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This is proper Newman our guest today on Washington dialogue is Congressman Allard Lowenstein of the Fifth Congressional District of New York Mr last thing as a freshman congressman but he is in an ironic situation because he has a constituency which is much larger than that of his own congressional district recently he was described by Harper's Magazine as the man who ran against Lyndon Johnson It's nice to see you here Mr Lothian It's very nice to welcome you to Washington it's very nice to be in Washington and I appreciate the invitation to appear with you on this program thank you regarding the statement in the David Halberstam piece and Harper's Magazine which credits you with actually not being the person himself Lanigan that Lyndon Johnson but by convincing Eugene McCarthy to run what kind of position that this puts you in Congress because you're someone who's rather well now and you're in the position of being a freshman representative Well I suspect that everybody in Congress thinks that they're rather well known I detect no sign of deference from one member to another based on on that but it does help I think to come here with a previous political experience because you don't feel as dependent on the benevolences of the of the establishment as you might otherwise so I think if I were to come to Congress. At all I would like to come the way it came out I'd come out of a district in which we have a Republican majority so it's clear that we speak with some understanding of the mainstream American thinking and I'm glad to come at a time when it is for men to. Help bring about the necessary changes in the country if my basic philosophy is that if thing middle in the United States doesn't move now to bring about changes that we will leave the country to the kind of confrontation that the extreme groups will feel the only way to bring change and if that happens and I feel very concerned about the future a country. So I think now there is a sort of synonymous. There's an overlapping between the needs of militants both ends and the people in the middle who realize the country needs to change and I think that gives us an incentive to work hard for basic social change and to see that this is in the interests of the United States and not a sort of fringe elements Well Mr allowance thing you've always been a spokesman for the non-establishment and now you actually a member of the establishment get this picture in and that would come isn't used to the leadership of the House Representatives I think that there is that mission where I was the guy the House of Representatives that I love the institution in the establishment with. I think that. In that case it's like daddy in the circles to hell and there's one can become obviously one's more establishment House representatives than if one were in say hey Ashbery but I don't think that the establishment as a thought means anything which means the capacity to move with the authority of. Great wealth or great power that does not come with arriving in the House of freshman. What does come I think my standard is wrestling with this for the last week as you must know when does I concluded that if you don't do more of the things you care about once you get here than you did before you were here and you want to be here and therefore that what you have to do is to figure out ways of being effective for the things that motivated your involvement in politics and if you throw that away in order to become more assertive acceptable here then you shouldn't be here this gets us down to the question as I which you mentioned before I found operating the center operating effective way in different areas especially to well explain it recently you had an encounter with in the Democratic static or because that so-called liberal company. One hundred twenty two hundred forty eight and Democratic members of Congress this was regarding the leadership site of the chant Quantock you felt that I think the press reported that you are very surprised that the ad taken by the democratic that occurred but you talk about that well what I was surprised about was that if people weren't prepared to stand up supporting Congress and you to all who represents the kind of leadership that I thought Democratic study group was interested in curing but you could make a case to say well I didn't want to make an argument against a man they liked who's been voting Liberal Speaker McCormack is not an ogre and we can make that case but then you think well I do head and make a fight on the seat of the house and I can make an ad hominem fight and make one on the key question how do we function here and really surprising was that I've not made a fight on the issue of the speaker perhaps for reasons that were valid then not to make fight on issues of procedure left me with a feeling that they weren't very literary much about things wrong and that's what surprised me was the cumulative result of those two two postures not simply the question of the speaker then of course as you know the Democratic caucus itself we were not allowed to discuss rules change at all we were told. This was not the proper time or place and efforts to discuss it were down and what that meant was that we dotted in effect the rules of the House of Representatives in the last session of last Congress without even discussing them and I can't think of any set of rules in a democracy less attuned to the needs of the markets in less useful to get business so that what has happened for me isn't very useful in the last few days here I discovered how easy it is to accept the status quo which everyone realizes that status quo is if we say well we can't invent this for this reason we can't do anything that that for that reason and so nothing gets done what specifically would you be interested in finding. There's just a myriad of rules that need to be changed many of which seem minor until you're here kind of function you sit through endless roll calls many of them immediately to all except establish the corms present joke course is that as soon as people answer present to the roll call they leave it is nothing to do with getting a quorum to go through those roll calls but rather than focus on the minor rules changes which are not usually minor but which in fact inhibit your time and become a kind of great smothering blanket over your functioning. Issue that I would stress is the question it's a horrible problems in house and that is the way in which seniority terms what legislation can be considered and who can do it who can consider it you know I'm not against older people being in leave the shit position that I. Known among those here Norman Thomas I guess is one of the great men in the country I would've thought he would have been a great human for any committee wanted to be chairman of but when you make automatically a kind of cheery active process or longevity process that they says for determining the chairmanship of committees Well that's not democracy in any way I don't think even out true club with a chairman of the Roses committee be determined by seniority so why the greatest legislative body in total in the world would do this I don't know but I think that the next step of that which makes it even clearer how fortunate system is which is that the chairman having then been selected by this process has total absolute is ours control over what can happen in a committee who can sit on it what bills will be reported that will be hearings. All the questions of legislation are at the heart of making America the kind of country that we say we are started by this process first of seniority and then an absolute control over the chairman I would care with chairman was or who I was elected he would not have that kind of story in a democratic institution so while as I say you can list many procedural problems that need to be worried about. They suffer one should not be begged and that's the question of seniority is the question which end of the powers that the people selected through the seniority system have and those are the changes that must be undertaken if we're going to have a house that can function in the face price the country faces it was always going to be at the mercy of small groups of people and can be very hard to know that if they can raise the Syrian decent man that they are nonetheless not functioning in a democracy the way should a democracy other people in Congress such as Dick BOLLING of Missouri have said this deal when can to make a fight over this and if you do which you do it within the confines of the Democratic Study Group What do you feel with your recent experience regarding this body that you would form your own group outside of the Democratic study group to pressure for any kind of changes or legislation which you think people and no I think what will happen is that the. Alliance a coalition that will develop to modernize and democratize the House of Representatives will not be within one party or one ideological group I think it's an alliance that will reach across to conservative Democrats and Republicans as well as liberal Democrats I can't believe that on this question that there should be any more. Hesitation to work across ideological and partisan that would be over something like democratizing elections the present which is now worse than another nightmare that we just inherited a sort of barnacle It's grown more and more crested on us and more and more tankers and neighbors and we've got to change electoral system as well but I There there been people working in the house as you suggested polling in certain Congress and Rumsfeld and Republicans in. Congress in recent Brock Adams him and good people working hard to bring about the beginnings of procedural change and I think this year is going to bring to fruition a lot of these faith these efforts that a gun and I think and believe that the country's going to rally I don't think it's going to something we're going to be able to do We started out on this point back to it that no freshman congressman can within this confines of this body itself because there are significant pressures but you got out of the countryside Congress analysis thing I really have to take issue with that in fact that I think of all the Congress all the members of the House of Representatives Anyone can I think you can I think that Senator Kennedy and President Kennedy say that the individual and the can make a difference now I think that by you were. Getting the team McCarthy into the right to keep trying to get Senator Kennedy kind of the other for what. You definitely did change the political horizon of one hundred sixty eight and perhaps. Richard Nixon is in the White House now in a way because of that although this may not be what you intended originally and I don't think it's what would have happened the events of June fifth I heard so but I. You're very generous and I'm not saying his present can be much as many fathers maybe it was beautiful said someone but what I do think is is clear I wasn't suggesting that we can't do these things in the house we are saying is that the way that they have to be done is not through working up the establishment ladder in the house that you know freshman congressman can exert that kind of effect through the house itself but what you can do is in alliance with other congressman and in going to the country and in your alerting the communities all of the United States that now understand have fragile the sort of success of our democratic experiment is to build massive pressure from around the country on the Habs and that effort I want to be very much involved so I'm not a lie I don't accept your generous estimate of what was cheaper every last two years being personal to me I think you're right it would be a mistake to say that we can't do this we can do this we can't do it if we simply play the game quietly here we have to do it by taking this case for tomorrow as a sion and some kind of efficiency in the Congress to the country and at that point I think we will have a very genuine groundswell of people of all clue persuasions in regions who want to see America succeed without having extremism is the only way to function and if you can't get the market function to legislative change how do you do it then quit end up with all these confrontations that are the sort of the stock in trade of people who've always said the market can't work so we will guess what what I'm getting back to is that we will make a major effort in this direction to bring about the kind of procedural changes which would enable the Congress to become effective in facing the terrible crisis of American democracy which is very much in the balance the whole process of our government as you know. And Candy in the last year of course represented the best hope we had of forcing social change with healing and that's a very tricky business to do it the same time what do you mean with hearing our weekly I am right. You know I don't know if you and your family although I have. A congressman last year I like to switch the topic a little and talk about the recent leadership fight in the Senate now you as we mentioned before were instrumental in getting a team McCarthy to run. For the against Lyndon Johnson the master con I know what you think of his weak action voting for Senator Lott on our Senate accountable for the position of weapon Well I've always been a little bit nervous about being credited for swaying Senator McCarthy run because in fact as I'm sure he would insist him self he was not persuaded by anybody to run he did it on his own decision instinct in the country properly was grateful to him for that what we did do was I think to make possible his entrance into the race by developing a grassroots organizational strength around the country that will say that he wouldn't that ran like it had that well we never bargained about it but we began as you know before to develop the political base for a candidate if Senator Kennedy even willing at that time to run he would have needed us obviously but when he was unable or unwilling or both to get into the race at that time then it became I think the job of ordinary people to show how strongly they felt and how many of them there were and at that point with a political base developed an inequality. Made the decision to take on the leadership which was a decision which we all remain graceful Now so far as a subsequent actions are concerned to coolly since he was a nomination last summer obviously he's the only person you could ask usefully about why he's done some things done I say What do you think of that I find that. I'm very grateful that Senator Kennedy made the race I'm very grateful that he won the whip position I think it was a great bowl of lightning in a very cloudy dark cloudy sky and why Senator McCarthy as he did as I say is something that I can't even speculate about in his reasons as I read them in the press leave me no less baffled and I was and I heard this. What are the kinds of things which you went to work for as a congressman aside from rules and procedural change that you discussed before do you have any specific committee you'd like to be alive Clyde for armed services it seemed to me that that was a place where my experience and I think many rivers would want you to chair a well I I didn't ask his permission to apply there's usually a courtesy led by the Ways and Means Committee Richard Sipe asks the chairman of the committee this is the establishment again press them into rivers would be wise to want on his committee. More broadly representative points of view than now are there otherwise perhaps he will be contributing to the swifter downfall of the system which produces honors and committees because you give a second to life I haven't yet I soon that since you're for vacancies in armed services and since I have. Some unique contributions that could come out of my experience as well as my I think my point of view that I expect the men to resist chairman rivers will view favorably the opportunity to have his committing more democratic and more responsive to the force of the country I was really hoping to with this was that his decision at this stage which is perhaps also unfortunate that he should be forced into making such a very far reaching decisions himself rather than having it done with democratically he's been criticized very often true Pierson count as a person who drinks too much and perhaps in the if it's a high position that's another. That's another point in favor of I think the way the C.R.T.C. system when a person is incompetent that perhaps the and as well I have no personal knowledge of private habits of men river so I can usually comment on them now just quote to Peterson I something like that assassin that I heard that you were just and be after on your very interested in foreign affairs obvious. During the Vietnam War What are the kinds of things which you helped about and what for consistently during your two years are represented represent District but we we have the problem that the temptation in Congress is to become scattershot because there are so many questions that are important and there are so many things you feel deeply about and the time is limited and we've we are very badly understaffed already as you know so there is this problem of what priorities when concentrate on I I would hope that the war. Being obviously an enormous priority in the draft that comes out of that we'll be able to resolve the war and the draft fairly quickly and of course means we are not we in the United States and to that extent he keeps one breath held in one phrase for the wisdom and for the next in the press is not always in evidence but which one hopes new presidents acquire with a job and if that's the case and have time to move on the major questions which had been rushed in the rug and get into these other question to tax reform and the urban blight transportation pollution you know the catalog and they're all there they're all festering at a rate which suggests a measure urgent remedies are sought why we are going to have a very very dangerous condition in the United States now where my personal energies will be focused will become clear after you heard President Nixon's speech we know what we're responding to and whether we're going to be able to be supportable his program or whether we're going to be in opposition to what or how much of which I think my district is an enlightened intelligent concerned district is there in the United States and I would think they would want their congressman to speak independently in attended to that and to speak at a conscious and to try to be involved in the kinds of problems which America faces right now so I don't feel any inhibition as a result of being. Represented the fifth district. I will spend a good deal of time in the district because I think that's something the district has a right to choose from because issues from and help with the problems and community but terms of my votes here in my approach to the problems that you mentioned in the ones we've been talking about I'm going to be as independent as I think I can be not. Limiting my interest simply by what is politically most useful in the district I think that would be selling the district sure because the district for the world personally you have been known in the past to be I keep giving you compliments it's inadvertent they're welcome to some of the things Aaron was saying to someone about a cat is magic talk as well as the person who has been involved with the issue at the moment for the after the time of the Dominican crisis where they are it was very instrumental in the recent presidential campaign now in the public image of a congressman a someone who has a plan to plod through rings of paper and master the rules of the House of Representatives I know that both John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy were very bored with being in the Senate now how do you see yourself functioning daily as a member of Congress. Well not bored I I don't think there's any inconsistency between being involved in the problems of the world being in a place where these problems are so out and every decision is made I think that's a logical. Correlation though I grew knew that very often it doesn't happen but I do think is that as we said earlier a lot of the rules of this place produce difficulties toward being effective about the things that hashtag effective about not only do you to sit there endlessly for these pointless roll calls you discussed and so forth but you also have a calendar which is not really very honest in the sense that when judges the attendance record of the Congress and by how many Roll Call the answer is it very often is you know the work isn't done on the floor the votes on the floor meaningless and the real issues aren't even voted on and there's no record at all of how you stand so that one hopes to democratize the not only the seniority problems we talked about an authority the chairman but also the smaller procedures so that the amount of time when actually spends here can be related to the amount of work to do here and that's where I think both candidates got justly irritated and bored with the process because there's so much of a charade so much time where you're expected to sort of put in time rather than do things and they were men of great action great commitment and to put in time which is in fact not useful if you're busy people is foolish and I one thinks the self-respect of the congressman can be appealed to because most of them are building men who really want very much to be able to do more in this kind of straitjacket or blanket under which one struggles around kind of smothering under all these albatrosses what that figure speech but if you see it I mean all of that seems to me Candy overall and then one wouldn't have these terrible decisions to make is whether the miss for irrelevant roll call that your opponent and that you'll go ahead with later so that you can go out and do something useful in your district or in an area where there's a war or poverty. Probably but the House of Representatives leadership has never left too kindly upon people who want to change things as a matter of fact they're apt to put them on some irrelevant that committee for instance when I am way up there Riley put him on a space committee now how did they treat you how they treated you so far actually let a person who some some of them feel brought down their own party the people who are very loyal to lend and Johnson Well you have to really ask them how they're going to treat me because so far they haven't much time to treat me at all they did make me call Albert main what's called the acting majority leader on the second day that we were in session which is a position the norm is important to move to adjourn the house and. We had a graceful conversation about this sudden promotion and what it portended for my future and I say that I feel. Affection for many of the people that are in the leadership as people I've known some of the for a long time and what I hope will happen is they will perceive as men of experience and dedication to this country that changes are necessary and that this will not end up being fight against them but one which their expertise and how to reform it after all they managed to get it in the present state of affairs perhaps they can advise us how best to get out of it and I look to them for their cooperation if they choose not to push to have to move on without their help which would be sad but I don't think that President Johnson was we first hoped that he would change his policies that we could cooperate on that basis and he chose not to so that we had to go in opposition there so that one doesn't predetermine if one's going to be in opposition. Just because of sort of titular structures one takes a position on the issues and hopes that people relative realizing the merits involved will come along and help and I think that Carl Albert and others in the leadership of the Democratic Party would be very wise and we would be very happy if they would dissipate it. Responding to the pressures of the country change and necessary will try to develop those pressures so that they have greater risk responded Well thank you very much our time. Than by not talking to you cause the nonstandard help in a few months we can come back and hear the results of some of the things you've started to talk and like Frank said just again next Wednesday at two thirty for another Washington dialogue with.