Grateful Dead concert and look at Jerry Garcia improvise on his guitar and listen with my ears to the sounds he gets and it's different every time I hear him ..."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.217

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6151

item Program Number 218

"The Middle East"

Guests: Eban, Abba Solomon, 1915-2002.

28 September 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 84 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 6

Program details: Minutes before the taping began, a messenger arrived to tell Mr. Eban that Gamal Abdel Nasser-Israel's principal tormentor for 14 years-was dead. As Mr. Buckley puts it, "Such is the pace of events in the Middle East that no conversation held about it on Monday appears to be relevant on Tuesday ... On the other hand, the causes of the tension do not change from day to day." The refugee camps are the main focus of discussion with this man who had made an indelible imprint with his internationally televised UN speech on the occasion of the Six-Day War. AE: "We have no guilt ... for that problem; not at all. We have responsibility with the rest of the international community. So, I am responsible in the measure that you are responsible, and we must all do what we can. But guilt, certainly not. Guilt lies with the governments who declared that war" (against Israel, in 1948).

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.218

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6152

item Program Number 219

"Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era"

Guests: Brzezinski, Zbigniew K., 1928-

8 October 1970

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 7

Program details: "Technetronic" being, as WFB explains, "a simple agglutination of 'technological' and 'electronic'." It is Mr. Brzezinski's thesis that the industrial age, "which, itself, produced many strains and tensions, did lead after a time to a number of coherent ideas as to how, more or less, to organize society, how to conduct international politics." But now, as we enter the "technetronic age," the new phenomena-but especially "the impact of modern communications, of modern means of calculations, of modern means of interacting"-have led to the breakdown of "established values, established institutions." And so we're off on a rich and, as it turns out, prophetic discussion of this "messy, congested, chaotic, fragmented, barely structured, partially orderly, partially disorderly" transition.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.219

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6153

item Program Number 220

"Chile and the Future of South America"

Guests: Geyer, Georgie Anne, 1935- : Rodman, Selden, 1909-

8 October 1970

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 8

Program details: Chile, as Mr. Buckley sets the scene, is "in the news as perhaps the first state that will have voted itself into Communism. Mr. Allende is designated as the instrument for the scheduled totalitarianization of the state." Why Chile? Why this country where just six years earlier, as Miss Geyer tells it, "when Frei was elected ... there was a tremendously heady atmosphere ... a spontaneous outpouring of simple joy and relief on the part of the Chilean people that somehow they had voted for a reformist government without a Marxist government"? This proves to be an extremely rich discussion with two close observers of Latin America, explaining such matters as why there has to be, in Miss Geyer's phrase, "a conscious redistribution of wealth": "Largely because of the Spanish characteristics ... You have an economic system that is only an extension of family groups.... There is not much way for the aggressive young man to work in because he can't get credit; the banks are controlled by one family group-the credit goes to the people of that family."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.220

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6154

item Program Number 221

"Africa and Colonialism"

Guests: Huxley, Elspeth Joscelin Grant, 1907-1997.

20 October 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 84 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 9

Program details: Mrs. Huxley, who had been raised in Kenya, was highly regarded as an observer of her own country and of Africa generally. This fascinating conversation explores the whole subject of decolonialization, including the limitations of Western democracy in a region accustomed to other methods of decision-making, and the question of how a colonial power should go about letting go. EH: "There does come a point when you've got to choose. Either you say, 'We'll wait for an ideal situation, when more people have had time to graduate from universities and there are more skilled people equipped to takeover the reins of government.' You can do this. Or you can say, 'That is worse...because it involves shooting a lot of people.' Then there is the question of any kind of future based on good will. If you leave in an atmosphere of bloodshed and violence, you can't expect to attain what you hope to be a commonwealth."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.221

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004VGGY7M

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6155

item Program Number 222

"Britain's Most Controversial MP"

Guests: Powell, J. Enoch (John Enoch), 1912-1998.

20 October 1970

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 10

Program details: "Since last appearing on this program," Mr. Buckley begins, "Enoch Powell has made fresh-and very bitter-enemies.... [He] repeated his warnings that England would be overwhelmed by colored immigrants and added the suggestion that subversive forces in England were arguing subtly for an end to the British way of life." And we're off on a glorious ride with Britain's vieillard terrible. WFB: "Why do they say about you that you have become the McCarthyite? ..." EP: "I never understand-" WFB: "Did you think to ask?" EP: "I never understand these American- I didn't ask Anthony Lewis, no; I wouldn't touch him with a barge pole." WFB: "Would you touch the editors of the Guardian, or the Telegraph and the Times, with a barge pole?" EP: "I don't think the Telegraph probably applies this expression to me. The Times, as you probably know, has become our leading Maoist daily. And so you go to the Times in order to find examples of the very things I'm talking about." WFB: "Are you using a metaphor?" EP: "Why no. No, I'm quite serious. Indeed, perhaps-" WFB: "Is one of your fields of expertise the libel law? I hope?"

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.222

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6156

item Program Number 223

"In Defense of Practical Socialism"

Guests: Crossman, R. H. S. (Richard Howard Stafford), 1907-1974.

21 October 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 84 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 11

Program details: A splendid session with the man regarded, as WFB puts it, "as the most reliable exegete of practical socialism, if one will permit the oxymoron." The discussion begins with the Wilson government's failure to reduce, as Mr. Grossman puts it, "the gap between the standard of living of the poor and the not-so-poor," given other problems such as the balance of payments; and goes back and forth between the practical and the theoretical. WFB: "What do you make of the criticism ... that socialism is in a sense an exercise in utopianism, and the balance of payments, mutatis mutandis, is always going to stand in the way of executing socialism. If it isn't that, it's going to be inflation, or it's going to be a lack of-" RC: "Yes. Well, you put it that way; I'll put it another way. I think socialism is the belief in the impossible. But then, you see, every good ideal is a belief in the impossible. Remember when he said, 'Credo quia impossibile'-Tertullian, the Christian, he said, 'I believe because it is impossible.' Now this is something I've always thought was the essential about a radical."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.223

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6157

item Program Number 224

"Three British Journalists Question WFB"

Guests: Palmer, John, 1930- : Steele, Jonathan. : Malcolm, Derrick.

21 October 1970

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 12

Program details: Another of the approximately half-yearly occasions (see Firing Line 171 for background) when the tables are turned and the guests question their host. Our three questioners this time are all associated with the paper that, as WFB puts it, "is called, according as you sympathize with it or not, a great newspaper or a roving assassin at the service of socialists anywhere." Rapiers flash as we go from the prerogatives of the state to the politics of the American establishment to the Vietnam War. WFB: "Now, if you want to move from considerations of politics to considerations of ethics, I'm prepared to do so. But ring a bell and say we're moving from one area to another." JP: 'They have no relationship with each other in your field?" WFB: "Not in the view in which-not when I talk to adults. When I talk to adults and I say to them, 'The state has the right to defend its independence,' I don't expect that they will say, 'Well, does that mean they have the right to eat children?'"

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.224

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6158

item Program Number 225

"Desegregation: How Far Should the Government Go?"

Guests: Leonard, Jerris.

30 November 1970

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 84 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 13

Program details: In practice, what Mr. Leonard's title means is Assistant Attorney General in charge of desegregating Southern schools-and, as WFB puts it, "in applying himself to a program of rigid integration, he has made many enemies," the more so because this is not what Southern voters expected of the Nixon Administration. The hour at first bogs down a little in hypotheticals, but we then get to a productive discussion of dual school systems versus de facto segregation, of racial balance versus simple desegregation, and of the beginnings of affirmative action. WFB: "Why should you be puzzled by what the Supreme Court would say? Is the Supreme Court that much of an enigma?" JL: "You asked the question. I didn't. I'm not puzzled. I'm sure-" WFB: "Suppose I were President of the United States and I called you and said, 'Mr. Leonard, here we've got a situation in which everybody who is black elected to go to this school, and everybody who is white elected to go to this one, tell me, since you are in charge of these matters, is that legal?' Would you say, 'God knows, Mr. President. It depends on what side of the bed the Supreme Court woke up today'?" JL: "No. I think I would have to say that based on decisions and language that the Court has used in the past, it is likely that the Court would not accept that as being constitutional."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.226

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6160

item Program Number 226

"What Is the Future of Catholic Education?"

Guests: Baker, Kenneth, S. J. : McCormack, Elizabeth J.

30 November 1970

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 14

Program details: While this absorbing discussion keeps opening out into broader issues, the central point is money and control: i.e., how can a school be governed, and what can it teach, and still be eligible for state funds? WFB: "What about the teaching of religion? Do you do that with intent to proselytize?" KB: "Well, I've been a theology teacher for a number of years, and I don't think I've ever taught theology on the basis of proselytizing. Theology is basically, going back to St. Augustine-he called it, 'faith seeking understanding.' ..." EM: "If it's taught as an academic discipline, rather than in a pastoral sense-" WFB: "Would, say, Jonathan Edwards have been qualified to teach in your college?" EM: "I think he would." WFB: "And would Martin Luther? ... Or was he too hortatory?" EM: "I was never in a class of his."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.227

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6161

item Program Number 227

"The Vice President's Speeches"

Guests: Agnew, Spiro T., 1918-1996.

8 December 1970

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 15

Program details: To WFB's opening question--"I should like to begin by asking Mr. Agnew what is his reply to the most frequent criticism leveled against him, namely that he is dividing the country"--Mr. Agnew begins with the fairly obvious but usually unnoticed point that our politics is basically "an adversary system, and there isn't any such thing as a divisive aspect to campaigning over and above the natural divisions that result in a campaign" and then goes on to the more subtle point that when we try to "avoid ... indicating our differences" we wind up not "solv[ing] any problems; people walk away from each other thinking they're in agreement, only to find they're really not." And we're off on the dishonesty of the press, the difficulty with political labels, and the strange new rhetoric of Teddy Kennedy.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.228

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6162

item Program Number 228

"A Dialogue with Young Americans for Freedom"

Guests: Young Americans for Freedom.

8 December 1970

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 16

Program details: "A rather unconventional Firing Line" as WFB introduces it, in which the studio audience from the preceding show--made up heavily though not entirely of members of YAF--is given the floor. Topics range from the radicalism of Triumph (a Catholic magazine run by a sister and brother-in-law of Mr. Buckley's), to Chiang Kai-shek's failure to return triumphantly to Mainland China, to WFB's failure to criticize the Nixon Administration as roundly as he might have criticized a Humphrey Administration for similar actions. WFB: "I once said, if the whole country was engaged in a debate over whether we should demunicipalize the garbage collection, we wouldn't be talking about whether to socialize medicine. By the same token, I suppose, if the whole country were engaged in a debate on how exactly to emulate the Christian way, we wouldn't have to worry about things like world wars."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.229

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6163

item Program Number 229

"Radical Chic"

Guests: Wolfe, Tom.

17 December 1970

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 17

Program details: Tom Wolfe--one of the leading exponents of the New Journalism, wedding novelistic to journalistic skill--was now, with his white suits and his dramatic manner, becoming a prominent public figure. Radical Chic, describing Leonard Bernstein's party for the Black Panthers, had roused the ire of the bien-pensants, led by Jason Epstein in The New York Review of Books. Mr. Buckley starts by asking, "Now when you read that passage [of Mr. Epstein's] did you feel guilty about how you handled the situation?" TW: "... He really wanted to establish the fact that somehow I was in league with...I believe he said Spiro Agnew, the Kent State grand jury ... No, somehow I couldn't bring myself to feel very guilty after reading that." And we're off on a joyous whirl through the current scene and the writer's craft.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.230

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G707IBG

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6164

item Program Number 230

"Vietnamization"

Guests: Pike, Douglas Eugene, 1924- : Salisbury, Harrison Evans, 1908-

17 December 1970

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 18

Program details: The Nixon Administration had announced the policy of Vietnamization"--turning the fighting over to our South Vietnamese allies--but recently, as Mr. Buckley puts it, "we had resumed the bombing, "in retaliation, said Washington, against the shooting down of an American reconnaissance plane; actually, others have said, because the accumulation of men and materiel preparing to move down through the Ho Chi Minh Trail into South Vietnam threatens the entire concept of Vietnamization." Mr. Pike is a leading student of the Vietcong; Mr. Salisbury had notably reported from North Vietnam. They are not always prescient (DP: "To me this is largely academic now because in my opinion it just isn't in the cards for the Communists to win decisively") but are nonetheless deeply informative. HS: "My own feeling has always been that ... regardless of whether we should be there or shouldn't 't be there ... if the time comes when we're going to get out, we have a certain responsibility, perhaps you might say to humanity, to do it in an orderly fashion and to leave behind us the best possible ingredients which could be used in that part of the world towards stability and a better kind of social and political structure."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.231

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6165

item Program Number 231

"The Karl Hess Phenomenon"

Guests: Hess, Karl, 1923-1994.

6 January 1971

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 84 : 5

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 19

Program details: Mr. Hess, a longtime conservative and Republican, had split with both movements, declaring himself, as Mr. Buckley puts it, "first a libertarian thoroughly out of sympathy with the large role given to government in modern society, and finally an anarchist-the exact meaning of which we shall explore today." Although Messrs. Buckley and Hess had publicly used each other as bad examples, today's conversation is never bad-tempered. KH: "Hermits never socially organized. Ayn Rand never socially organized, perhaps. But anarchists ... left-wing or right-wing anarchists, so far as I know, would all agree that the point is people can socially organize volitionally; they do not need to live under established, institutionalized, self-perpetuating institutions of power." WFB: "Well, the trouble with your explanation of it, as I understand it, is that it sounds-" KH: "Sounds good, doesn't it?" WFB: "Yeah, it sounds very good. The trouble is-" KH: "Now that we've made a decision on that-" WFB: "-it simply doesn't take into account certain rather obtrusive human data."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.232

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6166

item Program Number 232

"Amnesty and Counterrevolution"

Guests: Benenson, Mark. : Cherne, Leo, 1912-

6 January 1971

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 84 : 6

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 20

Program details: Mr. Benenson's organization assists people who are imprisoned for matters of conscience; Mr. Cherne's assists people who have managed to escape from totalitarian countries. An often profound discussion of how, theoretically and practically, people who seek to help the oppressed go about their work. LC: "Mark, can I ask you this question.... As I gather, you're selecting a kind of symmetrical ... package-Communist, right-wing repression, and neutralist." MB: "Uh-huh." LC: "With the implication that these three forms of society are likely equally to punish dissent, imprison the conscientious objector; and there's nothing in my experience-and this is what startles me-that leads me to an understanding of what basis you can possibly have for what is at best an artificial-" MB: "I'll admit immediately that it's artificial and it's a tremendous oversimplification." LC: "Why? Why do you do it?" MB: "The reason for it is very simple. When we go to a Communist government to get somebody out, we want to be able to tell them that we're working on some Greek cases; when we go to the Greeks, we want to be able to tell them that we're devoting as much attention to the cases of people who are imprisoned in Yugoslavia or Hungary or the Soviet Union."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.233

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6167

item Program Number 233

"Ecology"

Guests: Dubos, Rene J. (Rene Jules), 1901-1982. : Burnham, James, 1905-1987.

7 January 1971

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 84 : 7

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 21

Program details: An often surprising discussion of trade-offs and freedom, and of the dangers of ideologizing ecology. RD: "As I have thought about environments in this country that have been the most productive with regard to the percentage of distinguished people, of interesting people, that have emerged from them, I have always felt that the best environment that ever existed ... was the small farm, the operating family farm.... one has the wealth of stimuli that comes from an extremely diversified environment." ... JB: "I prefer clean water to polluted water and cleaner air to smog-bound air, but on the other hand, it really always is a question of how clean ... For instance, to get it perfectly clean, that last bit-you can't get it perfectly clean, but to go from 99.2 per cent clean to 99.7 per cent clean, I understand ... costs more than to bring it up to 99.2 per cent. Now is that worth it or not? I don't know."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.234

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6168

item Program Number 234

"Colleges and the Youth Cult"

Guests: Banowsky, William Slater. : Roche, John Pearson, 1923-

7 January 1971

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 94 : 10

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 22

Program details: Had we come through the worst of the student agitation, or was there, as WFB puts it, "a great Gotterdammerung ahead of us"? Our two guests, at opposite ends of the country, had both been treated to hands-on student violence. Mr. Banowsky had arrived for work one morning to find that "our major academic building was confiscated, and very shrewdly ... chained from the inside. ... You've got to call the police, you see; here are your own black students." Mr. Roche had returned to Brandeis from a stint in the Johnson Administration to be greeted by some "fortunately ... effete arsonists," who didn't succeed in burning down the building where his office was located. A wide-ranging, no-punches-pulled discussion of the current militants, the genuine grievances they were playing on, and the proper model for a college administration.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.235

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6169

item Program Number 235

"Women's Lib"

Guests: Friedan, Betty.

11 January 1971

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 84 : 8

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 23

Program details: Moments before the taping began, Mrs. Friedan told WFB that she had saved one of his sisters from disciplinary action at Smith College thirty years earlier. Thus handicapped he has trouble gaining momentum against this force of nature, who sweeps through the economics of housekeeping, the liberation of men from the "masculine mystique" of "bear-killing, big-muscle Ernest Hemingway," and the "right of every woman to control her own body." WFB: "No, but the woman's body, as I understand it-at least this has been a point of view that has been accepted by women over the years, at least in many countries-the woman's body, after conception, becomes simply a carrier of something which is entitled to innate consideration." BF: "No, Bill, I can't accept-I mean I don't think that." WFB: "There is a tradition of this." BF: "I can't believe that you even believe it." WFB: "Of course I believe it."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.236

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6170

item Program Number 236

"The Crisis of Private Insurance"

Guests: Stone, Clement.

11 January 1971

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 84 : 9

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 24

Program details: Insurance companies were becoming more and more reluctant, especially in the inner cities, to write the kind of policies they had traditionally written, against fire, theft, and the like. And yet the public disturbances and general increase in crime made insurance all the more necessary. This show is less rambunctious than some recent ones, but it is a productive exploration of how private enterprise and the state might collaborate without the state's actually taking over the insurance function. CS: "The citizen himself has the obligation to use his ingenuity to protect that typewriter [the hypothetical stolen object Mr. Buckley had introduced into the conversation]; and there are ways in which that typewriter can be protected, whether it's a burglar-alarm system or whether it's some other system. No, it would be wrong for the state or for the nation to take over every man's responsibility."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.237

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6171

item Program Number 237

"The John Birch Society and the American Right"

Guests: Schomp, Gerald. : Koltypin, Peter.

2 March 1971

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 25

Program details: The question before the house is whether the John Birch Society does more harm than good to the anti-Communist cause. Although no consensus is, or could be, reached, Mr. Schomp provides solid analysis, and the fencing match is worth the price of admission. PK: "Dr. Christian Rokovsky ... testified to the same fact: there is a conspiracy-" WFB: "Well, everybody knows there's a conspiracy." PK: "-who is financing and supporting the Communist cause. Now, these facts you cannot get-" WFB: "Let me ask you this: Do you know any American-that I know of; I mean, don't say the guy next door-who does not believe there's a conspiracy?" PK: "Oh yes." WFB: "Who?" PK: "I think there are people who are saying that the Communists are making only-" WFB: "Who? Who? I mean, let's take the most liberal guy we can think of--ohhh, Harold Taylor. Now Harold Taylor would believe there is a conspiracy, in the sense that people actually concert together in order to achieve a common purpose. I don't think Harold Taylor or even, say, Ramsey Clark ... would say it's inconceivable that Soviet money was spent for the election of Allende."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.238

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6172

item Program Number 238

"The Responsibilities of the Scientists"

Guests: Teller, Edward, 1908-2003.

2 March 1971

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 26

Program details: A luminous discussion of the ethics and practicalities of nuclear deterrence with a man who is as much a philosopher as a physicist. ET: "I think that the appropriateness of your response is a moral question, and there are some stable values in morality, and that is why I would object, under all circumstances, to a first strike. I would also say that if we are attacked, I would much rather have a defense, and we can have a defense, but I also think that we must be prepared to retaliate... If it so happens that many millions have to be killed, after many millions of us have died, I would say that the continuation of freedom means to me more than practically any other consideration." ...WFB: "Number one, are you permitted to speak on this subject, and if not, can we infer from your silence that the United States Government has a technological ace up its sleeve?" ET: "Let me start with the second question while I remember it. I am trying to work on that ace ... but I cannot yet tell you whether it will be an ace or a deuce."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.239

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6173

item Program Number 239

"AFTRA: Compulsory Unionism and Civil Liberties"

Guests: Neier, Aryeh, 1937- : Harrington, Michael, 1928-

3 March 1971

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 27

Program details: The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists had informed Mr. Buckley that unless he joined it, he would be prohibited from appearing on television. He had filed suit, inviting the ACLU to join him. This show offers a fine three-cornered conversation among a libertarian-leaning conservative, a liberal who puts civil liberties first, and a socialist who is fully committed to organized labor. AN: "Clearly, Mr. Buckley['s]... point of view would have less access to radio and television if he were limited to an occasional guest appearance and could not have a regular program." MH: "What I'm saying is, I would be delighted to support a law that would provide free television time for William F. Buckley's points of view and all other points of view on a democratic basis. The issue we are facing here is in the area of employment-hiring where workers in an industry have freely decided to follow this policy."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.240

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6174

item Program Number 240

"Some Reflections on Television Programming"

Guests: Oliver, Daniel. : Greenfield, Jeff. : Williams, Lynne.

3 March 1971

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 168 : 28

Program details: This show--the last Firing Line made for commercial television--is less an interrogation of anybody by anybody than simply a conversation about the medium in general, the differences between commercial and "educational" television, and Firing Line itself. JG: "It's much more exciting to see Lester Maddox walk out of the Dick Cavett Show or-" WFB: "How often can that be arranged?" JG: "Ah! If you invite the right guests.... In other words, if I wanted to book a show in which I know the sparks would fly and if one of the participants was willing, I would definitely have Gore Vidal and Bill Buckley on my television show. I'm not sure that it would contribute to the general knowledge of mankind, but I would guess that the rematch of the great conflict [at the 1968 Democratic Convention] would attract people precisely because it held out the possibility of something-" WFB: "Violence." JG: "Let's say existential."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.241

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6175

item Program Number 0000a

"American Conservatives Confront 1972"

Guests: Luce, Clare Boothe, 1903-1987. : Buckley, James Lane, 1923- : Mahoney, J. Daniel, 1931- : Ashbrook, John M. : Friedman, Milton, 1912- : Reagan, Ronald.

5 January 1972

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 2

Program details: This is a transcript of the SECA special taped at KCET in Los Angeles on January 5, 1972, and originally telecast on PBS on January 7, 1972. At head of title: SECA Presents: SECA (Southern Educational Communications Association) special. WFB: "The idea is to take some of the problems that confront American conservatives try to feel out how they will crystallize in the year ahead and how American conservatives will respond to them; and of course the big event this year is the election of the new President. Inevitably Richard Nixon and his policies will occupy much of the discussion ... " NOTE: This is not a Firing Line program. Only the transcript is available.

Availability: Not available. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.275

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6209

item Program Number 0000b

"John Kenneth Galbraith vs. William F. Buckley, Jr.: A Debate"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Galbraith, John Kenneth, 1908-2006.

23 October 1970

Scope and Contents note

Transcript: Box/Folder 159 : 3

Program details: National Educational Television's Realities [series]. Broadcast on Monday, November 23, 1970, 9:00-10:00 pm (in New York City on WNET/Channel 13, at 9:00pm. "John Kenneth Galbraith vs. William F. Buckley Jr.: A Debate" features a debate between liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith and conservative theoretician William F. Buckley Jr. on the virtues and faults of the free-enterprise system. The debate ... is on Mr. Galbraith's motion "This House Holds the Market Is a Snare and a Delusion." Members of the Union also join in the debate. NOTE: This is not a Firing Line program. Only the transcript is available.

Availability: Not available. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.225

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6159

item Program Number FLS001, 1645, 1646

"Harvest of Despair"

Guests: Conquest, Robert. : Salisbury, Harrison Evans, 1908- : Hitchens, Christopher.

4 September 1986

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 147 : 14

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 1

Program details: In 1932-33, somewhere between 7 and 14 million Ukrainians died in a famine engineered by Josef Stalin. To mark the 50th anniversary, a Canadian film company had produced a documentary, Harvest of Despair. It won prize after prize at international festivals, but not a single American television network had seen fit to broadcast it. And so Firing Line undertook a special, with the first 15 minutes devoted to recapping the historical events, the next 55 minutes to viewing the film, and the final 50 minutes to commenting on it. A harrowing but riveting two hours. Mr. Conquest: "There are famines everywhere. But you look at this as the only famine where you don't see relief workers. No food, soup kitchens, nothing. Even in Ethiopia you see relief work." Mr. Kitchens: "I think that probably by 1933 one still hadn't entered the period of the 20th century when people were more inclined to believe the worst-I mean, would naturally believe that an atrocity was most likely to be true. I have a feeling that it was still relatively innocent." NOTE: Copies of the film "Harvest of Despair" are available from International Historic Films: http://www.ihffilm.com/22377.html

Availability: Not available. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.947

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6881

item Program Number FLS002

"A Firing Line Special: The Democratic Presidential Candidates"

Guests: Babbitt, Bruce E. : Biden, Joseph R. : Dukakis, Michael S. (Michael Stanley), 1933- : Gephardt, Richard A. (Richard Andrew), 1941- : Gore, Albert, 1948- : Jackson, Jesse, 1941- : Simon, Paul, 1928-2003. : Strauss, Robert S.

1 July 1987

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 100 : 12

Publicity File: Box/Folder 148 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 2

Program details: Broadcast live. Here they all are, the seven candidates for the 1988 Democratic nomination. This two-hour special is not a formal debate; instead, the candidates are asked questions in turn by Messrs. Buckley and Strauss; each had earlier provided a taped biographical segment; and each has a brief closing statement. As samples, three of the candidates' answers to the one question they had been given in advance. As Mr. Buckley states it, "In the Oval Office, there are portraits of five Presidents. Each President on moving in plays a little historical musical chairs, exiling one or two Presidents and repatriating substitutes. President Reagan has hanging the portraits of Jefferson, Lincoln, Taft, Coolidge, and Eisenhower.... Whom will you remove? Whom will you resurrect?" Mr. Jackson would put up Lyndon Baines Johnson: "As long as we have the public-accommodations bill and we have the voting rights act, we will have a Lyndon Baines Johnson." Senator Gore would hang Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and JFK, plus two Tennesseans: Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk (although he calls him James K. Knox). And Senator Simon would "like to see a steelworker from Pennsylvania and a coal miner. I would like to see a farm family there, a working mother..." And we're off and running on this superb capsule view of the Democratic field.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.987

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G709FNA

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6921

item Program Number FLS101

"A Firing Line Special: The Republican Presidential Candidates"

Guests: Strauss, Robert S. : Bush, George, 1924- : Dole, Robert J., 1923- : Du Pont, Pierre S. [Du Pont, Pete; DuPont, Pete] : Haig, Alexander Meigs, 1924- : Kemp, Jack. : Robertson, Pat.

28 October 1987

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 101 : 2

Publicity File: Box/Folder 148 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 3

Program details: Broadcast live. The first public meeting of all the candidates for the 1988 Republican nomination. As in the meeting of the Democrats four months earlier (FLS002), this show includes taped biographical segments, prepared closing statements, and lots of questions tossed at the candidates by Messrs. Strauss and Buckley, plus a segment of clips from past Firing Line appearances of each of the candidates. Of course, unlike the Democrats, these Republicans have to deal with the fact that they are striving to succeed a President of their own party, and one with whom they have all worked more or less closely. AH: "Well, I admire everything that George just said. But I would also suggest that when one is parceling out loyalty, that to me loyalty has always been having the courage to tell the man you work for what your conscience tells you he must hear, not what you think he wants to hear, and that's been my approach to every President I've served." ... RS: "On that first section, the film you had, I was interested that those candidates of yours, Bill, who were born poor sure stressed how poor they were, but none of your rich ones stressed how rich they were. Now if we Democrats could find a rich candidate we would be bragging about him all over the country." WFB: "May I have a show of hands among the candidates, which of you is wealthier than FDR, Jack Kennedy, or LBJ?"

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1002

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G709N0A

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6936

item Program Number FLS102, 101

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That the Right Is Better Able to Deal with the Soviets than the Left"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Kemp, Jack. : Kirkpatrick, Jeane J. : Kissinger, Henry, 1923- : McGovern, George S. (George Stanley), 1922- : Hart, Gary, 1936- : Schroeder, Pat. : Warnke, Paul C., 1920-2001.

7 September 1988

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 149 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 4

Program details: Broadcast live. A crackling debate with plenty of substance from start to finish. Mr. Buckley leads off for the affirmative by quoting Morton Kondracke to the effect that "Michael Dukakis's 'foreign policy is pure McGovern.' ... If [Jack Kennedy or Harry Truman] were sitting here tonight, there is simply no doubt on which side of the aisle they would stand: either with us, or else they would need to repudiate the whole of their public record." Mr. McGovern leads off for the negative: "Let's look at the record, a seventy-year record.... The Democrats under FDR opened up relations with the Soviet Union in 1933. The Republicans, under Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, had no dealings with the Soviet Union. They didn't even recognize its existence. The Democrats under Roosevelt and Truman organized victory over Hitler, including the coalition with the Soviet Union, and I think all here can agree that without the huge Soviet army and the loss of 20 million Russian lives, it is doubtful that the West could have prevailed...." HK: "I must comment about the observation ... that the Democrats added the force of the Soviets to the anti-Hitler alliance. What added the force of the Soviets to the anti-Hitler alliance was Hitler, and the Soviets made the most strenuous efforts to avoid having to join."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1035

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G709W0G

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6969

item Program Number FLS103, 102

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That George Bush and the Republican Party Are Better Able to Run the Country for the Next Four Years than Michael Dukakis and the Democratic Party"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Bork, Robert H. : Kemp, Jack. : Kirkpatrick, Jeane J. : Hart, Gary, 1936- : McGovern, George S. (George Stanley), 1922- : Jackson, Jesse, 1941- : Schroeder, Pat.

5 October 1988

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 101 : 6

Publicity File: Box/Folder 149 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 5

Program details: The last Firing Line debate (FLS 102) was on foreign policy, moderator Michael Kinsley reminds us, and this one will concentrate on domestic policy-from poverty to the Equal Rights Amendment, from judicial activism to the creation of jobs, from Social Security to Medicare. One sample: Jesse Jackson: "Since you call upon the Judaeo-Christian tradition, part of its challenge is to do justice and love mercy." Jack Kemp: "Absolutely." JJ: "Why do you oppose ERA for women and even vote against studying pay discrimination against women? Half the nation's poor children live in a house headed by a woman where there is no man...." JK: "What we want is a country in which any man, any woman, of any color, any background, has the opportunity to start a business, get a job, or to get an opportunity to get an education. That's equal opportunity, and I don't think the amendment has anything to do with it." JJ: "Even if a woman became President, it would not disprove the need for every woman to be free of discrimination based on sex." JK: "I couldn't disagree. And I'll tell you what, the first woman President is more likely to be a Republican than in your party, Mr. Jackson."

Availability: Not available. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1041

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6975

item Program Number FLS104

"A Firing Line Special: Sanctions and Apartheid"

Guests: Suzman, Helen. : Durr, Kent. : Merwe, Koos van der. : Dhlomo, Oscar. : Ngcoya, James.

20 April 1989

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 149 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 6

Program details: Broadcast live. The guests on this high-voltage Firing Line Special all oppose sanctions ("We regret," Mr. Buckley notes, "that invitations to prominent advocates of sanctions to appear on this program, including Bishop Tutu and Allan Boesak and Cyril Ramaphosa, were not accepted"). On apartheid, however, they cover the waterfront from Mr. van der Merwe, whose party's principal plank was the maintenance of apartheid, to Mr. Dhlomo, Mr. Ngcoya, and Mrs. Suzman ("perhaps," as Mr. Buckley introduces her, "the most prominent white opponent of apartheid in South African politics, Alan Paton having died"), with, in the middle, Mr. Durr, as a member of the government that was gradually abolishing apartheid. OD: "We even say the destruction of apartheid for us is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end. The end is the system that must replace apartheid." HS:"A non-racial democracy." OD: "... Now, if you want that, then of course you are my comrade." KvdM: "I am not your comrade." HS: "I am your comrade." OD: "You don't want that?" KvdM: "I am not a Russian. I don't have comrades. I have friends."HS: "Oh, nonsense." OD: "Well, ...comrade... in my language is friend." KvdM: "There is no word 'comrade' in Zulu, my friend." ... WFB: "What percentage of the South African GNP is black-produced?" HS: "Very little." KD: "Only my friend Koos here makes those divisions. We say there is one economy to which everybody contributes, and everybody's contribution is valuable."

Availability: Not available. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1063

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/6997

item Program Number FLS105, 103

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That the Cold War Is Not Coming to an End"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Gingrich, Newt. : Haig, Alexander Meigs, 1924- : Perle, Richard Norman, 1941- : Solarz, Stephen J. : McGovern, George S. (George Stanley), 1922- : Hart, Gary, 1936- : Schroeder, Pat.

19 June 1989

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 149 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 6

Program details: Broadcast live. Much had happened behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains: perestroika and glasnost, the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan, a loosening of controls in China followed by Tiananmen Square. Does it all add up to an end to the Cold War? Mr. Buckley leads off for the skeptics: "Make no mistake about it: I and my colleagues greatly welcome the extent to which economic reality and spiritual yuppiness and Stinger missiles have put pressure on the Soviet government.... But can we persuade ourselves to believe that if Winston Churchill were here tonight-it was he, you will remember, who declared the Cold War-that he would say that this is, on existing evidence, coming to an end?" Mr. Solarz conies right back: "There may be some who find Mr. Buckley's prognostications of gloom and doom persuasive. But I suspect that there are others-such as Mr. Buckley's political heroes like Margaret Thatcher, who has said that the Cold War is already over, and Ronald Reagan, who was last seen kissing babies in Red Square-who would find them somewhat strange." This sizzling exchange takes us back to the early days of Lenin's rule and forward to the evolving Sino-Soviet rapprochement; we go from perestroika and glasnost to (courtesy of Mr. Perle) the number of SS-20s that have been dismantled under the INF treaty, but which are counterbalanced by new production of the "longer-range and more capable Soviet missile known as the SS-25."

Availability: Not available. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1072

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7006

item Program Number FLS106, 104

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That Free-Market Competitiveness Is Best for America"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Kemp, Jack. : Kirkpatrick, Jeane J. : Gingrich, Newt. : McGovern, George S. (George Stanley), 1922- : Hart, Gary, 1936- : Schroeder, Pat. : Galbraith, John Kenneth, 1908-2006.

13 September 1989

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 150 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 7

Program details: Broadcast live. As Mr. Kinsley sets the stage, "At a time when even the Communist world is turning to free markets, I don't think you can expect tonight's negative team to come out for socialism. But you can expect them to give the affirmatives a hard time about whether unfettered free markets are always the best solution in areas like corporate mergers, health care, the environment, and so on." Mr. McGovern duly steps up to the plate: "All of us believe in freedom. All of us believe in competition. No one of us advocated the centralized, state-run systems of the Communist or fascist worlds. So the question is, What is the debate all about? It is about whether there is a proper role for the government in protecting us against the excesses and the weaknesses of a big-business, free-enterprise economy." The argument sometimes bogs down in (often funny) ad hominem remarks, and in Mr. Kemp's tendency to bound along on his standard entrepreneurship speech; but Mrs. Kirkpatrick in particular has the gift of making the proper distinctions: "My question, Pat, is why are you so eager to mix something that doesn't work-that's an admitted evil in itself, like controls and taxes and regulations-with something that works reasonably well, namely a self-regulating market?" PS: "Well, I'm not sure what you mean that I am trying to mix." JJK: "You keep talking about the desirability of a mixed economy as though it were good in itself.... It may be a necessity in itself in our times, I'll buy that, but it isn't a good in itself."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1079

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TZ8GU0C

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7013

item Program Number FLS107, 105

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That Drugs Should Be Legalized"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Dennis, Richard. : Glasser, Ira. : Sweet, Robert W. : Schroeder, Pat. : Rangel, Charles B. : Gingrich, Newt. : Raab, William von.

26 March 1990

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 101 : 7

Publicity File: Box/Folder 150 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 7

Program details: Broadcast live. Another skirmish in the Drug Wars. Mr. Buckley sets the stage: "Our team is not united on all aspects of the resolution, and you should know that it embarrasses us not at all if you single out differences in emphasis. For instance, I believe in capital punishment for anyone who conveys drugs to minors, while Mr. Ira Glasser, a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union, doesn't believe in capital punishment for Satan himself..." Mr. Buckley focuses on "$15 billion per year, jail cells for every third college student, a national obsession with a lost cause." Mrs. Schroeder comes out swinging: "I think indeed Bill Buckley has finally hit his midlife crisis.... I suppose I'm looking at this as a parent, but... I think too many people think the trouble with drugs is the crime that comes from that.... The trouble with drugs is also the use of drugs.... To say it's a victimless crime is really incorrect. It tears at the fabric of families, it tears at the whole society's fabric ..." Often heated but illuminating as well, as both sides have come well prepared.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1103

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G709Q0M

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7037

item Program Number FLS108, 106

"A Firing Line Special: A United Germany: Anything to Worry About?"

Guests: Kissinger, Henry, 1923- : Walters, Vernon A. : Simon, William E., 1927- : Vinocur, John. : Pfluger, Friedbert.

25 June 1990

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 101 : 6

Publicity File: Box/Folder 150 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 8

Program details: Broadcast live. Seven months after The Wall had come down, all Central Europe seemed to be jostling towards freedom, and German reunification was being talked about seriously--not, as Mr. Buckley points out, to the universal joy of Germany's neighbors: "Is there something there [in the German character] that is distinctively susceptible to the demagogy of people like Adolf Hitler, and if that is the case, are sufficient precautions being taken when we talk about German reunification?" He first addresses the man who is "probably better known in America than any German since Hitler, whose demons Mr. Kissinger's parents protested by leaving Germany with their two young sons early in the Thirties." (Actually, Mr. Kissinger points out, it wasn't so much protest as sheer self-preservation.) Is there, WFB asks, "such thing as a German national character, or is that just a recent invention?" Mr. Kissinger replies that "every people is a product of its history, of its culture. ... I think the worry I have about Germany is not Auschwitz, but a certain kind of romantic, short-sighted national policy that brings about what they're seeking to avoid." To Mr. Pfluger, "The nightmare, the Holocaust, is, in my point of view, present in German thinking and in German feeling. We--and also the young generation--we know that we still have a responsibility, not for the past, but [so] that something like that will never happen in the future." And we're off on an extremely rich discussion that goes from Hitler to the Marshall Plan, from the composition of NATO to Gorbachev's growing problems.

Availability: Not available. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1110

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7044

item Program Number FLS109, 107

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That Government Is Not the Solution; It Is the Problem"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Armey, Richard K., 1940- : Kirkpatrick, Jeane J. : Heston, Charlton. : McGovern, George S. (George Stanley), 1922- : Hart, Gary, 1936- : Schroeder, Pat. : Weaver, Dennis.

10 September 1990

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 150 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 8

Program details: Broadcast live. Mr. Buckley frames the question by reminding us that government's derelictions range from the murderous to the risible: "If Hitler hadn't had four hundred divisions, he would have been a routine anti-Semite like Gerald L. K. Smith; as much of a menace as a Ku Klux Klan, which we can cope with without the use of the atom bomb.... Do you know why everyone in New York who can do so communicates via messenger or Federal Express or fax? Because messengers and Federal Express and fax machines are not government enterprises like the Post Office." Mr. Weaver replies: "I think it was James Madison that said, 'If men were angels, no government would be necessary.' And since I fail to see any sets of wings in the audience or on the panelists, I really feel that government in some form is absolutely essential." A high-energy exchange that includes solid nuggets of information: e.g., from Rep. Schroeder: "I looked at what they did in Japan [in social-welfare agencies]... They give money to an agency at the beginning of the year to run the agency. At the end of the year, if there is money left over, then half the money is returned to the treasury, half the money is kept within the agency to pay out incentives, get more efficient equipment, or whatever. So for the first time you have taken government incentives and flipped them, so the incentive is to be efficient, not to be inefficient."

Availability: Not available. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1120

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7054

item Program Number FLS110, 108

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That Drug Prohibition Has Failed"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Dennis, Richard. : Glasser, Ira. : Clarke, Kildare. : Rangel, Charles B. : Falwell, Jerry. : Herrington, Lois. : Voth, Harold M.

15 March 1991

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 151 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 9

Program details: As Mr. Kinsley introduces the question, "President Bush doesn't talk much about drugs any more [having made them a year and a half earlier the centerpiece of a prime-time televised speech] and his first drug czar, William Bennett, has wandered off, and so has the attention of most Americans.... But unlike that other war [in the Persian Gulf] the drug war goes on." From Mr. Rangel's perspective, "If I thought for one moment that you [the affirmative side] were sincere about this, I would ask you to take a look at the children that are born addicted to drugs; to talk about those that find themselves in the emergency wards, if you will, Doctor, with the illnesses that are attributed to this." At times the participants are coming from different universes (HV: "Does illness increase or decrease a person's freedom?" IG: "... I don't think a person who is sick is more or less free against the government"), but the various personalities still bring life to this much-discussed topic.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1142

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006GX6AG8

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7076

item Program Number FLS111, 109

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That Freedom of Thought Is in Danger on American Campuses"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Silber, John, 1926- : Loury, Glenn C. : D'Souza, Dinesh, 1961- : Stimpson, Catharine R., 1936- : Botstein, Leon. : Walters, Ronald W. : Fish, Stanley Eugene.

28 August 1991

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 151 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 9

Program details: A (mostly) new cast of characters for this debate on, essentially, Political Correctness. Mr. Buckley sets the tone: "Ogden Nash once wrote that if the German people had had a more highly developed sense of humor, they'd never have let Hitler pull the wool over their eyes. The first time they saw someone goose-stepping and raising a stiff arm and shouting, 'Heil Hitler,' they'd have keeled over laughing, as most students will do when they think back on some of the affectations of the current age." Lots of fun as the Affirmatives recount ridiculous instances of the PC code and the Negatives recall racial and sexual vulgarisms in times past; but also some solid analysis from an academic perspective: GL: "I'm certainly not one standing here to say, 'I want to be free to make racist remarks in my classes.' What I think is the case, though, is that the cult of sensitivity has evolved in such a way that particular substantive issues of critical importance to be discussed cannot be discussed because particular insular minorities are exercising power, real power, to curtail the discussions that their feelings not be hurt."

Availability: Not available. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1158

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7092

item Program Number FLS112, 110

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That if You Want More Jobs, the Government Should Get Out of the Way"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Armey, Richard K., 1940- : Schlafly, Phyllis. : Stein, Herbert, 1916- : McGovern, George S. (George Stanley), 1922- : Eisner, Robert. : Kinsley, Michael E. : Minsky, Hyman P.

26 March 1992

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 151 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 10

Program details: As Mr. Botstein frames the question, "We are in a recession. Some people consider it a contained depression, perhaps the worst economic period since the Great Depression. And we don't really know what to do about it." Mr. Buckley thinks he does: "Bring back full employment by getting government out of the way." After all, "A lot of people say they can't build houses; they can't afford the interest. Why is interest so high? Because of inflation. Who causes inflation? Only the government can cause inflation. The private sector has never discovered how to do it." Mr. McGovern is equally sure that, say, the savings-and-loan crisis "is not the result of too much government intervention ... Rather it is the opposite: the result of too little regulation and monitoring that permitted irresponsible Sand L managers to rob that industry and the American public." Mrs. Schlafly takes up the cudgels against overreaching legislation such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and the latest Clean Air Act, and we're off on a vigorous exploration of what government can and can't reasonably do.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1184

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006GX6AN6

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7118

item Program Number FLS113, 111

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That U.S. Industry Does Not Need Protection"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Kemp, Jack. : Armey, Richard K., 1940- : Kissinger, Henry, 1923- : Gephardt, Richard A. (Richard Andrew), 1941- : Brown, Jerry, 1938- : Thurow, Lester C. : Walters, Ronald W. : Fallows, James M.

3 September 1992

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 151 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 10

Program details: Tonight's debate takes place against the background of a national debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement-=which President Bush was attempting to shepherd through Congress and candidate Clinton was deciding whether to back--and also over our trade relations with Japan, which both Pat Buchanan and one of tonight's debaters, Jerry Brown, had made an issue in the primaries. Mr. Buckley starts out by citing the fabulous amount of merchandise that came into our country last year, and then says, "Was it to crush us or to conquer us or to starve us? Or was it to nourish and enrich our country? It's a sober fact that every single item, however inconsiderable, in all that vast catalogue of commodities that came to our shores came because some citizen desired it, paid for it, and meant to turn it to his comfort or his profit." He then confesses that "that three-sentence description of free trade was done by Winston Churchill in 1908, and not a syllable of it would I for one wish to alter." Mr. Brown turns the tables on the conservative side by making the argument for subsidiarity and states' rights: "What is happening now is a proposal in the GATT treaty and in the Mexican-Canadian-North American treaty to set up tribunals that meet in secret that will be given the right to overrule state laws and congressional enactments."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1197

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ANCX0TI

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7131

item Program Number FLS114, 112

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That Reducing the National Deficit in the Next Four Years Is a Top Priority"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Davidson, James Dale. : Rudman, Warren B. : Crook, Clive. : Thurow, Lester C. : Kuttner, Robert. : Eisner, Robert. : Levy, David A.

8 December 1992

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 101 : 8-9

Publicity File: Box/Folder 151 : 5

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 11

Program details: Mr. Kinsley begins by recalling that "Ronald Reagan, in his 1980 campaign and his first inaugural address, had spoken of deficits as mortgaging our country's future and our children's future" and had warned of "social, cultural, political, and economic upheaval" if the national debt were not brought under control. "Was Ronald Reagan wrong," asks Mr. Kinsley, "in what he said about the deficit 12 years ago, or was he wrong in what he did about it?" The usual fun and games among the debaters, but also plenty of substance on the history and theory of taxing, spending, and electing. To Mr. Thurow, "This motion is basically about an irrelevancy. There is only one task in the United States. The task is, How do you get America back on the track of raising the standard of living of everybody who is an American?" To Mr. Kuttner, "If that's the case [that 2 1/2 per cent growth is all we can normally expect], how did the OECD countries, during a period of less laissez-faire and more interventionism, how did we all manage 4 per cent growth for the quarter-century after World War II?" CC: "Well, surely the war had something to do with it. I mean, you may not have noticed but there was some reconstruction going on in Europe."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1210

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TZ8H19G

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7144

item Program Number FLS115, 113

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That Women in the Military Should Be Excluded from Combat"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Ripley, John. : Donnelly, Elaine. : Horowitz, David, 1939- : Schroeder, Pat. : Vaught, Wilma. : Wilson, Heather A. : Glasser, Ira.

18 March 1993

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 152 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 12

Program details: The debate over maintaining the ban on women in combat had been sharpened by (a) the increasing recruitment of women for the Armed Forces and (b) the Gulf War, widely seen as showing, as Michael Kinsley puts it, "that high-tech warfare has blurred the distinction between combat and noncombat." This session is given extra authority by the presence of military people, as in this opening exchange: Colonel Ripley: "I would like to define combat as combat veterans see combat. First of all, combat is seen by the great majority so far, those in debates, those who have not experienced it, as a state of being, as essentially an act-a noun, if you will. On the contrary, those of us who have been in combat, particularly sustained combat... see combat as a verb, as something that must be done.... The word itself, to combat, suggests that you must take the fight to the enemy. You must in fact destroy the enemy. That's the whole purpose. You don't neutralize the enemy, you don't persuade the enemy; you kill the enemy." General Vaught: "I don't know how in the world we would exclude women from combat. We haven't been able to heretofore in the history of the world. So the question is not really whether women will be in combat-they have been, they will be. With each year the battlefield becomes more ill-defined, given the ever-changing kind of weapon technology that we have."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1219

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G7088A6

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7153

item Program Number FLS116, 114

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That We Need Not Fear the Religious Right"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Robertson, Pat. : Neusner, Jacob, 1932- : Hyde, Henry J. : Glasser, Ira. : West, Cornel. : Lynn, Barry W. : Woods, Harriett.

9 September 1993

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 152 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 13

Program details: A high-voltage debate that goes beyond the narrow question of the "Religious Right" to examine the whole place of religion in American life. We start with Mr. Buckley's relaxed view: "If the Religious Right were to prevail, would their success impede you in your endeavors? Well, if you make your living by making blue movies or producing pornography, you might find life a little harder than it used to be.... Does anybody in this audience fear that SAT scores would diminish if the Religious Right were successful? ... Will anyone here wake up sweating with fear because a rabbi has been asked to recite a prayer at the commencement of your son or daughter?"... HW: "You attended public schools yourself? JN: "Yes. West Hartford, Connecticut." HW: "Good. And did they have prayers in those schools?" JN: "All the time. My sister was the Virgin Mary year after year." PR: "She was Jewish, after all." HW: "... Senator Arlen Specter, when he would not support prayer in school, was talking about his personal discomfort as a young Jewish boy having to sit and listen to prayers and feel isolated-and I'm not just talking about Jews. There are Moslems, there are many other people."... JN: "You want to talk about rather trivial issues, and I am trying to get across a main point, which is that religion is not something that can be private, as Mr. Glasser said. Religion is something that forms your personality and tells you why you're alive. On that basis I favor separation of church and state, but I can't contemplate the separation of religion and politics."

Availability: Not available. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1242

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7176

item Program Number FLS117, 115

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That Political Correctness Is a Menace and a Bore"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Glasser, Ira. : Bork, Robert H. : Stimpson, Catharine R., 1936- : Green, Mark J. : Greene, Linda. : Botstein, Leon. : West, Cornel.

3 December 1993

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 102 : 1

Publicity File: Box/Folder 152 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 14

Program details: "Anyone who has followed the political-correctness debate knows," as Michael Kinsley puts it, "that, by reputation at least, we are at the heart of the beast. It was here at the University of Pennsylvania last year that a white freshman was charged with racial harassment for calling a group of black women 'water buffalo.' " It was also here, Mr. Buckley reminds us, that a group of students stole and destroyed copies of a student newspaper that carried an op-ed piece they disagreed with. But these cases make Penn far from atypical in the modern academic world, and Senator Carol Moseley-Braun had recently declared that "a fundamental right is the freedom from insult." Mr. Green starts by welcoming "any debate which forces conservative Republicans to become ACLUers in defense of the First Amendment." Today's debaters are occasionally a bit foggy over hypotheticals, but there are some fine exchanges. Professor Greene: "I think what we need to do is not to focus on calling each other racist or sexist, but instead to try to understand how historical racism has affected our lives and consciousness ..." Judge Bork: "Is it your understanding, Professor Greene, that you are actually defending political correctness with that statement?"

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1252

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ANCWZ1C

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7186

item Program Number FLS118, 116

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That Welfare Has Done More Harm than Good"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Murray, Charles A. : Norton, Eleanor Holmes. : Greenstein, Robert, 1946- : Rangel, Charles B. : Woodson, Robert L. : Bryant, Wayne R. : Piven, Frances Fox.

15 March 1994

Scope and Contents note

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Publicity File: Box/Folder 152 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 15

Program details: President Clinton, Mr. Kinsley reminds us, "campaigned on a vow to 'end welfare as we know it.' " Would he be on the Affirmative side in this debate? Mr. Buckley is quick to make a distinction: "We are gathered, my colleagues and I, to contend that welfare has done more harm than good. This is not to say that welfare has done only harm. A useful distinction here is between welfare, which can be an ongoing lifestyle, and relief, which is on the order of the kind of treatment one receives in an emergency room in a hospital." Ms. Norton comes out swinging: "I ask you, is the abused woman who has finally got the gumption to leave the house of abuse more harmed by welfare than if it were not there? Is the divorced woman in transition whose husband will not give her child support more harmed by welfare than not?" The spirited exchange gives some idea of the gulf between the two sides on this issue. Ms. Piven: "Why do you think a poor woman who is raising children surrenders her respect when she gets some support from the government, but that a much better-off woman, also raising children by herself-but with perhaps assets that she got from a divorce settlement-does not surrender her self-respect...." Mr. Woodson: "The difference is, the poor one has to then turn to taxpayers for support, and that's when you get other people involved in your business.... I think it's wrong to absolve people of personal responsibility. That's the kind of patronizing attitude that you get from people who believe that poor people don't have the ability to make decisions for themselves."

Availability: Not available. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1263

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7197

item Program Number FLS119, 117

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That the Death Penalty Is a Good Thing"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Koch, Ed, 1924- : Berns, Walter, 1919- : Boleyn, Susan. : Glasser, Ira. : Botstein, Leon. : Bright, Stephen B., 1948- : Stevenson, Bryan.

24 May 1994

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 101 : 10

Publicity File: Box/Folder 153 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 16

Program details: Many of the arguments are familiar, if only from past Firing Lines, on this subject-the disproportion between the number of murders and the number of murderers executed; the danger of executing an innocent person. But on tonight's panel we have three people--Ms. Boleyn, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Stevenson--who have faced each other recently in court, and who bring the immediacy of those cases with them. Mr. Stevenson: "You are 11 times more likely to get the death penalty in the state of Georgia if the victim is white than if the victim is black. If the defendant is black and the victim is white, you are 22 times more likely to get the death penalty in Georgia...." Ms. Boleyn: "First of all, as I am sure you know, Mr. Stevenson, we have more white persons incarcerated on Death Row for murders than we do black people." BS: "How does that disprove that race is a factor? The bottom line is that only 27 per cent of the population of Georgia is black; yet 75 per cent of the people that have been executed in that state are African-American." SB: "... The honest answer to your question is that, first of all, as you well know, your statistics are wrong. The Baldus study was found to be nonsense ..." NOTE: The transcript for this episode is currently unavailable.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1276

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TZ8GQVU

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7210

item Program Number FLS120, 118

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That the Wall of Separation between Church and State Should Be Lowered"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Graglia, Lino A. : Neuhaus, Richard John. : Paulsen, Michael. : Dershowitz, Alan M. : Lynn, Barry W. : Dorsen, Norman. : Teitel, Ruti G.

8 September 1994

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 153 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 17

Program details: "I permit myself to wonder," Mr. Buckley leads off, "whether ... the day will come when the separationists win their ultimate victory, denying the right to mention the Pearly Gates on a public channel. Perhaps we would be permitted to do so if we referred to them as the 'allegedly' Pearly Gates. You laugh, but you'd have laughed a generation ago if told the Supreme Court would rule that a rabbi pronouncing a general benediction at a graduating ceremony in Rhode Island was judged by the Supreme Court-to be sure, by a vote of 5 to 4-as having violated the First Amendment's guarantee ..." We've been around this track many times before, but the range of reference, from Branch Davidians to Hasidim, is impressive, and the level of showmanship is top-notch-we even get Alan Dershowitz quoting Jesus to explain why prayer should be private.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1283

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ANCX0HA

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7217

item Program Number FLS121, 119

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That the Women's Movement Has Been Disastrous"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth, 1941- : Huffington, Arianna Stassinopoulos, 1950- : Alvare, Helen. : Friedan, Betty. : Burstein, Karen S. : Paglia, Camille, 1947- : Kolbert, Kathryn.

7 December 1994

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 153 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 18

Program details: "Anyone who thinks the women's movement" is monolithic should watch this show. Come to think of it, anyone who enjoys good theater should watch this show. Samples: CP: "Essentially feminism remains one of the great progressive reform movements of the last two hundred years. It is analogous to the abolition of slavery, to the abolition of child labor, and so on. Just as Mr. Buckley would not want to abolish Catholicism because of the excesses of certain fanatics, so must we not attribute to feminism the excesses of various neurotics and incompetents." ... BF: "I mean, I am a feminist, but I am not politically correct, and I hate that kind of rigidity. I hate the attempt to make a single doctrine, a single party line, whether it's feminism or anything else." ... HA: "How can a movement that says that some have no right to be born, based on dependency, size, stage of development, disability-and I might remind you some of your sisters say it's okay to have sex-selection abortion-how can such a movement call itself life-affirming?"

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1296

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TZ8GZRU

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7230

item Program Number FLS122, 120

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That We're Suing Ourselves to Death"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Huber, Peter W. (Peter William), 1952- : Horowitz, Michael J., 1938- : Weisl, Edwin, Jr. : Dershowitz, Alan M. : Pegalis, Steven E. : Moore, Thomas A. : Gilbert, Pamela.

2 March 1995

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 102 : 3

Publicity File: Box/Folder 154 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 191 : 19

Program details: If all this high-priced legal talent couldn't debate, who could? A splendid session on a topic of deep concern. WFB: "In 1989 over 17 million civil suits were filed in American courts; that's one lawsuit for every 10 adults. Less than 50 cents on the liability dollar, by the way, goes to anybody who is injured. But the most significant figure, surely, is this: Since 1960 jury awards have risen in constant dollars over 9,000 per cent." ... AD: "A jury is like democracy. Sometimes it votes for the wrong people. I can't defend an American public that voted for Newt Gingrich, and yet I am stuck with that system." ... TM: "The United States of America brings a lawsuit and nobody raises an eyebrow.... General Motors sues, Ford sues, small businesses sue, and business litigation is certainly growing and growing. It doesn't bother too many people. But Jane Doe wants to bring a lawsuit, and I'll tell you the powerful in the country are worried."

Availability: Not available. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1306

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7240

item Program Number FLS123, 121

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That All Immigration Should Be Drastically Reduced"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Brimelow, Peter, 1947- : Stein, Daniel. : Huffington, Arianna Stassinopoulos, 1950- : Botstein, Leon. : Koch, Ed, 1924- : Sharry, Frank. : Glasser, Ira.

6 June 1995

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 154 : 2

Publicity File: Box/Folder 154 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 192 : 1

Program details: Mr. Kinsley starts out by drawing attention to the text of the resolution: "Note that word 'all.' This debate is not just about securing America's borders against illegal aliens. It's about cutting the total number of immigrants, both illegal and legal." Mr. Buckley points out the Scylla and Charybdis on immigration: "The great shadow that looms menacingly over one side is rank nativism, to stumble into saying, 'That man who wants to get into the United States is black, brown, or yellow, and we have enough of them' On the other side,... there are the libertarians who say, 'Anybody who wants to do anything should be permitted to do so, and if one of the things people want to do is to come live in the United States, why not?' That is one of the great disabling rhetorical limbs that get in the way of clear thought." Mr. Botstein, rebutting, says, "Today's debate is an experience in deja vu. We've heard the same refrains before: too many bad, different, new immigrants, as opposed to few good, old-style immigrants." But Mr. Brimelow does add something new: the information-publicly available but not widely noticed until he started writing about it-that our current patterns of immigration are not a natural occurrence: they are the result of "the peculiar workings of the 1965 Act. We must never forget that this is a policy, a government policy... There has never been a transformation like this in the history of the world. We're not saying that it won't necessarily work, but we're saying that it's a risk and the American people should be asked whether they want to take that risk. We should have a pause in immigration precisely to allow that great debate to take place."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1320

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TZ8GRSC

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7254

item Program Number FLS124, 122

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That the New Anti-Terror Bill Is Good for Americans"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Toensing, Victoria. : Specter, Arlen. : Emerson, Steven. : Glasser, Ira. : Cole, David, 1958- : Zogby, James J. : Lewis, Anthony, 1927-

10 August 1995

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 102 : 4

Publicity File: Box/Folder 154 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 192 : 2

Program details: In June the Senate had passed a sweeping anti-terrorism bill in reaction to the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City by disaffected Americans, which had followed by two years the bombing of the World Trade Center by Muslim terrorists. But a similar bill was stalled in the House through the efforts, Mr. Kinsley tells us, "of an unusual coalition of conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats ... concerned about the effect on civil liberties and constitutional rights." The bill would, among other things, expand penalties for terrorist crimes, including the death penalty; would create a special court to deport aliens suspected of terrorism; would broaden the permissible use of wiretaps; and would limit appeals of death sentences not just for terrorism but for all crimes. This sizzling debate covers some old territory (like the right to privacy and the right to bear arms) but also some new, like Mr. Zogby's statistics on the number of terrorist crimes committed by non-Arab, non-Muslim groups, such as Puerto Rican activists, anti-Castro Cubans, environmental and animal-rights groups, and Jewish extremists.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1329

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7263

item Program Number FLS125, 123

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That the Flat Tax Is Better than the Income Tax"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Goodman, John C. : Du Pont, Pierre S. [Du Pont, Pete; DuPont, Pete] : Brown, Jerry, 1938- : Thurow, Lester C. : Kuttner, Robert. : McGovern, George S. (George Stanley), 1922- : Mann, Steven.

6 June 1995

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 102 : 5

Publicity File: Box/Folder 154 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 192 : 3

Program details: Among the many tax-reform proposals floating about, one of the most interesting was the flat tax (which, contrary to the formulation of the above Resolution, is indeed an income tax, as opposed to a consumption tax). The version being propounded by Texas Congressman Dick Armey (and developed with the help of the National Center for Policy Analysis) would exempt from taxation the first $36,000 of annual income (for a couple with two children), and then tax all income over the threshold at 20 per cent. Period. No loopholes, no deductions. Mr. Buckley explains why the plan doesn't violate his criterion of equal treatment under the law: "Equal treatment under the law does not forbid amnesties, forbidding only class distinctions negative in character. It is one thing to say that an American who does not earn a living wage should be spared taxation, another to say that those who earn twice or more than twice a living wage should be penalized progressively." Mr. Thurow comes out swinging for the Negative side: "If you had a flat tax, it wouldn't be simpler [than the 1040 short form] because the problem is not deductions, but calculating your income. You are still going to have to calculate professional income,... you are still going to have to calculate your stock gains and losses. And if you look at deductions, a lot of them simply cannot be eliminated completely. Take the medical deduction. My first wife had a very serious illness and died, and I had a couple years when my medical bills were bigger than my total income. You're going to tell me I can't deduct them? ..." The participants have all come bristling with ammunition, and we swing bracingly from statistics to ethics and justice.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1322

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0064EGP9G

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7256

item Program Number FLS126, 124

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That the Government Has the Right to Regulate the Internet"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Huffington, Arianna Stassinopoulos, 1950- : Cleaver, Cathleen. : Hoffman, Reid. : Glasser, Ira. : Estrich, Susan. : Barlow, John P. (John Perry) : Dyson, Esther, 1951-

23 February 1996

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 102 : 6

Publicity File: Box/Folder 154 : 5

Transcript: Box/Folder 192 : 4

Program details: Congress had just passed the Communications Decency Act, making it a felony to send "indecent" or "patently offensive" material over the Internet if that material might be seen by children. Today's debate addresses not only the usual question of free speech versus overriding public interest, but also the question whether it is physically possible to regulate the Internet. First-time Firing Line debater John Perry Barlow brings a perspective we aren't used to hearing: "I come to you from cyberspace, and that sounds to you like a ridiculous thing to say.... But I am telling you that there is a social space that includes the entire geographical area of the planet Earth and a fairly large and rapidly growing percentage of the earth's population.... Arid those folks are not vulnerable to the excesses of the United States Congress. We are free and sovereign from whatever the United States Congress may wish to impose on the rest of the human race.... You've got people who have never been to this place trying to pass laws which have means of enforcement that they can't use. And this is not the sort of thing that is good for the law."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1348

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G709LFM

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7282

item Program Number FLS127, 125

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That the Marketplace Is Not a Social Enemy"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Jasinowski, Jerry J. : Levy, David A. : Hormats, Robert D. : Kuttner, Robert. : Stern, Andrew. : Green, Mark J. : Luttwak, Edward.

29 May 1996

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 155 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 192 : 5

Program details: "It is so obvious that the marketplace is not a social enemy that I pause to wonder," Mr. Buckley begins, "whether we are going to hear from these illustrious gentlemen that we should tonight sit here and, after two spirited hours, repeal the law of supply and demand, the law of diminishing returns, the doctrine of comparative advantage. If the marketplace is responsible, as it is, for 114 million Americans working, which is to say approximately 95 per cent of the working population, what system is it proposed that we introduce in its place? The Soviet Union tried to replace the marketplace and produced abject poverty and scarcity in a country the size of our own, with average earnings per person one-sixth of our own." Mr. Kuttner argues for something other than "an absolute, pure market.... We need capitalism, but we need in a good society a reasonable balance between market realms and extra-market realms, if only to help the market do what it does best." In this lively session, our debaters--including several new faces--go through job creation and downsizing, wealthy executives versus just-making-it working couples, the upward mobility of many American workers versus the case of Melinda Bagby, a skilled nurse, Mr. Stern tells us,who has received a total pay raise in the last seven years of 60 cents an hour.

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1360

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ANCWZR6

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7294

item Program Number FLS128, 126

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That Affirmative Action Should Be Terminated"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Graglia, Lino A. : Connerly, Ward, 1939- : Abram, Morris B. : Edley, Christopher F., 1953- : Guinier, Lani. : Botstein, Leon. : Lichtman, Judith L.

23 July 1996

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 102 : 7-8

Publicity File: Box/Folder 155 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 192 : 6

Program details: Mr. Buckley begins this often passionate debate by reminding us that "the much reviled California Civil Rights Initiative exactly replicate[s]" the language of the Civil Rights Act of 1964-the act about which Senator Hubert Humphrey said on the Senate floor: "If ever this act is used to discriminate against anyone because he is male or white, I will eat the bill page by page." Mr. Edley counters with a wealth of statistics, including those gleaned by "scientifically designed" studies showing "that 30 to 50 per cent of minorities [people of color and women] encounter some form of discrimination" in renting apartments or seeking jobs "when compared with otherwise identical white, male counterparts." Ms. Guinier details police departments' experience in hiring blacks, Puerto Ricans, and, and concludes: "The point is that no single rule predicts success, and no single criterion defines the job. If we understand this, we can learn to use affirmative action as a window, not a wedge." Mr. Connerly asks Mr. Edley, "Professor, how can you reconcile the view that you are opposed to preferences and then file-" CE: "What do you mean by preferences? I don't- I know that all of the Republican talking points that are faxed around say, 'Use the word "preference" as often as possible,' and they say 'Never talk about women, only talk about race.' But I don't really know what you mean by the word 'preferences.' " WC: "Grant me the opportunity of asking the question without the other stuff."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1368

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7302

item Program Number FLS129, 127

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That the Republican Party Is Better Able to Run the Country for the Next Four Years than the Democratic Party"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Gingrich, Newt. : Hutchison, Kay Bailey, 1943- : Kissinger, Henry, 1923- : McGovern, George S. (George Stanley), 1922- : Shrum, Robert. : Schlesinger, Arthur M. (Arthur Meier), 1917-2007. : Andrews, Rob.

19 October 1996

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 102 : 9

Publicity File: Box/Folder 155 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 192 : 7

Program details: The motion, Mr. Buckley suggests, should really have been more succinct: "Vote Republican." Why? Because "The Democrats live on illusions fortified by laws. The government will determine-you name it-whom you hire, whom you fire, whom you house, whom you reject, what you bill, what you pay, when you retire, what school your children will go to and what they can't be taught, what you grow and when you grow it, how much of what you earn you get to keep." Senator McGovern counters by taking us through the Republicans' deficit spending. In cross-examination, Speaker Gingrich gives a hilarious account of the House ice bucket; Rep. Andrews talks about "our grandparents and our mothers and fathers and the Medicare issue"; Mr. Kissinger reminds us that Republicans won the Cold War and that there are still dangers in the world. And then there's this exchange: Senator Hutchison: "Do you think President Clinton should seek approval from the United Nations to invade a foreign country, but not the United States Congress?" Mr. Shrum: "Well, of course not. That's a ridiculous question. Of course not. No one here thinks that." KBH: "Well, are you aware that he did that in Haiti? That he went to the United Nations to get permission, but never consulted with the United States Congress? Are you aware that there was mission creep-" RS: "We didn't invade a foreign- As Dr. Kissinger would probably tell you, because he conducted several of them, we weren't invading Haiti." KBH: "We were sending planes in and we hit the ground before there was any kind of agreement. We most certainly did go in." RS: "We were invited in." KBH: "We were propping up-" RS: "We were invited in by the government as part of a peacekeeping mission."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1376

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7310

item Program Number FLS130, 128

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That Social Security Should Be Privatized"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Du Pont, Pierre S. [Du Pont, Pete; DuPont, Pete] : Goodman, John C. : Peterson, Peter G. : Aaron, Henry J. : Eisner, Robert. : Kuttner, Robert. : Marmor, Theodore R.

4 December 1996

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 102 : 7

Publicity File: Box/Folder 155 : 4

Transcript: Box/Folder 192 : 8

Program details: Is the Social Security system a Ponzi scheme that can't long survive the retirement of the last baby-boomers, as Messrs. Buckley and Goodman suggest? Or is it, as Mr. Eisner puts it, "the system which has lifted the elderly out of poverty to at least the same extent as people of working age"? If we agree (which even the most optimistic of the participants do) that something will have to be done by about 2029, what should that "something" be? Waiting for the crisis to hit and raising taxes on that generation of workers? Or changing gears right now and following the Chilean example of privatization? Today's debaters sometimes talk past each other-e.g., to Mr. Goodman's complaint that encouraging a larger population, via higher birth rate or more immigration, doesn't solve the problem, Mr. Eisner answers: "The key to the best treatment of the elderly is to have the most prosperous economy." But they also came prepared with facts and figures, which they often impart in an arresting way. Mr. du Pont: "I do know that ... [for] any ten-year period in the history of the United States for the last 120 years, if you had invested your money on the first day of that ten years in the stock market, you would be better off on the last day than you would be under Social Security, and that is true even if you invested your money on the day before the crash of '29."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1383

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TZ8GPYS

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7317

item Program Number FLS131, 129

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That the Environmentalists Are Going Too Far, Too Fast"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Craig, Larry E. : Schmalensee, Richard. : Jasinowski, Jerry J. : Linden, Eugene. : Woodwell, G. M. : Pope, Carl. : Brown, Jerry, 1938-

14 March 1997

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 155 : 5

Transcript: Box/Folder 192 : 9

Program details: "If you know anybody," Mr. Buckley begins, "who prefers unclean air or dirty water or barren forest lands, pray keep him away from here and, pray, pray for him. The affirmative side happily concedes the historic advances in environmentalist goals ... But we all recognize that pretty good movements sometimes end up in fanatical hands." Mr. Linden fires back that so far from going too far, environmental protection has encountered serious setbacks ever since the end of the Carter Administration. "The U.S. has had some successes: Delaware Bay has been cleaned up. In World War II, pilots could smell it at 5,000 feet, and it now supports a multi-billion-dollar recreational industry. I guess you could call that a giving rather than a taking." However, "The U.S. is one of 76 countries that have less than 1 per cent of their frontier forests remaining," and the destruction of species "is not just an amenity issue. [Species diversity] is vital for the functioning of ecosystems." And off we go on a fast-paced exchange over how much the incremental improvement in air quality is worth, how much we can do in this country given that pollution and greenhouse gases don't recognize borders, and whether environmentalism has been turned into a religion--with, from Mr. Brown, an argument based actually on religion: "Philosophers, theologians, for millennia have warned against pride, envy, greed, and gluttony.... When there were 250 million people in the world with spears and primitive tools, the impact was minimal. When there are six billion ... with powerful technologies and a philosophy of nonsatiety--never enough--we get the very problem that is the subject of this debate."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1392

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0064EGPE6

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7326

item Program Number FLS132, 130

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That Government Should Not Discriminate against Private Schools"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Du Pont, Pierre S. [Du Pont, Pete; DuPont, Pete] : Mansour, Jimmy. : Smith, Bob. : Curry, William E. : Glasser, Ira. : Edley, Christopher F., 1953- : Chase, Bob.

9 June 1997

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 156 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 192 : 10

Program details: The topic before the house tonight is vouchers. Should parents be able to choose which school their child attends? And if so, should they be assisted with taxpayers' money? A rousing exchange ranging from the bureaucratic inefficiencies of the public schools (WFB: "In Chicago,... 40 per cent of all students attend Catholic schools. How many non-teaching administrative jobs are required to do this? Thirty-six. You would then expect that the public schools would have ... 54. You would be wrong. The public schools in Chicago have 3,300 administrators") to, in Mr. Curry's phrase, the "root causes" of poor schools: "stratification of class and race in this country" ("Show me a school system where all the parents are in the top percentile of income and I'll show you a bunch of kids who, by and large, are on their way to Harvard. Show me a school system whose parents are in the bottom percentile of income, and I'll show you a bunch of kids on their way to jail"). And on through separation of church and state (Mr. Glasser: "Aha! And over 80 per cent of those kids are going to religious schools whose avowed purpose is not to educate those kids, but to propagate their faiths and convert those children"), to whether the private schools are guilty of cream-skimming (Brother Bob: "We've got students that have been expelled from other schools; I've got a student right now with brain damage. I've got students that are ED, LD--we've got everybody, and I'm not sure who else we should be looking for"), to how large a voucher has to be in order to do a poor family any good.

Availability: Not available. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1407

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7341

item Program Number FLS201, 201

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That Labor Unions Are Too Powerful"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Williams, Walter E. : Jasinowski, Jerry J. : Green, Max. : Shrum, Robert. : Kuttner, Robert. : Becker, George. : Green, Mark J.

17 July 1997

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 156 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 192 : 11

Program details: The captains of the two teams lead off with clear statements of the opposing positions. For Mr. Buckley--who had had a widely publicized run-in with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (Firing Line 239)--the fact that John J. Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO, had in 1996 imposed a surcharge on members' dues, an extra $35 million to be directed, in his own words, "against Republican incumbents," and got away with it, means that "most union members either (a) don't know their rights [under the Supreme Court decision Beck v. Communication Workers of America] are being ignored or (b) are frightened to assert those rights." For Mr. Shrum, the fact that "since 1973, real income for American workers has been largely stagnant," even as corporate profits rose 15 per cent and "average CEO compensation in major companies soared by over 30 per cent," means that unions' "spending money in the campaign of 1996 [is] one of the most important things the AFL-CIO has done in years. They are fighting back." A rousing battle, with some of the shots coming from unusual angles, like this one from Mr. Williams: "Unions typically refer to the strike as their ultimate weapon. But the strike is not. Their real power is a result of their ability to use government or violence to prevent other workers from competing with union workers for jobs.... If unions could not prevent employers from hiring others in their places, all that a strike would be, would be a mass resignation."

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1411

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7345

item Program Number FLS202, 202

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That Trade with China Should Not Be Interrupted"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Kissinger, Henry, 1923- : Lott, Trent, 1941- : Barksdale, Jim. : Bauer, Gary Lee, 1946- : Brown, Jerry, 1938- : Huffington, Arianna Stassinopoulos, 1950- : Hutchinson, Tim.

14 October 1997

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 156 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 192 : 12

Program details: The dispute over trade with China, as Mr. Kinsley points out, "has made strange bedfellows, with opinions about what is the best way to effect improvements in China's human-rights behavior breaking down not at all according to party lines-as today's lineup indicates. Mr. Buckley leads off-after citing his own credentials as one who did not toast Chou En-lai in Peking in 1972-by welcom[ing] the evolution of China from the totalitarian state confronted by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in 1972 to the authoritarian state of today in which the Asian colossus dips its feet in the waters of economic freedom." To Mr. Bauer, "The truth is that tonight's debate is not really about trade, and, in fact, I do not believe ... [it has] that much to do with China. This debate tonight is about America, about who we are, and whether American values can still prevail..." Mr. Kissinger has a lifetime of cards to play: "As someone who spent his childhood in a totalitarian state and left from it as a refugee, I have a deep appreciation of the fundamental importance of American values ... But as somebody who had to conduct the foreign policy of the United States on behalf of two Presidents, I also have an appreciation of what is required to preserve the peace and to bring about the possibilities of progress in other countries". And we're off and running on a high-energy exchange that ranges from Tiananmen Square to China's trade surplus-and that occasionally skirts the borderline of civility, as in Mrs. Huffington's suggestion that Mr. Kissinger is motivated by personal financial interests (HK: "I regret that we have reached this sort of a point. Since you have done a lot of research, it would be easy for you to find out that my position on these issues has been the same before there were any commercial interests in China").

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1421

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ANCWYOA

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7355

item Program Number FLS203, 203

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That the Evolutionists Should Acknowledge Creation"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Johnson, Phillip E., 1940- : Behe, Michael J., 1952- : Berlinski, David, 1942- : Lynn, Barry W. : Scott, Eugenie Carol, 1945- : Ruse, Michael. : Miller, Kenneth R. (Kenneth Raymond), 1948-

4 December 1997

Scope and Contents note

Background File: Box/Folder 156 : 4

Publicity File: Box/Folder 157 : 1

Transcript: Box/Folder 192 : 13

Program details: "I retreat from any formulation of tonight's exchange," Mr. Buckley begins, "that suggests that everyone on the other side should embrace creation. Not everyone on the affirmative side embraces creation. What we contend is that everyone should acknowledge creation as an alternative explanation for cosmic and biological happenings now thought by so many as naturalist in provenance and momentum." Mr. Lynn replies that "none of us on this team have any doubt that we have all been created somehow. Where we disagree with Mr. Buckley and his colleagues is on the relationships between evolution and our current situation." And we're off on a profound debate that ranges from the molecule to the cosmos, with distinctions that may be surprising to the layman (e.g., from Ms. Scott, between evolution and Darwinism: "Darwinism is evolution through natural selection")-and quite a lot of fun along the way: Mr. Berlinski: "The gravamen of your argument is the chordate." Mr. Kinsley: "Are people familiar with chordates?" DB: "Vertebrates. That's us." Ms. Scott: "No, chordates are the group in which vertebrates belong." Mr. Miller: "We're all chordates here, Mike."

Availability: On amazon.com. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1428

DVD Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SQFRUU

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7362

item Program Number FLS204

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That Black Americans Are Best Served by the Republican Party"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Connerly, Ward, 1939- : Franks, Gary, 1953- : Canady, Charles. : Shrum, Robert. : Ealy, Christopher. : Estrich, Susan. : Scruggs-Leftwich, Yvonne.

23 March 1998

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 157 : 2

Transcript: Box/Folder 192 : 14

Program details: Mr. Buckley begins cautiously: "I engage this subject thus formulated with some reluctance, because it is too easily misunderstood to be saying that political affiliations are the key to progress." However, he and his colleagues will "contend that the Republican Party is better oriented than the Democratic Party to do two things. The first and most important is to stay out of the way of upward-bound black Americans by minimizing the great burdens of regulations and taxation and military service. The second is to pull back from the catastrophic effects of the welfare state." Mr. Shrum takes off the gloves in his opening statement: "So now comes William F. Buckley Jr.-the fierce opponent of Brown v. Board of Education, the writer who penned jeremiads against the 1964 Civil Rights Act-to offer African Americans the tender mercies of the Republican Party. My reaction is, 'Beware of a reactionary bearing such gifts.'" The debaters sometimes talk past each other (CE: "Mr. Franks, are you saying that the War on Poverty was just a big mistake?" GF: "I am saying that the record is pretty clear as far as the separation of the family." CE: "So your position is;-" GF: "Trillions of dollars have been spent. I'm not saying-" CE: "The position of your party-" GF: "Can I answer your question?" CE: "No, I don't want you to filibuster"), but we cover a lot of ground, from law-school admissions in the University of California, to Aid to Families with Dependent Children, to the minimum wage, to Head Start.

Availability: Special order, please contact the Archives. Hoover Identifier number: 80040.1440

Digital Collections Link: http://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/7374

item Program Number FLS205, 205

"A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That the ACLU Is Full of Baloney"

Guests: Buckley, William F. (William Frank), Jr., 1925-2008. : Graglia, Lino A. : Donohue, William A., 1947- : Knight, Robert H., 1951- : Glasser, Ira. : Strossen, Nadine. : Botstein, Leon. : Lynn, Barry W.

4 May 1998

Scope and Contents note

Publicity File: Box/Folder 157 : 3

Transcript: Box/Folder 192 : 15

Program details: Mr. Buckley begins by citing an article that said, "The ACLU is most generally identified with free spe

Register of the Firing Line (Television Program) broadcast records