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I, and a number of them--some of them who were brighter than I ended up on the dung heap. How long can a society tolerate that kind of destructiveness of human potential? Apparently, long enough.

Let me ask you about another category of high achievers, and ask your reaction of them as role models. This is a little more recent. I'm thinking of those that have become t.v. personalities, not only in news, I can think of a Richard Pryor, of course, and the actor and actress in “The Jeffersons.” But the increasing number of black anchors somewhat here in this area but I think it's notable in Washington, and both male and female. What does this mean in role modeling?

It means that the civil rights struggle has had some positive effects. It means that we have opened up opportunities for blacks in these visible areas, and it means that we ought not to disparage this nor exaggerate its significance. It means that some blacks have been permitted to enter the celebrity cult of Americans that would previously have limited to whites. Don't you see what's happening? That they are black, not being American. Actually, one of the interesting things to me about American society now independent of race is that we do have a strong celebrity cult worship. I mean, there are people like Frank Sinatra, and others are given medals and even--[background noise]--by [Gary] Trudeau. Substantive problems may be relegated to educational television stations while the network approach is dominated by the celebrities, and this is now taking in some blacks. Just as well, because it's part of the American