Jerry Brown | Interview 12 | June 11, 2019

MEEKER: Today is June 11, 2019. This is Martin Meeker, with Scott Shafer and Todd Holmes, interviewing Governor Jerry Brown. This is our twelfth interview session, and today we are beginning as you leave office. It is January 1983. It's the first time since 1969 that you are not in an elected office position. What do you want to do with your life?

BROWN: Yeah--I don't respond to that question, so--

MEEKER: Why?

BROWN: Well, what do you want to do with your life? That's a general question. It's just not the way I frame things. You get up in the morning, and you have your breakfast and you do your activities. But first of all, I think when you--that's not the question that most people have. To--being in an intense job, 00:01:00and then the day, the next day you leave it, you're not asking some long-range question. I think you'd, I guess some people would--might say chill, or relax, or do whatever. So I think there's just a period of, of I don't know what you would call it. First of all, I can't remember these, most people--in fact, I remember more than most. But very few people can tell you what they did on a day, and how many years ago is that? For over forty years.

MEEKER: Thirty-five.

BROWN: So I don't know what that--what do you want? What do I want? That's a present-tense question. So you're asking me what I wanted to do on that day, or that month, or in that general period?

MEEKER: Precisely.

BROWN: Nothing comes to mind from that question.

MEEKER: So you know, I guess I think if I retired, and I wake up the next day and know that I'm not going to have to go into work--

BROWN: Well, it's not exactly a retirement when you lose an election. Somehow retirement is when you get the watch, and you have the retirement party, and you move on to whatever you're doing. What was I, forty-four years old? I mean, at some point, I had a foundation that I created--a couple of organizations. One political action committee called the Committee for California that was engaged in politics, and we changed the name to the USA Committee and we broadened it 00:03:00out. We kept some of our contributors together, and we raised some money, and we had certain activities and meetings. And then I had another group with a man named Nathan Gardels, and that was called the Institute for National Strategy, and we created a publication called NPQ, that was a quarterly.

MEEKER: New Perspectives Quarterly?

BROWN: Yeah, New Perspectives, and that was a vehicle to interview various leaders around the world, and in the country, dealing with some of the contemporary issues that I'd experienced both as governor and in politics in some of my campaigns. And then there was another group that was an extension of a commission that I started, the National Commission on Industrial Innovation, 00:04:00and Allison Thomas was the executive director of that. And so that was a group that came out of the Commission on Industrial Innovation, the California commission, and that had been with some high-tech people dealing with innovation. So I continued that, and we incorporated as a nonprofit. So there were actually two nonprofits and one political-action committee. We had an office, and we pursued those particular lines.

MEEKER: I think we're going to want to dive into each of those to some greater extent, but I still want to kind of get back to this first six months after you leave office. You know, when you were first elected to governor, the first thing you did is you went off to Tassajara.

BROWN: Yeah.

MEEKER: And spent some time reflecting on what had come, and what was yet to come.

BROWN: Well, I don't know that I reflected on what was to come. I'm independently interested in Zen Buddhism and spiritual practices, so that didn't 00:05:00relate to the governorship. That's a whole other conversation with another group of people, you know, that deals with that stuff, like Tom Quinn and Richard Maullin--a whole different political class, which did not have those particular interests. So yeah, I don't know what the analogy would be in '83, other than those three organizations. And through those, with that framework, we had a lot of meetings. I went to different places, and we dealt with those issues.

MEEKER: Well, during this, this general period of time--I'm not talking about the first six months, but within a handful of years, you do, in fact, start to expand and deepen your exploration of spirituality--broadly.

BROWN: No, I don't think so. That first year? I might have--I mean I've had a long life, so I've got a lot of activities. There aren't a lot of days that one can go back to. Those organizations produce papers and there's some things we can talk about. I don't know if they have any great significance at this point in time. Though I did have a program, this Commission on Industrial Innovation or that nonprofit dealing with innovation, we had a woman that we hired that worked on a computers-in-school project. And she worked on technology in schools. This was just the beginning of computers. We'd done a tax credit for the donation of Apple computers to schools in California, at the request of 00:07:00Steve Jobs. So I was very interested in ways in which computers and technology could improve learning, could improve education. And so that was the project that--many of the education experts were consulted. She consulted them, and I did as well. And I wanted the important people.

So what we're really talking about is dealing with--what I did was meet with and discuss with thinkers and doers in various fields, the solving of some of these issues that I was interested in. And education is an interest that I've had, and we pursued the inquiry as to the introduction of computers in schools. So there 00:08:00was a group called CUE, Computer-Using Educators. And so this was a very embryonic field, where Apple doesn't exist yet, or rather the Lisa hasn't been created yet, and we're still dealing with Apple. I had an Apple III, and we still had that Commodore, and this is the level we're at. So how could education take advantage of this? And the idea of individual learning, self-paced learning, so that students could go at their own pace. And they could advance from where they actually were, and you could individualize it, instead of having this more general discussion of--just of the thirty kids in a class.

So we did meet with Seymour Papert, and I remember being at a conference in Pasadena. I'd go to conferences and pursue these ideas. And Papert wrote a book called Mindstorms: [Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas], and he was the creator of LEGO, which is a particular language, with a little turtle, and you could move a little object. So you actually had a computer, but instead of just printing out something, you had a physical object that could move around the ground. And he used a phrase that I thought was very interesting, "The computer is your mind outside your mind." And this was like the early 1980s. So how do we do that? And then there's a guy named Alan Kay, who talked about the Dynabook--or that might have even been Steve Jobs that talked about the Dynabook. That is really what we have now, the powerful book-size computer that 00:10:00all sorts of maneuvers and transactions can be undertaken.

So that's what I was promoting, learning about and promoting, and seeing how we could impact education. I've got to think back in my mind to try to recall that period. It was a time of exploring some of the key ideas that I had in some fields when I was governor. So I had the luxury of pursuing thoughts, and which I continue to do right now. So I guess if you're looking for something salient, I think that's unusual. I can tell you when I was speaking to someone yesterday 00:11:00about political theory, and they were very surprised that I read political theory for my pleasure. But I do, and I pursue these ideas because I'm able to do so, which a lot of people have done over time, but today things are a little more fast paced. Get it done, get the clicks, get your recognition, get your monthly paycheck--and that pretty well sums it up. Well, I've pursued a different way of doing things, which very much involves meeting with and discussing with major thinkers. So I was doing my own work, exploration, conversations, and reading, and going to conferences. That's what I did.

SHAFER: I guess just--maybe a different way of asking what Martin asked you at the beginning--so you were out of office. Did you, in some way, feel free to 00:12:00explore things that you would have--?

BROWN: No, I explored things when I was governor.

SHAFER: But you had all these other responsibilities.

BROWN: Yeah, but I had all these other people doing things. You don't understand how many people actually work in government, and how many people are there at the governor's office to answer the telephone, to type things out, and then you have all these different departments on all these subjects. And so a great deal of my work as governor is exploring and learning, and doing based on what I learn. So that's what I do. We could take any topic you want. Talk about the environment, you can talk about reading, talk about crime and punishment--this is what I do. I study, I talk to intelligent and wise people that I can 00:13:00identify, and then I take action. If I'm not in office, I can recommend action, or join with others who are influencing government policy. Or if I'm in government, then I exercise whatever authority I have, but I don't cease the ongoing quest and inquiry for greater understanding on these very important areas of human endeavor.

SHAFER: Were there--was there one or two policy areas that you dealt with as governor, where when you got out, in '83, you thought I'm--now that I have more time, I want to really delve into that more deeply? Maybe education?

BROWN: Well, I don't really parcel my life out with such specific tasks like that. But certainly the role of technology in education. And also, I worked with the semiconductor industry--not that I worked, I wasn't a paid consultant. But I attended many of their conferences, looking at: what was the microprocessor? 00:14:00What were chips going to do to American policy, the position of America in the world? I was interested in that. That's a political question. And now, of course, we're down the road to artificial intelligence. Many, many things, that I was thinking about and discussing with people, have continued to grow in importance.

So when I was in government, then I utilize the knowledge and the context that I'd developed in the work that I had. But that didn't mean that I didn't continue that inquiry, because as a governor, as a mayor, or as an attorney general, only a limited amount of your time is actually writing a brief, signing a bill, giving a speech, raising money. There's a huge amount of time left over. 00:15:00Now, many people spend that with their kids, or going on vacation, or watching television, or going to athletic events or other types of activity--or going out to dinner or whatever. I spent a lot of my time in the inquiry, in talking to people, whether it be Ivan Illich or his circle of friends--or other people. So if you want to go back over the decades, there were various people that I talked to, in various places on various topics. And so there it is. That's all the general, but there are specific activities. So it's a little unusual, and it's probably hard for you to get your categories around, whatever you want to call it, my more unusual path through life.

MEEKER: Well, the Institute for National Strategy, I think, was a way in which you were able to organize this kind of activity and pursue the kind of inquiries that you were interested in. You named Nathan Gardels as its first, and I think only, director.

BROWN: Yeah, right.

MEEKER: Who was he, and why did you select him to head up this endeavor?

BROWN: He was there. He was working in my administration. And he was a man of ideas, and I think he'd worked with--well, you'd have to ask Nathan, but he was in my administration when I was governor. He did some work on public pensions and their investment to advance social objectives. And he was very well read. So 00:17:00it was a good fit. We could go to Mexico, and he'd line up meetings with Carlos Fuentes, and Octavio Paz I remember we met with, and a group of other people. And through Ivan Illich I met former president [Luis] Echeverría [Álvarez] and went to different institutes, in Mexico City. And Ivan Illich had a whole string of people coming through Cuernavaca--so that's what it is. So, and Nathan is still doing that. In fact, that's what he's doing even today, working with Nicolas Berggruen, and they've just written a book, and they're out there in the book-selling venture. But they have conferences with China, and they have a 00:18:00whole group of people they've put together. In fact, I'd say Nathan's doing exactly what he did for me, only doing it with this man Berggruen, and before that he'd worked with others. I think he affiliated with the Center for Democratic Institutions, and they blended the institute into that group.

MEEKER: So you're somebody that has a healthy skepticism around institutions. Why establish an institution for--?

BROWN: Well, it's not exactly an institution that--If you think of Berkeley, or if you think of UC or the Catholic Church or General Motors, I wouldn't use that same word. It's just a couple of friends working on things.

MEEKER: Okay, so smaller scale/more informal.

BROWN: Yeah, it's not an institution, it's a nonprofit that you get donations to and make it work. But it lacks the bureaucratic architecture that you spend most 00:19:00of your lives in--and I've spent most of my life avoiding.

SHAFER: How was it funded? By donors? Who are the donors?

BROWN: Just the same people who've been donating ever since I started running for office. And new ones, and new people coming up. People get interested in these things. By the way, the reason I got into the technology, I quoted Bob Noyce, who was the co-inventor of the microprocessor, came out of Fairchild. That was the beginning of Silicon Valley. I put him on the [Board of] Regents. I'd met with him on my Commission on Industrial Innovation. I had Steve Jobs, I had [David] Packard. I had the head of National Semiconductor. I had [Leland S.] "Lee" Prussia of Bank of America. These were interesting people. So I got some--not all of them, but some of them on the commission. And then one thing 00:20:00leads to another, and always I had the idea that I'd be back in some public office and would then apply those ideas. So it's always a movement between study, investigation, inquiry--and action, and actually taking these ideas and putting them into practice or executing on them. So in one sense it's very well organized.

MEEKER: Well, and it's fascinating to me the way in which you're describing it, because it sounds to me like a good example of what Ivan Illich talks about in Deschooling [Society], which is a non-institutionalized, highly individualized program of study to get you where you want to go.

BROWN: Yeah. Or just inquiry for the sake of inquiry. This is what some people 00:21:00used to do this. This is what you study. You read--you started out with Latin and Greek, and then you begin to read other writers, and you have friends who do the same thing. And sometimes you're called into the government, sometimes you're not--and there it is! It's pretty simple.

MEEKER: To what extent was your course of inquiry random, or was it highly planned? Was it instrumental?

BROWN: Well, you threw out a number of terms. But how can I say--it's all of that. Because there's nothing new, as Gregory Bateson said, that does not come out of the random. And that's an important thought. And if you're highly structured, of course, you get nothing new. You just get a rearrangement of what 00:22:00you already have. And if you're going to have any breakthroughs, there has to be a certain openness and randomness, so that's, in effect, the way evolution works. Well, I'm not going to get into the theory of evolution, but I would say that inquiry has to be both directed and shaped, but open to surprise and not shaped--and I try to embody both of those. But Bateson would put it as having both rigor and imagination.

MEEKER: This group of advisors and collaborators and interlocutors that you assembled and you were able to engage with is pretty remarkable, in hindsight. I mean you look at everyone from Steve Jobs to Ivan Illich to Willy Brandt. It's a pretty--

BROWN: Well, I met with Willy Brandt once.

MEEKER: Right, but still, you got a time to speak with these folks. How did you get the chance? How did you make the chance?

BROWN: How did you do it? I picked up the telephone. I called--what does that mean? I mean how do you brush your teeth in the morning? This is just what one does if you're in my position. I've had a pretty unusual education, through the Jesuits, through the University of California, through Yale University, through my associations, through my roles as governor, and I've been able to make use of those opportunities and contacts that I continue. So even today I have a certain 00:24:00issue that I'm working on at the military school [Oakland Military Institute], so I was just on the phone with Michael Kirst talking about for a student that is, say, two grades behind in middle school, how long would it take to catch up? And how many grade levels can you achieve in a year--or two years? And, of course, he didn't have the answer to that, but it's a very important thing, because we have a gap in California in education that people have been talking about. But the gap hasn't closed between lower-income minorities and the more advantaged groups, Asian and white--and that gap has been the same for twenty or thirty years. So the question is if you find someone who's behind, is there any 00:25:00norm that we could look to as to how long it would take to get to grade level? And then how would you do that?

So that's what I was talking about, and that's a general idea. It has applicability to six million kids, but I'm focusing on the particular charter school--I'm now back as president of the board. So that's an idea--and by the way, that involves technology. I was just speaking, last week, to the president of Arizona State University, who's very big on technology--Michael Crow. He came out and visited me, and we talked about it. And earlier today, I was talking about one of the board members of the California Community College Board of Governors, and they've launched this online university, and that was a matter of some discussion in the California legislature. So these are ideas; it's always a movement from idea--or you might say theory if you want to give it a fancy 00:26:00name--and actual practice, activities. I was speaking yesterday with a professor at Stanford on the review of the California Penal Code, and what that might entail and how long it would take.

And so, there we go. Now I'm talking to my wife about the tomato plant out there. And I notice on one of the plants there's a lot of yellow leaves, so I'm saying now, "Who can I call that can tell me is that--?" But she said, "Wait a minute, that's the plant that has the most tomatoes on it." I said, "Is that because it's working harder? Or is it actually not getting enough water--or maybe is it fertilizer? Or maybe there's a little disease on there. Well, how do I find out about that?" Well, okay, so that's what I was talking about.

So these were the important matters while you're waiting, but I have so many hours in the day, and these are the things I work on--and what I was working on forty years ago. So to me, it hasn't really changed. I was working, when I was 00:27:00on the Supreme Court of California as a law clerk, working on the penal code. Well, yesterday I was working on the penal code even while I was going down to the Ploughshares dinner being interviewed by Eric Schlosser on where are we on the nuclear movement--I mean where is the movement to control nuclear weapons? And I spoke my thoughts on that, and Ben Rhodes also spoke. He was the national security advisor to Obama. So yeah, I'm a person of ideas, but a person of action--well, they wrote a book on me called, High Priest, Low Politician. Ed Salzman wrote that book. [Jerry BROWN: High Priest and Low Politician] Did you ever see that?

SHAFER: No.

BROWN: Well, that's High Priest [and] Low Politician. [laughter] So that was one description.

SHAFER: You know, you make it sound like all these areas of inquiry were--you know, like that's what you've always done, and that's what you continued to do. But when you think about politicians who leave office, the first thing they think about is how am I going to make money? You know, they become lobbyists--

BROWN: I spend more now, because I have more and I've lived longer, so I've accumulated more. But in those days my house was very low cost.

SHAFER: But the point is politicians often become lobbyists. They join a law firm, they become a rainmaker.

BROWN: I did a law business too, later on, after a couple years.

SHAFER: So it wasn't that you didn't need the money or that it didn't interest you, [it's] that you had low costs, and therefore you could pursue these--?

BROWN: I have a very low-cost structure. [Shafer laughs] Something that I've encouraged the University of California to adopt in some way, and I've been unable to convince them of that. But, of course, I know they're a big 00:29:00institution. They have a lot of needs. I think that I've had some opportunities, so I've availed myself of them. I did some lectures and speeches, and then eventually I associated with a law firm, Reavis & McGrath, for a couple of years. And then I was party chairman--though that was an unpaid job at the time, so I didn't earn any money doing that. And then I ran for president, then I started We the People, so it's just one thing after another. That's what life is. So that is a little unusual, I would say. But that's the way it is.

MEEKER: I think you've done just a good job right now outlining a narrative of your own biography, and I actually find this period to be quite interesting from the outside. Clearly, I didn't live it, but you term out as governor. It's 1983, 00:30:00you begin what can only be described, from my perspective, as an intellectual quest. You go to Mexico, you go to Europe, you go to the Soviet Union, and you meet with all sorts of fascinating people. Were there moments in that intellectual journey that you could describe as epiphany, or moments that you think might help people like me understand what you were going through in that period of time?

BROWN: Well, no, I can't identify any epiphanies. But I can tell you I certainly had, in the back of my mind, that I might run for office again, might run for president, so I'd like to know, understand as much as I can in case I've been called upon to do things. In fact, I'd say one of the problems that America has had is that we've had people running for president who don't know what the hell they're doing, and don't know history, don't know the nature of other countries or the danger of nuclear weaponry, or the issues of climate change. And all 00:31:00these other topics which I find--or the horror of two million men [in the American penal system] being kept in cages for years and years. These are topics that interest me, so I spend time looking into them. But one way or the other, I'll either be in office or I'll be talking to people in office, and therefore it's very helpful that I know that I have something to say and I've thought about things, because I don't think we're thinking about things enough. Whether it's the prisons, or the danger of a nuclear blunder, the danger of some kind of runaway technology, or the environmental and climate degradation--these are all matters that are highly complex, that require years and years of study to have 00:32:00even elementary appreciation of. And yet, our survival in any decent way depends on it. If it doesn't sound too pretentious, I've taken this upon myself, to make sure I'm in a position to give proper advice or operate on deeper understandings.

MEEKER: Well, during this period of time of study, were there any particular issues that were racking your brain, that you thought: here's something that really needs a solution?

BROWN: Well, I don't think in terms of problem and solution, I really think in terms of inquiry, conversation, curiosity.

MEEKER: Well, what were the areas of inquiry?

BROWN: In other words, the mind follows where it will, unless you have a project. I mean if you have a project, and you have x number of kids in a 00:33:00particular school that are y number of years behind, then that's a very concrete problem, how to move that. And that's a project I'm working on. So I deal with extremely specific items, like running for office requires a certain amount of money. It requires some answers that you have to put on your web page. It requires that you find people who can help you do it. Those are all very concrete things, but I also very much enjoy and pursue a more general line of inquiry, represented by the books on my bookshelf, and by the names of people that I know. And that's what I do; I talk to people, figure stuff out, and solve problems.

MEEKER: What was the motivation to go to the Soviet Union in '84/'85?

BROWN: Same thing: why I had Dan Newman drive me to San Francisco last night for 00:34:00two hours, and have my wife pick me up at 9:00 and get back here at 11:30--the danger of killing millions, if not billions, of people. This is a real threat that is very real, and anybody who knows anything about it--I saw Bill Perry last night, and he said, "Be sure and call me." I'm on the phone today with the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which I'm not on because I'm talking to you, which I should have been on--and so we're going to talk at 1:00. So we're talking about this. Now, what the hell do you do about it? Well, maybe anything we do will have no effect, and we'll have our nuclear blunder--and that'll be the end of it. But as long as we haven't had that happen yet, and there's any way to prevent it--and I'm in a position to do something, then I'm going to do that.

And I felt that way when I went to the Soviet Union--talking about the Evil Empire, I talked at the Institute for USA and Canadian Studies. [Georgi] 00:35:00Arbatov, was the man who was the head of that, and I gave a talk. I said, "You know, Reagan's going to surprise you, because they will have a breakthrough, and we'll be back to détente." So I said that long before Gorbachev came on the scene. So that interests me. I don't know if anybody listened. I don't know if that speech is recorded. I assume the KGB has it somewhere. [laughter] Or you could recover it if we wrote them a note. In fact, I should ask that of the Russian ambassador. I forgot about that. [laughing] But I did directly say that, not that I knew for sure, but I just felt that Reagan might be the person, because of his strong position, that he'd be in a position to speak with the Russian leader in ways that weaker presidents have been unable to do.

HOLMES: On that, Governor, what was the basis of that opinion on Reagan? Because Reagan came in after the Evil Empire speech, and actually he was--

BROWN: No, he gave the Evil Empire speech. First he's elected, then he gives the Evil Empire speech.

HOLMES: Yes, but what I'm saying is that not only does he give that speech, but he's also--by at least the historical record--rather antagonistic before and after the speech by the time you're going to the Soviet Union.

BROWN: Well, he was talking about that when he was running for governor in 1966. I can't tell you why--what the basis was. But that's what I thought, and it was based on something. Maybe my--

HOLMES: Hope?

BROWN: No. Possibly because of his positioning, I could tell that he was, unlike other people, he was in a position to open up a dialog with--I guess it was based on the analogy with Nixon, that he was able to open the door to China in 00:37:00ways that others, particularly Democrats, had no way to do. And that is always the problem, that you can have a nice idea, but if your position is such--for example, President Carter had this speech that they called the malaise speech, even though he never used the word malaise. And it was a very important statement and a very profoundly true statement, but it wasn't framed in the manner in which the political world can accept. He needed to put a more can-do leadership, we're going to take that hill kind of framework, which he didn't do. He was talking about a real problem that is even worse today. But because of 00:38:00that, and the invasion of Afghanistan and the double-digit inflation, and all of the different problems that were going on at the time, he was not in much of a position to say, oh, why don't--he couldn't do what Indira Gandhi said. "Oh, they invaded? We're not going to do anything." That was, I believe, the absolutely correct position. I think Gandhi, with her more neutral positioning, and her relationship with the Russians and the Americans, was able to see, which our best and brightest could not see--and which many of our best and brightest do not see even today, which is something I commented on last night.

So we don't seem to be making progress here. In fact, we've gone backwards. But there is a certain rhythm to the détente/hostility/détente and hostility. And then, are we going to be able to make it a third time? And that's interesting to me, and it's of interest to me since the time I went to Russia. And I was very 00:39:00interested in the Committee on the Present Danger. There was a book written called The Wizards of Armageddon, about the nuclear arms merchants. So this is a topic I was interested in, and if you're interested in that, you want to go to the Soviet Union and say, "Hey guys, can we find a way to get along here? Or are we just going to blow the place up?" And I still feel that way.

And I don't feel other people think that way. They are having so much fun attacking Trump and the Russian interference in whatever, that they just--"Come on, let's pile on!" And by the way, that's not enough. Let's go get China all revved up--this is what Trump's doing. So we're playing like a bunch of high school kids irritating the hell out of people that can blow the world up, if we get into miscalculations. So to me it seems all rather insane, and it has for 00:40:00quite some time, probably since the day I walked into the seminary, if not the day I walked out. I don't know quite when I got such clarity about our predicament, but it's one that gets me up in the morning to work on. But I'm working on the three big ones: climate change, nuclear annihilation, and the incarceration of so many young men of color--and schooling, how do you get schooling going? Those are four.

But I'm also trying to figure out how to grow tomatoes as well--and make good olive oil. [laughter] And the history of my land here, to understand how it all happened.

MEEKER: When you went to the Soviet Union, did you find folks there who you felt were going to be receptive to the idea of change?

BROWN: I thought they were very receptive. But what does that mean? I mean you can never be for sure. But everybody that went found it a very interesting trip. We took a group of people, and so that helped inform my views.

MEEKER: And you also went to China fairly early on in its openness to the West.

BROWN: I met with some of the leaders of the politburo. Actually, Mother Teresa had asked me if I could see if I could get the Sisters of Charity, Missionaries of Charity, into China. So I went to China and asked them. I said, "Will you let Mother Teresa in?" But they didn't want to do that.

MEEKER: Tell me about your engagement with Mother Teresa. When did you first have an interaction with her?

BROWN: When I went to India. In 1987.

MEEKER: Do you just show up on the front doorstep?

BROWN: Yeah, that's exactly--that's what I do. I don't need your vast apparatus 00:42:00to--now sometimes that doesn't work, but it works pretty good for me.

MEEKER: So you just show up and you--?

BROWN: I flew to Calcutta with no advance notice, although I think I knew a place to stay. There was a place that some--well, a little, a hotel there. So that's where--I went with another individual.

MEEKER: Who did you go with?

BROWN: I went with a psychiatrist who was very interested in Mother Teresa, and his wife was the head of the Association for Humanistic Psychology. They're from California. And I brought the son of one of my close friends. His son wanted to go, so he went too.

MEEKER: Did you just intend to stay for a short period of time when you went?

BROWN: Yes, yes. Right. It's not a place you want to spend too much time. It's very hot. Calcutta was very hot in the time that I went there, but it was one of the cool periods.

MEEKER: I know that you've written about it in Life magazine, and talked about it in other places, but I'm wondering if you have any impressions that remain seared in your memory of the experience?

BROWN: Well, so many people living on the streets and cooking--the fires, cooking their food. And I don't want to romanticize that, but somehow it fit in a little better than what I see in the streets of Oakland or Los Angeles. I don't know exactly why, but I remember Mother Teresa saying that the poverty in America was much worse than the poverty of India. And I think she meant that because she saw the Indians having a certain religious or spiritual orientation 00:44:00that allowed them to hang together, accept--I'm not sure of what it is--and it may be just not fully understanding. I'm sure I didn't understand what life was like for the Indian people that I noticed, because I didn't speak the language, and they're in a far different world than I was. But I found that interesting. Well, I found it also interesting because of the--not interesting, but she just took care of the, what did she call it, the poorest of the poor. But they didn't take care--and put them in a high-tech hospital. It wasn't a unionized work force. They didn't have a lot of pills and chemicals. And she's been criticized for that, but it was just human beings helping other people in distress.

MEEKER: Almost like a hospice.

BROWN: Yeah, like that, but without all the framework. Without the planning and the structure, or whatever those words are that you like to use. So this is kind of the Ivan Illich view of the world, of informal, convivial, outside the highly institutionalized structures that are increasingly governing our lives. Even as I was coming back, I always marvel at MapQuest and looking at it, and they know there's traffic up ahead. They know where I am, and they know where the traffic is. And I said I feel--I'm pretty well surveilled here. [laughing] They really 00:46:00know where we are. So the tightening and the controlling, which is marching ahead, you know, is sobering and ominous.

So that's one of the topics that interests me, both because I don't like to be too tightly controlled. In fact, I was just recalling with my wife, when we got the piano up here. One of my favorite songs was a song that my mother played on this very piano that you're looking at: "Don't Fence Me In." So, and we are learning to play that on the piano. [laughing] So I'm looking at these structures, which are very important in one level--discipline, clarity, framework. On the other hand, the freedom to be able to explore and to live is 00:47:00also extremely important, but is very much a luxury today.

[long side conversation deleted]

SHAFER: Just coming back to Calcutta. What was it that attracted you?

BROWN: Mother Teresa, and the idea of Calcutta, and its difference with Japan and Kamakura, such a different world. And then Mother Teresa was a very extraordinary person. I tried to get her to come and do a prayer breakfast but did not succeed.

SHAFER: What was it about her that you felt compelled to see?

BROWN: Just who she was. She was a strong woman, extraordinary woman. One of a kind. I think she was someone I wanted to meet, someone I wanted to be in the presence of. And I did that, and I found her very impressive, inspiring. Just her presence, her being, what she's done. Starting from nothing, one person she 00:48:00helped get off the street. And creating this institution that's all over the world, several thousand women working as Missionaries of Charity.

SHAFER: Did you get an impression, being with her one on one, did you get--?

BROWN: I spoke to her a number of times.

SHAFER: Yeah, what was she like?

BROWN: What was she like? You know, it's like--what are you like or what am I like? I don't know how you explain that. All I can say is she was very--I'd say she spoke, the way I would characterize it, she spoke with authority. Whenever she said, "You go over there and work at the home for the dying," or you do something else, she seemed to speak with a level of authority that I find extremely unusual and rare--or maybe nonexistent elsewhere.

SHAFER: There was criticism of her, I think--

BROWN: There was a lot of criticism of her.

SHAFER: Did you think any of it was legitimate?

BROWN: Well, which one? Christopher Hitchens?

SHAFER: Well, I think there was criticism that she was anti-abortion, for example.

BROWN: Well, was that a criticism? Well, that's what she believes. She would criticize you for being pro-abortion, so then you're criticizing that, someone's criticizing you, so then where are we? So are you just saying that's the self-evident position, or are you just noting the difference?

SHAFER: I'm just noting that that was one of the criticisms. I think there may have been criticisms around HIV, although--

BROWN: No, she wanted to open an HIV clinic in San Francisco, and the Board of Supervisors were giving her a bad time. And when I was in Calcutta she said, "Would you help me open an HIV home?" I think it was near the Panhandle. "And we ask for no money. We just want to take care of people." I went to the, sat in 00:50:00the thing, in the Board of Supervisors, never been to a local government meeting before, and I was shocked! And some lady got up and said, "What if they flush the toilets, and the AIDS virus gets out on the street?" And the liberal--and they said, "Now, let's delay this hearing till next week." And I thought, you can't even take a free gift from Mother Teresa to take care of one of the great epidemics of our time, and you've got to think about it. So that furthered my skepticism about the capacity of local officials to make obvious decisions, but they ultimately did it. Mother Teresa had a hard time, and she asked me to go--I think they already were going to decide, or maybe my presence helped. I don't know. But this is not something they wanted in their neighborhood.

MEEKER: I think some of the criticism had to do with birth control as a means for population control, particularly in a place like India.

BROWN: I don't know.

MEEKER: That's my understanding--

BROWN: Well, that's the doctrine, so first of all the doctrine is to tell little children that if they have sexual thoughts and they die, they can burn in hell and be tortured. Doesn't that sound like something that all liberals should rise up and stamp out? But that's been a belief system, you know, for a lot of people for thousands of years. So the world is more various than we nice people in America like to think it is.

MEEKER: Did Mother Teresa speak English?

BROWN: Yes. She spoke fine English. Well, the British in India; she was there at an early age.

MEEKER: Well, you said she spoke with authority, and I'd love for you to tell 00:52:00me, was that something in--?

BROWN: I can't--I don't know what you could say about that. It's just some people seem to be talking from talking points, a script. Other people seem authentic. You know, you just can have examples. You know people might say, I can't remember exactly, but if you look at the movie Patton, and you say, "Patton, he talks with authority." He's not wondering, "What's the cost benefit here? Let's get the data." You know, they don't talk that way. You know, he said, "I love war, and we're going to beat Montgomery to the town there in Sicily." But that's a military authority.

But there's other authority--that's all. I would just say she was a convincing 00:53:00speaker that had a power, and other people, when they talk, aren't as persuasive. I mean if you haven't had the experience, then I can't explain it. But I have the experience that some people speak with more authority. In the Bible, in the gospels it said Jesus, he spoke with authority. That's there. You can go check that out if you want. So to me it's like a--it is the statement. Now, if you want another statement to explain the statement, then you're going to be losing meaning, not adding to it. But there are people, and there are not that many leaders--and certainly political leaders. I mean there can be teachers. There are people who command attention, and people who want to follow. 00:54:00And this is not always good. So you can speak of authority--Jim Jones probably commanded--so this doesn't mean that it can't be bad, but some people have it, and other people don't, maybe you can learn it, maybe not. But obviously for somebody who wants to lead people, that's a good quality to develop.

MEEKER: When you wrote about your visit with Mother Teresa in Life magazine, the article's interesting, in that the first half really is you describing your experience there. The last bit is you really reflecting on the potential application of what you learned and observed there to American politics. And American politics seems to me fairly well removed from--

BROWN: Right, it's a stretch. But that doesn't mean it's not an interesting or 00:55:00important thought. How do you apply it? And whatever I said there is probably the best I could do, and may not be that convincing.

MEEKER: Well, it's about compassion, and maybe the big question in this might be an unanswerable existential question, but what is the role for compassion in the American political system?

BROWN: Well, that's too big a question. Not only too big a question, it doesn't--yeah, I wouldn't know how to respond to it at that level.

MEEKER: When you were in Calcutta, were you actively thinking about politics and what was happening vis-à-vis--

BROWN: Well, look, I'm always thinking about politics, about religion, about meaning--or whatever. So it's hard for me not to. But I wouldn't say I was systematically--like you would take a course, saying okay, how do you apply this 00:56:00to that? I'm also just doing it just for the experience, just living, you know? Part--not a part, a big part of life is just getting up in the morning and smelling the flowers. Okay, here we are. You know, pretty soon we're not going to be here. So if you're aware of that, then you say well, I'd better pay more attention. And just paying attention and seeing--seeing what is. That's an obvious point of departure for a thinking person.

HOLMES: Governor, you were working for Mother Teresa, for about a month, correct?

BROWN: Yeah, about that.

HOLMES: How did that experience impact you?

BROWN: That I don't know. Impact, these are those--how did my three sisters 00:57:00impact me? Or how did my mother impact me? I'm not a causative collector.

HOLMES: What did you recall from that experience?

BROWN: What did I recall? Just what I told you, and what I wrote in the article. I'll incorporate the article by reference. I really sat down, and I did exactly what you're asking me. I thought about it, and I typed it up. So that's it--I'd rather read it, and that might stimulate some thinking.

MEEKER: Did Life solicit the article from you? Or did you shop that?

BROWN: No, I think they solicited it. I think they did--well, I didn't know anybody at Life magazine. So they must--they did.

HOLMES: You also traveled to Japan to study Buddhism. Now, were you there for about six months?

BROWN: Six months.

HOLMES: What inspired you to visit Japan and study Buddhism?

BROWN: Well, first of all--you mean like that as opposed to other things?

HOLMES: Yes.

BROWN: Or just in general, what--

HOLMES: Yes. Well, you made the conscious decision, Governor, to go there and study.

BROWN: Well, remember, I went to Tassajara because I was interested in Zen Buddhism. I saw a movie once--I heard Aldous Huxley talk about Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, when I asked him what he was talking about. So I've had an interest in that. I'd been in China. How did we do that? I was in Japan, so I went to the Jesuit university, Sophia [University], and I said, "Who knows anything about Zen Buddhism?" And so they said, "Fr. [Heinrich] Dumoulin, he's a German, and he's written two books on that." And he was the academic, and so we talked for a period, and then he said, "But you ought to meet Fr. [Hugo Enomiya-] Lassalle, because Fr. Lassalle is really the practitioner of Zen meditation." So I went and met with him, and actually, I took notes from my conversation, which I have. 00:59:00And that was interesting, because I'd been a Jesuit, and he was a Jesuit father. And I got to know him--I made two retreats under his--he was the leader of that. And I found him interesting, because he was in Hiroshima when the bomb dropped, and he walked out, and I asked him about that. So yeah, what did you ask me, why--what prompted me to do that?

HOLMES: Yes.

BROWN: Well, I would turn it around and say why not? I mean--you ask why, and I ask why not.

HOLMES: Well, I asked what inspired you to go there.

BROWN: I'm inspired about everything. Why not? Why don't you find out about the oak trees? Why don't you find out about why that tomato plant is brown? [laughing] It just is. Everything is--it's a matter of great surprise and interest. So yeah, Zen enables one to, you know--what can I say about it? It is 01:00:00a practice at variance with the Western mind that wants causes, impacts, plans, with just following your breathing. That's it. And then you can read about these Zen stories, and they try to make you think. What's the sound of one hand clapping, or something. [laughing] So I find that extra--that's interesting. And what about that? What does that mean? What is it? And so that's curious. I mean I don't need any great inspiration, because I find life very inspiring in itself, and all the multiple aspects that may be available at any one time. So since I have the time, I can just jump on a plane, and there I am. Buy my ticket--it was only $600 roundtrip, not too hard to handle.

MEEKER: One of the things that I find really interesting about this is the syncretism of it. You know, with Lassalle being a Jesuit Catholic, but also being a practitioner of Zen Buddhism.

BROWN: Yeah, well he would distinguish Zen meditation as not the doctrine of Buddhism, but merely the practice of zazen, and some of the ways in which you direct your attention to--well, stilling your mind and being quiet, as it were. So there were interests in this. Yeah, there are other Catholics, there were Catholics in Kamakura when I was there. There were Jews, there were Catholics, there were Buddhists, there were atheists, so it was quite a crowd that showed 01:02:00up there.

MEEKER: Did you consider yourself a Catholic at this time?

BROWN: Well, that's a whole other consciousness. I don't know how to answer that question. You mean do I believe in the virgin birth, and limbo and purgatory and plenary indulgence? I mean there's the whole--it's a wide thing. I'd say I have a very deep Catholic formation, as to what I--what part of that whole tradition? That's a whole other question.

Just like the life of Francis of Assisi. I'm reading that book. It's pretty--it's very interesting. So what do you have to say about him? There's good, there's bad. Mother Teresa--it was not her choice by any matter or means. She didn't like anybody working there if they're together outside of marriage. 01:03:00That's not going to fly with Mother Teresa. So that's one of the reasons I like Mother Teresa, because you're getting the full program here. And I saw what something was pre-Vatican II Catholicism, which has disappeared, at least as far as I know. Maybe it exists in certain pockets, but that's the way that--and that's true of America. Fifties America is gone, so there's a constant change, and so I'm just interested in how things happen and what it is. So whether being a Catholic--all these labels. What team am I on, is what you really want to know. It's a team, it's an identity, right?

MEEKER: Right.

BROWN: And identity is a big thing today, right? So who do I identify with? 01:04:00Well, that's a whole other story. [laughing]

MEEKER: Well, for some people the doctrine is essential. For other people it's maybe a familial or cultural heritage.

BROWN: Yeah, but I know a lot about this organization, its doctrine, its history, its saints, its flaws, its current dilemmas. So it's a very complex bag, and I do have a certain respect for tradition. Here I'm sitting in the Mountain House III. Nothing could be more traditional than that. But we're sitting here with the benefit of lithium-ion battery cooled air, which is certainly a bold breakthrough only possible in the last few years. So yeah, I don't have anything to say about what I am. I'm not even clear--what I am. I'm 01:05:00like eighty-one--is this a matter of checking our privilege, or what? What is that? So I like to be open to the world out there, not navel-gazing and coming up with labels for myself. I leave that to other people.

MEEKER: Did someone like Lassalle prove a good model for you, in sort of like a Whitman way, where he can be sort of complex and draw from different traditions?

BROWN: No, I would say Lassalle was a wonderful human being. I remember the Zen teacher, which is Yamada Roshi. And he said, "I'm Yamada--I'm Lassalle's teacher in Zen, but he's my teacher in personality." And he was a wonderful; he had a great laugh; he was ninety years old. He just had a wonderful smile, was just 01:06:00being present to good people. That's--what else is there in life, but finding friends, finding people that you can spend time with and do things. So I spent a lot of time with him. I spent two six-day retreats where we were in total silence, but you have a certain amount of time when you talk to him--but that just is what it is. Some people like to go to a Warriors game, and they get very excited about that. I found going to Japan, and meeting Fr. Lassalle and Yamada Roshi very, very exciting--or not always exciting, but that's what I wanted to do.

MEEKER: Why leave? Why not stay and become a monk?

BROWN: Because I have a variety of interests, not just one. And I'm not Japanese, and I'm not a missionary.

HOLMES: Governor, when you were in the seminary, meditation was also a part of--?

BROWN: Oh, you have one hour every morning. 5:30, the bell rings.

HOLMES: How would you compare the experiences of your mediation experience when you were in seminary versus--?

BROWN: Well, it's Ignatian meditation versus zazen. And Ignatian practice is to imagine, use the imagination and visualize the life of Christ, the wedding feast at Cana, or the crucifixion, or the horrors of hell, or the beauties of creation. So there's much more imagination. And then through that contemplation to move, as the Ignatian practice would say, the will, to resolving to correct your faults and follow the path of perfection all that more intensely. Whereas 01:08:00in Zen, it's following your breathing, or what they say: following mu. And that's the first koan: does a dog too have Buddha nature? That's the first question, and the answer is mu. And now, what does that mean? [laughing] And you can reflect on that a long time.

That's a different practice than Ignatian mediation, very different. But there are parallels in the Catholic tradition. One of them is embodied in a book called The Cloud of Unknowing, which I'm sure you're familiar with. And that was written in, I don't know, the fourteenth century. And in The Cloud of Unknowing, the author, the unknown author, counsels the practitioner to focus on a 01:09:00one-syllable word, and that's very much like mu. So in that, there are mystical traditions within the Catholic Church--or maybe the Orthodox Church, where there are parallels.

In the Jesuits, the Latin phrase was agere contra: go against self. In the Buddhist tradition, the self is the illusion. The illusions are endless; I vow to cut them down. So what is the self? What is that idea? And the illusory quality of that, dealing with--a focus on that, to me, seemed parallel to saying the self is the obstacle, and that's certainly what they say in Ignatian asceticism. The self is the object, the self wants, desires, needs, reacts to. 01:10:00And the idea being is to--the Jesuit idea--the foundation, as it's called, is indifference. It's called Ignatian indifference, and the idea is to overcome what are called inordinate attachments. Inordinate attachments. And that's almost anything you prefer or fear, and the idea is that you're indifferent to that. That's very similar to a Zen approach, where you're trying to reach a state of detachment. No, not detachment, nonattachment.

So in the Buddhist tradition they talk about nonattachment; in the Catholic tradition they talk about overcoming attachment--or detachment. So there it is, 01:11:00and then from the secular realm they'd say both are bad, because you're not engaged in the passionate consumption of what the marketplace has to provide. So there's where it is. Now, it's all very interesting. It's not--interesting is the wrong word. It's part of the life puzzle or challenge.

MEEKER: I'm having a bit of struggle formulating a question. But this is--

BROWN: Well, right! That's good then, maybe, maybe some progress here. [laughter]

MEEKER: I guess what I'm thinking here is about this not detachment, but sort of de-attachment from one's self and one's identity.

BROWN: And that's a very good exercise. If more people could separate themselves from their identarian passions and attachments, they could find life a little 01:12:00more manageable.

MEEKER: So as you were practicing this, did you also simultaneously learn more about yourself and who you are?

BROWN: Well, the self may be an illusion, so there's nothing to learn really. It's a set of delusions. So I found that very instructive, but learning about yourself--I don't know, that's a--who was that, know yourself, know oneself?

MEEKER: Know thyself.

BROWN: Yeah, well, I don't know, scholars talk about it means this or it means that, so that whole line of inquiry is not one for a quick answer.

MEEKER: Well, if you get to the point of seeing the self and self-conception as a delusion, how then do you go back to the practical political world of the United States and present yourself to the public?

BROWN: Well, certainly with greater clarity and to see through the nonsense. I mean there's a tremendous amount of propaganda, and whether it's marketing, whether it's memes or fashions or fads or lines of thought or positioning--that's another word we use in politics, positions. What's your position? And so you have to have one of those. You have to have many of those. [laughing]

I'd say it's a very useful--Zen meditation is supposed to be for itself, without a utilit[arian]--without, as they say in Buddhism, a gaining idea. It won't work if you're trying to get something out of it. In fact, that's the whole point. Getting off of trying to get something, and just being. They talk about the rivers are rivers, and the mountains are mountains, and you can get up or sit down. It gets to be very--I can't explain it more than that. You'd have to get 01:14:00into it, and I'm not sure I'm very adequate at that. But whatever else there is, that practice, that exercise, is extremely useful in seeing things.

And certainly, when you're in politics, you want to see things. You want to be able to size things up. What's the story here? What's somebody telling you? What's this program? What is this? You know, what is this Russian collusion? What is America as, you know, the--what are we, the indispensable power? What is this conflict with China? And then you can break them down into pieces, and where do you start from? What's your point of departure? Well, if you reflect or you--there's a certain of these spiritual practices. This is not just spiritual, there's also a whole path of [George] Gurdjieff. That's a whole other world 01:15:00which we're not going to talk about. But [P.D.] Ouspensky--these are all very interesting people. There's libraries full of books on these topics, which I've only touched a tiny, tiny fraction, but more than most in my line of work. But I'd say it's very helpful to shuttle between the active and the contemplative, the inquiry and the action. And it's good, yeah, as long as it doesn't become paralyzing.

MEEKER: So when you come back in 1986--actually, Jerry Brown is kind of on the ballot again. [laughing]

BROWN: When was that? Not in '86.

MEEKER: Well, '86 in terms of the judges, the recall.

BROWN: Oh yeah, I wrote an article that played in most of the papers, on Rose Bird and the court, did you ever see it?

SHAFER: Haven't seen that.

BROWN: It was in the LA Times and the Chronicle.

SHAFER: Hmm, I'll look for it.

BROWN: Research, guys. [paper rustling]

MEEKER: [Laughing] You always say it's a long life and there's a lot there, so we're doing our best. So when you come back in '86, Rose Bird, [Joseph] Grodin, and [Cruz] Reynoso are on the ballot and end up being voted out of office. How did your recent experience in Japan and Calcutta influence the way that you personally would have responded or thought about--?

BROWN: Well, I don't know. You could say that about how does--about eating breakfast, how did that influence?

MEEKER: Well, did it give you additional perspective, or were you able to, you know, in fact separate yourself from what was happening in the political sphere?

BROWN: Well, no, it's very simple. Rose Bird had a certain number of positions, 01:17:00had a certain personality. And that set in motion reaction, law enforcement, the insurance industry. [Richard J.] Riordan put up $300,000 to defeat her before he became mayor. So this is politics. You know, in The Godfather, I always liked that part when they're coming down, the helicopter is shooting, and one of them says, "Godfather, what is this?" He says, "This is the business you've chosen." Something like that. Well, this is politics. This is what happens. It's combat. So you've got your academic, you have your thing here, and the politicians have their thing. So there's many stories, there are many, many dramas.

I don't know, when you say react to it, it was unfortunate. But I could see the--the trouble you're in. That's one of the dangers in politics. I tried to do many things, but I was very much aware, most of the time, that if you offend a sufficient number of people, then that's going to have reaction and you won't be able to do what you're doing, because you'll be defeated--or you'll lose the support of the people you need, since you always need more people. There are very few things you can do solely by yourself, so you need to have the acquiescence, and hopefully the enthusiasm, of many other people. The people that are close to you, and then the people that could maybe affect it in a wider net.

SHAFER: One of the slogans that the opponents of the judges, justices used, was they called them Jerry's judges. Did you feel like it was in any way a 01:19:00referendum on you?

BROWN: I didn't--yeah, well. Look, I read the polls. This is my work, so I know how it works.

MEEKER: What do you mean?

BROWN: Well, what I mean is when people want to run for judge in San Francisco, they say that's a Schwarzenegger judge. When they want to run for judge in the eighties, in Orange County, they say that's a Jerry judge. And it worked pretty well. Over thirty times judges were recalled that I had appointed. In fact, a couple lost recently, one or two I think, in Placer County. I think it's only two. But that's the way it works. If somebody's a friend of Trump, and they're in the Berkeley City Council, it is an absolute surety that if someone runs and 01:20:00says that, that person will be defeated. So this is part of how politics works.

SHAFER: But beyond that, were there takeaways for you, that you used when you became governor the second time?

BROWN: Well, I guess if you're a supreme court judge and you overcome the--reverse sixty-five death penalties, there is a high likelihood that there will be a recall. There will be a vote against you at the next opportunity. At least in that period--I mean that's, you know, just like Gray Davis. If the lights are going out and the bills are doubling, you've got a problem. This is like two plus two equals four. We're in a social environment here, and there are many beliefs and many needs, and if you're on the wrong side of enough of those needs and beliefs, then you're replaced by somebody who associates with the opposite.

SHAFER: I remember before you left office, we talked with you about Rose Bird, 01:21:00and you said something that it gave you a different understanding of the way the--what the courts are for and what judges are for.

BROWN: Yeah.

SHAFER: Can you talk about that?

BROWN: No, I just that I think I found when I was a clerk, it didn't seem as innovative and as bold as I thought would be good, so I thought a little more creativity would be in order. And I didn't appreciate deeply enough the conservative role the court plays to articulate the consensus norms that the society lives by. And the courts do break new ground, which is always controversial, like the Brown v. the Board of Education, or the right to 01:22:00counsel. And these cases were very controversial, by the U.S. Supreme Court, and that's why there were all these bumper stickers, "Impeach Earl Warren," and he became quite the bête noire for the conservatives.

So I do think the court needs to protect many interests in society, and they just have to be wise about what they do. So it's not enough to say I think, you've got to know: what is the society thinking? And this is a whole debate about when do you plug in your own values? Oliver Wendell Holmes had some thoughts about this, so did Felix Frankfurter. Earl Warren was more, "Hey, this 01:23:00is the right thing, so we're going to do it." Other judges are more deferential. There's a question, "What is the role of the courts?" And that's a debatable topic, and there's some people who see a more restrained role. That was usually the activists versus restrained, modest, and now we have a new doctrine, called the original meaning, and that's a way of keeping some restraint on the judges.

So going back to California, since they are put on the ballot, at least every ten years they get a vote yes or no. They have to keep an eye on what the voters are thinking. Now, people would say, "Wait a minute: you're supposed to 01:24:00interpret the law." But words are not self-defining, and they're defined by their context, and that context changes over time. So you talked about Mother Teresa against abortion. Well, my father was not for abortion. It never came up. It wasn't an issue then. So things are happening all the time, and they're changing, and the court changes with that. You know, they had the Dred Scott decision--I think it was 1857, and then we had a civil war. But then we had all this Jim Crow legislation. I guess what I understand now is the court needs very experienced, very thoughtful judges, who have to make these tough calls on the cases that are very controversial.

And the more polarized the society is, the less the judges can really work. In 01:25:00fact, democracy can't work very well if it's too polarized. A monarchy, or an imperial situation, you can have more diversity. But with a democracy, too much diversity means there's not a we the people. There's many, many different wes, and therefore there's no consensus. And if there's no consensus, how can you say, "You, the people, tell me what you want." And they come back and tell you five different things. So then, that's instability, whereas if you have an Austro-Hungarian Empire, you can have a peasant in Galicia, and you can have a squire in Budapest, and they're all under the same authority. But because they don't vote, their differences don't register in destabilizing the regime. Whereas when you turn them all into a European Union, and you have somebody in 01:26:00Hungary thinking one way and somebody in France thinking another, now things begin to get rocky. And that's really a central question of where we are today, because we love democracy--but we love our individual opinions, and those two clash at some point.

SHAFER: Do you recall any conversations you had with Rose Bird or Cruz Reynoso or--

BROWN: About?

SHAFER: --afterward, after the election?

BROWN: No.

SHAFER: No?

BROWN: It's not a pleasant topic. I wasn't going to say, "How do you feel, guys?" [laughter] No, that's not good. "What are you going to do now, on your first day as a non-justice?" Maybe that's the kind of question you might ask, but I wouldn't.

MEEKER: Well, we skipped over a few things, and one of them was the 1984 01:27:00election cycle. Was this something that you were paying attention to?

BROWN: Well, that year the convention was in San Francisco. Yeah, I did pay attention to that.

MEEKER: And you attended the convention.

BROWN: I attended that. Well, did I attend? I don't think I was a delegate. But I was there.

MEEKER: You know, it's an interesting election for a number of reasons. Reagan is extraordinarily popular, you have the whole Gary Hart thing that came down, and the Jesse Jackson candidacy.

BROWN: Yeah, I saw Jesse's speech on television. I thought it was very exciting. I thought it was very moving, when he talked about going from the outhouse to the White House. That was a moving part of that speech. And I saw [Mario] Cuomo, and I thought he was moving. But Jackson, at a more gut-level way, I found more moving, but they were both extraordinary in their own respective ways.

MEEKER: Well, it's interesting, what you just were referring to in terms of we the people, a commonality to make sure that democracy works. But then, you know, with the Rainbow Coalition and the first woman candidate [Geraldine Ferraro as first female VP candidate], you're really starting to see identity politics, if you will, becoming a central feature of the Democratic Party reality and platform.

BROWN: And then you see the election of Ronald Reagan, the election of Donald Trump--we're still e pluribus unum, not going from one to many. So that's still the dilemma. And I think that dilemma was very much expressed by make America great versus we'll all be stronger together--all those different identity groups. And the majority opted for Hillary's point of view. But in the critical states of the electoral college, it worked the other way--very closely. But 01:29:00nevertheless, it came out for more of the unity. By the way, it's interesting that even melting pot now is a controversial term.

MEEKER: It's seen as assimilationist.

BROWN: Right! That used to be a good thing. I mean the immigrants--we've got to assimilate. They forgot about their homeland, their language, and they assimilated. And now we think: let's be as different as we possibly can, and agree on as few things as possible, and we will be able to dominate the world.

MEEKER: Our commonality is our difference.

SHAFER: You're skeptical about that?

BROWN: Oh--completely. If we're going to just fight among ourselves, we've got to find a way to be very autonomous and secure, and just argue about everything. But if you're going to be saying to every part of the world you'd better do like 01:30:00we do, first of all, you'd better have a clear idea of what that is, and secondly--yeah, you're going to have to have a clear idea. If the idea keeps changing, and you go from Clinton to Bush to Bush to Obama, and Obama to Trump, and Trump to who knows where, that's not going to be a good formula for global dominance. Not that I'm saying global dominance is a good thing, but it seems to be what a number of politicians seem to subscribe to.

MEEKER: So in 1984, when diversity does become more a central feature of the Democratic Party platform, did you see this as a potential concern?

BROWN: I don't know. I was very impressed with Jesse's speech. It certainly was inspiring, but that is the American dream--I mean that's a very powerful idea, 01:31:00that becoming--coming to America. I can remember seeing that movie Yentl--did you ever see Yentl? I saw it with Barbra Streisand and her mother, by the way, and that was an interesting little byplay between those two. [laughter] But what I remember about the movie was when the fog was lifting and the boat is coming in, and the Statue of Liberty, and all these huddled immigrants--and that is such an exciting idea, that immigrants have arrived in the land of freedom. That's a very powerful idea. That's what defines America--but that's still a powerful idea. But now, that's not--okay, and so basically, well, I mean how do we do what? The idea of what we're doing is changing, and it's being, as they 01:32:00say in academia, it's contested. Or this is where we are on it. And it's a balance. You've got diversity, homogeneity, unity, difference. That's very important to understand the difference, but very important to forge common understandings.

SHAFER: In some ways Gary Hart was sort of the Jerry Brown of the 198[4]--

BROWN: Well, he was the man of new ideas at that time.

SHAFER: Did you identify with him?

BROWN: Not exactly. I know Gary Hart. He was in my class at Yale, and we've talked as recently as a couple of weeks ago, because people are trying to get us to do a talk at our class reunion in October, and I'm resisting that. So I called Gary, and said, "Gary, are you even going?" And he wasn't sure. So, generally, yeah, this is the problem: I like new ideas, but I also like tradition, and, whether I like it or not, I'm very aware of the power of the 01:33:00status quo and tradition. So Gary would have his idea of a new, different military and, when he talked about new ideas, it was similar to my idea of the new spirit. It was a sense of stagnation that we had to overcome, and he was trying to do that--and so was I. Differently, but the same general problem.

MEEKER: It's interesting that you say that you sort of like new ideas, but you appreciate tradition. Because it's almost like a cognitive dissonance for you when you were running against Carter--

BROWN: It's the coincidence of opposites, which is a traditional doctrine. I 01:34:00think--doesn't Blake talk about beware of the man with one idea? Blake said something--something on that order. ["I fear the man of a single book"] And the other fellow, [Walt] Whitman, didn't he say something about contradicting himself?

MEEKER: Yes.

BROWN: Whatever it is. ["Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"] So I'm aware of these fellows, and so they all say something important.

In fact, somebody said the other day: I was meeting, I went to a Japanese festival in the American River about the first Japanese that settled in 1869. They had a tea company, and they ultimately lost the land, but they were celebrating the first Japanese woman who's buried in America. I was there, so we were sitting there, and one lady came up to me. She said, "Oh, Governor," 01:35:00whatever. I said, "Well, what's your name?" She said, "I'm nobody." And I said, "Oh yeah, that reminds me--Emily Dickinson had a poem, I'm Nobody! Who are you?" The contradiction, the reason I think of Emily Dickinson is because when we studied Whitman, we studied Dickinson. But the differences, difference is just part of what life is, but also the unity is the coming together. So I guess what made me think of that was she was saying, "I'm a nobody," and I'm a somebody. But I wanted to bring to her attention that she's somebody. And that's exactly what Emily Dickinson said: how dull, like a frog, is it to be a somebody. It's a very good poem, and so that's a bit of a contradiction too. I like 01:36:00contradictions, actually.

HOLMES: Governor, what was your evaluation of the Democratic ticket in 1984, of Mondale and [Geraldine] Ferraro, because--

BROWN: I didn't think it was as strong as it could be. Of course I've thought about that most of the time. That's been my general orientation since the election of Kennedy.

SHAFER: What would have made it stronger?

BROWN: I think it would be difficult. Reagan, what was it, the recovery was in, Reagan fit the mood. He definitely fit the zeitgeist. He knew how to talk. He spoke very--to the point. He didn't speak in this, this issue talk, you know? He had a drama--he was dramatic. So that was hard. It was going to be hard to beat him.

HOLMES: I can't help but ask another Reagan question. Going back to our earlier discussion of the nuclear arms race. You had mentioned in your trip to the Soviet Union that you thought Reagan had the personality to bring back détente.

BROWN: Or maybe the positioning to do that, and the personality.

HOLMES: Well, but then it was also his administration that initiated the Star Wars defense system, [the Strategic Defense Initiative] which completely undercut, not just many of the treaties that held up détente--

BROWN: And still is undercutting it.

HOLMES: But it also undercut, even before détente, that mutually assured destruction. What was your opinion of the Star Wars defense during that time?

BROWN: [sigh] I didn't believe it. I don't know. I'm not a physicist, but Bill Perry, who is a mathematician and former defense official in two 01:38:00administrations, says that the offense can always overwhelm the defense. So the better your defense, the stronger your offense has to be. So it's essentially a formula to stimulate the arms race. On the other hand, to sit there and say, "Oh, we're totally vulnerable and there's nothing we can do about it," that's hard. That's a hard pill to swallow, but that's the truth. That is the truth.

I remember saying once in a speech in LA, that, "Oh, you know, there are Russian submarines right out in the ocean there." And Dick Bergholz, from the [Los Angeles] Times--[loudly] "What do you mean there are submarines outside there?" He thought he had a big story there, and I just presumed that there were submarines out there, as our submarines are off of Russia and China. I mean the world is awash in potential destructive capabilities, and everybody's going 01:39:00along having a good time about it. So yeah, the Star Wars was going to say don't worry folks, it's okay. You know, we're taking care of it. We can put a bubble over America, and the world can go to hell. That's what they think. And there are a lot of people who think that at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, and Sandia, and Los Alamos, and they're busily working. Even as we speak, they are working on stuff like that.

I don't see a big majority saying, "Stop." Because if you say stop, then the next thing you say, "Well, we'd better talk to the Russians--and the Chinese, and the other nuclear powers." Okay, then if you talk to them, they're going to want something. But they're going to want something that you're not going to want to give them. So there it is. And people would don't want to say, "Well, we'll blow the world up." They'll say, "No, we'll deter everybody, and we'll just keep--but we have everything we want. We can lower the taxes, we can borrow 01:40:00the money, we can build the weapons. We can insult everybody, and we can be on top of the world." That's obviously a very unstable edifice, that I would like to stabilize, and I'm working to achieve that goal. Well, whatever impact that could be.