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                                                                                INTERVIEW, Page 10

Confessions of a Former Segregationist


Now 72 and in failing health, onetime presidential candidate
GEORGE WALLACE reflects on racism, David Duke and his own place
in history

By MICHAEL RILEY/MONTGOMERY and George Wallace


    Q. You were elected Governor of Alabama four times. At
your first inauguration in 1963, you uttered your most
memorable lines: "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow,
segregation forever." Why did you say that?

    A. That's the reason I hate to give people interviews that
ask about all that stuff. It happened a quarter-century ago. My
vehemence was against the federal courts. I never said a word
against black people in my heart since I ran for Governor.

    Look at that. [Wallace pulls from his desk drawer an
honorary doctor of laws degree given to him by Tuskegee
University, founded as an elementary and secondary school for
blacks in 1881.] Do you have one of those?


    Q. No, I don't.

    A. That right there ought to answer a lot of questions
about my attitude. Now, I shouldn't have said those words. It
was really aimed at the federal judges. People were mad with
the federal courts, and I never said anything against black
people, because they voted for me the last two times. Every
Governor who ran in 1962 had to face the race question, or they
would have been defeated.

    Jimmy Carter told me if he had run when I ran and I'd run
when he ran, I might have been the vice-presidential nominee,
but he never would have been the presidential nominee, because
he would have had to face that question [about segregation].
These New South Governors all were elected after the race
question was settled, and they didn't have to face it. But if
they had run when I ran and had had to face it, they wouldn't
have been elected. Our platform was simply this: I will do all
I can to maintain segregation within the law without violence.


    Q. Do you think that stand hurt black people?

    A. No. I didn't hurt black people. In fact, I helped black
people. I appointed three times more blacks than any other
Governor.

    You see, if I had ever said anything in the race for
Governor that reflected on black people other than being for the
segregation of the school system, they would never have voted
for me.

    Some of the Governors used to say they were inferior in
mind and all that kind of stuff. If I had ever said anything
like that, no decent black person would have ever voted for me,
and I wouldn't blame them, because all those things aren't true.


    Q. Was it wrong to support segregation?

    A. Didn't you know back then that people thought it was in
the best interest of both races? They were all raised that way
for 150, 200 years, and I believed it was in the best interest
too.


    Q. So how has your view on race changed?

    A. It never changed about how I liked black people and got
along with them. But I realized after about two years as
Governor that segregation wouldn't work because blacks are more
educated and more motivated. Either we had to do away with
segregation or we wouldn't have any peace in this country.


    Q. You ran for President four times, including in 1968,
when you ran as a third-party candidate and captured nearly 14%
of the vote. Why were you so successful back then?

    A. Well, I didn't talk about race. That wasn't an issue.
I don't think I even mentioned it, except I would like to have
had anybody, regardless of their race or color or creed, vote
for me. I didn't even mention race. I did say I was against
busing but so did the other candidates.

    In the 1976 Democratic primary, I carried Boston. I
carried Beacon Hill. I don't think you'd say that was because
they hated blacks. I didn't mention anything except busing up
there.


    Q. But wasn't busing a code word for race?

    A. No. A lot of blacks were against busing right here in
Alabama. In fact, if it was a code word, every one of them that
ran in 1976 was against busing. I wasn't the only one against
busing.

    But the race question is over, and I don't see a need to
keep talking about it, frankly.


    Q. David Duke's message of race hatred has struck a raw
nerve in this country, and that has prompted comparisons with
your campaigns for the White House two decades ago. What do you
think of his message?

    A. People who belong to the Klan usually have hated
blacks. I never did that. I grew up among them. They are some
of my family's best friends. I wouldn't be for a former member
of the Ku Klux Klan, especially a man who thought Hitler was a
great man, because I was in World War II. I didn't run my
campaign on hate. I ran on cussing the federal courts out about
trying to run everything themselves instead of letting local
states run their own democratic institutions.


    Q. Is Duke a threat to this country?

    A. I don't talk about him much. [He crumples and tosses
the written question aside.]


    Q. From quotas to welfare to Willie Horton, race still
plays a big role in presidential politics. What can be done to
change that?

    A. Well, I don't know what would change it. We ought not
to have racial politics because all the citizens of this
country are citizens, and there ought not to be any race
involved in the presidential election, frankly.


    Q. Let me ask you one last question on race. Do you regret
the pain you have caused black people?

    A. I haven't caused any pain to black people. What pain
have I caused them? I brought them into state government.


    Q. Some of them still regard you as a menace.

    A. Blacks in other states don't know me like the blacks in
Alabama do.


    Q. What is your analysis of the presidential race so far?

    A. I haven't thought much about it because I have to
concentrate on this job here. [Wallace is a fund raiser for
Troy State University in Montgomery.] And I'm in a lot of pain
all the time. I wasn't in much pain when I was Governor, because
I was younger and stronger. I'm older and weaker now. I just got
over a bad kidney infection.

    And I finally got rid of it. That's what we die with,
kidney failure. So if another big bug hits me again like that,
it may be the last of me.


    Q. If you were running for President today, what message
would you send the American people?

    A. We are so enmeshed in deficits that I don't know what
I would tell them. We've got to the point where we owe so much
money, and we have lowered the taxes on the wealthy to 28%, but
we haven't done anything for the middle class. It is hard to
know what to tell them now, but I wish we could get a fine
health-care system, especially for those who are uninsured. And
we ought not let the Japanese treat us like they have treated
us, because we helped build back their country.


    Q. Do you think that your name will be rehabilitated?

    A. I can't help that, because the main thing when you die
is what happens to your soul. I'm a born-again Christian. I
love everybody; I don't hate anybody. I even pray to the
Heavenly Father for the fellow that shot me to ask forgiveness
of his sins, because I have forgiven him. [During his 1972
presidential bid, Wallace was shot by Arthur Bremer, which left
him paralyzed from the waist down.] I don't feel bitter toward
him. I would have wasted myself away if I had been hating all
these years. I don't hate him at all.

    Lyndon Johnson was a segregationist. He also led
filibusters against civil rights bills, but later on he got them
passed. So I have been in the same position that he has been in.
He's been rehabilitated, so I should be also. In the long run,
it doesn't make all that much difference, because I know that
I love every citizen of Alabama, black and white.


    Q. What do you see as your lasting legacy in race
relations?

    A. I just know they improved in my state under me.
[Wallace then calls Eddie Holcey , a longtime aide, who is
black, from an adjoining office.] We love each other too, don't
we, Eddie? You know, I don't even want to come to the office
without him. Isn't that right? We've been to funerals together.
We went to a funeral not too long ago, didn't we? He knows I
don't hate black folks.


    Eddie Holcey: You don't hate me.

    A. He voted for me too. His wife did too. We have been
good close friends, and when I die he is going to be one of my
pallbearers.


    Q. Would you have done anything differently, looking back
on it all?

    A. Anybody that's been in public life as long as I have
would do different things, yes. There are things that I could
do different, but I can't think of all of them now. But every
President and every other person would do some things different
if they had to go over it again.


    Q. How do you think history will remember you?

    A. I don't know what they will say. I just know that I
pray I will be in God's heavenly kingdom when that time comes,
so I don't worry about what anybody thinks when I leave this
world, which won't be long.