ake STANFORD UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
Ph STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305

 

September 29, 1975

STANFORD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Department of Genetics
(415) 497-5052

Mr. Sargent Shriver
P.O. Box 2000
Washington, D.C. 20001

Dear Sarge,
Your "debut", I gather, went well. Congratulations!

This is some political "intelligence" from California - and please
keep in mind I am trying to give you useful information of which I am not
the source,

My efforts at fund-raising on your behalf have met with some difficulty
from people who I would have thought to be attuned to your political and
social philosophy. Namely the allegation that your tenure of the Paris
embassy was rife with managerial neglect; that it was an administrative mess
in a context of party~giving; so how could you be trusted to run the government?
As far as I know, you played a significant part in the amelioration of US-
French relations during a difficult time. I have not been able to engage the
specifics of this rumor, but felt you should be aware of it! I have tried to
answer with my own knowledge of your management of Peace Corps and of OEO and
believe you could do well to amplify the public image of this history.

"Can he ever be elected to anything" is the other refrain,

To turn to other matters it seems to me (post Watergate) that there
remains a dark corner in our history that you.smight wish to investigate and
make part of the national house-cleaning towards a new era. This is the
China Lobby which (in my perception) bought U.S. foreign policy over the
counter from 1950-1970. (And occasioned such disgraces as the McCarthyism).
Indeed we now have a new China policy - for which your opponents will take
undue credit! But there has never been an accounting for the graft and
corruption that were surely part of the process. It should not take too much
digging to get this out on the table.

If this can be substantiated,it might enable us to proceed with further
rectification of our relationships with the PRC, as well as discredit a
significant wing of Mr. Ford's party - and pose some difficulties for his
posture of clean government. (Of course I realize there was bipartisan
participation in the “recycling” of our aid to Chiang, to account for the
evident untouchability of this issue in national debate).

LT. J. P. KENNEDY, JR. LARORATORIES FOR MOLECULAR MEDICINE, DEDICATED TO RESEARCH IN MENTAL RETARDATION

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY HEREDITY NEUROBIOLOGY DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE
Mr. Sargent Shriver -~2- 9/29/75

Finally, I have just read Senator Kennedy's piece on the arms trade
to the Persian Gulf in Foreign Affairs. While there is much to be said for
negotiated efforts to reduce that frenzy, I hope you will not identify yourself
with so unskeptical a view of Soviet intentions in that area and in the
Indian Ocean. Negotiate? - of course, But unilateral withdrawal? Can one

really believe that will decelerate the Soviets' continued expansion in
that area?

On the other hand, the Senator hardly gives enough attention to the
dangers of nuclear proliferation which are enormous; and which I believe
have little to do with the conventional arms trade. To the contrary, it is
very loose controls on nuclear reactor technology and the dissemination of
weaponable fuel that call for a drastic reappraisal of global policy - an
issue which does unite us in common interest with the Soviet Union.

Sincerely yours,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

JL/rr