General Wesley Clark

So do you think marriage could be a successful wedge issue?
I think that it depends on who the candidate is. I think it will certainly be pushed as a wedge issue by the Republican Party.

More so if Howard Dean were the candidate?
You'll have to draw your own conclusions on that. If Massachusetts says that a civil union between two adults of the same sex is a marriage and that it should be called marriage, then that will promote a ripple effect of acceptance or rejection across the United States. It will make this a much more potent political issue. And it will reverberate for two or three or four years, depending on factors in the political system and so forth.

I just haven't thought it through that way, though. For me, it's not about political calculation. It's about the way I think that we should handle this as a matter of public policy--with equal rights in law. And you have to allow people--without it becoming a national election wedge issue--to say, "You know, my son is in San Francisco and he has formed a civil union. We love him and we really like the man he's living with--he's a really good guy--and we want to call their relationship a marriage." And when the little old ladies say that in churches across America, then the ministers will say, "You know, you're supposed to love your neighbor as yourself and you shouldn't discriminate against people." Eventually society changes--just as it has in the past. We'll get to that point.

But in the past, when the country was struggling with whether or not to allow people of different races to marry each other, for example, there wasn't a question of calling it something other than marriage.
The way Colin Powell said it is that it's like the decision that President Truman made [to desegregate the military] and the decision that he was asked to make [to allow gay people to serve openly]. He said that there is something fundamentally different with sexual orientation. I'm not sure that's correct. I'll start with the legal rights. Let's let convention take its course as it works through.

What role did growing up in Little Rock, Ark., have in your support of civil rights?
I grew up in a very conservative household. My stepfather was a die-hard Republican. He was a banker. He couldn't stand FDR, whom he called "Roo-o-osevelt." So what I saw when I was young was that civil rights was something that was ripping the country apart and it started in Little Rock, Ark., which was the epicenter of the earthquake. And I didn't understand it.

Were you old enough to understand what was happening at Little Rock Central High School [when it was integrated under police guard in 1957]?
No, I was in the eighth grade. I didn't get it. All I got was that there were all these big and important Northerners, these Yankees who would come down and pick on us poor people from Arkansas.

When did you start to support the efforts of those Yankees?
After I got in high school and realized that people are people. But you know, people don't like to be forced to do things. If you could get them to choose to do things and make them think that it's their own idea, then they'd respond a lot better.

And at what point did you realize equal rights for gay people were a part of that struggle?
Not really until the 1990s. I guess the first connection I ever had was a friend of mine who said he was gay. Before that I had never known anyone who said they were gay. You just wouldn't have met them in the Army. That friend was a White House fellow with me. He had been married, and I knew his wife and his kids. One day I asked him how he was doing. He said, "I'm doing OK. I have something to tell you." That's when he told me.

What was your reaction?
My wife said she always knew. My reaction was "OK." You know, I'm sorry his marriage busted up. And he was really unhappy about it. And it was very difficult for him personally during this period. We talked about it afterwards. He said, "You know, I had to make a decision. I had to say who I was." But it was a painful, difficult process. I think it is more difficult for people my age than it is for people who are younger. Younger people are more aware of sexual orientation. It's more acceptable, I think, among young people to discover who you are sexually earlier and admit it to yourself. I think there are a lot of people in my generation who couldn't admit it, who struggled with it for years and years and years.

I was taken by the story of your mother not being able to talk with you about your father's heritage and the parallels that struck with people not being able to discuss their sexual orientation.
There are a lot of parallels, absolutely.

What was it like for you when you learned that your father was Jewish?
I was very proud. The story of immigration is a story of courage. The story of admitting your sexual identity is a story of courage. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to be able to do that. I had known a lot of Jewish people in Arkansas growing up because there was a large Jewish community. They tended to be very prosperous and well-to-do and very well-educated. I always liked them. It was much later in life that I realized that I wouldn't really fit into that community because they were German Jews and my family were Russian Jews. Maybe my mother knew that, and it was a part of why she never told me. She just told me that she wanted to protect me.

I think I cried every day after my father died. It's a really traumatic thing. I had no idea. I saw a little boy the other day when we were at a preschool in Rochester. A woman told me that her husband had been over in Iraq, that he had been injured, and that she had a boy in the school. And when I went into the class this little boy grabbed my hand and wouldn't let go. He insisted I see his picture of his family. He dragged me across the room. When you go into one of those situations and there are 15 or 20 kids in the class, they're all pulling at you and saying, "Oh, look at my picture!" But this kid wouldn't let go. He fought the other kids off. I felt this tremendous need. He had a tremendous need for his father. And I asked myself if that was the way I was.

How old were you when you got a step-dad?
The first time I met him I might have been 8 years old. Maybe I was almost out of the second grade. I remember the first time he ever had a date with my mother. He brought her home and I was sleeping in her bed. When I woke up there was this hunting knife there. It was the most wonderful thing I could have ever dreamed of. It had a leather scabbard and a bone handle. I would hold that knife and doze off and wake up again. It was like Santa Claus had arrived. If you get a hunting knife, it shows that you had a real dad, you know?

Going back to "don't ask, don't tell" for a moment, did you counsel President Bill Clinton at all when he initially wanted to get rid of the ban?
No, I didn't. I was a two-star general, and all I knew about it was from the press. And I didn't have any access to President Clinton. I never had access to President Clinton.

Really? I've read that you're friendly with him.
Well, he's friendly with everybody. I was a two-star general when he was elected president. I was a division commander. To have gotten to President Clinton I would have had to go through five levels of command. I could have called up and said, "I'm Wes Clark, and I'm a friend of Bill's." But I wasn't. And it would have been totally out of character and improper. Because by law the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the principal military adviser of the president. By law: What that means is, except for other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they control the access of military advice to the president. He's free to ask and talk to other people, but they're not free to come to him. And especially not to jump the chain of command.

What was your impression of the "don't ask, don't tell" compromise?
I didn't pay any attention to it. It really wasn't an issue. I talked to some of the troops. They got all fired up. There was a lot of anti-Clinton sentiment in the armed forces--"draft dasher," "pot smoker," etc. It can become a very emotional issue. And it's important for the issue to move forward in the right way.

Is there any way for it to move forward other than for it to be gone?
Yeah. These guys who came out today, that helps a lot. That helps it move forward. If I'm commander in chief, I'll call [Pentagon officials] over and tell them to reexamine the policy. We'll have a dialogue. But if I'm not the commander in chief, eventually there will be 40 or 50 people who get together to say, "We're all gay, and we love the armed forces, and we want to serve, and we don't think the law is right. It's not fair for you to discriminate against us, according to the Supreme Court decision [Lawrence v. Texas]. We've got a right to a zone of privacy. This is our privacy." And they'll be fully within the law.

So do you think it could take a court to change this policy?
It could. But I think that it's better not to do it that way. Because you'll have the government trying to say it's about military law and not civil law. They'll say that there are special conditions in the military and that these men have to be in the same tank together, blah blah blah.

And if Pentagon officials came to you as commander in chief and said the policy is working?
They won't.

That wouldn't be acceptable?
We'll start with the evidence that it isn't working, and I'll say, "Go back and tell me what we're going to do about this."

Are there any gay people that come to mind who you would consider for any administration appointments?
I haven't considered anybody for an administration appointment. But I promise you this: My administration, when I'm elected, will look like America. It will be fully representative of the diversity that makes this a great nation.

How does the news about Al Gore's endorsement of the Dean campaign change your strategy?
It doesn't. The way you asked about it is exactly right. It's not news about the presidential race; it's just news about Gore. I think that it will create an impressionable momentum for Dean in the elite media. But it doesn't change the reality.

You got a pretty high-profile endorsement yourself from Madonna. She said that the two of you met at her Los Angeles home and discussed your policies. How do you think you won her over?
Gert and I really enjoyed meeting Madonna. We found her to be engaging, bright, and very concerned about the direction the country is headed. We had a great discussion about a variety of issues. She believes strongly that we must make a change from the policies that the Bush administration has implemented. She told me that she believes that my experience as a general and in the international arena are important in restoring relationships with our allies.

Do you have any other endorsements up your sleeve? There has been talk about the Clintons' interest in your campaign.
No, I don't think it's proper. I wouldn't want to win this nomination by endorsements. I want to win this nomination because people get to know me, because they like me, and because they think I'm the best man to lead this party in this election and to defeat George W. Bush. It's a very hard thing for a military guy to come into this party. This party is comprised of very different groups, and many of them have issues with the military. Environmentalists don't like the fact that the military pollutes. Gays and lesbians feel discriminated against by the armed forces. So you have to let people get to know you. We're still in the get-to-know-you phase. And I know it.

And once they get to know you, what role do you hope gay people will play in your campaign?
I would like them to be my strongest supporters. I'm the one person who can bring their issues forward, and I will.