Timothy Leary & G. Gordon Liddy Interview
(w/ tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE interpolated)
- 1983
[This interview, at least in this "interpolated" form, is previously unpublished. I was planning to publish some form of it anyway in my magazine "Street Ratbag" issue 7/2 or later but issue 7/1 was the last issue - largely because my coeditor had lost interest in it.
I found a version of the original interview, I don't know if it was ever published. Since I found the relationship between Leary & Liddy fascinating, I thought it would be fun to publish it with my own comments interpolated as if I were there - partially just because I wish I HAD been there.
As such, this interview doesn't really fit either in my "Interviewer" web-pages (I wasn't, after all, the interviewer) or in the "Interviewee" web-pages (My fictitious 'presence' is self-imposed retroactively & wasn't a result of anyone's actually interviewing me). Since I'm titling this as an interview with Liddy & Leary (they are the central figures here - I don't impose myself that much) but since I'm including it becuase of my interpolation, I'm linking to it from the "Interviewee" page in order to confuse the clear-cuttedness - my 1st subversion here of my own categories!]
G. Gordon Liddy & Timothy Leary
interviewed in 1983 (the "Reagan era") @
THE PLiSLooplyR's COMPANY cyber-café
by ? & MM
- w/ the wondrous electronic intrusion of
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
For those of you too young (or too ignorant) to remember either of these 2 fellows:
Timothy Leary was a psychologist who pioneered the use of LSD in psychotherapy. He claimed, eg, that his use of it in prisons lowered recidivism. When the use of LSD became illegal, he continued to promote the use of illegal drugs as a tool for consciousness expansion & spent time in jail as a result. He escaped from prison w/ the help of political radicals. His ideas were usually far-reaching & inspired. Leary is currently reputed to be dead. Who knows about the future?
G. Gordon Liddy became reknowned as one of the "Watergate burglars" - one of the people caught burglarizing the Democratic National Party Headquarters. Since this was done under the instructions of prominent Republican Party figures, including the then-president Richard Nixon, enough of a scandal was created to force Nixon's resignation. Liddy distinguished himself by refusing to save himself from prison by testifying against his bosses. Contrarily, John Dean, another person implicated in the burglaries, turned "whistle-blower" & became somewhat of a liberal 'hero' by turning state's evidence. Many years later, Liddy has made the interesting claim that the real reason for the Watergate burglaries was to steal evidence that the Democrats had gathered about a prostitution ring that Dean's girlfriend-at-the-time (now wife) was running in Washington DC for the (perhaps all Republican) politicians. I find this to be a very appealing & believable assertion. Liddy claims to welcome any litigous action that Dean & his wife might want to bring against him for his claim - saying that if it goes to court he can prove that his accusation is true. Liddy currently [2003] hosts a talk-radio show.
This was recorded after Leary & Liddy had done some debate touring & after the making of Alan Rudolph's film about them entitled "Return Engagement".
Timothy Leary: "This conversation that we're having today, in 20 yrs [ie: in 2003], people will look back at this & consider it totally insanity because, uh, if the best were to happen [?], young people simply do not buy this"
?: It's on.
?: So what's this movie about that you guys are in?
Gordon Liddy: Essentially, it's about our very differing ideas & our very differing lifestyles, I shd say. The debates we've had did so well, even being on Broadway here, that Mrs Leary, who's very knowledgeable
Timothy Leary: [interrupting:] Barbara, Barbara.
GL: Barbara, alright, well, I know her as Barbara but our readers may not know her as Barbara. Mrs Leary got the idea well maybe we ought to film it - 1 of the debates. & she got together w/ a friend of hers, Caroline Frankfur [?], who is a producer for Island Alive in Hollywood & in New York & they sd: Well, it's a good idea but we ought to go further. In addition to just showing the 180 degree opposite ideas that you 2 have & the rather unusual fact that despite they hold these opposite views they are friends now especially in view of the fact that in the 1960s I arrested Timothy twice that perhaps we shd go further & have a Cinema Verité presentation of their markedly contrasting lifestyle. It took what I understand was something like 63 hrs of film. The 2 of us separately, together, w/ our families, etc, & cut it down to an hr & a half - & it was Alan Rudolph, I think, essentially, who did that, &, from what all the critics have been saying, he did a remarkable job.
?: You were arrested twice?
GL: Twice by me. Numerous times by a cast of thousands.
[laughter]
TL: Oh, but Gordon outstrips me in yrs served. Gordon served almost..
GL: [interrupting:] & the number of felonies, Timothy. I think I have you on the number of felonies.
TL: ..number of mnths served for your ideas & for this I give you credit. [unintelligible] Alan Rudolph is a talented director & the film was photographed & cut by top Hollywood professionals. My own feeling is that, well, 1st was that it was a little superficial because it spent alotof time on our differing attitudes toward marriage & women & I felt there was too much emphasis on your marital/extramarital situations. I thought that that shadowed out the basic differences between us wch have to do w/ the fact that you, as I see it, represent the system, the capitalist system - & I, as an Irish/Druid/Celtic dissident represent irreverence to, & consistent disrespect for the system. I thought the movie didn't get at this. But, after thinking it over, I've come to give Alan Rudolph more credit because I think that the great changes that've taken place in America in the last 20 yrs: self-discovery, personal growth, & resistance to authority: questioning of the establishment. I think the key issue is the liberation of women & the tremendous growth of self-confidence that has taken place in women & I've now come to feel that this is probably the most important event of the 20th century & I personally am waiting for the next 2 to 6 yrs when women look around, recognize their intelligence, their power, their timeliness, & I think that in the 1988 election, '84's too soon, the 1988 election, issues that've come up in our film about male/female relationships will express themselves politically & I'm going to do anything in my power to urge that women take over every aspect of government & that no one vote for a man. The men have had 2,000 yrs & they've totally fucked up & I think it wd be mind-blowing for the rest of the world if the American people sd: Alright, we're gonna give women 2 terms, 8 yrs so, Congress, Senate, Supreme Court, all the way down the line, let's let the women try it they certainly can't do any worse than the men - & what a mind-blowing thing that wd be if we sent delegations to the United Nations & we sent delegations over to Russia. I mean, we'd laugh those senile old Crots [?] right out of the water w/ their war games & their Teddy Roosevelt World War II insanities so, I've come around full-circle in my relationship to that film & I think that it does raise all the issues including the resurgence of women. Whaddya think of that, Gordon?
GL: Well, I bow to no-one in my admiration for the opposite sex &, as far as competence is concerned, the 1st bk I wrote, Out of Control, wch is a novel in the spy thriller genre & wch I attempted to make as realistic & accurate as possible, has, of course, as they all do, a hero & a heroine & the heroine is actually more intelligent & more competent in the specialized field involved than is the hero. The thing that I used to criticize in Ian Fleming was for having James Bond, who is characterized as a very bright fellow, constantly associating w/ women bimbos airheads. As you know, bright people are attracted to bright people, not to stupid people, & so I chose to demonstrate that in my 1st bk but I, having sd that, do not believe that the United States of America, or any other nation, is about to, in effect, create an Amazonian state.
TL: Why not?
GL: Because I don't believe they want to & I think the vast majority of women probably wd not. Bear in mind it was not men who defeated the E.R.A. amendment, it was women who defeated the E.R.A. amendment.
TL: Now we get to the next level of our debate. I believe that there is a clear-cut difference in this country between those born before 1946 & those after. Age is the basic demographic factor that determines culture, determines politics, determines economics. SO, there's no question that women born before 1946 vote against E.R.A.. But, all statistics show that women born after 1946 have discovered their self-confidence & vote for E.R.A. - & what's E.R.A. anyway? That's just the beginning. I think age I think most men born after 1946, if you presented the issues to them in a realistic way, wd be willing to let young women take over so the age factor strengthens my utopian hope that this can be done.
GL: I think you characterize it correctly as utopian, at least from your point of view, but, inasmuch as roughly half the world is male & half the world is female, I do not foresee 1 half the population of the world reversing the present order. I do foresee a gradual, & I think welcome, emergence of women into all aspects of society but I don't see them taking it over & controlling it.
TL: How about, eg, the Bohemian Club, wch is the ultra-exclusive gathering of prominent males in the military & politics wch takes place in Northern California every yr.
GL: It's a boys club!
TL: Yeah. It's a boys locker rm, uh, of uh.. & these are the men, the Rockefellers, the Kissingers, the Reagans, the uh.. the locker rm jock-strap pre-adolescent males who, unfortunately, control the world. As you know, they wear masks, they dress up in drag nothing wrong w/ any of that but, uh, the fact that they bar women from the gatherings in wch they discuss our fate & our destinies is a kind of comic Monty Python example of what's wrong. You're right. The world is controlled by men. 99% of all the decisions are made by men & look at what a mess they've made.
GL: I think you're being overly critical. I mean, after all, out there in the Bohemian Club, dressing up in drag & carrying on, they are isolating themselves & doing it there. I wish Congress wd get themselves a Bohemian Club & stop doing it in the halls of Congress.
TL: Doing what in the halls of Congress?
GL: What don't they do in the halls of Congress?! They certainly don't attend to the people's business much.
?: [unintelligible] How did it start? How did you become friends?
GL: Well, actually, strange as this may seem, even during what I wd consider to be the most adverse of circumstances, hostile of circumstances ie, when I was actually putting Timothy under arrest & attempting to interrogate him as a prosecutor wd a defendant Tim's intellect & fabulous Irish wit, samples of wch you keep receiving here today, led him to be very very civil, very very friendly & what have you, even though those circumstances so we never really viewed ourselves as personal enemies, I don't think. I never viewed him as a personal enemy. I abhorred, & continue to abhor, some of the ideas he holds but the same is true for Timothy. He considers many of my views anathema. But we got along, I think, rather well considering the circumstances, & then, when we both just coincidentally happened, yrs later, to lecture w/in about 10 days of each other at the University of Texas in Austin & a fellow who runs I guess what is characterized as a counter-culture bkstore there who knew Timothy many yrs ago & knew that I had arrested him sd: Gee, these.. I've gone to both these lectures, & they still are about 180 degrees apart. Wdn't it be a fine idea to have them debate each other. He set up the 1st 1 & it just took off from there. Did very very well. We went from there to Boulder, & Boulder to Broadway, I suppose, wch is quite a hop. Broadway to Hollywood wch is the conventional hop.
TL: Very nice [?], Gordon.
?: What were the circumstances of the arrest?
GL: Well, Timothy had, at the time, his headquarters in Millbrook, New York, wch is in Duchess County up the river here, where I was assistant District Attorney in charge of major cases, & what was going on in Millbrook, Timothy's leadership of, then leadership, of a sortof drug counter-cultural society, did not fit in w/ the milieu in Duchess County & the good burghers wanted him out of there - & I received not 1 but 2 search warrants from the local court commanding me to search the premises for controlled & dangerous substances, as they are now called wch I did & that was what led to the arrest. This was back in the 1960s.
?: & you mentioned something about extramar-, your differing views on extramarital.. earlier in this interview.. Maybe [?] you cd develop that idea.
TL: Uh, no as a matter of fact it wdn't. I think that the issues that Gordon & I have to talk about are really more important. I'd like to address myself to your question to Gordon & then give my answer. I respect, honor, & admire Gordon because, although he sees himself as a faithful & loyal operator's agent of the system, somewhere inside of him there's this ultimately romantic Mickey Spillane knight errant crusader for his ideals. I'd like to remind you that Gordon Liddy has pulled off some of the most irreverent, audacious, mischievous send-ups of the establishment that've had me, as a life-long professional Huckleberry Finn [laughs] anti-establishment person clapping. Eg, when Gordon was brought before I think it was the Senate, the Watergate Hearings, & they asked him to raise his hands & to swear do you tell the truth, the whole truth, & nothing but the truth, I've been in that situation dozens of times & I'm so indoctrinated, I'm so brainwashed by the system that I always sd yes. & Gordon, give him credit, sd NO now.. even though he was protecting the system, he was protecting Nixon, he was protecting the.. whoever there was that was above 'n' all that, they still cdn't deal w/ that & Judge Cerrico [?], the federal judge gave him more prison time than they gave me & all I did was totally destroy the moral fabric of 200 yrs of America but he's a greater threat to the system. When Nixon had his famous reunion of all the real crooks, y'know his 10th anniversary of some crime or other, the 1 man they wdn't invite was Gordon Liddy who was the ultimate loyalist to the system because in some ways Gordon's system goes beyond even the Republican Party, now I bow my head & cross myself when I say Republican Party, Gordon. There's some incredibly deep idealism on Gordon's part that has led him to be seen as a threat even to the ultra-right-wing &, although Gordon did 5 yrs in prison for his ideals 'cause he wdn't talk, then, when the statute of limitations was over, Gordon came out, & he did talk & he sd something that you're not supposed to say. He sd: Yes, he wd've killed Jack Anderson if he had been persuaded that it was in the national interest. Now, a good anonymous grey bureaucrat is not supposed to say such things. It's this obstinate, idealistic, romantic, high-principles in Gordon that I think are misunderstood by many people I know that the system, basically, is a little suspicious of Gordon because he's, in some ways, too idealistic. I never told you that, Gordon, & what do you think of that?
GL: I know, & when this interview is over, I'm going to take you outside & give you a very stern talking-to. This business of saying nice things about me is going to destroy my reputation & I'll never be able to work again. It's bad enough what Lucas did to me, I mean I was called, by the Washington Post, the Darth Vader of the Nixon administration & then Lucas, in his latest of the Star Wars trilogy, turns around & has Darth Vader end up being a good guy thus just destroying my reputation.
TL: I've heard..
GL: If you don't stop this I'll never work again!
TL: I've heard Gordon Liddy say, at least 20 times, in front of public audiences & on camera, about the dirty tricks of the Nixon administration: They all do it. Johnson did it, Kennedy did it, Roosevelt did it, on & on, & he says: If you can't face those blunt facts, you're living in illusion. Now, a good conservative Republican loyalist isn't supposed to say that & it's Gordon's honesty that makes him too-hot-to-handle by..
?: [unintelligible]
TL: Pardon?
?: [unintelligible]
GL: I have an aversion to hypocrisy wch unnerves some people.
TL: I think I can tell you another story about Gordon Liddy.
GL: I wish you wdn't! [laughs]
TL: In many of our debates &, indeed, 1 of the high points of our movie, Return Engagement, a born-again christian gets the microphone &, in our debates, half of the program is incredibly far-out, electric response of hysteria on the part of 2 audiences: 1 who hates me & the other who hates Gordon Liddy a christian got the microphone & he sd I was gonna go to hell, smokin' marihuana & laughing at god. He sd: Thank god we have Gordon to protect christianity & Gordon got up & sd
GL: What I sd was that it had been my observations thru the study of history that there's been more human blood spilled on the face of this earth in the name of 1 organized religion or another & that I considered the combination of religion & politics to be extraordinarily dangerous & lethal & I have no truck w/ the Moral Majority. Wch upset this fellow who was 1 of these professional christian types.
TL: It upsets most of the rabid right-wing behind Reagan who, in their funny way, somehow thought that Gordon, must be on their side so that.. Many, many liberals too, y'know, they have this knee-jerk reflex of antagonism towards Gordon. Eg, Mitch Costanza [sp?] was invited to a party given by Harry & Una Neilson as part of our movie who wanted to show Welcome-to-LA-Hollywood-hip-society-sniffs-cocaine-&-deals-w/-[unintelligible] Mitch Costanza was invited to that party & my wife Barbara talked to me & she [Mitch Costanza] says: I wdn't cross the rd to see Gordon Liddy that fascist & if I did I'd have a gun & so forth.. In the movie, you will see a scene where Mitch Costanza is giggling & laughing w/ Gordon, talking about wch author [?] she had in the White House & where was he & where they kept the tapes. The point is that these concepts of liberal & conservative simply don't exist.. they're not operative anymore & I think Gordon does represent.. I see Gordon Liddy, as a matter of fact, & I: I'm Huckleberry Finn & he's Tom Sawyer [laughs]. He's kindof on the establishment side, he's the college-educated 1 & I'm the troublemaker but, uh, I think there's something basically frontier Western American about our relationship
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: I find your choice of "frontier Western American" as a seemingly positive description to be loaded w/ unintended connotations. What you seem to mean by it is something "rough 'n' ready" in the sense of implying that you're both in a sort of lawless zone w/ a small community that ultimately tolerates & begrudgingly respects each other because you're facing & dealing w/ a particular set of specialized harsh & exploratory conditions. Unfortunately, there's the obvious history to "frontier Western American" that revolves mainly around genocidal imperialism.
GL: 1 of the reasons that we get along so well, personally, if not in respect to our ideas, is that there are some similarities that most people are not aware of. We are both, eg, Jesuit educated wch, of course, the Jesuits do not advertise these days. There are all these similarities. Usually when I lecture at a Jesuit college, the 1st thing I do is to give absolution to the Jesuits. You see, I tell them it is true the Jesuits taught me how to think but they did not teach me what to think. I'm responsible for that. But Tim is also. We have a great deal of fun w/ that. We're both educated to the same level: he has a doctorate & I have a doctorate. So when we are at a university & say the PHDs in the poly-sci department & what have you rise to take us on we have a very good time w/ them because we are easily as educated as are they & it's alotof fun for all.
t,ac: Wch brings us back to "frontier Western American" again, doesn't it? After all, the most fanatical missionaries were usually Jesuits &, of course, the missionaries were, & still are, a very insidious arm of the colonizers because they destroyed cultures in the name of so-called "saving" them.
TL: Gordon, we have a moment now to do something wch I've never done before, really get down, this is like a poker table in a way
GL: You always make me apprehensive when you say stuff like that.
TL: We're in the middle of the PLiSLooplyR's Company cyber café at Las Vegas or Monte Carlo. Let's deal the cards here & let's call the bluff. We did this 1 time before. We were on Channel 4 News, News at 4, in San Francisco & I challenged Gordon: Since you're so macho, tomorrow night at 8 o'clock in Berkeley auditorium, $10 per ticket, I will eat roasted limb of a rat if you'll eat a marihuana brownie. Remember that 1?
GL: Mmhmm.
TL: & that broke everybody up. I wanna up the ante here. People have asked me about you Gordon & I tend to say what I've sd about you in this interview so far but I pose this paradox & it's a question & I want you to answer it. I wd say that Gordon Liddy is a totally loyal idealistic person & that if I were in a jam, if I were out on some western frontier surrounded by communists or fascists or liberals [laughter]
GL: or Moral Majority [?] people!
TL: or Moral Majority people who were about to do physical harm, there's no-one that I'd rather have on my side. I think that Gordon wd definitely risk his life for me or for any companion & give his life for someone he's there. But, on the other hand, the minute's that over, if he got a phone call from Ronald Reagan: Listen, Leary's getting too far out, we gotta off him Gordon wd probably off me!
GL: You are engaging in rank hyperbole [?].
TL: No, I'm asking you a question. I want you to..
GL: In the 1st place, assassination, political assassination is not practiced in this country in terms of domestic politics. It is sometimes
TL: AH! I'm going to challenge you on that later!
t,ac: I'll challenge you on that now! I think that one of the reasons that you're capable of believing that political assassination isn't practiced by the government w/in the United States is because you've internalized a racist & classist concept of who's 'important' enuf to have their state-sponsored murder even be classified as assassination. In other words, the murders, by police & the FBI, & people used by them, of blacks, native americans, & any poor person including, obviously, poor whites wd not even be considered an assassination to you because such people wd be considered too lowly by you. Undoubtedly, when you think of assassination you only think of rich people. As such, it wdn't even occur to you that the murders of native americans, some well-known historical figures & other less-known people connected to the American Indian Movement, such as Anna Mae Aquash, Jeanette Bissonette, Pedro Bisonette, Crazy Horse, Byron DeSersa, Sitting Bull, Jim Little, Clarence Cross, Phillip Little Crow, Allison Little Fast Horse, Edith Eagle Hawk, & Hobart Horse, to name a few, were all political assassinations designed to repress native american independence from this oppressive society. Nor wd you even think about the murders of Black Panther connected people such as Fred Bennett, Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Jon Huggins, Bunchy Carter, & Sandra Lane Pratt, just to name a few, as assassinations. Now, I'm hardly an expert on such things, but some of these cases are so clear-cut that I wd think even someone w/ statist propaganda as internalized as yourself, Gordon, wd have to acknowledge that Hampton & Clark's murders by police while they were asleep in bed are obvious assassinations of political leaders. & I don't even know enuf to rattle off the names of IWW & other union organizers, Puerta Rican Independence Movement people & the like.
GL: It is sometimes practiced in international politics. It's quite true, eg, that we sent poison to Africa to be used to assassinate Patrice Lumumba. The only reason it was not used is because Mr. Lumumba was out-of-office before the poison arrived. & there have been
TL: Castro.
GL: Yeah, several incidences like that. But, uh, normally it is not for a political reason it is usually for a reason that is perceived to be for national security by, say, the Forty Committee, or whatever the name of the committee is these days. It's always the same committee they just keep changing the name thereof about every administration.
TL: This is the High Intelligence Committee?
GL: Yeah. In the National Security Council there is a committee, wch in my day was called the Forty Committee because it was set up by National Security Memorandum #40. It has been popularly called the Forty Committee ever since, but, ever thereafter, every time they re- set it up they have a new memorandum & I don't know what the technical name for it is now but it's a constantly existing committee. & that committee, if there is going to be covert activities, that is the committee that recommends them. W/ respect to assassination, the United States practices the dictum of Alexander Massadon [?] who, when he defeated the Persians, & advanced to meet his adversary, found that the Persian king had been slain by the Persian king's own generals thinking they were doing Alexander a favor. Alexander immediately had the generals slain & announced that only a king may kill a king. &, if it is contemplated, or suggested, that a chief of state be killed that may only be done w/ the full knowledge & support of the president of the United States & is a very, very rare undertaking as you pointed out, the 3 times we tried [unintelligible], we failed w/ respect to Fidel Castro - & there's been a few others. But it's not something, & I don't want to mislead you into thinking that every tuesday this group gets together, downstairs in the White House, & decides who we're going to kill this wk!
t,ac: Exactly! "Only a king may kill a king" but even the 'lowliest' cop can kill a poor person - but you wdn't even consider that to be an assassination because of your internalized classism!
TL: Ok, uh, uh, I [unintelligible] now to challenge you on that, Gordon. My autobiography, Flashbacks, was severely censored because I raised some issues. I offered no answers but I suggested that it was a cover-up
GL: Censured or censored?
TL: Censored. By the lawyers of the publishers who wd not let me refer to a bk by Deborah Davis wch raises some questions about some extraordinary, an extraordinary series of violent deaths wch occurred, wch centered on several people who threatened CIA media operations. I'm talking about the deaths of Philip Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, who at the moment was blowing the whistle on the CIA & its media infiltration. I'm talking about the death of James Truett [sp?] who exposed the affair of Mary Pincher [?] Meyer & Kennedy, who herself was assassinated a yr after Kennedy's death. It was a gangland
?: [unintelligible] Washington Park [?]?
TL: Exactly. On the Chesapeake-Ohio, yep.
GL: She shot herself [?].
TL: That's what we say, yeah. We all know that story. The communists did that in.. where was it? In Czechoslovakia? They jumped out the window? Anytime someone is uncovering an intelligence agency & somehow commits suicide, even the most innocent of us begins to wonder. So I'm talking about a series of violent deaths wch include Jack Kennedy, Philip Graham (who was this former [?] conspirator), James Truett (Graham's assistant), who uncovered the role of Mary Meyer, who was Kennedy's closest friend & mistress for 3 or 2 mnths before Kennedy's death who herself was assassinated. I'm talking about the bk by Deborah Davis, wch was published by Harcourt/Brace/Javonovitch kindof suggesting [?] this.. The bk, 25,000 copies, was remanded as a result of a couple of phone-calls, no threats, so that.. I have absolutely no doubt that the men, & I underline M-E-N, who run this country wd not balk at quietly eliminating anyone who threatens their control of the military, of the media, & the economic system of the United States. Now, in my bk I don't make any accusations except I point to an undeniable cover-up of these issues & I think that most of the readers of THE PLiSLooplyR's Company Cyber Café will have never heard of the name Mary Pincher Meyer & I predict that in the next 6 mnths, since this is the 20th anniversary of Jack Kennedy's death, you're going to hear the name of Mary Pincher Meyer, who, by the way, was the divorced wife of Cord Meyer, who, in my estimation
?: [unintelligible] great beauty, yeah.
TL: Vassar, yeah, Vassar. She was a runaway CIA wife, she was the sister-in-law of Ben Bradley. I'm making no accusations here except there is a definite cover-up here & since you are a, among other things now, you're a most popular college lecturer, you're now a movie star, you also
t,ac: While I find what you're saying about Mary Pincher Meyer to be interesting, your choice of a well-to-do white woman connected to an assassinated president demonstrates what I was addressing earlier to Gordon about the classism & racism of whose murders people even consider to be assassinations. Why not bring up Martin Luther King? There are certainly plenty of, I think, valid speculations about the FBI's connection to that one! I'm disappointed by you in this, Tim, because I think your internalized upper-class values are showing - even though I think you're generally pretty brilliant.
GL: Hyperbole again.
TL: Seeing Return Engagement I tell you this guy he makes Sean Connery [?] look like [?]. But, Gordon also runs a detective agency or a security agency wch was called Gemstone
GL: Still is.
TL: that's ironic because Gemstone was Gordon's plan to disrupt the Democratic [?] Party. I'm asking you, Gordon, if I were to come to you for help & professionally ask you to investigate this series of cover-ups & go to the root of these mysterious deaths wd you take on the case?
GL: I might well, you know. I wd have to have more of a conversation about it than we've had here. I want to point out something to you. You know you mentioned that the bk was, as you characterize it, censored. Publishers, oftentimes a queasy lot, it makes them nervous when an author says unflattering things, even if they are true, demonstrably true, about very well-known figures who are at least currently popular. I.. In my own autobiography, Will, in the original manuscript, in addition to the unflattering things that are already therein about John Sirica I had pointed out that the man had a bk written for him by an employee of Time magazine wch he called To Set the Record Straight in wch he lied about his childhood. He tells you how he was a poor boy, his parents were sortof failed individuals, poor Italian folks who ended up
TL: This is "Hanging John"
GL: Hanging John Sirica, yeah. Who ended up giving 25 cent haircuts during the depression in Washington DC & they were very poor & poor John [unintelligible] & it was all very very hard but he overcame all this harshness & finally became the wonderful chap that he believes himself to be. The fact of the matter is, & it is easily verifiable by any newspaper reporter enterprising enough to just go & look at public records & interview a few people is that, yes indeed, both Sirica mere & Sirica pere were partners in a barber shop w/ a man named Eamons [sp?] in Washington DC during the depression & they did give 25 cent haircuts. That was in the front of the barber shop. According to the 2 surviving sons of Mr. Eamons, in the rear of the barber shop, it being prohibition, they were running the biggest bootleg booze operation in Washington! &, if you care to go down & look at the records existent today, down in Dade County, Florida, you will see where they were buying Florida real estate w/ their bootleg profits. They weren't poor at all. Well, that was censored out of my bk because they sd you've got enough stuff against Sirica in there, y'know. It just was.. They are loath to really attack any popular figure & back when my bk was published Sirica still had some residual renown.
TL: Well, I must say Gordon, though, when it comes to the consumption & distribution of illegal drugs, that's the least of John Sirica's sins. After all, the Kennedy family made their fortune on illegal drugs mainly alcohol - &, uh, Barry Goldwater, the great right-wing hero's father ran a bar wch was on the 1st floor above wch there was a brothel. So, I think that the dealing/wheeling w/ illegal drugs on frontier territories like America is something.. well, let's forgive
GL: Let me [there's some confusion here as both talk simultaneously]
TL: Let's forgive John Sirica
GL: Well, let me distinguish between Barry Goldwater & John Sirica in this instance. It was.. Barry Goldwater really had nothing to do w/ what his parents were doing but John Sirica's job, while his parents were running this bootleg operation, he was the assistant United State's attorney in that jurisdiction chargeable w/ enforcing the law [unintelligible] against what his parents were doing. He failed this fellow who is the chap who says: Let the chips fall where they may, y'know, no cover-ups. He failed to prosecute his parents. I don't blame him for not prosecuting his parents. I just wish he'd stop asking people to borrow his kleenex so he that can polish his halo all the time & criticizing me for being loyal to my president the way he was loyal to his parents.
TL: Well we agree we don't like John Sirica & I also want to say that I'm not knocking Barry Goldwater but just this wk Barry Goldwater's son, Barry Goldwater Jr, has been named as a user of cocaine & marijuana & give Barry Goldwater credit - he sd: What's wrong w/ the kid? He just tooted a little cocaine & smoked a little marijuana. That doesn't disqualify him for [unintelligible]. I like Goldwater's wild west frontier spirit &, at least, I oppose Goldwater's gung-ho right-wing World War III nuke-the-Russians philosophy, but I give him credit for being an honest frontier politician.
t,ac: Again! This "wild west frontier spirit"! Tell it to the native americans! It's as if you're ignoring the genocidal implications of your pet phrase!
GL: Oh, I think that to correctly characterize his view towards Russians it isn't gratuitously nuke the Russians. It is, if anyone's going to be nuked, let it be the Russians rather than us.
t,ac: Why does it even have to be a "them or us" mentality in the 1st place? You don't seem to question that.
?: What format do the debates take? Is it generally just conversations like this?
GL: Generally speaking, what happens is, we come out & there is a moderator or a panel of moderators wch can vary from a large 1 where you'll have students & faculty to 1 individual, oftentimes a professor or something like that. & he usually calls upon Timothy to explain, because these people are too young to really understand, how we came upon to meet for the 1st time, the facts & circumstances about the arrest. Timothy then does stuff. &, 1 of the things, 1 of the many things we disagree upon, is exactly the facts & circumstances surrounding our 1st meeting. So I usually then rise to rebut what he says because I disagree w/ him on even that & then I go into my remarks in chief on the subject at hand wch is
TL: [interrupting:] Gordon, why don't you tell the readers of THE PLiSLooplyR's Company Cyber Café, why don't you tell the readers about how we met on the staircase
GL: Well, let me just end my response to the question 1st. & then Tim gives his remarks in chief. We debate the tension between the freedom of the individual & the power of the state that always exists. & then usually the moderator asks questions to wch we have not been allowed access of either 1 or the other or both of us - & that consumes the 1st half of the program. There's then a intermission & when we come back the 2 of us respond to questions from anyone in the audience on any subject. & that frequently gets very rowdy & loads of fun. It's always new, always different, & you have no idea what these people are gonna to ask you &, believe me, sometimes we get some very strange questions. &, of course, if I disagree w/ Timothy's answer to a question directed at him I will jump in & give my view & Timothy, of course, does the same thing. So it really gets to be very exciting. We have alotof fun.
t,ac: I feel like I shd explain, especially to you Gordon, that while I probably seem somehow hostile, I'm honestly touched that the 2 of you are friends. While I have criticisms of both of you, I still respect you both too. I think that you, Gordon, are an articulate & careful speaker but I think that there are certain areas of your basic values that you never question & that this is your biggest shortcoming because, to put it in mathematical terms, the axioms on wch you base all your logic are, in my opinion, highly faulty. Just believing that government is necessary is highly questionable to me. If the internalization of the belief in the necessity for government were replaced by a widespread desire for mutual aid & a responsible & dignified & self-enforced social contract then I think all this cold-war/hot-war paranoid destructiveness cd be done away w/. On the other hand, I have to wonder whether your espousal & practice of extensive drug use hasn't had at least a few unpleasant side-effects on you, Tim, because I find your speech to be somewhat slurred. I mean, you have, I think intelligently & responsibly, advocated taking "set & setting" into consideration when experimenting w/ consciousness expansion thru drug use & you've also emphasized using drugs only while they're valuable as tools, wch I think is an important point, but you've still probably set somewhat of a prominent public example of recklessness. For that matter, so have I! I mean, I've used many, many illegal drugs & had little or no problem w/ them but I've seen people around me deteriorate who don't have the kind of stamina or luck or whatever other tempering factor may be relevant that I have. Drugs in general, whether they're illegal or legal have set loose all sorts of negative health forces. Pharmaceutical companies certainly deserve a thorough critiqueing, if not outright rejection, for their unscrupulous & money-hungry drug-pushing!
?: [unintelligible as MM enters] M, dear! It's so good to see you!
MM: It's good to see you again. How are you?
[Beginning w/ the entry of MM, this interview deteriorates in focus substantially & turns into more of a social occasion - various amenities are exchanged people talk simultaneously away from the microphone, GL's interview gets sidetracked by his talking w/ & MM about a magazine that he's appeared in, etc.. As such, this transcription deletes much of the patter & substitutes it w/ bracketed ellipses: "[..]".]
GL: Well, the problem they had, they may have corrected it, they will have the interview here, let us say, & it'll be recorded on a tape recorder, & then they will send the tape to Chicago where a 3rd party not present edits it & the problem w/ that is is sometimes the 3rd party gets the voices mixed up & in my interview & in a couple of situations something that I sd was put into the mouth of the interviewer & something that the interviewer sd was put into my mouth & I know they moved my home 20 miles away from where it was & a few things like that wch is not the fault of the interviewer. It's the fault of the system they have for producing the thing.
MM: Exactly. Mmhmm. Thank you. [perhaps food has been handed to her here] I think they do do a good job on the whole.
GL: Yeah, if they wd simply have the person who participates & who knows who sd what do it rather than a 3rd party who wasn't there & hasn't the foggiest notion of who's doing what after a while, after listening to hrs & hrs of these tapes, I think they wd probably avoid some of those, what I consider to be easily avoidable errors.
[..]
MM: Oh, I'm definitely a child of the 60s. My personal ideology, everything was formed then. I'm actually more sympathetic to the hippies than to, say, being a young professional. The hippies are very misunderstood. Alotof the hippie ideals are rather superior
TL: [unintelligible] These are gonna be the leaders in the 80s. [unintelligible] We're grooming you to run for higher office in '88.
MM: Pardon?
TL: We are grooming you to run for higher office in '88.
MM: Me? Well maybe I will [laughs]. No, but the hippies are the only ones who have any survival doctrine or theories for survival rather than just than self-interest.
GL: It is incorrect to seek to survive.
MM: Pardon?
GL: It is incorrect to seek to survive. One ought always to seek to prevail. [unintelligible] survive you.
t,ac: Well that's certainly a notion hostile to mutual aid!
MM: But what about the survival of keeping the ecology intact or functioning?
GL: Well
MM: concerned about preserving for future generations. That's why
GL: [interrupting:] Oftentimes, those persons whom you have just spoken of admiringly act counter to that purpose. Eg, they are generally against the use of nuclear power for the generation of electrical energy. Whereas the use of coal & fossil fuels, we are told, is severely damaging to the protective layer around the earth & you have the whole problem of acid rain & the rest of it & you have the poor people dying in the coal mines. No-one, so far as I been able to ascertain, has even caughten a bad cold from the use of nuclear energy to produce electricity. So, I find them rather at cross-purposes.
t,ac: It's the potential for nuclear disaster that people are probably most worried about! A nuclear plant explosion is far more potentially destructive than one from coal. & that's not even addressing whether it's even necessarily such a good thing to generate so much energy. I mean do we really have to have it? Maybe scaling back on all forms of energy production is more ecologically sound.
MM: Mmhmm, [still apparently speaking w/ food in her mouth] that's absolutely true. The coal & sulphur emissions from coal are more detrimental to the environment than
GL: [interrupting again both of them speak at the same time making intelligibility difficult:] Not to speak of the danger to those poor fellows miles beneath the earth.
MM: But, also, how do we know, when we've depleted all the fossil fuels & when we've depleted alotof of the coal, how is this going to disrupt the ecological balance of
GL: [interrupts:] Well, I'm arguing against depleting all the coal
t,ac: You're arguing against it, wch I agree w/, but you're ignoring any alternatives other than nuclear power.
MM: Yes, I know, & I'm.. I agree w/ you. Because what.. The Reagan administration has eliminated the budget for alternative energy research. They've eliminated it. There's none going on in the government right now. So, how are the solar people getting any of their money for alternative energy researchers?
GL: Well, the, uh, problem w/ the solar energy, I'm given to understand, is that its efficacy is a function, almost, of geography - &, in the sun belt & things like that we have the greater amt of sun & the thing can become practical & economically practical, at any rate. Where in the north-east wch is where we have a severe energy problem, as you know, [unintelligible] it isn't really a terribly practical system but I wd agree w/ you that the search & development into it is a good idea. But I don't think that every good idea ought, necessarily, to be explored by the government. Indeed, I think most of the advances
t,ac: Why not have the energy sources be local environment-specific? W/ back-up alternatives? Have solar energy in sunny areas, wind-mills in windy areas, etc? Then have at least one, & preferably 2, alternative sources available for when the primary source fails: let's say a water-mill &, as a last resort, something that can be burned. The current mass reliance on centralization of power sources serves capitalism as much as, if not more than, it serves energy 'needs'. Even the generally myopic military understands the safety inherent in decentralization. If a nuclear power plant fails & people have no off-the-grid alternative then a massive amt of people are immediately w/o an energy source aren't they? &, given the way things generally work, that can lead to an instant disaster on a massive scale.
[side 1 of tape ends]
MM: exemplifies their whole policy as counter this type of development, even in the private sector, because
GL: [interrupting:] I don't think that.. I, I.. Eg: Let us say that they were to say: We are not going to subsidize something thru a tax rebate, write-off, or whatever. It's always been my view that the function of government is to govern, rather than to seek to become a panacea. I don't see that as the function of government.
t,ac: Nonetheless, the real function of government is for rich politicians to enable the rich businessmen who put them there to get as many tax breaks, etc, as they can arrange for. Therefore, big business is subsidized, regardless of what propaganda says to the contrary & alternative energy sources aren't subsidized not because the goverment is against subsidizing but because it wants to suppress competition to the rich, already established business people.
[..]
TL: I think the essence of our debate that was caught in the quick interaction between you 2 a minute ago when you sd "survive" & Gordon sd
MM: "evolve"
TL: No, "prevail".
GL: I sd "prevail.
TL: "Prevail". & I sd "evolve".
GL: So we've got 3: [unintelligible] survivor, he's an evolver, & I'm a prevailer.
MM: [laughs] Well I'm a little younger so I'm more concerned w/ surviving at this point. You've lasted longer.
TL: "Prevail" is a basic mammalian, mid-brain, Middle-Eastern, primitive, barbarian concept.
GL: Why do you assign all mammals to the Middle East?
TL: 'Cause it's middle-brain.
t,ac: [laughs]
MM: That's where civilization grew.
TL: It's neuro-geography.
t,ac: It's concepts like that that make me like you, Tim!
MM: The genesis of civilisation.
TL: The function of human life personally & socially is to help us evolve away from the ridiculous notions that you can only survive by prevailing & dominating & conquering.
MM: Well the word "prevail", in my mind, conjures the image of power or defining perimeters of power holding [?] to the word "survive" is a much more of a basic primitive instinct just to be able to breath, to.. What bothers me so much is that when I see the Reagan administration environmental policy selling thousands of acres of land, having absolutely no regard or even consciousness of our dependence upon the environment. We can live w/o culture, we can live w/o tv & rock'n'roll movies but we can't live w/o air & water & food.
GL: Well I don't think the Nixon administration means to
TL & MM: Reagan, Reagan.
t,ac: Hey! Give him a break! He's no more senile than either of you are! [August 22, 2014 note: I take that back.]
GL: A Freudian slip there..
TL: Gordon, it's 1983! The boss has changed!
GL: The boss has changed, long live the boss. Well, in any event, I don't think that they intend to deprive us of food & air & sustenance.
MM: No, they don't. They don't realize that their policy jeopardizes..
GL: [interrupting, as has become usual:] The forest remains a forest whether it is owned by Weyerhauser or whether it is owned by the federal government. There is, I think, rm for dispute by reasonable people as to whether James Watt or Weyerhauser cd treat the forest better.
t,ac Woah! Now that's a loaded statement that's revealing of your unquestioned basic axioms! You only mention them because you only think of those 2 options as the 2 relevant ones to how the forest gets treated. I think it's obvious that they're both disasters for the environment. They're both just concerned w/ exploiting an environment that neither of them lives in. It seems to me that any creature that actually lives in the forest has a more important say in what happens to it than either Watt or Weyerhauser do! & you're not going to find any non-human clear-cutting the forest they live in to make propaganda magazines out of it for profit & control motives! They have too much sense!
GL: I certainly agree that James Watt is no, ha!, discerner of rock music. His denouncement of my friend Michael [?] Beach Boys
t,ac: Well, he's too much of a musical ignoramus to know about more interesting &/or subversive rock groups anyway. He denounces the Beach Boys because they played at the White House or whatever but the Beach Boys are total white bread culture in contrast to the Mothers of Invention or Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band or the Bonzo Dog Band or the Dead Kennedys or Crass or the Velvet Underground of Cromagnon or The Fugs or a zillion other rock groups we cd name. Of course, the Beach Boys did have the Charlie Manson Family connection.
[simultaneous unintelligible talking]
GL: I happen to like them. When I heard that they were dreadful people, according to James Watt, I cdn't believe it. That was 1 of the few.. I wrote a letter to The Post, believe it or not, The Washington Post about that - defending the Beach Boys, & I signed it "yours occasionally" because about twice every 10 yrs I agree w/ the Washington Post.
TL: Did they publish it?
GL: Yes.
[simultaneous unintelligible talking]
GL: Of course they published it. Most of the press prints what it wants to read. Present company excepted I'm sure.
MM: But see you're by no.. What I gather from what you were saying before you are not against the development of nuclear power for energy.
GL: I wd encourage it.
MM: Really? Why is that?
GL: Because I believe at the present time, in terms of environmental considerations, & the safest if 1 is conscientious in practicing the technology, wch is known [?], as contrasted to the use of fossil fuels.
t,ac: Safe? Have you forgotten 3 Mile Island? That was far from safe. What if 3 yrs from now Chernobyl has a nuclear accident. You'll be able to blame it on the evil communist Soviet bureaucracy's stupidity, perhaps, but it'll be hard for you to believably call it safe after that. As long as there's rm for human error & negligence, wch there always will be, then there's the potential for something drastic to go wrong.
[..]
TL: Solar satellite power stns in high orbit, easily assembled by the shuttle, is the obvious answer to our energy problems. We cd beam down solar energy at a cost wch wd put the Arabs out of business, wch wd put, excuse the expression, the Rockefellers out of business.
MM: Mmhmm, natural gas [unintelligible]
TL: Wch wd put Exxon out of business so that the scandal of the energy situation is that any well-informed NASA engineer wd tell ya that the way to do it is beam it down from above but there's no profit to be made there.
MM: Right, so there's no motivation.
TL: Yeah, & the Arabs control the banking situation so that
GL: Well I think they have a little problem, the same problem they have w/ the use of lasers, & that is that if you happen to have alotof cloud your power is shut off that day.
TL: No, no, microwave comes thru.
GL: Oh they're gonna beam it down thru microwaves?
TL: Yeah.
t,ac: I can't say that I advocate that either. Microwave bombardment of the biosphere sounds dangerous to me.
MM: But, the Arab's supply of oil is limited. It's going to run out. People project by 1995 or so.
TL: The sooner the better as far as I'm concerned.
MM: They don't really have that much - &, in fact, they're using their supply much faster than we are using our limited supply down in Texas.
GL: That was the original idea behind the reliance on [?] oil. Let's use theirs before we use ours. But you're quite correct even if we take into consideration, what I think any reasonable person wd agree, that there remains oil undiscovered in the ground, it's still a finite resource & you're quite right that we ought to be exploring alternate systems. At the moment I think the most practical system is the nuclear system.
t,ac: "Let's use theirs before we use ours." More "them vs us" mentality. Once again, I question your fundamental axiom that it has to be that way. I think that the systems that you advocate are only sensible if you don't question their basic vicious competetive values.
[the PLiSLooplyR arrives]
[..]
GL: Well, yeah, I am working on the outline of a new bk. It's fiction, the way the 1st 1 was that's what they want this time again. But I also, as Tim mentioned, I have a industrial security business in Florida, I do about a hundred lectures a yr about 40, 45 % of them are now corporate level in schools [?]. 10 times a yr, at least, I debate Tim. I do alotof television. We did this movie & I did what you call a cameo in another picture last yr called The Outdoorsters [?]. You might know this fellow Kaufman [?], he's a New York producer who did that film, & I've got in development, there appears to be endless development, a television interview program w/ Arthur Jones who invented the Nautilus exercise machine & who has emplaced in all places Lake Helen Florida a 70 million dollar television studio & production facility wch beggars NBC's at Burbank.
?: Really?
TL: It's dedicated to the..
GL: The problem is, believe it or not, you will find this difficult to believe Timothy, he says that I am too easy on our liberal guests!
TL: I know! I've read..
GL: [laughing:] He says I'm too easy on our liberal guests! I think I'm dreadfully hard on them.
TL: He's the ultimate right wing survivalist
GL: You have to understand this man's hobby is collecting world class crocodiles & he breeds & raises diamond-backed rattlers.
[simultaneous talking]
GL: He's a marvelously eccentric individual.
t,ac: & that's what unites most of us here isn't it? Our mutual eccentricty. Despite all my criticisms of you, I still appreciate that you're an eccentric, Gordon - & that makes you "your own person", as the expression has it - despite all your loyalty to the state.
[simultaneous talking MM is talking to someone else in the background]
GL: I guess he does. He has these 3 gigantic ones. 1 of them doesn't appear in nature. He bred it himself. & each 1 has its own pool, its own beach, its own air-conditioned home. Marvelous! Just marvelous! His neighbors, of course, tremble! [laughs] [unintelligible] the thing will ever get loose. Wonderful fellow.
TL: Why don't you do a constant album. Rock'n'roll # [unintelligible] "Strangelove". it's ready for it isn't it?
MM: I go to see it every yr!
GL: You mean redo it or just send it around again?
TL: Send it around.
MM: It's 1 of the greatest films ever made!
TL: It stands up. It's 1 of my top favorites.
GL: It's a [unintelligible]
TL: Why not do a rock album based on it?
MM: That's a great idea. But, then again, you see, I believe very much having commercial appeal is very important 'cause that's kinda the music I liked. I always liked The Monkees
t,ac: Oh well, at the risk of permanently alienating myself from you: No WONDER you're friends w/ the PLiSLooplyR! Surely their manufactured popularity doesn't make you take them seriously musically!
GL: I just want to tell you M, they are not gonna get my precious bodily fluids.
MM: [laughs] Ok, well can I quote you on that? [unintelligible]
TL: PLiSLooplyR, 1 of my stories about how Gordon arrested me: I'm in bed, door bangs open, I say 12, he says 24 booted & armed state troopers, & there is, is it Inspector Clouseau?, is it Peter Sellars?, you cd handle, you cd handle some of the roles in Kubrick's movie.
GL: Well, Kubrick has made so many movies.
TL: No, in "Strangelove".
t,ac: Ah.. Now we come to the sometimes wonderful effectiveness of "art". I'll bet people who know me will jump on my saying this given how much I advocate non-reference to "art", so maybe I shd say "satire" instead.. - but here goes anyway: Tim is obviously teasing you by comparing you to the military characters lampooned in "Strangelove" but you're not having it because the film is such an effective parody of military mania that even you want to distance yourself from the stupidities made fun of in it. Here's where an "artful" attack on the military mindset succeeds where a straight-forward political anlaysis might've failed.
[..]
MM: Have you seen "War Games"?
TL: Loved it, loved it. Loved it!
MM: Yes, you told me about it.
TL: I got drunk w/, he got drunk, I got something else w/ Freddy Tiels [?] & Frank Yablonz [?] at Cannes & Freddy told me that Dr Falcon [?], Professor Falcon is probably based on me, as Hollywood people say. [unintelligible] Alright, give me 2 tickets to the party & to the opening & I won't sue you. & we saw it, Barbara & I saw it at Cannes & I was just standing in the front row cheering when the kid entered the bank computer & when he entered the, uh, made the airline reservations to Paris [unintelligible] He's gonna save the world & he needs a dime & he can't get the dime & he looks around [unintelligible] & when he starts to screw Ma Bell's precious sexual organs to hook it up, I stood up
GL: That's out of "Strangelove"! Don't you remember when the fellow needs to call the president & he has to go the coca cola machine & he calls him a "prevert" because he's breaking into the coca cola machine.
MM: [talking simultaneously thru the preceding:] Private property, yeah. [laughs]
TL: There's another play off of "Strangelove". At 1 point 1 of the computer guys runs thru the war rms & Dabney Coleman [?] says: You shdn't run in here you might break something.
GL: Yeah.
TL: Remember that 1?
GL: Yeah. "Gentleman, no fighting in here. This is the War Room." Wonderful lines, wonderful lines.
[..]
TL: Barbara Hubbard for vice president.
MM: What about for president? Do you have a candidate?
TL: [incomprehensible]
MM: Well, I am going to vote democratic.
TL: Naturally.
t,ac: Why bother?
MM: So I wd vote for [former astronaut] John Glenn
TL: Me too.
t,ac: Why not just send all the candidates into outer space instead? All they do on earth is reap misery.
MM: because I think he has a chance of beating Reagan & none of the other candidates do.
TL: Also, he's the only candidate that has been that high.
MM: Yeah. [laughs]
TL: He's broken all altitude records [incomprehensible]
MM: That's true. [incomprehensible]
TL: John Glenn is the only senator or presidential candidate who has been [incomprehensible] he's looked down on that little blue [incomprehensible] of planet earth & seen it from high altitude so he's got my
MM: Yeah, but it has it really broadened his perspective?
t,ac: Not enuf, of course.
MM: Most of it? People don't really [incomprehensible] of where you stand on particular issues. [incomprehensible] This is what I'm worried about [incomprehensible]. Well, I don't know where he stands [trails off]
?: This movie they're talking about is on everybody's mind, too. [incomprehensible]
MM: Yeah. With enough media exposure & enough money you can certainly buy yourself status.
[more communal muttering]
GL: Well, inasmuch as my son is on his way to being a marine fighter pilot, I can't be totally against John Glenn but I really don't think he's going to defeat Ronald Reagan. I think Ronald Reagan
MM: I don't think he has enough money.
GL: really win. It's not that. They don't have a candidate to defeat Reagan.
MM: [incomprehensible]
TL: [incomprehensible] My proposal was.. see Barbara Hubbard's running for vice president. If she can get 300 delegates.. Since she's not running against anyone, it's hard to..
MM: She doesn't have opposition..
TL: It's an interesting position & I think that she shd say & I think we all shd back her in saying: Ok, '84 they're gonna give it to the men, if they don't get it together in 4 yrs in '88 it shd be total women candidacy & your species certainly can do nothing but improve
MM: It's interesting to me like if India & England, 2 of the most sexist cultures I've ever.. they have women leaders now. So why not the United States? So many of my friends sd they wd never vote for a woman 'cause they wdn't have.. they don't think a woman cd
t,ac: Even I will vote in 1984 just because a woman'll run for vice president in the vain hope of getting rid of Reagan & Bush even though I have no reason to believe Ferraro wd be any less of a creep than any other politician just because she's a woman - it wd still be a nice change.
GL: Oh I think if you have a woman of the caliber of Margaret Thatcher who has, after all, & I don't mean to offend anyone in this rm, has more balls than most men I've met - be fine but so far we haven't produced someone like that or, if we have, she has not come to public notice.
t,ac: What caliber is that? 38? I mean she's just another weapon for the ruling elites.
MM: There'll be 2 women senators.
TL: You backed her invasion of the Falkland Islands, I assume? [laughs]
MM: Whaddya think.. I don't really have a clear idea, I don't think very many people do, of what we're doing in Central America? I know my father [politician DM: On page 296 of Noam Chomsky's bk published in 2002 entitled Understanding Power - The Indispensable Chomsky {Chomsky lectures edited by Peter N. Mitchell & John Schoeffel} Chomsky states about the invasion of East Timor by Indonesia that: "And remember, the U.S. role in all this has never been a secret - it's in fact been acknowledged very frankly. For instance, if you read the memoirs of our U.N., [DPM] - who's greatly praised for his defense of international law, incidentally - he says: 'The Department of State desired that the U.N. prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. The task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success.' Okay, then he goes on to describe the effects of the invasion, which he was fully aware of: he says, in the first couple of months it seemed 'some 60,000 persons had been killed...almost the proportion of casualties experienced by the Soviet Union during the Second World War.' Alright, that's the Nazis, and that's M, the great advocate of international law. And he's right, that's how it happened: the State Department wanted things to turn out as they did, and he ensured that they did. M's at least being honest, let's give him credit for it."] thinks that this misguided policy is going to get us into trouble, that we can't possibly effect the outcome of this civil war, if what, in fact, is happening down there is a civil domestic
GL: It really is not, in my opinion.
MM: Whaddya think's going on down there?
GL: Oh, I think what you have are about 6 to 8,000 hard-core well-trained communist revolutionaries who have forcibly inducted a few thousand other peasants that they've just forced to go w/ them & are attacking what the world agreed was a freely elected government & I think that we wd be foolish not to help our friends in this instance & I think if you decide to help your friends you have to make that help effective.
t,ac: That's purely party line, Gordon. I hope that one day you read a Mike Bardoff interview to contest that one!
TL: [incomprehensible] El Salvadoran government is the last people in the world who want that [incomprehensible]
GL: Well, we have a history in this country of waiting until something like Pearl Harbor happens before we do anything &
t,ac: Another loaded topic! Were the Japanese so militarily unjustified in attacking what was so obviously an advance base of US imperialist aggression heading their way?!!
[Liddy has been the closest to the microphone throughout this, of the most projective speaker, & is, therefore, the most comprehensible. Throughout this last bit Leary has also been speaking.]
[..]
GL: & I think that, uh, if I were to be critical of the president's current program it is that it is too little that he's doing. Whether or not it's too late I don't know. It's too little.
MM: But, what do you.. How do you think the administration perceives what is going on down there?
GL: Well, the administration sits here & looks at Cuba, eg, 1/7th the population of Mexico & double the armed forces of Mexico. Here's little Cuba. In 1981, I think it was 61,000 metric tons of military supplies in the Soviet Union alone even more, worth a billion dollars, in 1982. They receive 20 times the aid from the Soviet Union than we give to all Central & South America combined. Here's a little island that the Soviets have so equipped they have 650 tanks, they have 2 Foxtrot attack submarines, 1 Cony [?] class frigate, they have 2 squadrons of Flogger Ds [?] wch can be rewired w/in 48 hrs to drop nuclear bombs, 80 Aleutian [?] heavy transports, & just on & on & on! There's 2 brigades of Soviet combat troops down there now. Well, if you look at that & then go & look at Nicaragua, where now 39% of all the adult males between the age of 18 & a hundred yrs old are already in the armed forces & they have declared they're going to have a 250,000 person armed force wch means that 1 in 10, male & female, [incomprehensible] will be in the armed forces & if you look at what they're pouring in there now, y'know, the thousand East German trucks & tanks & Soviet heavy artillery it is obvious what the Soviets intend to do. The question is, do we intend to permit it or do we intend to stop it.
MM: So you believe it's really an East-West conflict?
GL: Yes it is.
t,ac: To a very limited sense I agree - but only insofar as you have 2 large powers trying to get control over turf. I think it's more important to point out is that the "administration" looks at Cuba & thinks something like: We used to have control over Cuba's resources & that upstart Castro took that away from us so that the people who actually live in the country cd have them more than us. How dare he?
MM: [incomprehensible]
TL: I disagree. I think that what Gordon is presenting here is what cd be called [incomprehensible] Caribbean malaria fever. Ronald Reagan's hero from his tender vulnerable adolescent yrs was a man called Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt, backed by the Hearst newspapers, won fame fortune & presidency by going down to Cuba. Uh, once he did that he stormed around the Caribbean carrying what he calls a big stick. He called the presidency a "bully pulpit" & he's right. Bully means someone w/ a big stick. He went down to Panama & stole the Panama Canal so that we'd have this tradition, Tip O'Neil, by the way, was brought up at the same time his teenage adolescent concepts of morality are: go down there & kick ass in the Caribbean.
MM: Similar to Ronald Reagan.
TL: Exactly, so, as I say, it's a recurrent disease somehow the American presidency somehow has to exert their [incomprehensible]
MM: What wd you propose as an alternative policy?
TL: Let them handle their own problems down there.
MM: What if, in fact, the Soviet Union is intervening? & is setting it up for a sortof proxy war of East-West conflict? We can't afford, because of the proximity of Central America, to let them go ahead w/ it!
TL: That.. Now you're talking about the [unfamiliar name sounding somewhat like "Downiel"] Policy. Of course, it's well-known that
t,ac: Don't you think it's obvious that The Soviet Union's just making to harder for the US to be imperialist - rather than necessarily being that imperialist themselves? Not that they're incapable of their own brand of imperialism! They certainly are!
MM: You're confusing me [?]
TL: 2 people that never learn anything from experience are general.. to promote Kissinger, who gave us Cambodia & Viet Nam, to settle El Salvador as an example of this recurrent insanity. Kissinger told us, in the early '70s, that if South Viet Nam falls then Cambodia, Laos, [incomprehensible] will all fall
GL: They did!
t,ac: & if the US had won they wd've fallen in a different direction! It's the destabilization caused by the capitalist & colonialist interference of France & the United States that was ultimately the source of all the misery. The cultural devastation really has its roots in the British imposition of opium on Asia during the Opium Wars.
TL: Now, yeah [sd somewhat scoffingly as response to Liddy's last comment], as soon as South Viet Nam fell, it's not the domino theory it's the checkerboard theory. Immediately, China came fighting the closest allies [?] of Viet Nam, uh, Cambodia is fighting Laos, the Soviet Union is in there [incomprehensible] As soon as we pull out we let them play their own games & they're busy doing what they want to do fighting each other. Uh, let Central America.. As soon as we pull out entirely, the same thing wd happen there.
[Throughout the following section everyone is constantly interrupting each other & talking over each other. As such, transcription is difficult.]
GL: Their own game in Cambodia, now called Kampuchea, was the slaughter of 3,000,000 people.
t,ac: Again, I don't think that wd've happened w/o US & French destablization. Don't forget, Pol Pot was educated by French intellectuals!!
TL: & that was done by Kissinger.
GL: It was not done by Kissinger.
TL: Kissinger has on his record the glorious
MM: I don't think he's completely at fault for that
GL: It was the Khmer Rouge who slaughtered the 3,000,000 people. Henry Kissinger did not.
t,ac: Right, but the Khmer Rouge got in power because high-&-mighty assholes like Kissinger cdn't care less how many people get slaughtered as long as they can have the thrill of manipulating world affairs for their own personal gain. Gordon, you can recognize the destructive role organized religion has played throughout history - so why not the role played by these oh-so-intelligent & oh-so-detached-from-the-misery-they-cause intellectuals like Kissinger? It cdn't be because they're part of an elite that you identify w/ & therefore are loath to criticize now wd it?!
TL: It's not our business to go around settling these local tribal
MM: But what if it is really a threat to our national security?
TL: It's not a threat.
MM: [incomprehensible] our building up a blockade down in Central America
TL: Look at what we're doing in Pakistan & Afghanistan. Look at what we're doing in [incomprehensible] [..] We've ringed the Soviet Union w/ missiles.
GL: Do you conceive of it not being a threat to our national security to let the Russians take over Central America?
t,ac: Do you not see it as a threat to Central American security for the forces of the US government to take it over? I mean that's what they've been doing since the 19th century! Notice I don't say we've been doing it because the US government certainly doesn't represent me!!
TL: The Russian military is saying the same thing.. They're not gonna take it over. They can't run it.
[..]
MM: I understand what Dr Leary's saying also that 1, we can't try to interfere in domestic problems & turn them into the proxy wars that we're fighting so that [incomprehensible] it's like they're using it as a way to get to us I think we absolutely have to respond
GL: & that is the fact!
MM: maybe in a military way, yeah.
t,ac: Oh, yawnsville. You're completely missing the point. US, schmoo-S, Soviets, schmoviets. You, M, are being taken in by both your father's & Gordon's apparent reasonableness. Have you forgotten the meaning of the irony of "Gentleman, no fighting in here. This is the War Room." already? The point is to de-escalate the whole military mentality - & the sooner the better.
GL: That is the fact.
MM: & if it's very overt, & I think it is fairly overt, y'know, the way they armed Cuba.
t,ac: I can only refer back to what I sd earlier. Were you too busy stuffing your priviledged face to listen to me? I mean, I may seem obnoxious but if being polite means being sociopathically detached from the fruits of my crimes like Henry Kissinger I can only say: No thanks!
GL: They're even sending their people now into poor little Costa Rica wch doesn't even have an army & trying to destabilize there.
t,ac: Maybe that's because CIA agent John Hull is down there using it as a base for arms & drugs smuggling for the destablization of neighboring countries, eh?
MM: Well what upsets me is that it's well-known, it's fairly well-known, that the Soviet Union has for yrs been supplying & training all the international terrorist networks
GL: Correct.
t,ac: As has the United States. Take, eg, Afghanistan.
MM: & the man who tried to assassinate the pope came out & sd that he had rc'vd training from the KBG [sic] thru the Bulgarians. Well what does the west do in response to that? I mean, rather than act tough I think we can talk tough, this is what my father always says. You can tell them: NO, you cannot get away w/ this.
t,ac: Maybe the assassin was just aware of the misery & bloodshed caused by organized religion referred to by Gordon earlier. After all, the Pope supported fascism in, where was it?, Czechoslovakia?, during World War II.
GL: You can't talk tough if you're not prepared to act tough. You walk thru this city & someone comes up & tries to mug you who's a very large individual or 2 or 3 individuals & if you talk tough you are not gonna to get anywhere. But if you do that, you're going to get somewhere.
TL: Uh oh. I want to call attn that Gordon has just pulled out [presumably a weapon]
t,ac: On the other hand, diplomacy is about understanding the other person's position. I've been in many a dangerous & threatening street situation & I've found talking to be pretty useful. Neither weapons or talking, or anything else for that matter, will get everyone out of every situation. Having quick wits & reflexes is probably most important.
GL: You must be prepared to back up what you say you're going to do. If you're not, keep your mouth shut.
t,ac: This will, no doubt to Gordon at least, sound like the worst namby-pamby liberal clap-trap but I have a friend named Suzanna who was robbed on the streets of Baltimore who started crying, not because she was so upset for herself but because she was upset by the general implications of the situation. She sd to the guy robbing her: You must be so desperate to do this! He was so touched by her understanding that he gave her back some of her money!! Now, that is a beautiful thing to me.
MM: But, do you think we really are militarily capable of sustaining any kind of combat in Central America & winning?
GL: You can do something correctly or incorrectly. Now Jimmy Carter when he was faced w/ the situation of let's attempt to rescue the hostages in Iran went about it in precisely the wrong way. Bear in mind that over there they had an on-site military commander, a fixed-wing aircraft commander, a rotary wing aircraft commander, a naval commander. When you have everybody in charge, no-one is in charge. Because of the political ramifications, every service wanted to be represented on the rescue force - & so they had this conglomeration that they had. If they had sent in the marine corps & let them do it, they cd have done it, in my opinion. But also, & what is even more important about that whole Arabian thing, someone had given the United States marine corps guards at that embassy orders not to shoot & that, of course, is what they're supposed to be there for. It is my own opinion that as the 1st of the terrorists were coming over that wall the United States marine corps blew them back over the side w/ rather large holes in them the rest wd not be so eager to follow their comrades. That probably wd've prevented the whole thing in the 1st place.
t,ac: Then again, not having the CIA putting into power the Shah of Iran who practiced a notorious torture & murder campaign thru SAVAK, his secret police, & not having the CIA operating out of the embassy (from wch the hostages were taken), wch, as you know Gordon, is standard procedure, might've "prevented the whole thing in the 1st place" too, eh? & that's not even bringing up the secret arms deals & election manipulation strategies of the Reagan/Bush team, eh?
GL: But, again, it gets back down to: You must be willing to back up your word.
t,ac: How about "backing up your word" by honoring treaties, huh?! Like by not screwing over everybody else in the world at the 1st opportunity? Like by actually honoring the treaties made w/ the native americans? Now that wd be a defense program I cd identify w/! Not making enemies in the 1st place! Call me naive.
GL: When I went to the FBI training academy, yrs & yrs ago, & they 1st presented us w/ our revolvers, they held it up & they pointed to the front sight & they sd the following: If you are not prepared to use this gun when it is called upon to use have us file off the front sight right now because if you're not prepared to use it they'll take it away from you & they'll shove it up your ass & it's gonna be a lot more pleasant if you'll let us file off the front sight.
TL: Now I've heard Gordon Liddy tell this story. I've heard him tell the story about the little old lady in tough New York City at 3 o'clock. Uh.. & I'm really shocked that in 1983 such really primitive barbarian antiquated concepts are really listened to w/ such
MM: But they're so clear [?]
TL: It's breeding paranoia, it's breeding fear. Of course behind him is the weapons industry, behind him is the weapons industry, behind him is the international, multi-national corporations that want America to be busy in every corner of the globe kicking ass & making money. I think this is a violation of EVERY American tradition that we are the island of harmony, creativity, frontier independence, & we're not going to meddle, as Washington sd,
GL: We certainly shd've left poor Adolph Hitler alone because it was unAmerican to send our troops there.
t,ac: It wd've at least helped if Ford & other industrialists wdn't've left "poor" Hitler alone by not being his supporters eh Gordon?
TL: Yeah, I wd've let Hitler fight it out w/ Stalin &
MM: But do you think we really have the will to be international
GL: That is the critical question of the day.
TL: & I will answer it for her! I will answer that question for you. I, & millions of Americans like me, will never allow another war. We simply cannot run a pre-Hiroshima
MM: conventional war
[more simultaneous talking]
TL: I speak for a majority
MM: people of my generation
TL: Yes. We will not be drafted into another IBM/CIA/Exxon multi-national
[..]
GL: May I interject something? Timothy is obviously not of the generation who if we are to fight will be called upon to fight. I shall not be so undiplomatic as to ask how old you were yesterday on your birthday. But I will say just last wk, I attended the graduation in Quantico Virginia of the marine corps officer candidate school of wch my son was a member. & there are an awful lot of young men who are just superbly trained & willing
TL: Ship 'em over, ship 'em to Iran, ship 'em out!
GL: to do what has to be done - & they are of the generation wch is coming up.
t,ac: Now there's your, what did you call the revolutionaries in Nicaragua?, people "who have forcibly inducted a few thousand other peasants that they've just forced to go w/ them & are attacking" - & you went on to say attacking a freely elected government or some such but I will hereby twist your words by just leaving "attacking" hanging. Those Marines are certainly more of a violent minority in this country than the vast majority of people their age!
MM: But do you think that
GL: & they're marvelous, they're marvelous.
MM: But do you really think that given the advances technolo-, weapons technology has made since we last fought an international conflict, the 2nd world war, that we can contain a conventional fight w/in the perimeters of a conventional war & not resort to the use of nuclear weapons wch will have much more devastating effects beyond
[slight overlapping between MM & GL]
GL: Once a weapon has been invented
MM: it will be used!
t,ac: [sd w/ heavy sarcasm:] Great! So let's invent weapons capable of devasting all life forms larger than bacteria!
GL: it will be used. Once the crossbow
[..]
GL: to continue the thought: it will be used. But, it is 1 thing to say nuclear weapons will be used, it is another thing to say necessarily that, that, uh, something like the MX or the SS-18 will be used rather than say Pershing-2s or SS-19s or SS-20s.
MM: Is that because there are so many ideological strategic controls on the use of nuclear weapons or is it because.. But then what are they going to do?
t,ac: Gordon, your statement is a weird form of nitpicking as far as I'm concerned. You're saying: "once a weapon has been invented it will be used" & then to counteract arguments based on that premise wch say that these weapons, therefore, shd'nt be invented you back-peddle by saying that well the more intense ones won't be used, blah, blah, blah, blah. By bringing these things into existence they, once again, make it possible that they will be activated, whether accidentally or not. As such, I find your statement, despite its being riddled w/ tech-talk camouflage, to be completely unacceptable.
[more simultaneous MM & GL talking]
GL: Let me explain it to you this way: if you were a member of the United States contingent to NATO stationed in Germany you wd've been told, as a US army officer, that shd the Russians attack across the broad plain of Europe, & shd those Panzers again roll, as they did in '39, '40, & what have you, the Soviets wd conquer Europe by conventional means w/in 72 hrs. The only way you can stop the Soviet Panzers is w/ theater nuclear weapons. Now you have your choice: use them or Europe goes. What do you think, in that event, our commanders will choose to do? They will use them.
t,ac: Now we get into the whole arena of euphemisms in military language. You wd've terminated investigative journalist Jack Anderson w/ extreme prejudice, right? Of course, that expression is now common parlance for killing somebody but it was originally a euphemism that might not've been understood by most people. So, saying "theater nuclear weapons" is to use sanitizing language. Theater is not real, it's play-acting. At least that's the way it's generally used. Any nuclear weapon is going to have very real deadly results. Actors get up off the stage floor after they've died in the theater & take their stage bows. Soldiers don't. If they did, war wd be quite a different kettle of fish now wdn't it?
MM: So, we're living..
GL: We're talking theater, we're not talking MX & SS-18s.
MM: I know. That's what the doctrine of deterrence is based on that the more weapons you have stockpiled the less likely any kind of conflict is because the consequences
GL: Well, it has worked for what? 35 yrs
MM: Yes, but how much longer is it going to work? I think.. I mean my generation
[more simultaneous MM & GL talking]
MM: feel like we're living on borrowed time!
GL: I'll tell you why! I'll tell you why. The fact was that for yrs & yrs & yrs the United States was, in terms of strategic nuclear weapons, clearly superior to the Soviet Union & the Soviet Union understood that. It is not any longer.
MM: They've achieved parity.
GL: We permitted them to do so very, very foolishly. The only way, the only way you are going to get back into a situation of safety is to use our superior economic power to once again achieve a situation of superiority.
MM: But do you do that thru more
GL: Thus the MX.
MM: sophisticated weapons technologies or do you do that thru simply keeping your domestic economy strong &
GL: Well, it is quite true that a weak domestic economy cannot afford the other. You must have a strong domestic economy, international economy, in order to be able to afford these things. They're very expensive. If you are going to be critical of the MX I think you ought to be critical of MX because it is not really the missile that we need today. What we need today is a missile that the Soviets cannot spot & cannot take out. If we were to have a small missile that you cd put into a large tractor-trailer, wch you cd label A&P or Safeway & drive all over this country they wd never be able to spot it, never be able to interdict it, & that wd be that.
t,ac: Gee, that reminds me of the nazis using Red Cross ambulances to disguise non-Red Cross activities. It's exactly that type of tactic that the US government scorns as "terrorist" when it's used by anybody but the US government.
[..]
TL: This conversation that we're having today, in 20 yrs, people will look back at this & consider it totally insanity because, uh, if the best were to happen [?], young people simply do not buy this
MM: Yeah, but what's funny to us is that the problems seem so enormous that we feel very impotent. I know in my age group we feel impotent. None of the.. Nothing that.. That's why there's no activism.
t,ac: No activism! You're just unaware of it in your cushy priviledged art world ivory tower! What about the Sanctuary Movement?!!
MM: That's why people feel paralyzed at my age because we don't feel that anything that we do will ever effect any kind of change! & that the problems are so enormous & you're facing complete conflict, annihilation, & cataclysm.
[..]
TL: [unintelligible] sd it: 76 million you, 40 million more than any other generation. By 1988, Reagan & Tip O'Neil will be out. Uh, your generation is basically a realistic generation. You're not trying to fight a Cuban war, you're not trying to fight Teddy Roosevelt, you're not trying to fight World War II.
MM: We don't have any real hostilities.
[..]
GL: M, may I respond?
TL: For the next 60 yrs, uh, time is on our side. Youth is on our side.
MM: I don't care, I just want to keep living.
TL: Yeah.
GL: M, may I respond?
MM: I don't care!
TL: Will not fight your wars! We will not fight your wars!
GL: In 1938, '39,
TL: There you go!
GL: people your age
TL: That was before Hiroshima!
GL: people your age were face w/, uh, y'know, Hitler's Panzer divisions & all the rest & they were terrified.
TL: [unintelligible] Now you're talking old history.
GL: Timothy, you, you, you, you, you had your chance & you
[the quality of the recording changes to something full of static w/
distant unintelligible voices & then the tape ends]
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