Enrique Cerna Interviews Helen Thomas

Enrique Cerna Interviews Helen Thomas

This is a transcript of an interview with Helen Thomas on Conversations at KCTS 9 which aired on August 7, 2009.

Enrique Cerna: Helen Thomas, welcome to “Conversations.” Thank you for being with us, we appreciate it.

Helen Thomas: Thank you.

EC: Congratulations on your honor from Washington State University, along with Bob Schieffer, receiving and Edward R. Murrow award. How do you feel about that?

HT: Thrilled and humbled. I don’t really think I can ever measure up to such a great journalist.

EC: Now Bob Schieffer told us an interesting story about you when he first came to Washington with the CBS Bureau. He said that you helped him out a lot and in fact there used to be a service that Richard Nixon held on Sundays and you kind of led him around with all of that and said, “Go ask questions! Go ask questions!”

HT: [laughs] That’s right. He did hold religious services, which is to me, absolutely illegal, in my opinion—unconstitutional, but nevertheless the VIPs were there and I thought: you get ‘em while they’re hot.

EC: What Bob Schieffer said is that he didn’t even know what to ask, but you said to go ask him about the advisers. Did you look at every opportunity you had to ask a president, vice-president, or anybody else a question you might as well take that opportunity?

HT: Absolutely. You have one time in the barrel; you may as well ask them. They were very unhappy many times because they would say, “Are you are asking me? Here?” and so forth. When they come out of church I’d grab them. There they are.

EC: Did you always want to be a journalist?

HT: From the time of high school, I was a sophomore, and I saw my byline in the high school paper and I was hooked for life. My ego swelled.

EC:[laughs] Where was high school at?

HT: In Detroit, Michigan.

EC: What was it about reporting that was so exciting to you about it?

HT: Nosiness.

EC: Really?

HT: I think being curious. It was a very exciting field even in high school. Like the camaraderie and having sense you could cut classes, you could act like you knew more than others, and so forth—all those ego building things. But other than that I think I really loved the fact that I thought I was searching for the truth.

EC: And that’s what has always been the driver for you?

HT: Absolutely. I think it is for most journalists. I mean to search for the truth, which is always hidden. We have so much secrecy in government it’s amazing that you ever can find out what’s going on. The iron curtain comes down the first time a man, and it’s always been a man so far, steps into the Oval Office. Information, I think, belongs in the public domain. They think it is their private preserve.

EC: So it’s a matter of breaking down those walls to find out the information.

HT: That’s right…if you can.

FIRSTS

EC: You’ve really been a person that has achieved a lot of “firsts”—particularly as a woman in the journalism business. You were the first female officer of the National Press Club, the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association. You were also the first female member of the Gridiron Club which is a Washington-based organization. Breaking down those barriers as a woman, what kind of challenges did those pose to you?

HT: Well first place, I get too much credit because there were so many of us in terms of White House correspondents. We were all trying to get into these closed associations and I certainly didn’t do it alone. I happened to be around at the time, lucky enough. I think that it’s so sad that we were not taken into account in the Constitution itself. We never should have had to suffer that much discrimination. The suffragists marched 70 years, chained themselves to the White House fence, went to jail to get the vote for women. I think there’s still a way to go for women, but they have made amazing breakthroughs, but it shouldn’t have to be. We’re citizens, we were born here, we pay our taxes, so I don’t know why. But it was a cultural thing, of course.

COVERING THE PRESIDENTS

EC: You have covered every US president since John F. Kennedy. Of the presidents you’ve covered, do you have one that you feel rates higher and rates lower than anybody else?

HT: Yes. My favorite was Kennedy and I think my un-favorite is a toss-up between Nixon and this latest Bush.

EC: George W.

HT: George W., yes. I think that Kennedy was fantastic in the sense of being inspired. He understood mankind, he understood young people, he knew we always had to reach for the stars, and that there’s a universe out there that we had to explore. He did so many things: created the Peace Corps, signed the first nuclear test ban treaty, and he said, “We’re going to land man on the moon in a decade.” He didn’t live to see it, but we did it. He invited the first class of astronauts to the White House, and their wives, to mix and mingle for an informal dinner in his first year in office. He said to them, “Do you think we could land on the moon?” They said, “Sure. Absolutely.” You never say no to a president. When they left they said, “Is this guy nuts?”

EC: [laughs]

HT: “Land on the moon…”

EC: Yeah. What was it about Richard Nixon that didn’t work for you?

HT: He always had two roads to go and he always took the wrong road. He was a brilliant man in politics in many ways, but he had some sort of drive to twist things. He wanted a landslide. He didn’t understand the price of doing the wrong thing. I think he was tragic, a real tragic, Greek tragic figure. Nothing he could do could put his Humpty Dumpty back together again.

EC: What did you think of Lyndon Johnson after he took over from John Kennedy?

HT: I thought he was fantastic, brilliant, compassionate—on the domestic side. His dénouement was Vietnam, but in his first two years in office—and he had known a hard scrabble life and so forth, but at the same time a driving ambition—he ran through Medicare, which Truman first proposed, but couldn’t get through, the Civil Rights Act, voting rights for blacks for the first time in the south, federal aid to education at all levels from head-start through college, public housing, national parks, environmental laws, you name it. To put that threshold beyond which people in this country didn’t starve, lack for medicine, shelter. So I think he was great on the domestic side, but he lost out totally on the Vietnam War. Kept being convinced that he could win it, and kept listening to the generals who told him what he wanted to hear.

EC: There were two presidents that were in office one term or one not even a full term, that was Gerald Ford, who followed Richard Nixon, and then Jimmy Carter who was only in for one term. Gerald Ford: what did you think of him?

HT: I thought he was a very decent man. He made a mistake of saying was not going to propose any new ideas and carrying on the Nixon tradition and I think he left a big question mark when he pardoned Richard Nixon in one month. None of them wanted to face this, Obama is in the same boat: “Let’s not look back. Let’s go move forward.” If you keep forgetting the past you won’t learn the lessons of the past and I think Ford paid a price for the pardon, and Richard Nixon.

EC: Do you think that cost him the election to Carter?

HT: I do. I think in the back of their minds, people though there was a deal. He denies any saying so, but I think the whole secrecy of the pardon in the works one month after he took office left a scar.

EC: Jimmy Carter: what do you think of him?

HT: I liked him very much. I thought that he was certainly on the right track. He was a man of peace and I think he was less the politician, he didn’t schmooze even though he had a democratic congress. The leaders of congress came out the same door they went in and were unconvinced. But he has won a Nobel Peace Prize, he has worked for peace, and I think he’s a very trustworthy man.

EC: It seems like he had even stronger accomplishments after he left the presidency.

HT: That’s right. A great past president.

EC: Ronald Reagan.

HT: Turned the country to the right. There was a Reagan revolution. I think he had a false idea that anybody could do it for themselves and if not, so what? He lacked compassion and so forth. I think he was so conservative in his whole ideas. Although he had been president of a union, the Screen Actors Guild six times, he really started a whole campaign against organize labor—gave the signal to destroy the unions.

EC: George H. W. Bush.

HT: A little milder. More uninterested in diplomacy. He did win the Persia Gulf War, liberating Kuwait and so forth, but no great impact on our society. Obviously had no influence on his son [laughs] That’s kind of mean, I know.

EC: [laughs] Bill Clinton: what did you think of him?

HT: Bill Clinton? He had a chance for greatness, but he won’t wind up on Mt. Rushmore. He lost a lot of ground by not understanding the power that he had, not understanding that the ultra-right conservatives didn’t give him one second of legitimacy in the eight years in office. He didn’t know his enemy.

EC: Do you think his moral inadequacies ended up to really hurt him and what is really going to be the downfall of his legacy?

HT: Maybe not his legacy because he did leave a lot of good things. He left a surplus which President Bush, the latest President Bush, dissipated totally. I do think it was very judgmental and certainly was blown up in this whole business. He should have known. You’re president; you live in a glass house. You have enemies to the right of you, enemies to the left of you, who are ready to trip you up. Maybe there was too much trust and so forth, but the republicans could not stand having to give up the White House after twelve years of total control. I think that Clinton was very naïve.

WHAT THEY’RE UP TO AND WHY

EC: You’ve made no secret to the fact that you did not care, have not cared, for George W. Bush and in fact almost from the word—

HT: I don’t have to care for them, but I have to believe in them.

EC: And from the word “go” there was obviously a clash. You for many years had been the person that always had been asked questions at White House press conferences. You would close the press conferences. Under the Bush administration that all went away and in fact you were sort of pushed to the back of the room.

HT: Right.

EC: How troubling was that for you during that time?

HT: Well, everybody wants to be loved. [laughs]

EC: [laughs]

HT: But certainly as a reporter, that’s the name of the game. Of course you always feel that you’re being isolated or exiled. It’s not pleasant, but at the same time, so what? You’re not important. The important thing is the question. The important thing is keeping the light on these people who have total power. Life and death power over all of us. So I think our role is to find out what they’re up to and why.

EC: You were very open about your criticism of him and Dick Cheney. Did you ever regret any of the things you said about them?

HT: No. I think that I never changed my mind about Bush because from the word “go” I felt that he was the worst president and I had the background to be able to compare. At that time I felt he meant no well for our country in terms of being under the influence of the neo-conservatives who believed in preemptive war, to go to war. Why? Against what? Under falsehoods? No weapons of mass destruction, no ties to Al Qaeda terrorist network, no threat from a third-world country. How to justify a war? Because they wanted it, the neo-cons wanted a war, and for him to go along with that…

As for Cheney, there were too many diabolical tendencies. This was a man who had five deferments in Vietnam when he was perfectly eligible, perfectly healthy and so forth, to go to war. You don’t send others to war what you wouldn’t do yourself. So I think that both of them dodged the draft. It’s fine. I hated the Vietnam War. I thought it was wrong wrong wrong. At the same time you don’t send others into these impossible situations.

EC: What do you think of the new president who, I might add, now is acknowledging you at the White House press conferences and the fact said he felt honored about the fact that, as part of his inaugural process, to actually be able to take a question from you?

HT: Well, big deal.

EC: [laughs]

HT: I’m supposed to be grateful? No, I want him to call on me all the time because I’m never without a question, but that’s what everybody wants. I don’t want to be a prop. I’m not there to just worship as a shrine, I’m there to ask a question I think is important, relevant. So you always feel, you know, you want them to call. But every reporter feels that way and everybody wants a chance to question a president. So it was nice to be called on, but the second time I wasn’t. They were calling on bloggers, and Stars & Stripes and so forth—the legitimacy of journalism I’m not sure about.

A QUESTION IN MIND?

EC: When you go to the White House do you have a routine that you go through there? Do you have a question in mind? A topic in mind that you’re looking for every day that you go there?

HT: I think definitely you want to stay current. You certainly read the papers and find out what’s going on, and you may have a question in mind and then see the way the trend is going and you pop in to say, “Well how come you didn’t answer this question?” So I think you don’t fall into some sort of a mold or trap, you do go there, but you’re trying to find out the “whys” for the American people.

EC: Do you still have a lot of young reporters, or even White House reporters, that will come to you and ask you questions about history from the White House?

HT: Well I think there are a lot to, and I still tell them even though I have some sort of misgivings, tell them I think journalism is the greatest profession. Any profession where you have to keep learning, is great for you because you keep growing. So I say you may not become an anchorperson, which is the end-all be-all or make a million dollars, but you’ll never be unhappy. The only people I’ve really seen unhappy in my profession are journalists who lost their jobs or had to quit to put the kids through college. But they always look back in longing at that wonderful profession.

EC: Has it been a good profession for you?

HT: Oh yes. I love finding out what’s going on and I really think your pursuit of the truth is a good goal.

“I WANNA DIE WITH MY BOOTS ON.”

EC: You’re going to be 89 this year.

HT: Yes.

EC: How much longer will you keep reporting?

HT: Forever. I wanna die with my boots on.

EC: [laughs] And a pen in the hand?

HT: Whatever.

EC: What keeps you going?

HT: What keeps you going? What is it?

EC: Being able to talk to people like you. That’s one part of it.

HT: I’m interested in the world. I’m interested in the impact that I think real journalists can have in helping to make a better world, a better society. I really think the cliché that without informed people you cannot have a democracy. I love my work and I love that fact that it’s an education every day. You keep learning.

EC: Helen Thomas, thank you so much for your time and thank you so much for your work through the years, I appreciate it.

HT: Thank you, that’s very kind.