
Dissent Within A Lawful Society
Eric Sevareid, US News National Correspondent, moderates a discussion between Lawyer and Activist William Ramsey Clark and Author William F. Buckley Jr. on the topic of "Dissent Within A Lawful Society."
Sevareid begins the program by delivering a brief summary of his centrist political point of view. He believes that a new ideology will emerge with the help of the young but that dissent is not in of itself sacred and immune to criticism. According to Sevareid, law and order do not equate racism; however, the condition of American Negroes is the "one true stain" on our society. Violence in Vietnam is not a justification for violence at home, but without dissent at home, he speculates that the country might have lost its soul to war. The government is not adequately rehabilitating alienated people, which fosters dissent.
Clark believes that dissent is a tool that Americans can use to bring awareness to issues such as racism and the anti-war movement. He argues that we must take a hard look at our problems, recognize why a dissenter is feeling oppressed and figure out a path to mediation before violence occurs.
"What we have to do is create affirmatively and constantly, with all of our institutions, ways of communication, ways of hearing. We have to do far more than merely tolerate dissent, 'We have to demand it,' in Bob Kennedy's words because we have to know what it is that so troubles and moves people that they are caused to go to protest and confrontation."
Buckley believes that Clark is "confused" and that liberals like Clark were born out of the new deal, created a mess and are now looking for someone to blame. We must not tolerate dissent as it sends a message that "you can accomplish what you want by violence." You cannot talk to a dissenter because they have already refused to listen.
"...what is going on in this country, is indecision. It is the kind of indecision that issues from a society that isn't quite certain that it deserves to survive. This is an indecision that is expressed primarily by its opinion makers. The body of Americans know that whatever our societies faults, it has virtues, and that those virtues combined with the law of nature that calls for survival, speak for the desirability of continuing this republic. But those in this country who manufacture opinion are primarily disillusioned with this society. I happen to have a fancier, cranky thesis that they are primarily disillusioned with themselves and have a good reason to be so."
Sevareid then moderates a discussion between Clark and Buckley, including questions from the audience.
Jane Pickens Langley (entertainer, broadcaster, and philanthropist, later known as Jane Pickens Hoving), concludes the program by asking the audience to take one minute to reflect on the issue of peace and to look earnestly for solutions. She is starting an organization that she hopes will be a "clearinghouse for constructive ideas" that will encourage people to take a minute a day to think constructively about serious issues.
This program was recorded at the Waldorf Astoria during the Diamond Jubilee Celebration of American Industry, held under the auspices of the National Association of Manufacturers and was hosted by Edward J. Dwyer, Vice Chairman of the National Association of Manufacturers.
Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection
WNYC archives id: 151493
Municipal archives id: T7712
This is a machine-generated transcript. Text is unformatted and may contain errors.
Our Shakespeare matinee will not be heard today so that we may bring you a special broadcast transcribed at the Diamond Jubilee of American industry which took place last month at the Waldorf Astoria this last of for National Association of Manufacturers programs deals with dissent within a lawful society and the main speakers are William F. Buckley Jr and Ramsey Clark you know to open the broadcast is Edward J. Dwyer vice chairman of the National Association of Manufacturers Mr De wire. No one better meets these exacting specifications and C.B.S. News national correspondent Mr Eric Sevareid. And it is my great pleasure to resent him for you at this time Mr Savva. Of the. German. I'm not entirely sure how this drill is supposed to go today. But. I'll start off as best I can. Lead on the other two gentlemen later. This subject is both massive Anab Stroh's. And you can go at it from the political or the moral legal psychological for that matter the anthropological points of view. I'm at best a horseback philosopher I'm a general journalist I'm going to make some generalizations about the Sept in this country. None of this to be taken as final truths. The daily work of people in my trade amounts as Mr water lip and once said to notes made by puzzled man certainly some of the upheaval the negro passion for one thing is creative at least in its basic impulses and perhaps some new overriding uplifting domestic get the ology of that's the word I will emerge from all this with a hope with the help of the young but this is not yet clear my own inclinations are on the hopeful side I don't up subscribe to the proposition that if dissent is good in principle therefore the more dissent the better I don't accept the argument of many youthful protest just because the right of dissent is sacred therefore the manner and the form of their dissent are sacred. I never believed that the phrase law and order it is merely a code word for racism except among the bigots here and there it's a code word for the deepest of all instincts among animals a man that is instinct for social survival I don't think that our freedoms are in peril in the first instance but our public order is and if that breaks down both freedom and justice would certainly shrivel even though many of the passionate young don't want to see that there's a lesson of history they refuse to accept but which I feel obliged to accept and it is that any people left with no other choices will always choose order even tyranny if it comes to that over an excuse because anarchy in many ways is a worse terror and a there is a condition in which everyone loses and another lesson they seem unaware of is that both successful and unsuccessful revolutions always increase the power of the state the thing they hate the most not the power of the individual the thing they say they cherish. Most ordinary Americans know all these things in their bones. And that is one reason this country is by no means ripe for revolution and is not going to happen many painful troubles a kind of sporadic spasmodic guerrilla warfare in the cities the lessons of guerrilla warfare and sabotage have been well learned and this highly integrated technology by which we now live is vulnerable to this kind of attack a lot of this perhaps for a long time but through violent social revolution I don't think so. About a year ago one of the president's lieutenants was preparing a speech in which he intended to say. That this revolutionary protest and disorder was unique the first to be led by affluent individuals and in a period of general prosperity he was talked out of this because by just such people and it just such periods have many revolutionary movements developed totally ground down people don't generally try social upheaval that comes when progress has been made when hope is aroused when they see light at the end of the tunnel. And these impulses are often enough set in motion by actions of the so-called establishment as far as I recollect it we did not even have the Negro citizens until after the Supreme Court decision a school desegregation in fifty three and four. This is an old principle of human nature and history. To talk of saw it very clearly nearest nearly a century and a half ago. He said the sufferings that are endured patiently as being inevitable become intolerable the moment that it appears that there might be an escape reform then only serves to reveal more clearly what still remains a press of and now all the more unbearable for the first time in human history and in our own country. The total elimination of true rind being poverty on a massive scale is within sight and in one sense in one sense what we are seeing now is a mad rush for the gold of course the impassioned young don't look at it that way they won't and they cannot There will always be a generational gap and we'll point probably there always ought to be youth can measure in only one direction from things as they are to their ideals of what things ought to be they cannot measure backward to things as they used to be because they haven't lived long enough. And they cannot measure latterly to the condition of other societies on this earth because they do not yet know them well enough but older people must add these two measurements. Otherwise experience life has no meaning the Spaniard Ortega remarked that youth is generally right in what it all poses generally wrong and what it proposes and it's the habit of the young to think that if something bad is removed then by some below of nature something better will just automatically flow into its place. I've seen this illusion operating over and over again the enthusiasm about the overthrow of the Teesta in Cuba for one example or D.M. in Vietnam for another the first followed by true totalitarianism the second by political energy and chaos for several years my own guess from observation that the break off age for this particular allusion is the early or middle forty's of a man's life. Another habit of the passion of young is to think of American society. In terms of structure the power structure they say well established which must be removed. And they seem to think that the institutions and processes of this country are an edifice constructed by a few for their own selfish purposes. But we're not dealing with architecture have so much as with natural vegetation. The institutions and processes of the society a much more like a vast coral reef growing up over a generation with a billion passages an interest I says in safety chambers all of which originated out of some need or desire. You can read renovated you can add to it remove parts of it and God knows an awful lot of a need for a renovation but you cannot tear it apart without an immensity of chaos and death. Descend and renovation yes violent descent destruction no we cannot have it the law cannot be choosey. But for myself I find I can't help feeling the violence of black Americans and that of affluent white college students by somewhat different standards. The condition of millions of American egos has been the one true stain on the American soul it was never possible that their long delayed push out of this could be devoid. Of. Neurotic and indeed psychotic manifestation and the wonder to me is that there's been relatively so little of this and if historical measurements are of any value. We might remember that most of the social violence in the past the Civil War accepted as not been directed at government it has occurred between private groups and most of that violence in the past was done not by underdogs but by top dogs or. The thousands of lynchings in the south or the shooting down of strikers by police and private armies in the north the industrial violence was terrible much worse in terms of lost lives and what we've been seeing in recent years all arrives in the demonstrations of the sixty's. It left a total I'm told of only two hundred fifty dead twenty five a year however kind of got to trust me they seemed at the time there isn't any use blinking a simple historical fact that social violence has at times resulted ultimately in beneficial reforms but this is no argument for it. Because it's also the simple fact that the overwhelming majority of humanitarian reforms of the last generation were accomplished by peaceful lawful and conventional mean. Nor is artificial violence in Vietnam a justification for violence that whole it is one justification for powerful dissent and I am not persuaded that our domestic dissent has prolonged that war by encouraging the enemy to continue. I am persuaded that had this ghastly war continued without any serious dissent at home this country would have lost part of its soul. This specific dissent is within the American tradition. As anyone who has read the history of the Mexican or Spanish American. Or Filipino war or to acknowledge Ulysses S. Grant fought in the Mexican War felt all his life that it had been illegal and immoral. Former President Cleveland Andrew Carnegie Carl shores and others the doves of that time. Banded together in outrage over our war against the Filipino insurrectionists and it was a move to start a third political party at Incidentally the city of Chicago there can be no reasonable doubt. That in Vietnam we have burned and maimed and killed tens of thousands of entirely innocent men women and children. And where I Young the draft age today I pretty sure I've been greatly troubled as to my course of action. For five years I had least have not believed in this war but today I suspect the motto A majority of our people don't believe in today. But still I'm persuaded that where were there no such war at all there would still be a great amount of dissent and protests going on in this country. Because of what is called rising expectations because of the comparative nature of poverty and injustice because as the doctor said reform serves serves to reveal more clearly what still remains our press of and now all the more unbearable. We have had twenty five years of peace for the overwhelming majority of American families and a growing prosperity for a sizeable majority and such periods even before the modern industrial age often resulted in boredom and social upheaval and generally led by intellectuals Europe generally went through this sometime after the end of the Napoleonic Wars France thought it was coming apart at the seams for these reasons in the nineties and in both periods Incidentally there was an intense preoccupation with sex and with what drugs they had the standard. Social worker approach to fulfilling human needs I think Mrs much of the point men do want and need security they also want or need stimulation and dented and one way or another they will have it I think we suffer an overabundance of sociologists and perhaps a dearth of psychologists we have now a subculture in the great cities that the old conventional New Deal originated approaches of government with money in agencies and programs hardly seems to touch. Because really we know very little about how to rehabilitate alienated human beings at least once they reach a certain age. So many governmental programs work very poorly partly for the psychological reasons of human nature. Partly for Parkinsonian reasons having to do with the nature of bureaucracies which quickly come to exist for the sake of existing the one social organism that is almost incapable of stopping what it is doing or altering what it is doing in this last generation we have lived through and the scientific industrial revolution that has altered our daily surroundings and conditions of life faster than the ancient human nervous system can properly adjust to it I demographic revolution that has poured some twenty millions of people living lost and frightened and alienated people into the great cities. And the resultant cultural collision in the city of New York probably has no precedent in history for its speed and scope a communications revolution that has brought every human ill into our immediate can and through television with a sensory impact unknown before an educational revolution that has made some measure of learning all but universal and has thus added millions to the ranks of those able and willing to act or articulate we've not been moving toward rule by the few as so many of the young seem to believe but it seems to me toward direct democracy which may prove unmanageable in the end on this kind of scale I doubt very much that it's apathy on the part of the much abuse middle class that makes fast to reform so difficult it is rather this intense conflict of highly an apathetic individuals and groups and interests were far from being a conformist to mass minded society if you want to see that you go to the primitive or the totalitarian countries. In any case our public institutions and processes are working very badly indeed this is a new time no condition and a whole new art of government somehow has to be worked out and within the framework of freedom. Many continuing problems have grown worse. Looting I would think the condition of our courts prisons we have new problems without precedent without any body of experience to go by. One is this rapid poisoning of our physical means of life the earth and air and Waters one of course is a nuclear balance of terror that produces a sense of panic in just desperation and those who are young and charged with the hopes of life. Another I think is the erosion of the famous American practical know how shoddy goods and shoddy servicing of the shoddy goods everybody knows the tricks if you seem to remember the trade. And this is driving even the so-called silent majority into screaming fits all over the country so of course you have Ralph Nader ism and the rapidly spreading movement for consumers rights and protections we're all familiar. With. A practical inefficiency a primitive or underdeveloped countries. Now the most highly developed country in the world is becoming an inefficient society and that is something new and in this round ascendant protest have only just begun but I think human beings are not perfectible though they are improvable and so are the conditions under which they live human problems I rarely solve the American folklore to the contrary notwithstanding. They can be and often are ameliorated and anybody who can do that with his own life I think is living successfully indeed. In the last few years various luminaries have informed us that unless this or that is changed and quickly the American society they say is not going to survive this baffles me at least short of plague or conquest I do not understand how a vast people goes about the process of UN surviving. I don't think we know how to do it. My guess is that in the year two thousand life in America and most of it's essential will be infinitely more as it is today then it will be different. And it will continue then as it does now to astonish and beguile and occasionally frighten and attract the rest of the human race more than the life of any other society in any other part of the world thank you very much that is all that I have prepared to few for fifteen hours to render those. The first of two very. Distinguished Gentleman the American public intellectual scene the first Mr Ramsey Clark Texan son former attorney general and Supreme Court justice next Marine. Texas lawyer assistant attorney general Mr Kennedy deputy attorney general and attorney general of the United States now a lawyer in private law here in New York I believe. A man who sat in very high places and found his mind and heart very much concerned more and more with the people in very low places and I'll sit over here while these gentlemen speak and I think we gather the three of us Mr Clarke. For. Thank you Mr severance Hasan gentleman in talking about. Our terms in the sand. Talk about our times a little bit first and then. Dissent and try to avoid repeating many of the ideas already stated by Mr Savva which I share. Are times are particular the masses of our numbers nearly boggles the mind two major dynamics that create immense change in our day their population increasing science and technology we probably will have one billion more people in ten years will have to cope with that. I would have perhaps one in fifteen of all who ever lived we have probably ninety percent of all the scientists who ever sought discovery in the realm of this physical universe and they are doubling our knowledge of the physical world and seven or eight years so it changes the dominant fact of our time the complex it day and the numbers create real questions about our capacity to adequately and in time see the truth and with out the truth human judgment common sense cannot perform it's against that background whether even in management you can obtain the knowledge you need. The essential facts to make the judgments that I'd like to discuss descent if we could measure I believe we would find that through history. The sand has been the principal catalyst in the alchemy of truth. Far from always right but it's the different ideas the feeling against it's the view of powerless people by definition really isn't that if you have power you don't descend to do or it was done before it's there for those who seek change and those who oppose decenter those who. Maintain the status quo and even in the physical sciences and this is perhaps the greatest concern of our time to me a man like Max Planck says Don't fool yourself about the physical scientists they don't change their minds even after a new discovery it takes another generation and I'm not sure we have another generation I think what we have to do is open our eyes and our ears and our hearts to every idea and have confidence in the marketplace and in this capacity to judge and see the truth dissent is. Like steam perhaps it's irrepressible if it's real it is deep human commitment and if you want to overcome it it won't be by pressure but by cooling and a coup he will have to see and. Understand if the idea is wrong is there any better way to demonstrate it than to really expose it is there any better way to make it more dangerous than to repress it I doubt it what we'll have to do is create new attitudes toward dissent toward the ideas of other people realize how deeply frustrating mass modern technologically advanced society can be to powerless people were entered dependent now on to a degree that never existed before we were out on the farm it really didn't make a lot of difference to us whether our neighbor decided he wouldn't grow corn out of protest or something because we didn't have to live on his corn but today we know that when taxi drivers strike we are deeply vitally directly at fact ID and therefore therefore if we really want to solve our problems we're going to have to look very deeply and openly at them. And the frustration of our failure to do that will overwhelm look at the poor and powerless in our society today and there the people who dissent there are at least powerless in the premises as to which they are descending or they would do look at the meaning of racism to black America think how you and I really reacted so many many years ago when Rosa Parks in Montgomery Alabama said I'm not going to sit in the rear of the bus we thought that was strange who needs to ride the bus the most the poor blacks what other way they have to get from one side of town to the other why would they do such a silly thing and how much difference does it make really whether you sit in the front the back of the bus it makes all the difference if you're the one that has to sit in the back of the bus and you care about human dignity what about the war to our young which seem so remote and foreign and cruel and inhumane and they see it constantly on television and otherwise and they don't understand it. And what can they do to change it what can they do to change it what about the mother of the kid in Central City in the last little park where she can sit with a baby or he can play ball is being leveled by bulldozers What can she do what can he do how can they have fact their own destiny I don't suppose it mattered to the Pioneers very much how good the garbage collection system was but it matters to everybody in massive urban interdependent society that matter how rich you are you going to have to hope somebody gets rid of this garbage you're going to have to hope that the watchman at your door didn't decide to go on strike and that the power that lifts that elevator up to the thirty third floor penthouse where you live continues to come in because we're interdependent and if we want to solve those problems we'll have to look awfully hard and constantly and all of us will have to be involved in the quest for truth. Dissent. Can be a creative force it may be only the germ of inarticulate truth in Holmes's phrase but if it's planted it can grow and it can give this country the strength that it must have to solve its problems. I think if if we look to see that the relationship between dissent and violence is not necessarily any greater than the right relationship between dissent and the maintenance of order and anyone who really cares is going to have to try awfully hard to discriminate on hard issues and see the essential differences between dissent and violence they are not the same there is no greater relationship between those two qualities and many other qualities that we cherish such as order which we talk about so much it's true that dissent is can be awfully emotional it's true it can be awfully frustrating it's true that can be somewhat dangerous in our time but it will be dangerous in direct proportion to the degree to which we do not permit dissent to communicate effectively. And the effective communication to dissent is the way to reduce the potential for violence in our time it is often difficult for the individual to communicate the reason we have this vast silent majority is not because they have nothing to say but because they have no way of saying it isn't it how does a poor man or a little man or a middle class man in the suburbs really communicate how many voices can we hear at one time with two hundred million plus what we have to do is create afirm actively and constantly with all of our institutions ways of communication ways of hearing we have to do far more than mere to tolerate dissent we have to demand it and Bob Kennedy's words. Because we have to know what it is that so troubles and moves people that they are cause to go to protest and confrontation protest and confrontation are after all dissent seeking change aren't they dissent in action they too can be creative where with the Civil Rights Movement be in America without protest and confrontation where would our position be on racism in America today which we have to recognize if we're to live together on this planet with a billion more people in just ten years three for us blacks and browns and yellows where would we be on the war today without dissent was there really some capacity in the executive branch of government at the White House or in the Pentagon that would have changed our policy there was there something inherently more bellicose in the personality of John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson than there would have been in Richard Nixon in one thousand six year Barry Goldwater in sixty four hasn't dissent really changed our policy in our course in Vietnam to the extent that it has changed my judgment says yes and it shows me how enormously indebted we are to those who had the courage to dissent and the American people that had the character to listen to tolerate and to hear let me describe briefly two recent classics in dissent confrontation that I participated in to some degree and tell you the lessons I think I see. We've never really understood as a people the poor people's campaign in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight has very very important lessons for America fewer than three thousand poor people came from many parts of this country from the Klamath Indian Reservation in Washington and from little places like Marks Mississippi and. Harlem and Huff and Watts they came and they sat on the monument grounds and America was outraged it didn't want its poor on the monument grounds it wanted pretty little children holding their parents' hands their well dressed and well behaved we didn't want to see the truth that's less than one of the Poor People's Campaign keep it out of sight now out of mind will never solve our problems that way there are deep and difficult problems in America our capacity to solve them is clear if we'll face them if we'll learn if we'll seek the truth and if we'll address them with remedies the second lesson of the poor people's campaign and this is pure science to me the poor people know the truth why is Roger Bacon called the father of science we remember the story he was in the monastery and they were writing the new encyclopedia the question was a number of teeth in a horse's mouth a bitter debate isn't gone on for several days two theories three read it thirty two thirty four and thirty seven everyone had firm documentation for his position so I went back to St Augustine some of a various papal encyclicals Roger Bacon not a particularly energetic person and something with dreamer was looking out the window and he saw a horse and had the temerity to suggest that they go count the number of teeth in the horse's mouth. And that of course is the day that he was excommunicated from the church and that is why he is called the father of science because he would seek the truth the poor people could tell us that the stamp program is ingenious that it seemed to those who designed it wouldn't work because they didn't have to fifty cents to buy the stamp and that just never occurred to the professors in there at Titian's in the Department of Agriculture. I told the Department of Justice where I have no work that was ninety percent of the funds that went into the highway construction the interstate defense Highway Act of Mississippi came from federal sources there had never been a black working on those crews and they needed jobs and that is a violation of Title Six of the one nine hundred sixty four Civil Rights Act you're going to learn the truth from the people you're going to learn it where the problem is do you really understand how taxi drivers feel you're really going to understand if you don't hear them it's not how you think they feel it's how they really feel to know you're going to have to listen to them the other illustration that I would give is. The moratorium march in Washington in November one thousand and sixty nine and after Cambodian one nine hundred seventy I think there are four lessons there that are pretty clear if we would hear them first on the most volatile and emotional issue of our time the war in Indo-China we can have mass dissent and protest peacefully probably two hundred fifty thousand people came perhaps the biggest nonpolitical rally in the history of the history of the United States and they were communicating. With a pole do it powers we really know how people feel I think we have to create many more ways to know early warning systems but to repress them would cause far more problems and occurred in Washington the other three lessons are these that there can always be a few that can cause violence if they have the will they can cause it in connection with dissent and protest they can cause it otherwise and police can contain it if they're professional and if they enforce the law and if they themselves always live up to the law the police are capable of illegal violence too and a frightened people must realise that if they want to preserve their freedom and find they in the most important lesson is that government. Among institutions but all institutions as well in my judgment must work ardently to create effective ways for communication if we give people the opportunity to speak in their emotions cannot overflow if we don't listen if we try to learn if we point out the error of their ways if there is such air if we're not afraid to hear another point of view and if we are we will never meet the challenge of today and tomorrow to meet a First Amendment is more than a thing that talks about free speech and says you've got to tolerate the point of view of others it speaks of the spirit of humanity the right to think to be let alone to breathe to speak and assemble and to pray and if we don't insist on that for all of our people we won't have it for any and in the vastness of the change with which we're confronted we should never forget the words of John Kennedy that those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable thank you thank you and. Until. I was not introduced William F. Buckley Jr one of the most extraordinary young or youngish man on our public scene these days a New Yorker by origin. Educated here and abroad. Infantry men into our road at a very young age startling book God and man it Yale founder of The National Review columnist now read all over the country and has added an immense amount of. Well I could live with that every edition brilliance of the general conservative side of the political election Quezon in this country my pleasure to introduce Bill Buckley through. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. Thank you of several I thank you to. Jellyfish Clarke who's gone on to Washington. And. I enjoyed very much Mr Clarke's remarks and to several hundred marks because I have to say that I especially that my the former because of the personal heroism involved in delivering them Mr said Wright is not feeling well and I think it does I say Iraq government of the circumstances to perform so well. I volunteered to go straight to his introductory remarks but he was not that sick. I do think that the most engaging thing about Mr Clarke is his transparent sincerity the most up difficult thing about Mr Clarke is his confusion. It is a rather beguiling confusion. Because it is shoes are not not out of Baghdad but out of very pure motives he desires an improvement in the lot of man. And we must assume that the discussion of today will not tend to divide those who desire such an improvement and those who designed to impede it but essentially his difficulty is a difficulty that comes in out of the atmospheric pressure. Of a generation or two of them packed liberalism issues primarily out of that inevitable frustration that arrived when a series of utopians who took their early political lead from the New Deal and their philosophical lead from the progress of Islam of the nineteenth century all of a sudden found that they had midwifed a society which was in many respects absolutely unbearable inevitably they looked around to other people than themselves to blame for this condition since they were not given to a theological speculation they did not feel that. The flawed nature of man is the likely thing to point do it as much as conservatives have not over the past period dominated the machinery of events in this country they couldn't find a useful. On the right the uses of draw McCarthy after all to become rather dissipated from of you and under the circumstances they seem to rock dreamily exactingly inquisitively and things like the youth culture and all of those intuition which are supposed to be seeping in matters of fund the poor. Of the younger generation Mr whether it's Mr Wright writing the greening of America whether it is Mr Clarke in his book he seems to be saying that that which would happen were we'd open up our ears and permitted to happen would bring us into the kind of paradise the only alternative to which is this violent revolution with which in his parish and Mr Clarke threatened us now there are lots of things wrong with that analysis one thing I don't think is any clearer to Mr Clarke that it was to our Wendell Holmes what are the consequences of his appears to manager he says that the principal catalyst. That the sign is a principal catalyst in the Alcan me of truth but I think you would find it very embarrassing of it has to define what truth is or what are the consequences of happening upon it how can the alchemy help that we. Surely if alchemy is an appropriate metaphor to use when you talk about truth it means that after you have experienced this descent after you have worked your way towards the discovery of truth you have got hold of something what is the point of discovering truth unless you face the logical consequences of branding its opposite as error and if in fact you are permitted to acknowledge that something is quote error what do you do about the voices that proclaim era what is the purpose of seeking truth if not acting on it it would be preposterous he might even be a better way of putting it for America to suggest that we have discovered all truths but it would be ungrateful to suggest that we have not discovered some of them. People have died for those truths that we have happened upon in the American experience and are prepared to die for them once again but now the whole nature of this to Margi is being challenged by men like Mr Clarke who all though they are unwilling to enumerate what it what are these new True behind which they would rally or to say that they would rally around the mother that tended to nevertheless and drawing them upon us and suggest that the sand is the way to move in on the. Squad said we must open now ears and eyes to every idea I should think it much more important to resolve to pose our ears and eyes to some. Such ideas as that you can accomplish. Such ideas as that you can accomplish what you want by violence such nonsense as that if you don't have peaceful revolution you're going to have a violent revolution that's one of those Sorenson phrases which So help me God cost him the sign of the ship of the United States. The answer is that if revolution means anything at all it means what the dictionary tells us it means the violent throwing over. All of that which was there before the op said Revolution is evolution and evolution continues in this country in human things even as it was discovered by the philosopher Herod Plato says a law of nature when he said that people standing in a stream never touched the same water twice as it is essentially the difficulty. Of Mr Clarke and the difficulty of many of the modern revolutionist that they grew up on the maxim of Oliver Wendell Holmes at the best test no no no the only test of truth is its ability to get except get itself accepted in the marketplace this was the great Harris say. Of transforming via metaphor on over to of his Tamala Gene the lessons of economy taught to us by Adam Smith the answer is that if we were to accept the dictum of Oliver Wendell Holmes we would be committed to the notion of White's a periodic for instance it's quite a periodic he certainly has been accepted in parts of the South in this country and in many parts of the world does that mean that it is the on it being the only test of truth it is truth the answer. To you mean to Mr Clarke to several. Is no that isn't correct what is correct what is the test of true granted certain truths in order to be accepted in a workable society I have got to be true the round which we pay certain tentative allegiances one of those allegiances in this country for instance is that foreign policy. Is going to be formed largely by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate those senators are going to be elected by you and me from time to time after we embark on courses of action those courses of action on not instantly suddenly spastically reversible at the caprice of Mr Gallup or depending on the just a core of Jeevan want of landing two hundred fifty thousand people in Washington D.C. to announce at the beginning of May the possibility that we would not survive that month as a result of the provocations of the Cambodian venture if you remember that. The answer is of course that Mr Clarke is wrong when he says that at all times and I may say so but to separate Also when he says. When he says that all of our major wars have been great the site is in point of fact that's not true where was the great dissent during the Second World War we having committed ourselves to the Second World War the America First Committee met within thirty six hours of Pearl Harbor and disbanded. Can we never know can we say that as a result of the absence of that dissent Mr Roosevelt unnecessarily prolong the war I would be the last person to miss an opportunity to say something on family about Mr Roosevelt but it doesn't have to. What was this stuff we were hearing by the inherent Bella Casa T. of Kennedy and Johnson and one of that have to do the point of fact is that America having made a particular decision dissent dissent figured in a different way from the way into Samp normally does there is such thing as decision making process in America and without it it is impossible for any society to function who's against dissent and case I have made myself clear I'm not against a set I probably have done much more dissenting in my life than Mr Clarke I very seldom voted enthusiastically for anybody and for public office. And as a legal resident of Connecticut I was not even permitted to vote for my brother. Which I certainly would have done especially have the reading this to Clark's Ernest injunction through the New York Times to be able to vote the most often the last buck will be elected. The point that we need to concentrate on in my opinion it is not only. Is very simply this that what is going on in this country. Is indecision it is the kind of indecision that issues from a society that isn't quite certain that it deserves to survive this is an intersection that is expressed primarily by its opinion makers. The body of Americans know that. Whatever our society is for us it has virtues and that those virtues combined with the law of nature the course of survival speak for the desirability of continuing this republic but those in this country who manufacture opinion are primarily disillusioned with the society I happen to have a fancy cranky thesis that they are primarily disillusioned with themselves and have good reason to be so. But in fact they may in fact they're dissatisfactions with the society express at every turn have in fact caused certain a certain corporate in decisiveness which itself feeds the flames of dissent causes them to sense that in the United States there is not that final limit determination to survive but that is why we have paralysis of so many times that is wired to give a single example we have such phenomenon as Mr William Kunstler I was asked recently. At Rochester University what concrete steps I might propose to help the judicial system and I said This Bar Council. This comes love who said the platform with me was displeased. And I was of course roundly booed and my response was Don't don't boo me. The rules of the Association of the bar of the city of New York which admittedly Mr councilor to the practice of the law either disband those canons or apply them I then read just two or three sentences from this to consul as interview in Playboy magazine that had been published the day before what he said was It is the role of the American left to resist rather than merely to protest to resist images of not authority so said the question was What is how do you to find it would give them authority Why said the authority that ordains the drought any payment of taxes to support the war in Vietnam the domestic and foreign policies of a government that crushes people on every level all the things in this society that tend to degrade and destroy people in plain English the most cancer says that no American need Bay any law now specifically should we then go about our breaking the law I would take the college situation the students can take over their college by occupying its buildings council the council are consulate just plain occupying them. And the student struck by the buildings pending the administration's capitulation the administration refuses to grant the students demand say they move one step further quote another form resistance could take would be the burning down of a particular college building. This is little bit much even for Playboy course you condone arson constable's I asked yes said come slow if the society has been reached if a point has been reached in a given situation where the mechanisms of society and not responding to see serious grievances then are seen as an appropriate response in plain English because that means go ahead and burn down the building if in your opinion your grievances are sincere. And the mechanisms of society have not appeased you speaking for myself I can count sixty eight times during the period since my twenty first birthday when applying the consular code I felt compelled personally to put a torch to the White House. And of course Mr Savva idea is quite right when he says the Vietnam War is hardly responsible for it all on that comes and says I would hate to think that the war in Vietnam could be the only catalyst for resistance there is so much more that remains to be resisted the oppression of black people and poverty on equal distribution of wealth and so on and so on I mean at the bar of the city of New York simply does nothing absolutely nothing at all the nearest thing to the not in beach moment of consular is the non in beach front of Douglas consummated yesterday and such indecisions reached down through the vibrations of public life. And the fact the whole structure of authority affect the whole gravity of the legal and philosophical code that are the under structure of the society it makes things unbelievable we're losing even the force of the public sanction alimony esteem told me recently that it was not unusual or at least not unique for him to be denied the right to speak that it happened to him before he had been plucked down when fighting for the rights of civil rights in the South during the early sixty's but said here said he here was the difference in the early sixty's when it happened to him or of America rallied behind him and others who were working to erode the birth mark with which this country was born on the black question but said he just a few months ago speaking at Columbia University in front of five six hundred was to us and faculty he was hooted down and literally silent because he was defending the right of Professor Herman. To speak Needless to say the crowd went on punished on reprimanded the faculty themselves driven by these Jack-O. been a fury is a bit on the crowd to greater excesses but nothing happened nothing happened at all and the reason the thing happened is because we have been tortured into believing many of us there may be a process of communication going on there are there when those students refuse to listen to the words of Herman Kahn they may actually be telling us something. Which we have a responsibility to learn hands that kind of patients with a kind of the same. Which is. Which is unique to our time unique in the present American experience in so far as a sub a mation of it has gone to the lengths that it has gone they are trying to tell us something they tell us we are told and under the circumstances we must not stand by we must not object ourselves we must not intrude ourselves less we lose those vibrations that were communicating to us so rightly And so what happens thought great stand in New Haven for just a few months ago it seemed to me that the president of Yale University and the students of Yale University were taking a position which could only be translated thought of as saying that no murder should be investigated if it is possible that it was committed by a Black Panther How else would you explain the position of Kingman Brewster and the position of students who wanted to prevent the trial somebody who had been indicted with this crime the answer is that we do have a serious problem. To separate is absolutely correct when he says that the American people indeed any people with the possible exception of the French would prefer an arche would prefer tyranny to Anarky but I believe that we are inviting tyranny to the extent that we continue to be indecisive to the extent that we continue to be amused. Or patient with members of the faculty or with students or with journalists with anybody else who egg people on in them to discard the normal limitations on human freedom which are defined as the normalization of other people's freedom. This we need we need a sign of firmness at this time in America is sign that we intend to survive the outrageous one and archaic descent keeping in mind the words of Hillel Belloc written in his journal The Haunting words of Belloc as he observed the rise of Hitler only a few hundred miles away we sit and watch the barbarian he said we tolerate him in the long stretches of peace we are not afraid we have tickled by his irreverence his comic inversion of oral certitudes and our fixed creeds refreshes us but as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond and on those faces there is no smile. Or fifth. Thing. Like. This. I think I'm just going. In the drill to ask the other to join me up here. And I put a question to. Them that we'll talk about this matter a bit here and then later I first question. That thing. Maybe. You think. I. Think. That's the story my life missed opportunity. That your experience and why it happened. That a little more much reminded me of. Something I was thinking about the other day or the other week after the last of the vice president's speeches about likely. Last year he was right about I raised eyebrows. In the fall of pursed lips. And I was hoping you didn't get the Adam's apple really really. Gentleman I. I'm not quite sure from what I've just heard whether. Mr Buckley regards the. Ramsey Clark or Mr Kunstler the lawyer as the chief fossil of their country but since we don't have cancer here. I do have Mr Clarke. General problem. I would never do about it I think I'm obliged to ask Mr Clarke allow Mr Clarke. To rebut a few wishes for you than to any specific question you wish to. Where there is some advantage in speaking second isn't that. I have no rebuttal really I I feel this way that. If I'm transparent I want to be transparent I think it's very hard to see the truth. I enjoy banter of engaging in personalities but I really think this country has issues and if we're going to solve them we're going to have to address ourselves to them we can but if. We only gauge and in personalities. We won't I think we're going to have to look at this for what it is and try to understand. What it seems to me that most issues that I know of came in through a personality and I would find a kind of stuffy and stilted to say talk about the new deal without thinking of Franklin Roosevelt I certainly wouldn't go into something centric I would be you would talk about the major political event by the time without mentioning Cromwell. Not to the extent that I focus on this to come slug it simply because I intended to generalise by particularly relation which is a method of argument highly complimented by soccer to use. That old phrase or in person now it is so I if you want me from I want I promise not to mention one thing or no being leading or that would be. That would be asking too much and if you said more about itself then you. OK well. Mr Clarke has warned about the. Dangers of repressing dissent. But please put a certain emphasis on what he calls firmness in dealing with it. Better start with you but beyond this. Where you want to apply this for what form would it take against which particular. Percentage of forms of dissent I wouldn't quite clear what to summarise you know of a uniform long of oppression A is not necessary B. is not desirable A C. is not plausible but every now and then a society takes certain measures which communicate certain things to certain people. I give you example at a judicial level in England a few years ago. They discovered from experience that to require unanimity on a jury as part. I was in fact outmoded that the idea of twelve jurors always bring didn't work in the kind of society which we now have and so they James Rule from twelve ten. This was a form of communication most Allied Supreme Court recently said that if a defendant refuses to submit and uses in fact a permit. To proceed he may in fact be taken out of the courtroom and tried in that plant here with his lawyer representing him there is a grand jury at American University in Washington. That is investigating whether or not there has been a conspiracy to deprive of their civil rights those students who want to engage in our O.T.C. program which they have been permitted to do because they are obviously believed been occupied by the other students and this is the kind of thing I'm talking about all of these the denounces repression I say if that is what repression is that is precisely what we need. To Clark are you disturbed by. Some of the developments in the last couple of years in Washington. There was the. Comfort time to use of being a power against journalists. In a more active way than I can remember. An extension apparently wiretap uses. Them to use I believe the F.B.I. the caps and the way that we've not been familiar with the pacify the no. A recent. Disclosures of the military signal the personnel in civilian attire had to decide to cover the political conventions and they for the purpose of. Identifying potential makers of trouble in this country. So that story is not Tyrolese. Developed or totally confirmed yet I must say. I do these things bother you a. Right they are really a natural reaction to this rather president in recent years oppressive the wave of. A rather violent the some of the bloom. Where you can be. Bothered by natural reaction course. And I am bothered bothered primarily not because. Of concern for the capacity of repression where pretty or repressive of people. I'm bothered because of the essentially symbolic nature of these things. They implied that you can. Have equality in your life and justice and security on the cheap and you can't preventive detention president. Is really a symbolic thing and if it diverts our attention from the real problems anybody want to put more people in jail or who have not even men convicted of a crime without first worry about that jail itself is going to manufacture crime in America because we're brutalizing tens of thousands of young people annually if you have if society had no other purpose than its own safety it cared nothing for anybody else no compassion or anything else you're going to have to rehabilitate these people if you want safety and it is unintelligent to think you can cram more in overcrowded jails of before trial and secure that safety the same is true no not allowed no not law symbolic you know we're making hundreds and hundreds of arrests a year after the D.C. crime bill comes out that the chief of police that you know not provisionally by the district coming how could you that he said probably twelve times a year is that real. Look at the look at the heat of the debate over look at the diversion of attention from real problems if we're going to solve the problems of any social conduct in America we're going to have to we're going to have to professionalize police think of the irony of this nation frightened as it is and fear is a very harmful emotion and are. Frightened of crime yet tens of thousands of police officers having the moonlight to support their families is that rational and we want to give them more force so I think the sooner the symbolism of these things is. There's room there's something America has to be concerned about is that if it wants to solve its problems these men have some notion that you can you can diminish freedom to obtain. Security. To me history says if you will have liberty and order you will have neither you there's no balance we can enlarge both we know that and the need is to is to tap by the energies in the spirit the commitment of the people to enlarge both and not merely to try to contain by force I am forced in this room. I think that in this sense of criminals always win. That they do diminish the live the dues of the people at the several levels if we know that the chances of crossings and for part of my. Safely. Of vastly diminish then you don't cross Central Park at night and you lose that freedom this was a field which once had. There's a secondary people who is a freedom the people who you were going to visit or the other in the center of something for so in this sense I think the film was too old when but I do believe backed up. We have seen ideology time as the problem of crime that we have deprived lost selves of what has always been the most effective American instrument that same pragmatism that the illuminated Mr Bacon when he set out to establish the number of teeth in the horse's mouth take the no not business is going to be used Navy as a Mr Park said only a dozen times and yet if you read for instance the communications in the New York Times from Anthony Lewis you write certain that the only appropriate bestir to him on the positive such a low view of John welcome on the bridge in morning against the loss of American people he didn't bother to tell us that the identical exists in England always when it's true that somebody is permitted if he is he has been added and if nothing has been found in his possession he admitted to enter a civil suit in fact has been done with his inventive versus count and five thousand pounds was awarded as something that was honored to be years ago now they haven't lost their feedom Xin England but they have experimental tried to experiment sufficiently to make the lore work it took us five months to establish Sirhan Sirhan a killed candidate in that kind of a situation of the law or simply become not merely an ass as it was. Denouncing the one thousand century but it becomes completely inscrutable things like that don't happen in England and then when they don't have consulates they simply out of Madrid now I'm not saying that we should shave our institutions have to England's but I'm saying that unless we're prepared to say that England is a slave state we ought to recognize some of the limitations that they have imposed on American licentiousness bar and ask ourselves whether we ought to move in that direction before we all get killed which incidentally since you say a billion more people are going to exist in ten years I will extract the late the figures issued by the Justice Department say there are probably a billion people killed in ten years if we actually continue the curve at the current rate of four hundred percent increase in crime of the one nine hundred fifty nine one hundred sixty nine if that curve isn't reversed they don't have to worry about the opposition problem. We have been talking here about the south we've also been talking about. Conventional crime. To what extent. Is this great upsurge of crime in the ghettos let's say here. Or even. The riots in the ghettos recent years. Which I was not quite persuaded really were expressions of this sense that perhaps you think so if they are these two things what's the relationship between. Ordinary running about the greatest threat of crime these are. Mostly in the ghetto of the poor thing. And the riots began we properly think of this is what it was where is the break off point I don't think I think the riots are you know almost epileptic in the nature of the riots that we experienced in the sixty's and they're just. Overwhelming or there are many factors of course there are people are coming out just to loot because they see the opportunity but in the main it's just you know it's an overwhelming frustrated and it has no other way for release and it injures primarily the people that are there now you talked about two hundred fifty people killed in all the riots of the one nine hundred sixty S. And that's right in the course two hundred thirty five were blacks weren't there so who are who really do and here we are this huge nation just terrified by they have never been so many terrified by so few a week after get his bird Lincoln was confronted with riots in this city in which probably two thousand people were killed by action are people resisting the draft they had some real concerns in those days where you we have to realize that people don't riot unless there's something going on there that it's not fun that's the reason that you don't see them recurring in the same place it hurts when I was a tremendous emotional build up for that sort of thing that I'm sure the emotional build up whether this is justified or of a serious nature is another matter. You seem to be implying that all agree this is a real they all heard or that the must be judged by the same measurement. I could never understand the riots at Harvard University. That of these were the extreme violence of the ghettos killed. But I once asked some Harvard boys after that. If they could point up to me anywhere on this earth any collectivity of fifteen thousand people more free and more privileged in the students of either University today one of them could though they didn't like the question but. Why is that justified. This is the sense but really what is justified is anybody think that Iran is justifying the rights a fact of life you've got to look at I'd like but you don't have to put it another way it's a lie if you want to do something about back to life you're going to have to work construct a what do you do about that. In a place like that way changing from the ghetto to Harvard or I talking about these universities when thousands of kids of Wisconsin riot through the streets of Madison of smash windows over the alterations of the set of a bus line bus schedule but we do about this. When you the first thing you have to realize is that there's something whether it's justifiable or unjustifiable it's causing this I personally think violence is never justified lying is the ultimate human degradation that's right I think it's so incredible that we fail to give a man like Dr Martin Luther King the respect that he deserved because he literally walked in the Valley of the shadow of death all his life his adult life any fear no evil he knew violence he would never resort to violence because he came from the people that suffer most of the violence in America. Mr Buckley Why has this happened among college students all that said. I think back to my time and my goodness we did some things like driving out compulsory military training we would have despised anyone amongst us who resort to violence. There's a cause there's a reason why what is it important reason. It's and they said it was partly because. The the normal the satisfactions of life. They have been deprived of. In virtue. In virtue of the series of expectations that have built up over the preceding fifteen or twenty years of the idea for instance when Martin Luther King said I have a dream and freedom. He was actually asking for something which one might call the evanescence of. One of the game clear that such could not happen there was disillusion struck when it has when it is advanced by so many demagogues that the notion that we can completely eliminate. Poverty and instant blame simply by getting the relevant people down to the White House to say the relevant things in expectations of what Add to that probably the crucial consideration not only the top billion business that you mentioned earlier that the sooner you get to realizing what it is that you want the more prostrated you become there is a bit the fact of private licentiousness against which Alexander Hamilton warned no constitution has proved the same year that we have the right riots we're talking about there was a riot in France that almost threw over the government board in martial law or over racism over ghettos no over the Vietnam policy. On the contrary the Boer was very much opposed to the Vietnam but there is no race problem in France there are ghettos but not by our standards what was the cause of riots in New Delhi What was the point that arrives in Madrid why wasn't the cause a riot in Mexico City that resulted in the killing of two hundred fifty students the official figures of forty seven they actually do and what is the cause that nobody knows except that the axis of student discontent. That runs through. The civilised and uncivilised world as other whatever do with the failures of our Vietnam policy it has to do with a whole series of disillusion the crowd in in part because of the waistline contemporary philosophy the age of skepticism and the failures of dark matter. Are you saying Bill there's a kind of or trying to. Or. Kind of religion izing of politics now especially among the sure. With the decline of religion as we know with. This transcendental urge and human beings especially in the young believe come to all this. Is taking a political form. Is so. You get the impression from many of the youngsters that somehow through politics and government personal happiness is going to be assured which I could never quite believe. Myself. Mr Clarke. Going to last questions you said that we're not communicating in this country we must open our ears and minds and hearts to. All these cries. I get the impression of times that. We have never sold listen to. Unfortunate people are unhappy people as we know I've never seen a time when there are such total intellectual artistic freedom with films day books. Press television or anything else. Indeed the. First blast from the vice president against television was a week one of his first class was that we seem to in his opinion. You know almost nothing but. Actions of troubles of my own are these. Why do you think we're not communicating I get the impression almost drowned. Me. Well I guess that's because. We look at it from different perspectives it would be hard for you to get a different impression you're in communications and you're saturating this planet with communication. You try to be the mother of the child in the ghetto who's in a public school there and she has fought all her life to get that child an education and she can no more talk to a superintendent of schools and she can the president states her capacity her ability to communicate is near all the frustrations of people on welfare whose dignity used to mean by trying to communicate or express or overwhelming you you take a student on a college campus and his ability to. To find someone who will really listen and reason with him and work work out his problems in this mass place that he lives or are just. Overwhelming How do you how do you communicate with the masses of your society that's why we have to diffuse our We're going to have to give people a chance to at things are critically important to the match my community action has sprung into being it's an assessment day that people be involved in the community level because the numbers of our time make the performance from government as you say in Washington adequate for fifty years we've looked for the resolution of every serious and scrub stubborn from an American to Washington in Washington can't solve the problem I agree with Mark on one of them is in three days but I think I'm right on it not I'm reminded of the past when I said the Americans for Democratic actually are so those that let's face it conservatives know intuitively. What it takes us liberals he is than to election to learn. And there's no question about it that the lack of communication between for instance a welfare mother struggling to get her child given his needs education is simply a spot as a result of the bureau visitation of the entire case will process and this has an analog of almost everything from government which is why we should have reforms I for instance which would have a voucher system so that people can send people to the actual and whatever school they want to and then have a little private competition among schools to see which one has a better education this is unfortunately a reform that has been impeded by people who would tend to being called liberal so I especially invite Mr Parker to communicate to them which is a matter of the the necessity to make such a report I'm sure they would listen to him Your world is so new to liberals and conservatives in need my world is people I don't I don't see such need compartmentalization. Maybe. Even if I want to go and sort it out of his opening remarks mature but he had said that liberalism in general or whatever of those things have gone down in the mainstream sense of the orbiter's an unbearable life here. I suppose is to the best where you said. Maybe just because I was very poor as a young and that seemed to me that those days were at least as unbearable in many ways more bearable but. We could spend two hours on this I think maybe we ought to see if there are people in the audience would like some questions do you want me. I don't know how you want to handle questions whether they're on the cards or whether you want to stand up and. Say I guess. Mr Farnum when are for government I'm not referring to either party or when I refer to taxes I'm not necessarily arguing for or against them you made the statement that the frustration of many citizens and how to make the government or the community respond My question is this if you increase the centralization of power in Washington which has been the trend for the last fifty years and with the ever increasing floor federal money whether it's to screw the highways How do you propose to get this power back to communities so they can make the government bond with so much of the money which really takes it for action as in Washington. Well I. Have never proposed a centralization of that power right I have proposed consistently diffusion of that power that's one of the several reasons that I would pose a national police force I think it could not be effective it could not be patient it would be a grave threat to liberty and if we're going to have to diffuse power in America we're going to have to give people a chance to participate because our energy pendants is great and I think we have to distinguish our times and other times we're already in in our youth was not stigmatized it was not a minority and you were constantly aware of the poor in New York City have television they seem our country and it doesn't look like one hundred twenty sixth Street and they realize that for the first time in history. Their poverty is not AFAIK it by nature is not seven years of drought that's causing it because man through technology and technology does not make moral judgments of man will make moral judgments and apply them to technology can relieve and meet the needs and improve the quality of life of his fellow man that's where these frustrations come from and we're going to have to hear the people who have the frustrations to understand the problem and to address ourselves to it we're going to have to give them power to act back to her the problem won't be solved in the frustration Crees. I have a question for Mr Buckley. Do you think there is any justification for peaceful dissent at all that is not within our conventional political and economic systems. Because I couldn't quite follow through do you think there is any justification for peaceful to sucked. That is not within our conventional political and economic systems. Of. Well I don't know what would be an example of peaceful dissent that isn't within our convention systems if you give me an example of that then I can I'll try to tell you. It seems sure that Mr Clarke has been referring to many examples of peaceful dissent that he agrees. Acceptable to him and many of these that he has referred to are not within the conventional political manner and economical manner of exhibiting dissent. Well they are there other peaceful they're not peaceful if they're peaceful let us agree then that nobody is getting hurt or whatever. They may be let's say an orthodox unconventional let's say. Oh let's say the occupation of Columbia University as an example of that was. That was peace for the peace of war and it was all unconventional do I prove that no I don't approve of it because I don't approve of the right of any students to deprive other students of their rights over that not even the president of universities who is not a five also have rights. Now the the trouble incidentally are I think it. Interesting to meditate just for a moment on this rather extraordinary thing and that is that when they finally busted Columbia. It was done after orders have been issued by by super impeccable there than say to us impeccable commission of the. To Superman back of the bus Columbia and have the result was hollow of outrage which is still before the compass but not a single criticism of Mr Lindsey. And yet when you had a situation in Chicago a few months later on of the some reason. The ideology has ation the five and in the criticism of Mayor Daley and of course what happened was that Humphrey had been nominated if a dream a party had been down there or wrong or George McGovern. At the instruction of Mr Daley he would have been here was a very hero and the kids would have been. The archetypes of the Nazi youth movement. So the v v v v v point distress I think is that unconventional protests even if peaceable MONSTA have referenced to the rights of other people and they happened in the kinds of protests that we've been alluding to. The Earth. Tire of panel and I'm dead center in the back here was to several By the way thank you Mr Buckley on the right so university presidents being one appreciate that. I would like to ask entire panel you talk totally on our internal societal American problem a question we get hit with constantly is the parallelism or causality relationship between excessive dissent social demolition and so on and external sources would you address yourself to the conspiracy kind of concept please just briefly. Yes there is a concept. For all kinds of little groups of people so far as I know from what I can read them. Trying to bring about little conspiracies in some of the. Bombings. I know of no great conspiracy that the numbers of people think the F.B.I. does either I think the Black Panthers are only two thousand people or something of that sort. But this is something maybe you know much more about tonight is a great conspiracy in the country. Where I live you know I guess their. Experiences in life but my judgment is that. We tend to use conspiracy as a means of avoiding relay shoes take crime we'd like to think it is a bunch of Sicilian that are causing all this crime in America and therefore there is just mafia that. That's absurd. We would like desperately to think that. There are conspiracies behind the tragic assassinations of our time President Kennedy and Martin Luther King said to Kennedy. We don't really care about the evidence because if there was a conspiracy then it was some foreign aid in Elements doesn't mean that our society has the capacity to create people with. It with the proclivities in individual capacities we overuse it it's a cop out we're going to have to address ourselves. To real issues if there were any substantial conspiracy directed against the American government it certainly hasn't manifested itself. Because it seems to me that much of what's been going on is so much like what happened in Europe and in this country to around the turn of the century it wasn't really. Bolshevik conspiracy you of was any hard and fast planned by very many people with a real blueprint for overthrow and reconstruction of their terms it was mostly anarchic. By anarchists and they're the lousiest conspiratory of the world No two can agree Bill you have thoughts on this what does this I think that there are a lot of there are a lot of things versus sometimes they're reasonably effective aspirants of a means to act together that's all there is. A pleasant a word for it is if you like coordinate or coordination as a group up and Brandeis I think of it as coordinates protests and as a result of that conspiracy which is what it is after all the thing all you can have a legal conspiracy is not merely unlawful. They were there were they were able to manufacture two hundred fifty thousand people at this rally that has been alluded to in Washington last May also some very insidious claims and we have to remember that in an age where an individual but I mean life and death for whole world you've got a situation in which a very few people exercise a skyjackers leverage out of that and that under the. Circumstances you don't even offer a lot of things for us to make mistakes of those and chaos for America you also don't need an awful lot of people in the within the federal government to produce. The cost either in this world correct seemed to me that we're now at the point where the more faithful the decisions to be made the fewer people make them. This technological interrelated system is very vulnerable to a few individuals of the throw a bomb or a hijacked plane or. Throw a bottle of poison in the city water reservoir something or so at. The same is true on the level of responsible government. That could make mistakes make them quickly. By a very few people as witness the last few wars perhaps. The consequences are. Can be awful and that what we do about this is. A little beyond me reduce this level of tension in this world somehow. At anymore from the audience I think we have a minute or two left just back with. America's strongest it is don't you think that served America tolerate five years of. Age We have time slots at split on America I can't tolerate I'm fine I'm just now away from a bike. Shop. And of course some if I violated. The law or the cameras of my profession I would expect that you. Would be able to and I commend you on zeal of education. And in suggesting that you would be among the posse. To. Be up to you to raise the prostate even raise it was a very profound point. A draft some. Said. Let those who would tear down the republican forms of government be left for his monument. The freedom with which people may have a small freedom in this country so long as reason is left free to combat. But now this is the same draftsman who a had that subtle qualify so long as reason is left reason is left free to combat it I don't know what reason was left free to combat comes up. When on several occasions he spoke resulting in the burning down was at the bank I think the paper burning. Or wrap around when he spoke in the church old school house was burned down in Cambridge nor do I know. Why it was Jefferson who wrote a phrase about self-evident truths if there are self-evident truths as he insisted in the Declaration of Independence then people who don't agree with those truths are people who have to be dealt with at the margin at the margin meaning when they become a threat. Now it also the constitution the United States. Under took to guarantee freedom to the police to the states guarantee it. By guaranteeing it meant that at least the Constitution was closing its ears of the possibility the freedom was a bad thing the Constitution flatly disagrees with man for parking at least that particular That answer is it's a form of self-indulgence and a form of self assurance to be able to say on that console and do what he wants that Jordan can rock Well do we want and it is by far the preferable way of doing things but one must guard against the the the illusion of that commitment on over the commitment of these people have a right. To do that to call for instance for genocide to call for in some of the deprivation of other people's rights were burning down the building and that this is always been a problem in constitutional there was face very direct about Supreme Court and to many allocation one hundred forty nine one of the fact is there is no theoretical right of a George Lincoln Rockwell or William Kunstler or a part of a communist party functionary to say what he wants on the American tradition and libertarian theory it is purely a matter of indulgence and becomes an expression of the society to decide whether that indulge himself at a particular moment net helps or hurts society when Mayor Wagner said the cuckoo to Jordan going rock Well he couldn't come up with his. Two dozen Cretans and go down to the garment workers district and call for the assassination of all Jews the A.C.L.U. said that the Wagner was pipe wrong in the depriving him of the civil liberties Wagner stuck my guns and it seems to me that freedom hasn't really suffered as a result of a. On the other hand we didn't go out and simply springboard an income Rockwell up nor should we and it is somewhere between wagon with facing that situation of a country level and the feds facing him and allowing him a certain amount of monitored activity in all of them and which is the American way I want only to remember to dispute this I want only to make this one point the revolutionists have not recognized the right of counter revolution this Edmund Burke or the family on our side as you know but he was never saying to King George the King George didn't have the right to come in and try to stop Good Washington and in fact if he had court order to Washington and hang them to burn a bird would no doubt have deplored excessive roiled on telly but he would have had no recourse to any convention then on against his doing that then the verse and Riggs have against Julius Caesar so it is important for us to remind others who should know is that we have every right in the world to string them up if we want to as Dr Johnson said Nothing concentrates the mind so wonderfully as knowing that you've got to be hanged and do it sooner or what you. Mark. Mr Clark I have a twofold question that I would like to ask you one. In regard to your old. That they said should be allowed and is needed and it is a necessity. And you also openly admitted here that you do not. Condone to violence. I would like to know. Where where are you going to draw the line and how can you draw the line when almost. Every action that we've seen as far south as all play resulted in violent riots. Being in the local area can't I am under the impression that you are representing the people there that. Are indicted for violence. Are plants closed there and all of us being. Responsible listen to the law enforcement our officers and complied. We also know that if they had the Senate and stop with this that hadn't won any further. You wouldn't have anything to represent down there in the way of disorder and violence and murder. And then also you brought up the fact of the largest march on Washington in the history of our country the poor people. I think at the time. We have the question. I'm not sure just what your question is no. I don't think. Very little time to do it and I don't know where your terminal point is you would you put a question to Mr Clarke Yes I am I am wondering how Mr Clarke and conscientiously. Represent these people that are being. That have been indicted. And. With. Violence and can honestly do this with any. Sense he does not. Do it from a sense of highest duty and I'm honored to get the opportunity. You know some people divide the world into conservatives and liberals which some of the conservative today are ready to stand as judge jury and executioner all at once I believe in due process I'm a man of the law I believe in the rule I think Samuel Johnson is ridiculous when he says everyone's got a right to lynch everyone else I believe no one has a right to lynch anyone I think that we have to have lawyers who will defend the rights of people in court I'm not prepared to state sit up here and say because he's despised that Rap Brown is guilty of arson in far all of the court decide that I think that's what the American system is about I think that's what the rule of law and thanks once I got the watch to me it was one sided direction I would have found by the last word I just don't want anybody to leave this room if I made them that they thinking that Sam Johnson said that because he didn't you shouldn't vote in the way. He said Johnson said Thanks a lot of being angry the morning concentrates the mind wonderfully you. Know him being here this morning did not concentrate mine as well as it should have but. I don't think we have been totally you've been very kind very patient indulgent and I've told my school years of our time is up so thank you very much for the three of her for. Thank you. Thank you Mr Buckley and Mr Clarke for your thoughtful and lively exchange of views and our sincere appreciation to you Mr Savva. For putting this subject in perspective I think we should give these three men another round of applause for a great. Thank you never have we had a greater or a more provocative program. We now have completed the early three says of our Congress program we've heard about drugs delinquency disorder disunity dissension and other subjects with a negative ring to them however there is another side of the American scene that needs attention under our national character we must discuss other subjects under the headings. Such as hope. Faith. And passion forgiveness understanding. And national unity these great gifts will enrich the quality of the life of a nation and we must emphasize these positive factors again and again and our efforts to unify our nation. To conclude this session. I wish to call upon a remarkable woman Jane Pickens many of you will recall her from the great days when the voice of radio constituted the prime times. Brought into our homes more recently under her married name of Mrs William Langley she has worked for major journal because Mrs Langley has an idea to share with us this morning it is a great idea I am pleased to present an inspiring example of a citizen dedicated to the crest of for quality Jane Pickens Langley thank you were Was Good morning ladies and gentlemen I have five minutes to tell you something important but first I have a present for you three boys. We have an idea we think. That has great possibilities we also feel that you American business are the backbone of our country. Called the hard headed business man hard headed doesn't necessarily mean stuff and it means. Intelligent and practical I happen to be one woman who feels that if she has a need of some good advice go to a hard headed businessman and she'll get good advice so here I am honey. We know that our. The country is in trouble but that doesn't mean that each one of us has to sit back and say well who are my what can I do about it. Because we are not helpless. They are more constructive people than there are destructive people the only thing is that the destructive ones are the ones who make the most noise and get the most attention so we can counteract that step by step if we do go do it and. We have a. Simple sensible idea. We have established a going private operating foundation we are a serious organization with some of the best brains in America from all walks of life to run it. We have plans that are down to earth. And intelligent. Our first plan will take only one minute a day one minute. Every day at a specified time with a given signal television radio or office factor is the one. We will poll for one minute of silence. And during this minute each in his own way. Close stop look and listen. Stop and still the to boil. Look. With an our own thoughts. And listen to that inner voice that each one of those hands. Sometimes that voice is called conscience instinct. Sometimes ideas. Sometimes it's called the voice of the Creator. But let that voice tell each of us what she can do specifically this day. To make a will that. And then do it. One person thinking constructively is useful. Many people thinking constructively. Is power. And many people thinking constructively at the same moment is magic. It will interest you to know that we have made a national Gallup poll and sixty seven percent No seventy six percent of our people and all age groups. Agree to participate and to support this minute. I wonder if you'll be game to to. Sort of experiment with me. It'll just take one minute it might seem a very long minute but it'll just be one minute we'll stop look and listen together all right we're choose a subject you've had many to choose from. Justice. Brotherhood. Peace. Rest a peace. Peace peace between individuals peace between. Solutions of individual peace what you can do for peace. Anyways and that's cause now for one. All together and see what answers we can we can. That then it seemed like a long time I didn't. Think what could be done but that minute if all of us individually throughout this country stopped and news did. You give your employees a a coffee break. Think of what it would mean if you gave them a medication break for one minute think of the atmosphere in your company the harmonious atmosphere and then multiply that by our sins one of the functions of our organization is going to be a clearing house for constructive ideas when we have millions of individuals thinking for one minute constructively. Many important ideas can be blown and we will channel these ideas to the appropriate group whether it's private public or government and then we'll follow up we have other. Equally practical ideas what I can't tell you in five minutes but there is not one thing in this world that we cannot do for our country if we make up our minds to do it. Day by day. There is an answer to everything you've been hearing here today and we should give the individual an opportunity to be involved in it and this is a practical way of getting the manpower of our country and the interested people in our country involved in solving our problems and finding the answers we can do it. By. As I'm talking to them. Now the first step. If you will is to open that up you have it says Do not open until eleven thirty one because we need your advice so much and if you just chance to answer it it will be of such value to us. You do your part and we'll do ours when you open your. Life. Thank you you have my thanks check. You know it's. Like you both like. This session. In the a. Isn't. That concludes this discussion of dissent within a lawful society there were two servants were William F. Buckley Jr and former United States attorney general Ramsey Clark Eric Sevareid C.B.S. News national correspondent was the moderator of the program was transcribed at the Diamond Jubilee celebration of American industry held last month under the auspices of the National Association of Manufacturers this has been the last of four special programs join us again next Saturday too for our regular broadcast of the Shakespeare matinee.