William A. Rusher Quotes

• I think the important thing to remember about the Japanese internment is the situation. We had been attacked. Maybe Roosevelt expected it - I rather think he did. I don't think he expected an attack on Pearl Harbor. I think he expected an attack on Southeast Asia. But we were attacked at Pearl Harbor

  William A. Rusher

  Thinking, Important, Pearls

  Source: www.pbs.org

  21 Copy quote

• You know, you can't always criticize without somebody being at the end of the stick. And she perhaps did not always grant credit to her opponents for their motives, any more than they granted credit to her for hers.

  William A. Rusher

  Credit, Opponents, Sticks

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• One of the most influential women of the 20th century? Well, that may be overdoing it. When one thinks of really influential women, my mind turns to Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, ... some of the true political leaders in their own right.

  William A. Rusher

  Thinking, Leader, Political

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• I think the fact that she [Eleanor Roosevelt] was a woman probably in those days would have been an additional criticism, although first ladies by definition in those days were women. There's always been a problem and still is, about the role the first lady should play, of course. Everybody's seen it in Jackie Kennedy and Nancy Reagan and, heaven knows, Hillary Clinton. So the problem has not been solved.

  William A. Rusher

  Thinking, Play, Heaven

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• Our Navy was very largely sunk. And we were at war in no time at all. I share, in retrospect, the distress we all share at the internment of the Japanese American citizens of the United States. It was not our finest hour. But the Supreme Court had it before it at the time, and justified it and upheld it.

  William A. Rusher

  War, Navy, United States

  Source: www.pbs.org

  18 Copy quote

• Do you realize that at the moment we have Barry Goldwater fighting the Moral Majority, with The New York Times rooting for Goldwater? Times have changed.

  William A. Rusher

  New York, Fighting, Times Have Changed

  5 Copy quote

• Most of her participation in the United Nations, which [??] history, as I say, I don't take too seriously, because I know how that UN operation works, and it is essentially a facade in which the work is done back in Washington and in the capitals involved, and the people up front are just going through the motions.

  William A. Rusher

  People, Done, Operations

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• And if something came along that didn't sound so good, it perhaps didn't always get out there as it should have. But given the fact that she [Eleanor Roosevelt] had the help, nonetheless she knew how to use it. And she used it very effectively.

  William A. Rusher

  Should Have, Sound, Use

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• This was another subject of criticism. She was being paid, as I recall, during the 1940's, what was then a princely sum, something like a dollar a word. I don't say that for the column, but for articles that she would write and things like that. And she made lots of speeches.

  William A. Rusher

  Writing, Criticism, Dollars

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• I have no idea why she quieted down on the subject. Maybe she was told to. I can imagine that it wasn't a very popular position in the Administration, with her own husband having ordered by executive order the internment. Maybe she was just told: "Look, we're in a war now. Turn off your social conscience."

  William A. Rusher

  Husband, War, Order

  Source: www.pbs.org

  17 Copy quote

• Westbrook Pegler suggested that in the period, I think the late 40s, when the investigations of Communism were opening up during the Cold War, that she ought to be called and required to testify about what she knew. I remember he said, "Would the world vanish in a blast of flame if this old woman were subpoenaed and compelled to tell what she knows about the Communist Party's activities in the United States?"

  William A. Rusher

  War, Party, Thinking

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• I think she [Eleanor Roosevelt] never was called because she probably didn't know an awful lot. The whole burden of the criticism of her on the subject of Communism is naiveté, not participation. And again, being a public figure and our representative at the UN, there was nothing Communist about her, certainly.

  William A. Rusher

  Thinking, Criticism, Awful

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• And at the UN she took the advice - she had to take the advice - of the State Department and the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations. They keep our UN representatives on a very short leash. She did as she was told, and voted as she was told.

  William A. Rusher

  Organization, Advice, Assistants

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• She was obviously useful at the UN because she had a public persona before she ever got there. She was well known. She was a spokeswoman for many important things. When she got there, what she said was paid attention to, undoubtedly much more than would have been if just Joe Blow had been made our representative to the United Nations. In that sense, I think it was useful to have her there.

  William A. Rusher

  Blow, Thinking, Important

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• In terms of legacy, I'm not sure that I see some great historic deposit there, as a result of her passing our way. She heightened the sense of social conscience in the New Deal generally. To her great credit, she was early on the side of the blacks in their fight for civil rights. She had a tendency to participate, which easily oozed over into meddlesomeness.

  William A. Rusher

  Fighting, Rights, Legacy

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• And Eleanor's husband was the man who did the interning. And I think they - Governor Warren, who was later to become such an impassioned Chief Justice on all sorts of human rights issues, was very big in the internment process. And I think that we simply sometimes tend not to understand or remember how people felt.

  William A. Rusher

  Husband, Thinking, Men

  Source: www.pbs.org

  9 Copy quote

• These people looked Japanese, were originally Japanese, were numerous. We had no way of knowing to what extent they had been infiltrated. To their great credit, it seems not to have been very much at all. But I can understand why. And I rather respect Eleanor for standing out against the tide at that point. But it certainly was a tide. And I'm not going to say it was unjustified.

  William A. Rusher

  Knowing, People, Credit

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• I don't think she ever had a single initiative at the United Nations that was not previously [vetted] by the people at the State Department, approved of, and authorized. She did manage to get around the world an awful lot, and find other parts of her vast slum project that needed repair. But I don't think that that was the main point. The main point was that she, after all, connoted Franklin Roosevelt, who by then was long dead, and had a certain prestige and power on that account.

  William A. Rusher

  Thinking, Long, People

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• People who thought that she was busy going around trying to stir up difficulty where there was none or less than she imagined, were quite critical of her. She was, we must never forget, a public figure. And in democracies, public figures tend to attract criticism as well as praise. The most dangerous thing would be if anybody were regarded as above criticism. And Eleanor Roosevelt is, in recent years, getting there.

  William A. Rusher

  Years, People, Democracy

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• Eleanor Roosevelt had both her admirers and her detractors. And they admired her and detracted from her for many of the same reasons. People who liked her social activism, who thought that she was calling attention to problems that needed solving, were all for her.

  William A. Rusher

  People, Attention, Social Activism

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• They seemed like a team. And I think it is fair to say that Roosevelt was the consummate politician and that Eleanor was the socially conscious activist. It gave them a nice combination of yang and yin, which they took advantage of. And I think it worked very well for them politically.

  William A. Rusher

  Nice, Team, Thinking

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• I think she [Eleanor Roosevelt] was a shrewd politician, and very good in public relations, although she had the usual media help in this. As a Republican and a conservative, I can say ruefully that the Democrats and the liberals tend to get it; that when she said something, it was put in a nice way and highlighted properly by the appropriate media, so that it sounded good.

  William A. Rusher

  Nice, Thinking, Media

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• Well, you have to remember that until 1948, when Hubert Humphrey and others forced the Democratic Party to adopt a new policy on civil rights, the Democratic Party was the party of the old solid South. All of the racists, all of the Cottonhead Smith types and so on were Democrats, allies of Franklin Roosevelt - because of their seniority - of all the major committees of the Congress.

  William A. Rusher

  Party, Rights, Allies

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• And he [Franklin Roosevelt] got the votes of every southern white voting state in the country and wouldn't have been elected president once, let alone four times, if he hadn't. Now, at the same time he acquired over the years a reputation for being sympathetic to blacks, and he got their votes, heaven knows.

  William A. Rusher

  Country, Years, White

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

• I think that it is true that Eleanor Roosevelt, by being so active on that front, contributed to that impression very substantially. And it's to her credit that she was interested in this, let me say. But once again, I'm not sure the extent to which Roosevelt - I guess he did use her really, particularly on the civil rights front. No question about it, because she was well identified out there, and brought a good many blacks into the Administration, into the White House, into his presence and so on.

  William A. Rusher

  Thinking, Rights, White

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

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