Mr. LODGE. Hello, Walter, how are you ?
     Mr. CRONKITE. Very good today and you, Sir? Have a seat.
     Mr. LODGE. Thank you. Very nice to be seeing you here in this beautiful sunshiny San Francisco today.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Yes. It's a beautiful day. Mr. Ambassador, you come from a most distinguished family that has contributed six Senators to the United States, a Secretary of the Navy, Governor of Connecticut; your brother is now Ambassador to Spain. Your political career is distinguished by winning a seat to the Senate in 1936 against the Roosevelt landslide of that year; I might also say it's distinguished for having lost in 1952 in a Republican landslide here. You once were a newspaperman yourself, as the saying goes, with the New York Herald Tribune, Boston Transcript, the Time magazine, and Arthur Krock, a distinguished colleague with the New York Times seems to remember an occasion in 1928 when you "slugged," to use the word, a guard to get to an interview. Therefore, I'm assuming that you're going to be sympathetic to my efforts today.
     Mr. LODGE. Well, I think Arthur Krock overrates my pugilistic capacity. I don't - I think I pushed him to one side and anyway I was 26 years old so don't hold that against me.
     Mr. CRONKITE. I wasn't holding it against you at all. I thought it was magnificent journalistic enterprise.
     Mr. LODGE. Well, there was a politician who was getting special treatment on using the special flight of stairs and I didn't see why the press couldn't do the same.
     Mr. CRONKITE. I think that's an admirable attitude, Mr. Ambassador.
     What would you, as a journalist, ask Henry Cabot Lodge about what was the principal year that - to make him work? What do you think is the mainspring of Henry Cabot Lodge?
     Mr. LODGE. Well, I like to work - I like to be useful, like to contribute something. I think we all have that - you have that.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Mr. Lodge, you started life as a newspaperman. When did you decide to get into politics?
     Mr. LODGE. Well, I ran for the legislature, in Massachusetts, in 1932, and that was a rather quick decision. I liked newspaper work very much. In fact, I still do like it but I made this decision to run for the legislature, there was an opportunity and it seemed to go pretty well, and I've been out of journalism ever since.
     Mr. CRONKITE. What inspired you to make this run, was it your own choice or did somebody call on you to---
     Mr. LODGE. Well, there was a great friend of mine, called John Trout, who was an automobile salesman, a very persuasive man; he could persuade people to buy automobiles, and he persuaded me to run for the legislature.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Mr. Ambassador, your innate dignity has led some people to say that you are aloof. Do you feel any aloofness?
     Mr. LODGE. Well, I don't think I've got any more dignity than anybody else has, and I don't - anybody who knows me thinks that.
     Mr. CRONKITE. I'd like to get into another issue that in one of our previous conversations you indicated you didn't particularly like to dwell on but I would like to ask it here in public, if I may. You've been described as one of the "Boston Brahmins." What is a "Boston Brahmin"?
     Mr. LODGE. Oh, Walter, now you ought not - I don't know - and nobody in Boston cares about that. We've all intermarried and we don't think in those antiquarian terms at all. I've spent my life in public life with many, many different kinds of people; we've all been in the Army and the Navy together during the war; we've intermarried. I've been in the Senate - national politics. Those things don't interest us in Boston anymore.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Well, do you think that the designation as such in some quarters and the old business of the Lowells to the Cabots and the Cabots only to God business, does that - is that any handicap in politics do you think?
     Mr. LODGE. Well, you are - why don't you also mention that I'm distantly connected, in a family way, with Senator Kennedy? Why don't you do that? [Laughter.] That will spoil your cliché, that's why you don't do it. [Laughter.] You've got this pattern now and you're try - and that would interfere with your pattern, yet it's true.
     Mr. CRONKITE. What is the connection with the Kennedy family?
     Mr. LODGE. Well, my daughter-in-law is the cousin of the husband of one of Senator Kennedy's sisters. I said "distantly related" - that describes it accurately.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Just about as distant as you can get, I think.
     Mr. LODGE. Yeah, but there it is. And that's just as - I'm - that's just as pertinent as to call me a "Brahmin." Just exactly. I'm just as much that as I am a "Brahmin."
     Mr. CRONKITE. All right, we'll drop that line of inquiry then. Now, what about the campaigning itself, do you enjoy it?
     Mr. LODGE. I enjoy a lot about it; yes. It's very interesting to - to be with the people, with the crowds and to try to communicate with them, and then of course, the crowds communicate with you. And to see what the American people are thinking and what their aspirations are; it's very interesting work.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Do you enjoy the handshaking portion of the thing? Do you get anything from this or is this just a drain on one's---
     Mr. LODGE. Oh, I like it very much. I do a lot of handshaking. It's a way to get in touch with people. If you don't - of course, if you don't like people you ought not to be in politics anyway. And handshaking is a way to get a contact with people. You shake somebody's hand and you look in his eyes, you see his face, you get an idea as to his nature. It's very, very valuable. I think.
     Mr. CRONKITE. The charming Mrs. Lodge seems to be enjoying her campaigning, too, these days. Some say she enjoys it more than you do.
     Mr. LODGE. Oh, she likes it. Well, I like it too. Well, we both like it.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Senator, you sort of defy the normal political trend to keep going from 6 a.m. to midnight every day, you take a little rest in the afternoon I believe.
     Mr. LODGE. Well, it isn't rest. I would like to, but I don't get it. I take time off to do my mail, to write speeches, to telephone and to confer with my staff. Now, if I'm going to go on television I try to shave and change my shirt; and if that be treason, make the most of it.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Well, we appreciate that, as a matter of fact.
     Mr. LODGE. And if people are going to criticize me for that, why, then they're people who're going to criticize me for something anyway. They'd criticize me because I didn't change my shirt.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Senator, you're fundamental, I'd say, in the Eisenhower campaign in 1952, and your own campaigns for the Senate, now this one. Do you think that this is the best way today of conducting our politics, these personal campaigns? Isn't this a terrible drain on the individuals?
     Mr. LODGE. Oh, I think the people - I think the nominees for President and Vice President must campaign. Of course, campaigning has changed a lot. The first national campaign I took part in was the Willkie campaign of 1940. There was no television. There were no airplanes to speak of. We were on the train all the time. It was much harder work than this because now you sleep in hotels; you don't sleep on the train. And television, of course, gets you before millions of people in their homes, which you couldn't do before. But the American people are much more interested in the kind of man who's running than they are in the party manifestoes and doctrines, because doctrines are words and they change and sometimes they're carried out and sometimes they're not; whereas the voter feels he's in a position to form a judgment on the kind of man who is presented to him as a candidate. So I think campaigning is an essential part of a democratic government.
     Mr. CRONKITE. You think these debates, then, so-called, are a good idea?
     Mr. LODGE. Yes, Yes, I think - well, I think you can call them debates, you can call them conversations, whatever they are - I think they're interesting to the voter. Yes, I do.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Would you like to indulge in a similar thing with Senator Johnson?
     Mr. LODGE. Well, that's something to think about.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Well, would you like to?
     Mr. LODGE. I said it was something to think about.
     Mr. CRONKITE. All right. Don't stop on that one. [Laughter.] Let's go ahead with another thing. You - you resigned your post as Ambassador to the United Nations, and yet we've come up now with this fascinating, interesting session of the General Assembly. Don't you sort of regret not being there?
     Mr. LODGE. Well, when I walked out, on the 3d of September, I had quite a twinge because I've been there almost 8 years, and it was very interesting, satisfying work. But the very next morning Nelson Rockefeller and Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz called on me at the Waldorf and took me in a plane up to the Catskills and then the following Monday we got into helicopters and went to all the beaches along Long Island, on Labor Day, and I've been going ever since and I've never had time to miss it.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Do you think---
     Mr. LODGE. This is a very busy life that I lead. I do - I'm going day and night all the time.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Wouldn't it be of considerable aid, though, for you to be there at this time? We know that Mr. Wadsworth is doing an excellent job, and Secretary of State Herter's been there, but your experience, it seems to me, would have been invaluable, at this time, at the U.N.
     Mr. LODGE. Well, Mr. Khrushchev has had nothing but defeat ever since he arrived. First, my successor, Mr. Wadsworth, exposed what he was trying to do in taking over the Congo, and got an overwhelming vote of condemnation. We defeated the Czechoslovak stooge that Mr. Khrushchev was promoting for President. of the General Assembly. When Mr. Khrushchev suggested abolishing the Secretary General, he got an almost unanimous turndown on that and now we've just kept the Chinese Communists out. Everything he's tried to do has failed. I would say that Secretary Herter and Mr. Wadsworth have done very well.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Are you advising the delegates to the U.N. at all? Do you - have you had any conversations with Mr. Wadsworth or---
     Mr. LODGE. Well, I talk to him once in a while; he's an old friend of mine. But he and I've been there - he's been my deputy for 7 years and you get to know what to do, you know.
     Mr. CRONKITE. How're your feelings these days about the future of the United Nations with Khrushchev's defiance of the organization, his statements that he will not abide by its decisions?
     Mr. LODGE. Well, it's always been the Soviet attitude. That's been the Soviet attitude ever since 1947, and the United Nations has been a big influence in spite of that. And one of the reasons Mr. Khrushchev doesn't like it is because it's influential enough and strong enough to stand in his way when he wanted to take over the Congo and then take over the whole continent of Africa. If the United Nations hadn't been there, I doubt if we would have sat idly by and let them take over the whole of Africa - and you can see how it might have become another Korea. Now, Khrushchev wants instability, he wants turmoil. The United Nations is a factor for stability, therefore he says "destroy the United Nations." But he can't destroy it. It's too tough a nut for him to crack.
     Mr. CRONKITE. You know in one of our many research reports here, run by our excellent staff, I have a note saying that in a report to your Harvard class, in 1949, you wrote - you were then a Member of the Senate: "Life as a legislator has on the whole made an optimist out of me, about both the United States and human nature. The interests which men have in common are more numerous and important than those which drive them apart." Well, I'm wondering in the light of your U.N. experience and the more recent events at the General Assembly, whether you still have this optimistic approach to men being driven together rather than apart.
     Mr. LODGE. Well, I was talking there about Americans. And I think the Russian people are - have the same interests that people have. Of course, the Communist rulers want to take over the world, and they are not - they don't recognize any community of interest with other human beings. They think they're a class apart; they think everybody's out of step but them; that everybody's wrong except them. And as long - I would certainly never have written that about the world as a whole. But I'm an optimist about the world. I think if we can get through the neat generation without a war there are very powerful factors that could move the world up unto a new plateau. And I think if we do what we're capable of doing here in America, we can make the promise of the American Revolution so glowing and so attractive that the menace of the Communist revolution will wither away.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Mr. Ambassador, you set out with Mr. Khrushchev on his tour of the United States; you were indulging in something called a truth squad or truth brigade, at least the idea was to answer Mr. Khrushchev---
     Mr. LODGE. Well, I didn't use that phrase, never.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Well, it was tagged
     Mr. LODGE. Some of the journalistic fraternity used that phrase. I did not think it applicable.
     Mr. CRONKITE. But wasn't that an intent to answer Khrushchev on the tour?
     Mr. LODGE. No, no, never. I had a series of speeches, seven or eight, which I wrote before Mr. Khrushchev arrived, all of which I gave - I gave two in New York, and one in Los Angeles, one in San Francisco, Des Moines, Pittsburgh, in which I set forth various aspects of the United States. I showed that we were not the capitalistic country in the sense that he uses the term, of a robber baron monopolistic, exploiting capitalism. And I discussed different phases of the United States. I never discussed the Soviet Union. I never made a comparison between us and the Soviet Union. I simply undertook to state what we were like, which of course is not at all what the Communists say that we were like. And it annoyed him several times. But I went right ahead and did it. I was never a truth squad as some newspapers said. It was never intended that I should answer him; that, of course, would be a most impolite and inhospitable thing to do with an official guest.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Well, then is it also true that there was never a State Department decision to---
     Mr. LODGE. Never
     Mr. CRONKITE. Quiet these speeches?
     Mr. LODGE. Never. That was the pure fabrication and was denied by the State Department at the time as a pure fabrication. I had these seven or eight little short talks and I gave them all.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Mr. Ambassador, Business Week magazine, just a few weeks ago, suggested that you were the person who advised Vice President Nixon on standing up to Khrushchev in any meetings with him, in Moscow, the advice which presumably led to the famed kitchen debate. Is that so ?
     Mr. LODGE. Well, I wasn't in Russia with Vice President Nixon, but, of course, he and I've worked closely together for a long time and before he went to Russia I briefed him at great length on experiences that I'd had in debating with the Russians; and he has a very retentive mind, a very penetrating keen mind, and he was kind enough to say that the briefing I gave him was useful to him. But he's a very clever debater himself and he doesn't need to take lessons from anybody - and I think the fact that he did it so well is not due to my briefing. I think it's due to the fact that he's very - he's got great - he's a man of great intellectual force.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Have you been advising the Vice President on foreign policy at all during the campaign?
     Mr. LODGE. Well, we talk on the telephone quite often about a whole range of things, including foreign policy. We advise each other. He advises me too.
     Mr. CRONKITE. On the matter of civil rights, I've been very much interested because you yourself have expressed, at the United Nations and elsewhere, I think in some of your speeches, the necessity of our position before the world, our posture on civil rights, and yet you haven't seemed to make much of this in your campaign so far, at least in the speeches I have---
 Mr. LODGE. Oh, but I have, Walter. I haven't made one single speech in the countless speeches that I've made, since the 4th of September, not one in which I haven't laid great stress on that, and I've made the same speech in every part of the country, North, South, East and West.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Mr. Ambassador, there is some sentiment, I think, among both parties, elements in both parties, that is, who feel that we should not try to conduct ourselves as others would like to have us conduct ourselves, that we should determine our own future and let the chips fall where they may as far as our image overseas, is this your feeling?
     Mr. LODGE. We ought to urgently solve our civil rights problem, so that every man is considered on his merits, without prejudice, because of race, creed, or color. We ought to do it not because four-fifths of the world is not of the white race, although that's true. We ought to do it not because it will very much help our foreign relations and our competitive position with the Communists, although it would. We ought to do it because we ought to want to carry out our national purpose whether the Russians existed or not. And our national purpose is set forth in the Declaration of Independence that says that all men are created equal, and we ought to carry it out. Let the chips fall where they may, even if there wasn't any communism in the world. Now if we do what we're capable of doing, if we're true to ourselves, it's going to be the best thing in the world for this word "image" that you use. It'll be the best thing in the world for it. But we oughtn't to do it in order to give ourselves a good image. We ought to do it because it's the right thing to do and because that is the purpose of the United States, is to see that all men are created equal, is to treat men as though they were all created equal.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Mr. Lodge, 27 years ago, which is quite a while in any of our books, you wrote a book, "The Cult of Weakness," which opposed pacifism in unilateral disarmament, and in the book you said: "Because foreign affairs is an issue in which active public interest is intermittent rather than steady, it gives the minority groups which are active in every department of politics unexcelled opportunities for exerting their influence." Well, I'm wondering if now in 1960 you still feel that these minority groups are exerting undue influence?
     Mr. LODGE. No, I do not and that book was written in 1932, and of course, one of the big changes since that time is that public interest in foreign policy is steady and continuous. I wouldn't have been nominated for Vice President if public interest in foreign policy was intermittent. Public interest in foreign policy is very, very great and continues all the time. I think what I wrote in 1932 was accurate as of that time.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Mr. Lodge---
     Mr. LODGE. How did you ever get that book, I thought it was impossible to obtain.
     Mr. CRONKITE. It isn't easy. [Laughter.] But our researchers, as I say, are just magnificent.
     Mr. LODGE. You've done fantastic research [laughter] digging up what I wrote for the class book I didn't know what was coming. I'd forgotten what I wrote for the class book.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Mr. Lodge, one final question here and that's how you see the role of the Vice President in modern society and under modern conditions.
     Mr. LODGE. Well, the Vice President, in the first place, presides over the Senate, casts the deciding vote in case of a tie, enforces the rules, and makes parliamentary decisions. Then the Vice President - that's traditional - and he's available in case the President dies. Then Vice President Nixon has announced that if elected he will give to the next Vice President the job of directing all the nonmilitary activities in the world's struggle, that is loans and grants, educational exchange, Voice of America, strategy in the U.N., all these things involving the nonmilitary aspects which now are more or less diffused and need to be pulled together so that we can take the initiative quickly and get a quick U.S. position. Now that is what Vice President Nixon has announced.
     Mr. CRONKITE. This is a new role then for a Vice President
     Mr. LODGE. Oh, that'll be a new role, yes, it would indeed.
     Mr. CRONKITE. You don't feel it infringed in any way on the constitutional provisions for Vice President
     Mr. LODGE. No, no, I don't think so. I think the President has a right to make that kind of an arrangement if he wants to.
     Mr. CRONKITE. Thank you very much, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, for being with us in San Francisco on this very pleasant day.
     Mr. LODGE. Thank you.
     Mr. CRONKITE. And now, speaking for * * *, here is Fred Davis.