LAROUCHE INTERVIEWED BY RADIO UNIVERSIDAD GUADALAJARA, MEXICO
September 3, 2023

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The host of the Nierika program, Ricardo Salazar, introduced LaRouche as a controversial U.S. presidential candidate, who was jailed for 15 years--hated by some for his financial proposals, but with big support in the black and Hispanic communities. His prospects for winning are not inconsiderable. He has been a candidate 6 times; don't underestimate him. The interview itself, transcribed below, was carried out by station director, Carlos Ramirez Powell.

The UdG station had broadcast, live, the entirety of the MSIA's Aug. 22 "Mexico-Brazil-Argentina: Hour of Integration; March Towards a New Bretton Woods" seminar, which LaRouche addressed by telephone.

Question: This is Radio Universidad de Guadalajara, and our first question is:  How are the prospects now within the Democratic Party for them to propose your nomination as a candidate?

LaRouche: The key thing is the process of elimination of the qualifications of all indicated competitors for that position. And with the downfall of Lieberman, Gore and others, faced with the problem of the present international financial crisis, which they are incompetent to address and are not willing to address, this is going to produce a phase-change in the U.S. population during the current period. So, by the time two years roll around, there will be a vastly changed U.S. population, and public opinion.

Question: So, the expectation is that the group that is headed by Lieberman will start losing influence in the Democratic Party? The Lieberman group is associated with the southern Democratic group. Who are you making alliances with right now? Are you making alliances with the northwestern Democratic Party--California, Oregon, Washington--or are you trying to go for the votes of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, etc.?

LaRouche: Well, those things are going to break up. The so-called southern part of the Democratic Leadership Council was essentially created by a fellow who came out of organized crime, Michael Steinhardt. Now, a number of people who I am friendly to, pass through the Democratic Leadership Council, including former president Clinton and his circles. But, my associations are actually with a very broad spectrum of leading circles inside the United States, mostly on the Democratic side but also some Republicans. And we are concerned about the future of the United States and the world.

For example, the present threat of a war against Iraq is a common concern of all of my friends, who are, shall we say, all leading people in the Democratic Party constituency groups, and also many people in the Republican Party. We want to stop that war from happening. So, there's a broad alliance which is not restricted to any one region of the country. And the present group around the so-called organized crime element of the Democratic Leadership Council, that group is going to lose all base of support in most parts of the country very rapidly, as this depression worsens.

Question: Mr. LaRouche, I have a question pertaining directly to a person who is prominent in the, let's put it this way, iconography of Democratic leaders toward Latin America. There are good memories of his government, and he did not strike back against the Sandinistas. I am referring to James Carter. Have you had contacts with Mr. James Carter, and what is his position on your candidacy?

LaRouche: I don't have much of a connection with Carter. Carter's problem as president--he made a terrible mess of his presidency--but the problem was that Jimmy Carter was picked by Zbigniew Brzezinski and by this Brzezinski-led and organized group called the Trilateral Commission at that time. For the most part, Jimmy Carter had no real part in determining any of the important policies of his administration. It was a group led by Brzezinski which dominated everything.

Now Carter has come out of the presidency, and does things which are sometimes friendly and useful, such as that trip to Cuba which was authorized. I thought that was a useful trip. There were a few other things here and there which I consider useful, and I'm very happy about the fact that he does useful things from time to time. But he is not really a factor in the kind of leadership combination that will emerge, and is emerging now, inside the United States.

 Most of these people, in terms of Ibero-America, will be oriented toward me, because the way I'm identified in the Democratic Party is, I am the one who is reviving the policies of Franklin Roosevelt for dealing with a depression which is now onrushing, and for dealing with relations among states, including the Americas.

Question: Mr. LaRouche. I'd like to orient this next question a little bit toward Latin America, because that is our most important emphasis. During a conference of the group that is affiliated to you here in Mexico, there was a letter written by Jose Lopez Portillo to the three-nation conference that happened here in Guadalajara. An endorsement by Jose Lopez Portillo, here in Mexico, of your positions, carries a lot of weight among certain political circles. How do you view your position toward Mexico, and how is it this endorsement came to be?

LaRouche: Lopez Portillo and I had the happy occasion, and also the frustrating occasion, of collaboration at a certain point in the history of Mexico. I very much respected Lopez Portillo as President of Mexico from the beginning of his administration as President. And when 1982 came and the crisis was striking, the occasion came for me to meet personally with the President for an hour. And we had important discussions.

I have many friends in Mexico of those same circles, and some others as well. So we tried to prevent the crisis which happened in Mexico in 1982, and also tried to maintain the unity of Mexico with Brazil, Argentina and other countries, on the issues of that crisis. We tried; we were defeated.

Question: He was basically left alone, right?

LaRouche: Well, actually, he had the support for a time of both the governments of Brazil and Argentina. But tremendous pressure came down on the governments of Brazil and Argentina. They capitulated to U.S. pressure, especially from Henry Kissinger and so forth, who was no longer in the government of the United States but was very influential in the so-called Latin American commission of the government.

Question: Touching on Henry Kissinger: there were a few weeks of articles by Christopher Hitchens related to what happened between 1971 and 1973 in Chile. And right now there's a judge in Chile trying to set up a judicial warrant for presentation in Chile. Do you have a position on how to deal with crimes against heads of state in the past by the United States government?--through people like Henry Kissinger, who was very active, when he was Secretary of State, on the Latin American scene in facilitating the coup d'état in Chile, and in certain things that happened that led to coups d'état in Greece and Indonesia. Will you open up the records so that, finally, we will be able to see the record of the State Department during those years? And if the International Court decides to hear the case, will you as President of the United States allow this?

LaRouche: Well, Hitchens hates me personally. I'm not exactly sure why. But I think his approach--while some of the facts are interesting--is an incompetent approach. I'm against the idea of supranational international tribunals, except in the case of war, because I believe--and I believe most of my friends in Ibero-America agree--we believe in the principle of national sovereignty. Now, if a crime is committed against Chile by the United States, it is the United States government which must bear the responsibility. If the evidence shows that an agent of the U.S. government acted improperly, it is the U.S. government which is accountable for dealing with that offense, not some kind of international tribunal--except in case of war.

For example, the war against Nazism. Even though there were abuses of this, they established a Tribunal to deal with the war crimes and related crimes committed by the Nazi regime. But in this case, the sovereignty of Germany had been lost by war, and therefore an occupying conquering power used the occasion to set up tribunals. Under those conditions in which the principle of sovereignty is not violated, certain international tribunals are useful for trying individuals.

But in general, while issues among states may be subject to arbitration among states or by fora such as the United Nations, where nations come together and negotiate issues, I'm against free-wheeling independent tribunals which set themselves up as world government. I do not believe in allowing world government agencies to exist, except, as I said, under conditions of warfare, where under a state of war, tribunals may be set up over the sovereignty of a defeated nation. But otherwise, no.

Question: Your response is very clear. So, in case you are elected President of the United States, with all these records of Henry Kissinger's activities during his stay at the State Department, if you found through the Justice Department that there was responsibility for what would be felonious criminal acts against sovereign states, would you instruct the Justice Department to bring him to court to be judged by the American judicial system?

LaRouche: Two things I would say. First of all, that the President of the United States, as a matter of relationship to other states, would make available the facts of the matter, insofar as the United States knows the facts, to a country, say, as Chile, because Chile has the right to know what was done to it by the United States and by agents of the U.S. government. At the same time, if we found that the acts that were done in the United States are clearly a case of crimes, that is, violations of law, crimes against humanity, which is generically a law, then I would instruct the United States government and the Justice Department to proceed. Well, I might first bring it to the attention of a Congressional investigative body, to make a determination, maybe with the assistance of the Justice Department, and a recommendation would be generated as to what the disposition by the U.S. legislative, executive, processes should be, for dealing with any determined offense.

But it should be done by the United States. Otherwise, the United States should act on the basis of its relationship to the state which may have suffered the injury. Therefore, it's good relations with states and diplomacy which must rule in that case. But I certainly would open the case.

Question: These are very important declarations, and they will have a deep impact on public opinion here in Mexico.

To switch the theme a little, and go more toward what's happening today with the markets. Right now, the markets have been falling. The Dow Jones was down 3.2%, last I looked, and NASDAQ was down 3.4%. There has been a series, let me put it this way, of step-wise stairs going down since approximately March of this year, where the downfall of the markets has been accelerating, with a slight pause during the month of August. What do you see for the next three or four months, and how will you deal with a monetary system that seems to be cracking in its core--which is the mounting national and international debt, and private debt in the United States?

LaRouche: We're now in the month of September, which I expect--and I'm not the only one, other leading people in finances and so forth around the world as well--knew that the month of September was going to be a month of horror for the U.S. and many other countries. What is happening on the market is significant, and symptomatic, and does have effects. It's like a fever, which may be caused by an infection, but it would itself have an effect. A person may be killed by a high fever. But the cause of the problem does not lie in the financial markets. The financial markets have been artificially maintained at inflated levels.

The thing to look at, which of course people in Mexico will look at, where there's been so much dependency since 1982, increasing dependency on the U.S. market. What is collapsing around the world is the role of the U.S. market as the export market of last resort--in the Orient, in Mexico in particular. And therefore, the thing we have to look at is the underlying problem, the physical economic problems of employment, production, and so forth, and that's where the problem lies.

We are going to have to realize that the present international monetary system is bankrupt, in a fashion which is similar, in some respects, to 1929-32,33, but it's much worse. However, we can solve this kind of problem among governments, by using the power of governments and cooperation among governments to create new monetary systems, to put the old systems into bankruptcy, and to take measures to ensure that not only do we preserve levels of employment, trade and production, but we can increase them.

For example, right now I'm concerned about the situation throughout the Americas. Look at what's happened to Argentina. A similar thing, with greater magnitude of impact, is happening to Brazil. Look at what has happened to Peru, Ecuador, what is threatened now in Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay; the crisis in Colombia, which is becoming worse; a new kind of crisis erupting in Venezuela. And Chile now is going from security to insecurity along with the rest of the states of South America. Central America is a nightmare.

And therefore, you have states like Mexico and Brazil, which are the keystone nations of Ibero-America--both Central and South America--these nations have to be looked at, along with Argentina, for example, as a model. We must decide how we're going to save these nations from the impact of an ongoing depression. And this is a part, for the United States, of the security of the Americas.

I did address this in 1982 with my Operation Juarez, but I knew what was going to happen. I would say that what I wrote in Operation Juarez contains most of the model for what has to be done within the Americas as a whole, to try to stop this crisis and to deal with this on a reasonable basis. But we also must deal with the problem on an international basis at the same time. But the relationship of the United States to the states of the Americas, is special. And within that pattern, Mexico and Brazil are the keystone nations of U.S. relations with all of the other states of the Americas.

Question: What are you proposing to change? There have been reports, which I think may be over-simplified, saying that you propose that the dollar go back to a gold standard. This, among economic circles, seems a bit radical, and they say that there is not enough gold around to support the flow of money that the United States is producing in what is called a “fiat-money” machine. So, what would you propose? Is it a gold standard or would you propose another scheme to back up the monetary system?

LaRouche: No, not a gold standard. A gold reserve standard. The British gold standard collapsed in 1931. The British gold standard was one of the chief reasons for the collapse of the world financial system in 1929-31.

What Roosevelt did was to establish, in the United States first, a gold reserve standard. The Roosevelt proposal for a gold reserve standard was the principal basis for the post-war Bretton Woods monetary system. In other words, that the gold was not used as the basis for printing currency. Rather, gold was used as a way of balancing deficit accounts on balance of trade, balance of payments. So, by controlling balance of payments in a fixed-exchange rate system, we were able, between 1946 and 1964, and a bit later, to maintain a very successful--in the Americas, with Europe and Japan, for example--a very successful form of fixed exchange rate system.

Now, we need that, because what we have to do is this. Take Mexico, for example. Mexico's development is going to require not merely foreign markets, but actually a rich development of the internal market, which means a large build-up of infrastructure--rail, water systems, power systems, sanitation systems, and so forth--which means employing Mexicans in increasing levels of technological productivity. Now, this requires long-term credit, which must be at between 1-2% simple interest, no more, on 25-30 years. That is what is required to build an actual recovery machine now, throughout the Americas. Mexico is just typical of it. We know that better than many other countries.

Question: Indeed. So, would you propose gold as a balance of payments reserve on the one hand, and would you include a basket of commodities in this balance of payments reserve; and would you include oil as sort of a benchmark to be able to balance the current accounts of different nations and their trade?

LaRouche: What I would do, with oil, petroleum, in particular, I think we need a fixed parity price, a world market parity price, for petroleum. Now, we let countries themselves, individually, deal with whether their internal price is higher or lower than the international parity price, but the international parity price should be approximately a fixed price. That's necessary in energy. There are certain other prime commodities which should be regulated at a fixed price, or a fixed ratio of price, on the international markets. That is necessary to make the system work.

Remember, I'm not talking about gold. I'm talking about a gold reserve, priced at $800-1000 per troy ounce, or maybe more now. It's obvious, when you look at those prices, that gold is now artificially way below its real market price. The real market price is floating somewhere closer to that, and if you add a gold reserve system, where the demand for gold as a monetary reserve was there, the price would probably be between $800 and $1,000 or more per troy ounce.

But I would, at the same time, while not using petroleum as a substitute for a kind of bi-metalism, I would say that certain commodities should be at a fixed international price. For example, Mexico's oil. A fixed price on the international market. And therefore, you'd be able to ensure that these countries, which are producer countries, are able to develop their resources, develop their economies. At the same time, you would guarantee to other countries a secure supply of needed petroleum at a pre-calculable price.

Question: In any transition towards this new system, from where I stand with knowledge of how the markets and the financial system and the economic system is behaving in the United States as of the last two years, it looks to me like a surefire way to plunge into a very long recession, or a depression.

LaRouche: We are in one. For example, without naming the names--so I don't embarrass you--the major banks in the United States are about to go under. The United States banking system--most of the banking system, the large insurance cartels, and so forth in Europe, the United States, Japan and so forth--are finished. They're bankrupt. Now, what is going to have to happen is that the United States government and other governments are going to put these systems through bankruptcy, for two purposes. There are certain banking systems we have to get rid of. That is, they're not salvageable. Other banks are necessary, even if they're totally bankrupt. Because the bank has two functions. It is an instrument of commerce and credit, and savings, and therefore, in that function, the state must intervene to put these institutions through positive bankruptcy reorganization.

Now, this also means, however, that the present system of international central banking is bankrupt. That is, where a consortia of private banks form a central bank under a franchise from the government, and run, essentially, the credit and financial policy of that nation, that is coming to an end. We're going to have to go to the Hamilton model of national banking. The states are going to have to deal with this bankruptcy problem by creating a national bank which will be the vehicle by which the state is able to maintain the functioning of existing banks that are essential, and also put them through bankruptcy reorganization, and ensure the flow of credit to high-priority national interest investments.

An area needs credit, it's going to starve to death, or a business is going to go under: there must be credit to save that organization. The state must find a way to get the credit into that area in the proper channels. They want to use, as much as possible, the existing banking facilities, even if they're bankrupt, as the vehicles for processing that credit.

Question: Right now, the U.S. is sitting--collectively, the government, the private citizens, and industry--on an accumulated total debt of approximately $32 trillion. In this transition period that you're proposing, how would you deal with this “Himalayas” of debt, with those $32 trillion of debt that has absolutely no productive basis to be declared an ongoing credit?  How would you deal with a transition period where, in addition to the $7 trillion that has been lost in the last few years through the financial markets, you have to deal with the insolvency of the credit system in the United States?

LaRouche: It's much worse than that. We have, for example, the world GDP is estimated, cumulatively, at over $40 trillion, at best. The United States GDP is under $11 trillion, at best. The total debt outstanding, if we include the unregistered derivatives contracts, including some $20-odd trillion of credit derivatives, there's no possible way that this currently outstanding debt can ever be paid under present conditions.

Therefore, what's going to have to be done, is that you're going to have to freeze a lot of this debt, and we have to have a policy which addresses two basic problems in this process: we must have a policy of governments, that present levels of employment must be maintained and increased in useful categories. That pensions must continue to be met; that essential public health and education programs must be sustained; that basic economic infrastructure must be maintained. In other words, the countries, the nations, and the people must not suffer as a result of the collapse of the financial system.

Within that, you freeze whole categories. I would take all the derivatives and I would cancel them. I would simply cancel them. We might freeze them first and then cancel them. Because they're only gambling side-bets, they're not actual investments. And therefore, you've got one guy who's betting at the gambling table on the side, and another guy is betting against him. So these debts are nothing but gambling debts. And they have no intrinsic value. I would freeze those first. I would probably freeze other debts, and I would try to find ways of converting debt into an instrument for reinvestments. That is, somebody owes money to somebody else, and you could find a way, as we're trying to do with the Russian debt, to use the Russian debt to Germany and to other parts of Western Europe, and use that as the basis for setting up new industries in Russia, in cooperation with Russian investors. That kind of program.

So, what it means is that the state must first take the responsibility for the general welfare, the common good. It must protect the physical functioning, upon which the life of the nation depends, and its security. Then, it must find a way to sort it out, with long-term development programs.

Question: One last question, Mr. LaRouche. I think your program is set forth very clearly in this last answer. My last question: is the proposed invasion of Iraq, Mr. Bush's answer to what you have just delineated? That is, in order to avoid the pain of this mountain of credit being destroyed chaotically, is President Bush trying to leap forward into a war to re-start the economic engine? Would that be a fair estimation, in your opinion?

LaRouche: I don't think so. I think there are people who have various reasons they want the war. For example, Brzezinski and his friends, like Sharon and like some people in the U.S., like Lieberman. They want the war for ideological reasons, the so-called “clash of civilizations” policy. They want a religious war, for their long-term political, ideological purposes.

Question: So you would say that Mr. Bush is more of an ideologue than a statesman?

LaRouche: He is, in a sense. But Bush is not a particularly sophisticated intellect. I think that what's happened is that he has adopted this like an angry man, who has adopted an obsession, and finds himself beating his child, not because he hates the child, but because he can't stop himself.

The danger is, that under those who are pressing Bush, that the United States would go to a war, despite the fact that every leading military circle in the U.S. that I know of, agrees with me totally that this idea of a war with Iraq is insane. This idea of this kind of war. Everyone in Europe, all of Europe disagrees with the Bush administration on this war policy. All of Asia disagrees. Most other countries disagree. They think this war should be stopped.

We have a case of a President who, out of a certain kind of blindness, perhaps, is committed to going ahead with this attack on Iraq. Even his father, and even the strongest advisers, historically, of this family, cannot seem to dissuade him from proceeding in that direction. And Cheney and Rumsfeld are going mad. People are looking at Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, as a point of resistance to this. Maybe that's true: there are signs that it might be true; I don't know if it is. But I do know that all the high-ranking military circles that I know of, tend to agree with me, and emphatically, that this war would be crazy. But I think the President is somehow obsessed with the notion that he has no choice, as an ego business, no choice but to go with the war. I don't think that he's calculated, he has not thought through what this war means. He's just thought that his dignity, his position, his image is going to be destroyed if he doesn't go to war. It's horrible, but I think that's what it is.

Question: Can President Bush go to war without the consent of the State Department?

LaRouche: Well, he has to have the consent of the Congress, and there are strong indications that there are people in the White House who've said the president can go to war without the consent of Congress. Now that's against the Constitution. That would be a charge for an impeachment of a President.

Question: But, before going to Congress, which is still being debated, he's taking on Presidential dictatorial powers at this point. But could he start up the war machinery, even if Colin Powell were dead set against it?

LaRouche: I think he could, and the danger is he might. If he tried to go to the Congress and Colin Powell was openly against it, that would set institutional processes into motion inside the United States government and around it.

Question: That's a very important answer on your part.

Mr. Lyndon LaRouche, I would like to thank you for your time. This has been a very, very meaningful interview, full of food for thought for our audience. And I would like to thank you on behalf of myself and the team that works here at Radio Universidad de Guadalajara. I hope to catch up with you again soon for another interview. It would be a privilege.

LaRouche: Thank you very much.

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