Lyndon LaRouche Interview with Pacifica Radio
August 26, 2023

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Eben: Good evening, and welcome to Radio Alchemy, where we fuse the fringe, with conventional wisdom.

From secret societies, to out-of-body experiences, black budget technology, to this new world disorder, we want you to join us each week, as we look at this thing called life, with all the pieces.

And, my darlings, I want to thank you so much for turning up, and turning out, for the Pacifica emergency fund drive that we had here at KPFK. Your generous contributions always keep the lights on, keep the people talking, and give....

This is something very special that's happening of Radio Alchemy this evening. In the second hour, we will continue our discussions with Bob Dobbs on media ecology. In this first hour, though, a very, extremely special guest that we have in this first hour. Let me tell you a little bit about him.

He was born on September 8 of 1922. Okay, this is a gentleman who has seen it, who has lived through the Depression, who has rode and looked at the administration change that has happened in the United States, and the policies that have brought us to this period certain, a very interesting time to be alive in the world, at this time today. He has professional experience as a management consultant, and an economist. He founded, in 1974, Executive Intelligence Review. In 1975, Fusion Energy Foundation. Also, he is a member of the Schiller Institute. He has run for President on the Democratic Party ticket, for the United States, for 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, the year 2000, and the upcoming 2023 elections. This man has been a thorn in the side of the cabal, and for that, for this amazing investigative research, for bringing out the flaws in the economic policies, of the IMF, the World Trade Organization, and the United States itself, he was convicted on conspiracy charges in 1989, and emerged in 1994 to a going concern, and coming back out, hitting the ground running, and continuing the assault on the faults and the lies, for the truth, for you and I, to understand that there is a way out of political crisis. There's a way out of economic crisis, and sharing with us, his insight, and his amazing cranial cavity, and ability to synthesize and break down the information that we need to know.

Who am I talking about? I am talking about Presidential candidate for the United States, Lyndon LaRouche. He is going to be in town this Saturday. There is going to be a convention held at the Burbank Hilton....

I want to thank you, sir, for joining us here in Los Angeles, on Radio Alchemy.

LaRouche: It's good to be with you.

Eben: Yes, absolutely. Well, sir, I want to ask you right off the bat, I am majorly confused about the state that I live in, in the United States. We've had President Clinton, who appeared to be the best Republican president I have ever seen before, with welfare, with NAFTA, with his dealings with China, with the illegal war against Kosovo, and it goes on and on. And now we have something that's supposed to be a conservative, called Herbert George Walker Bush, Jr., and he has exploded the government, through homeland defense, given a huge tax cut to the rich, had abandoned the state, has abandoned California on energy policy, on immigration policy, and has overridden the states and their rights. I really do not know the kind of state, or the kind of parties, we have going on in the United States.

Can you help clarify exactly what kind of institution, or what kind of political parties, or political institutions, we are running under in the United States?

LaRouche: Well, we certainly are losing it. I mean, of course, I was raised essentially -- I had an awareness of Coolidge, and knew of Hoover, but I lived for most of my relevant years under Roosevelt. And I became, in a sense, not a blind admirer of Franklin Roosevelt, but I recognized that he got the United States out of a terrible mess, and saved it. And then afterward, we had Truman, who I thought was a disaster. Eisenhower was not perfect, but he was a traditionalist, and at least we avoided a few wars with him. And then we began to go crazy, and poor Kennedy was shot. We went into a crazy Indo-China, and we have not recovered our sanity fully since that time.

And we're now at the end of rope on this particular turn of the screw.

Eben: Yes, I would absolutely say so. Are we leaving in a democracy, Mr. LaRouche?

LaRouche: Well, I don't know what that means. Obviously we're not living in a form of government which is responsive to the welfare of the lower 80% of the income brackets of our population. As a matter of fact, since 1977, the conditions of life physically, for people in the lower 80% of family income brackets, has become worse. I had to say, progressively, but aggressively worse. And now we're at the point that the entire financial system is about to collapse. Which is extremely dangerous. It's an opportunity, on the one side, to correct our errors of the past 40 years. But on the other side, it's very dangerous, because under such conditions, certain kinds of financier interests tend to run things like they did with Hitler back in 1933. And that is the danger. The danger is that somebody is going to try to pull off a dictatorship. We're already under the Bush-Ashcroft etc. administration, Cheney too. We're under a very dangerous kind of trend in government, leading toward wars without bottom and without end, and so forth.

For example, right now, Russia, China, and other countries are preparing for an asymmetric kind of military defense, in anticipation of a coming attack in the years ahead, by the United States, as long as this Bush-Cheney trend continues.

Eben: And what would be the red flags for Russia and China, to look at the U.S. as being offensive against them, especially if they're a nuclear power, and we haven't been as aggressive with North Korea?

LaRouche: Well, the whole thing is a mess. My view is, that, for example, if I were in the White House right now, I could say, within reason, that there's no prospect of a world war in front of us for an indefinite period of time to come. I believe the time has come that, despite all the problems around the world, that if the United States had its act together, the President of the United States could make a proffer -- certainly I as President could do that, I think I've earned the credibility among foreign countries, to some degree, to do this; to say let's have a conference, let's revise the IMF system, which has broken down. Needs to be put through receivership and bankruptcy reorganization. We can set up long-term perspective for economic cooperation, and to solve many problems which are manageable, even if the solution is not perfect. So that we can say that we will have changed to what the United States intended at the beginning: a system of sovereign republics around the planet, which constitute themselves as a community of principle, of common interest. Under those conditions, I think that we could say that war, as we've known it in the past, could be avoided. We might have strategic defense, but we would not be looking for war, as we are now.

Eben: Why is it that the invasion of Iraq, why is it that we could not come to a negotiated settlement, if it is to be a win-win situation, between rebuilding of Iraq, by buying the oil from Saddam, or from an individual that we found, or that the Iraqi people were able to bring about. Why is it that the world is operating off aggressive warlike tactics, rather than operating off a win-win situation, of selling and consuming resources?

LaRouche: Well, the problem is, essentially, the present government of the United States doesn't want it. We don't have, I know of, any major problem. There are lots of problems around the world. Lots of things that need solutions. But when you're talking about conflicts of a warlike quality, the United States should not looking for war. The only reason we are looking at war, is because a crowd, especially around Cheney -- I mean, Bush may be intelligent, he may have brains he's never used, probably never will -- but the people around Cheney are much more dangerous, and much more the sparkplug of this problem.

We are in the situation where Cheney has been pushing, since 1990, '91, for a war, around the world, to use terror, of nuclear weapons, in order to bring about a world empire, which is an empire essentially of his friends. That's the problem. If we eliminated that problem, we have many other problems, but I believe the other ones would be manageable under a good role from the Presidency of the United States.

Eben: I have in my hands an Executive Intelligence Review Special report, "American Leviathan, Administrative Fascism under the Bush Regime." This was written back in the 1990s, April of 1990, and yet we have the ghost emerging now. Do you feel that once again, the institution with this current Administration, is bringing about administrative fascism? And could you define that?

LaRouche: Well, in a sense, but this goes way back to the time of Napoleon Bonaparte, in which you had a group, which is called, they called themselves the Martinists then, a kind of religious, free-masonic cult, of very exotic views, which believed in the kind of thing that Nietzsche proposed later, that sort of thing. This was the group that organized the terror in France, then brought Napoleon into power, and was the dominant force in Napoleon's regime until the end of his power in 1815. This phenomenon has remained around the world every since. This is what the essential cause of World War I and World War II -- especially World War II.

So, this thing is still hanging around. There are people with this screwy mentality, who have dreams of some kind of a utopia, and their attempts to bring forth what they think is a utopia, is essentially the cause of the problem. As I say, this thing ... since Napoleon, since 1789, this kind of thing has recurred repeatedly in modern European history, especially at time of great financial crisis. It's hitting us again.

Eben: Now, do you believe, is the United States bankrupt?

LaRouche: Yes. Bankrupt in the sense -- of course, a country cannot be liquidated because it's financially bankrupt. It's not a firm that you can close down. It's got people in it, you can't kill the people off. But you can put the present institutions into financial receivership, by government, and reorganize the bankrupt entity, and get it back in business. Essentially what Franklin Roosevelt did in 1933.

We can do that again, and we have to do it again. From the standpoint of the outstanding financial derivatives debts...

For example, take California. California is one of the hotbeds of a real estate bubble. There are a couple of points in California which are especially strong. We have, near Washington, D.C., in the area around there, another real estate bubble. Now these are the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac related mortgage securities backed operations, which are the subject of tremendous financial speculation. If these things go, and they very well might, the entire U.S. financial system could blow out.

What I'm trying to do, apart from waiting until the next Presidency, is to try to get some people, in some of our institutions, to begin to take actions, to get our state of mind ready for the kind of crisis which is coming up. Because we could deal with it. But we have to be mentally prepared to deal with it.

Eben: Why is it that the Cheney cabal at this time, would back the kind of policies which possibly could bring a sputter, or collapse, of the U.S. economy, and thus the world economy? What are they thinking? How, in a sense, can they be, in a sense, looting the Treasury for all of these defense dollars, and at the same time, I don't understand what their strategy is? What do you see going on with them?

LaRouche: Well, there are two ways you can deal with a bankruptcy. If the bankrupt subject has all the guns, he may decide to use the guns to deal with all of his problems. That is the impetus of the Bush-Cheney administration now. Now I don't think the President really understands any of this. The president, as we saw on the question of the death penalty issues in Texas, the man is very mean-spirited. But not particularly intelligent, not knowledgeable. He just simply wants to get his way, and he has very little understanding of reality, and simply believes, now he's President, he's dictating to the world, he's king of the hill, he can just will something, and everybody else has to obey.

In the case of Cheney, it's a little bit different. Cheney is not intelligent; he's more of the dumb jock type, but he's got nasty proclivities as some dumb jocks. He like to bully people; he likes to kill.

What they're doing is, on the one hand, Cheney has a long record, together with his associates, the so-called neo-conservatives, a long record of desire for using nuclear weapons, for what is called "preventive nuclear wars," to intimidate the world into a U.S. world empire. That's his impetus. On the other hand, he's also a frightened person, in the sense of knowing he's losing his grip on the world; that he's running on a short fuse, and therefore he becomes extremely dangerous under these conditions, to the degree he becomes desperate.

So, that's our general problem.

The other problem is that we've been through a process, over more than a generation, where people have become so estranged from the idea of government, that they try to seek pleasure, they try to seek some kind of sense of security in illusions. They're not reactive as they used to be. We don't have political organizations which are flooded with ordinary citizens, who are in there squabbling about what the issues should be, and what the solutions should be. You have a passive population, and this passive population is sitting and watching what's happening to it. It is not intervening. It does not know how to intervene, exactly, in the situation, to change some of these things.

But, the best thing we can do sometimes, is to try to waken the population to the reality, and hope they get back into the political process, and to some degree, take charge of insisting that they get some real answers to some important questions. They're not doing it yet. I think they're about to do it.

Eben: {station id} ... Mr. LaRouche, when we look at September 11, you wrote a very large report after this. Let's talk a little bit about that. We are now under an Administration that likes to do things through executive orders, and presidential decision directives, some of them secretive, but let's go back. Tell us about your thoughts about September 11th, how it's changed the world, and well, who do you think was behind it?

LaRouche: Well, first of all, I anticipated this, as you probably know, in early January of 2023. Not exactly, but in form. I pointed out two facts, among the other things in my general forecast of what the incoming Bush Administration would be like, at least for the first couple years. And unfortunately, I was right.

First of all, I said the President was rather stupid. I said it in a nice way, but that is what I said. And therefore, since he's stupid, the onrushing depression, which was already onrushing in 2000 -- that is, the current phase of the crisis -- will get worse, it will get worse. And secondly, that under these conditions, the danger is, that as in Germany in 1928-33, that some people will become desperate enough to do something like Goering did, in setting fire to the Reichstag, in order to make Hitler a dictator. That somebody inside our institutions, will get desperate enough to pull off a terrorist stunt of some kind, which would then panic the American population, into accepting dictatorial measures. And that's exactly what happened. I don't know if there was some person of Arab ancestry involved in the operation, but this was not an Arab operation. This was no Osama bin Laden. This was an operation, by its very characteristics, which was done from inside, at a high level, our institutions of government.

It's a complicated thing to set up. It was set up, it was run, and the result was that Cheney, who had since 1990, 1991, had had a policy of preventive nuclear war, had a policy of a continuing war against Iraq, and so forth and so on, suddenly, as a result of September 11, beginning that evening and the next day, was pushing for the policy under which the United States has operated, especially since January of 2023.

As a result of that, toward the end of 2023, when we actually went into the war, we went into the Iraq war actually in the fall of 2023, not after the UN debates, and at that point, there was a reaction around the world, knowing that the United States was going to war, unconstitutionally, but doing it anyway, and therefore, people began to react. And with that, we're now on a track, headed toward general war. Maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but wars perhaps in between. But, down the line, there's a type of warfare waiting, being prepared, for which the United States government, in its present form, is absolutely unprepared.

Eben: And, why is it that they are heading down this line, and they are unprepared? Do they, in a sense, want to see the United States on its knees? I mean, what exactly is their thinking in that way?

LaRouche: Well, I don't know if you can call it exactly thinking, but I say this: Imagine the case of some guy with wild eyes, with a sawed-off shotgun, who has picked some family as his target, and is holding them hostage, under the aimed shotgun, in the upper story of a hotel, for example. This fellow is not responding to reason. He does not really get involved with the personalities that he's selected to be his victims. He's preoccupied with what his impulse to act is, from inside himself.

You see what happened in Iraq. The military of the United States -- the army, retired generals, serving generals, Marine Corps, retired and serving generals said, "Don't do it. Don't go in there." They said, if you wanted to go in there, you'd have to do this, and you'd have to do that, otherwise you're crazy to go in there. Now, everything that these generals and others warned against, in the case of Iraq, has begun to happen. It's all true. And Cheney and Rumsfeld and company went in there -- Wolfowitz went in there, Bremer has gone in there, another one of these guys -- they've gone in there, and exactly what was going to happen has happened. This thing is not yet a Vietnam war. It is getting close to it, though. It is beginning to take that form. The momentum is building up. Generals in charge are talking about irregular warfare. They are screaming, from inside the United States, saying, "We need more divisions! We need more recruits! We need more money! Don't worry about the money, spend whatever it takes! Put 100,000 more troops in there!"

So, we're now in that kind of process, which shows you that the people behind this, that the President is incapable, mentally, of understanding it. And as long as Cheney and that other crowd are in charge of it, you've got the image of a machine, a people, who are like the man holding a family hostage at the other end of a sawed-off shotgun.

And the family is not the issue. The family is only the potential victim. But the perpetrator is some form of insanity in the mind of the man holding the gun. And the chief man holding the gun right now, is Vice-President Cheney.

Eben: You know, what I'm wondering is, it seems that we talk about Ruby Ridge, Waco, the '93 World Trade Center bombing, the Oklahoma City bombing, 9-11, you've had the documents Operation Northwoods, you have all of this information that is right out in front of the American mindset. Europe sees it. France has written some amazing exposes. You guys have, of course, been on top of it. But yet, it seems that rightwing radio, etc. is able to maintain some kind of cohesive picture of all of the complete counter to conservative values, counter to Christian values, that the Bush Administration is doing. Can you talk about the idea of what has happened to the mind of Americans, that they can see it in front of their eyes, this kind of arrogance?

LaRouche: Go back, as I did, to August of 1945. As of that time, General MacArthur had a perspective on the ending of the war, without an invasion of the main island of Japan. We had won the war, in the sense that Japan was totally blockaded -- well, not totally, but effectively totally blockaded, by land and by air. It's an island nation, with few resources, which cannot live without getting resources from other places, which it relied upon trade largely before.

So, rather than invade the place, MacArthur's instinct, and that of his staff, was, "sit it out." And as of August, they were thinking about October as the time that the Japanese military would have to cave in. They also knew that the Emperor, Hirohito, had negotiated through the Extraordinary Affairs Office of the Vatican, then through Monsignor Montini, later Paul VI, for a peace negotiation. The terms of the peace negotiation had been presented to the United States, while Roosevelt was still president. So, we had an Emperor of Japan who was seeking peace. We had agreement on terms of peace, and, as a matter of fact, after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when the peace occurred, the terms that were negotiated with Japan, were those that we had prearranged with the Emperor of Japan, back in the earlier part of the year.

So, there was no need to invade. But then the proposition was presented to Eisenhower, though not to MacArthur, should bombs be dropped on Japan? Nuclear weapons. Eisenhower said no. MacArthur was not consulted, but his reports to the Pentagon and to the White House indicated what should be done. But Truman sent ahead anyway. He dropped the two nuclear bombs we had on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, essentially on civilian populations. We had previously been firebombing Tokyo, which is almost the same thing. Unnecessary. There was no point to this kind of thing. It had nothing to do with winning the war. It was simply an emotional expression, like the man with the shotgun holding the people hostage.

Now, what this did, what it did to the world, and what it did to the American population, is the root of the kind of thing you're asking about. We went into a doctrine of preventive nuclear warfare, for the purpose of establishing world empire. At the time, the intention was an Anglo-American empire. Later down the line, they shifted to, with Cheney and company, to an American-only empire. But that's the impulse.

Now, the American people have been so conditioned to the idea of nuclear warfare, originated by Truman, under these conditions, that they became sort of immune to the power of discrimination. They didn't ask what's wrong with nuclear warfare? They didn't ask, why should it be unnecessary? They didn't ask, why can't we find a different way of dealing with the conflicts in the world? And so therefore, we got to the point, that it's considered patriotic to threaten the world with nuclear weapons. It's like this football stadium cheer section kind of thing. Rah, rah, rah! Go get 'em; go get 'em, boys! And the American people, to a large degree, have confused patriotism, with something which it's not. And going out to kill people, is not patriotism.

For example, look at it from a military standpoint.

The purpose of modern warfare, especially since Lazare Carnot in France, and then later others, was to avoid, to minimize the injury, both in lives and in materiel, to both parties, both adversary parties, in anticipation of the fact that when the war had stopped, you wanted to maintain the maximum number of resources, the least amount of injury, and minimal amount of hatred, and resentment over war, on which to build the fabric of peace. Therefore, the policy, the military policy, of modern nation, except some kind of brute, is not to go in to kill people. It's to go in, as MacArthur tried in the Pacific: to win the war, with the minimum of conflict, and to aim as the goal of war, the peace which you have to build on the survivors of warfare. And that sense of patriotism, is lost. I think some of our generals, Army and Marine Corps generals, may have a sense of that: I know some of them do. But in the White House, in the person of the President himself, or in the purpose of the so-called neo-conservatives, exactly the opposite. These people, from the moral standpoint, are monsters. And if you think of them as monsters, then you can understand them.

Eben: If you were President, what would you do about the Federal Reserve?

LaRouche: Well, of course, since our Central banking system, like those of Europe and other countries are bankrupt, my first act is to call up certain heads of state, and government, of other governments, for an emergency conference, which should have been what happened in October of 1998, and the emergency conference would put the central banking systems, and the Federal Reserve system of the United States, into receivership, under the respective governments. The corresponding action would be to put the IMF as such, into the same receivership. We own it. That is, we governments own the IMF. It is bankrupt, presently. Therefore, put it into receivership, in order to protect the nations, and so forth.

Then we have to do what Roosevelt did: reorganize this mess, and get some employment going. This country, for example, desperately needs more employment. We have, for example, state of California. We have vast shortage of infrastructure, especially power. We have a water crisis. You have a transportation crisis. So, we have the work that needs to be done. The work is worthwhile. And there's no better way to balance a budget, than to increase productive employment, to the degree that the tax revenue base goes up, accordingly. So, therefore, the best way to balance the budget, in a depression, is to expand productive employment. The quickest way to expand productive employment, is by taking the basic economic needs.

For example, take California energy. California has a lot, a great deal of the structure of energy production and distribution. So we have to have a power construction which will go to some -- we're going up to a trillion dollar mark, generally in that region, in the period ahead. So, long-term investment. 25 year-term investment, in restructuring power production, and distribution, for the needs of the region. That will employ a number of people. It will stimulate employment in firms, which are the contractors for this type of thing. It will enable the state to provide a stable, fixed rate price structure, on power and reliability. This will stimulate the economy.

You've got the aquifers in Southern California, and adjoining states. The ground is sinking, because the aquifers have been drained. This has to be fixed. So we should fix it.

We have other problems. We have a shortage of medical facilities -- we've shut them down under HMOs. In other words, we have things we desperately need, for our country, which it cannot be a waste to spend money on. So, why not take the unemployment, the idle capacity, and as Roosevelt did, put it to work! Let it work its way out. That will raise our tax-revenue base, and that will enable us to bring the thing back into balance.

Eben: So you wouldn't be for, in a sense, abolishing the Federal Reserve System, and having United States notes, where we don't have to pay interest on the face value of dollars, which only take thirty cents to create?

LaRouche: No, I would do that. The Federal System, I would,-- see, the Federal Reserve System, in my view, is bankrupt.  It's a Federally-chartered, I think unconstitutional, Federally-chartered central bank, with certain government controls.

Eben: And, what do you,-- you know, we hear about the budget deficit projections at around $45 [450] billion, but I understand that our actual deficit, is in the trillions of dollars, as it is.

LaRouche: Well, you're running in that range, in terms of, if you take current trends, and take trends of change into account, that's where we're headed for. We're headed for a trillion-dollar annual deficit right now. That's the ballpark. We have a similar problem in current-account deficit. We're a bankrupt nation.  And the only thing that'll cure that, is to put this into receivership, reorganize it, ex... [tape break] need Federal credit, expand employment, in areas which are productive. And the big stimulant I would rely upon immediately, would be, for example, national investment in building power-generation and distribution facilities.  That thing that happened in northeastern North America, 50 million people out: that's a warning sign. The whole national system is ready to go. We don't have a railroad system any more. We have a major water crisis problem. We have lots of these problem, which need to be fixed. They are sound investments. They will employ people. They will reactivate firms that otherwise would go bankrupt for lack of business. This is the only road to travel, if we want to get out of this mess.

Eben: What did you think about the peace movement?  People have given Bush credit for invigorating,-- millions of people getting out in cities around the globe in reaction to the Iraqi war, and in reaction to the invasion of Afghanistan. And of course, since that's over with, it's kind of dwindled. Talk about your thoughts about the peace movement, as a counter to what's going on on Capitol Hill.

LaRouche: Well, the peace movement has several dimensions to it internationally, to the extent I'm involved, and my wife is involved. First of all, remember that one of the factors here, was the promotion of religious warfare, by a buddy of Brzezinski, Samuel P. Huntington.  We've been concentrating on this question of ecumenical approaches among different cultures and religions, to minimizing conflict by coming to an ecumenical approach. It's the kind of thing that Pope John Paul II, for example, has pushed in his own way. But there are many others. We had conferences in India and elsewhere, which were referring to this kind of problem. There is now an international group from around the world, of many different religions and cultural institutions, which are concerned with these ecumenical approaches. That's one side of the thing. 

The other thing is to realize that this religious warfare, iw actually an instrument which flows not from religion as such, or from culture as such, but flows from somebody trying to play the thing. For example, you have people are trying to stir up religious warfare in India.  Now, India is interesting, because India, really, you know, it has the largest Muslim population of any nation in the world. [Eben: right.] But India's history, as such, is to minimize the warfare, or killing, over these kinds of issues. But, in these times you have people who go in there, and try to stir up religious warfare in a country which is not prone at all, to religious warfare. [Eben: Very good.] So what we're dealing with, is we're dealing with orchestrated religious warfare. Orchestrated communal conflict. And, that's one thing.

The other side of the thing, is, we have to create joint projects. You know, it's like the Treaty of Westphalia, which is a model for this, and which is one of the great works of Cardinal Mazarin, to organize after this Thirty Years War, and after more than a century of religious warfare in Europe,  to organize this concept of the "advantage of the other." The way to have peace, the way to avoid communal and religious conflict, is for each to look at that which is beneficial to the other. The other party. And to have them look the same way toward you. Therefore, what we have to do, is, really, organize not only negatively against these trends, but also put things on the table, as subjects of cooperation, of mutual benefit, proceeding from the principle of the "advantage of the other," as exemplified by the Treaty of Westphalia.

This is being done; people are moving in that direction. There's a desire for peace. For example, Russia, India and China, are getting into ever-closer cooperation. But not by themselves, but with other nations in the region. Europe desires,-- Western Europe,-- desires cooperation with China, in its expansion and development of infrastructure, and so forth and so on. So, that the tendency in the world, in the best part, not to speak of the terrible situation in Africa, is toward this advantage of the other, to realize that we need one another. We must protect the sovereignty of each nation, but we also need each other.

[station ID]

Eben: I wanted to ask you about the United Nations, and your thoughts about it. They are an institution, that is supposed to be there to help quell violence between states, but since its inception, I haven't seen them necessarily quell or stop any of the wars. In talking about what happened in Rwanda, what's going on with AIDS, just what happened in Kosovo; the UN is supposed to be a peaceful organization, but yet, I don't see them being effective at stopping the slaughter of innocent civilians. What is your feeling about the United Nations?

LaRouche: First of all, the United Nations,-- the present Secretary General is a very amiable person, but whose powers to act, are sometimes exaggerated by his critics. He doing probably the best he can, under the circumstances. Now, I do talk to people around the UN, and talk to people in governments about these problems. We've discussed this matter, because it's an obvious question to be raised now, particularly after what happened with the Iraq war.

As far as the Security Council is concerned, the concept of the Security Council is a useful project, to try to prevent wars, as an institution which can mediate. That's useful. The other side of the problem, however, has been that, really, the United States and Britain, are still running the world. And therefore, if you don't get their consent, even if other nations scream for it, it probably won't happen. We saw in the way that Bush just completely slapped the United Nations Security Council in the face, and went to a silly war, for which there was no need, using fraud, especially fraud pushed by Cheney, to get us into a war, for which there was no need and no justification.

So, the other side of the problem is the case of an experience I had in 1976. I was one of the pushers for a reform, which became known as a "Just New World Economic Order,"  which was put on the table in '76 at Sri Lanka, Colombo, at the Non-Aligned Nations meeting. That was voted up there. When my friend Fred Wills, who was then the Foreign Minister of Guyana, presented the thing to the United Nations, all the other nations which had subscribed to it at Colombo, had been arm-twisted out of continuing support for that at New York, in the ensuing United Nations General Assembly meeting. This is typical: is that small nations, or groups of small nations, which have a legitimate concern, and which think of taking these concerns to the United Nations, for some kind of diplomatic assistance in bringing about a solution, find often they're turned off because the United States and Britain, and maybe a couple of other countries, say "No." At one time, it was: you couldn't get the Soviet Union and the Anglo-Americans to agree. It couldn't happen. But, that's the weakness, that the small nations of the United Nations, do not have the kind of access to the United Nations as a diplomatic facility, which is necessary. Because a small nation has limited resources, limited lobbying resources. They need a forum in which they can bring these issues up, discuss it among the community of nations, and put the thing on the table where people take it seriously.  And that's the big problem.

Africa's a special case. You have Anglo-American, and to some degree Israeli forces, which are playing games in Africa. The policy since the middle of the 1970s in Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, has been genocide. For example, you look at what happened in Liberia.  1979-1980, Liberia was a stable nation. It had proposed what became known as the Lagos Plan of Action. But before the Lagos Plan was voted up, the government had been overthrown precisely because it had proposed the Lagos Plan of Action, had sponsored it. Since then, Liberia has gone through a series of genocidal horror-shows, beyond the imagination of most people.  And, other parts of Africa: Rwanda. Burundi. What has happened in Congo. What has happened in other parts of Africa. There is literal, intentional genocide going on in Africa. But everybody's afraid to take it on. Because, unless the President of the United States, and other countries, major powers, say, "No!", it will continue. That's one of the things that has to be handled that way.

Otherwise, we have these problems in other parts of the world, in Eurasia, or South and Central America, the problem is severe, but it's not as severe. But in Africa, in sub-Saharan Africa, the situation is unspeakable and becoming worse. This is deliberate genocide beyond belief. We must stop it. And [laughs] if I get in the White House, it's going to stop; I can tell you that.

Eben: When you say people are afraid to take it on, who would they be taking on, that is helping precipitate this level of horror and violence in Africa?  Who would they be taking on?

LaRouche: Well, let's take a case, you know: take the case of what Bill Clinton tried to do. Bill is probably one of the most intelligent Presidents we're had, particularly, since Kennedy, certainly.  But, he has a sense of principle, he has a brain, which is important. It's respectable. However, he's a politician. And, in that whole crowd, in the Democratic Party in particular, there's very little sense of principle any more. So that the Democratic official, like Clinton, who thinks in terms of concepts, concepts of policy, not always right, but he thinks, which is already,-- you're way ahead. But when it comes to implementing, he's trapped in a situation, where politics results in compromises of things which he would otherwise instinctively tend to oppose.

Take the case of the peace negotiations with Barak and so forth, with Israel, on the Arab-Israeli negotiations.  He was quite sincere on this, in his earlier efforts. He made a mistake, in my view, in the case of the initial Camp David negotiation with Barak and Arafat: he made himself the attorney for Barak, rather than acting as the President of the United States as a critic of his partners for that discussion. He also, as part of that, raised none of the economic issues, such as water issues, which are key to any durable peace in the Middle East. And the thing blew up. He didn't react properly to Barak's attempted blackmail on the Temple Mount question.  [Eben: Okay.]

But then, he did try to salvage it, just before he left office. He made an effort which was perfectly credible, but it failed at that point. So, this is typical of the problems around the world, is that if you have a President like Clinton, who is likely, if he was convinced, to try to do the right thing. The problem was, that he feels that he's in a situation, in which his maintaining the ability to act as President, or some other power, depends upon his making a compromise, which turns out to be rotten in its effects.  This is the problem. I don't have that problem; I'm a more stubborn old cuss, and I'm more inclined to take the risk of taking an unpopular position, if I think morality demands it.

Eben: Fantastic to hear it.  There has been talk that, historically, that the ideas of capitalism and communism have been fostered by the very same powers-that-be, let's say, a hidden hand, a hidden glove somewhere, that has exercised communism and Marxist theory, and also capitalism at the same time. What do you feel are the influences of some of these societies. There's Skull and Bones, and you can see Bush having some of his friends up on Capitol Hill, and you mention the Martinists of France,-- do you still feel that their collectivist agenda is at work, in the United States and around the globe?

LaRouche: Well, what you've got, is since the 18th Century, since the so-called Enlightenment, you had, during that period, what are called international freemasonic wars, in which Freemasonry of various competing varieties, became a significant determinant of politics. And so it became fanciful to try to do this kind of thing. Now, in this process, as a result of a reaction against the American Revolution, there was a revolt in Europe, which became known as the French Revolution, among forces which were opposed to the spread of the influence of the American Revolution, especially the Constitutional draft, in Europe. For example, if you go into, say, the Spring of 1789: the French monarchy was bankrupted because it had adopted bad policies foisted upon it by various influences. Bailly and LaFayette, as leaders of the constituent body, had developed and adopted a proposed constitution for the French monarchy. The constitution was modelled upon the experience of the United States. The King, under pressure, rejected it. Foreign forces which were in France, were mobilized; foreign troops. They tried to prevent it. Then you had the storming of the Bastille, which was organized by Philippe Égalité and Jacques Necker, of certain financial interests, who were later identified as tied to a freemasonic cult called the Martinists. They organized the French Revolution, the left-wing phase, including the Jacobin Terror. Out of the Jacobin ranks, came the "man on horseback," Napoleon Bonaparte, who set up the first fascist dictatorship in the world, as a French fascist empire. And since that time, this thing has gone on.

So, what you have around the world, is this myth, about British-model, so called London Haileybury school idea of "capitalism," as against "communism." It's just exactly consonant, from that standpoint, with the left and right wings of the French Revolution. That is, the left-wing Jacobin Terror, against the Napoleon right-wing terror. That's the idiocy. Where the United States, is neither. The United States is neither a capitalist country, constitutionally, as the British System would define it, nor is it a communist country. Our commitment is, to the Hamiltonian form of society, that the Federal government must take responsibility for the general welfare of the entire population and its posterity, for all the land area, and all the people. That the Federal government is responsible for those measures needed to promote an protect the interests of all of the people, and all of the land area, for posterity. Whereas, we promote, as much as possible, private initiative, that is the brain-power of our citizens, in order to contribute, and we try to protect, enhance, and nourish, promising types of private. We work to help the farmer develop, in the United States. Which made us rich, and powerful. We promoted railroads, which made us rich, and powerful. United our country. We promoted water projects and other things, all of which were good. So we have a division of labor, both on the Federal level, and on the state level, which is similar, of this division, between what should be public, and what should be private. So, the American System, as Hamilton conceived it, or as Lincoln conceived it, and as Roosevelt tried to conceive it, this is our way of life. This is our way of doing things. And it's the model which we could recommend to the world. Not impose on the world, but recommend it to them.

Eben: In these final minutes, let me ask. This is the seventh year of your running on the Democratic ticket, for the Presidency of the United States. Why do you think you have not been elected or nominated by the Democratic Party, and what's it going to take in the United States, for an outsider, for someone with the ideas and the conviction and passion of your ideas, to find traction within the United States?

LaRouche: Well, my problem has been, I've been altogether too successful.  Which means, that people who fear,-- you know, if they thought I was some kind of dummy, who couldn't win anything, they never would have done the things to me they've done to me. [Eben: Very truthful.] They only do that, if they think you're a danger to their power. So, I've run up against that.

The other side of the question's this. Today, I represent, in a sense, a sort of a rebirth, and always have, of what Roosevelt represented on the heels of the tragedy of Coolidge and Hoover. We've come again to that time. In the meantime, the country has drifted in a direction away from what we were, when we went throught our recovery from the depression and out of the war. So we've come a full cycle. Now, I've been fighting against this trend all along. And, apart from the fact that I could have won the Presidency if I had not been stopped.  And I was stopped, a couple of times, or come near to winning it, a few times. Despite the fact, that the trend in ideology has been running largely against me, shall we say all these years.  But now, the very ideology which has been the increasing block against what I've been trying to do, that is now collapsing.  "Oh, look and behold!  The curtain falls!" [laughs]  The game is over. We're now coming back to a time like 1932-33, when form the standpoint of the auguries, the time has come for Franklin Roosevelt, or his equivalent to manifest himself.

Eben:  Well, it is about time!  [Both laugh heartily.]  Mr. LaRouche, our hour has absolutely flown by, but what an honor, and how fortunate we are, to be able to talk to you directly. You have amazing minds, and amazing people, working passionately for you, on the streets of LA, in the offices, and on the phone banks, but the opportunity to speak to you, to have you in Los Angeles, is stellar, is absolutely amazing.  And I want to thank you so much for this time, and hopefully, in the future, would yo come back, and...

LaRouche: Of course! I'd be glad to,-- I would have done it earlier,-- what's it been, since March?  I would have done it earlier, except for my travel schedule.

Eben: Oh, of course. Well, we are glad that you are out there representing, talking about some sanity, to this economic life, and talking about jobs, that's such a basic thing in the equation.  And thank God, that you are looking at supplying us with things to do, and I really thank you for you time.

LaRouche: Thank you very much.

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