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Kenneth ClarkKenneth Clark
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small business and whatnot, that all of this should be put under the umbrella of the Defense Department because apparently Defense--

Q:

And they're having trouble spending the appropriations.

Clark:

That's right, that's right. If we could say remedial education, and literacy should be made a part of strengthening the armed services and there should be an educational--in the nation, Pentagon, for these purposes, we could handle the literacy problem particularly of low income and minority youngsters who really, the reality is that you have a major functional illiteracy problem in these groups. I'm a pacifist but I'm pragmatic enough to say, “Alright. Let us put it in the framework of defense, because they have an excessive amount of money. We're going to deal with small business development.” Now, Mr. Meese would be opposed to this because I would suggest a given percentage of the funds that they pay to General Dynamics, and General Electric, and TRW, and all of the big corporations that they are subsidizing, to get a certain percentage of that money to be allocated to small business either directly from the Pentagon or through these big corporations. But, can you see what Mr. Meese would--and maybe he wouldn't have to deal with it in terms of race, maybe so.

Q:

What's your impression of the training programs that the Army does have, and I'm thinking perhaps more in a vocational context? Among minority recruits, particularly blacks, have they done much of a job giving them skills?





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