From the Easy Chair

Implications of the Korean Airline Massacre

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 179-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161G13

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161G13, Implications of the Korean Airline Massacre, from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[ Rushdoony ] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 58, October the 14th, 1983. We are still at the Beverly Garland and our final interview here is with Jeffrey Saint John, author, columnist, TV and Radio commentator and a friend of ours. Otto and have known Jeffrey for some time.

Jeffrey is at work now on a book about Larry Mc Donald. The shooting of the 007 is, as far as the politicians are concerned, past history. But I think that is a tragic mistake. When we sin, we prefer to regard it as past history within a matter of hours. But God doesn't see things like that as past history, but consequences continue until we right the wrong we have done.

Let me begin, Jeffrey, by saying that I was in Arizona when this occurred and then left almost immediately and the day or the day after came back to California, went to Atlanta where I was to have shared a platform with Larry Mc Donald, to Washington, DC and to Seattle. And everywhere I heard a common reaction from people. They were disgusted with the reaction of President Reagan and the administration. They were disgusted with the reaction of the Democratic candidates. They were ashamed.

I don’t think that is going to disappear. I think we as a people are increasingly embarrassed by our federal government and what it is doing. To me that is a healthy reaction. People are beginning to recognize that there is a loss of will to live, of a will to fight, of a will to make a moral stand in this country.

[ Saint John ] You know, I quite agree with you, Rush, because what happened in this situation, it was not something that the Russians have gotten away with in terms of stealing our technology or in terms of throwing a spy out or these other obscenities which is characterized the Soviet regime over, say, just in terms since 1945. This was something that every person no matter how limited his knowledge of foreign affairs understood not only instinctually, but understood...a and his reaction was honest moral outrage, not only at the incident but the progressive almost cowardice which permeated the... the reaction just the reaction of our state department alone.

Senator Oren Hatch in an interview that I have done for the book comes right out and says that the thing that he is convinced is that if the Japanese, Senator Hatch told me, had not made as large a stink in Tokyo, he is convinced that the Reagan administration and the state department would have swept this issue under the rug. And I am afraid that given the state department’s reaction in the almost mass assassination of the South Korean cabinet in Burma not a month after 007 tends to confirm that. They insisted that the... that the South Koreans who have had half of their government blown away not overreact, not take retaliatory measures against... against the... the South Korean government. I find it really... I think that Reagan privately one of Jean Kirkpatrick our U N ambassador’s aids said to me in doing working on this U N end of the story said to me, “We have... the administration does not understand that it has missed the bus.” It has failed to perceive the anger and indignation of the American people and a lot of the world, as a result of this. And he said, “You know why I say that?” When deputy U N ambassador Lichtenstein said, “I will be at the dock waving you good bye if you want top get the U N out.” And the reaction was universally in supported.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Saint John ] And then, of course, the administration backed that. So you are quite right... right, Rush. What we are dealing with is we are dealing with institutionalized intellectual dishonesty and cowardice and it is manifest itself through this 007 incident. And I don’t think they... they... they... they perceive that.

[ Rushdoony ] No. They have so isolated themselves from reality that they are unable to see that there is finally moral indignation developing among the American people. Very tardily, but it is.

[ Saint John ] Yeah and it... and it is... and it is ironic in one way that it took the shooting down and the murder of 269 people to focus so sharply this kind of ... of moral anger and indignation. And more ironic that Larry Mc Donald had to perish before that indignation could be focused.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes, because they shot down other planes before.

[ Saint John ] As a matter of fact, my research thus far has revealed that we have not .... the Russians since the end of World War II have shot down in terms of reconnaissance planes and civilian aircraft something in the neighborhood of 66 aircraft. We have lost 81 airmen in these incidents who have been killed. We don’t know how many have been captured and never returned. And which, of course, illustrates a continuity of cruelty and barbarism which is always, of course, characterized the Soviet regime.

[ Rushdoony ] Jeffrey, you have had an opportunity to talk with one of the many outstanding people who are here for our arts and media conference. The reverent Joseph Morecraft and Joe no doubt told you about the fact that Larry Mc Donald had become not only a Christian, but a Christian Reconstructionist. At his last speech concluded with a statement that we had to work with all our heart, mind and being for the kingdom of God until either we triumphed or we were buried. Moreover, as you know, Larry Mc Donald was building up an international network of information on what was transpiring and what the Soviet was doing which constituted a major threat to the Soviet Union. He was our fearless voice on these issues in Congress. So we lost a dedicated Christian and an international leader.

[ Saint John ] I... I quite agree with you, but the ... the growth of his perception as to the need for a theological foundation on which to rest any long futuristic Reconstruction movement, you could see it. I have had the opportunity in doing the research on the book to look at this earlier written articles and speeches. I spent three days in his office going through his files and taking out selective samples from the time he came to Congress until his death. And you clearly see a pattern developing in which there is more and more an emphasis on the spiritual, the necessity of a ... of a foundation of based on ... on... on biblical... I mean, you see it just in terms of this... of the... of the enormous increase in his quotations, excuse me, in terms of his quoting from Scripture.

And it is rather remarkable just to ... it is almost a line and a trajectory that... that you see taking place in his writings of this period of 75 to 83. And Robert Stoddard who is a member of the council of the {?} society said to me at Hot Springs, Virginia among ... after 007 went down that he always... we always agreed among ourselves, he said, meaning the society, that no man was really indispensible. But he says, “Now that Larry Mc Donald is gone, I may have to revise my opinion about that.”

But this incident has historical significance because it is like a star shell shot into the air and illuminates a larger landscape. And it provides, I mean, it tells us more about so-called Christian West...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Saint John ] Than it does the barbarian East.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Saint John ] Because as you have pointed out on several occasions, Otto, we are basically dealing with an oriental despotism. We are dealing with a bunch of barbarians and not to recognize that of this fundamental difference is... is to make several very fundamental errors.

[ Scott ] Well, look at how long this has been going on. It has been going on since long before World War II. I remember I believe it was I the 50s. I am not sure now. There was an American consul in Africa that was forced to eat the American flag. Nothing was done about that. I recall to talking to the Southeast Asia desk about the murder of American citizens in Indonesia by Communist groups guerillas under the Sicarno administration. And I was told that ...

[ Saint John ] This was in the 60s.

[ Scott ] That was in then 60s. And I was told then that the American rubber companies in Indonesia should have shared ownership with the Indonesians.

Well, Goodyear bought its properties in Indonesia in 1918 when the Dutch had the area under colonial rule and when Indonesians were barred by Dutch law from owning land. So there was no way Goodyear could have shared that ownership.

We could go on with all the different things that all the different probes that the Soviets have used trying to find a nerve in the American body politic. And it is almost like watching somebody putting needles in a cadaver. Nothing, nothing has come... there has been no manly reaction. There is no thought of doing anything not injure the Soviets anywhere in the world. The only sanctions that we are.... were even suggested by right wing fanatics, of course, was in cancelling the wheat sale, in cancelling...

[ Saint John ] And... and... and it was...

[ Scott ] And ... and doing things like that.

[ Saint John ] Yeah, it was the Democrats, as a matter of fact were more insistent in reading the transcript of the Senate debates. It was highly significant that the most vociferous advocates of a grain embargo were not the Reagan Republicans, but Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the former majority leader, Senator Patrick Moynihan, the Democrat of New York and a whole host of people.

Here is something else interesting that I found out. Did you know that John Glenn and Mr. Cranston who are seeking the presidential nomination of their own party of the presidency of the United States did not vote of the resolution condemning the shooting down of 007.

[ Scott ] They didn't want to...

[ Saint John ] ... in the Senate of the United States.

[ Scott ] They didn't want to give offense.

[ Saint John ] I don’t know. I haven’t gotten around to that. I am... I am... I have them on my list in terms of calling their AAs and finding out why they were absent. Glenn was there, but did not vote. And there were several people who ... who in the house who didn’t ... were present, but did not vote. And so I don’t want to indicate to any of you that... that it think the Reagan administration is involved. It is Congress, Congress, the House and the Senate. It is extraordinary. The first time an elected leader... political... and elected official of the United States government is murdered by the foreign power in our history and there is no attempt to in any way redress this terrible wrong. Moreover, Scoop Jackson, Senator Henry Jackson of Washington was eulogized and in some ways properly so, more consistently and more loudly and longly than ... than... than Larry Mc Donald.

And... and so as you see the aspects of the double oh... 007 story had its theological aspects. It has its moral aspects. It has its political aspects. The dimensions of this are so broad that it has even astonished me now that I have gotten deeply into the writing the book.

For example, there is a significant corollary of events to be drawn between November of 1982 when Yuri Andropov came to power. You can trace a... ascendant line of activity in the far Pacific on the part of the Soviet naval power, the build up at Sakhalin Island, the ... a whole series of events took place which hardly leaned any objective person looking at the evidence to conclude that this as some kind of idle accident, that this was some aberration of the military mentality in Moscow. It was part, I think... and I would like to ... I would like your views, too. It seems to me that it was an act of terrorism, calculated and cold bloodedly so.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. I believe it was an act of terrorism. I also believe that it was a test, a moral test of the United States to see how much will to resist there would be on the part of the United States. I think they found us surprisingly soft. I think they may have been surprised at the popular reaction and the fact that airline pilots the world over reacted very negatively and boycotted for periods of times flights to the Soviet Union, but I think what they learned was what they were trying to find out, how much resistance is there in the United States. And what they found out was that we are about as soft as Otto told me at the time as melted butter.

[ Scott ] Well, we have some very curious things happening. The pope is shot and the American Catholic church barely turned over in bed.

[ Saint John ] As a matter of fact, cardinal Kroll is... there was a fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal, Otto, quoting the various cardinals, {?} before... before he passed on. Several of the Catholics and they all were of a unanimous view that, yes, the Soviet Union is atheistic. Yes, he is bent on world domination. Yes, it is probable that they... Andropov was involved in giving the order to try to murder a Polish pope because he feared quite clearly that the Polish Catholic Church might not only be in rebellion against the all powerful Polish state, but that it would spread to the eastern rite church in the Ukraine and in Lithuania and in Czechoslovakia. And all of them, Madares, Kroll and all of them said, “But we must negotiate with the Communists because of nuclear war.”

That in itself is another aspect, is it not, you as a theologian...

[ Rushdoony ] yes.

[ Saint John ] ... would probably be better than I to... to... but it seemed to me as a lay man and as a ... as... as a Catholic educated by the Jesuits, I was astonished that ... that men who are... who are princes of the church would... would react to the intent on the life of ... of... of the holy father in such... in such a way which was almost typically classic politician.

[ Scott ] Well, the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches have been very silent about the Christians of Poland or any other country. Are they not?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] So why if they won’t do anything about the persecution of millions would they do something about a leader who is leading them in the direction that is not, in their view, very liberal.

[ Saint John ] We... Go ahead... No, I am just...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. I agree emphatically. The fault begins in the churches. The churches are derelict. They are producing not Christians, but spineless liberals. As a result, it is not any surprise that this country and the countries of western Europe are in the moral decline they are in. Freedom is no longer prized, it is only security. We heard R. E. Mc Master say that the average American spends 15 years in front of the television set in his lifetime.

[ Saint John ] Well, six hours a day.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Saint John ] Or... or at least four hours a day.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. And you have to add to that all the time he spends on weekends, especially during the sports season. And it is quite a bit. And yet he finds it very difficult to spend an hour a year in the study of the faith, in reading the Bible or reading something that is serious Christian literature. He can’t do it. He doesn’t have time for it is his excuse.

Well, it produces a flabby church. It produces a church that because it has compromised itself spiritually is ready to compromise on every issue.

[ Saint John ] But what do you make of the... that ... all right, so the church didn’t get upset, Rush and Otto, about the ... the attempt on the... on the life of the pope. He survived miraculously by... by the grace of God. But at the same time you haven’t... you have a... the murder of 269 people. Everybody gets indignant, gets outraged, I mean, the leadership of the churches and just condemns it and then they go back to business as usual. How do you explain that?

[ Scott ] Well, I think there is a certain paralysis of the imagination. They don't believe that their lives are in jeopardy. It is very hard for the average American living in this great garden to understand that what is at issue is whether or not he is going to live. We are going to be killed off unless we can stand up. The churches don’t believe that. I really sometimes think that the average American doesn’t believe that the Atlantic Ocean lapping on the shores of New York also laps on the shores of France. Or the Pacific doesn’t reach to Japan, that these are only names and legends, that such lands don’t actually exist. What we are talking about here is great peril. The Soviet Union can shoot down anyone it chooses. It has conveyed that message very clearly, not only regarding the 007, but on many different ways and many different times. There was an Englishman recently imprisoned in Moscow and the... one of the advisors I understand said to him, Andropov, he is a British subject, you know. And Andropov said, “I don’t think the queen is going to go to war for Mr. Cohen, or whatever his name was.”

So a wave of fear went across the United States. A lot of this indignation that was expressed by the officialdom was actually, I think, hypocritical. I listened to Mr. Reagan. At the end of his talk that particular radio talk I turned it off before the commentators intervened with the feeling that we were going to lose. First time in my life. I don’t think Congress was angry over Mc Donald. It removed an irritant as far as the average congressman was concerned. The American Congress agreed with the Soviets that he should have been put away. And officialdom was not indignant. It was only the people.

Now this isn’t unprecedented. Britain would never have gone to war with Germany over Poland if it hadn't been forced to by the British people. The British people had had enough of Hitler.

[ Saint John ] And that irritant called Winston Churchill {?}.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, I... don’t include Anthony Eaton.

[ Saint John ] Well, he was ... he was very much on Churchill’s side. He resigned, if you will recall, from the ... from the Chamberlain cabinet all over the issue, but anyway...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Well, one of our speakers in this conference, Jeffrey, is Senator Bill Richardson.

[ Saint John ] From California.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Saint John ] State representative from California, right.

[ Rushdoony ] And Bill has made the point more than once that in terms of practical politics anything back of three months before an election doesn't count, because the voters have a short memory. Therefore, politicians are concerned with what happens three months before an election.

Now we are going to see—and I believe Bill is right there—if a memory develops in the American people with this episode and I think that is going to tell us a great deal about what happens in the future. If there is definitely a change in the American character, if there a restoration of a Christian character underway at Christmas time and new years, Americans still will be angry over the 007 and over the murder of Larry Mc Donald. They will still hold it against both parties that they were so contemptible in their reaction.

[ Scott ] Now you have made a very important point. At the time that England finally ... England’s government, the Chamberlain... Churchill... Chamberlain government is the one that went to war against Germany. It was forced to by public opinion.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And then the English politicians, knowing that all of them were equally guilty agreed amongst themselves that there would be no further elections in Great Britain until the war was over. All elections were suspended and they made a coalition government.

[ Saint John ] Right.

[ Scott ] Now we have a calendar sort of government. We can’t postpone an election or, at least, we never have under the guise of a national emergency, but we could if we wanted to. And we have, in effect, a coalition government. Our presidents all say the same thing. They all promise the same things and they all break their promises as soon as they get into office. We have been repeatedly betrayed by the men we have elected to the presidency for a long time, for a whole generation. How long will this government endure when it has made itself distasteful to the people?

Why should it endure? It is dishonorable. It is cowardly. It is not protecting us either at home or abroad. We are not safe in our homes and we are not safe in the air. How long will this go on? How long with is conspiracy of silence last?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. We see a growing softness manifested. The question is: When will the revulsion come?

A couple of episodes in the past week or so, I think, are very revealing of what is happening at the top. We had the FAA return to active duty recertified a pilot who had a sex change operation.

[ Scott ] Klinger?

[ Rushdoony ] This pilot decided to become a woman, returned to duty after the operation and the other pilots objected saying that that pilot had expressed suicidal wishes prior to the operation and decided to try the sex change as an alternative to suicide. The FAA recertified him and ordered Eastern Airlines to rehire him. So don’t fly Eastern, Jeffrey. We want you around. And the psychiatrist who examined he, she or it, said they would be happy to fly with this person.

The other case is a boy scout scout master who was discharged because he was a homosexual and the courts have just said that that is discrimination.

Now a question is: Will the people take much more of that? If they do we deserve whatever we get.

[ Scott ] Well, it is not possible for a government to frustrate the majority of the people of any nation and stay in office as long as there is a democratic system. One of our problems, of course, is that the parties nominate the candidates and the parties a not responsive to the people. The little girls who run the party, old ladies in tennis shoes or whoever they are make their own selections. And we choose from their selections. But historically no government of this sort has ever survived. The French Third Republic led France to collapse before Germany. The government of Holland collapsed in World War I. The government of Belgium collapsed. The government of Norway collapsed. The government of Sweden collapsed.

We have seen in our time or I have seen in my time, at least, all these various people collapse before the enemy and I have seen the myth that everyone will automatically try to defend there homeland demolished. It is a myth. Men cannot fight without a leader. They can’t fight without leaders. There is no such thing as an army with no generals or officers. There is only a mob. So if we have a government that is not leading then we are helpless before the world.

[ Saint John ] It was very interesting in the research in... in a lot... in a lot of the ... I think this is going to be the value of the book which is why I have written it is that I have made it a very factual presentation of things that preceded 007 and things that followed 007, both domestically and particularly internationally. Excuse me. And it is interesting to note that and people are vaguely aware of this, but I have focused it in for them. Did you know, Rush and Otto, that we signed a grain deal with the Soviet Union and lifted the embargo on pipeline technology six days before they shot that aircraft down?

[ Scott ] No.

[ Saint John ] You didn’t... even you. I am surprised, Otto.

[ Scott ] No, I did not.

[ Saint John ] ... because you are very well... you are well... you keep up on things like that. The exact time it was on the 24. And, you know, the reason I have raised this point is not only what I hope is the value of the book of focusing in and the... the book as thus far as I have done it is studded with these kinds of things. Most important is that people remember that jiggling Jimmy with the chicklet smile, i.e. President James Earl Carter, Junior, did, despite his despicable behavior in the faceoff the Ayatollah Khomeini did cut off grain to the Soviet Union when they went into Afghanistan. He did take action in terms of cancelling America’s participation in the Olympics. He did try and send the desert force out there to retain the hostages and failed. And yet Ronald Reagan, in contrast, did nothing. And this is an extraordinary illumination of the lack of leadership that, as you talk about. And I think that while people generally won’t focus in on things that I have just mentioned that are going to be in the book, I think the contrast has been drawn, because, you know, I have heard people time and time again, even on the Metro subway in Washington when this first took place. They said, “Well, at least Carter did something. Reagan has done nothing.”

[ Rushdoony ] There is a statement I heard a few years ago, Jeffrey, that I though was all too true. It is a rather blunt statement and, perhaps, not the best to repeat, but I am afraid it was all too true and I feel ashamed when ever I think of it. I haven't been able to forget it. Do you remember a few years ago when you had just come back from Nicaragua you interviewed Otto and myself and two or three others...

[ Saint John ] Yeah, I remember it very vividly.

[ Rushdoony ] ...one Sunday afternoon, I think it was.

[ Saint John ] Yes it...

[ Rushdoony ] ... at a radio station or TV station...

[ Saint John ] Right.

[ Rushdoony ] ...in...

[ Saint John ] In San Diego.

[ Rushdoony ] San Diego.

[ Saint John ] Right, right. Yeah.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, there were several of us there, Dr. Philip Powell the distinguished historian of Latin America who is here at this conference. You probably ...

[ Saint John ] I saw him, yeah.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. And there was another man there, a Latin and I think you had Otto inside to interview him. And I asked him, “Tell me plainly. How do the Latin Americans regard the United States?” And he looked a little embarrassed and didn't say anything and I said, “No, go ahead and tell me. What is their reaction?”

And he said, “They have a saying. It is this. The North Americans. The have no balls.”

Now if Latin Americans feel that way the Soviet Union does.

[ Saint John ] Sure.

[ Rushdoony ] The whole world does. And it tells us that we have a grim future because they are going to challenge us and push us because that is the conclusion they have come to. And that is the conclusion they have got to come to in view of the Reagan administration’s reaction to the shooting down of the 007 and Larry Mc Donald.

[ Scott ] Well, don't forget this isn’t the end.

[ Saint John ] Well...

[ Rushdoony ] No.

[ Scott ] It is not even the beginning of the end.

[ Rushdoony ] No.

[ Scott ] We are going to continue. Now they have tried to kill the pope and they may kill him yet.

[ Saint John ] Yes.

[ Scott ] They did shoot down that plane. Mr. Reagan was shot and he may be shot again.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And eventually we are going to reach the stage of the Italians with the knee capping and the killing of Aldo Morro and other leaders will take place here.

[ Saint John ] Why hasn’t it happened to us for anything?

[ Scott ] Well, they are holding off. They don't want to wake us up. They know that all you have to do to put the Americans to sleep is to say a couple of kind words to a visiting congressman and everybody turns around and snores away. So there is no point in waking us up until all the links of the chain have been connected.

[ Saint John ] They are trying to put the infrastructure in the place. That is for sure. When I was in Mexico ... as a matter of fact, you took me to the airport in Tijuana once.

[ Scott ] That is right. Yes.

[ Saint John ] When I went down to Mexico I found out some very revealing things. This was, what two or three years ago, was it?

[ Scott ] Two or three years ago.

[ Saint John ] Yeah, two or three years ago. Otto took me to the Tijuana airport from San Diego to take a flight to Mexico City. And it as very significant. I got down there and I talked to sever people. And I was told in unequivocal terms by someone who is very well connected down there who was a guest of the person that I was visiting and who is in the Mexican government that they are already putting an infrastructure along the border towns from San Diego in the West to Brownsville in the East that these are... they have... they have organized and I said, “Well, why are they doing this?” Remember this was two or three years ago. He says, “It is very simple.” They are... have a view of ... of the long view. And they are putting the subversive infrastructure... these infrastructure organizations in place for the beginning as the support system for an internal terrorism campaign in the United States. And he even went further, which I relayed to a friend of mine who is the president of a grocery ... one of the largest grocery manufacturing associations, getting down to, you know, practical things of the effect.

He says, “You gringos, you gringos worry about our oil. You know what we are worried about?”

I said, “What?”

He says, “We are worried about the 50 percent of your produce is produced in an area which may very well become a target of an internal terrorism campaign. How are you going to feed a population and export if you have terrorism destroying the productive .... the ... preventing people from harvesting... harvesting what is 50 percent of the produce that feeds your nation and exports.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. If you can shut down California agriculture within a week you will have rationing across the United States. Very few people appreciate how large a percentage of the food on their table comes from California. They simply have no awareness of that fact.

[ Saint John ] And the president of this company of this association who is a long time personal friend of mine, when I told him that and he knows ... he knows my track record. He says, “Jeffrey, that is not possible.” Apropos of your comment about this divorcing from reality. Here is a man of considerable sophistication, very much shares our both very strong conservative Roman Catholic, even he would not grasp the clear prospect that this was possible. And he said, “Oh, Jeffrey, I don't really think so. Do you really think so?”

I said... I said... what do you want to happen? Does somebody have to blow away your next door neighbor or one of your children before you will believe that this is the devil incarnate? You know, I would like to ask you this as a theological proposition. Is it that we have lost the belief in the devil? I wonder if that is the problem.

[ Scott ] Don’t believe in evil.

[ Saint John ] In evil of the devil.

[ Scott ] Evil. Evil.

[ Rushdoony ] We have lost the belief in God and therefore we have lost belief in good and evil.

[ Saint John ] Yeah.

[ Rushdoony ] We live in a world where morality is a myth.

[ Saint John ] Well, the United States has not been involved in a major war for over 100 years. It was in World War I. It was in World War II, but it came in at the end. Its contributions were material more then they were military, although I don't want to underrate the courage of our soldiers. And we have not been inundated since the war of 1812 and then it was only in a few places. But the average American has led the life of a protected girl.

I on the... I understand right now that they... they don’t even allow boys to fight anymore in school. The nurses come running and they smother them with pillows. I mean, I don’t know how they grow up. So what are we going to fight with?

[ Saint John ] Powder puffs.

[ Scott ] Yes. We are going to talk to the Russians out of this. Now since we have not experienced a war we don’t believe, for instance, that Hitler said, “All right, if we do manage to invade Britain,” which he didn't think he would be able to do, said, “Well, we will make certain plans.” Somebody said, “What will you do?” He said, “Well, the first thing we will do is that we will export to the continent all the men in Britain between the ages of 16 and 60. That would be how he would keep them under control.

And we are talking about an enemy in terms of the Soviet Union which has wiped out several peoples completely including even the cattle, one group who represented Lenin’s grandparents, completely wiped out. We are talking about a government that has murdered in its own country 50 million people and would have no more compunction whatever setting up concentration camps from one end of the United States to the other. I have never been able to find out what happened to the Russian intellectuals after the revolution. Those that didn’t escape vanished into the grave. And we are talking about an American population that doesn't believe this. Instead of that they believe that nuclear war is going to come and we are all going not be vaporized. They are being fed scare propaganda. Our own government is feeding them fear propaganda. Our... our media stutters if anyone criticizes the Soviet aloud. So we are... we are talking about a nation that is gradually being petrified by fear, a group of... a generation of young men who have been taught never to fight with their fists. If they have to fight they will take a knife or gun which is a cowardly sort of thing to do.

[ Saint John ] Go mug old ladies.

[ Scott ] And so forth. But we are really... now don’t misunderstand me. I think that if we had a different sort of leadership this country could turn around terribly quickly. We have enormous technical ability. We have a very highly educated in this specific practical way, let’s say, as vocational education. Vocationally, we are tremendously well equipped people. We... if we had to put up a resistance we could give the Afghanistan chapter and verse because we are inventive and innovative in practical and immediate and basic material terms. Our problem is we can’t tell a talent when it comes along.

[ Saint John ] The... Solzhenitsyn among the many thing that he said is that ... his criticism of the West is that we lack moral and civic courage. And I am wondering what relationship that has... I think you said to me at one of these meetings here in Sacramento, Otto, there are more courageous Christians in the Soviet Union than there are in the United States.

[ Scott ] Oh, certainly. They, at least they know what Christianity is. They do... they do believe in the devil because they know him. And they do believe in God. And that book Under the Rubble, remember?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Superb.

[ Scott ] The only people the KGB could not break were those who had a spiritual faith.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Everyone else was breakable. So when Larry Mc Donald converted, the Soviets knew what that meant.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. The prophet Isaiah tells us that when a people abandon God, God abandons them and gives them women and children to rule over them. Well, we have had a child centered culture. We have a feminist culture. And I heard a Southern Baptist preacher a few year ago when Carter was president declare that the prophecy was fulfilled in that Carter was the child who was a president.

[ Saint John ] You know, what... what... what particularly disturbs me about... about the 007 incident in terms of the... of the aftermath of it was the gratuitous one sided good will which from the very beginning was extended by the news media to the Soviet Union. In fact, that even extended to when the South Korean cabinet was almost wiped out in Rangoon, Burma not a month afterward.

[ Scott ] How do they excuse the Soviets of that?

[ Saint John ] They merely said that it... it probably wasn’t the North Koreans, but was some Burmese sect that was involved in it.

[ Scott ] Some group of eccentrics.

[ Saint John ] Eccentrics... no, no, not eccentrics, but just dissidents.

[ Scott ] Oh, dissidents.

[ Saint John ] And finally they had to admit... then the state department changed the line, because it is apparent that we now know that when they finally caught guys who were Koreans, you see, before the... before the Burmese police grabbed a... a group of Koreans that line was manifest. Now it switched. When they were Koreans they don't know whether they are North or South Koreans, it is now shifted to, well, the South Koreans mustn’t overreact because if they do, why, you know, it might be very unpleasant. And ...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Well, when the 007 was shot down before there was any official word of what had happened the news media was telling us that it had a strayed into Soviet airspace. No one had made a statement about what had happened. No one knew. But they had already told us what the Soviet excuse was going to be and stated it as a fact.

[ Saint John ] And the Soviet Union did not provide that excuse for at least 120 hours of silence.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Saint John ] It was not until the news media broadcast the line that somehow it was an aberration, a mistake that the Soviets finally came up with their own... with the propaganda line that had already been permeating in the West.

[ Scott ] It wasn’t a mistake. They said their sacred borders had been penetrated and they don’t permit that.

[ Saint John ] And...

[ Scott ] And they don’t permit you to penetrated the borders and get out either. And so the borders are sacred both ways, coming in and going out.

[ Saint John ] But the... the thing that... that is most striking about this entire incident and I am... I have this gut feeling and, as you both know, I have been doing this a long, long time. And I think I am a fairly realistic guy when it comes to public opinion and politics. This ... this has a... a quality of silence about it, a seething silence. And I see ... I see it... every time I bring this subject up... for example, in the supermarket in Washington which is run by a group of... of very entrepreneur minded blacks they ask me. They said, “You are... you are in the news media. Why is... why is it that the media is doing what it is doing?” And these guys are not really into politics and ... and foreign affairs. But they say, “Why doesn’t the media make the president try and do something about this situation?”

He says, “It is shocking that they... that they murdered those ... those SOBs murdered innocent people and we are not going to do anything. He says, “What the hell is going on?”

[ Scott ] Well, you can’t forget what Eldridge Cleaver said. He said, “I can’t understand why President Reagan doesn't do whatever he wants to. He is the president and he is an old man.”

[ Saint John ] That is true.

[ Scott ] And he is right. What can he lose?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Saint John ] And you have got to remember something. Reagan came in. You see Lyndon Johnson, Richard Milhous Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Rudolf, Gerald Rudolph Ford and James Earl Carter, Junior all suffered from the same down fall. Their promises and their performances created a great chasm that caught up with them and they fell into that chasm. Reagan thinks he is going not get reelected. And I will say on October 14th, 1983 that if he runs he is going to get beaten, simply not because of just 007. That was merely ... Your reaction, Otto was very significant, I think, because you were filled with loathing and disgust for the first time.

[ Scott ] I was actually for the first time I felt if this is our leadership, we are lost.

[ Saint John ] Not only that, I think, exists, but it think, but I think also there is something else. Reagan, more than any political personality in the last two decades has been Mr. Clean, Mr. Hard line. I mean the disparity between his promises which brought him to power and his performances in power are so enormous and so wide that ... that he doesn't know that he is not going to get a second term. And I know for a fact that there are people and it is not just the new right. But I know people who are basically are just not going to vote for Reagan.

[ Rushdoony ] Before this episode took place I heard Mort Saul being interviewed on television and he was discussing the inadequacy of the Democratic...

[ Saint John ] {?} probably.

[ Rushdoony ] ... no the Democratic candidates. And he thought they were so miserable that he questioned whether any of them could be elected if they ran unopposed. I think Reagan now is handing the victory to them. This is one election where if we had an alterative none of the above...

[ Saint John ] Right, right.

[ Rushdoony ] Most people would mark that.

[ Saint John ] Well, the...

[ Scott ] You know what a terrible condition it leaves the people in.

[ Saint John ] But it ... it does... it does put forth a proposition that ... that I think I have heard you express, Rush, on several occasions and that Ronald Reagan, I think you said to me when I did an interview with some time ago has proven that there is no salvation in politics. Is... or am I...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Saint John ] Yeah, it... that he has proven the bankruptcy of the idea that ... that salvation can come through politics.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Saint John ] And he illustrates most forcefully the need for a... a ... a Reconstruction based on Christian principles, because you don’t have... you don’t even... I mean these men go to prayer breakfasts and everything and it is basically a sham.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Saint John ] I am not... as you know, I am not a... I am not a devotee of Kierkegaard, but I think it as Kierkegaard who once said that a society is in trouble when the institutions... when people give lip service to institutions but no longer believe in them. And I think we are in that very situation.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Saint John ] ... that Kierkegaard described. He says that the decay can be seen when that kind of lip service to institutions that people no longer believe in.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, the percentage of voters voting in any presidential election has declined steadily since Woodrow Wilson because that was the beginning of the turn around. And people have lost faith progressively in the political order.

Now I do feel that one of the most significant things in recent years has been the reaction to Jerry Falwell. Jerry Falwell represents a very mild version of Fundamentalism. He has been ready to have his college there in Virginia certified which your hard nosed Fundamentalists oppose and rightly so. So what we have in Jerry Falwell is really a very mild man who is very mildly conservative. But the fact that he has said that we need to have a moral expression in the political order, and because he has organized people to vote, to register and vote, the hue and cry raised against Falwell is a tremendous thin.

[ Saint John ] And so hypocritical.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. It is revelatory of the fact that they are afraid precisely of what Jerry Falwell is a small indication of, the changing moral climate, the changing theological climate in this country. People are beginning to think as Christians again. Now that is our hope. If we are going to have a turn around, that is where it is going not come. And it is going not be only when the voters put the fear of God into the politicians and by the fear of God I mean theologically the fear of God to make them realize we believe there is a God. We want a moral order and we won’t settle for anything less. Then you will have a change.

I think one indication of that is we have reached a state in history where there will be one term presidencies.

[ Saint John ] Oh we have had... that has been the last four.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Well, we have... we have head a series of weak presidents as this same sort of thing happened before the Civil War.

[ Saint John ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] And this is one of the things that led to the civil war was the collapse of the political leadership in the United States. We are watching the collapse of our political leaders.

[ Saint John ] And, you know it is very... it is... I am glad you brought that up, Otto, because the people had lost faith that they could resolve their... their... their... their problems and disputes through the political system. They gave up on it and they had every reason to abjure doing anything through the political system because of the kind of leadership they had. That was just abominable and abysmal.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, there is an excellent book just published, Paul Johnson’s Modern Times.

[ Saint John ] Author of The Enemies of Society.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Saint John ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] yes.

[ Saint John ] Yeah. He is a brilliant guy.

[ Rushdoony ] A history of the world from 1920 to 1980 and he has a chapter towards the end on American’s will to suicide.

[ Saint John ] Ah.

[ Rushdoony ] Which begins with Kennedy being elected to the present, America’s will to suicide. Now the question is: Will we change that to a will to live?

We are only going to do that on a Christian basis.

Well, our time is just about up. Is there a last word that either of you have to offer?

[ Saint John ] It is good to see you two radical rough necks again.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, you...

[ Saint John ] I know... I know... I know your... your... your supporters wouldn’t to think it, but I have known you guys so long I guess I can say that to you.

And then your conference was superb.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, thank you.

[ Saint John ] It really is. Yeah. It really... you know, I have to .... as a reporter I have had to attend all kinds of conferences and you have been... do have these conferences with you mind out of focus. This is the first time in years that my mind has been completely focused and riveted, particularly Otto Scott’s talk on the artist as propagandist.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes, that was excellent.

[ Saint John ] Yeah.

[ Rushdoony ] Excellent.

[ Scott ] Well, I will have to pay you for that.

[ Saint John ] Oh. I will bring my shoe shine kit the next time, Otto.

[ Scott ] There you go. Ask anything. You can have it.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, thank you very much, Jeffrey.

[ Saint John ] Thank you and I...

[ Rushdoony ] We will look forward to seeing you again out here one of these days and maybe the next time you can come up to Calabaras County and see how we live there in God’s country.

[ Saint John ] I am going to... I am going to make a point of doing that. Scott is brow beating me to come up there and see him.

[ Rushdoony ] Oh, we get...

[ Saint John ] See his California.

[ Rushdoony ] He has a most lovely place. A beautiful setting.

[ Saint John ] Yeah.

[ Rushdoony ] An ideal library. Well, thank you all for listening. It has been good to be with you again and we will be with you again in another two weeks.

[ Voice ] Authorized by the Chalcedon Foundation. Archived by the Mount Olive Tape Library. Digitized by ChristRules.com.