My 1991 Interview with Geraldine Ferraro

Hank Stuever's review in Friday's Washington Post of a new Showtime documentary about 1984 Democratic vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro reminded me that I once interviewed her.

Rick Sincere interviews Geraldine Ferraro, 1991

The occasion was a Human Rights Campaign Fund (now Human Rights Campaign) fundraising dinner in late 1991. I was a correpondent for Gay Fairfax, a local TV magazine show in Northern Virginia that also appeared on various public-access cable channels around the country. The interview, which was cut away from excerpts of Ferraro's speech that night, was broadcast months later, on February 10, 1992.

At the time, Ferraro was embarking on a campaign to unseat then-Senator Alfonse D'Amato in New York. D'Amato was a Republican who had first been elected in the Reagan landslide of 1980.

As John Peter Olinger later noted about Ferraro's appearance at the HRCF banquet in an undated paper for the Rainbow History Project, "It was striking to watch as the crowd at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in 1992 [sic] cheered wildly as Geraldine Ferraro said she was running against Senator D’Amato and to realize that just six years later that same organization endorsed Senator D’Amato’s re-election."

As it turns out, the former congresswoman did not even win the Democratic primary to face D'Amato in November. She lost that election to New York attorney general Robert Abrams in a crowded field that also included pre-MSNBC Al Sharpton, New York City comptroller Elizabeth Holtzman, and U.S. Representative Robert Mrazek.

My interview was rather short (although, if you watch closely, you can see that some of it must have ended up on the cutting-room floor).  Note the references to Dick Cheney, who was then Secretary of Defense for President George H.W. Bush, and the military gay ban, which a little over two years later would become Bill Clinton's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, with repeal two decades in the future.

Ferraro also refers to "the gay rights act," which I interpret to mean ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, another bill that has been in Congress for decades without being passed into law.

The first question I posed mentioned a book Ferraro was working on.  She notes that she had deferred finishing it while running for the Senate, but a search on Amazon.com reveals that no book by Ferraro on that topic -- tensions between the First and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution --  was ever published.

Here is a complete transcript, including introductions by Gay Fairfax anchors Beth Goodman and Dave Hughes.

Beth Goodman: Gay Fairfax correspondent Rick Sincere recently got an exclusive interview from Geraldine Ferraro at the 1991 Human Rights Campaign Fund banquet.

Dave Hughes: Miss Ferraro ran for the United States Senate in New York State. Rick asked her about her views on gay and lesbian issues.

Rick Sincere: Welcome to Gay Fairfax.

Geraldine Ferraro: Thank you.

Sincere: And welcome to the Human Rights Campaign Fund annual dinner.

One of the questions I'd like to ask you is about the book you're working on about the conflict between the First Amendment and privacy rights. Could you comment on how that relates to the question of outing and ...

Ferraro: It doesn't. It doesn't. What it is is it's a book on the tension between the first and sixth amendments. The sixth amendment is the right to a fair trial. I'm a former prosecutor and so out of my experiences over the last number of years, I've sat down and really tried to analyze how much of an impact a good deal of publicity has on a person's right to have a fair trial. But to be very honest, I'm not really writing the book anymore. I've put it aside; I'm now running for the United States Senate. That preoccupies all of my time so the book will be put on the back burner for another day. Perhaps after I'm in the Senate a couple of terms.

Sincere: Right. Give it another twelve years or so, you can get back to it. Tell us about your relationship to the gay and lesbian rights movement. You've been a long term, long-time supporter of gay rights and here you are the Human Rights Campaign Fund dinner. What do you think is top on the agenda for the gay and lesbian community?

Ferraro: Well, I think the issue of funding for AIDS research into to move along i think that's probably most immediate problem, I mean there are obviously others, the immigration laws, the gay rights act which is in the Senate and in the House, I'd like to see that moved.

But again, I think, evidently funding and finding a cure for a disease that is just destroying this nation.

Sincere: What do you think about the problem of the military's discrimination against gay men and lesbians? Do you think there's hope for movement in that direction?

Ferraro: I sure hope so. I think Secretary Cheney has a very good opportunity to make some significant rules on the issue now especially in light of the report that just came out that indicates that gays and lesbians have no impact on security, no problem with security. Take a look at what happened during Desert Storm, the number of people who served and served valiantly who are gays and lesbians.

I know Dick Cheney. He was in my class in the Congress. I think he is an honorable man, and I would hope that he would be also a man of conscience and would take a very close look at what's happening in the military.

We're facing some very, very tough times and we need the talents of all of our people. We shouldn't discriminate because of race or gender or sexual orientation or anything else, or religion. So I look forward to being able to talk a little bit tonight about the issue, and I look forward to being able to come down in the Senate and doing something about it.

You can watch Ferraro's speech, my interview, and a musical performance by an a capella group, The Flirtations, here on Gay Fairfax:

Ferraro passed away in 2011 at the age of 75. The new Showtime movie about her is called Geraldine Ferraro: Paving the Way. It is directed by her daughter, Donna Zaccaro.

Homophones

The New York Daily News today has an article on its web site about Vice President Joe Biden using "colorful" language in introducing President Obama at a public ceremony.  (I do not know if this article appears, or will appear, in the paper's print edition.)

Reporter Michael Sheridan writes:

Health care reform isn't just a big deal, it's a "big f---ing deal."

At least, that's what Vice President Joe Biden thinks.

The 67-year-old former senator introduced President Obama prior to his signing of the historic health care reform bill into law on Tuesday, and let the colorful word slip while shaking the commander-in-chief's hand.

"You did it," Biden told his boss. "It's a big f---ing deal."

What caught my eye -- and what makes this article fodder for this blog -- is the penultimate paragraph, which says:

Fowl language may be a favorite for vice presidents. Ex-Veep Dick Cheney famously used the infamous phrase on several occasions during his two terms.

Something tells me that Sheridan did not want to suggest that Biden and Cheney talk like our avian friends. He meant to say "foul language," not "fowl language."

A good copy editor would have caught that.

Of course, it might be that the Daily News is trying to suggest that Biden (and, by extension, Cheney) are "chicken s--t."

Crossposted from Where Are the Copy Editors?



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To Sur, With Love

As part of the gargantuan (1,000-page-plus) health care "reform" package introduced by members of the Democratic majority in Congress, the Obama administration proposes to raise taxes through a "surtax" on Americans who earn the most money.

The Washington Post explained this "soak the rich" policy in a front-page article on July 15:

The surtax would start at 1 percent and rise to 5.4 percent on income exceeding $1 million. Combined with the expiration next year of tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration, the surtax would drive the top federal tax rate to 45 percent, the highest level since lawmakers rewrote the tax code in 1986.

The Washington Times, for its part, points out that this raises U.S. marginal tax rates to their highest levels since the 1980s:

A new surtax of 5.4 percent in the health care bill, which would apply to married couples' income above $1 million, would bring the top federal income tax rate to 45 percent.

After consideration of state and local income taxes and the Medicare payroll tax, which applies to all wage and salary income, taxpayers in 39 states would face a top marginal income tax rate of more than 50 percent, according to a study by the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit tax research group based in the District.

"That means government would be taking more than half of every additional dollar from high-income taxpayers," said Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge. "The lowest tax rate would be 47 percent - and that's in the nine states that don't tax wages."

Businesses say the surtax would hurt the economy.

"The intention of this plan is to tax high-income households, but the real victims would be America's small-business owners," said Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "Placing a big tax burden on the small-business community would rob them of the resources they need to create the jobs that will lead us out of the recession."

President Obama would be wise to look to history to see what happened the last time a president made a surtax the centerpiece of his economic program. (Some might object that this is a "health care" program. That's true, up to a point. The fact that the bill has been referred to the Finance Committee in the House suggests that this is really a revenue bill.)

In Yanek Mieczkowski's 2005 book, Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s, the Dowling College historian relates what happened when Ford proposed a 5 percent surtax on all incomes above $15,000 (more than it sounds like; remember, these were 1974 dollars) in his first major economic legislative package:

As what he termed "the acid test of our joint determination to whip inflation in America," Ford pronounced the cornerstone of his new economic program, a one-year, 5 percent surcharge on corporate and personal incomes. The surtax was directed at individuals with yearly earnings of $15,000 or more for married taxpayers and $7,500 for the unmarried. (Taxpayers would have to figure out what they normally owed the government, then add the 5 percent surtax to it.) The advantages of the surtax were that it would be mildly progressive, since the rich would pay more, and temporary, lasting only the calendar year 1975. Nor was it onerous. For example, a single person earning $15,000 would pay a federal income tax of $2,549; the surcharge would add $78. (p. 121)

Despite its modest appearance, Ford's proposal was met with strong opposition, especially from the Democrats who held a majority in Congress (a majority that would grow substantially after the midterm elections a few weeks after his proposal was announced). Republicans were not too fond of it, either.

Ford took a political risk by proposing a surtax less than a month before congressional elections. Unveiling a tax increase at such a time was like unleashing a skunk at a picnic; representatives and senators ran in the opposite direction, refusing to embrace or even come close to it. Officeholders facing difficult reelection battles, such as GOP senators Bob Dole of Kansas and Marlow Cook of Kentucky, deserted their president rather than support the proposal....

The program itself was a political bomb. The jumble of proposals gave the whole thing an eclectic feel, and the centerpiece -- a tax increase -- fell flat. One poll showed that Americans opposed the surtax, 58 to 34 percent. Members of Congress resisted it. Just two days after the speech, William Baroody warned Ford that it was "in serious trouble on the Hill and very unpopular politically" and that Congress was in no mood to reduce spending. Two weeks before the election [William] Seidman publicly acknowledged that the surtax faced an uphill struggle on Capitol Hill and called its prospects "uncertain." The overwhelming Republican repudiation in the ensuing elections turned "uncertain" to "doomed." Ford's policy making was off to a rocky start. (p. 124; footnotes omitted)

In one of the more significant parenthetical partial paragraphs of any work of recent history, however, Mieczkowski writes:

(One economist's skepticism about the surtax generated what later became a mainstay of Ronald Reagan's "supply-side" economics. Arthur Laffer doubted that the 5 percent surtax would generate much revenue, and while dining at a restaurant with Ford administration members Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, he drew a graph on a napkin to illustrate his belief that tax cuts -- rather than increases -- would raise more revenue because of increased business activity. His illustration became known as the "Laffer Curve.") (p. 122)

Apparently other economists caught on, even if they hadn't seen the napkin. Yanek Mieczkowski writes on page 130:

By November, many economists, realizing that Ford had miscalculated, urged him to drop the surtax proposal and switch his focus to fighting the recession. The president stuck by the surtax and still urged budget cuts.

In the end, the surtax proposal crashed and burned. Mieczkowski notes on page 131:

A political science axiom says that "the president proposes, Congress disposes." Congress certainly disposed of Ford's surtax, and quickly. Although he developed a fiscally balanced program incorporating many recommendations from the economic summit conferences, it was also like a multipronged barb that Congress could not swallow. And it soon became incongruous. The deteriorating economy, coupled with the inherent unpopularity of a tax increase, doomed Ford's first major economic initiative. But that failure was fortunate; as events played out, a surtax would have aggravated the downturn. (emphasis added)

History teaches us, and not just in this example from the mid-1970s, that raising taxes during a recession is a bad idea.

Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have not absorbed this lesson of history and economics. Should they succeed in raising taxes to finance their ambitious program to socialize medicine, they -- or, rather, we -- will live to regret it.

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Lamentation for Independence Day

The editorial board of the Jewish Daily Forward gets it exactly right in the June 26 issue, written in anticipation of Independence Day one week from now. Under the headline, "The Gift of Freedom," the Forward says:

Most of us seldom give much thought to the Fourth of July. It’s one of the most important holidays on our national calendar, one of the very few that is observed simultaneously by all Americans without regard to faith, origin or regional whim. It is, some say, the only holiday specifically dedicated to celebrating this nation. For all that, we mostly celebrate with barbecues or trips to the beach. If we seek some holiday spirit, we might watch a parade or catch some fireworks. A few of us might even get to thinking — some joyfully, others with mixed feelings — about patriotism, the flag or our soldiers overseas.

Ever since I moved to Charlottesville (with, I think, one exception), I have spent the morning of the Fourth of July on top of Mr. Jefferson's Little Mountain to celebrate Independence Day with new citizens as they take their oath of naturalization at the able hands of judges from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Over the years the speakers have included Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (in 2000; photo at left), author Frank McCourt, newspaper publisher Al Neuharth, artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and actor Sam Waterston (in 2007, photo below) (I've been hoping that late-night talk show host Craig Ferguson will be invited soon; he became an American citizen in February and talked about the process on his show -- his pride in being an AmCit is palpable.)

I've been lucky in that some years I've gone as "press" (even before I was blogging) and usually had a great seat in the media corral. Consequently, I've got some terrific pictures and (last year, for the first time) video. In addition, Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville take turns, year by year, in setting up a voter registration table to grab the new citizens before it's too late.

I won't be going up the mountain this year, however, because although it was earlier announced that the speaker would be documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, today the word went out that Burns has been bumped by Bush -- President George W. Bush, that is.

It's not that I have any objection in principle to the president speaking. Under other circumstances, it could be interesting. But his presence is going to cause inconvenience of major proportions. What has been a rather informal, local event -- the Charlottesville Municipal Band plays patriotic tunes, local Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts lead the Pledge of Allegiance -- will be turned into a circus.

Normally, anyone can attend the naturalization ceremony. It requires no ticket, no entry fee. People are free to wander the grounds. (The ceremony ends just before noon, so that those who wish to do so can walk down to Mr. Jefferson's gravesite to observe a family service commemorating the anniversary of his death.)

None of that will be true this year. Security will be at a premium. People will be searched, prodded, and scrutinized for their political opinions. It won't be fun, entertaining, or informative -- just a hassle.

It's not just the metal detectors and body cavity searches that concern me. When President Bush comes to a public event, those who disagree with him are discouraged from attending -- sometimes even prevented from attending by force. What will happen if someone shows up with t-shirts indicating support for Barack Obama or Ron Paul? Or t-shirts with slogans like "The Constitution Means What It Says," "Stop the War!," or "What Part of 'Limited Government' Don't You Understand?"? (Placards and signs of any sort will, of course, be forbidden, though t-shirts can be hidden under other garments and displayed at the right moment.) Will Albemarle County police be on hand to arrest people for exercising their First Amendment rights?

This won't be the first time a sitting U.S. President has spoken at Monticello on July 4th. In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford was the featured speaker. Unlike our current president, Ford was modest in his approach to the office. (Churchill might have said he "has a lot to be modest about," but he would have been incorrect.)

Ford inherited the White House from another president who, like Bush, failed to understand that the Constitution provides for three co-equal branches of government. Like Bush, Richard Nixon tried to expand the powers of the presidency with utter disregard for Congress and the Courts. Like Bush, Nixon was paranoid and rigid, with little understanding for free markets or individual liberty. Nixon famously compiled an "enemies list" of those who disagreed with him on policy issues.

Ford, in contrast, understood that Congress and the Courts also had a role to play in the making of public policy. He rejected the "imperial presidency" model, although his chief of staff (later vice president) Dick Cheney took away from the Ford White House a festering theory of the "unified presidency," which manifests itself in such things as "signing statements" in which the President, rather than vetoing a bill as provided by the Constitution, signs it but explains what parts he feels the Executive Branch can disobey. (Ford vetoed more bills in a month than Bush has vetoed in the entire eight years of his presidency.)

One of the traditions at the Monticello Independence Day celebration is for the Clerk of the Circuit Court to read the preamble to the Declaration of Independence (the part that begins, "When in the course of human events ...")

Wouldn't it be delicious if this year, in addition to the preamble, he could also read the bill of indictment that makes up the core of the Declaration? For those unfamiliar with it, here are a few lines of reminder:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good...

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only...

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:...

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:...

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:...

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation...

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people....

While I would love to see the expression on George Bush's face as that text is being read out, I still prefer to spend my Fourth of July without being wanded by a security guard. So I expect I'll be as far from Monticello this year as possible. I may even head up to D.C. for the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival and the fireworks on the National Mall.

Leave it to this White House to ruin the Fourth of July.

Update, Monday, June 30: Monticello has announced that there will be a limited number of tickets available to the ceremony on July 4. Only one thousand free tickets will be distributed beginning at 7:00 a.m. on Wednesday, July 2. I wonder whether the friends and family members of the new citizens will be required to get those tickets, or if they have another means to attend the ceremony.

Protesters Object to Cheney Visit

Vice President Dick Cheney was the featured speaker at Friday's Republican Party gala in Richmond.

His presence in the state capital did not go unnoticed by the anti-war crowd. A small number of protesters gathered at the corner of Fifth and Broad Streets in Richmond to demonstrate their disdain for the vice president and call for his impeachment.

Here are a few moments of the protest, captured on video:

You might notice some condescending comments from the protesters (amplified for all to hear) about how passers-by should start reading more and different sources of information. That's not the way to endear yourself to people who might be inclined to support your cause: to accuse them of being ignorant, and willfully so.

My Lunch with Dick Cheney

Through a confluence of happy accidents, I ended up spending a couple of hours today at the National Press Club, where Vice President Dick Cheney spoke at a luncheon honoring the recipients of the annual Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prizes. Cheney, you'll recall, served as Ford's White House Chief of Staff before serving in Congress and both Bush administrations.

Longtime readers of this blog will remember that I am an admirer of President Ford, who I rank with Ronald Reagan and Calvin Coolidge as among the most liberty-minded presidents of the 20th century, as all three aimed at restraining and shrinking the size and scope of government.

After lunch, I ran into Mark Rozell, a professor at George Mason University, who was one of the judges for the journalism prizes. I used to be a guest lecturer for Rozell when he taught at American University. While we were chatting near the elevators, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger walked up to us. I extended my hand and said, "Dr. Kissinger, you probably don't remember me, but I was in your class at Georgetown 25 years ago." He seemed pleased to see me -- what teacher isn't glad to see a former student -- but the gentleman with him one-upped me. "I took his class 40 years ago!," he said, with a wink.

My table at the lunch was no more than 20 or 25 feet from the Vice President, so I got a few good photos. I was sitting between Senator Jon Kyl's press secretary and two gentlemen from the Red Chinese embassy, who were scribbling rapidly to take down as many of Cheney's words as possible.

I scribbled a few notes myself, which I turned into an article for this week's Metro Herald. To wit:

Cheney Speaks Out on War on Terror, Iraq, Government Secrecy
Rick Sincere
Special to the Metro Herald

(WASHINGTON) --- Vice President Dick Cheney was the featured speaker on Monday, June 19, at a National Press Club awards ceremony. In response to questions from the audience, Cheney spoke out on the war on terror, the war in Iraq, and government secrecy.

Cheney spoke at the annual luncheon ceremony, sponsored by the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, for the presentation of two journalism prizes named for the former president. The award recipients were Tom DeFrank of the New York Daily News, for his reporting on the presidency, and Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times, for his reporting on national defense issues while working for the Los Angeles Times.

National Press Club president Jonathan Salant introduced Cheney as “pinch-hitting for Gerald Ford,” since Ford, who will turn 93 on July 14, was unable to attend the luncheon.

Cheney began his remarks by noting that his own history with President Ford goes back to 1974, when Donald Rumsfeld became Ford’s chief of staff and Cheney was Rumsfeld’s deputy. Later, when Rumsfeld became Ford’s Secretary of Defense, Cheney was promoted to White House Chief of Staff – later serving 10 years in Congress, a term as Secretary of Defense, as CEO of Halliburton, and today as vice president.

The Vice President noted that Ford served a short term – only 29 months – but because of the turbulent times, the “pace of activity was enough to fill an eight-year presidency.”

Paying tribute to Ford, Cheney said that “through all of this, America was extremely fortunate to have a steady hand at the wheel.”

“In every respect,” he said, “Gerald Ford labored hard at his job and he was good at it,” adding: “Gerald Ford is the kind of person whose good qualities appear on first impression and are only confirmed when you spend time with him.”

Joking with the audience, which consisted largely of members of the Washington press corps, Cheney continued: “President Ford is a patient and forgiving man, so naturally he has a high regard for the news media.” (This reference may not be so tongue-in-cheek. In his 2005 book, Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s, Dowling College historian Yanek Mieczkowski reports that Ford had unusually good relations with the press in comparison to other presidents of the late 20th century.)

Following his remarks about the former President, who was as much honored at the luncheon as the reporters who received crystal figurines in his name, Cheney answered questions from the audience, filtered through moderator Salant.

Asked “Are we winning the war on terror?,” Cheney said, “I believe we are.”

Explaining that after 9/11 that the United States developed an “aggressive strategy,” Cheney said that the biggest threat we now face is an al-Qaeda cell armed with a nuclear weapon or some other weapon of mass destruction. Still, he continued, “a look at the broad sweep of events” shows that “several things stand out.” One of these is that the United States “cannot all by itself succeed in every place unless we have friends and allies,” pointing to the cooperation we have received in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq in rounding up and killing terrorists connected to al-Qaeda.

The biggest sign of success, Cheney said, is that “it’s been nearly five years now and we haven’t been hit again,” though he qualified this by noting that “nobody can promise that we won’t be hit again” by al-Qaeda or “al-Qaeda wannabes.”

Cheney asserted that two of the reasons for success were the USA PATRIOT Act and the terrorist surveillance program – both of which, he acknowledged, have been controversial. He insisted, in regard to the surveillance program, that “it clearly is legal and consistent with the Constitution.” The program, he said, is “reviewed by the President every 45 days and he is assured by the Attorney General that it complies with the laws of the land.”

“The fact of the matter,” Cheney said, “is we’ve been safe and secure at home and that is no accident.”

Another questioner asked if Cheney had underestimated the strength of the insurgency in Iraq. Cheney replied that “nobody anticipated the level of violence we encountered.” He attributed this misjudgment to how the Bush administration “underestimated the effect of 30 years of Saddam’s rule.” There was a huge transition to make from dictatorship to democracy, he said, and he personally “underestimated the extent to which Iraqi society had been damaged by the Saddam regime.”

Asked if there will be a return to military conscription, Cheney flatly answered no. “I’m a big believer in the all-volunteer force,” he said, and although the structures for a military draft are maintained for the eventuality that certain extreme conditions might require it, “I don’t foresee the development of those conditions.”

As one might expect from a gathering of working journalists, there was a question about how the Bush administration is reacting to leaks, particularly leaks of national security information. Cheney said that he believes “there need to be secrets. There are things the federal government does in the national security arena that need to be kept secret.”

“One of the frustrations of this debate,” Cheney added, “is that you can’t talk about current operations to explain why” certain information has to be kept classified. He gave as an example of how reports of communications interception technology tipped off al-Qaeda that they should change their means of communicating with each other. He also noted that when U.S. secrets are compromised, “other intelligence services find it difficult to work with us.”

Just before he had to leave, Cheney was offered a light-hearted question: With the President celebrating his 60th birthday on July 6, what gift does Cheney plan to give to him?

Cheney pondered his answer for a moment, noting that the two of them do not usually exchange birthday presents, but only Christmas presents. Pausing to think, he smiled and said, “This is one of those things that need to be secret.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Rick Sincere covers political and cultural events for the Metro Herald.

-30-

For more information about the Gerald R. Ford journalism prizes, visit the Gerald R. Ford Foundation. A transcript of today's event can be obtained through the National Press Club, and C-SPAN recorded the luncheon speeches for broadcast. The Associated Press also has a report on the lunch.