Sweeney: My first question, Dr. Bennett, I'd like to begin by asking you a few questions about your life and military career before you began teaching at Old Dominion University. First could you tell me about your childhood in Canada in the World War I era and something about your family and your upbringing?

My family... My mother was a third or fourth generation Canadian. Her forbears had come out to Canada and were farmers in the area. My father was an Englishman...had come out as a child with his father who was in the mining business. My father was in the heavy machinery business, connected with lumbering, and mining and things like that. And he had been a ..he was a .. had been a volunteer in the South African War. And that is how he had close military connections.

Also, at that time anybody who was anybody in Ottawa, they were all members of the local militia, which was the equivalent of the National Guard. All my uncles and cousins and so on, and one of my mother's uncles had been colonel of the local county regiment. This was the normal sort of life for a boy at that age. The same sort of things..

The main sport, of course, in Canada, one must remember you have almost six months of winter - and we were very keen on ice hockey, skiing, and that sort of thing. I was a very keen skier. I wasn't very good at hockey. But it's interesting to see that to this day the main exports, one of the most important exports, of Canada is hockey players.

Incidentally, as an interesting thing, in the grade school I went to, we had three boys who were contemporaries of mine, who were captains of three NHL teams: the Boston Bruins, the Chicago Blackhawks, and the Detroit Redwings. All were in the same room with me in school and so that's rather interesting.

Sweeney: Why did you join the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps at the age of sixteen? And how did you become interested in a military career?

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Bennett: Well. The Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps happened to be the militia regiment in which my mother's cousin, who was a doctor and was an officer. And Like all militia regiments they were always looking for recruits to fill up the ranks when they went to camp. And the son of Dr. Fenton, who was a third cousin of mine, and I were both inspired to go to the military college - the Royal Military College of Canada at Kingston.

And we thought it would be the thing to earn a little money in the summer and perhaps to get our tickets punched as boys interested in things military. Of course, we were members of the high school cadet corps, as all boys were in those days, as far as I know. I don't know if it was voluntary or compulsory. It was just one of the things you did. This had nothing to do with a military career. It was just to try to get into the military college.

The reason I was going to the military college, which is of some interest, is that my father, having been a private volunteer in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the South African War, was not convinced that Woodrow Wilson's "war to end wars..." was not really going to do that. And therefore, he was determined that I would have the best possible military education and hence he wanted me to go to the military college.

The second reason was that it so happened that I aspired to be an engineer and I was fascinated with chemistry. I suppose because of the competence of the chemistry teacher in our high school. And I wanted to be a chemical engineer which has a close connection with the paper business and a number of things that go on in Canada.

And it so happened that the Royal Military College of Canada had one of the best chemistry programs in the country. So Father felt that we would kill two birds with one stone; and hence, I applied to, and was accepted at the military college. In Canada, your vacancies are allotted by provinces on a competitive basis on your provincial university matricular examination. And I was lucky enough to get a vacancy.

Sweeney: Could you tell me about your experience at the Royal Military College of Canada as a Gentleman Cadet in the early 1930's? Especially could you comment on the discipline?

Bennett: Well, the Royal Military College of Canada was set up in 1876 when the British, having made their deals with the Americans and patched up relations completely, decided to withdraw their garrisons from Canada. Canada had become a confederation, as it now is, and they decided... the British said they were leaving and the Canadians had to look after their own defense. The same thing that established the Royal Military College is very similar to the reason why George Washington was keen on establishing West Point. The college was very much modeled after West Point.

Canadians are great for looking around and seeing what other people have done and then trying to adapt it to their own conditions. The British Government sent out the staff and faculty for the college. But the Canadian Government, on the advice of the Governor-general, who was a professional soldier, sent out from Great Britain representing Queen Victoria, said he that he felt the West Point

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system with the four-year engineering course would be much more applicable to Canada than the British system at Sandhurst with an eighteen month purely military course. Hence the college was set up. Hence it had a very good general engineering course, which one could go and get a degree at one of the recognized universities by taking a fifth year to get one's degree, which I hoped to do.

Now, in my experience, military experience, all military colleges are set up very much on the same idea. They have the same at West Point, ________ in France. I have known a friend who was a graduate of the Royal Yugoslavian Military Academy and is now a retired Communist commander in Yugoslavia. Another one was a graduate of the Austrian Military Academy at Wiener Neustadt, and, of course, I have many British friends and American friends.

The concept is very much the same. The idea is that no officer should ever have under his command any soldier that has ever had to put up with anything in the way of military discipline that he hasn't had to put up with as a cadet, and more too. So the whole principle, and this gets into serious difficulties at times, is to give your officer cadets the worst possible going over to insure that no soldier under his command will ever have to suffer anything more than he did. This is true. This is the way people have trained: guards, officers in Great Britain at the Guards Brigade. Talking with my friends from other nations, it's the same thing.

It doesn't matter where you go. That's the first principle: to instill absolute discipline and obedience in your man before he learns how to command. Then great responsibility is given to the senior cadets to allow them to be observed as commanders and leaders as they become more senior. Sometimes they don't do too well; sometimes their character is not of the type that really performs a leader or they become brutal and sometimes then you have to take drastic action.

Periodic scandals come up in all of those military colleges, There's been a recent one at West Point, and we had some when I was there. The object of this military college is the military training side, which was 24 hours a day and then there was the education side, which was some eight hours a day. I think that's the best way to describe how the thing went, and when you were finished...

I have never seen anything that suggests there's a better way of doing it. I was fortunate enough to rise rather rapidly in the Second World War and I became very conscious of the importance of the training we received at the military college. When the war was starting I had some very poor officers coming in from the militia with no proper basic military training, and then one day when I was a staff officer, I got a fellow who was a graduate of the military college. It was just like coming in out of the dark; it was such a change. I noticed in reading biographies of Americans, General Ridgeway and others, that they couldn't understand why they were given such a rough time at West Point. It wasn't until World War II that they discovered why. That would be my opinion, and I think these are universal truths; they go up and down.

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The natural enemy of military colleges is the liberal political philosophy. This is quite wrong. The liberals must realize that military men can serve conservatives, liberals, socialists, and as they showed in Germany, national socialists, Nazis, or in Yugoslavia and Russia, Communists. They must be apolitical and it has nothing to do with liberalism or democracy. This is an entirely different organizational principle.

Sweeney: In 1935 you were detailed for duty with the Unemployment Relief Project at Hudson, Ontario. Could you tell me more about this assignment?

Bennett: Yes, having gotten to the Royal Military College and having graduated with distinction in: chemistry and engineering, I then discovered in 1933 that there were no jobs to be had. My father,who was a hardheaded gentleman said, "Well, the obvious thing to do is to take a commission in the Army. There's some of those." So he said... discussed with his military friends and they said "Well the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps is the one that handles most of the chemistry and ammunition and engineering of the Army. So take a commission in that," which I did.

So, I was sent on my first assignment to Winnipeg, Manitoba and I had hardly been there a short while when I discovered that what the ordinance corps did most was run supplies. And by 1935 we had a very large unemployment project at a place called Lac Seul. This was copied after Mr. Franklin D. Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps. We were having trouble with vast numbers of unemployed. We had no real organization to get them off the streets, particularly in Western Canada which was suffering from a combination of the drought and the Depression.

And so it was decided to set up at this particular area, which is about 350 miles due north of Duluth at the west end of Lake Superior on the Transcontinental Railway, an extremely out of the way place. Only a railway, and the most exciting thing that happened was when the train from the east came in, and the train from the west came in.

Our job was to... they were building a large hydroelectric plant on the English River which eventually flows into the Arctic or the Hudson Bay. And our job was to clear about 1500 miles of shoreline on Lac Seul, which was being raised. To clear this and use the pulp wood -- export the pulpwood. In fact, we burned the pulp wood to keep ourselves warm and we accomplished nothing except clearing the trees and keeping the men off the streets. It was an extraordinarily useful job.

The Superintendent of the camp was a regular artillery officer. There was me, the supply officer of the camp for about between two or three thousand men, and the signal sergeant, who handled the communications of these large numbers of fifteen and twenty camps, scattered along the edge of Lac Seul.

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It was the best possible military training for a future logistician you could possibly have. It didn't accomplish anything economically, but it did keep the men off the streets. And I think it did something for political stability.

Sweeney: Do you have any comments to make about your further military training and assignments in the late 1930's?

Bennett: Yes. When I finished at Hudson, I was sent over to England as a... to the Royal Military College Of Science at Woolwich, England, where Woolwich Arsenal is located, and I got on with my chemical training. I finished the course. I did rather well.

And well enough that I was posted to what had been my great ambition - the Dominion of Canadian arsenal in Quebec City, where all of the ammunition was manufactured for the, then rather strong, Canadian Army. Even better, I was with the inspection department so I was working very closely with the arms making industries, and I could see great possibilities for myself becoming, when the Depression was over and I finished my military service, getting a good job with Dupont of Canada, or one of those large firms.

However in 1939, after the great flap that happened at Munich in 1938 with Chamberlain and Hitler, Canada became very excited about the possibility of war and I was posted from the arsenal to be Command Ordnance Officer at Halifax, Nova Scotia in Spring of 1939. And that, then, of course, in the fall. In September 1939, Canada declared war on Germany and I was so busy with my job as the Chief Supply Officer for that particular military command that in actual fact my time and studies as a would-be chemical expert and technical expert went out the window and the most useful experience I'd had was the training I got with the unemployment camp at Hudson. I was sent Overseas as Divisional Ordnance Officer for the Second Canadian Division with the advance party in May 1940 just as France was collapsing.

Sweeney: That leads directly into my next question. Could you provide your own reminiscences of the spirit of the British people and the British military at this critical time in their history, about June of 1940 -- the time of the fall of France?

Bennett: Yes. It was a very discouraging time. I was with the advance party of the division and divisional headquarters. We arrived in... While we were going across the Atlantic, which took about a week, France surrendered. The British Army finally came out of Dunkirk in very sad disarray. A close friend of mine, who was in the Canadian Army was attached to the British. He came out on a garbage barge from Dunkirk.

And the army lost all its equipment. There was really nothing in Great Britain at all. The amazing thing is, that when we arrived in Liverpool, there was no really great flap. The British had managed to get themselves out because they had seized air superiority over the Strait of Dover, and they of course had sea superiority. But then they had a crash action plan because they thought that probably the Germans were going to invade the place. In actual fact, I had a close German friend who was a general staff officer planning the invasion. In fact, the Germans didn't have very much to invade with. That was the problem.

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We didn't know that at the time, and we had nothing to repel them. I know a great deal about the standards of the Canadian Army Division which was supposed to be one of the best. I would think if the Germans could have landed one division in the Dover area, they would certainly have conquered the country. That, of course, they couldn't do that until they got air superiority.

The spirit of the people was rather interesting. As the British always do, in fact it was infuriating to we Canadians, that nothing seemed to worry them. In fact, one of the things that I was so indignant about was I was trying to get equipment out of the Aldershot field stores over the Whitsun holiday in June 1940. And do you think you could get the civilian trade unionists to turn out and work over the holiday? Not they! This may be very good for avoiding getting into a panic when the the Germans are at the gate. But on the other hand it goes a long way to explain what's the matter with Great Britain today. This is the attitude of the trade unionists; they know their rights. They're not going to worry just because Hitler's at their door. This didn't go over too well with the Canadians, of course.

I think that the spirit of the British military... Well, I think that at all levels, the top command was pretty realistic. They knew that everything depended on maintaining air superiority. The Battle of the Britain told the day, told the story. The British knew that they could certainly handle anything at sea the Germans could produce. And they could certainly sink any barges or whatever the Germans might be using as amphibious craft. They knew the Germans had no real amphibious competence. They saw what had happened to them up in Norway.

And I think the high command was pretty confident. The Americans were a great help. They came to our assistance with equipment and so on and so forth. But the thing depended on the Battle of Britain and Churchill and the British Government let the French down. There might never have been... the French might have survived had they committed, as they were required to, the Metropolitan Air Force to the support of the French Army in the latter part of the 1940 command. However, had they lost that battle and lost the Metropolitan Air Force, then I don't think there's any question that the Germans would have won the war.

I think perhaps from the strictly British point of view, the British were right. But it's very difficult to convince a Frenchman of that, who had to put up with the next four years of German occupation. I think generally the high command was pretty realistic.

At my level, I was a major at the time, we didn't know what was going on much. All we knew was we were getting bombed all the time. I was a staff officer in London. I was in every air raid until the Germans pulled their Air Force off and got ready to go against Russia. It wasn't much fun, but every night we had to go out for dinner in a tin hat and so on. And spend your nights in the basement of our headquarters in Trafalgar Square in London.

But I think they were pretty realistic about the thing and, of course, the vital thing was the support given by the American government to get them through.

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Sweeney: Could you recollect briefly the rest of your tour of duty during World War II?

Bennett: Yes. I was on the General's staff. I was a Senior Logistics Officer. I went to the staff college, it was decided that... one of my previous commanding officers said that I would be a much better administrator and organizer and staff officer than I was as a technical officer. So, I was sent to the staff college in England and I became a logistical staff officer on the General's staff until 1942.

And then I was very fortunate. The British had supplied us with a lot of the key staff people in the Canadian Army as we rapidly built our army up. And one should remember that the Canadian Armed Forces before the war, there was only five thousand in our ranks with seven hundred officers. At the end of the war there were over a million. So an expansion of this size is a real accomplishment and the British supplied us with key experienced people.

In the Spring of 1942, the British officer who had been Chief Ordnance Officer on the First Canadian Army, which had just been formed; we had two corps headquarters and we formed the army headquarters; was called back to duty with the British Army. And I was fortunate enough to be chosen to be the Chief Ordnance Officer of the army. The main job for this was to organize and train the ordnance services, the supply services and repair services for an army of six divisions, which was in the process of being trained and organized.

It was a big job. The British hadn't gotten too much experience because they were short of men. They based their people directly on the static installation arsenals in England, whereas we had to produce a field organization which we could move to France, later.

I did that job until the Fall of '43 when it was decided to send a corps of two divisions to the Mediterranean under the command of Montgomery and the 8th Army. I was then taken out of the army job and sent as the corps ordnance officer to the Mediterranean.

My job there was to just be a field corps ordnance officer. When we got there, we found that there was no equipment for us. It had all been worn out coming from El Alaman to Naples. So my first job was to get enough equipment for this corps which was a very busy job. And we had to get most of our stuff sent out from Great Britain and some directly from Canada, and most of it came from Egypt.

There was probably one of the most interesting jobs of my life occurred at this time. At this time the combined chiefs had decided to support Marshall Tito of Yugoslavia, the Communist leader. Churchill's liaison officer was a fellow named Brigadier Sir Fitzroy Maclean, who came over and asked General Querrer, our corps commander, could he organize to pick up all the abandoned Italian and German equipment and ammunition in Sicily and Southern Italy. Since this was our corps area while waiting for equipment, I got the job.

It was a fascinatingly interesting job. I had to mobilize all the Italian workmen we would get our hands on and my people did it. And we gathered it all together and put it on small scooters, which were smuggled across to

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the Dalmatian Coast and it was distributed to the partisan troops there. It was very interesting. Later we found out from the Germans that, to a degree, as a result of our efforts, we were able to keep something in the order of twenty German divisions tied down in guerilla warfare.

This had a great impact on me. I got to know a lot about these Communist birds. And I was given a medal for it and I was also convinced that there is no way in which a great power can win a guerilla war against a determined nationalist resistance movement, if that movement has the support of another great power. This convinced me later in Washington that there was no way the Americans could win the war in Vietnam. My logic, however, didn't make me too popular with my friends in Washington when I pointed out they were going to lose. I was even less popular when they did lose.

This was a very interesting job. At the end of this, General Querrer was made army commander and went back to Northwest Europe. He took me back; I was promoted to brigadier-general and I had the responsibility as Chief Ordnance Officer for our army which was sometimes with British divisions. We had Polish divisions, Czech, Dutch, Belgian, and all kinds of people, even Americans. We had three American divisions under command of the Chief Ordnance Officer for this affair until the end of the war on May 10. It was a very interesting job and a very rewarding one.

I left the First Canadian Army the same day that Admiral __________ signed the surrender document. I was sent back to Canada and was given the job of Deputy Chief of Logistics in Ottawa for the demobilization and reorganization of the army.

Sweeney: In 1948 you attended the United States National War College. Could you tell me about your experience there and whether that experience stimulated a desire to retire in the United States?

Bennett: Well, This was a very fortunate thing. I had finished my three years as Deputy Chief of Logistics, and at that time the Americans had a very special relationship with the Canadians and the British. It's hard to realize, but at that time, Canada was the number four military power in the world. Number one and two were the United States and the Soviet Union; number three the British, and number four Canada. Everybody else was flat on their back. So the Americans had three British and three Canadian officers until NATO was formed at the National War College. And I was fortunate enough to be chosen as the Canadian Army representative. This was, in my opinion, without any question the greatest educational experience of my life. The American National War College is a wonderful organization. I've had some experience with others, but I've never seen a better one.

No. I went back. Did it inspire me to retire in the States? Well, all it did, really, was make me appreciate how nice it was in the States; how much better the climate was in Virginia, where I lived, but I went back to Canada as a now area commander in various areas in the country. But it was a very fortuitous thing, because most of the people who were my classmates, there were 120 people who I worked with for a whole year in committees and so on. And they, of my thirty classmates, when I returned, at least twenty of them were general officers. And there was one time later when I knew every four-star general in the American army by his first name, which was a tremendous advantage to the Canadian representative in Washington.

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Sweeney: What were your duties then in the Canadian peace time Army during the rest of your military service in the 1950's and the 1960's?

Bennett: From 1949 until 1957 I commanded three military areas in three provinces: Western Ontario, Saskatchewan on the prairies, and Newfoundland, in the Atlantic provinces. My principal job as area commander was the army liaison man with the provincial governments and the civilian authorities. My most effective job, I feel, was during the summer. My duties were to... I commanded the individual training installations for the command. These would comprise several provinces. I was in Nova Scotia during the summer when I was commanding Newfoundland. What I did was to look after the individual training of the junior ROTC's, and high school cadets, and the university ROTC's and all the individual training of the militia officers and noncommissioned officers. In these jobs I would have a camp or installation of about three thousand people of which there were a handful of regulars, perhaps twenty-five, who ran the administration, the chief instructor's job. All the rest of my officers were university professors or high school teachers.

For example, my deputy commander was invariably a high school principal.

These gentlemen were reserve officers of one kind or another and our organizational system, I found, interestingly enough, I reported this to Daniel Moynihan when I was in Washington. He was very interested when he was working on some of his educational ideas.

I found it was an extremely effective organization to have a regular backbone and supporting that, these reserve officers who did the instructing and who did the administering of these boys for ten weeks in the summer.

In my opinion this is the way to build an all-volunteer military. This is where we got most of our good officers. I've sponsored a number of them and sent some down here to the Armed Forces Staff College. People who were high school cadets with me are now four-striped captains in the Navy or colonels in the Army.

This was where you got your very best officer recruits and a lot of good trades recruits in the Army. Now the system was ten weeks of intensive training on a modified system that we used at the military college. Not quite so tough to start with, but working up the same way to weed out the weak sisters and try to avoid political problems. Now this was our most important job. I also had the university organization.

It's interesting. Our noncommissioned officers in these organizations were invariably senior school boys. Our junior officers were ROTC university students. The company commander would be a high school teacher or university professor; a company sergeant-major-would be an older sergeant from the regular army. It was a very effective organization.

In addition to this, I had all kinds of liaison jobs with the provincial government, looking after assistance, if there were floods or fires and so on and so forth. There were a number of regular troops and I had to look after their training and administration.

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In 1957 I went to the Canadian Defense College, which was kind of a refresher course because I was posted to the general's staff in Ottawa. I was the general's staff officer in charge of plans and operations. And one of my most important jobs was supervision of the International Control Commission, the Canadian section of it in Indochina. There my opinions that the Americans were not likely to win that contest were confirmed because I had to handle the debriefing of our officers coming back from Indochina.

In 1959 I was made Deputy Chief of Personnel for the Canadian Army and my principal job was manning, and I learned a very great deal. I feel like I could probably be of some assistance in the United States on the question of manning an all-volunteer military, because that's the only kind we have had. Again I was in charge of education of the officers and assisting with selecting people for the military college. So I was again very closely associated with the Canadian education system and education authorities. When I finished that job was when I was sent to Washington.

Sweeney: We'll get into Washington. I have three questions on that. From 1962 to 1965 you commanded the Canadian Army Liaison Mission in the United States and was military attaché of the Canadian Embassy in Washington DC. First, could you tell me about your duties in these positions?

Bennett: Well, The Canadian military attaché one we didn't take too seriously. This was a largely social affair. I was in fact drinking for my country. However, it was very, very interesting in that I got to know some fascinating people. Two of my closest friends had been leftenant colonels on the German general's staff during World War II. On the other side, one had been in France during my operation there. So we exchanged a great many interesting experiences.

I also got to know another close friend, an Italian and the Austrian attaché was also a German general's staff officer and Belgians -- very close friends. This has been invaluable to me since I've been in University work because I have contacts all over Europe to discuss the situation with some very important people. That was one side of the thing.

The other side was my job as chief liaison officer with the United States, and this was much more important. We had a very close relationship with the American military and I was in and out of the Pentagon and it was here that my time at the National War College was so important, because so many of my friends were now three and four star generals and admirals. I had a close working arrangement with them and it made the work of my staff very easy. I didn't have to do much work.

I had liaison officers in all the big American installations, I had two over at Fort Monroe; Fort Benning; Fort Sill, the artillery installation; with Quantico, with the Marines there; and with various technical installations at Aberdeen Arsenal, etc. This was the important job.

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We were trying to get a standardization system which I see Mr. Carter has just announced, that we're going to have another go in NATO to do more standardizing. If they don't do better than we did in the Washington Standardization Organization, they won't do very much. It's a very difficult thing to do.

Did I receive accurate briefings? Well, I certainly did. I was in on the inside of most of the things. I happened to have been in Washington. I was the Acting Chairman of the Canadian Joint Staff during the great missile flap in 1962. This was very uncomfortable because the Canadian government was not at all sure that it was as serious as Mr. Kennedy said it was. We found our relationships became somewhat strained.

Of course, they became even more strained during the Vietnam period when we were horrified to see what Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Johnson were doing, because, as I say, I for one, was absolutely convinced that the Americans would lose the war -- after my experience as the General's staff officer listening to the debriefings in Ottawa, and my experience with Marshall Tito in Italy. This didn't make me too popular.

In fact as an amusing aside, I was asked my opinion at a dinner party at the house of the Vice Chief of Staff. I gave it to them after having perhaps too many cocktails. I was wearing mescat at the time, which is scarlet. When I was finished, one lady guest said, "Why you're as red as that coat you're wearing."

Sweeney: Did you have much to do with the Department of State, other than what you mentioned, and did you get along well with officers officers of state or have much contact with them?

Bennett: Not too much directly with the Department of State, because of course, we had very effective and very close work between our foreign service people. Our embassy in Washington, of course, worked very closely. Now what we used to hear was that the ambassador would go up, for instance, to Martha's Vineyard with Mr. Kennedy. They sat and rocked in the rocking chairs with Mr. Pearson, the Canadian Prime Minister, and there was a very close relationship. It became rather strained during Mr. Diefenbaker's period as prime minister. This was immediately after Mr. Diefenbaker left.

Our relationships were very close and very cordial at the personal level with the State Department and the Canadian staff. This was of course our most important embassy.

However they weren't always quite as cordial with Lyndon Johnson because he was very tired of the Canadian gratuitous advice. He didn't care for the attitudes the Canadians were taking toward the war in Indochina. But generally I would say we were always very close. I made sure that all the information I could gather and any Canadian officers who had come back from Indochina- my cousin, who had been in Hanoi and was Commander and Deputy Commander of the operations of the International Control Commission.

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When he came down and stayed with me in Washington, I made sure that the Americans who should get all that information, got it. That, Of course had better be considered top secret because that wouldn't improve our present relationships with, or the American's relationships with the chaps in Hanoi.

Sweeney: Now a very important question: Why did you desire to enter the teaching profession in you post- military career?

Bennett: Well, the reason is that soldiering is a young man's game. You have to leave, get out. I got out at fifty-five... fifty-four. Therefore, you can't just hang up your gloves at that period. And I became convinced after my experience with the high school cadets and the ROTC cadets in Canada, which I had nine years, I was convinced that this is what I would like to do. Because, soldiering... I started my career as a teacher in 1933, schooling my soldiers, who had to pass, at that time, had to get through grade ten or they weren't allowed to be re-engaged. I had to teach them history and mathematics, and I have been doing that all my life.

In soldiering you're either teaching, learning, or fighting, unless you're an administrator as I was quite a lot of the time. So I was closely involved with this. I became closely involved with the high school and university level.

I decided I didn't want to be a high school teacher. I had no postgraduate qualifications at that time, because I felt that while I find teaching high school students is rewarding, it's only rewarding for those who are enthusiastic, like most of the ones we had that lasted through the first week at our training camps. It's not so rewarding with reluctant scholars. Therefore I decided I wanted to go in at the university level.

I was therefore required to get some qualifications. Again fortuitously, because I had been to the National War College, I discovered when I arrived in Washington that I already had half the credits, because of the accreditation of the National War College for a Master of Arts in International Relations.

So while I was drinking for my country, during the day, I managed to get myself qualified with a Master of Arts in International Relations from George Washington University. I felt that was as far as I wanted to go. I felt when I retired I could get myself a job with an M.A. in Canada.

Sweeney: Would you compare or contrast the teaching and military professions as careers? You've already made some comment on this, but you might like to elaborate since you've had experience in both.

Bennett: Well, yes I think... Who are our best students at Old Dominion University? In my opinion there's no question whatever. Our best students are the people when I first came here who have come out of the military and have done their time in the military and have become convinced that they need more education. Or our students who come voluntarily from the armed forces here. In my opinion they are way

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ahead of any of the other kind of students we get, except of course the part-time students we get from business or ladies whose children have grown up and they've decided they want some more education.

The trouble is I think with most young people is they are like I was. My idea when I was at the military college was to get through the exam and forget about everything you've learned so you could get on with hitting the next one, or doing something important like playing football. I think that the Germans and others are right when they say people should finish their schooling, do their military training for two years and then they're probably mature enough to take on the university. How this can be straightened out in the future I don't know, but in my experience the kind of training that... the kind of students are much better in the military than they are generally in general civilian life. Because these are serious people. They're more mature. Training recruits in the Army is just like training students in high school. There's no difference at all. I would think probably it would be a little easier to train at the elementary level provided that your material hadn't been spoiled.

But the other thing is I find that training and education in the military is much more objective than in civilian life. They only give generalist training when you get up very high. They give like war colleges and staff colleges are given to people in their thirties and forties. At the cadet level, we had no such thing as elective courses. The faculty told us what we would learn. We didn't learn it very well, but we probably learned it as well as any other way of doing it. I think this is one of the changes, one of the great advantages of the military.

Now as I said, in my opinion, what we got at the National War College was the best educational experience without any question compared with George Washington University or American University or what I know of Harvard University and others. In my opinion that's the best educational experience I have ever had.

Sweeney: Why?

Bennett: Because of the very high standard of the people we had working with us. For instance, we would have top people of that age. Dean Atchison would come down and talk to us on diplomacy; we would have Vandebar Busch come down and talk to us on the problems of technology in the military. Also the way they worked, as I've tried to work here, in syndicates, in seminars. And of course you're dealing with extraordinarily experienced people. In the committee you would have, you would have people from all over the world, very widely experienced. And, of course, you had very dedicated people who were very anxious to learn. You didn't have anybody who was just there for fun.

And I think then the objective, what you were working for was, in this case to give people - I remember the objective was set up that we should know what the government's intentions were likely to be and it was your job as a military man to prepare for anything that the government was likely to require you to do. This doesn't always succeed, but this was the objective that was set up.

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I think that the universities could learn an awful lot from how the armed forces do their training. Also, if you have to go on a mass production basis, the American military has shown remarkable confidence to do that. As Winston Churchill once said to some critics in the British Armed Forces that they didn't think much of the standard -- the military standard -- of the American Armed Forces in World War II, and they weren't all that good. We Canadians had the advantage of getting the support of the British. It was much easier for us than the Americans. As Winston Churchill said to his critics, "Look, the amazing thing is not that the American divisions are not up to what we think they should be, compared with the Germans, or ourselves. The amazing thing is that they could produce ninety divisions at all in the very short time they have done." This is what the American military showed they were able to do.

I think they've met their mission of training and education in a most remarkable fashion. One of the most important things is the way the American military today realizes the importance of training their top leaders. I don't think you could get a star in the American Armed Forces today unless you had a masters degree in something: administration, international relations, history, or something else. Get a wide education so you don't have frozen-headed colonel blimps in the organization.

Sweeney: You have talked about your masters degree in international relations from George Washington University which you received in 1964. You then went on to pursue a doctorate degree which you received from the American University in 1968 in the same subject. I was wondering, though it's pretty obvious,I guess, but would you comment more on why you chose international relations as your academic specialty?

Bennett: Well I had been a history buff since I was a little boy. My father used to give me George A. Henty books for every Christmas and birthday, which no one probably hears about or knows about, but they all had the same theme, except they were set in various periods of history. I became very interested in history. I used to have read all the history textbooks in all courses by the middle of October each year.

Canada's much more keen on the teaching of history than the United States is. Every year from Grade One to Grade Twelve you take Canadian History one year and British History the next year, when I was at school. So I was always keen on that. I always managed to get honors in history. I thought it was because it was so easy and that anybody could do that. Later on I found out it was because I was interested in it.

Now this, I told you I was attached to the British Army for a year and a half, 1936-37. Now Great Britain, of course, I was right in the middle of international turmoil. Adolf Hitler was rising very rapidly. I used to take my leaves in Germany, France and Austria. I could observe what was going on. I could sit in the Mess and read all the metropolitan newspapers, The Times, The Economist, The Telegraph, The Labor Daily Herald, so I became fascinated with international politics and what was going on at that period.

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Naturally, in World War II, one was right in the middle of it and got very interested. Hence, having translated myself from an ordnance officer to the general's staff officer to the National War College, this is what I am interested in. This is what I read. I haven't read a novel for years. The closest thing to a novel I've read would be the History of the Roman Empire or something which doesn't have an immediate impact on what's going on. But it does have a great impact. History is that brought me to what you like current events and I've always been very fascinated with that. So I found this was a very easy course at the National War College for me. I must say I was better informed than most of my colleagues there because of my background -- my British background. International relations or history was what I wanted to teach. It didn't matter to me which one I could get a job in.

Sweeney: You have already alluded in part to the following question, but I thought you might also want to comment additionally on this. Could you compare your reaction to American graduate education and to your reaction to military training whether in the United States or in Canada?

Bennett: My remarks about education, I would say, apply for previous remarks anything on the superiority of military education would apply to secondary and primary and undergraduate education. In regard to graduate education, that's a horse of an entirely different color. While I don't think the standard is quite as good at the universities that I've been at as compared to the National War College because they are able to tap the best of the people in the particular field that they are interested in from all universities.

For instance, we had Klaus Noor from Princeton, one of the most famous of experts in strategy as a member of our faculty at the National War College. This is an example of what I mean. In regard to graduate education, I think that American graduate education is without peer anywhere in the world. No question whatever in my opinion. When I'm talking about the National War College, I'm talking about a very fine distillation of the best of American graduate education which I was fortunate enough to be able to be a part.

Sweeney: Another very significant question: Why did you accept a teaching position at Old Dominion College in Norfolk, Virginia in 1968?

Bennett: Well, to be short, the answer is it was the best job I could get. When I retired from the Army, I had negotiated a job at American University. Unfortunately for me when the new liberal government came to power in Canada they were determined to make some drastic reforms in the military which were long overdue. Among the reforms they made, was to integrate the three armed services. Something that I had been very keen on for many years. And they did this.

Unfortunately there were only three in my class still left serving - three brigadier generals. We were all given the Golden Bowler. That is they had to cut down. The Prime Minister gave the word that forces had to be cut ten percent and ten percent in each rank. So the three brigadiers that were the logical ones to go were me and my two classmates. However we were given a nice gratuity to go.

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And I suddenly found myself on the job market in 1965 instead of 1966. The Dean of the School of International Services at American University had given me a job in September '66. So I appeared and said, "Here I am." In the summer of 1965. He said he had filled his faculty, so I said I'll have to look elsewhere. He was kind enough to say, "Well, wait a minute. This is a Methodist university and some Canadian Methodists had given a large fellowship for any Canadian who wants to come and study here. Would you accept this and take a Ph.D. for the University?" And that's how I came to get a Ph.D. which seemed a remarkable thing for a retired professional assassin to take on a Ph.D..

However, I took it on and finally acquired it. Unfortunately for me, the Dean had retired the following year and his successor who had confirmed the offer, died suddenly. Therefore I was left with a new acting dean and he had no commitments to me. The policy of the University was that they would not bring on to their faculty any one of their own Ph.D's. What they said was this was like drinking your own bath water.

So, I couldn't argue with that and I was now in no position. So I went out and negotiated elsewhere. I nearly landed a job in Canada, but unfortunately in 1967-68 there was a bit of a serious depression and inflation going on, and it was the first of the stagflation business. The provincial governments cut back. I had been offered the job for the Chair of Strategic Studies at Queens University in Kingston, but they didn't get the money for it. So I looked around and I heard this was... a friend of mine, who came from this area said they're expanding. And it looked awfully nice to me and I was offered a very nice job. And so here I am.

Sweeney: Did you have any contact with Dr. Webb about accepting that position or did you just deal with the Political Science Department?

Bennett: No, Dr. Meade, who had a somewhat similar background as me. I dealt with Dr. Meade and with Dean Peele. I didn't meet Dr. Webb until I was taken on. It's a rather interesting thing.

That we were negotiating about this and the former provost, John Johnson. They decided that with my background, and they decided that as they were going to establish a masters degree in International Studies in 1969, when the place became a university, my particular qualifications having been to the British Staff College, the American War College, and the Canadian War College, with a Ph.D. and a master's degree in international relations from two American universities, and with my background in the military and some diplomatic experience, I was just the guy they wanted for the job.

So they got an increase in the establishment, and offered me an extra thousand dollars, which I was very flattered with and I taught American Government. I had to learn that myself. I didn't know much about it, but I had an excellent text. And I taught that for the first semester I was here.

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The ironic thing is that I was hired to be available for the new master's degree in international studies, which was going to be instituted in the fall of '69. I am now retiring in the summer of 1977 and we haven't got it yet.

Sweeney: That leads directly into the very next question, but I think that would be a good point to end this particular tape and go on to the next.

Now the question that I was about to ask at the end of the last cassette was: Exactly why, over the last nine years, has the program of International Relations not developed at Old Dominion University?

Bennett: Well, in my opinion this is one of those unfortunate situations which do happen at times. In my opinion the opportunity was lost when the establishment was converted from a college to a university.

Dr. Bugg, the new president, announced that we would have what he felt, the two things that were required, was a strong program in International Studies and Urban Studies. Of course we in the Political Science Department were delighted by this because they were both in our field. However, we weren't so delighted as the thing progressed because unfortunately for us, in 1969 the foreign policy, which had been the "fashionable" thing since 1945, had rather fallen out of fashion.

This was a casualty of Vietnam in my opinion. The American people had become introverted again, as they did in the 1920's. We found all over the country the international studies programs were becoming less and less popular. The military had become violently unpopular and they are probably the most important arm of international policy. And apparently the new management of the university felt that the thing to go for was urban studies.

Of course, urban studies... I don't see any reason why Hampton Roads should be more interested in urban studies than Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Why we should have latched on to this is I think the President was wrong in his assessment. I think subsequent events have shown him to be wrong. I believe the that the reason was... And then there was a lot of political infighting that developed between the business school and the Political Science Department because the Business School was anxious to muscle in on the public administration business and the Political Science Department became very unpopular.

We had a very incompetent chap come down from California and studied the place and came to the rather surprising conclusion that there were two things that Old Dominion University shouldn't be interested in.

One was agricultural studies and the other was international studies. How any sensible man could come to this conclusion is beyond me, but nevertheless he did and the damage was done with the top management of the University.

And I think that the President and the Provost and others lost their enthusiasm. I felt the the Dean was near the end of his time, Dean Peele, he didn't perhaps take as much interest in it as he might have. And the Chairman of the Political Science Department was at cross purposes with the top management,

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and it just drifted along. And I think I had as much to do with it as anybody in keeping the thing alive. This I think was a tragedy. There's no question in my mind whatever that the most important thing we do here besides the professional degrees is international studies. Because the main industry of this area -- the two main industries are the Armed Forces, which account for something like sixty percent of the income of the area and, of course, the port, which accounts for about another thirty percent.

And to not to have in this area a strong international studies program, I think is nothing short of a tragedy. I think by then things had fallen apart. Now what happened was during the critical period I was able to do... I had some bitter confrontations with the President and the Provost over this. We were able to keep it alive. It was being struck off three years ago but was a personal wrestling match with these gents, but they finally agreed to keep it alive. It is now growing stronger, but the problem is, the opportunity when the money was available and the enthusiasm was there in Richmond, was lost. Now, of course, we're up against budgetary trouble and we'll have to employ an entirely different strategy in my opinion to get the thing going. I hope I'll be of some assistance.

Sweeney: Why has there been a revival of interest in this program, do you think, on the part of the administration. I don't mean from the standpoint of the subject, that's constantly important. But why do you see this revival of interest at the top management level?

Bennett: Well I think it has to be, as General George Marshall said, "If you change the policies, you've got to change the men. If you change the men, you are likely to change the policies." I believe that Dr. Rollins, who is a new man and has come in here has had a very shrewd assessment of what is important in Hampton Roads. And he rather the cruelest cut of all was Dr. Rollins saying that the Political Science Department, at a faculty meeting saying they would have to look beyond Hampton Roads. Now what he said was absolutely right because the Political Science Department has now fallen into the hands of what I call "domestic political scholars."

Dr. Meade is near the end of his time, and Dr. Hagar has now gone on to be Dean of Graduate Studies. I am retiring, and we have nothing but boys of no consequence in the international field, On the other hand we have some rather impressive chaps, but they're not interested in international studies. So Dr. Rollins, obviously, very quickly saw what was required and I hope the Political Science Department has taken his remarks to heart. Because they ought to, because this is exactly what has happened.

Dr. Rollins is the first thing; I'm sure he knows what is important. The second, of course, is the Dean. Dean Meyer, being a Swiss, being a man who is very interested in international affairs and being a historian as opposed to Dean Peele, whose academic discipline was English,this is Dean Meyer's lifeblood and he is very interested in it also. He has done wonders already for the Foreign Languages Department, which is one of the essentials in this. And I believe that what matters is enthusiasm at the top levels and I think it will now go. Now it won't be as easy had it been done five or six years ago if it were established, but I think this will go.

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Sweeney: Going on to another topic. I'd be very interested in hearing your initial reaction to the Old Dominion College student body in 1968?

Bennett: Well the Old Dominion College, as somebody said, "Nobody comes to Old Dominion College if they can go anywhere else." How true this is, I don't know, but I suspect there is a very large grain of truth. In other words our student body consisted of people who either didn't have the academic level to be able to get to the University of Virginia or Harvard or someplace else; or they didn't have economic capabilities of going to these places. Therefore, if somebody came here by and large they would be people who weren't... at least their parents were serious about it. Their parents may have been in the lower ranks in the armed forces or working at a blue collar level or a junior white collar level around ODU. And we had a very high casualty rate. So that the people we had left were people who were serious about the thing.

I found and I guess it's true, probably of all American children, or I think it is apparent to me that their preparations in history were deplorable. I don't know what they were like in mathematics, but their English was ghastly, too. And, therefore, a lot of people said it couldn't be done. I didn't find that was true.

I taught on the same system that I had learned at the graduate schools in Washington. I did mostly with term papers and book reports. I found that if I battered away at these students they could produce good work; they could write good English. Now, the ones that weren't any good quit. This was the first body.

The next body was a large number of ladies whose children were now at school and they had time to improve their education. Either to improve their teaching qualifications or their secretarial qualifications or their business qualifications. And they would come in.

And, at that time the University had a very good system in which they hadn't adopted this absurd liberal idea of saying that students know better what to take than the teachers. I don't know how they would absorb this; through their skin or by osmosis or something. But this is a ridiculous idea. There should be very few, in my opinion, electives. The University had an excellent system where everybody, the engineers and the business school all had to take a certain number of social studies.

And I used to get particularly the engineers and the business people, I suppose since I had been a professional administrator. I would get them and I found they were very good indeed. They'd fall flat on their face at the first test or something, but invariably by the end of the course they were some of the best students or else they'd quit.

Then the third group that I had... I guess the fourth group I had were the people out of the Army. These were marvelous people because they had had their three or four years in the Army; they'd gone out looking for a job; they found that they needed more qualifications so immediately exercised their GI Bill of Rights. They were deadly serious. These were first class students any way you wanted to look at them. You could look at some of the people I had.

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I was fortunate. Because I was an ex-soldier and ex-administrator, I was given mostly these people. Also, Dr. Meade had given me the job, and it was a most unusual thing for an academic to say. Seeing I'd been a professional administrator for thirty years, he asked me to teach Political Science 341, Public Administration, which I did. I found this was a fascinating thing except that the blizzard of erudite economic nonsense that had been produced on this stuff wasn't any good at all. I discovered a very good book written by the president of the Willis Overland Co. which explained the principles of organization and administration. My students who weren't getting anywhere with the complicated stuff that was put out by the scholars. I lent one of them this book, and he came back all starry-eyed after the weekend, and said, "We've got to get this and make it the text for the course". For the next six years, and I was able to double or triple the number of people in this course, I taught by this very simple Principles of Organization by James M. Mooney. And I enjoyed that very much.

Now I got a lot of people who came over to my international courses because they liked the way I taught public administration. So I had very good students. I thoroughly enjoyed my students. My courses were usually always pretty nearly full and I found it rewarding. Now there may have been an awful lot of dummies floating around the place, but I just didn't have that experience.

Sweeney: Did you notice any significant change in their mood or temper or interest since 1968 to the present?

Bennett: Yes, there was a period when people were no longer under threat of the draft and when the military were greatly discredited, and international relations tended to become discredited. The same thing happened in the military science department. The unfortunate commander, Colonel Brustein was here when it's darkest just before the dawn. Their registration fell off, fell off, and fell off and it looked like they were going to close the thing.

I intervened violently on behalf of the corps. I signed all the letters I sent as Brigadier-General Retired, not as Associate Professor. I found that worked better with the military, because it was obvious this was an excellent place for ROTC.

The same thing happened in the other disciplines. Now I would say we're not getting as many bootstrap people and ex-GI's as we did. But I think we're getting a just as good general younger student. I think perhaps it's the rising costs in other universities; they're having to work hard and do more work in their spare time, And hence they want to work out of their own homes.

And I would say there was a period of decline, but I would say they're just as good now as in '68. But they're a different bunch, and I would say they are probably taking longer to get their degrees. I find that a lot of my students are working part-time, more than they were before.

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Sweeney: What would you say have been your major academic interests at ODU?

Bennett: Well, I would say that, as I have said, I found the teaching of the American government the first couple of years I was here, was most interesting. However, Dr. Meade gave me the job of developing certain new courses which we were developing towards our eventual masters program. I was given the job of developing a course in comparative foreign policy. If one is going to teach foreign policy besides history, the thing that you've got to know is what the other great powers are doing. This is essential, so I developed that course.

I was given the job of developing a course in national strategy, which has been very popular. And my seminars in international relations have been most interesting, and I found very popular. Hence I've been pretty busy.

Now I spoke about the public administration course. I was fascinated with that because I was talking about something of which I had no academic qualifications for. But I suppose probably there isn't anybody, including the President, who given the descriptions of my jobs I've had, has as much administrative experience. So this I found I enjoyed that thoroughly.

Probably what I enjoyed as much as anything was what Dr. Bugg called "community service". I put my name in for the Speakers Bureau and I did exactly what I had done in the military when I was an area commander. When I was invited to go out and fill in at Rotary Clubs and Canadian Legion jobs. I had this one speech and this was known as the "World Strategic Situation and Its Impact on Viceroy Saskatchewan". It works equally well in Portsmouth, Virginia or Newport News, all you have to do is keep bringing it up to date. This is what I find and people find this very interesting.

I got up to the point where my wife was complaining that I was accepting far too many of these things. I think this is a very rewarding thing. This in my opinion is what I think Dr. Bugg was absolutely right when he said the teaching function and this community service "This is what I hope we'll be able to do in the future. This is what the metropolitan University should be doing." And perhaps we can talk about that a bit later.

The other thing I found most frustrating was the insistence by the administration on publishing. This was no great difficulty. Anytime that you, for instance if you've written a doctoral dissertation, there's no great problem in writing scholarly papers. The problem is in what I'm teaching, and I'm sure it's true with any teaching, teaching is a full time job.

If you're interested, one of the most important things is counseling your students. When you're my age you become a sort of ex-aficio chaplain They not only bring their academic problems, but they bring their personal problems. This is what makes it worthwhile. For the administration to then come along and say in your spare time you should be knocking off articles for foreign affairs, and writing books here and there, I think

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is absurd. This is easy enough to do, but they've got to give you, as any other university does; they've got to give you sabbatical years to do the writing. This is the biggest frustration I had with the place. And my biggest argument.

Sweeney: You've mentioned many of the courses. I wondered if there are any other remarks you want to make about those courses. There is a remarkable variety of courses you've offered and which of those evoked the most significant student interest?

Bennett: Well, I think I couldn't say which did, I found that the public administration course was a very popular one -- at least the way I taught it. I go on the system that I learned at the military college: You should never try to remember any details or organizational charts because they're changing all the time. What you have to learn are the principles. Get those thoroughly in your head, then forget all the rest. You can look it up. In fact it's dangerous to try and keep details in one's head, because it's likely to be obsolete.

The international relations courses, are the most fascinating thing because it's changing all the time. If you're going to be any good at it, you've got to stick your neck out and make predictions. So far I've been very fortunate in my predictions. The students remember that and hence they like to come back and discuss it. I find the students are absolutely fascinated with international relations -- the ones I had. I feel this can go very much farther. I think I can put at the other end of the thing, in my opinion the worst organized organization I have ever seen in my life is the average university. Well the problem is that it's contrary to the rules... the laws of nature and nature's code. Mr. Mooney, in his book examines this. The problem is the absurd idea of the committee system.

There is only one legitimate function for a committee and that is a meeting of responsible officials where differences in points of view are coordinated. At this outfit, they have the absurd idea that every thing should be done by majority vote, and I found this is one of the reasons for some of the frustration we that have. If the majority, as most majorities, doesn't have any idea of what you're talking about, if you go on a majority vote, invariably you get a half-baked solution to the thing.

This is an interesting thing. One of the things I liked about Old Dominion University was the first speech given to the faculty by Lewis Webb. He said he wanted to make it quite clear. This was 1968 and people were beginning to feel their oats, and Dr. Webb said, "I want to make this clear. This is not a democracy. The line of authority is very clear. It goes from the taxpayers to the government in Richmond to the Board of Visitors to me, the provost, the deans and the chairmen. Anybody who doesn't like it can resign right now." One stupid fellow did, I was glad to see it. I felt I was in the kind of organization I liked.

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Unfortunately when Dr. Bugg came in, the first thing he did was introduce this absurd University Senate, and this is contrary to the principles of democracy and organization. A democracy depends, as you know as a historian, the authority rests with the taxpayer, who is also allowed to vote. It's the power of the purse. And hence, the taxpayer delegates to the representatives in Congress or to the presidential electors their authority to choose the executives. From then on, it's just the same as in a Communist system or a Nazi system or any other system if it's going to work.

Now for some reason or other, and I did some research on this, the faculty of the University have an idea that they have some authority. The only authority they have got is what is, the only line of authority they've got, is what is delegated to them by the taxpayers of Virginia. They come up with this absurd idea of academic freedom from which they think they should be allowed to have a vote on the democratic basis. This is quite unsound organizationally. What they don't realize is there are two kinds of authority. There is "line" authority, which is what comes down through - it's called the administration here. It should be called the management -- from the taxpayers. This is the "line" authority. This is the the decision-making authority.

On the other hand, you have the "staff" authority. Now the line authority is the authority of men, starting from the taxpayers as a whole down to the President, etc. The staff authority is the authority of ideas. Of course I have got an authority as an international relationist. Which if the chairman is wise, and the president is wise, and the dean, if they are wise, then they will listen to what I have to say because this is an authority of ideas.

But that doesn't mean if a policy is going to be set up that Dean Meier should call together the faculty and have a majority vote. Because, what the heck is the English Department going to know about international relations, or what am I going to know about Shakespeare? That is the big farce of this university. What is required instead of having these committees are working parties, at which the dean or the chairman would say, "You are in charge. Your committee can offer you advice; that's the authority of ideas. And you make the decision." As Lincoln said in his cabinet, "Fifteen nays and one aye; I'm the aye and the ayes have it." This is the principle of organization.

And what happens here is you've got something that is very common; and this is what causes bureaucracies and dictatorships, is the usurpation of authority by the staff which is the faculty. This is what causes the frustration.

I went to Dr. Meade and said, "When I reach the age of sixty-two, I'm retiring unless you will excuse me from all future attendance of any committee anywhere." Because I couldn't stand it as a professional who knows organization.

Sweeney: I wanted you to tell me about your experiences as a research fellow at the Wilton Park Conference in Great Britain in both 1972 and again in 1975.

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Bennett: Well, this is a very interesting organization. Wilton Park is a setup by the British Government Foreign Office. It was set up in 1945 for the purpose of educating their defeated enemies, the Germans to see how to run a democracy. Because they had lost all experience with that during the twelve years of the Third Reich.

So what they did was, they had to get a lot of ex-Nazies, because any body who was anybody in Germany was a Nazi, otherwise you couldn't get a job. But they had a chap at Oxford University, who had been a student when Hitler came to power, a man named Dr. Heing Kupler.

He rose to high levels in the strategic services and intelligence organization of the British during World War II. They felt that he, being a German, was the logical fellow to set up this organization. So what they did was they ran a series of seminars until about 1947 when the new German government was established on the principles of international relations, democracy and so on and so forth. They were so pleased with it that they went on with it and broadened it to include everybody from Western Europe, Americans and Canadians. And hence they have these conferences, about ten a year, two a week conferences at a place called Woosten House in Sussex, which amusingly enough was one of our brigade headquarters during the Second World War. I knew the place very well indeed. I had visited there many times.

They set this place up and they have a two week conference at which they have the most fascinating. . .It does rival the National War College, in my opinion for they will members of Parliament education from all the various countries of Europe. They will have journalists. They will have high-priced educators. They will have generals from the Armed forces, the same from the United States and from Canada. It's financed by the British Government. It's one of the finest jollys I've ever had in my life and one of the cheapest. It is the most delightful country house area, run with the best continental cuisine or English cuisine and finest wines, etc. Because its diplomatic, you can get them at a reasonable price.

And each conference has a theme. The reason I went to the one I went to was the theme was "The Possibility of the Re-establishment of a European Defense Community." This was in 1972. I enjoyed it so much,I asked to go back whatever it was. I learned a lot in 1975.

What I did...How did I publish this research? I got a bit of a grant from the University. Well I found Dr. Meade had given me two new courses to develop and I just couldn't get around to writing a paper. I got quite a good one but never got a rough draft of it. So this is when I became hyperactive in going around and speaking around the area. If you look at the years '72, '73, '74, you will see I gave something in the neighborhood of a hundred speeches I think in various places, to the Armed Forces Staff College and other places. This was the way I did my publishing. I promised I would publish, so I did but I couldn't write any paper. But, this was a very interesting place and a most valuable one. And I hope I'll be able to keep my contact and get more people, particularly from this University and from Hampton Roads to attend it.

Bennett Interview Continued

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