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Kenneth ClarkKenneth Clark
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or our methods or anything, in the light of any discussions that I had with Les, during my stewardship. Our decisions were made in that room, with senior staff.

I don't ever remember anybody at Ford, Mac Bundy or Mike Svirdoff, ever even hinting that maybe we should pull back on this or that or the other, that MARC was publicly involved in. And it wasn't because of any lack of opportunity. Certainly I met with them regularly, trying to get their understanding of something that we'd like to do, that we didn't have the money to do.

During that period, I got to be quite friend with MacGeorge Bundy, a tremendous amount of respect for him, and I believe it's mutual, and the basis of my respect for him is that he always seemed to me to be straightforward, no-nonsense guy.

Let me give you an example of the depth of my respect and feeling for Mac. From the very beginning, I was against the Vietnam War. I thought it was a tragic, senseless mistake on the part of America. I didn't see where any of our interests, you know, even the met crass self-interests, would justify our being there. I also knew, from the Kennedy Administration and certainly in the Johnson Administration, Mac was generally considered one of the supporters of this. In fact, the first time I met him was when I was a member of the Herter Commission, and he came to -- he spent a day with us, discussing his role as chief foreign advisor to the President, and Professor (Milton) Katz of the Harvard Law School and I got off, during one of our breaks, and said how scared we were at the self-assurance of this young man, you know, with so much power, etc





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