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Sweeney: You have made several speeches, as you've mentioned, in the community and this research project was called "An Examination of the Probability of the Reemergence of a European Defense Community in the Next Decade." Could you tell me about your conclusions in that project?

Bennett: Well at the time I was extremely optimistic. I had been to see the Secretary-general of the European economic community. I spent an hour with him in his office. I was with Dr. Haufstein in Bonn and Dr. Schrader, the previous Defense Minister, and Foreign Minister of the Christian Democratic Union. I had been to the French Institute of Strategic Studies. The International Institute of Strategic Studies in London of which I am a member. I had stayed with a classmate of mine at the Canadian Defense College who was a British Ambassador in Moscow.

The consensus was and I brought a book, having seen you were going to ask about this. I also had a French publication which translates into The Ideas Which Changed the World. This is very influential, an equivalent of Foreign Affairs here. I had a long and wonderful lunch with General Giraud who was General DeGaulle's defense expert. I was very optimistic.

Now the reason why I was optimistic was that the Europeans were, they were delighted that Mr. Nixon was going to win the election. They were sure that Mr. McGovern was of not much use from the point of view of the world in general and Europe in particular. They were convinced that Nixon would win.

Nixon had made in his report to Congress a very important statement in February 1972. This is quoted in publication. This is one of these things which is - this is "Towards a European Defense of Europe," and it's by an anonymous person. I don't know who it was, but it was by someone very high in the French government.

What they say is that Nixon said, and I'll translate it into English here. What Nixon said was "The Nuclear forces of the USA to which are added the nuclear forces of our allies to form the backbone of our deterrent." This is his address on February 9, 1972. Then said the French author, "Ten years after Kennedy had considered the French efforts to provide itself with a nuclear force as an unfriendly act, this short phrase provides food for thought." Which is a masterpiece of understatement. Now Viscount Davencare told me that Nixon is now going to go flat out to support a European deterrent, The French were delighted, the British were delighted, the Belgians were delighted. The Germans were prepared to accept it. They were delighted provided it was European.

What wrecked this was Watergate. I think that future historians will find Watergate as the greatest suicidal act any nation has ever per formed. As a German politician, who introduced me to all these people said," There are two lessons to Watergate. One is that the Americans are masochists. The other is that this is the greatest hoax perpetrated on any people since the Reistage Fire Trial in 1933. I think he's right.

Unfortunately for Nixon he was a very great statesman, but not a very clever politician. I think this is rather like our situation

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at Old Dominion University. I think the opportunity has been missed. I think the deposing of Mr. Nixon was a world disaster of the first order. I think Nixon has restored the balance of power in the Far East and I think it was going to happen in Europe.

The only way as Davaneau said to me,"There is no possibility of the Germans accepting a French-British force de fappe. It has to be an European one." He said,"I think Nixon is working towards that."

Whether it will come about now remains to be seen. I am encouraged with what Mr. Carter has got to say. He is backing off fast off his nonproliferation stand, which I think is great. If Nixon had to be impeached, he should have been impeached for signing the nonproliferation treaty, in my opinion. He looks like he's backing off this. He's also pushing hard to strengthen NATO. He's been over talking to those people. I am pretty sure I know how the Europeans think. I think that Carter may come around to Nixon's policy in the not too dista policy in the not too distance future, for a number of reasons which would take a great deal of time to say. But that's the only.. .If this doesn't happen, I am not too optimistic. I am sure the Europeans will not fight another Conventional war. I'm sure the only way to maintain Russian imperialism is to make quite clear that the game isn't worth a candle and it will require in my opinion without any question a nuclear deterrent which is controlled by the people who are immediately menaced by the Russian forces. It's no good to have a British one or an American one. It's got to be an European one in which there is a German finger on the trigger. This is going to take some doing for Mr. Carter. So everything is now, as far as I'm concerned, in limbo. It depends on the American government. I have hopes that after this dreadful hiatus between the period when Nixon was deposed, in my opinion this was very similar to a South American coupd'etat with the press having the role of the military and the universities having the role of the Church. And the opposition politicians acting like all opposition politicians do.

From that time in 1973 I would say the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War showed that President Sadat, who is one of the most able of all international politicians, saw that the United States was now vul- nerable and he had to act. Of course I thing he did a brilliant job with what he did. From then the country has been in a limbo. I think Mr. Carter will be able to move back from the current American stand.

Sweeney: On the local level I would like to hear about your involvement over the years with the World Affairs Council of Greater Hampton Roads?

Bennett: One of the first things I did when I arrived here was join the World Affairs Council. Mr. Johnson and the Chamber of Commerce were in desperate shape as you know, in 1967-1968. He got the State Department to go rushing around to try and inform the country how serious the American situation had become with the rise of Russian military power and the United States bogged down in the Far East. He didn't know how to get out of it and he never did get out.

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It took Nixon to do that. He decided that what the country needed was more support for their foreign policy. He started organizing these seminars and one was organized here in 1968. A very good job was done by the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce. Dr. Meade was, I think the University representative. I attended it. Nicholas Ratzenbach came. This was a critical time, just after the coupd'etat in Czechoslovakia or the Russian suppression of Czechoslovakia. Katzenbach had been off to Bucharest to make it quite clear that the Americans took this very seriously and I think the chairman chiefs had gone to Belgrade to give the red light.

Well, Nicholas Katzenbach came down to this thing. It was a huge success. The Chamber of Commerce then sponsored the World Affairs Council. I was given the job by Dr. Meade because I had been very much involved and had always been a member of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs. Because of my job in Canada as an area commander that was one of the things I had to sponsor as well as the military institutes. I had a lot of experience with these things, and their organization and operation. So, Dr. Meade gave me the job. I eventually became a director and vice-president. They wanted me to be president, but I found that in the meantime because one is a university professor as you only too well know, you're a lone worker. Our clerical staff in the Political Science Department consisted of only one girl, who kept changing and it was very weak. I simply couldn't take the job on.

The leadership for one reason or another got out of step with the community in general. We had two very successful years. I think I'm not being too arrogant in saying I was given the job as vice-president in charge of getting programs and it was very successful. Unfortunately when our president retired, Mr. Archie Boswell, the thing fell apart. The new president's wife was terribly sick and he couldn't give a darn and so forth Eventually the secretariat fell apart. I persuaded them to put it into limbo until we could get a new management.

Now it's taken us three years and Dr. Whitehurst, who was a faculty member and has a lot of' clout being a member of Congress, took the job on. He has finally got us a gentleman named Mr. Mac Jenkins, who is the manager of Dixie and has just been president of the Chamber of Commerce and a very active man. I think the thing will go now. The Chamber of Commerce has agreed to re-support it and I have talked to Dr. Meier who has made me the University representative of the thing. I think we can get it going, but what we have got to do is to institutionalize it and bring it up to the same standard as the Norfolk Forum. Specifically on international affairs.

We also want to. . .Now you may have noticed in the last year four or five of Mr. Kissinger's most important policy statements made to various world affairs councils. In fact the woman who took a shot at President Ford... he was addressing a world affairs council. This is the way a thing should be. It should be the community side, I suggest, of things like the Alliance Francaise, the English Speaking Union to coordinate all these things. And what we've got to have is a strong support from the University, which I think with Dr. Rollins and Dean Meier, we will get. I'm the liaison man at the moment and have high hopes for the future.

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Sweeney: I would also like to hear your comments on the Norfolk Forum, with which you were associated from 1971-74.

Bennett: Well this is a first-class organization. The difference between the Norfolk Forum and World Affairs Council is that they have a very large membership. They've got lots of money and they can pay for people like Nicholas Von Hoffman, or terribly high-priced people, Harry Reasoner and so on. And people will turn out for names.

Now I think this is an excellent organization. I think one of the reasons that the World Affairs Council could never reach that level is that they really find people who will be interesting to a very wide audience. I was in on that. I tried to get them to get in a few more internationalists. But the judgment of the Board of Visitors was that Dr. Joyce Brothers and people like this would have a greater appeal to get to the two thousand or three thousand people who belonged to the Norfolk Forum than anybody short of Henry Kissinger.

So this is a broader thing and it's a first class job and I think they've got an excellent Board of Directors; I was very impressed with them. And they choose people from all sides. They had Mr. Lindsay and William F. Buckley. They're very very good indeed. I think this is an example which we in the World Affairs Council have got to follow. I don't think we can ever become as big as they are, but we can do a heck of a lot better than we're doing now.

Sweeney: You have also been involved with the English-speaking Union, the Hampton Roads Branch. Would you describe your activities in this group? Bennett: Well this is another one. I'm just the president-elect. This group is even more, shall we say, select. This is by and large people who are interested in, oh I would say it's probably easier here in Virginia than in most places although we get people who are of particular interest to the people who are interested in England.

They are an older group and tend to be what one might call the first families of Virginia. They are very anglophile, very colonial and they like to hear people.

We had a fellow who just came a few weeks ago and was staying with me. He did a talk on the English dukes. It was very successful at the meeting because he was giving something that people in this part of the world are interested in. That a certain number of them are interested in. We all get together and it tends to be a bit more social. Everyone sits around and has a glass of wine and discusses the thing. We had Sir Fitzroy McClelland, who I mentioned earlier. That was one of our most successful meetings. We were able to get hold of him and he came and told us about the present situation in Russia. It was a very successful meeting. This was a different, a more selective group again. It's somewhat analogous to the Alliance Francaise.

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Sweeney: Now I would like to move on to some of your political ideas. You have mentioned several. I know you have stressed the balance of power in your courses. I've had some of your students in my courses and they always talked about your ideas about the balance of power and organizing principles in international relations. Could you elaborate on this subject of the balance of power then as an organizing principle in international relations?

Bennett: Well, you as a historian would know about the balance of power. At the present time the United States I would suggest is in a very similar situation as Great Britain was. There is always a balance of power. If there isn't, then you're going to have a universal state as Arnold Tonby calls it, like the Roman Empire.

So it can be anything, from what we have experienced the last thirty years, the bipolar situation which is by definition unstable and must lead to arms races. Or you can have the classical balance that we had, shall we say, it got really institutionalized from the War of the League of Augsburg until 1890 when William II denounced it. It's success depends upon a rough balance among the continental powers, whatever that continent may be. In those days it was the continent of Europe. Today it's the Eurasian land mass. And a rough balance in that area. And an offshore balance; usually an offshore balancer who is sufficiently powerful and secure and UN-ambitious to become a great imperial power themselves in the Eurasian text that they will be accepted as a balance and have the power to do it. In my view this situation exists in the United States at the present time. The rise of China; the American diplomacy in the Far East under Nixon.

We talked about Europe earlier. This is the tool in the affair. If Europe can become in fact, and Mr. Kissinger could have succeeded in doing what his great hero Metternich or Bismarck were able to do of uniting this new Hapsburg Empire - Western Europe, so it in fact could throw its weight into the scale, then we would in fact have the classical balance of power.

The great advantage from the point of view of the United States is of course that it's much less expensive. The British were able to do it, While they always had the best navy in the world, they had a relatively small army. They ran a dual affair. They ran an imperial business in India and Africa, but this was done with natives under British command. It didn't cost much, and this is the great advantage of the balance of power.

Now it broke down. While Bismarck and: Metternich were in favor of the balance of power, especially Metternich explicitly and I suppose Bismarck. He refused to support the German nationalists who would break up the Hapsburg Empire because it was in the interest of Germany and the balance of power to keep the Hapsburgs afloat. He would do nothing which would antagonize the British, and he very successfully kept the balance of power with Disraeli going until he was dismissed by William II.

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Now as we know, by 1900 the power of Germany had risen so high that the combination of Britain, France and Russia, the Triple Entente still didn't stop the Germans and it took the Americans in 1917 to reassert the balance. It hasn't been right since. So that's why I think the balance of power is essential. I think that anybody who reads Kissinger's dissertation, published under the name of World Restored, can see exactly what he was trying to do.

He was really a great statesman. Even Talleyrand. Talleyrand had been a ? at first, but he became a balance of power man at the Congress of Vienna. Talleyrand, Metternich, Bismarck, Disraeli, Palmerston - they all were working on it because it was in the interest of the powers concerned and to Great Britain.

In my view it's blindingly obvious that the United States is not an imperial Power. Sure they're like the British. They like to have a ? but they're not prepared to spend much on it. If they had been an imperial power, they'd have long since become the new Rome, but they're not. So they're like Great Britain. They have the power, they have the security of position, geopolitical position, and they can be trusted and will be trusted provided they make a little bit of effort.

We've seen what happened to the British, and one of the great weaknesses is American democracy, like British democracy. It's no coincidence in my opinion that when the British aristocracy Or oligarchy was created into a genuine democracy, rule of the majority, the thing collapsed. You get people talking about morals in international affairs. I hope Mr. Carter has his tongue well tucked in his cheek when he's talking about it. I hope he's not that stupid; I don't think he is.

Sweeney: How about the idea that has been mentioned by some writers that balances of power break down and that you need always someone of the Kissinger quality to maintain them and such people are very rare, and therefore the principle itself, although valid tends to break down because of human weakness.

Bennett: I can give you a very good answer to that. I'm an Anglican. In the Preamble dated 1542 to the Anglican Prayer Book there is a statement that starts off, "There is nothing by the hand of man so well devised or so truly established that the passing of time has not corrupted." That goes for everything, including what the founding fathers did at Philadelphia in 1787 in my opinion.

Of course the thing will break down. You have to work on it all the time, but what's the alternative? The alternative is quite obvious and the Russians will provide it. Or they would have provided it. I think the rise of China has made it impossible. That is a universal state, Caesar Augustus aimed to please. Of course there's a good alternative.

You establish a universal state. But who wants that? The Americans won't do it. We don't want the Russians to do it. The Russians can't do it now. So the only answer is hellish wars, in my opinion, or clover statesmen who can manipulate the balance of power. As long as you've got Metternichs, Bismarcks, and Talleyrands, Palmerstons, Disraelis, you're in. But as soon as you get William II's and Adolph Hitlers, and Joseph Stalins, you're in trouble.

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Sweeney: You have often expressed and have already expressed here your views on Richard Nixon as a great president. You also stated in a speech that John Kennedy's administration was a disaster. I wonder what you would define as greatness in the presidency, and why you evaluated, especially the Kennedy administration in the way that you have.

Bennett: A great president I say has got to be two things: He's got to be a great statesman and an able politician. The most able politician the world has seen, I think, is Prime Minister William McKenzie King and I heard him say once in Canada (he stayed in power for 22 years because nobody else has been able to equal him anywhere as a Democrat) he said, "You could have the best policies in the world, but if you can't get yourself into power and stay in power, what good are you?" That is where Nixon failed.

Now a great statesman on the other hand, at least my definition of one is one who during the period of his incumbency was faced with tremendous challenges and probably with monumental crises. The other thing is what the President said yesterday, the Athenian oath; he leaves the republic better than when he found it. Under these circumstances I can think of very few great Presidents in the United States. Abraham Lincoln is one obviously. He was shot, fortunately before the thing fell apart. The next one I can think of was Harry Truman. I don't call Woodrow Wilson a great president because the country was in worse condition from all points of view in 1920 than it was in 1912 when he took over. I don't call Franklin Roosevelt a great president. Again, the place was in bad shape as a result of the Depression, but it was infinitely worse as a result of the Second World War when he left the Presidency in 1945.

Now Harry Truman I would say was a great president. He had tremendous... the first real challenge to the world balance of power. When the United States was really on the line. No Britain, no France, nobody in between them and an ambitious imperial power. Now Harry Truman unquestionably had tremendous challenges and he left the country in better shape than when he found it. It wasn't in very good shape, but it was still better than the rising Russia.

Eisenhower was a kind of a typical Republican - just kept the thing going. You could say there were lots of presidents like that. Kennedy and Johnson we can talk about. If we look at them, they had tremendous challenges, but they flubbed them all. The country was in much worse shape, economically diplomatically, security-wise. When Johnson left, and this was mostly Kennedy's fault, Johnson just got caught up in it. Kennedy could see that Eisenhower had just been marking time and they had to change.

Now we get back to what I talked about earlier, about nuclear sharing. When I was doing this research, a fellow who was Eisenhower's godson told me that Eisenhower had told him the biggest mistake he had made in his administration was not going for nuclear sharing while he was there and had the prestige to do it. He said, "Kennedy and Johnson can't, and that was my greatest mistake."

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I think Kennedy had to do something. De Gaulle was right. NATO was falling apart. France made the whole NATO strategy ridiculous by withdrawing from the military command. Kissinger agreed with De Gaulle on this and Kennedy could have gone for nuclear sharing. He went instead for trying to persuade the Europeans to do something they wouldn't do building up their conventional forces. I knew that. I'd been told that many times. So he was a disaster.

So we come to Nixon. All right, there's no question that the country was in the worst political situation since Reconstruction with the Vietnam War and everything falling apart politically. Furthermore, they had this dreadful inflation which Mr. Johnson had given as a result of his guns and butter.

Nixon didn't do very well on the guns and butter thing. He at least kept it afloat. But he got us out of Vietnam and the only way he could have gotten us out of Vietnam in reasonably good order was to make this deal with China. I noticed in his broadcast, he still has never once criticized Kennedy or Johnson by saying, "It was their war, not mine."

This is the mark of a great man because the other real danger is a stab- in-the-back legend. That's the sort of thing that led directly back to Hitler in Germany. I think that danger is now gone. I don't think that's going to happen despite the moans and groans of some of the ultr-right. I think it's gone. Therefore, that's why I say I think Nixon was a very great statesman indeed.

Now his fault was, he wasn't a very able politician. He should have been more ruthless. He should have put somebody in there. He should have burnt the tapes or whatever was required. The whole damn thing was nonsense. As my German friend said, "It was the biggest hoax ever perpetuated on any people since the Reistag Fire Trial, with the Washington Post in the role of Dr. Goeble's."

Sweeney: Well, obviously you believe the Watergate scandal's significance is exaggerated, so you've answered that question. And we've talked about the American political system and its defects. How does it compare to other "democracies"?

Bennett: Well, I think before we leave the Watergate scandal's significance, it was as I say, a "hoax". On the other hand its significance can't be exaggerated in my opinion. I feel it was one of the greatest disasters the country has ever experienced. This was completely unconstitutional. It was unconstitutional and it was an ordinary coupd'etat. Nixon could not be allowed to stay in power because the Democrats knew perfectly well that people were still voting for Abraham Lincoln in 1900.

If Nixon did as well in his second administration as he did in his first and the year of Europe was successful, and the United States was really about to put its efforts to solving its domestic problems, Nixon would have been a hero of the first order, and that would have been a disaster. The liberals would have been liberals would have been discredited, the press would have been discredited, the Democrats would have been discredited, so he had to go. Nixon's sin was his success, not his failures.

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Now regarding the American political system I believe what I said about the Anglican Prayer Book goes. The answer is quite simply, and I would go back to Mooney. The problem with the American system is that it is not a responsible government. It is impossible to fix responsibility on those who have the power to seek and exercise power. Something has got to be done so that we work on the two-party system or we say we do.

People are always explaining that that isn't really the way it works. If it doesn't work that way, it doesn't work at all because it's not a democracy. It is a chaotic system. Therefore something has got to be done to insure that people can't pass the buck. What Mr. Truman said is quite wrong, "The buck stops here." It doesn't. It goes back and forth between Congress and the President and it's already starting in Mr. Carter's administration. He must have full authority and full responsibility.

So at the next election you could say, "To heck with this." I think the 1972 election was a prime example of what shouldn't be done. The people were convinced in 1968 to begin with that whatever happened they weren't going to have anymore of the Johnson and Kennedy administration, but they weren't convinced that the Republicans were any good. They tried to straddle the problem. Then they were so pleased with Mr. Nixon and what he had done between '68 and '72 and I've never heard anybody suggest that Mr. Nixon would have lost the election except for Watergate. They said, "We'll have him back, but we still aren't sure about the Republicans."

This was no good. After all who gave them Mr. Nixon? It was the Republicans. Who gave them Kennedy and Johnson? It was the Democrats. So I think this is the great weakness of the American system.

Before I go overboard on this, I would like to point out that the Democratic system as practiced in the United Kingdom is obviously a howling disaster. The only other one that has lasted for over a century and not broken down is Canada. And that's in pretty terrible shape too. It looks like the country's going to fall apart. So I think that the real answer here is that there isn't any good system. You've got to keep cutting and trying and changing all the time, and remember the people that wrote the Anglican Prayer Book: "There's nothing by the wit of man so well devised and so surely established that the passage of time had not corrupted."

I think that the government that is probably working the best at the present time is the German government. They do seem to have found a system which gives reasonable representation in proportion to what the people really think between these two main parties and the center party holding the balance. We will really see the virtues of the American system if the Communist-Socialist coalition wins control Of the French National Assembly next year. Then we'll see whether the thing will work or not, Because when you're dealing with those boys, it's very different than Republicans and Democrats. Giscard G'estaing may be able to stay. General De Gaulle resigned as soon as he was convinced he did not have the confidence of the people.

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So I think democracy is a rough-tough system. And you've got to work at it to keep it going. Whether it can go on, I don't know. My own view is it can't, because unless we are hopelessly arrogant, democracy is a government of the majority, and the majority is average. The average is mediocre. And if we insist on working on a system in which the mediocre majority of the population rules and can throw people out because they fixed parking Chinese have a system which they work very hard at insuring getting the elite to the positions of power. According to Sir Fitzroy McLean, they've got a very good system in Russia and they factor that, It looks like the Chinese have, and if we have any doubts we ought to ask ourselves how come a little country like the Peoples Republic of East Germany can beat a great power like the United States of America in the Olympic Games? The answer is, of course, they have a system of selecting their best, and we don't.

So I think this is the great weakness of democracy. I don't think it's going to work indefinitely. I'd like it to work as long as possible, but if we keep on with the present irresponsible system of the American government, I doubt it will last to the end of this century.

Sweeney: You've been appointed as Special Assistant to the Dean of the School of Arts and Letters for International Studies, Could you tell me what this position will involve?

Bennett: Well, as I see my duties, and as the Dean and I have discussed it, the first thing to do will be to study how we should organize the international studies at the University. International Studies as present are being supervised by the Political Science Department and have been since I came here. It's a much broader subject.

It's one third history, one third economics, and one third political science, plus foreign languages and a number of other things. I believe that we are going to have to set up a coordinating organization very similar to the Institution of Humanities with a director and a small staff to coordinate this international studies side. Now that's ahead.

The first thing we must have, I have found out as I spoke earlier about the American armed forces. There are... if one aspires to great things in the armed forces, one has got to get a masters degree in something. If one aspires to...if One doesn't think one is going to make star rank, you are going to retire after thirty years, which means you are going to be young, you had probably better get a masters in business administration, education or something. I therefore see that there will be a tremendous demand for a masters degree among the members of the armed forces in this area. I foresee that Congress will keep cutting back on the amount of higher education that is funded by the public. I think that's reasonable. I think fellows should work at this in their spare time like I did. I think we therefore are going to find a demand among the captains and majors, the ambitious ones, for a masters degree in international studies.

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These are the ones that are hunting stars. Some others may go for other kinds of masters degrees. But I think this is the most likely one. In addition international business is becoming increasingly important to this area. Everybody now is talking about... you can call them multi national oil companies or what you like, but these are a fact of life. If one is going to be a successful business man, I foresee that once this is established and it gets going with our main customers, at first the armed forces we will find that there will be a very large demand from the business community. When this happens, then you are going to find the educators in the area are going to get more into it. It will be a rolling thing.

But the first capstone of our program should be a masters degree in international studies. I believe that if we can't get approval for it then we should have a concentration in the history department called "Current History" if you like. This would do the same thing, would work with your economics and your history. History would at least issue the degree. That's the first thing.

Next we've got to strengthen our undergraduate programs. I feel that at the present time the counseling of students is very weak. I think it's probably better in the history department than it was in the political science department. I don't know what it's like in the business school. I think theirs has got to be improved and I think we've got to have experts doing this counseling. We've got to strengthen and coordinate - have somebody coordinate the excellent courses that are offered by all three departments and some others, but they're not properly coordinated to make sure that our students get the most out of it.

There can be changes made, I think there should be a lot more paper writing at the undergraduate level, I think we should reintroduce as we had in the political science department the, in effect, bachelor's thesis in international studies. I think you learn more by writing a real bachelor's thesis, a twenty or thirty page paper on some international subject, than you do in all kinds of courses.

The next thing is that as the University becomes more and more of a metropolitan university, I think we've got to coordinate closely with the community colleges. Our coordination is very weak in my opinion, We've got to have better history teaching in the community colleges, wide his story teaching. It is most important. There's a certain amount of political science.

At the community college level if they did nothing other than teach his story and perhaps a very broad course in current international affairs. This would do the trick. And more in the basic economics.

We've got to get stronger representatives from our School of Education to make sure that our secondary education teachers are well-rounded in this.

Finally we have got to get this World Affairs Council going so we can get public support, so we can get political support for the things that we want to do. Any job as I see it is to think up ideas for the Dean.

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And to offer organizational suggestions so that we can actually get these ideas implemented and which he will approve, I hope.

Sweeney: By the early 1980's, what kind of program do you envision at Old Dominion University in international studies?

Bennett: I feel if we could institute what we are talking about here, my experience has been that quite a large number of college students are interested in this. I would have also reintroduce the requirement to the professional courses, engineering, business, nursing. They should be required to take, we should produce something that would introduce them to ideas that the world doesn't stop at Cape Henry. I think this is very important.

Now I was an engineering student and I was interested in it, but I know my colleagues had to be hard-pushed to study Imperial Military Geography, which was what we called our political science in those days, or European History.

They thought this was pretty dull stuff. I was fascinated with it, but only about half dozen of us were. I think we've got to push this sort of thing. In the 1980's I believe if we get cracking on this, we should be able to have a really good program going.

Now I said a master of international studies. Now in my view, this will lead inevitable to a doctorate in what the Dean of Arts and Letters has been talking about: military history, strategic thought, and eventually a doctorate in International Relations.

I think originally, most of what inspired us to this... Now we've only got a handful of doctorates that we've handed out for last year. They were in oceanography, and engineering. I believe with the kind of people we've got here in the armed forces particularly, we will start getting a demand for doctorates. Now as an example people would be amazed at the number of serving Army generals who are doctors of philosophy mostly in international relations - General Goodpaster, who was SACEUR and has just been appointed the new superintendent of West Point is one. General Gord who is president of the National Defense University is another. So I believe this we can fill a real demand from the armed forces and I think that's about as far as it will go to start with, unless the University gradually acquires the reputation of say Georgetown or others. I don't see why it shouldn't, if we have people who are chairmen chiefs of the staff or President of the United States and things like that. If Mr. Carter is an example, who have got doctorates from our universities, they'll beat a path to our door.

Sweeney: Looking back on your decade of teaching at ODU what have been your chief satisfactions and disappointment here?

Bennett: Well, my chief satisfaction, I think we've given this a pretty good going over, has been the feeling I had. I've been able to contribute something to our students. I've got a number of students who I'm terribly proud of. One of them was the legislative assistant of Senator Byrd and now is the Russian representative for Boeing aerospace. He was out prize political science student in 1971, and we've got a number of others.

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I think the greatest satisfaction I got out of it and what was most rewarding was working with the students and seeing the interest they took in things, and the improvement over a couple of years in their work and their thinking. Some of my colleagues would say I had merely subverted them to my subversive way of thinking, but I felt I had given them some education. That's the greatest satisfaction.

The greatest disappointment was, I think that we didn't get our master's degree cracking because I think we would have it over subscribed now. We would be having to expand our facilities to look after the demand from business and the armed forces had we got it going.

The greatest frustration is, of course, having to compete with the University administration by committee which if I were ever a dictator I would abolish immediately.

Sweeney: Do you see in the populace of the Hampton Roads area today an awareness of international relations?

Bennett: No, of course not. This is rather like an English friend of mine, a person who was arch deacon, and how was a great gardener and would go around his lawn with a speed. He would say," You know, my boy, the battle against dandelions is like the battle against sin. It's continuous, you never really win it. I would say the same thing about international relations. It's a never ending source of amazement to me that a place whose whole like blood depends on international relations wouldn't have people beating at the door for studies in international studies and their wouldn't be a waiting list to join the World Affairs Council. But in fact there isn't. This is just the way human beings are,and I think you just have to work at it continuously. I thing this is the greatest - I think Dr. Bugg when he talked about community service - I think one of the greatest things this University can do is to become the intellectual focus of this study of international relations, which is absolutely vital to the future of the United States.

Perhaps to end up, if I could end up with an anecdote. Some people say, "How did you come to be in Norfolk? Were you stationed here?" No. They say, "What are the advantages?" Sometimes, tongue in cheek I say, "Well, one of the greatest advantages is that I live just 800 yard from SACLANT headquarters and I work at Old Dominion University which is about a mile from SACLANT headquarters and if that Russian submarine off the capes decides to lob an H-bomb over the place, I won't have to worry about picking up after the post-nuclear age. That's what I think is the importance of international relations to Hampton Roads. The rest of the United States may be ruined, but Hampton Roads won't exist.

Sweeney: One final question on this 16th of May 1977 is what is you general assessment of the world strategic diplomatic situation? I know that is a tremendous order but in kind of summary fashion what are your thoughts on the world scene today?

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Bennett: I would say if we look at it, we have to look at the five great power centers, the two super powers are obviously almost equal. This is a very dangerous thing from our point of view. However the other potential power centers, Japan, Europe, China are rising rapidly.

Japan has been rather pushed into a backwater because of the rise of China, and because of Mr. Nixon's diplomacy and our good relations with China. I think it was rather a good choice for an ambassador Leonard Wood cock. I know nothing about him, but it should be at least a good start. At least nobody can say that he is running dog of capitalism. I think anybody who has run that union for a long time must be a damn good diplomat. I think Mr.Carter the other day in his press conference said, "We've got to find someway of solving the problem of Taiwan." This is nonsense. Taiwan couldn't count for loss. We get stuck with these historical things emotional things and moral things. We've got to normalize our relations with China.

It's very interesting to see that the Russians, yesterday in Pravda in one of their real pronunciamentos have said it's a dangerous thing if we think we can play with the Chinese. Now of course the Chinese, I agree with Dr. Whitehurst, the Chinese could be the super power in the world. That's the time to start thinking about deals with the Russians and the Japanese. At the moment they're not the super power. So I think in the Far East we have an excellent situation. I think M. Bryzinski appointed Mr. Kissinger because I had read everything he had written and read most of what Bryzinski has written. If you read what he has to say about Japan, he's not going to play silly about Japan. So I would say in the Far East we're in good shape. The Indian Ocean - I think we're playing it very well. Now that Europe is still the key. The question of Germany, as General DeGaulle said, is the most important quest in the universe. The Russians sitting on the necks of those twenty million Germans is not a stable situation. It can't last. What we have got to do is find some way Of getting this thing straightened out. It is most likely to be straightened out, and people wonder why the Russians are continuously increasing their armed forces and it's not-required for defense. Defense of what? It is not required to defend Russia against NATO or American assault. Probably not against a Chinese assault, but if they are going to continue with their present policy of suppressing Eastern Europe, particularly Germany, this thing is going to blow sooner or later. And they would like to be in the position to have strong enough conventional forces to make sure the West cannot rescue the East German as I think they probably will try.

So I think that Europe is the place. I am convinced there is only one way of solving that and that is nuclear sharing, nuclear proliferation and convert Europe into a nuclear power. I believe that is the only possible political lever to force the Europeans to form some kind of confederation which is a political control over defense and economics. The rest of the things don't matter, but those two do.

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I think, if we can take the Hapsburg Empire in reverse. It devolved into the place that that's all they had. They've got their common market now, but I think that is vital, or we will not have any more stability.

I think the situation in the Middle East - it's quite obvious the Americans are protecting Israel. Mr. Carter made it quite clear that we will not permit the destruction of Israel. Mr. Nixon in his broadcast on Thursday night last said how they had the general alert because we wouldn't permit the destruction of Israel.

Now whether you agree with this or not, what is wrong is that when a place is a protectorate, the protecting power controls the defenses and the foreign policy of the protectee. We have got the absurd situation where the protectee through the Zionist lobby in this country and the United States Congress, to quote Mr. J. William Fulbright, controls the foreign policy of the protector. This is absurd. Mr. Carter has got to solve this problem. It is far too dangerous and the Israelis have got to be' put in their place. Whether that will be done, and what will have to be done to the Jewish community in this country remains to be seen. General Brown has issued a very clear warning in the opinion of the Canadian government or not the Government, but some of the Canadian people I have talked to. On the orders of Mr. Kissinger and Mr. Ford, the Jewish had better watch out because unpleasant things can happen if they find a minority of the country have a higher loyalty to a foreign power than to the United States of America. I think this is going to have to be done and I think Carter can do it. Well, when the election is over. If that can be done and some kind of policy can be established that is most tolerable, that's the most you can get tolerable to the Israelis and tolerable to the Arabs, then I think we have a reasonable chance of stability.

Africa is equally dangerous, except in this case our:minority happens to be the blacks. I can't think of anything worse than Ambassador Young at the United Nations. I think Mr. Carter must have had a rush of blood to the head or something. Because the South Africans are no more going to turn over and roll Over and play dead and hand Over the rule of their country to the blacks of Africa, who are extremely savage, if one knows anything about it, and centuries behind the Arabs, anymore than Israelis are prepared to hand over the rule of their country to the Arabs. So this isn't going to work. Therefore all we are doing is getting ourselves deeper and deeper in the soup just as the Middle East, the powerful people there, the Arabs, control the strategic - or geopolitical strategic things and the commodities, in South Africa it's the opposite way around.

We had better learn to live with this, and we better stop this nonsense that's going on. I don't know how it's going to be done, but Mr. Young isn't doing any good. I think Mr. Carter better get on with finding out some way in which some tolerable situation can be set up. It would be very dangerous if the Russians could get control of some of these - the uranium and gold alone are enough to swing the whole balance of power in the world.

So those are the dangerous places as I see it, The other dangerous thing is I think the United States is going to have a Complete reform of the armed forces. I'm convinced there's no need - no strategic need for American mass armed forces. The required number can be raised by the draft. You can

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raise armed forces of roughly 5000 to 7000 per million of population -males only. And if we're going to have women's lib and so on, there's enough other jobs that can be done by well-educated, well-trained women. You don't have to have great hulking fullbacks to do the jobs. I think we can do it.

There's no question in my mind we don't need the draft, but we are going to have to have very good people. We are going to have to do away with the idea that we can accept second-class people just because we are getting more black recruits or something. If we get a good black officer, a good black noncommissioned officer, swell, but we shouldn't take any half-baked ones just because they can't get a job in civilian life. This is the important thing.

I think the armed forces have got to be organized on the basis of what they are likely to be used for, which is intervening in Angola when the Russians send the Cubans in, for example. That's the way the British ran things. I suggest we're going to have to do it the same way. Small strategic forces - the strategic balance along the lines of - I don't think it's at all impossible, but we've got to get the soft-headed stupids out of the arrangement who think by goodwill, detonate, so on and so forth that things can be done. We have to have a' very tough armed forces and we particularly have to be careful that we don't spend money on things just because we've been spending money on them for a long time. There isn't enough money to go around. But in general, if Mr. Carter is as good as he seems to be so far, I think there's a very good chance that his presidency may prove to be the turning point in this situation and we can get in the kind of posture that Disraeli had Great Britain in in the middle of the 19th Century.

Sweeney: Thank you very much Dr. Bennett. It's been a most informative interview.