At Issue: Hooks and Powell

I want to give a plug for the Panama Canal freedom and hope that the good people of Iowa I will urge their Senators to vote for it because I think that the presence of twenty four leaders Latin America in the in Washington the great desire of people everywhere to throw up the yoke of colonialism ought to be apparent today and in my judgment would be the worst thing that could happen to us in foreign affairs if the United States Senate would refuse to ratify patently refused to ratify ratify the Panama Canal treaty we four years in the country in this country have accepted as part of our educational process as part of almost our concept as a nation things about the Panama Canal that weren't true and we have all of a since childhood have developed our attitudes based on things that weren't true the idea that we bought the canal we bought the Canal Zone in it's ours it's been accepted it's not true we paid a certain amount of money down and we agreed to pay rent and the original Treaty of two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year you don't pay rent on something that you own so I think what we're dealing with here is a need first of all to ask people to look at the facts both what is now what can be what sort of treaty we have and then make their decision not on what we would do if the world was what we would like it to be but on what we would do in the best interest of our country to deal with the world as it is good evening and welcome to at issue I'm Twyla yang the two men that you just heard expounding upon the Panama Canal treaty our Benjamin hooks executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Jody Powell press secretary to President Jimmy Carter the Panama Canal is not the only issue that concerns both of these men and indeed on their recent visits to des moines they talked at length about several problems facing this country unemployment inflation housing foreign policy and Bert Lance Benjamin hooks came to Des Moines for what amounted to only a few hours his visit centered around the Des Moines chapter of the n-double a-c-p annual freedom fund banquet before that event hooks met with reporters to talk about recent happenings and the future of the organization whose leadership he assumed after serving as Federal Communications Commission ER hooks talked about a number of problems facing the black community and his organization's reaction to them he spoke of black unemployment of poor housing of the deterioration of this country cities and he spoke of the Carter administration's ranking black United Nations ambassador Andrew Young well I think Andrew Young has done a tremendously good job the fact of the matter is that the world and as far as I'm concerned in a very pitiful condition vestige of colonialism everywhere all kinds of problems and those who criticize young it was strange they never said that he was not telling the truth they said he was not being diplomatic it's my conception if things are as bad as they are by virtue of us being diplomatic perhaps it was time that we had somebody who's not quite a diplomatic secondly I think the depress a sort of smell the scent of blood and they just simply would go through a whole speech that he had it might be an hour long to find any one statement that was sort of a ludicrous out of context or doing a lot of public speaking you don't speak for half hour saying at least one thing that you might regret having said you know at a later time and thirdly the last successful I saw seems to suggest that he's become a moment or more seasoned and more diplomatic and I'm not sure I like that so well because I think that he should retain his style certain I think he should go with the job but I hope he will not let the status quo power structure so constrict him that he failed to speak out where it's necessary of his outspoken comments about colonial powers particularly in Africa he's been somewhat on the defensive called upon to defend the Carter Administration two blacks here in this country and criticism has been very pointed do you feel as though he this is the this is causing a sort of a schizophrenic problem for him well no I don't think it should because in the first place I've been in the vanguard of those who could have been critically president on many points but the strange that ironic thing is that I had a chance to revenge opening speech for instance and it was about as much praise as there was criticism unfortunately now in today's world to speak you know words of praise and or rather don't get much attention to cook the criticism does so that I don't know vented black you who has said that President Carter's insensitive are not concerned a dedicated with simply weather technicians the priorities in terms of how he's proceeded to deal with the problems I think that the Andrew Young had a perfect right to defend the president if he were printed information we will not sell did not have the president unveiled a welfare package I don't think anybody could say that came with all the premises obviously been working on it for a number of months he has nominated judge Johnson one of the most outstanding jurist in America had the FBI that's not results criticism he's been trying for six months to get it I think that what Andrew Young was saying was that there were some things the president is working on that will be unveiling time what we are saying is we want to see them on the table because the preoccupation with balancing the budget does not square the promise you made to you ate the conditions in our major cities shortly before Hookes visit to Des Moines a report appeared that named violence the number one cause of death among young black men Hookes commented on that report the only thing amazing the music took America so long to find it out I've been in the criminal justice system I was a public defender in Memphis for many years I was a criminal court judge I tried to live in the hundreds of cases and I've known and most of the black community's long since known that violent death among black people caused by black on black crime and it comes always for the most part between so-called friends you know at parties at dancers in the home you know they you know people takes a long discovery thing one of the one of the worst things we have an American there's the so-called white feet in Senegal well those of us have been the criminal justice system know that white people in black folk have been beating their wives since time immemorial in fact there used to be a time when we said that was alright as long as it as long as it stick with no bigger than your little thing and where we don't believe that nothing god but it my action is it doesn't surprise me because I knew it $9,000 deaths in America last year among black people at one one year in Detroit that was some almost 700 homicides committed black on black and we think that in all of this emotional trauma the sense of despair degradation joblessness hopelessness ruthlessness the inability to get a job a decent home then ability to live the good life that's portrayed every night on television that we look at a lease of the kind of emotional instability that will do that and you're not going to stop homicide by getting more policemen about simply banning handguns you simply change the way we kill each other from pistols survives and from lives of clubs and from clubs the feat that we have to do it what I'm suggesting is that the root cause of the problems will trace it back themselves back to many social economic problems and solving there was not an overnight thing will take years to redress those balances hooks carries that message with him everywhere its form may differ as the audience changes from a handful of reporters to an NWA CP banquet but the content remains the same young black people are out to die from homicide between the ages of 21 and 44 than from any single disease because we have turned our violence in on ourselves and more than nine thousand black folk get killed over here this country not by police brutality not by state troopers not by dogs not by fire hoses turn on them by Bull Connor but my foot kill them and destroy each other every day of our life and you saw that even though I'm gone then the criticism of president caught about many things that I still happen to believe that Jimmy Carter's a decent compassionate human being who can be reached whose conscience can be stirred and troubled and I'm among those who go to trouble of war until somebody speaks I you know don't look like I'm dropping names but I was at the right house in the morning for briefing on the Panama Canal treaty and there was a whole lot of folk they only spoke docs with that but when Jimmy Carter came in people have been talking about how tired and weary warned you look he looked tired and need some fresh and vibrant and he had just left a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus not only we could be deadly he came in and at this August gathering that it comes to talk about the Panama Canal treated he spent the first minute ten minutes talked about the problem black unemployment and black joblessness and he set up a message to the nation that this is something we must do something about and I think all of us are enjoying the fact that as long as there are millions of people who are underemployed and chronically unemployed who wake up every morning with helplessness and hopelessness are there only breakfast and despair for lunch and tears at night no decent housing no chance and no way out that we all something and I think the Jimmy Carter offers the best chance for us making our way out I rejoice his appointment a man like Andrew Young who speaks the truth where the truth has not always been spoken I know that there are those who maintain that he's not diplomatic but if diploma says put the world of the message then then maybe we meet someone diplomatic means to take it out of course Hookes main reason for speaking in des moines was to expound upon the needs of blacks in general and to spur this group toward accomplishing the goals of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People we've got to save this nation you look back to 1776 as I close denied and we don't worry that we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal I don't have to be a great historian to tell you that they didn't really mean it but whether they admit it or not they wrote it they published it they proclaimed and they stopped by for 201 years now we've been engaging the great crusade to make those words come true it's great to realize that other than a few places a few times of men and women ever had the footage that we have so this is a great country and I don't want us to give up for now I've never advocated violent overthrow I've never said the white folk come down I have said and I am saying move over because knowing our way make room for presidential press secretary Jody Powell came to Des Moines to talk with Iowa Democrats and to address the Iowa Daily Press Association he spent a good part of his day here talking with reporters about the constantly changing status of the Bert Lance investigation and the White House position on that investigation his visit and our conversation with him predated several significant developments in that situation such as mr. Lance's testimony before the Senate committee and the events that followed that appearance our conversation also predated Powell's charges concerning Senator Charles Percy 's campaign practices and fouls subsequent apology to the Illinois senator these and events that happen before his Des Moines visit have brought rise to charges from many quarters that the Carter White House lacks a certain political savvy to be blunt that the people running the country these days don't really know what they're doing we asked Powell how he answered charges like that I don't think you do because the fact of the matter is in many cases and we don't know all that we need to know and it's the nature of the business that most decisions are made on hopefully inadequate information and in the long term probably the only way to deal with it as people become more educated to the fact and perhaps as politicians become more willing to admit that quite often when we make a decision we we try to do the best we can but it is not because we're in some unique position to know a heck of a lot more than the people sitting out there watching it on television - and certainly never that we all know all that we need to know in order to make those decisions and that you know that we make mistakes just like everybody else does and the difference in the past has been that politicians weren't willing to admit those mistakes and so people as as you might expect weren't very understanding of them I hope we will be willing to admit mistakes as we make them and the change when we need to change facts seem to want it and not get our feelings hurt too bad when people point out the mistakes that we make to feel that we've still collectively lost our innocence that nobody's ever safe anymore in public office that everyone is fair game for this sort of thing well in the way being in public office does mean and should mean that you're fair game but it shouldn't mean that you've got to be perfect because nobody is and we've all done things at one point or another in our lives that we wish we hadn't done that we knew we shouldn't have done at the time I certainly have and that would be kind of embarrassing if the whole world knew about but when you and in public life maybe it's it's proper that the whole world should know but we can't get ourselves in the position that we expect everybody that serves in public office not to have done things that that there were mistakes it should have been done and I think that's that's going to have to be a gradual process but it is going to have to be there is going to have to be in a greater sense of perspective about the fact that mistakes are made most often they're not out of malicious or evil intent in government any more than they are in the press or any more than they are and private life there because people are human and make mistakes what have you learned most about being in the White House from the trials and tribulations of experience there well perhaps that some of the things that seem the most upsetting and get your temper up the worst at the time seen from even the perspective of a week or two turn out to be not particularly all that important that in some ways the decisions and the way decisions are made in a white house certainly as far as the press office concerned and not that much different from the governor's office the problems in general terms are much the same and perhaps with anything else a feeling that even though we're not going to solve or even begin to solve all the problems that we face that that the process at least and the beginning and the making of progress on those problems is a manageable sort of thing and it can be it can be time how do you deal with the concept is a problem that is very it's very real and it happens all the time of press secretary as news creator rather than merely a conduit what is your opinion become your opinion and where does that that become Jimmy Carter's statement and how do people tell the difference well I it's a very difficult process I think the press secretary because of the daily briefings has that office has taken over on a to larger role I've tried to keep the things on a less formal basis to try to soften that impacts on but there is an unavoidable aspect of it which is as newsmaker you can't sit down with the president every morning and determine exactly how he would answer every question it is liable to come up in an hour or an hour and a half briefing that day and you have to some extent speak use your judgement about what his response would be and you have to to phrase your responses to unanticipated questions in the way that you think best reflects the administration view so you do make news sometimes sometimes you intend to and every now and then you make someone you when you didn't intend to and it's almost unavoidable and being cautious and and trying to be as informed as planned as possible as about the only way that I can think of that you can you can minimize the difficulties that can arise from that it's my impression from your biography but that you're the one career position that you have held since leaving graduate school is as press secretary to Jimmy Carter that's right what sort of limitations or advantages perhaps you think that that kind of perspective has given you well the disadvantage of course is that never having worked as a reporter I don't have that personal understanding of the trials and tribulations and frustrations of the people that I'm working with that I might have had if I had been a working reporter the advantage I suppose is that my primary function as the attempt to represent and explain Jimmy Carter's attitude on various issues important and sometimes unimportant to the members of the press and having a long knowledge of him and and how he works and how he thinks and having heard him discuss printing everything that you can hear somebody discuss over the course of the past I don't know six or eight years perhaps that enables me to be a little bit more knowledgeable of a spokesman than might might otherwise be the case but frankly I think the job itself except for the benefit that would have come from being a reporter and then perhaps being one understanding of the people I deal with I'm not sure what normal occupation on the face of the earth would prepare you for for the job that I presently hold it doesn't it doesn't bear any relationship to any sort of honorable a trade that I've been able to take a little while ago you finished speaking to a group of people and individuals crowded around you and asked for your autograph one had their picture taken with me sort of the accoutrement of being a celebrity hound your footsteps that rest easily on your shoulders it's it is it is so new that I still don't really know exactly had how to react as a as a matter of fact that my little girl is particularly nauseated by the whole thing and has want to ask why all these people want to talk to her daddy she knows very well that there's no real reason that he could be interesting to for that many people and can't understand why but I thought yes the worst part of it is you know you spend your whole life expecting that somebody recognizes you and cause you by name that you have met them before and that good manners would require that you remember their name and call them by name and speak back and to be sort of all of a sudden position for people speak to you by name and you haven't seen them before and you can't call them by name as you sort of feel if you feel like you're your one continual example of bad manners you know for the whole day long because you can't you can't respond in the way that you know you're that you're supposed to know that's probably been the worst part of how easy is it or how willing are you say to Jimmy Carter no you're wrong I think that's really a wrong decision or a wrong idea about that situation I thought had sort of been my function since since the very beginning and you nobody likes to be told that they're wrong and nobody likes to be the person that does that but that is about that is probably the chief value of a staff person outside of just providing the raw information is that willingness to to dispute to argue to raise a countering point of view some you win and and some you lose but our whole relationship started in 1970 when he and I were traveling during the gubernatorial campaign and every message that was that that he got from the campaign headquarters was relayed for the most part through me and so I not only had to had to advance my own arguments about what we ought not to do but in some cases I had to act as a spokesman for Hamilton Jordan back in Atlanta and argue his point of view with with the candidate and sometimes I didn't even agree with it so it and I think most people one of the unfortunate aspects of that is I sort of got in a position that I was expected to do that and so on on people would have something unpleasant to tell the boss and if they couldn't quite bring themselves to do it they would they would always come to me and say well Jodi's used to doing that so why why don't you do it he's used to hearing it from you which would on occasion I still do how do you rate your credibility oh I don't know I I consider myself pretty credible unfortunately that's not the measurement that really matters and you have to talk to the people that that that I work with from day to day I consider that to be not only the most important but I'm probably almost the only thing that I have to offer and if I there's no doubt in my mind that if I lose that then my ability to be uni service to the president and that position will be over so it's important to me I have and and will continue to do everything I can to maintain it whether I'm successful or not is something we'll just we'll just have to say would you live for Jimmy Carter not for him no I might I can hypothesize a situation in which there would be a higher good than my own credibility I don't think such a situation as likely to occur and I think one of the the measures of whether you do the job well or not is whether you can avoid putting yourself in a situation but if it were for example a time of war in it and and on the one side of the balance was my credibility and the other side was someone else's life that would be a rather difficult choice to make if you said never on other end-use under any circumstances would I be anything other than absolutely truthful so I'm not saying that government has a right to lie I am saying that that one can apologize a situation in which one's own personal credibility is not the highest value in the world and that's our look at a couple of national figures who in recent days dropped in on central Iowa and at issue next week at this time on Iowa perspectives a place to grow we'll take you to the Monroe County town of Albia for a look at life in south central Iowa so be sure to join us in I'm Tyler young good night