Smith: There was this notion that there is a Congressional mindset and an executive mindset. That they are two different things. Which, presumably affect how they perform when they are in office. Do you have theories as to why? Donaldson: There is a congressional mindset versus an executive mindset. And so, collectively, they want to guard their camp. He now, she someday maybe, represents the whole country, and if they are doing their job properly looks at it from that perspective.
And you know, better than I, or certainly as well as I, that these people up there represent their constituents, and their narrow, selfish interests, a lot of the time.
The safeguard is that they have to be responsible to their individual constituents. So I think there is always this tug of war. They wanted the legislature to be, if there was going to be, a more powerful of the three branches. They wanted it to be the legislature. Smith: I would agree with you. Now there were obviously different proportions, but each party, in some ways, was a reflection of the whole country, ideologically.
The point being, forty years ago, when you arrived in this town, before you could even hope to pass a bill…. Smith: Okay, forty-seven years ago — you had to first internally learn how to deal with people who you might not agree with on a lot of things. I remember Bob Dole saying he was advised when he came to town, be sure to sit down with Senator Stennis. Smith: Talk to Stennis.
Ted Kennedy said when he arrived here, be sure and spend time with Dick Russell. And the mindset has changed, of course. And, frankly, I think toward the Eighties, it was the Republicans. Now both sides did it, but it was the Republicans — Newt Gingrich and his backbenchers who wanted to get rid of this go-along Bob Michael and do it by just torching the place, term limits if they could get it.
Get the Speaker, Jim Wright, who gave them the sword, I understand that. Destroy the Democrats and do it in the most bitter, partisan way, all things being fair. Certainly not politics. Donaldson: I was at one of those debates. But I tell people, you mentioned Richard Russell — I watched that great debate in the Senate in I can see Russell now standing in the center aisle — he would move in the center aisle and clap his hands like this when he debated.
Politics they say is the art of the possible. Everyone makes deals. I might make a deal with my wife, I want to stay home, she wants to go out, we reach an accommodation or something.
Smith: People have forgotten, at least at the presidential level — it was the Carter campaign that brought the Evangelical Christians, not the right, but Evangelicals in a major way into political arena. They want Italy — only not Catholic. Smith: What are your memories surrounding the pardon — the Nixon pardon? Did it come as a thunderclap? Smith: They were all Nixon questions, yeah.
Donaldson: I sincerely believe that Ford sincerely believed that the business of the country would be harmed if Nixon was pursued. I believe that was his motive. I do not believe there was a deal before he became president at all. I was one of those at the time that was furious, not at Gerald Ford, but furious at the fact that Nixon had escaped because I think that the majority of the country wanted to pursue him.
A jury of his peers? Of course Jerry terHorst resigned on principle. But it was a thunderclap. And I also believe, although there were many factors that cost Ford his election in , and you can say it was this one, it was this one, it was this one, this one — if you had to pick one, it was the Ford pardon.
Smith: It is understandable, everyone is right now dwelling on the incredible challenges that this president confronts, but we all have such short memories. In fact, whiplash, because first everyone told him, no, inflation is the problem, and then a few months later everyone said the bottom is falling out of the job market.
Smith: Yes. Which actually was concocted in the speechwriting shop of the White House. Alan Greenspan told us all about that. Ford really was dealt a pretty lousy hand. Donaldson: Yeah, and the State of the Union is not good, let me just enumerate here. He was, he was. Donaldson: Oh, for the country, very traumatizing. Again, when we pulled out troops out, Nixon said peace…well, first Kissinger, peace is at hand, before the election — just kind of the icing on the election cake.
You knew what was going to happen. The Vietnamese wanted to live together and we could not stop them from living together and the North had prevailed. He knows full well that they are going to take over the South.
But when they did it with those awful pictures of the helicopter and Graham Martin with the American flag, the ambassador coming out. And later, Nixon, of course, kind of snidely suggested, well, we had a deal with the South Vietnamese to come to their aid.
The country would have revolted. Smith: He said that was the worst day of his life as president, and you could understand that. Everyone wanted to walk away from this fiasco and forget we ever got mired there. Congress cut the money for resettling refugees, and Ford went through the roof and said, we have this long tradition in America of offering asylum to victims of persecution.
And he put together this crazy quilt coalition, the American Jewish Congress, and the AFLCIO, and basically shamed Congress into forking over enough money — they brought ,, boatpeople…. We had an obligation to them, I thought.
Smith: The Carter campaign — now when did you join? Was it the fall campaign or were you with him during the spring? But in those days, there were three or four of us still with Governor Carter, who still was thought to have almost no chance.
Donaldson: Oh, I think there are several. One of the misapprehensions is that he was a rabbit — because of the killer rabbit, he was a wimp, in other words.
That he was timid, or something like that. Far from it. This guy was going to do it with Sadat and Begin. This guy was going to try to do it. But I think people got it right. He was not a good national politician. But he surprised me to some extent, Richard. During the primaries he was pretty good as a primary politician, pressing the flesh, meeting people.
Today it was change for Obama, for him it was, we are a great people. Donaldson: And it sold brilliantly, although he had to struggle through those primaries, and on the last day in June there were three big ones: California, New Jersey and Ohio. He lost California and New Jersey.
It was a close thing. On the other hand, he was not a situationalist. If he had a philosophy it came from his Baptist church and his feeling about morality and that spilled over to public policy also. Smith: They went into that campaign — obviously the Carter campaign was leading very significantly. Jim Baker and others, and Gerald Ford. Ford was doing things right that fall, but Carter was more and more doing things wrong. Ford started speeding up, but Carter started slowing down. He thought he was right.
Ford had some impact, but you know, long before he died he was outspokenly pro-choice. I mean, there is this whole host of things…. Donaldson: I remember, Richard. Now you have, particularly social conservatives, who hate government until they can use it to enforce their agenda. Donaldson: Of course. And there is the hypocrisy of it. And I often wonder, depending on the person, do they understand this dichotomy in their reasoning?
Or do they not even see it — do not see what they are doing? Depends on the person. I admire people like Goldwater. The only vote of mine that I ever been, even to my wife, disclosed.
And I admire Gerald Ford, and other people. And Democrats who feel strongly about something, but to thy own self be true, I admire them, too — whether I agree with them or not. These are the leaders who you were talking about. Or, in fact, have public leaders changed some?
Smith: Finally, and talking about being in contact with President Ford, you came out to Grand Rapids that day for our conference with the president. Donaldson: We laughed a lot and I remember some of the people on the panel who were there. I would have like to have given it myself. I remember we also talked about the issues of the day. But I remember basically Gerald Ford being there, and I interviewed him then for my little webcast I had at the time. And I came to believe, long before this moment, that he did the right thing.
Smith: Poor Lyndon Johnson, of course, died four years after leaving office. Ford was fortunate to live long enough to see most people had changed their minds. Smith: You know a funny story? There was no one less self-dramatizing than Gerald Ford, and no one who was less inclined to lay awake at night wondering what history was going to say about him.
It finally took Mrs. Ford to make him understand that this is a big deal. This is the honor of a lifetime. An eye-witness to the shooting attempt on President Ronald Reagan's life in , Mr. Donaldson delivered the first report on any broadcast medium of that event on the ABC radio network.
Born in El Paso, Texas, Mr. His autobiography, "Hold On, Mr. President," was an international bestseller. Donaldson served on active duty with the U. He also anchored the station's weekend news broadcasts, and produced and moderated a weekly interview program. Donaldson joined ABC News in Close Search Search. Sam Donaldson Guest Speaker. Self - Host. Self - Correspondent segment "Capitol Hill Shooting".
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