Lyndon LaRouche Interview On WOL Radio
 With Host Bernie McCain
April 15, 2023

Who is saying this? Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. has emerged over the course of the 1970s and 1980s to rank among the most controversial of international political figures, controversy which also features such related issues as: to destroy the international drug-trafficking; his initiating role in formulating what President Ronald Reagan announced on March 23, 1983, as a defensive initiative, SDI, the Strategic Defense Initiative [tape defect] ...ostensibly ruling [?] not only domestic U.S. global policy, but global political economic issues. No one can speak to his politics more than he can, though it has been approximately 15 years, or better--it was 1988, the last time I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Mr. LaRouche, but he is on board with us. Ladies and gentlemen, Lyndon LaRouche.

Hello there. How are you?

LaRouche: I'm in fair shape, I would say.

Announcer: Well, I'm glad. Last time you and I had a conversation, you were still incarcerated.

LaRouche: Yep.

Announcer: It's been a while.

LaRouche: Well, Bush put me in, and Clinton got me out.

Announcer: [Laughs] Works that way, doesn't it?

LaRouche: [Laughing] That's the way things go in politics.

Announcer: You've been at it for a while. Let me ask you a flat-out question: You are an extremely bright, intelligent, capable man. You would be able to sell anything, anywhere; you would be an asset to any major corporation in the world. Why the direction that you have taken, and why did you decide that you were going to stand in the wind and be the vane of direction that we were going to see?

LaRouche: Well, it didn't happen all at once; it's just--it probably started in my childhood; I decided that, since you only live once, don't worry about what you get while you're alive, as much as what your life means by the time it ends. And, you know, I just do things which I think are important things, as a human being, as a mortal human being, in trying to achieve some degree of functional immortality, that is, paying my dues to the human race. And I get a kick out of it. It's my motivation. I enjoy it richly. I wouldn't be any other way.

Announcer: The first interview I did with you, 1979-1980, a book--I'm trying to remember the title--"Dope"--?

LaRouche: Dope, Inc.?

Announcer: Dope, Inc., and you were looking at England as being the mother of all dope in the world.

LaRouche: Well, at that time, yes. Still. The British monarchy, of course, which ran the Opium Wars, got the United States in the dope business, is still in the center of it, in the sense of the fact that the London financial community--not that they handle the dope on the market--I don't know about that. They probably get as much on the New York Stock Exchange as they do in London. But, it's because they handle the proceeds, the financial proceeds, of the dope traffic, through the international offshore banking system, and similar kinds of systems. So, it's still one of our major problems at the present time, as we see in the case in Colombia: It's a major problem, a security problem, in the hemisphere.

Announcer: Many people say that the only way you really are going to be able to deal with dope, is to reduce the profit, and the scare. It is going to have to be decriminalized, and you're going to have to make it available in such a way that people--the desire to be involved in it is going to be reduced, because it is no longer verboten.

LaRouche: Well, I think that's a false argument. What happened is, we had a lot of people, for example, during the period of the Vietnam War, who came back as veterans, on dope. I think it's a very significant part of the population because these were not rich college kids, as such, though some of them were. But they were ordinary Americans, predominantly, African-Americans and others, who went over in Vietnam to serve, in a prolonged, no-win, no-purpose war. They became totally demoralized, and just getting through the day, and through the night, in those perilous hours they spent there, they were just trying to get out of it. And the way to escape from your own mind--when you can't just go to sleep--is to dope yourself up with something, which, in effect, destroys your mind.

Announcer: Then, do you believe that there's a way to end what is taking place, with the profit that is involved in narcotics?

LaRouche: Oh, absolutely. We could deal with that. That's not the problem. The problem is, that--you mentioned the other side of the problem: We've got a population in the United States today, which feels hopeless and useless--some of them are getting large salaries; some are not--but they feel useless. They don't want to use their mind for thinking. They want to have a sense of pleasure, an escape from reality. We have video games that do that for them; we have other devices. Our mass entertainment does that for them. The desire to escape from reality, because life ain't fun any more.

Announcer: So, is your proposal that you interdict that in some way?

LaRouche: Well, no. The basic thing is, you start with the economy and education. Because this is a symptom of the problem. We have a nothing education system today.

Announcer: You won't get an argument out of me on that.

LaRouche: So, what are you doing to students? They're not getting the excitement of having a mind.

Announcer: ...Or the challenge of developing their minds.

LaRouche: Exactly. And they don't have much of an opportunity in life, and they're not told much. Many of them have parents who work two to three jobs, or the equivalent; they are, in a sense, latch-key children. They're turned loose on a society which is alien to them. They're looking for an escape. And we do not provide, any longer, over the past 35 years, in particular, any sense of a future for our people.

Now, this is not only one group of people: This is all strata of society. We feel we're living in a hopeless society. And all you have to do, is turn on the boob-tube--the television set--and see what people are watching for entertainment. It's pure escapism; it's fear of reality. And they have two things: First of all, the education problem, the economic situation; but thirdly, look at the so-called leaders of our society. And they see less-than-nothing up there. So they see, for themselves, no future, no meaning, to their mortal life.

Announcer: Let me tick off some names, and let me get a reaction from you, your impression of these individuals, before I move into a broader piece: George W. Bush.

LaRouche: Oh, poor George. George is, right now, in a situation where he is being thwacked from all directions, beyond his capability and understanding. The problem is not George; the problem is what George is not. And the people who are managing the place where he sits.

Announcer: Dick Cheney.

LaRouche: Dick Cheney is a very smart guy; I don't know where he stands on anything. He's tricky.

Announcer: Rumsfeld.

LaRouche: Rumsfeld, I used to think was a smart guy when I knew him in Chicago, briefly, but I don't think he's got it any more, and he's in an impossible situation at the Defense Department.

Announcer: Colin Powell.

LaRouche: Colin Powell's a talented man, gifted at his profession, a good diplomat, who is probably the one link to reality, that is, from the standpoint of officialdom, that President Bush has.

Announcer: Ariel Sharon.

LaRouche: Ariel Sharon is a thug, a murderer, a Nazi, in effect, but unfortunately, there's somebody behind him--Netanyahu--who, probably, is worse.

Announcer: Yasser Arafat.

LaRouche: Yasser Arafat has become again, an authentic hero, throughout much of the world. They tried to defame him for awhile, but his courage, in sitting there, under the abuse he's taking, has made him one of the most heroic figures in the eyes of the world today. And he's not doing a bad job, considering what he's up against.

Announcer: Let us have you take a look at Ariel Sharon, Yasser Arafat, George Bush, directing the diplomatic policy of this country, in dealing with the Palestinians and the Israelis.

LaRouche: Well, the problem is: To understand Israel today, you have to go back approximately to the murder of Prime Minister Rabin. Rabin was a hard-line, right-winger in Israel; a military man, who fought the way he fought. Then, he came to the point, as Prime Minister, during that period, where he recognized that if he were going to continue to carry out the settlements policy, the so-called "Eretz Israel" policy of the Israeli right wing, that that would mean that he would be put into a position of doing to the Palestinians what Sharon is doing to them today.

Announcer: Stay on board with us, sir. I've got to make a stop. Hold your point, because I want to pick it up right there.

[commercial break]

Announcer: The guest on our live line is Lyndon LaRouche. He has been a Presidential candidate, I believe it has been three times--Lyndon LaRouche?

LaRouche: Yes.

Announcer: You have been a Presidential candidate, how many times, sir?

LaRouche: Oh, since 1976, I was trying to stop this terrible thing called Jimmy Carter.

Announcer: [Laughs] Well, we come back to where we were in the questioning, and that was, taking a look at what is going on in Israel, the Palestinian question, and the involvement of the President of the United States, directing his minions, in how they are going to get whatever it is that they want to accomplish in this area of the world. There are many people who are saying that the only thing that is going to come out of this, because of what has taken place over the last several weeks, is more of the same, and worse.

LaRouche: That's fair. That's the likely thing, and of course, we've got to stop the likely thing. That's the nature of warfare, and leadership in warfare; that's the nature of leadership in government.

Announcer: Does America have the moral portfolio for that to take place?

LaRouche: Well, it may get from--for example, I have the moral portfolio to do it, and I'm an American. My job is to represent those Americans who will respond to my proposal for a satisfactory moral solution for the immediate question of policy, which confronts the United States in this area.

Announcer: And, give us an idea of this.

LaRouche: Well, first of all, when Rabin was killed, murdered by the Israeli right wing, since that time, this war has been inevitable. The reason that the horror-show is going on in the Middle East, is only one reason, primarily: and that is, because Ariel Sharon, as the present government of Israel, is leading a charge on committing crimes against the Palestinian people, which are modelled, that is consciously modelled, on exactly what the Nazis did to the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto, in 1943.

Announcer: Well, you don't--in a military operation, you take a look at the history, and you then, exercise that history that has been successful.

LaRouche: Yeah. That's what they did. So, the Nazis succeeded in wiping out the Resistance of the Warsaw Ghetto. Sharon and company have decided to use those Nazi methods, for dealing with the Palestinian people, as a whole, to get rid of, eliminate Arafat, and everything associated with him; to drive most of the Palestinians out of the Territories, into Jordan and elsewhere. But worse: Since Sharon has gotten himself into a terrible situation, they can not sustain what they're doing now. Sharon's option is to go to a larger war. Start a war with Syria, using Lebanon as a foil; an attack on Iraq, which is what he really wants desperately, to get the attention off the Israel-Palestine area, and get it into a larger area.

Announcer: But, the name of the game is: Syria is not necessarily going to bite into that; Jordan is trying to make sure that people say focussed on that; Egypt would scream bloody murder in the midst of that--

LaRouche: Yeah. They're doing it--

Announcer: And you've got to take a look--Iran is not going to sit by idly. What they are saying, because they're standing back from this, is that: You can jab all you want, but you're not going to be able to get that; you're going to get exactly what you've gotten. But, the United States seems not able to step in, and step up to either one of the parties, and to force its will in the same manner that it has forced its will in other areas. Nor is it supporting anything that Kofi Annan has said.

LaRouche: Well, actually, if the United States government were to tell that fascist, that Nazi murderer Sharon to stop it, and go to our friends in Europe, in the Middle East, and elsewhere, and say: "We are going to agree that this thing is going to stop right here. We're not going to have a general war."

The problem we have, is inside the United States, around people like Richard Perle, Wolfowitz, and so forth, who are controlling influences inside the Republican Party, and certain controlling influences, like Lieberman and Gore in the Democratic Party, that these guys are pushing for an attack on Iraq. Now, an attack on Iraq at this point, in these circumstances, would start a religious war, which might not stop in the foreseeable future.

Announcer: Now let me ask you a question. There are many things that many factions would like to involve themselves in, in what is taking place in that part of the world. They'd like to put that pipeline across Afghanistan, coming from Tajikistan. They'd like to be able to open up, and make sure that those additional pipelines would be able to run down into the Adriatic. They want to make sure that these things take place. They want to go for more oil exploration in those restricted areas around the United States. They want to make these things happen.

But, at the same time, I would imagine that they would not wish to expose themselves to a body-bag colossus, and if they involve themselves in allowing that to take place, and you then have to put more American troops in harm's way, it would not matter what political party, or how much you were ahead in the polls, 90 days before the bags start coming home, when they start coming home, they're going to close whatever politician in, out.

LaRouche: Well, you're talking about putting a half-million U.S. troops in the region. That's what you're talking about, in terms of the policies, which are pushed by the opposition to Powell, inside the Bush Administration.

Announcer: Well, that kind of opposition, as you see it, and I say to you again: There is no way that a sitting administration would be able to sustain what would come at them, if they turn around and make that kind of military commitment to harm.

LaRouche: You, in a sense, are right. But what happens in the meantime? A lot of people get killed.

Announcer: In the meantime, what will take place, exactly what is taking place: The world will watch the death toll mount on both sides, in the Israeli and Palestinian situation. I've got to make a stop. Will you stay on board with us, sir?

LaRouche: Sure.

[commercial break]

Announcer: When you take a look at what is taking place right now, do you see Iran, Syria, Iraq--no, I'll exclude Iraq--Iran, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates, stepping up to the plate, to intercede militarily to protect the Palestinians in the West Bank?

LaRouche: They're trying precisely to avoid that. I'm much in touch with these circles in most of these countries personally, obviously because of my position and work. And I would say that they are trying to avoid any possibility of a war. They look at the Palestinians who are suffering as heroes. They may not always agree with some of the things that are being done by the Resistance, but they recognize that it is a resistance against terror--terror by the Israelis. So, their point is, their hope is, that somehow, the government of the United States will come to its senses, and will join with Europe, which is sympathetic to what they have to say, and turn around.

My main concern, and their concern is: Can we turn George Bush around personally, to recognize what he is walking into, and to shut off people like Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle, and these other maniacs, on both the Republican and Democratic sides, who are trying to push the United States into a war which would be doom for his administration, but also doom for the United States?

Announcer: Do you believe that this is an issue for the Democratic Party, a political hook to hang their hat on?

LaRouche: Well, I would hope that Bill Clinton would come back into the picture a little bit more than he has, but I tell you, if you look at Gore, and you look at the case of Lieberman: on this issue, they're worse, far worse than Bush, as such.

Announcer: Well, the name of the game is: But, is Gore effective?

LaRouche: No. He's not. Gore's a loser.

Announcer: One of the things--I was speaking with Mr. LaRouche off the air a few minutes ago--he has consented to come back on board with us next week. We're going to do a one-hour session. It has been a while since we've had the opportunity to speak with one another, and I thank you for being gracious enough to come back with us....

LaRouche: Enjoy it.

Announcer: ...next week so we can do this. I do want to have an expanded session with you.

LaRouche: Okay, good.

Announcer: Thank you, sir.

LaRouche: Thank you.

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