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| Program Number | S0203 |
| Title | Is Our Military Defense Adequate? |
| PBS Number | 515 |
| Moderator | - |
| Host | Buckley, William F. (William Frank), 1925-2008. |
| Guest(s) | 1) Schlesinger, James R. - Secretary of Defense 2) Kuttner, Robert. - Panelist. Senate investigator 3) Angle, Martha. - Panelist. Washington Star 4) Donatelli, Frank. - Panelist. Young Americans for Freedom |
| Taped on | Oct 9, 1975 (Washington, DC) |
| Broadcast Date | Oct 18, 1975 |
| Duration | 60 minutes (or hh:mm:ss) |
| YouTube Video |
no YouTube clip available |
| Summary | Mr. Schlesinger had served in a variety of positions in the Nixon Administration, remaining in the last of those after Mr. Nixon succumbed to Watergate. The discussion here begins with South Vietnam, which had just fallen to the Communists, and moves through the Persian Gulf and Soviet power generally, to broader questions such as the difficulties of foreign policy in a democracy. JS: "I believe that if all of us speak out on these issues, the American public will respond, and politicians are quite sensitive to the attitudes of the public." WFB: "Well, I think they'd be awfully sensitive if we lost Israel or something. But are they sensitive in advance of the situation that is militarily intolerable? ..." JS: "No." WFB: "In the Persian Gulf area, do you think that we are as strong as we ought to be?" JS: "I think that we have the capacity to match the Soviet buildup in that area and to balance the power that they introduce into that area ... What I'm concerned about are the trends ..., not the situation at the present time." WFB: "And I guess your point is that however spooky those trends appear to be, we have not reached irreversibility and won't?" JS: "Quite right. And you raised the question about the way democracies perform in this regard. If I recall the remarks of Stanley Baldwin back there in the 1930s, democracies will never face the truth until they are right up against it. It may be too late then." |
| Subject Heading(s) | United States -- Military policy. United States -- Defenses. |
| Related Document(s) | Type(s): News releases, photos, negatives Type(s): Transcript Type(s): News release Type(s): Transcript |
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| Transcript | Download transcript (80040_s0203_trans.pdf) |
