A MOMENT Interview with Senator Paul Sarbanes
A MOMENT INTERVIEW WITH SENATOR SARBANES Does the acrimony of the AWACS debate linger on? I'm not sure I would put it quite that way, but I think that once you arouse these attitudes they are not...
...There are Republicans who are of different persuasions who are also there as well, of course...
...There were a couple of times I was going to go and then it didn't happen...
...A little more, a little less perhaps, but everything will more or less stay on course...
...I don't make my arguments on behalf of Israel on the basis of some great personal experience during a visit...
...They run them through these caucuses and then through the primaries and everything else...
...This is a very complicated subject we're discussing now...
...It just completely misses the point to assume that policy is being influenced in the direction the ethnic lobby wants without an underlying basis in terms of the merit on the substance of the issue...
...Have you visited Israel...
...What is it that accounts for the evident disarray of the supporters of that position these days...
...Whether they're going to succeed, I don't know...
...Are you comfortable these days with the word "liberal...
...They all have that kind of a bouffant hairdo and all the rest of it...
...People are making less of party identification...
...It used to be that you would look around and say, who is doing a good job as governor of as the majority leader or as senator, or who has held important public positions which demonstrate a capacity to handle public issues...
...And the political exchange is being done in terms of alternatives, which of course is the traditional way you do it...
...The America-Israel relationship obviously runs much deeper and is based on values that aren't subject to shifting sands...
...Let's use the longhand then...
...My own view has always been that while the strategic relationship should be recognized, I don't think we want to be in the position of having an argument made that security circumstances are now different and therefore the American support for Israel, which was premised on those circumstances alone, now has to be altered...
...The other thing that they do is contribute significantly to extending the length of our campaigns and turning the political process into one continual campaign...
...In a different time, those labels perhaps meant more, but there's a tendency to use them today in a way that is inaccurate and inappropriate and which carries with it an inaccurate presentation of one's views...
...I hope to go sometime in the near future, but I think you ought to be able to develop the case for very strong support of Israel without actually having to go...
...I don't object to pruning the tree...
...Then they had to pay attention to what my positions were on each of the issues as they came along...
...What happens is that when the Jews feel themselves beleaguered, there's a tendency to say, "You can't count on anybody," and that, of course, can become very easily a self-fulfilling prophecy...
...This country has got an enormous potential both to achieve a decent and just society here and also to exercise a very strong world leadership for peace and for better international order...
...Therefore, the U.S...
...Therefore, if you agree with that, you have to have a policy that is based on the premise that Israel has to be kept strong and viable...
...There are a lot of negative views that—I don't know that we ever thought they'd been eliminated, but at least that they had receded—are coming back again...
...if you shifted four points from Reagan to Carter in the closest states, that's as far as you'd have to go to shift the election...
...Speaking to the question of American support for Israel, and the principles on which it rests, how do you allocate the foundations of that support as between strategic considerations and other considerations...
...That goes back to that earlier question about liberals and conservatives...
...I think that was unfair to Ford, really...
...So if I set out to attack an opponent and used some highly negative tactics, it might hurt the person against whom it's directed, but it might rebound or boomerang to hurt me...
...We lost nine Democratic senators, for example, by percentage margins of three points or less...
...Everyone gathers for 30 minutes around the television and this is really going to enable them to determine who should be the president instead of looking at what their past records have been, where they have stood, what votes they have recorded, under what pressures, what policies do they generally stand for, who are the people around them, what kind of an administration can you expect it to be, from where will they draw their talent...
...I'm critical of the fact that far, far too much of our time and attention is focused on the running for and winning of office and too little on what people do with the office after they get there...
...Marylanders are pretty intelligent voters...
...In certain areas where you have groups in this country who follow what's happening, whether it's in the Middle East or in the Southern Mediterranean or elsewhere, at least they are there to ask some very tough questions...
...But if we keep coming at foreign aid and if eventually it gets so that about the only foreign aid we're giving is to Egypt and Israel, and if you've fed the fires of an attack on foreign aid—and it's obviously being fed by the deep cuts in the domestic programs—that only intensifies the pressure and makes it more difficult...
...As in arguing that Poland is not an oppressed society...
...there weren't comparable groups in the country to keep tabs and ask the question, "How does this policy that America is pursuing square with our professed assertions about one principle or one value or another...
...Terry Dolan said, for instance, that NCPAC could lie through its teeth and the candidate it's trying to help stays clean because it disclaims that it's trying to help anybody...
...It should be of real concern to all Americans and particularly to thoughtful observers and participants in the political scene...
...The unusual period, in our history, actually was the time of those majorities in the Johnson years that enabled the Democrats to exercise a real majority control just on their side of the aisle...
...Talk about no sense of history...
...I think I do a good job of it, staying close to the constituency and being with them and giving them an enormous amount of my time and energy...
...I don't see how the United States could ever entertain the prospect that Israel would not continue, would not remain viable and strong...
...But the fact that the sale was approved has not meant that the attitudes that were aroused during the debate have disappeared...
...I know that you've got strong feelings about that...
...there are important values that Israel stands for that mean a lot to the United States...
...Are they going to have any inner compass at all...
...Obviously, if you believe in some things and think them important in terms of public policy, it's important to be here to make the effort to implement them—to preclude, as best you can, the opposite from happening...
...You'd be naive, of course, not to recognize that negative attacks have been used in our politics in the past...
...A lot of people in the world don't have it...
...That's concerned me generally...
...And they all looked alike, like TV anchormen...
...In traditional political philosophy it has been seen and written about as a conservative value...
...That relates a little bit to your earlier point about the gap between the qualities necessary to be elected to office and the qualities necessary to govern successfully once you are in office...
...we have strong ties of history, of shared values, even, in a sense, of shared experiences...
...I mean this assertion of a "sweeping mandate," a "watershed election...
...And then, of course, there's the nature of the campaign...
...I think there's a skill and an art to gqverning and that should not be minimized...
...Is it your sense that support for Israel is fairly evenly distributed across the political spectrum, or does it load up somewhere...
...Analysis of the figures does not bear that out...
...we'll just have to see...
...I think a society has to have a strong sense of community—a sense of responsibility that runs the gamut of the society, that means that those who do very well have a responsibility for those at the bottom of the economic ladder and that they're to be part of the society as well and that one of the society's objectives is that everyone should have a sense of social responsibility and of individual self-discipline...
...The process of free self-government is not an easy one...
...My father, who was an immigrant, always said to us that he thought Americans tended to take democracy too much for granted...
...And can we make it as a free nation if they do not...
...My perception is that if you did not have these so-called ethnic lobbies, or groups of individuals in this country that are concerned with and follow what transpires in particular places and then hold up American policy to some standard of principle and value—if you did not have all that, then the policy in those areas would be determined by the professionals in the State Department under the impact of the economic interests that follow matters very closely anywhere they have a stake...
...Are you talking specifically about anti-Semitism...
...One is the strength and sacrifice of its own people...
...That raises the issue of what is classically called pressure group politics or what your colleague from Maryland—Senator Mathias—had called ethnic politics...
...People kept saying to Baker, "You've got to stop being responsible and doing your duties as the minority leader," which is a pretty important position, "and you've just got to cut yourself loose of this and forget about serving the country and go out there and be a campaigner...
...They're making deep cuts in domestic programs...
...Israel will generally do better, its interests will be better protected, by those who favor foreign aid in general than by those who oppose it but who are prepared to make an exception so far as Israel is concerned...
...I want to be careful because there are all kinds of exceptions and of course you take your friends where you can find them in a dire emergency, and if you can find friends in unexpected quarters that's OK...
...How does the candidate look on television...
...But at the same time people ought to be concerned that there's something else, something more...
...Now, no one said that's an improper effort to influence American policy or bring an improper perspective to bear...
...I think that's a very astute observation...
...They're different in very significant respects from past political efforts...
...we're able to do that...
...Much that's being said now reflects not knowing much history...
...At the moment we're preserving Israel's position within the foreign aid situation...
...My view has been that they're entitled to make that point and try to exercise that influence in a free and open system, but we ought not to discredit others who are seeking to influence policy out of principles and value rather than for the sake of an immediate economic benefit...
...But if there's not a consistency of outlook or value orientation I worry a bit about how firm one or the other part of that person's viewpoint will be...
...I think there's a strong streak of independence to them, and a sense of fair play, and we've been getting a strong positive response from Democrats, Independents, and even Republicans who resent these tactics, who don't think they're appropriate, don't think they have a place on the Maryland political scene...
...We made a strong commitment to the State of Israel when it was established...
...What you may have, curiously, is that support for Israel on the Right is based principally on the strategic analysis of which we spoke before while support for Israel on the relative Left comes more out of the shared values you referred to, and is therefore a more durable support...
...It's not subject to factual refutation...
...There is this blissful assumption that elections come and go and things do not change very much...
...I think that's right, but all I can say to people is, "What's the alternative...
...People really ought to appreciate that they have to work at it at least at the minimum level of citizen participation...
...It was Mark Russell who said the other day that the boll weevils with their blow-dried hair think that Huey Long is the name of a Chinese restaurant...
...I said, "I'm an urban populist...
...That seems to me one of the objectives of a democratic society...
...Now, that's a big handicap...
...I recognize the public job makes tremendous demands, and I try to respond to them...
...There was a picture in the Washington Post back in August of the three Republican candidates for state-wide office in Virginia just coming out from seeing Reagan...
...Foster and Epstein in their book, The New Anti-Semitism, ended up by saying that there are only three places that Israel can look for support to maintain its position...
...I don't see them reflecting some of the basic conservative values for which I happen to have a high regard...
...And then there are regional differences that are quite marked...
...At the same time, I don't minimize the residual impact with the people who don't pay that much attention to politics or don't think that much about it, but who have picked up something or other that they're saying either on the radio or they're running in one of their 30-sec-ond television spots...
...But there's a difference between pruning the tree and tearing it up by its roots...
...And they would never command the support that they command in the Congress if there weren't a basic merit to the position they assert...
...When I first ran in 1970 for the House of Representatives, they said, "Well, what are you...
...The assertion during the debate was that if the sale was rejected, then these feelings would run strong...
...You also have to think of the logical consequences of a position...
...What sense of values will be guiding people...
...The dramatic example is that oil companies can run a full-page ad in the newspapers shortly before the vote in which they talk about why the Saudis are "good friends," and then list all the big American companies who do business in Saudi Arabia...
...Since we're talking about the health of the political system, would you say something about NCPAC and your own forthcoming race for reelection...
...Now, this Administration is not a conservative administration...
...They wanted him out...
...I'm not sure I would put it quite that way, but I think that once you arouse these attitudes they are not simply laid to rest...
...and its policies and the position of the Jewish community in the United States—and therefore the nature of American society—have to be a terribly important question to those concerned for Israel's welfare...
...People ought to ask themselves whether, under these circumstances, a candidate can possibly have anything left, any private self to depend on...
...That can happen to a certain degree, under isolated or unique circumstances...
...People ought to stop treating it all as though it's simply a game...
...I do not think it is premised on any sense of community which, as I indicated earlier, is in many ways a conservative value...
...This is a radical administration, in that they are really trying to change course in a very radical direction...
...All of which, it seems to me, are much more pertinent questions...
...In some ways that may be an advantage...
...Then, of course, NCPAC spends large sums on the media and begins this process of distortion and misrepresentation of your record, and how you ever catch up with that is a tough question...
...That's one of the challenges that's ahead of us...
...And in addition you have these various hit groups...
...We didn't achieve it easily and we've worked hard, or many very able people have worked hard, to extend it or perpetuate it...
...Those who want to use shorthand labels are engaged in lazy thinking...
...People look less at someone's record of service or apprenticeship and instead make judgments on the fleeting impressions of the moment...
...In fact, with respect to the presidency, the process that candidates are now expected to go through means, essentially, you have to be unemployed and wealthy to run for the presidency, and that the last thing you should be doing is holding a responsible public position^ since that ties you down in terms of time and energy and also puts you on the record on the tough issues of the day...
...If you ask what am I politically, I'm a Democrat, a very strong Democrat, and a Democrat out of the Roosevelt tradition in the Democratic Party...
...I've always balked a bit at the use of these labels...
...They are really an alien element in our politics...
...My perception would be that those in the Congress who are very strongly committed to Israel in the sense that they are not going to be pressured— there's a big difference between those who are committed and when the heat's really on they're not there and those who are truly committed—I think that the truly committed tend much more to be Democrats in the moderate-to-liberal range of political persuasion...
...I think Roosevelt did tremendous things for the country and I think Democratic leaders since then, by and large, have carried forward on those things...
...Most of the operatives in this Republican Party do not recognize that Lincoln was the founder of the party and that Teddy Roosevelt was a very important moving force in it at the beginning of this century...
...That's always been the case in American politics, but we've tended to overlook it...
...you should prune the tree, and to some extent the Democrats were a little lax in doing that...
...For instance, I feel very strongly about the sense of community...
...The Carter-Reagan margin— while overwhelming in the Electoral College—state-by-state, you have an eight-point spread...
...From where will they get those values...
...That's right...
...if you start to lose it the society begins to break down...
...That's what I mean by looking at a total approach...
...An eight-point spread is not inconsequential, but it's not of the kind of magnitude that deserves to be described as an "overwhelming victory" or a "landslide...
...I have planned a couple of visits, and then in both instances something came up and it didn't work out...
...We didn't need Stockman to confess to it to recognize what was going on...
...The other thing is that the public has almost gotten to the point that the only office they think matters, in terms of the weight or substance of a person— and even there you're beginning to wonder whether they really care—is the presidency...
...That question gets asked with a sharpened intensity...
...I don't know whether we can prove that they work in tandem with the Republican Party, but obviously there's a shared objective and shared goals and so forth...
...If you say you can't trust anybody or can't work with anyone, then where does that leave you...
...If you stop and think about it, should an election for the presidency ride on how two people appear in contrast to one another in a 30-minute debate on television...
...There's a real effort under way, I think, to capture political power in the country for a lasting period, and the Republican apparatus is trying to do that...
...When we last spoke, you indicated that in many ways over the last decade the joy has gone out of the job...
...two is the support of Jews throughout the Diaspora...
...They are still there...
...That's hard to do...
...Why would—why does—one want to be a senator today...
...Conceivably, if one of them in the course of that debate reveals some absolute defects of character or of knowledge or of values, you can say he was exposed...
...So they said, "What does that mean...
...People ought to recognize that...
...There's a perception that is gaining popularity, certainly with respect to the presidency and in some measure with respect to the Senate as well, that the qualities required to be elected are not the qualities required to govern...
...Today, because of these new groups, the misrepresentations and distortions don't rebound...
...I wonder whether any of this links to what we were saying about Israel...
...If you're trying to persuade people that coalition-building is not only possible but is absolutely necessary, you've then got to be fairly smart about where you invest your coalition-building resources...
...I keep telling groups when I talk to them: You've really got to exercise this civic responsibility all the way down the line and try to make a perception, even when these young men and women come to you first starting out, do they have some inner qualities that if they move along the political ladder are going to make them first-class public servants...
...I've not visited Israel...
...How do you justify this when you are still sending money abroad...
...How do you answer people who say to you, "How can you cut these programs...
...I think that's too bad...
...There is a certain corruption of the civic culture by the introduction, principally via television, of celebrity as such an important variable in our lives, isn't there...
...They've succeeded in getting the Republican Party over to a very narrow band of the political spectrum...
...For years, United Fruit had the most direct impact on American policy in Central America...
...It was a big handicap for Baker that he was a minority leader of the Senate in terms of seeking the Republican nomination...
...People who use them make the assumption that you fit in a certain pigeonhole on every issue...
...When you work out the effect of the Reagan program—and people perhaps are now beginning to make the connection—you can see what I mean...
...Let me give you an example...
...They're cutting foreign aid now...
...For instance, while we have a nominal Democratic majority in the House, the fact that the President's been able to move his program through nonetheless is what Roosevelt confronted, and Truman as well, and Kennedy—the same Republican-Southern Democratic coalition...
...With a slight shift in half a dozen states, the Democrats would still control the Senate...
...If you take a walk, then what's going to happen...
...I try very hard to maintain a private core in the course of doing this public job...
...They didn't want him in there...
...I think people perceive with this last election and some of the efforts this Administration is making that elections really do make a difference...
...There's a sense that some people have that especially in the last five years or so the core support for Israel in the American political system has shifted from the Left to the Right...
...Bob Packwood is a shining example...
...If the only people in public life are people who have no private core, are totally two-dimensional people without any depth, are completely consumed by the process, then what kind of judgment are you going to get when the tough issues come...
...there's a lot of misunderstanding about what they represent...
...I think their vision for America is a very narrow and limited one, really a very selfish one...
...I think it's a mix...
...Where are you then going to end up...
...Do you think it's possible these days—I guess the Republican example shows that it's possible—to have a national spokesman who can articulate the vision of the party and capture the imagination of the people...
...I think one of the arts of governing is not to sharpen up conflicts, but to anticipate them in such a way that the either-or choice is not really put...
...But that's not the direction in which we're going right now, and we're not going to achieve it by adopting very simplistic views or solutions to some difficult and complicated problems...
...In fact it does that in order to stay free of certain of the limitations and restrictions in the federal election laws which would otherwise apply to it...
...it's good to have two strong parties and people identified with them...
...I think people should be very careful when they assume that they can divorce the posture people take on international issues from the posture they take on domestic issues...
...There is a general sense these days that the civic culture is terribly frayed...
...It seems to me that there's a lot to that observation...
...I also think the election results of last fall were gravely overinterpreted...
...Traditionally our political exchanges have been between two candidates and/or the parties...
...So at least I'm accountable...
...That perception grew out of the distancing of such groups as the National Council of Churches and some other groups generally on the left of the spectrum while Jerry Falwell and others on the right have moved closer...
...But those using4hem, except for the fly-by-night stuff, the really scurrilous stuff, were generally speaking as part of a candidate's or part of a party's operation against another candidate or party...
...I think that it is possible but I think it's probably becoming more difficult...
...Yes...
...I can't look after my child any more," or "We can't get a school lunch," or "They've cut out this educational program," or "They can't get inoculated against some disease...
...They are relying much more on money and technology and media for the selling of the candidate and less on the qualities and substance of the candidates themselves...
...What they're doing is cutting into programs for children, for health, for job training, in order, as it turns out, to create room to give major tax concessions to the very wealthy and to the oil companies...
...If you can't develop that case you are going to have difficulty persuading an awful lot of people, because most of them will never get there...
...and three is the United States...
...They are getting into a narrower and narrower band...
...I guess the first criterion now is whether you can, in effect, pass a screen test...
...They're probably happy that Javits is gone...
...I don't think the view has been asserted at the national level since Humphrey in any consistent way, within the traditional mainstream of the Party...
...Isn't it ironic that those who argued against the sale were accused of dual loyalty whereas the oil companies who, whenever push conies to shove will scuttle the national interest in favor of profit, weren't accused of dual loyalty...
...NCPAC and comparable groups ought to be recognized for what they are...
...That's why the issue of who supports Israel and why they support Israel may be an important political question for the Jewish community to confront...
...Would you expand on how that came to be so...
Vol. 7 • March 1982 • No. 3
