Washington Straight Talk; Barbara Jordan

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[music] [music] [music] Barbara Jordan, Democratic Representative from Texas. Tonight, on Washington Straight Talk Congresswoman Barbara Jordan is interviewed by NPACT correspondent Paul Duke. Miss Jordan, you first came to national prominence as a member of the House Judiciary Committee which voted to impeach Richard Nixon last year. As you reflect back, have we learned anything from that traumatic experience and from the long

ordeal of Watergate? - Paul, it's very difficult to say what we did learn. We forget quickly in this country. It so happens that people have not yet forgot the proceedings of the House Judiciary Committee because as I travel around the country from time to time inevitably, someone will say, "I remember you from the impeachment proceedings." But what did we learn? One lesson of Watergate was that too much cash in a campaign may be bad. So the Congress passed a campaign reform act. We learned that some of the agencies of the government, the CIA, the FBI, the IRS, sometimes will exceed their legislative charter and engage in activities which are not a part of the function of those agencies. So the House has a select committee to investigate the CIA and the Senate has a similar committee. Hearings are held before a subcommittee

of the House Judiciary Committee into these agencies. The bottom line of Watergate is integrity and morality in government. And there's no way the Congress can enact legislation which is going to deal with that issue. And I think that the public as a result of Watergate now views politicians and public officials with some skepticism and our probing and cast their vote in line with what they feel will be their definition of integrity and morality in government. - There is a fundamental question here because you speak of the abuses by the FBI and other agencies. Has Congress now learned the lesson as your colleague on the House Committee, Congressman James Mann of South Carolina said, has Congress now learned that it must be the watchmen in the night to protect our civil liberties and our constitutional freedoms? - I think Congress has really learned that lesson. Now, it sounds so old-fashioned for a representative

to say, "I am going to protect the rights and secure the liberties of the American people." But that's what we're going to have to become. Old-fashioned watchdogs of the civil liberties of American citizens. - And you feel that Congress will now do a better job in overseeing the FBI and the CIA, that it will not permit those agencies to get away with the kind of indiscretions which they did in the past? I could quickly say, yes, we're going to do a better job, but I don't know where we will. We're trying to get... - But is the mood there to do the better job? The mood is there, the mood is there, but it is difficult to get the handles on these agencies. - Even though Watergate is now largely behind us, the national morale, the national mood remains very low in this country. Many people are disturbed about the difficulties of the economic situation, the energy crisis. And they also show that many people don't have real confidence in the President, in the Congress,

to solve these problems. Do you agree with those who suggest we have a leadership crisis? - I suppose that we could say there is a leadership crisis, but saying that, I think it is a mistake for any people to look for a singular leader who is somehow going to make us all feel good again. I don't think there is anyone who can do that. The day of the magic wand and the charger in the night, that's over. We're going to have to have a kind of corporate leadership. Several people engaged in negotiations and conversations forming a corporate organized coalition of leadership. The president will provide some leadership. The Congress will provide some leadership. And the citizens, private industry, private agencies, will provide a part of the leadership. The singular leader, of course, of the country is the president of the United States.

And nothing can override the feeling that this is the man or the woman who is going to somehow make things well again. But the crisis in leadership, I think, is more a creature of the public mind than it is the reality of what we're experiencing. - No, but as we look back on the long nightmare of Watergate and the impeachment trauma, what are the qualities which the people are now looking for in their leaders? - Again, the people are now getting back to some old-fashioned words, like honesty and integrity. And how do you define that? And how do you look at a person and say, he is honest, he or she is a man, a woman of integrity. How do you define that? They want people who are credible, believable. People are tired of the usual babble and blabber about "what I will do if I am elected."

I think we have seen the last of that. People want a believable, straight-talking, forward-looking eye-to-eye personality in government. - Nonetheless, we hear things like a prominent lawyer who worked in the White House on the Watergate case for Mr. Nixon was saying the other day that he believed some people prefer a competent scoundrel to an honest boob in the White House. Now, how prevalent is that attitude here in Washington? - That attitude is certainly not prevalent, and I think that's a very unfortunate statement. The people of this country don't want a scoundrel to lead them. I think Watergate showed us that the changes in public opinion were an absolute direct relationship in a direct reaction to some of the things which were going on in the executive branch of the government. People still want a leader who is honest. They want one they can believe.

They are content to be scoundrels if they so choose, but they don't want their leader to be a scoundrel. - When your committee considered, Mr. Ford, Gerald Ford, for Vice President, you said at that time that you were not impressed with him, especially because you felt he was weak on civil rights. Has the president done anything since then to change your mind? - I sometimes say that perhaps my judgment has been vindicated since that time. The president is doing the best he can, I'm sure, in civil rights and in international relations and in the promotion and development and creation of our foreign policy. But to say that the president has done enough to reverse that initial judgment, which I had, I cannot say that. - Some of his advisors were saying only yesterday that they feel the urban crisis in this country is now over.

Would you say it's over? - I wouldn't say it's over all I would say is that they have not been into the cities. They have not been into the heart, the inner city of Houston, Texas or New York or Boston or any other large city of this country. The urban crisis is not over because people's problems have not been solved. - Well, what is Congress's role in this? Don't you also have to blame Congress? Don't the Democrats in Congress have to assume a large part of the blame because these problems still exist? - Oh, certainly we do, Paul. And I'm not naive enough to say that the Congress is all good. The Democratic-controlled Congress is doing a good job and the president of the United States is not doing a good job. I know that the Congress has a lower rating in the public opinion polls than the president. And that disturbs me. That bothers me. Yes, the Democrats are going to have to share some of the blame. And we're prepared to do that.

But what I'm hoping is that by the next time the Democrats present candidacies to the American people that we will have some solutions to present rather than criticism. - During the impeachment proceedings, you made a rather memorable speech, which a lot of us recall, in which you said that you had total faith, complete faith, absolute faith in the Constitution. Can the average Black make that statement today? - Now, you'll have to go back to the beginning of that statement, Paul, when I said that the Constitution at first was rather exclusionary where Black people were concerned. But then it was the process of amendment and court interpretation and the rest of it, which made this inclusion possible and which caused me to have this kind of faith. I feel that Black people recognize now in the majority of instances that the kinds of forward movement, to accomplishment, good things which have happened

would not have happened with regards to the inclusion of Black people in the life of this country were it not for the Constitution as the fundamental law and its expansionary nature enabling Black people to be sucked into the meaning of the Constitution. And I think that now, with the momentous decisions, like the 1954 school desegregation decision, all falling under the aegis of the Constitution, it is easier for Black people to express the kind of faith I expressed. - Well Martin Luther King, as you know, used to talk about having a dream, is the dream coming true then for Black people or is it still largely a delusion today? Well, the dream is still there and it is not yet real. I don't know how long it will take. When Black people are not so set aside because of their blackness that things bad happen to us. I don't know when that day will come in this country.

All I can say is that we're inching, inching ever so slowly, but inching nevertheless more closely to the ideal, that dream of full inclusion. - You once also were quoted as saying that all Blacks are militant in their guts. Are you that militant? - Well, I recall that statement and I did make it and I agree with it. And I think I am militant in my insides. I think my intestines are militant. What do I mean by that? I know that there are problems which Black people face, which must be solved in various arenas. The political arena is one. And even though you see underneath and you want to break out in some kind of a display of aggressiveness, the truth of the matter is that in the back of your mind, you know that in the long run,

that display of aggressiveness is going to retard the cause that you're trying to fulfill or to bring about. So you suppress, you suppress. That's what I mean by militants and guts. You suppress that and then act on another plane. - Well, that leads me to another question. Where have all the Black radicals gone? - Well, I think they're in the various offices of the mayor, city councils, state legislative bodies, county commissioners courts, they've gone political. If you just look at election results in places like Oakland or Berkeley and you see the latest statements, which are even being made now by Eldridge Cleaver, the political arena. That's where the radicals have gone and they are going to radicalize politics in a good way. - Even so, the Civil Rights Commission in its latest report says that while we have made tremendous strides in desegregating schools and other public facilities

in this country, we're a long way from being a truly integrated society. Has the punch now gone out of the Civil Rights Movement in this country? - It hasn't gone out. We are a long way from that goal of true equality, but the Civil Rights Movement is still alive and well. It is not as visible as it once was, but it is there, given right now pending in the Congress, extension... extension, and expansion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was passed by the Congress at the height of the Selma to Montgomery March. The issue before the Congress now is expansion, extension of that act. The civil rights groups have come to the fore and are moving through a lobbying effort to extend that act. So the Civil Rights Movement is not gone. The steam is not really out. Its methodology has perhaps changed. - But you speak of the attempt now to extend

the Voting Rights Act and doesn't this point up one of the problems of the Black movement in this country now, the Civil Rights Movement because there is a basic dispute here about how you extend this act, whether you have a simple extension, which would continue to make the law applicable to Blacks only or whether you would permit the law to embrace Mexican-Americans and other minorities. And as you well know, a good many Black leaders don't want to bring in these other people. - Well, I know, and I consider that unfortunate. I have a bill to expand the act to include Mexican-Americans to include the state of Texas and some counties where there is discrimination against brown citizens. I'm also, of course, in favor of extending that act for another 10 years so that its applicability to Blacks will be guaranteed for that period of time. There is this controversy, this underlying conflict. It's not that the civil rights leaders don't want brown people,

Mexican-American people included. They don't want to jeopardize the possible extension of the act by an effort to expand the act. But I happen to think that that is a very tenuous kind of an argument and has no overwhelming validity. We used to hear a great deal of talk in the early days of the civil rights movement about an alliance between poor whites and poor Blacks, which obviously would be a powerful political force, especially in many areas of the South. Is that coming about or is that just a delusion too? - I don't see an alliance between poor whites and poor Blacks at this time. I don't see it because in the issues that we have to deal with, there is still the feeling on the part of poor whites that welfare programs, social service programs, food stamp programs are somehow for Blacks only and there is a resentment somehow for them,

poor whites, to be lumped in with poor Blacks that the one thing that they have which sets them ahead of and apart from and above the Black community is their whiteness and this is a point that they really don't want to negotiate. That would be a formidable kind of an alliance, poor whites and poor Blacks, but I don't see that occurring right now. - Do you think it will ever occur? - I don't think it will occur in the foreseeable future. - Do you think in the future at some point a Black man will be president? - I certainly think that... - Or a Black woman? I think that's within the realm of possibility. I think we will see that. Again, I have no illusions that this is going to occur in the next four or eight years, but I certainly think that with Black politicians moving into national arenas of politics that it is foreseeable,

that a Black person will be elected President of the United States at some point. - Well, certainly you are one of the prized political success stories. You were a championship debater in school. You were the only woman ever elected to the Texas State Senate. You were one of the officers of that body. And now you are one of three Black members of the House of Representatives who have served since the 1900s. How is it that you a Black, a liberal, a woman from a conservative state, how is it that you have become such a Texas star so quickly? - Well, I wish I had some magic formula, which I could bottle and sell to all of the Black young people in the country and tell them this is the way to do it. But there is no such simple formula. I can only say that I made a decision about my own life and that is that its movement would be in politics.

And having made that decision, I was willing to work as hard as necessary as long as necessary, in order to bring that about. - Well, you boasted quite a bit about being from Texas. And of course, Texans are noted for their boasting, I suppose, with some legitimacy. What is there about your roots from Texas that impresses you, that aroused a lot of fervor and feeling in you? - Well, it's a rugged individualistic, almost frontier spirit. I refer to Texas as the last frontier in this country where people... people still like you in Texas. They're still neighborly. And there is this strong strain of "I can do it because I am powerful as a person, not politically powerful, but just powerful as a person who can get things done that I want to get done."

And I like that kind of point of view. I like that kind of movement in people. And I see this in Texans more than I do in others. - I also recall something you said once that you get goose pimples every time you hear the Star Spangled Banner or God Bless America. And I'm wondering, is there any paradox here that you would feel that way when your people have suffered so much in this country? - Well, I don't know that there's paradox there. I'm a patriot and I don't feel that I need to apologize for that. I'm not willing to abandon patriotism to what is called the right wing. I'm a patriot in the center and the left of center, however, people would like to label me. Black people have a lot to feel dispirited about where this country is concerned, I recognize that, but by the same token, where else can we look as a people to any government

and say, "Had we been there, things would have been different. Things would have been better." At least here, the right things were being said, not being done all the time, but the right things were being said about freedom, equality, liberty, opportunity, those things. And so we could work to try to bring that to the level of a reality. America gives us the opportunity to do that. And that's why I suspect I will remain a patriot. - You're also a liberal, but you classify yourself as a progressive liberal. What's the distinction? - I suppose the distinction is whatever you say it is. But in my judgment, there are some liberal people who call themselves liberal, who have an ideology, which is so fixed and so tight that nothing else can get inside it to move it along just a little bit now.

we're talking about there. Ideologues, people who say, "This is the way it has to be without yielding, without compromise. This is what I feel." In my judgment, that is not good. A liberal, my kind of liberal, I think, is expansive and open enough to let other ideas creep in and move things along just a little bit. So I am willing to compromise something which is supposed to be a part of the liberal tradition in the interest of getting accomplished some goal, some legislation, some idea that I want to see brought about. To me, that is the progressive part of my liberal ideology. - And because you're willing to compromise, you seem to get along very well with politicians of all

shades and stripes in Congress. For example, I went up and talked to a good many of your House colleagues the other day and asked them some blunt questions about you. And one of the most conservative members from the South said, Barbara Jordan is the finest representative Texas has in Congress. Is that the reason you're able to get along with people, with whom you have vast differences? - Oh, I think without a doubt, that's the reason. Paul, you understand. I was a member of that body called the Texas State Senate before I ever came to Congress. And I have a history of dealing with people who think differently than I think. And I think this willingness for me to be open and at least understand where they are and ask them to help me get where I want to get, this somehow attributes to, I think, my getting along. People also suggest that you're going places, that one day you could be elected Speaker, one day you could be elected to the Senate,

one day you could be on the Supreme Court, one day you might even be on the... be th Vice-Presidential candidate. What's your reaction when people say these things? - Well, I say I'm delighted that people feel that I'm qualified to do all of these things at some point in the future. But right now I'm running for re-election to my House seat and will be running for re-election to that seat until political opportunity dictates otherwise. - Well, people also say that you are a shrewd and skilled politician. And one of your colleagues on the Judiciary Committee who happens to be a Republican said, Barbara Jordan has a Gothic preoccupation with power. You yourself have been quoted as saying that you find politics all-consuming. Is it that consuming for you? - It is consuming in an overwhelming sense, I would say, more than 75% of my time, perhaps, consumed and taken with politics.

Politics, Paul, is about power and to say that it's not, I think, is to deny the reality of politics and one who feels that power is distasteful and to be disdained or not be in politics. - Do you yearn for power for yourself? - I don't yearn for power for myself, but I certainly yearn for power to get things done for the people I represent. Now, if I ever divorce myself from trying to help those 400-odd thousand-plus people who sent me to Washington, then I think that's the first time that I will be retired from politics by the people. - It's also suggested that on occasion you can be aloof, arrogant, and that you suffer fools impatiently. Is that the other side of Barbara Jordan? - I certainly would not agree with those statements,

but I just want people to give me 120% all the time, and if they don't, I become disenchanted. - It is also said by some critics that you have gone establishment, that you make political deals, that even now you're supporting Senator Lloyd Bentsen from Texas for the presidential nomination in return for a pledge from Democratic leaders that they would support you in a race for the Senate from Texas. Any validity in that? - Well, there's no validity to that kind of a trade-out. I was listening because I was interested in it. There's no validity to that, but for people who say that I've gone establishment, I've sold out to the power brokers, all I say to them: look at my record in the Senate of Texas and in the Congress of this country, and look at my votes, and then you pick out the one where you think I sold out, and I think that would be very difficult for anybody to find, because I think my votes on the issues have remained consistent

with the interests of the people I'm here to represent. - Do you have an ultimate goal? - Oh, I don't have an ultimate goal. I don't try to orchestrate the future. I just move along from day to day and give whatever I'm doing, all that I can bring to it. - Thank you, Ms. Jordan. - Okay. Washington Straight Talk. From Washington, NPACT has brought you Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Jordan with NPACT correspondent Paul Duke. Next week on Washington Straight Talk, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger is interviewed by Henry Truitt, Washington correspondent for the Baltimore Sun. [music] Production funding provided by public television stations,

the Ford Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This has been a production of NPACT, a division of GW ETA. [PBS synthesized tones]