Benjamin Spock |
May 3, 1972
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Benjamin Spock
Pediatrician; Author, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care; 1972 Presidential Candidate, People's Party
Q: Please comment on the current wage and price controls. Do you think they were necessary? Are they working?
A: I think it's easy to say that they're not working or they're not working very well. We in the People's Party believe in addition that they're unfair, that they hold down wages more than they hold down prices and certainly more than they hold down profits. It's an example of where a little fiddling isn't enough, we'd say to really control such things, you have to go a lot further and even change the economic system.
Q: This question deals with Vietnam. You have condemned the bombing, but not the Communist invasion. What is your position on the invasion of South Vietnam by the Communists from North Vietnam?
A: Well, I think that the first answer to that is that Vietnam should belong to the Vietnamese and I would say that the Vietnamese are only trying to regain control of Vietnam. In the second place, the country is not, this is not two separate countries, these are two parts of the same country. And it's absurd for our presidents trying to present their point of view to pretend that when Northerners come to help Southerners repel a foreign invader, that that is invasion in itself. Of course the North Vietnamese have invaded, as soon as they could get the strength assembled to make a good invasion again. And they're going to … you want my interpretation? They're going to continue to fight even to the death of the last man as long as the United States is determined to keep its puppet in control in South Vietnam.
Q: This question's, Doctor, why should a liberal vote for you instead of Senator McGovern? Is your program really any different from his?
A: Well, George McGovern has, for instance, come out for closing some of the loopholes through which the wealthiest escape for their taxation. And certainly, like us, he wants an end to the war in Vietnam. However, I don't think he goes anywhere nearly as far as we. He also incidentally says a reduction of the Defense Department budget. But I haven't heard him say, "Recall all American troops," that this is aggressive not defensive. He certainly is not talking about closing all the loopholes in trying to collect that $70 billion. But that leaves the question - isn't it more practical to vote for somebody who's offering half a loaf than to save your vote for somebody who obviously is not going to be elected this year.
Well, I just come back to the fact that we believe that no Democrat, George McGovern or Sir Galahad himself, is going to be able to turn the Democratic party into an anti-imperialist, anti-pollution, thoroughly socially just party because of this influence of industry. And, the President isn't the only elected official even though he's the highest in the hierarchy. There's hundreds of representatives, there's a hundred senators, there's 50 governors, and there's thousands of state representatives, all of whom owe their election, by and large, to industry. And when a president tries to steer the party around in a way that offends those people, those people, the industrialists, are going to apply the well-known pressure and Congress is going to resist. This is exactly what happened with Franklin Roosevelt, as those who are old enough realize, that when he came in, at the time all the banks were closed, industrialists, financiers, all said, "Save us, save us, FDR." But then, as soon as the banks got open and things became less scary, the industrialists began to call Franklin Roosevelt a traitor to his class. And they applied the pressure on Congress and it wasn't many years before Congress was resisting giving to Franklin Roosevelt the further liberal laws that he was asking for. And I think the same thing would happen under George McGovern.
Q: Several of the questions in this group deal with other candidates for the Presidency. This one, if Humphrey is nominated by the Democrats, will you provide a non-radical alternative for liberal Democrats?
A: No, we'll provide a radical alternative for liberals who we hope will be disgusted like we are; most of us started as liberals too. So we're not going to offer a mild alternative. You don't have to be scared that we're going to take over the country and impose all these things that I've been talking about. We're not going to do it. All we're asking is to help us start the building of a movement.
Incidentally, a poll in California a few weeks ago - I forget the name of the poll - a field poll showed that if Muskie, for instance, was nominated by the Democrats, that the People's Party and Spock would get two percent of the votes. That sounds pretty good to me, but that if Humphrey is nominated, we'll get six percent of the vote. So…
Q: Another question dealing with another candidate. How does the withdrawal of Senator Muskie affect the candidates for the presidential race?
A: Well, certainly the middle is getting deserted more and more, isn't it? What we have is a polarization. On the one hand, George Wallace and Hubert Humphrey. Hubert is still not sure that the war in Vietnam was a mistake and, who also said that the President's anti-busing platform had been his all along - strange thing for a civil rights person. I don't think myself he has any guts left. I think he has hardly any mentality, excuse the, excuse the, this is not persuasive language. I can't conceal my disgust about what's happened to Hubert Humphrey that I used to believe in. I was at the Mayo Clinic at the time that he was first running for senator and I contributed ,and I was proud to be a backer. But I think he's a shambles at the present time.
At the other extreme, George McGovern. In other words, the middle has lost its appeal and I think Americans are becoming more and more polarized, more and more disgusted with namby pambyism and a blurring of the issues. And I think that's a good thing. I think it's not necessarily a necessary thing if the country is doing fine, but when the country is sliding more and more into trouble, I think you have to have polarization with people getting angrier before something happens.
Q: To cover more fully the list of candidates, what do you feel is the significance of George Wallace's success in the primaries? Do you feel it is conceivable that he could get the Democratic nomination in 1776, 1976, pardon me?
A: That was an interesting slip. Well, his success now is not too different from his success about four years ago. You have to remember that so it's not a new phenomenon. I think I would say maybe with wishful feeling this doesn't all express racism because I think that George Wallace also presents a populist program. He's talking about closing some loopholes, he's talking about better medical care for the American people, and if he's sincere, why naturally I think that he's right to stress these things. I think that in a more general way his popularity again represents the impatience of so many American people with the fact that the government keeps promising, politicians keep promising things, and then nothing is done about them.
Q: And this questioner sums up a number of these, perhaps. Is there a point in time when a third-party candidate, if he determines that he has no chance of winning, might consider throwing his support and following to another candidate who might be the lesser of two evils?
A: I'm saying this, of course, now for the third time. I just have to be polite and answer. We believe that the American people kid them - we, believing as we do, believe that the American people kid themselves by always worrying and fussing about Tweedledum and Tweedledee, which is the lesser evil. We say that's why you keep getting evil because you're voting for evil even if it is the lesser evil. Never, under any circumstances, will the People's Party throw its support to the candidate of any other party, not because we think we're morally superior to them, but because we think the only chance of saving the country is to build an independent party. And you undercut an independent party or the building of it by throwing your weight, making deals with other parties.
Q: Now, to change the subject entirely, Doctor, do you believe that busing aims for integration?
A: I think that busing is obviously conceived of by the courts as one of the ways of aiding integration. I think it's too bad that the whole issue has been stirred up again, I think, for base political purposes by certain presidents that I won't mention by name. And it is too bad that still a majority of the American people can be whipped up to this form of segregation.
I think that, however, there are very worthy people, sympathetic with black people or black radicals themselves who are opposed to busing at the present time as a solution. They say, many black radical leaders say, "Give us control of our schools and give us the funds and we'd rather run the schools ourself than have our children bused out into other neighborhoods where they may feel less secure."
Q: And this question still quite a jump of subject: How do you feel about the role of the American government in the Middle East?
A: That question always comes up by the time you get three-quarters through the question-and-answer period and I always hope that I can get out before that question, because there's no popular answer to it, right?
The People's Party, I'm hiding behind the People's Party, but I agree with them, says, the United States should not be giving arms or selling arms to any nation. That though there may be times when it's justified morally and sentimentally, as in the case of Israel, in general, we create more distress and more hostility with our arms. A good example being Pakistan and India where we gave arms to both and twice they've gone to war with each other and murdered thousands of each other with our arms. And, it's the United States interfering in Israel sentimentally on the part of the Israeli people, but also in up to its ears in oil in the Middle East. It's American involvement there that, of course, is the incentive to the Soviet Union to come into there and to send fleet into the Mediterranean and so on.
We say the way for people to solve their international difficulties is through the U.N. and strengthen the U.N. as much as is necessary to do this. And let the United States support the U.N., strengthen the U.N., give it more dignity and give it more authority by using the U.N. the way we promised to use it in the beginning, but have not used it. What we've done up until, really up until the present, is referred to the U.N. those issues where we felt we could embarrass our opponents. And we have had the muscle up until recently to keep from being referred to the U.N. those issues where we were afraid that we might be embarrassed as the case of Cuba or the case of Vietnam, for instance. So that if we would use the U.N. honorably, it would immediately double its authority and its influence.
Q: Dr. Spock, we have time but for one more question. Before asking it, I thank you on behalf of the members of the Commonwealth Club of California for your interesting presentation of a different and contrasting point of view on the political situation.
A: Judiciously said.
Q: And now we approach, perhaps, the more aggressive type of question of which you spoke, I think written by a sympathetic questioner. Don't you feel your cause is hopelessly futile? Why don't you get back to a truly responsible function helping mothers and children?
A: Well, I've been a professor, a full-time professor in medical schools for 16 years until five years ago when I was forced into retirement for age. And I keep Baby and Child Care up to date, but I can't carve a new career in pediatrics at the present moment.
I disagree in philosophy with the kind of people who say, "Why don't citizens stick to their own business and let the government officials run the government?" That's why we're in the terrible trouble that we are. I just consider it that I'm fortunate in being retired and therefore having no boss that I will, or employer, that I will embarrass, and fortunate that I am supported by a combination of royalties from a well-known book and also for writing an article every month for a well-known women's magazine so that I can devote myself to these things.
To put it another way more positively, with the country sliding into greater and greater trouble, I think every citizen, whatever his occupational concerns, has got to pay more attention and assert himself. That is why we're in such trouble is because so many Americans shrug their shoulders and they will even answer specifically when asked for an opinion about Vietnam, they say, "That's the government's business." This would be bad enough in a dictatorship; it's absolutely horrible in a democracy that people don't have any more impulse to solve their own problems. And I would say, one of the answers about government knowing what's best for the people, it's the government that said Vietnam was the place for us to invest billions and billions of dollars and 55,000 Americans are dead and hundreds of thousands of Americans injured, all for no purpose all those years.
I'm heating up to this last one because I'm remembering all the sneering that was done at me by the press and other people during the early years I was involved in the antiwar business. They say, "Huh, how can you imagine that you know so much about Vietnam and international affairs when the President has firsthand information flowing into him all day long and all night long?" And my answer is, how come the President was always wrong, and the Secretary of Defense was always wrong, and the Secretary of State was always wrong in every prediction that they made about pretty soon now we're going to be winning? And how come was it that peace people, that have nothing to do with government, were always right in saying it's a dirty war and we're never going to be able to succeed there because the people would rather die to the last man rather than let us take over their country? Thank you.
Generously funded by:
Tom Campbell
Dee Dee Myers