THE MIKE WALLACE INTERVIEW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 22, 1999
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: May 4, 1958
• Content Type: TRANS

Sanitized - Appromd FMMRO1=se :IcJI F P
sUmAY, MAY 4, 1958
GUEST: CYRUS EATON
STATINTL
WALLACE: This is Cyrus Eaton...an industrialist who heads up a two billion
dollar empire in coal, iron ore and railroads....A man who says
that one way to preserve the American way of life, under which he
has prospered, is to woo the friendship of the Soviet Union. As
a first step Mr. Eaton has sponsored several conferences among
scientists from the free world and the Communist nations. In a
moment we'll find out why he sponsors those conferences and why
he charges that the cold war is slowly but surely destroying our
freedoms here at home.
ANNCR: The Mike Wallace Interview, presented by the American Broadcasting
Company in association with the Fund for the Republic, brings you a
special television series discussing the problems of Survival and
Freedom in America.
WALLACE: Good evening, I'm Mike Wallace. In our fight to survive and stay
free, we as a nation have had to modify some of the very freedoms
we want to protect. Tonight's guest, Cleveland industrialist, Cyrus
Eaton, is one critic who says that we've gone too far. That in our
efforts to cure a cold, we're killing the patient. Letts find out
why. Mr. Eaton, you've made considerable news with your meetings
up at Pugwash. You have financed these conferences among scientists
of the free world and from Communist countries like Russia and Red
China. What do you think that you accomplish when scientists who
are devoted to Communism, meet and talk with British and American
scientists?
CPYRGHT
 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
EATON: We've demonstrated that men of different languages and different
philosophies can get together and discuss crucial questions, come
to a common understanding, and part great friends. And I think
that maybe one of the most important things we agreed on was that an
all-out war between Russia and the United States would be a catastrophe,
of the first magnitude. For instance there was no difference of
opinion on this subject; that in the first hour of such a war, 75
million Americans would be killed and 25 million would be seriously
wounded. These scientists left, I mean to go back home and tell
their governments of the great hazards we face unless we bring
common sense to bear on our international problems.
WALLACE: Why do you hold these meetings up in Pugwash, which is in Nova
Scotia, rather than here in the United States?
EATON: It would be impossible, probably, to hold them in the United States,
because of the restrictions. The Chinaman would not be permitted
to come in, and if the Russians got in, it would be with very great
difficulty.
WALLACE: What kind of restrictions? You mean that our government would
not permit....
EATON: They would put many obstacles in the way, and it would subject the
people coming here to very great humiliations that I don't think
any self-respecting scientist would submit to.
WALLACE: I gather then, that you are not in sympathy with these regulations
and restrictions.
EATON: I think they are unwise .... and unnecessary.
WALLACE: The American scientists who went up there to talk with the Russians
and the Red Chinese: were they willing to exchange ideas freely
with their Communist coileagues....and was there equal freedom on
the other side?
CPYRGH~anitizea - Approvea or a ease
 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-0013WRP 0490004-6
-3-
EATON: I think everyone was astounded that the freedom of which the
Communists discussed any scientific problem. He astounded everyone
with his profound knowledge of scientific progress. I would say
perhaps that of all the representatives who gathered at these,,
the man who was a little more cautious than anyone else for
political reasons, was our brilliant American representatives,
WALLACE: You, you, say that he was -- the American was more cautious for
political reasons? What do you mean?
EATON: Well he - if he were a professor from Harvard or from M.I.T. or
from Chicago or Illinois....if he said anything that offended,,
the political forces of this country, he would be aware that he
PYRG HT might be called on the carpet and subjected to serious examination,
And I think, in fact that most of our American participants, wI n
they got back home....I think they were probably visited by the
FBI and asked what went on and what they said.
WALLACE: And, they - as far as you know - told what went on?
EATON: Oh, very completely.. Because there were no secrets. It was
completely above-board. Everyone said just exactly what he thought,
without any fear of, of getting into trouble.
WALLACE: You mentioned the FBI, Mr. Eaton. Let's turn to some security
measures....most of them products of the cold war that are taken
by our government with citizens here at home. For instance,
yourself. Our research shows that as an officer of certain
corporations, engaged in defense work, you, yourself have been
fingerprinted and investigated by the FBI on three ocdasions. I
wonder if you'd tell us why, and what your reaction to this
fingerprinting and investigation is.
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
EATON: Well, the - the officers and directors of the companies of which I am
associated, and that's true of most big American corporations, we do
occasionally some work for the government. And that's -- some of it
is called classified. Why it is called that, I don't know because
none of it is really very secret. At any rate it's - some of it is
regarded that way and for that reason on each of these occasions, a
seperate group examines the history of each officer, each director,
consults all the people who have known him for, in my case, for a
great many years - as old as I am - to see whether at any time in
his past he had anything that he ought to be ashamed of.
Fingerprint him, and go through all of those performances which
to my way of thinking, is quite a humiliation for a loyal and
devoted American.
WALLACE: Well, what is wrong with finding out if a loyal and devoted
American, if indeed he is, is those things particularly? You say,
you say - there's some doubt about the necessity for doing that
because you're not sure that the work should be classified. But
in classified areas, do you believe that these screenings,
fingerprintings and so forth, are superfluous?
EATON: I think so.... they keep alive the spirit of suspicion which is one
of the things that plagues us, But there are no secrets in the
industrial or scientific world, any idea that anything we can do
in America, is, is a profound secret, if it's done industrially,
where workmen and all other sorts of people are engaged in it, it
it's just a halucination and it's just an emphasis of the importance
of the police side of our governmerit..to put us through that.
CPYRGHTSanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
_5-
WALT-ACE: You say the police side of our government. Do you have any further
views on the work of the FBI, as it relates to individual froedom?
EATON: Well I, I think it's had a tremendous build-up. It's had wonderful
propaganda. It has sold itself in a marvelous way., but I always
worry when I see a nation feel that it's coming to greatness
through the activities of it's policemen. And the FBI is just one
of the scores of agencies in the United States that are engaged
in investigation, in snooping, in informing, in creeping up on
people, It has gone to an extent here that I think it very alarming.
WALLACE: Well now wait. Let's stay with the FBI for just a minute, Mr.
Eaton, from the time that J. Edgar Hoover was appointed its director,
back in 1924, more than 200,000 convictions has been secured in
cases investigated by the FBI. That includes the case of Algier
Hiss, of Atom Spies, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Harry Gold, David
Greenglass as well as the Russian spy, Rudolph Abel, who was
captured last year. Now will you - are you in any sense suggesting
that this work is unnecessary and that the FBI should go out of
business in these areas?
EATON: I don't think necessarily they ought to go out of business, I think
if they'd confine themselves to legitimate police work....but I
think the importance is enormously exaggerated and that they make
no contribution to the up-building of this country or it's respect
abroad, that its literature and those who support the publicity,
suggest.
CPYRGHT
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
-6-
WALLACE: Well the fact remains though, that the FBI has served to the
satisfaction of five presidents, it recently had the overwhelming
support of Congress when it asked for protection of its secret
files, and again, as Mr. Hoover - Mr. J. Edgar Hoover - himself,
has said, the FBI is zealously watched by the Executive, the
Judicial and Legislative branches of the government. Now what
more can you want?
EATON: Well, if - if - we want a police state, that is all right, but
if you add to the FBI, the scores of other agencies that are
engaged in the same thing....for instance, take the Central
Intelligence Agency, which one of its jobs is to check the FBI
to see whether it is doing it's duty. So you get one organization
checking another, and you, you get a state that I think that this
nation is not going to be proud of and I am just as sure as I am
alive that one of these days there is going to be an enormous
reaction against this in the United States because nearly every
department of government now has its own investigators, it6 own
police force and is creeping up on the citizen. I'm a farmer and
even a poor farmer now has representative of the Agricultural
Department come out to see whether he's sowing more oats than he
oaght to, And so it goes through almost, probably, a hundred other
governmental agencies where they have investigations and police
powers and....
WALLACE: Well, let me ask you this, Sir. Obviously these branches, these
police branches, if you will, are being established at the
suggestion of persons who feel that they are necessary. Why do you
think that we are, as you guggest,turhing into kind of a modified
SariKijei s-,pprd6.Er?Release: CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
CPYRGHT
 Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
-7-
EATON: Well, you know you create an agency to remove some abuse, but when
you remove that abuse, you may create 20 others to take its place
in the way you throttle and restrict your people. Take it in
connection with scientists. I think our scientific developement
in the country has been enormously retarded because the scientist
is conscious that the FBI is breathing down the back of his neck
all the time - scaring him. Won't even allow a man to talk to his
wife about secret things. We've gotten so enhanced with the
vastness of these these things that we've carried them to an
enormous extent and weave so praised the FBI.....But if you had
to take the police forces of the cities and of the counties and
of the states, and all of these governmental agencies and add them
up, Hitler in his prime never in through the Gestapo never had
any such spying organizations as'we have in this country, today.
WALLACE: You really think that we have a a more serious and more far-reaching
spy organization than - you say this seriously? .... than the Gestapo
of Adolf Hitler?
:EATON: I, I believe it profoundly and if I had time I would take nearly every
governmental agency and show you t11 it police force. Take the, the
Treasury Department with itA fifty or sixty thousand "tax agents".
Working in that field. It's - take the Department of State, with
all of their supervision of Visas, and passports and the coming and
going of people......
WALLACE: We must be a very insecure people if we feel the need for this kind
of police supervision.
EATON: Yes, I, I think we have less confidence in our people maybe than any
nation that I know of on earth. Were certainly worse in that respect
Saj&iZeee ftlatomd For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
CPYRGHT
 Sanitized - Approved For-Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
WALLACE: Well, how did we get this way? Here was an America that was free and
independent and suddenly we have turned, if we are to believe what you
say, Sir, into a frightened and insecure people....
EATON: Two world warn and the prospect of a third one, have created these
conditions where it's always afraid that we would be doing something
for our enemy.. And in - recently our enemy was Germany and Japan
and everyone was suspected of being pro-German or pro-Japanese. Now
we're suspected maybe of not being friendly enough with Germany., or
with Japan, and being against Russia and Red. China. And it's n-
it's a spirit of suspicion that is unworthy of this great nation
and it's got to be abandoned.
WALLACE: Well let's come directly to the issue, though, that is involved.
If we do feel insecure, we feel insecure because Vis-a-vas the
Russians, we feel that perhaps they want to take us over, they
want to attack us, that we have to defend our way of life against
an unfree way of life. Last winter in a mews conference, Mr. Eaton,
you said that there -- and this is a quote -- there is more
spirit of war in the United States than in any other country in
the world. You've made similar charges both before and since. Now
on what do you base these charges?
CPYRGHT
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
 Sanitized - Approved For Rein-46 : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
EATON: Take the pronouncements of the State Department or our representatives of
United Nations almost every week, you'll hear this said: "We're in a
position for massive retaliation in times of our own choosing in our own
place with the most deadly weapons that the world has every provided'.
Almost every day there goes out from some department of government in the
United States, Defense or State ...a boasting of our great power and what
we're going to do to the other fellow if he doesn't behave himself. And
when we say behave himself, we want him to give up his philosophy and his
way of living and adopt ours. Now, ours is -- no doubt is better but I
don't believe we have any right to tell him that we'll shoot him to death
if he doesn't accept our view of life and of human destiny.
WAI. LACE: Well, Mr. Eaton, I'm sure there are many people who differ with our
foreign policy. Many Americans who differ with our foreign policy but
they don't make the charges you have done, that the cold war is America's
fault. that forces -- what people in America are behind making the cold
war America's fault?
EATON: Mainly politicians, mainly people in government office because they have
believed that Communism is a frightful thing that ought to be destroyed
and that any suggestion that it be allowed to live is betraying our
country and all that's followed. We can't destroy it. It's there to
stay. Russia, China -- nothing that we could do to make them give up
Communism or to overthrow them. They've more military power than we have
and I don't for a moment say that they're not without their various
serious objectionable qualities and I think that the original Communist
thought maybe he could persuade the world to accept his doctrine but I'm
sure that any intelligent Russian has now given up any notion that United
States could ever become Communist. The only nation in the world that
doesn't have a single Socialist in its Senate or its House, the only nation
in the world that doesn't have a large representation in its Parliament
Saniti7Prl - ApprnviPrl Fnr RPIPacP - CIA-RrSO 61d9Rnnn9nnAQnnnd-(i
CPYRGHT
 Sanitized - Approved For Ref@ase : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
EATON: of people who believe in government ownership of everything -- America
(Co1VTD. )
is a capitalistic country. It's one that's devoted to free enterprise
and to Democracy and there's just no power in the world that could kill
us all, but you could never make Communists out of us and to imagine that
you could is just silly.
WALLACE: Well, nonetheless if it is silly, a good many of our politicians not just
the Republican politicians whom you've been quoting up until now but the
Democratic politicians and statesmen as well have been responsible for
this cold war. You yourself said "Twelve years ago the United States
declared cold war on Russia" and that was during a Democratic.....
EATON: That's right.....Well you see, Mr. Dulles started with the Democratic
Party in the State Department and he continued right along under the
present regime, only he has become more positive in the doctrines that
were going then but things have changed vastly in that time. In that
time Russia has performed scientific miracles that have astounded the
world and she has demonstrated that her power of retaliation is immense
and..... but we still go on talking as if we were the strongest nation
in the world, as if we could make any of our people adopt our view of life
and our way of living.
WALLACE: But Mr. Eaton, is not the issue this'? You object to certain police
powers that have been arrogated by the state, have been taken over by the
,state.. You suggest that we are losing certain of our freedoms. Someone
who disagreed with say -- we are going to have to give up or at least
modify certain of our freedoms to defend ourselves against a Communist
threat. You're suggesting that there is no Communist -- or not -- not
that there is no Communist threat but that there is less of a Communist
threat than a goon many of us feel. That is your interpretation but
President Eisenhower has warned and he said: "The Soviet State daily
increases its power and its rulers make clear their purpose to use that
Sani ized n., prevc~Release : CI A RDr t i1 A9ROOO2OO49nnn4 6
CPYRGHT
 WALLACE: power to dominate the world. Soviet Dictator Khrushchev has told
(CONTD.)
Americans on television within the last year "Your grandchildren will
live under Socialism" and he has snarled at Western Diplomats "W ether
you like it or not, history is on our side, we will bury you", So what
I don't understand is how can any responsible government be anything else
except suspicious and tough with Russia and therefore a little bit careful
about security measures here at home?
EATON: Yes.....Well, I don't mind being tough with them to a certain extent but
to threaten them with massive retaliation when we would go down in smoke
and dust doesn't seem to me to exhibit much common sense but there are no
Communists in America to speak of except in the mind of those on the
payroll of the FBI. Those of us who see Americans every day as I do in
every walk of life, the educators, capitalists, working men, farmers,
labor leaders, none of them are Communists and none of them are ever going
to be and we don't need any massive retaliation to keep them that way.
But what we're doing is creating back-breaking debts where we're going
to wind up impoverished and we're giving up our freedoms and all for
halucinations. Russia is -- got to -- taken on all she wants to. Now.....
WALLACE: Mr. Eaton, may I just interrupt for a second? Was it not the United
States which started unilateral disarmament immediately after the Second
World War? And wasn't it the United States which proposed world
disarmament with a meaningful inspection system and the United States
which helped to establish a democracy in West Germany. And on the other
band, did not the Soviet Union and Communism outrage the free world by
subjecting Albania and Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia and Poland and Rumania
and Hungary more or less to the rule of bayonetes?
EATON: Well, I think probably we exaggerate what Russia has done there. I think
if you take a vote in those countries, you might be surprised but however
that may be, we have no power to change that. We demonstrated that in
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-5-00149R000200490004-6
CPYRGHT
 Sanitized - Approved For Relea7 CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
EATON: Hungary. We don't dare interfere. We've got to let time work those
(CONTD.)
problems out and one reason I am in favor of these interchanges between
Russia and America, the Russian scientist meeting the American, the more
they see of us, the more they're going to admire our way of living and
gradually I believe, Russia is putting such emphasis on education that I
think that Russia's going to modify its internal system and that it's
going to change its attitude externally in a .....
WALLACE: Well now wait, you're predicting a modification of an internal system in
Russia? In what wise, Sir?
EATON: As they become acquainted with what's going on in the world. As they
make. these great strides in their economic life which they are making.
They're not going to be interested in military exploits. They're going
to want to enjoy their way of living or a better way of living. They
want to imitate America in better homes and better food and better
clothing and more automobiles and more of all the wonderful things that's
made life so attractive here, The Russian will do that if you let him
alone and let time work with you and the intelligence of their people and
they have people of first intelligence and they have provided an education
system that's now the marvel of the world and if we have any faith in the
evolution of humanity, we'll let natural forces modify the Russian and
his internal and external attitudes.
WALT-ACE: And we are constantly told in the free world by people whom we respect
that it is necessary to have a massive force that will deter -- that will
deter the Russians from wanting to attack us. Do you feel that it is
unnecessary'.
EATON: I -- If I could be sure of anything, it is that the Russian today, whether
it's the Russian Government or the Russian scientists or the Russian
people, they don't want war. As I've seen the Russian, he loves his
children, he loves his grandchildren, he loves his country, he wants to
Sanitized - Approved For Release - CIA-RDd6149R000200490004-6
CPYRGHT
 Sanitized - Approved For Releae : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
EATON: get along. We are constantly baiting the Russian Bear and that I think
(CONTD.)
we ought to give up. It was only two weeks ago Mr. Dulles in a big press
conference says: ",that we all must think about is how we can most
effectively fight what we most hate." Fight what we most hate, those are
terrific words to use in speaking of a proud and powerful nation of two
hundred and twenty-five million people that have military strength
beyond anything that's ever created in the world. Those are unwise and
foolish words and oughtn't to be said by any responsible statesman of
this country.
WALLACE: And how do you relate what he says and our position, our stance against
Russia with individual freedoms for individual citizens here in the
United States?
EATON: To carry out an all out war against Russia, we've got to give up every
freedom. We've got to subject ourselves to a dictator to get things
done. We've got to give up all the things we love plus take on a burden
of taxation that would finish us as a capitalistic nation anyway.
WALLACE: Let me ask you this question which I've asked of some other persons whom
I've interviewed recently. The British philosopher Bertram Russell,
Mr. Eaton, has said that if it came to the choice of a third world war,
a nuclear war, an almost inevitable incineration on the one hand and
living under Communism on the other, he would take Communism, what about
Cyrus Eaton?
EATON: I don't think that choice will ever have to be made. It -- if we have
an all out war that's the end of all that civilization has created, all
of our great enterprise will go but.....
WALLACE: Would you in the effort to avoid an all out war, however, would you
suggest that you would be content to live under Communism?
EATON: No.....I -- No one in the world would be more unhappy under Communism
than I would be because I'm dedicated to the other principle but I'm sure
_nn1AQPnnn9nnAQnnnd_r,
Saniti7Prl - Apprnv i1 Fnr Release ? GIA-kwo4k
CPYRGHT
 Sanitized - Approved For ReleaaP- CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
EATON: that such a choice will never be presented to one. They'll never have to
(CONTD.)
make it. I would be most unhappy if I had to consider it. I like life
and I want to live but I don't want Communism but I don't think I have to
fight to avoid it.
WALLACE: Is freedom necessary'? It certainly has not been necessary in the Soviet
Union.
EATON: No, the Russians have never had freedom and it'd take them sometime to
know what to do with it but we in the Western World have had it. I
sometimes think that we're a little optimistic when re refer to ourselves
of the free world with a growing control of government over us, but we
love it and we'll go back to it very quickly and the statesmen who'll
arise in this country is very quickly -- that will say away with all of
these government regulations, investigations, restrictions and let's be
good old fashioned Americans.
WALLACE: And you do think that that time is coming? At least you hope that that
time is coming because you believe that freedom of course....
EATON: I believe it will come and I believe that statesmen will arise that will.
lead us in that direction.
WALLACE: Mr. Eaton, I certainly thank you for coming here from Cleveland and
spending this half hour with us. As an industrial giant and financier,
Cyrus Eaton has helped to make America great. This does not necessarily
make him an expert on history, Communism or Democracy but when a man like
Cyrus Eaton is alarmed, it should prompt the rest of us to be at least
concerned about freedom's future. We have just heard one side of this
issue, in the course of this series on "Survival and Freedom" we intend
to explore all sides, we've planned to have at least one spokesman who
believes that the so called "liberal mind" is in itself a threat to our
survival and freedom. Next week our guest will be an Associate Justice
of the Supreme Court of the United States. You see him behind me, he's
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-Rq1& p0149R000200490004-6
CPYRGHT
 `. CPYRGHT Sanitized - Approved For ReIeige-: CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6
WALLACE: Justice William Douglas, a vigorous critic of infringements on "freedom
of speech", "freedom of thought" and the "right of privacy". If you're
curious to know why Justice Douglas says: "The American community is
becoming less and less sensitive to the dangers of conformity and the loss
of liberties". And if you want to hear what he thinks we should do about
it, we'll go after those stories next week. Until then, Mike Wallace,
good night.
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200490004-6