WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.110 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.110 --> 00:00:03.390 align:middle line:84% I'll read a couple of more poems touching on the war. 00:00:03.390 --> 00:00:04.950 align:middle line:84% I have never been a political poet. 00:00:04.950 --> 00:00:07.560 align:middle line:84% I never participated in a political demonstration 00:00:07.560 --> 00:00:12.750 align:middle line:84% of any kind until a year ago on November 24th of last year 00:00:12.750 --> 00:00:15.960 align:middle line:84% when I went into the march against Washington, march 00:00:15.960 --> 00:00:18.790 align:middle line:84% against the Vietnam War in Washington, which there were 00:00:18.790 --> 00:00:22.710 align:middle line:90% 30,000 or 40,000 people there. 00:00:22.710 --> 00:00:25.740 align:middle line:84% And I expect when the Vietnam War is over, that I will not 00:00:25.740 --> 00:00:27.750 align:middle line:90% be a political poet again. 00:00:27.750 --> 00:00:31.500 align:middle line:84% As a lifelong Democrat, I am wounded 00:00:31.500 --> 00:00:34.380 align:middle line:84% not only by the behavior of our Senator from Minnesota, 00:00:34.380 --> 00:00:38.580 align:middle line:84% Humphrey, but by the general behavior of the Republican 00:00:38.580 --> 00:00:41.580 align:middle line:90% Party, the Democratic Party. 00:00:41.580 --> 00:00:44.370 align:middle line:84% Anyway, here's another poem called "Asian Peace Offers 00:00:44.370 --> 00:00:46.450 align:middle line:90% Rejected Without Publication." 00:00:46.450 --> 00:00:48.120 align:middle line:84% So what brought this on, I happened 00:00:48.120 --> 00:00:51.630 align:middle line:84% to be in London when Stevenson died. 00:00:51.630 --> 00:00:54.300 align:middle line:84% He died of a heart attack outside the embassy. 00:00:54.300 --> 00:00:57.030 align:middle line:84% And it was interesting that Eric Sevareid had dinner with him 00:00:57.030 --> 00:00:58.290 align:middle line:90% the night before. 00:00:58.290 --> 00:01:00.960 align:middle line:84% And when he died so suddenly, Eric Sevareid 00:01:00.960 --> 00:01:04.080 align:middle line:84% thought it his duty to bring out in public the contents 00:01:04.080 --> 00:01:05.430 align:middle line:90% of the conversation. 00:01:05.430 --> 00:01:09.180 align:middle line:84% And the contents were that I-- that Stevenson 00:01:09.180 --> 00:01:11.790 align:middle line:84% said he was thinking of resigning his seat in the UN. 00:01:11.790 --> 00:01:14.520 align:middle line:84% He couldn't go on any longer with this thing. 00:01:14.520 --> 00:01:18.930 align:middle line:84% Because we had a peace offer from Hanoi before the bombing, 00:01:18.930 --> 00:01:21.930 align:middle line:84% which Johnson did not allow to be made public 00:01:21.930 --> 00:01:23.670 align:middle line:90% and which was not answered. 00:01:23.670 --> 00:01:25.440 align:middle line:90% And Stevenson knew about it. 00:01:25.440 --> 00:01:26.940 align:middle line:90% U Thant knew about it. 00:01:26.940 --> 00:01:29.640 align:middle line:84% And he referred to it guardedly, but was not 00:01:29.640 --> 00:01:31.770 align:middle line:90% allowed to speak about it. 00:01:31.770 --> 00:01:34.770 align:middle line:84% And after Sevareid mentioned it publicly, then U Thant said, 00:01:34.770 --> 00:01:36.810 align:middle line:84% that's what I meant three months ago when 00:01:36.810 --> 00:01:40.740 align:middle line:84% I said there are-- if the American public knew everything 00:01:40.740 --> 00:01:43.052 align:middle line:84% about this war, they would not support it. 00:01:43.052 --> 00:01:44.760 align:middle line:84% And the White House was very embarrassed. 00:01:44.760 --> 00:01:46.170 align:middle line:84% And they had to publish relations then, 00:01:46.170 --> 00:01:48.420 align:middle line:84% operating the lights until 3:00 o'clock in the morning 00:01:48.420 --> 00:01:49.780 align:middle line:90% to try to answer that. 00:01:49.780 --> 00:01:51.210 align:middle line:90% But the press fell along. 00:01:51.210 --> 00:01:53.850 align:middle line:84% And everybody forgot about it and all. 00:01:53.850 --> 00:01:57.330 align:middle line:84% "Asian Peace Offers Rejected Without Publication." 00:01:57.330 --> 00:02:01.900 align:middle line:84% "We know these suggestions by Asians are not taken seriously. 00:02:01.900 --> 00:02:06.540 align:middle line:84% We know Rusk smiles as he passes into someone. 00:02:06.540 --> 00:02:09.180 align:middle line:90% Men like Rusk are not men. 00:02:09.180 --> 00:02:14.290 align:middle line:84% They are bombs waiting to be loaded in a darkened hangar. 00:02:14.290 --> 00:02:21.100 align:middle line:84% Rusk's assistants eat hurriedly, talking of Teilhard de Chardin, 00:02:21.100 --> 00:02:23.650 align:middle line:84% longing to get back to their offices 00:02:23.650 --> 00:02:27.550 align:middle line:84% so they can cling to the underside of the steel wings, 00:02:27.550 --> 00:02:31.500 align:middle line:84% shuddering faintly in the high altitude. 00:02:31.500 --> 00:02:36.360 align:middle line:84% At the airfield, they hand the coffee cup to the dawn pilot. 00:02:36.360 --> 00:02:39.390 align:middle line:84% They start the projector and show the movie 00:02:39.390 --> 00:02:42.690 align:middle line:90% about the mad professor. 00:02:42.690 --> 00:02:46.350 align:middle line:84% Lost angels huddled on a night branch. 00:02:46.350 --> 00:02:49.230 align:middle line:84% The waves crossing and recrossing beneath. 00:02:49.230 --> 00:02:51.870 align:middle line:84% The sound of the rampaging Missouri 00:02:51.870 --> 00:02:55.230 align:middle line:84% bending the reeds again and again. 00:02:55.230 --> 00:03:00.300 align:middle line:84% Something inside us like a ghost train in the Rockies 00:03:00.300 --> 00:03:05.400 align:middle line:84% about to be buried in snow, it's long hoot 00:03:05.400 --> 00:03:12.360 align:middle line:84% making the owl in the Douglas fir turn his head." 00:03:12.360 --> 00:03:15.550 align:middle line:84% So at the very end, I-- where one 00:03:15.550 --> 00:03:18.730 align:middle line:84% has the feeling that only the owls really 00:03:18.730 --> 00:03:20.950 align:middle line:90% hear the peace offering. 00:03:20.950 --> 00:03:23.170 align:middle line:84% Because they know that if it goes on, 00:03:23.170 --> 00:03:28.200 align:middle line:84% that they'll be blown up with everyone else.