TV Broadcast - CBS Reports (Walter Lippman)
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U N Secretariat Item Scan - Barcode - Record Title Page I 32 Date 08/06/2006 Time II :11 :59 AM S-0864-0011-15-00001 Expanded Number S-0864-0011-15-00001 items-in-Public relations files - interviews - TV broadcast - CBS Reports (Walter Lippman) Date Created 19/06/1961 Record Type Archival Item Container S-0864-001 1 : Public Relations Files of the Secretary-General: U Thant Print Name of Person Submit Image Signature of Person Submit <L_ <r M •- a CBS NEWS A Division of Columbia Broadcasting System, lac. 485 MADISON AVENUE, NEW YORK 22, NEW YORK -PLAZA 1-2345 WILLIAM C.ACKERMAN Director of Special Projects J13116 19y 1961 His Excellency Ambassador U. Thant Permanent Representative of Burma to the United Nations J&rLMadison Avenue New York, New York Dear Ambassador Thant: In reply to your recent request, we are pleased to forward to you a transcript of "Walter Lippmann, 1961" as broadcast in the CBS REPORTS series on the CBS Television Network on June 15. This is being sent to you for your reference and review use. Ve appreciate your interest in this program. Yours sincerely, CBS REPORTS "Walter Lippmann, 1961" as broadcast over the CBS TELEVISION NETWORK Thursday, June 15, 1961 10-.00 - 11 sOO PM, DST REPORTERi Howard K. Smith EXECUTIVE PRODUCER; Fred W. Friendly All copyright and right of copyright in this transcript and in the program are owned by CBS. This transcript may not be copied or reproduced or used in any way (other than for purposes of reference, discussion and review) without the written permission of Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. 1 ANNOUNCER; Walter Lippmann is seventy-one years old. One year ago America's most distinguished newspaperman, whose column appears in The New York Herald Tribune and more than two hundred other newspapers, made his television debut in a one-hour conversation on leadership. The Louisville Courier Journal called it a television landmark, and many newspapers stated editorially that Lippmann should be an annual television event. In the past few months Mr. Lippmann has had private conversations with Premier Khrushchev, President de Gaulle, Prime Minister Macmillan, and President Kennedy, and we at CBS REPORTS are delighted to welcome him back to what we hope has become a television tradition. Now, from Washington, here is Mr. Lippmann and CBS Chief Washington Correspondent, Howard K. Smith. SMITHs In a column about a year ago you said, in regard to the qualities a good President should have, the first thing is his ability to see through to what is permanent and enduring. This second sight is the quality of great leaders. Do you think that Kennedy has that second sight? LIPPMANN: I think he's capable of having it. And when — if we get into this more, perhaps we'll show where he showed some weaknesses in that respect. But I think it's too early to say that he has or hasn't got them. SMITHs Well, what has President Kennedy demonstrated so far? LIPPMANN: What he has done in the four or five months is first, to put — is first of all, to carry on in all its essentials the Eisenhower economic philosophy and the Eisenhower international commitments, and never explaining to the country that 2 those can be changed. It's like the Eisenhower administration thirty years younger. That's the way he started, but in the meantime, he really doesn't — that isn't the way he's going to go. He's been — not moving in a new direction but changing the direction in which he's going to move. Now, I think that in the next year, he will make the great decision, whether he can afford to balance the budget in the Eisenhower sense and allow the economy to remain at a fairly quiet level, or whether he wants to give it a real push upward by tax reduction and measures like that. That's going to be decided in the coming months. And a weakness of Kennedy is that he has never explained these things to the American people. SMITH; Now, Mr. Nixon has said that, Senator Fulbright has said that, and you have said that. Yet, he's one of our most — he's spoken more than Mr. Eisenhower did. LIPPMAMs I know - but he hasn't explained. He has not explained them. He has not explained what his economic challenge is, and what it's going to require in the way of much stronger measures of — in regard to tax reduction -- probably government spending and credit action. He never explained why, if he wants to do all these things such as fight the Cold War and win it, really outdo the Communists, it's got to be done at full blast to the American economy, with a production of fifty billions more than we produced this year. He needs that money to do that. That's never been explained to our people, so they have no sense of urgency. And he has never explained to them the very unpleasant fact which he didn't create - it's not his fault - that we have moral commitments and legal commitments around — mainly around 3 the rim of Asia, which were built up before he took office and when we were the supreme military power in the world. And corning down from being supreme to being only equal is an awful wrench for every country, and it makes people frustrated and angry and they don't think it ought to be true, and so on, and it's a hard thing to swallow, but that's what he's going to have to do. SMITHs Well, can you understand why he has not communicated? He's an extremely articulate President. He seems to know the value of television. He's made a great many speeches. Yet he doesn't seem to have got his case across and there's a great deal of confusion in America as to what we're about. LIPPMAMs Well, I put it to this — that he's a very quick and intelligent man himself. Reads very fast, understands very fast; and it bores him to explain things. He hasn't got the patience. He ought to have the patience that a teacher must have, who is willing to start where the pupil or the hearer is, and explain it step by step from what he — he tells them what it is at the end, and he likes to make decisions and announce them, but he doesn't explain them. SMITH; Well, Mr. Lippmann, I'd like to ask you something that I think is basic. Is it possible that a free, loose-jointed, easy-going society like the American democracy can compete with a tightly concentrated, tightly controlled, secret dictatorship like that of the Soviet Union and Red China? LIPPMANN; Well, that's the drama of our age. That's the question, and that is why many of us think that the Kennedy Administration has to get going and moving rapidly, or we won't be able to do it. I don't — I wouldn't like, for a moment, to underestimate how formidable this competition is, and this threat. It's very formidable, and when you see people running around this country and wanting to abolish the income tax and turn the Federal Government back into a Confederation of States, you despair of the possibility of persuading them to do what we're going to have to do, and what we're going to have to do is going to take a lot of money, and it's going to take a very strong government. SMITHs Well, if Mr. Kennedy set himself one main goal in the election campaign, it was to resurrect America's fallen prestige. Do you think that in his legislative program he is doing the right things necessary to that end? LIPPMAMN: He's — I don't believe he's really got started doing that, because he is not sure of himself. Because he's conscious of his small majority, because he's conscious that he hasn't got a really effective working majority in Congress for important measures, and because, I take it, that he judges that the mood of the country is not in favor of doing the things which would: really create a new sense of prestige. Because in the last analysis, American prestige depends not on arms, although we must have arms. It depends on the example we set to the world, and if we set the example of a very brilliantly active economy and society, in which we were dealing with all our problems actively, our prestige would rise in the world. SMITH; Well, in the President's speech the other night, the only thing that he appealed to the American people about was to give support to his program for foreign aid. Now, judging from the mood on Capitol Hill, this is not a good year for 5 foreign aid. Lots of previous supporters are critizing it, and this is the year in which Laos, which we heavily aided, has gone over to the adversary, and which South Korea, which we aided even more heavily, has abandoned democracy. Is there a good case in favor of foreign aid that isn't being made? LIPPMAWNs I would say that the United States can no more refuse to contribute to foreign aid, in the world, than the richest man in town can refuse to contribute to the Community Chest. You just can't live in the world community - we couldn't live - refusing to aid anybody.