Cemil Çiçek has served as the Ministry of Justice and the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey. Çiçek is the incumbent President of Turkish Grand National Assembly.

HPR: Western observers have noted that Turkey has shifted its diplomatic focus away from Europe and is strengthening its ties to the Middle East. Do you think there is an emerging paradigm shift in Turkish diplomacy?

Cemil Çiçek: Turkey is in a very significant geopolitical position on the crossroads between Asia and Europe. Historically, Turkey has always tried to keep good relations with both sides. Yet the region around Turkey is full of security problems, as well as social and economic problems. The abundance in natural resources makes these problems even worse. We have been trying to lead a peaceful policy in a region full of landmines. Our leader Ataturk’s eternal words, “Peace at home, peace in the world,” summarize Turkey’s national policy perfectly. Consequently, Turkey’s focus still faces both the west and the east. On both directions, we are trying to minimize the social and economic problems of the region using peaceful negotiations.

HPR: In the wake of the Arab Spring, a “Turkish Model” to guide the Arab countries to democracy has been discussed. How do you think Turkey can lead this challenging path to democracy in the Middle East?

CC: Turkey has ancient historical and cultural ties to the Middle Eastern and African nations, which has been reinforced for generations. In Turkey, the process of enlightenment took place much earlier than those countries. We have a history of 200 years of democratization and modernization. Democracy is not an easy target to reach. It requires social and political struggles. Now, most of the Middle East is experiencing this important process, and we cannot say that Turkey is not inspiring those countries on their way to democracy. Furthermore, Turkey, although it is an Islamic country, is still a secular state, and achieved to separate the religious issues from the affairs of the state. I believe that this can present a valuable example to other Islamic nations.

HPR: In terms of both national and international affairs, where do you imagine Turkey a decade from today?

CC: Turkey is dynamic country that also became a regional power in its area. Now, we are world’s 16th largest and Europe’s 6th largest economy. Recently our economic growth rates are in record levels. While Europe is in the midst of a crisis, we continue our steady economic growth. These data let us talk more optimistically about Turkey’s future. Turkey has changed drastically in the last 10 years, and we expect a similar large-scale change in the next 10 years. As 2023 is the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic, we want to honor this day by becoming one of the top ten economies of the world by then. Likewise, we aim to increase our export levels to 500 billion dollars, which is three times larger than the current levels. Also, we want to reinforce human rights in the country by our new constitution, and increase the rate of literacy to nearly 100%. When we make all of these things happen, Turkey will become a country known not by its problems, but by the creative solutions we brought to those problems.

HPR: Finally, what is the secret behind a successful life in politics?

CC: Like in any other career, the keys to success in politics are patience and persistence. If you are conducting politics against the public, you will end up alone. However, if your goal is truly to serve the people, then you will eventually rise in the political world.

This interview is edited and condensed. The original interview was conducted in Turkish, and then translated into English by the interviewer.

A conversation with Wael Nawara, Egyptian writer and activist. He was a co-founder of El Ghad Party (2003) and Secretary General of the Party until April 2011. Wael is also co-founder and president of the Network of Arab Liberals (NAL), a coalition of Arab liberal parties and organizations. He is the author of several books.

Tea Party Supporter and Media Critic Andrew Breitbart

Andrew Breitbart is a conservative political commentator and the founder of an online media empire: Breitbart.com, breitbart.tv, Big Hollywood, Big Government, and Big Journalism. He has also worked for the Huffington Post and the Drudge Report.

HPR: You’ve defended the Tea Party against charges that it is racist and violent or merely the work “Astroturf” organizers.

Andrew Breitbart: The most threatening thing in a Tea Party event I’ve gone to are people who dress their dogs in patriotic garb. These people have hand-made signs. It is not Astroturf. The opposition to the Tea Party is clearly Astroturf. Their signs are mass-produced. Organized labor is behind it: AFL-CIO, SEIU, the egg attackers I’ve caught on camera, Democratic Party field directors…

What’s interesting  is the power with which the Democratic Party can set the agenda and set up a baseline of propaganda. When the Tea Party movement started to emerge, the Democratic Party immediately called it racist and homophobic. It is a natural tendency of the cultural Marxist to use multiculturalism and race division in order to intimidate and marginalize a movement. It was expected. That’s why I go to the Tea Party events. I am not so much a political figure as a political media figure. I am trying to create equality in the mainstream media, so that the Tea Partiers do not have to be on the defensive against baseless accusations that cast their motivations in the worst, most horrific light.

HPR: What is the real meaning of the Tea Party in your view and what do you think is its proper role?

AB: There’s never a collective sense of being aghast when the Left organizes and protests and even gets violent. But there is a threat to the Democratic and media establishment when the conservative movement discovers the power of protest. Everybody thinks they are somehow not susceptible to the collective persuasion of media. We are immersed in a media world right now in which we are being inundated and hit from countless different angles. And the Democratic Party has understood far more than the Republican Party the power of popular culture, collective messaging, and aesthetics. Right now, the Tea Party is the sign of early adapters who are starting to recognize, “Wait, we can do the same thing that they’re doing.“

The media establishment is losing the viewership of red-state Middle America conservatives who have recognized that the media has behaved unfairly towards them for more than a generation. They’re starting to stand up and form an insurrection against the Democratic Party and the media. And both the Democratic Party and the media are threatened by this group of people. I’ve even stated that there may have to come a day when we do a Tea Party to the tune of millions of people on 6^th Avenue, Media Row in Manhattan, to show these people that we are serious, that we recognize the power of their propaganda. We recognize their power to frame decent Americans who are worried about the economic trajectory of this country, who are raising legitimate questions about who is going to pay for this Utopia, with baseless and reckless charges of racism.

HPR: We saw large increases in entitlement spending, an expansion of the national security state, and two wars under the Bush administration. Why don’t you think there was this kind of reaction then?

AB: If you’ve ever listened to conservative talk radio, there was no love lost with George Bush leaving the presidency. Many conservatives supported his wartime policy after we were attacked on 9/11, and the Right, which is much more oriented towards national security, recognized the collective threat of radical Islam to a great extent. They looked at the map and looked at where terrorist attacks had occurred around the world, and saw where the money was flowing, and noticed the demographic shift of unassimilated Muslims into Western liberal democracy, and recognized that we are going to have to figure out a long-term strategy to deal with it. It cost money to do.

George Bush tried to make accommodations. These were attempts to accommodate liberal entitlement programs, to try to make nice with the Ted Kennedys of the world. And he got burned for doing it. They still hated him, they still ridiculed his policies, and they still blamed him exclusively for votes that they took in favor of his war.

So George Bush was hoodwinked and bamboozled by the Democratic Party. He made accommodations with them that many would say were not wise, because he didn’t get as much bang for his buck as he could have. But he did make a commitment to the troops that he would follow through on the mission. He did. And I think history will look kindly on him for what he did.

The Tea Party is a radically different approach to what government is obligated to do, and the amount of money that should be put towards government as hundreds of billions in deficits turn into tens of trillions in debt. Tea Party people have legitimate concerns.

HPR: What do you see as your place, your niche, in the movement?

AB: I’m an individual. I don’t look for a leadership position. I’m trying to use my media savvy to protect these people, to guide them through a treacherous process. The media and Democratic Party have a political interest and self-interest in maligning them. Most of the Tea Partiers are not media-savvy. They’re not used to public debate and congregating publicly to vent their political concerns.

As a Jew, I guarantee you that if I sensed I was walking into a racist or anti-Semitic group of people I would run away from it. And I have not been shy to criticize [the Birthers]. The Tea Party has a series of legitimate grievances, and that to me is not one of them.

My involvement in the creation of the Huffington Post was an intentional sign to people that I believe, “May the best ideas win.” I believe in the free exchange of ideas. I helped to create a platform for the anti-war movement to exist. I am now trying to create a platform for the [conservative] side to be able to openly express its concerns about politics. The Left and its cultural Marxist tendencies, steeped in Alinsky and critical theory, tries to deconstruct every opposing argument into multicultural conflicts that put the other side on the defensive, as if they are secretly motivated by racism or homophobia. These desperate tactics are becoming too plain to the American people.

HPR: Do you think that it would benefit the Tea Party to stay as independent as possible of the GOP?

AB: Oh yes. I find it beautiful. Democrats are going to be put on the defensive about whether they are 100% for repeal or not. And the Republican Party is going to find that it now has checks and balances, which should have existed before, which would have kept the Bush administration more honest on issues of fiscal conservatism.

I believe in democracy. I believe in public debate. I am a staunch enemy of political correctness and the Left’s typical and predictable tactics of intimidation to stifle dissent. Wherever the Left finds itself in control, it stifles debate. Whether it is Cuba, or Hollywood, or the mainstream media. Wherever the orientation of the political Left becomes the dominant force, these tactics are used to shut people up.

I take this battle very personally. Having lived in L.A. most of my life, and I have an apartment in New York, I know how Leftists are. I know how they believe that their enemies are evil like Nazis. It’s not inexplicable that when given the choice between hiring someone who agrees with them politically and hiring someone they think is a Nazi, it is understandable that they would hire the non-Nazi. So that’s where I come from. I’ve witnessed and studied the Left. I find their tactics and their mindset deplorable and anti-democratic.

HPR: You have already launched several blogs focused on the “institutional Left,” such as Big Government, Big Hollywood, and Big Journalism, and you’ve said there may be more to come. Should we expect some kind of Big Academia, which would focus on the academy as a bastion of the Left?

AB: Yes. It’s going to be Big Education. It’s the one I will be the most passionate about, because that is the origin of this problem, that the Left took over academia at some point. There had always been a strong movement towards progressivism and even a movement towards economic Marxism during the 1930s and the Depression. But the arguments of economic Marxism never took hold in the United States in the way they did in other countries, because America had a unique makeup and a unique narrative. It was the idea that anyone could come from Ellis Island, and within a generation their family could pretty much be at the top of the heap.  So economic Marxism was not a particularly strong [ideology] in America.

But it was the Frankfurt School—people like Marcuse, Horkheimer, and Adorno, who fled from Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy—these people were Marxists who translated economic Marxism into cultural terms. That critical theory, that “deconstruction,” that language of [dividing] the country from e pluribus unum and split us up into little multicultural segments pitted against each other. And that is what I fight against—how the Left has used culture, especially academia, to pit people in groups against each other in order to achieve political gain.

That is my battle. That is what Big Education will fight mercilessly using video cameras and Alinsky tactics, to make life hell for totalitarian Marxist professors. [Families] are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, or, God forbid, students are taking out hundreds of thousands in loans in order to be turned against the system that they are about to graduate into. And I was one of those idiots.

And now I’ve turned against my master, and I’m pissed.

Alexander Sherbany ’11 is the Managing Editor. This interview has been edited and condensed.

Photo Credit: Flickr (shalf)

A conversation with Peter Thiel, founding CEO of PayPal; Member, Board of Directors, Facebook; entrepreneur; and venture capitalist.

And Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich deserves much of the credit, or blame. During the campaign season, Rep. Gingrich tirelessly visited 137 congressional districts elucidating and selling his vision of the future and renewal of American civilization. Time labels him the “GOP guerrilla” spreading the “politics of anger,” but Rep. Gingrich and other Republicans respond that they are the reflection, not the creators, of this anger. A recent New York Times/CBS News poll seems to agree, reporting that Americans trust the Republicans of the new Congress more than President Bill Clinton to change social policy.

At the same time, Rep. Gingrich and other Republicans have proven adept at making headlines for saying and doing things that, at least on the surface, belie the popularity of their beliefs. To help make sense of the implications and the source of the GOP sweep, the Harvard Political Review had the opportunity to conduct an interview with Rep. Gingrich.

HPR: Judging by the results of the election, the mood of the electorate has changed. In what way has the mood changed, and how do Republicans plan to either change or tap into the new political climate?

Gingrich: While the results of November 8 were a stunning victory, that does not necessarily mean the mood of the public has changed, except that the American people—who are generally centrist-conservative—realized that the Republican party best represented what they were thinking. The nation voted, woke up the following day, and was delighted with what happened. The nation voted decisively at every level, from state legislature to county commissioner, from governor to the House and Senate; at every level there was a Republican tide in every part of the country. We carry a much larger burden than we would have expected because of the country’s decision that it, in fact, wanted a new leadership team and that it wanted the president to compromise with the Congress. It did not want to the Congress to compromise with the president.

HPR: You have planned an intense legislative agenda when the Congress convenes in January. How will the Republicans pace themselves over the next two years, and do you see this Republican-controlled Congress as a one-shot deal or the beginning of a new era?

Gingrich: We are going to do everything we can—starting the opening day—to keep our word. We’re going to do everything we can to pass the Contract [with America] we committed to. And we’re going to recognize that you have to have the American people if you’re going to change anything. It can’t be done in Washington. It has to be done across the country. During the first 100 days, our commitment is to get a vote on everything that was in the Contract with America. We can’t guarantee we’ll pass it. We can guarantee a vote.

HPR: Critics have assailed the Contract with America as little more than a hodge-podge of politically popular and expedient proposals designed to make waves during the campaign season. What do you see as the underlying philosophy binding the Contract, and does this philosophical foundation represent the core agenda of the Republican party in the future?

Gingrich: A public confidence in Congress and other institutions reached an all-time low, we felt we had to restore the fabric of trust between the American people and their officeholders. We have made a promise, and we are going to keep it. That in itself will go a long way towards a continued Republican majority. At the same time, we have to engage in a deep, thorough dialogue with the American people on how to shrink the federal government to achieve a balance. We cannot replace the social engineering of the left with a social engineering of the right.

HPR: One of the provisions of the Contract is term limits. Given the massive turnover just witnessed, are term limits still necessary?

Gingrich: The country has sent the message that they want change, and we’re going to give every member of the House a number of occasions to vote on whether or not they want to vote with the country or whether they want to stand defiantly and say, “No, we don’t believe you’re serious.” So you’ll see every single thing in the Contrat voted on. We are looking at reform of Congress over the long term, not just the immediate problems, but preventing problems in the future.

HPR: Ronald Reagan and George [H.W.] Bush often pointed to the inability to overcome gridlock as an impediment to governing. How will the American people see Washington now, and who do you think will bear the brunt of the blame for the obstructionism—President Clinton or the Republican-controlled Congress?

Gingrich: The Republicans, who have not been in charge of the House for 40 years, have a pretty big interest in getting something done. The president has an interest in getting something done. Senator Dole, who may well be our presidential nominee, has an interest in the Senate in getting something done. So, in a funny kind of way, you may have a moment in ’95—for 10 or 11 months—all of us have a good reason to want to be positive and productive.

I have no interest in engaging in a debate with those who would raise taxes. That issue is over; it’s gone. We’re not going to do it. I have used the phrase: “Cooperation, yes. Compromise, no.” This country has been voting since 1968 against the Great Society. And the track record is unending. The only two Democrats to win since 1968 both ran as New Democrats. I mean, Jimmy Carter was an outside reformer, not a liberal, and proud of it; Bill Clinton ran as a New Democrat who favored middle-class tax cuts, reinventing government, and welfare reform. This is the most astonishing affirmation of the desire for a fresh, bold, decisive change in this city that I have seen.

HPR: What concrete changes will you make in how the House operates? How will these changes fit into your vision of what the mentality and culture of Congress should be?

Gingrich: On the opening day of the 104th Congress, the American people will see a real and dramatic change in the way things are done on Capitol Hill. On the opening day, Republicans will cut House committee staff by one-third. We will vote on the Shays Act, which will apply to the Congress all laws that apply to the rest of the country, and we will introduce the ten bills that make up the Contract with American to be voted on within 100 days.

Additionally, we will cut the budget for the House by downsizing and consolidating work to make the House operate more efficiently. The quality movement must make its way to Capitol Hill, so we can make the best use possible of every tax dollar.

Finally, throughout the year, the American people will see a more open and honest legislative process. As opposed to the Democratic Congress, a Republican House will greatly expand the ability of members to offer amendments to bills. We are trying to build a proactive House of Representatives, and discouraging changes has only stifled the House’s ability to solve the nation’s problems.

HPR: Your effective tactics for ensuring party unity have often been labeled coercive. As Speaker, how much dissension within the GOP ranks will be compatible with effective governing? How united are Republicans philosophically, and will the nation witness a quarrel between right and moderates now that the goal of Congress has been achieved?

Gingrich: The fact that 355 Republican congressional candidates signed the Contract with America shows that the basic philosophy of the Republican party crosses a wide range of members and ideologies. My obligation as Speaker of the House is to be speaker of the whole House, reaching out to all House members. I am not speaker for the party. Instead, I have an obligation to reach across party lines and reach out to the president. I will not compromise on a tax increase, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find other things to cooperate on. We will work together to find a common ground.

HPR: Though the 1994 elections just ended, many are already looking forward to 1996. How have the unexpected results of this past election changed the entire outlook for the GOP in 1996? Who do you think will run for the Republican nomination, and what are each candidate’s relative strengths and weaknesses? How difficult will it be for the Republicans to maintain their hold on Congress and regain the White House?

Gingrich: I think we have at least a year to prove that Republican ideas can be effective. We have got to prove to the American people that we can actually do something positive—not just be the opposition party. If we can do that, then the chances of a Republican win in 1996 are improved. I won’t speculate on possible party nominees, or even on who might be running. I’ll leave that to the political columnists.

Arvind Krishnamurthy ’97, a Social Studies concentrator, is Circulation Manager of the Harvard Political Review. The written interview was conducted in early December 1994

This interview was originally featured in the Winter 1995 edition of the Harvard Political Review. January 1, 1995.

Few social commentators are as notorious and prolific as Christopher Hitchens. Formerly of The New Statesman, a foreign correspondent for Harper’s, a columnist for The Nation, Vanity Fair, and the London Review of Books, Hitchens editorializes with biting wit and unremitting scrutiny. Whether indicting Henry Kissinger, doubting Elie Wiesel, or deconstructing Mother Theresa, Hitchens offers readers unanticipated insights. Without fail, Hitchens shocks, delights, and provokes, as he recently did in an interview with the HPR, after a debate at Harvard’s ARCO forum on the possibility of a just war with Iraq.

HPR: I imagine you think the new commission investigating the intelligence failures of Sept. 11 is dangerous, in that it tries to exculpate the U.S. from any blame.

Christopher Hitchens: Let me just say, I don’t believe that the attack was invited, provoked, or deserved. Any declension of any word of that kind, I reject thoroughly and energetically. It’s true, though, that the subsequent level of incompetence that’s been discovered of foreknowledge not shared, is so grave and so widespread that it has allowed some people to conclude that there might have been collusion. I’d call it the “Oliver Stone” read on it. I wondered when that argument would turn up—now it finally has. I’m completely sure it’s not true.

Now people are asking whether the administration just appointed the world’s best-known cover up artist to do the investigation. What were they thinking? I know what they were thinking, which is that the president said he didn’t want an inquiry. Ultimately, he changed his line, but only slightly: well, okay, we’ll have a commission and Henry Kissinger will chair it. Of course, that’s saying the same thing in a different way.

It’s obvious that there’s no kind of confidence in Kissinger, nor in George Mitchell, who was also a contender for chairmanship. He may be a good mediator—he certainly did some good work in Northern Ireland but he’s not at all a good investigator. The book he wrote with former Senator Cohen of Main tells about their failures as Senators to investigate the Iran-Contra matter. Mitchell is also convicted in my view as someone who is abnormally incurious, and relies too much on the presumption of innocence when it comes to the authorities, a presumption I don’t make myself.

HPR: What do you make of the mystique surrounding Kissinger?

CH: Well this is a country that, strangely, given how strong it is, and how many reasons it might have to be confident, is very insecure. Something about the demeanor of Mr. Kissinger convinces people that he is a sort of European intellectual of gravitas. Now, this really does show there is a crisis in our higher education system.

Kissinger’s three volumes of memoirs, if he had published them in the academy, would have led to the requirement that he resign because they are falsifications. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with me morally about what he did in Angola or China or Vietnam or East Timor, conclusive declassified documents have subsequently shown that the account he gives is fabrication. This scandal, therefore, involves the publishing industry, the academy, and the press. My own profession has colluded in this fabrication of his reputation. Really, it’s a cultural crisis.

HPR: Have you ever spoken with him?

CH: No, he declines. I’ve often given him a chance, but under no circumstances will he talk to me. I sued him for defamation and made him retract a remark he made in response to my book. But since this is an investigation of the ramifications of international gangsterism—we call it terrorism, nihilism—Mr. Kissinger is being sought in the courts of many countries now, not as someone who could be indicted yet, but by merely as a witness: for his knowledge of U.S. diplomatic channels being used as a means of smuggling, laundering money, and carrying out hit jobs against named individuals in democratic countries. Among other things, this means he can’t travel without consulting lawyers, though in some countries he can’t travel at all. Despite all of these defamations, he still chooses not to publish his client list, suggesting he has other interests in the Gulf.

The last major investigation using the American intelligence community was that of Senator Church. Its mandate was that it had been put in possessions of all the known facts, and he withheld crucial sections.

HPR: I’m curious about your own political development from socialism to now, kind of a Neo-Orwelliamism. That’s a pretty broad range.

CH: Yes. It would be conceited if I said I put you and myself in the safekeeping only of what I’ve written. That is the real answer. But it took me a long time to come to the point where I don’t identify with anything, any politics, let alone any political faction. In some ways I feel better for it. In other ways I miss some of my old allegiances, like an amputated limb. But working with the Iraqi exiles and the revolutionaries and the Kurdish rebels and the opposition—which I have been doing now for several years—reminds me a lot more of the better bits of my past. It feels like it. Most of the people I’m working with have similar backgrounds; I find that oddly confirming. It feels much more like being a revolutionary. I think it is more like being one than carrying a placard that says, “Hands off Saddam Hussein.” That’s a wannabe anti.

I like to think I didn’t waste my time on the Marxist idea. I learned quite a bit from it and would only be too proud to say I still had to consult it. But I can’t say it’s my guide. Eugene Debs, the only great socialist leader the United States ever produced, put it very well in a speech he delivered just before he was locked up, when it was clear to him that he had a big following. He said, “I wouldn’t lead you to the promise land even if I could, or if you knew where it was, because if you could be led in, you could be led out, or led anywhere.” In other words, you can’t ask for guides. That’s an extremely important principle for radicalism.

HPR: Do you think this war has been less or more politicized than those in the past, in Vietnam for instance?

CH: Well, in the case of the war in Indochina, the government seems to have thought that it could not risk telling the truth. So a huge campaign of falsification and lies had to be mounted, including very elaborate deceptions to get the war under way. It had to be kept secret. It was too disgusting to be admitted.

Now we have more information than we need. What’s very striking about this situation is that there isn’t anything the government is not telling us. Or that citizens can’t find out for themselves. Or that the government hopes you don’t know. The policy of this administration is to corner Saddam Hussein on the basis of resolutions that he’s signed, and to make it clear that his survival as a dictator is incompatible with those resolutions. The goal is to change his regime, making the promise that the Iraqi people will have more say in how Iraq is run. It’s worth arguing about whether this policy should prevail. With the Indochina war you couldn’t do that, because the whole war was a lie and in any case the cause was a bad one: the prolonging of French colonialism in Indochina. To a remarkable extent the administration says what it means or intends.

HPR: Some people anticipate that a war with Iraq would recapitulate the Gulf War of 1990. Do you see such a parallel playing out?

CH: I didn’t know what President Bush wanted from the first Gulf War. It was not clear to anybody, it was not clear to his own cabinet, and it wasn’t clear to me how it had got started. There was something very shady about the way you suddenly woke up and found that a former ally of ours had invaded another ally of ours. Apparently, Saddam had notified Washington in advance of his intentions, and was told, “We don’t care.”

HPR: Most people claim the reverse, of course, that the Gulf War was a legitimate campaign, and that now, George W. lacks a clear mandate.

CH: Well, yes, a member state of the United Nations had been taken off the map, even if you think, which I do, that ultimately, Kuwait is part of Iraq. I mean the original partition isn’t sacred. No one was consulted about making it a separate colonial state. Ultimately, many of the borders in the Middle East will change, especially in and around Palestine. But they’re not going to be changed by Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, just for their own purposes, by violence.

Christine A. Telyan ’04, a Social Studies Concentrator, is the Features Editor.

This interview was originally featured in the Winter 2003 edition of the Harvard Political Review. January 16, 2003.

Gary Johnson is a former two-term governor of New Mexico and current candidate for the GOP nomination for President. He is known for his low-tax libertarian views and is an avid mountain climber and triathlete.

For an audio version of this interview, click here.

Harvard Political Review: Where do you differ with fellow libertarian-leaning presidential candidate Ron Paul?

Gary Johnson: I have the unique experience of leading a start-up business that eventually employed over 1,000 people. I also served 8 years as governor of New Mexico and, while Ron Paul got to register his principled “no” vote on issues he disagreed, I got to debate and discuss my vetoes for weeks on end. Lastly, I am not a social conservative. I would describe myself as a classical liberal, and I support a woman’s right to choose.

HPR: What is the Gary Johnson plan for economic recovery?

GJ: I believe we are on the verge of a monetary collapse. We’re not immune to the mathematics of continuing to spend more money than we take in. If elected, I will submit a balanced budget to Congress in 2013 that will reduce federal spending by 43%. I also promise to veto any legislation where expenses exceed revenue and to advocate for throwing out the entire federal tax system and replacing it with Fair-Tax. I share in the outrage of Occupy Wall Street protesters that government picks winners and losers, and implementing FairTax would fix this.

HPR: How do you explain being left out of nearly every primary debate?

GJ: No matter how you cut my exclusion, I think you just have to judge it as grossly unfair. CNN excluded me from the second debate after coming up with a rule that I had to be at 1% in 5 national polls, even though I met that criteria. During my last debate, Fox News Network chose to interpret the rule as the last 5 national polls where my name appeared and, as a result, I was included. I don’t want to claim to be ahead of others that have been given opportunity, but I just want to claim equal footing to those individuals and I’m not being given that equal footing.

HPR: What would you do today in the Middle East if you had the chance to reshape American foreign policy?

GJ: I would get out of Afghanistan and Iraq tomorrow. I would not have participated in Libya. I think involvement needs to start with a military threat and that occurred in none of these countries, including Iraq. I originally thought involvement in Afghanistan was totally warranted, but I think we wiped out al-Qaeda after the first 6 months. We’re building roads, schools, bridges and hospitals in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries and we have those same needs here.

HPR: Can you explain your policy on marijuana legalization?

GJ: I’ve advocated legalizing marijuana. Control it, regulate it, tax it. I’m opposed to the drug war but right now Republicans can’t grab ahold of the notion that half of what we spend on law enforcement, the courts and the prisons is drug-related, and to what end? We have the highest incarceration rate in the world, and this is America? I think if we legalize marijuana we will take giant steps as a nation to come to grips with rational drug policy in this country which starts with looking at drugs as a health, rather than criminal justice, issue.

HPR: Where do you view the viability of your campaign right now?

GJ: The viability at this point depends on being in these debates, so I’m not viable. This is a real uphill battle and just not being treated fairly, which is what I actually expected to be the case, leaves a real bad taste. I continue to be out here on the road talking to as many people as I can, but that doesn’t quite compare to the debates where millions of people can tune in.

Naji Filali ’14 is a Staff Writer. This interview has been condensed and edited.

Photo Credit: Ron Hill, Wikimedia Commons

Diana Henriques is a senior financial writer at The New York Times. She has been a Pulitzer finalist and was granted the first interview with felon Bernie Madoff upon his incarceration. She has authored four books, including “The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and The Death of Trust.”

Harvard Political Review: How did you first get interested in journalism?

Diana Henriques: I became involved at age 13 with my first newspaper with a local student group. I came to love the newsroom environment and my love for journalism followed. In college, I was a campus journalist at The George Washington University Hatchet in the late-1960s, which were exciting times to be a journalist in Washington. I eventually made the shift into financial journalism at the Philadelphia Inquirer and have worked for The Times since 1989.

HPR: What obstacles have you had to overcome to get to the bottom of investigative financial stories?

DH: My initial reaction was to say that actually financial journalism is easier, and here’s why. When I first covered government issues for different New Jersey newspapers, it was the era of “shmooze” reporting where you gathered information for political coverage by shmoozing with politicians and for crime stories by shmoozing with cops. I was a young woman, and it was a time when a young woman reporter had to navigate the landscape rather carefully. In contrast, next to the bureau where I worked was the county hall of records. I learned how to trace land records, ownerships, and deeds, and I started to get good stories about, say, county commissioners who were planning highway routes past land they had just purchased. This was my first introduction to document-based reporting, and I quickly realized a document doesn’t know if you’re a woman or a man. I started to focus on avenues of reporting where legal papers were the skeletons of the stories, and it was a breakthrough for me.

The financial corporate world is an intensely difficult place to develop sources. The document landscape is wonderful, but the source-building landscape remains the most challenging I have ever worked in. The current environment with so much hostility aimed at corporate America has intensified that challenge.

HPR: How did you establish such a strong level of trust with the Madoff family?

DH: The goal is to put the interviewee enough at ease so that you can see the real person and communicate that to your readers. Why Bernie agreed to talk to me is a mystery, but I have to assume that the only reason he would agree to talk would be that he had an agenda. He ignored my interview requests for six months and, finally, in August 2010, two months before my book was due, I got to sit down with him and witness his personality in person. You hear people say how charming and convincing he was, but if you haven’t met him, you haven’t seen it fully. The visit was not particularly factually helpful, and I was able to catch him in lies because of my preparation. But what I never could have prepared for was his ability to drift seamlessly between truth and lie, which is truly a master act.

My relationship with Ruth has been a little different. She is not a professional public figure and lived her life entirely as a private woman and, in dealing with people like that, any responsible journalist will tell you that it’s a different game. You’re dealing with someone who may not realize the power of the published word, and I think that in such a situation any journalist has an obligation to take care, and I did.

I felt that if I could help Ruth feel at ease then I could help the public see something remotely resembling the real Ruth Madoff. My aim was not to decide how the public viewed her but, rather, to say this was as close as I can get to showing you Ruth Madoff, and then let the reader decide whether she is a sympathetic person or not.

HPR: What advice would you give to females looking to pursue a career in journalism?

DH: I think women entering the field of journalism have a much easier path than they once did. They’re walking through doors that my predecessors chopped down with brute force and lawsuits. I think that to the extent that I succeeded in what most times was a men’s world was because I kept the chip off my shoulder. Anger is not a useful tool, diplomacy is. But if it’s really what you want to do, you’ll find common ground with the men for whom it is their dream job, and that’s really how I’ve been able to navigate.

The views expressed in this interview are those of Diana Henriques and do not necessarily reflect the views of The New York Times. Simon Thompson ’14 is the Interviews Editor. This interview has been condensed and edited.

Buddy Roemer ’64 is a former Louisiana Governor and representative to the US House of Representatives. He is currently making news with his campaign for President as a candidate in the Republican primaries, setting himself apart by focusing on campaign finance reform and refusing to accept any donation over $100.

HPR: So, to put it simply, what’s the current plan?

BR: Well, we’re boots on the ground in New Hampshire running in the primary, January 10^th, and we’re trying to qualify for matching funds in 20 states and we’re very close, so we’re spending time doing that, and then finally, we are looking at how to reach independent minded voters. People who don’t belong to either party. I mean, we’re clear in the Republican party that we’re going after the moderates there. But we’re trying to add to that, and appeal to, independent minded voter because our issues of corruption in politics is impactful to independent minded voters

HPR: I know that you’ve had a history of running from behind, including your gubernatorial race back in 1987. How do these experiences contribute to what steps you plan on taking to the future?

BR: Well, they keep you calm. You know, you don’t overreact, and you look at the people in the race. I mean, you have Herman Cain at two percent, and then he moves to thirty percent. You have Michelle Bachmann at two percent, and then she’s at 27 percent. You have Rick Perry at 0 percent, and then he’s at 32 percent. You’ve had New Gingrich go from four percent to fourteen percent. I mean, Republicans have not picked their leader yet, and it’s going to be volatile. You have to be patient, consistent, and begin to frame the race in the best interest of those who vote. That is a political system that helps to create jobs and is not institutionally corrupt. However, our system is corrupt. Big checks come before people’s needs, small businesses, and fair trade with China. We are a corrupt society at the top in terms of politics. More and more people don’t vote anymore. More and more people play the spectator and let the big boys run the country. Well, they can’t run the country, because they don’t know the country enough.

HPR: A lot of people note that when the media begin to back a candidate, the candidate goes a lot farther. Do you foresee this as part of your strategy, and if not, what do you feel you can do to bypass it?

BR: Well, I saw debates as a way to bypass media control. I thought debates were a way for a free person to freely express their views and show the connection of those views with solving our problems. But I was wrong. I failed to realize that the debates were controlled by the media. So I thought you could avoid media control by being in the debates and expressing your views, and the people could make up their own minds. But as it turns out, apparently the media controls the debates. I have not been invited to a single debate, and there’s been 9 or 10 nationally publicized debates. I’ve been to a debate or two in New Hampshire where there’s just 3 or 4 candidates, and I do very well there. But no national debates, and I’m scratching my head as to why. I’m the only candidate running who’s been a congressman and a governor. That’s the sort of the experience that could be valuable in a presentation to the American people, as I am the one with actual experience on how to build jobs. I deeply believe that Washington has been the capital of corruption, and then only an independent, free-to-lead president could turn this country around. I thought a debate would be the perfect forum for that, to contrast myself from the other candidates. They can ask me where I get my money from. I get my money from thousands of Americans who give me an average of $60 each. Then I can ask them where they get their money. And they don’t want to answer that. Mitt Romney doesn’t want to say, “Well, a friend of mine gave me a million dollars, which she did.” I mean, Jon Huntsman doesn’t want to say “Well, I formed an organization so that my billionaire father can give me as much money as I want. And I don’t have to tell you about it.” Newt Gingrich can say, “I’ve got a PAC with 9 people who gave 300,000 each, and I don’t have to report it.” This is why debates are important for me, yet I haven’t been asked to go to a single one, and it has been the most disappointing thing in this campaign.

HPR: So, if not through these media debates, what channels do you feel will improve your publicity?

BR: That’s a good question, yet I don’t have a good answer. We are exploring a variety of possibilities, and we have to keep centered on our mission. Our mission is to turn America in the right direction, with jobs and we feel it can only be done by standing up to corruption. And the people we need to win are independent minded voters who are Democrats, who are Republicans, and who are Independents. WE need to keep focus on that, and we’re trying to find ways to be a proud Republican, but to be a prouder American and reach across all parties and all peoples and say, “We can do this together”.

HPR: You’ve made huge splashes in the national media with your support for the occupy movement. Where do you see this movement headed and where do you see your campaign in relation to this movement?

BR: We’re going to keep talking. I went down to Wall Street and listened. I mean, I run because of my experiences in Louisiana with corruption, and I was able to see how much good we were able to do by throwing the corruption out. I see the same potential in Washington. I see in the occupy movement an acknowledgement of my issue. I mean, we were saying, “We can smell it”. Something is wrong with America, it is not healthy when the average bank CEO makes a thousand times more than the average bank clerk. They can smell it, and if they would go to Washington DC, the smell is even worse. They’re saying, “Something’s wrong with America and it is somewhere between Wall Street and Washington DC.” So I went to tell them that I heard them, to explain what I was trying to do to change it, to congratulate them on their involvement. I can remember the civil rights marches back when I grew up in the South, and young people changed the country back then. I remember the Vietnam march when I was at Harvard. Thus, I have a sense of history. Some people at Occupy Wall Street think the answer is a bigger government. No, the answer is a better, non-corrupt government. It needs to be filled with justice. That’s why I went to occupy Wall Street. That is why I am running.

HPR: What executive authority do you feel you would use to effect change if you are elected president?

BR:Well, by doing what you say you’ll do. Now that’s change. I mean, by actually running for office this way, now that’s change. By actually holding congress accountable for their actions, for their institutionally corrupt activities, for refusing to sign, in fact, veto, any bill that didn’t bring more reform or make America bill. By submitting as my first bill, campaign reform, and asking them to join me and create jobs in America. I have no ego here. I will work hard to present the power of reform. I will work hard to present the power of fair trade, rather than free trade. I will do everything I can to bring reform to a corrupt system, and then give the credit to others.

HPR: Looking at a specific aspect of your platform, you’ve taken a strong environmentalist stance in an age where many feel that working on the environment will hurt economic revival. How do you plan on balancing environmentalism and making it economical?

BR:There’s the word: Balance. There is no balance now. There were 81,000 pages in the federal registry of comments in the last year alone in regulations for small businesses. Regulations of small business costs small businesses more than taxes did. On all of these environmental matters, we need balance. Some conservatives say, “Do away with the EPA”. I don’t. Some liberals say, “Well, EPA needs to be stronger and we need to rely on green fuel” I don’t. We can’t do that for the next 20 years. It’s not practical. What I want are incremental improvements. Let’s go from oil to natural gas. Natural gas has 20% of the carbon footprint of oil. We would’ve improved our environmental emission of carbon by 400%. Build from the center. That’s how you build a nation, from the center. It can’t be exclusive to either Republicans or Democrats. That is the way the Presidents try to do it, and it is wrong. It needs to be America.

Photos courtesy of The Times-Picayune/Grant Therkildsen and ElectionTracker.com. This interview has been edited and condensed.