An Interview with Alan Keyes Edited for Length
Full Transcript Available at
http://www.keyes2000.org
C-SPAN: Road to the White House Ambassador Alan Keyes
Q: Ambassador Alan Keyes, what, in your own estimation, is the likelihood
that you will be President of the United States?
A: Oh, I have no idea. I think that that will depend entirely on the heart
of the American people over the course of the next few months, and the
effectiveness with which we are able to get the message of moral renewal
to people at the grassroots.
Q: Is you campaign, in its essence, really all about achieving the
presidency, or influencing the process?
A: I don't understand the question, because it seems to me part of the
problem with our politics these days that we think that the process ought
to be about the ambition of personalities, when in fact the process is
about the fate and future of our country. And in my mind the two are
indistinguishable. When I talk to the issues that affect the future of the
country, I believe and hope that I am doing what is necessary to achieve
what will help to bring about what is better for this country. If that
involves Alan Keyes being elected to the presidency, that's what will
happen.
Q: One of our goals is for our audience to get to know you a little bit
better. Where were you born?
A: I was born in New York. As I recall, it was the Naval Hospital on Long
Island. My mother was in New York; my father, I think, at the time I was
born was serving the country in Korea. She was staying with my aunt at the
time that I came into the world.
Q: And where did you grow up?
A: I grew up in a number of places. I suppose the best answer would be, "I
grew up in the army," since I was an army brat and we moved from place to
place. When I first came into the world, we were in New York; we lived in
New Jersey, in Georgia; were overseas for a while, lived in Italy; came
back; I think we were in Maryland and Virginia for a while; then in Texas.
So I lived the life of an army brat. But all of that moving from place to
place actually belies the truth, since there is a lot of stability in that
life, since army life is basically . . . as you move from place to place,
from post to post, there is a universe that you live in - with the
commissary, and the PX, and the movie theaters, and the life of an army
people - that is pretty steady and pretty consistent from place to place.
Q: Brothers and sisters?
A: I have a sister and three brothers.
Q: And are your parents still alive?
A: No. They are both dead.
Q: Where did you go to school?
A: In a number of places. Since I was an army brat I went to different
schools when I was going up. I went to high school in San Antonio, Robert
G. Cole High School, which was on the base. Actually spent all four years
there. And then did the first part of my undergraduate work at Cornell,
finished up at Harvard, and then did my graduate studies at Harvard.
Q: How did you choose Cornell and Harvard?
A: Well, I actually went to Cornell, initially, because I was interested
in something they called the "six year Ph.D. program" there. I was in a
hurry, when I was finishing up high school, and I thought, "Oh, I'll go
in; I'll finish up." Because it was a program where you took the
four-year, usual undergraduate course work and you compressed it into two
to three years, and then you would add on top of that another several
years so that you would finish a Ph.D. in a six year course of study from
the time you started undergraduate school. Moving along fairly quickly, in
other words. And that intrigued me, and I applied for it and got in. And
then when I got to college, I discovered that learning wasn't something I
wanted to speed up. So I actually ended up abandoning those ideas and
settling in to spend more time at things that I thought were worthwhile to
study.
Q: And what is your doctorate in?
A: Doctorate is in government.
Q: And did you have a specialty, your thesis that you wrote?
A: Political theory, and the thesis was particularly focused on the theory
of American constitutional government.
Q: What happened after you received your Ph.D.? What was next in life?
A: Well, I then went into politics briefly; I worked a little bit on a
campaign with a friend in New Jersey. And then, fairly quickly after
getting the doctorate, ended up in the Foreign Service and went into the
Department of State.
Q: At what point in your growth and development did you decide that you
would want to pursue public service?
A: Public service I think I've known I've wanted to pursue since I was in
high school. And that's why I studied government, and why I ended up going
into the State Department, and doing other things of that kind. So since
I was very young I have understood that this was what I wanted to do.
Q: When you describe yourself, do you think first, "I'm a conservative" or
first, "I'm a Republican"?
A: Actually, when I describe myself, I think first, "I am a Christian."
Then I think, "I'm an American." And then somewhere down the line I think,
"I'm a Republican." And so the first things in my life are things that
have to do with the duties I have to God, to country, and to family. And I
think that my sense is still that an allegiance to the Republican Party
serves those things best in the America of today.
Q: Among presidents, who are your most admired.
A: Without any doubt, at the top of the list is Abraham Lincoln. I think
that he was, so far, the greatest statesman, in the largest sense of the
term, that this country has ever produced. And by that I mean someone who
not only fulfilled his role in the presidency, but did so with a conscious
sense of what that implied for the idea and ideas that the country is
based upon and represents. And I think that is important. That
self-conscious grasp of how your service contributes to the more permanent
being and situation of the country is in my opinion the essence of
statesmanship. It is not just a matter of coping with the political
challenges of the moment, and doing well at getting elected, even meeting
immediate problems in the right way. You must approach them according to
an understanding, according to a set of principles, that reflects a sense
of the permanent destiny of the nation. And I think Lincoln had that.
Obviously, that was something characteristic of a lot of the folks who
were part of the founding generation. Of those people, obviously
Washington stands out as someone who was of great character. And there we
speak of something that doesn't have to do with policy only, but has to do
with the kind of person that he was, and the way in which he embodied the
virtues that are required for leadership in a free society. Also I would
point to Reagan as somebody I greatly admire. Now, that might have
something to do with the fact that, in my lifetime, I think he was the
president who has been most impressive, and who had, in my opinion, the
greatest sense of instinctive grasp and commitment of the challenges that
statesmanship faces in our time, particularly when he was dealing with the
communist challenge, and understanding the extent to which it had to be
dealt with as a moral reality, not just as a question of geopolitical
strategy. And that, I think, reflected a sense that this country isn't
just about our power in the world, but it has also to be about the extent
to which we are able to realize the values and ideas that America is
supposed to represent, not just for ourselves but for humanity, in the
broadest sense of the term.
Q: You worked in the Reagan Administration. In what role?
A: I was mostly in foreign policy. Well, altogether, I guess, in foreign
policy, in those days. I was part of the Policy Planning Staff, during the
early years of the administration, served at the United Nations as an
Ambassador to the Economic and Social Council. Jeanne Kirkpatrick was the
permanent representative and I sat on ECOSOC, and also represented the
U.S. in the General Assembly Budget Committee and the Economic and Social
Committees. I then went to be Assistant Secretary of State, overseeing our
participation in the whole UN and international organizations system, and
was also briefly part of the National Security Council staff. So I covered
a number of areas in foreign policy and national security policy.
Q: Are you married?
A: Married. I have three children.
Q: How did you meet your wife.
A: I met my wife when I was on posting in India, in the Foreign Service.
She's actually originally from Calcutta.
Q: And . . . you have how many children, did you say?
A: Three, two boys and a girl.
Q: How do they take to the presidential campaign?
A: Oh, I think with mixed feelings. Which, honestly, is what one ought to
expect from folks. Because my family is very much about the family. And we
have tried, in the course of our life, to raise our children to understand
that there are things in life more important than material goods, and all
this other sort of stuff. And so I think that the effect that the campaign
has in drawing me away from home; spending a lot of time on the road and
obviously gives rise to mixed feelings on the part of my children. I think
that when they get involved, obviously there is a certain kind of
excitement to the campaign, and I think they take an interest in that. But
at bottom, overall for the family, I think the whole situation is a
sacrifice more than anything else.
Q: How many miles do you think you have logged so far?
A: I have no idea. [laughing] Thousands and thousands.
Q: Can you give a sense of your strategy for the 2000 campaign?
A: The strategy of the Keyes campaign is people reaching people. And so
essentially what we do is gather folks together, particularly in venues in
Iowa and New Hampshire and because those are states that are not only
important in terms of national attention at the beginning, but they are
also states where grassroots campaigns have been and can be very
effective. And we concentrate on drawing in those people who believe, as I
do, that the moral challenge is the greatest challenge that the country
faces, and then commissioning them, basically, to go out and find others
like themselves, so that they will understand that the business of what we
are doing is not something that is going to take place in some battle of
TV commercials and moneybags. It is going to take place in the battle
within the hearts and minds of people, who will then have to decide that
they have enough commitment to what we are doing to get out and be the
leaders in their families and communities, searching out those like
themselves who share this commitment, and recruiting them to come to the
polls and support it. And that is what our effort is about; it is a real
grassroots organization effort.
Q: And do you expect to go all the way through to November, no matter
what?
A: Well, I'll leave that in the hands of God, but what I expect to do is
what is necessary in order to serve the cause and purpose that I believe
is critical for the survival of freedom in this country. Which is
important to me in a very real sense. Because you asked about early
formation and all of this, but one of the things that very much forms my
understanding of American life and politics had to do with civil rights,
and my introduction as a black American to the whole reality of what
slavery had meant in this country and in the life of my ancestors. The
thought that my children would grow up in a country where, after all that
struggle and effort to gain full citizenship and real liberty, we as a
people, as a whole, had thrown away this system of self-government and it
breaks my heart. I think it is really happening, though. Everything I have
studied over the course of the years of my life and I spent a lot of time
looking at it and it tells me that we are in the era in which we are
dismantling the foundations of self-government in America. We are moving
from the republic period of American life into a period that will be like
the imperial period in Rome, in which a handful of people govern the
destiny of our country. This is not right. We should not let it happen.
And it will happen if we don't restore the underlying moral character and
imperatives that give a people the energy and common sense to govern
itself. We are losing those things, and as we lose them, this system is
faltering.
Q: I hope on our network people have an opportunity to follow you on the
issues, but I thank you for the past half hour to learn more about you and
your background.
A: Thank you.
