Rand ■Vl ld tontinued from page 7 "I t...

Rand ■Vl ld tontinued from page 7 "I think we have to teil the domestic oil producers diat oil is too important a resource to be left in private hands. We can't have th oil companies making profits of 200 and 300% off our needs. We need public control of energy." What do you think of these charges? Bond: I think there is some validity to the allegations that the CIA helped establish a route from Southeast Asia to the US for the importation of heroin. It is welldocumented that Air America, a CIA airline, gets opium from the fields to the refiners. lt wouldn't surprise me if this were a delibérate attempt by them to do two things at once: to prop up the reactionary forces they were dealing with in Southeast Asia, and to make inner city people dependent on drugs to decrease the lüceliliood of some outburst in the cities - that wouldn't surprise me at all. SUN: Are you in favor of reparations to Vietnam? Bond: I'd be in favor of a Marshall Plan for Vietnam. We participated in the destruction of Southeast Asia. We should help them rebuild. SUN: What is your perspective on the energy situation? Bond: Right now the OPEC countries are beginning to do what the domestic importers of oil have always done, that is, to arbitrarily set prices at a level they conceive to be the demand. This is their oil, and it's a dimishing resource, and it's theirs to sell to us at a price of their choosing. I think we have to teil the domestic oil producers that oil is too tant a resource to be left in private hands. We can't afford privute profit niaking and the exploitation of all ot' us. We can't have the oil companies making protits of 200 and 300% off our needs. We need public control of energy, not private. I think all sorts of energy alternatives should be explored - including nuclear. Nuclear powers is potentially very dangerous, but I think it could be made safer. ! am not in favor of an absolute ban on all nuclear power plants forever, but I don't want any of them built near me right now. I could see a moratorium on nuclear power plant construction for some period of years, like five or ten, then we could see what safety strides have been made. SUN: Right now the U.S. seems to be paying for ts imports by exporting record amounts of weaponry - we 're supplying both sides in the Middle East. Do you think the U.S. should export armaments? Bond: I think we have to get out of the business of directly or indirectly promoting war elsewhere in the world. And not only overseas, but here inside the U.S. as well. We're the most heavily armed nation in the world, with more private arms .than any other as well. Our external trade in weaponry is a reflection of the way we opérate at home. I'm opposed to both. SUN: How do you feel about the militarization of the domestic pólice, like the SWAT teams? Bond: Tm in favor of law enforcement; I like to see crimináis caught. But it's very disturbing to see big city pólice forces use LEAA funds to - more than militarize the pólice forcé ; it's more frightening than that, and it started with pólice tactics in the South against Civil Rights demonstrations. It's putting together these squads of highly trained men ready to move at a moment's notice against what is perceived by them to be a civil disturbance. The pólice should not be an independent force as they are now, free from the control of every other force in society and responsible only to themselves. Federal funds should be used to upgrade and retrain pólice, not to buy them tanks and automatic weapons. SUN: What is your opinión on the Warren Commission verdict on the assassination of President Kennedy? Bond: 1 don't believe the conclusions of the Warren Commission, but I don't know what to believe. I would like to see that investigation reopened, and I'd like to see the same for Martin Luther King and for Robert Kennedy, too. SUN: What is your position on the Equal Rights Amendment? Bond: I was its co-sponsor in Georgia. Unfortunately, it lost this session. SUN: The FBI organized its Cointelpro to disrupt black activism and in its words, "to prevent the rise of a black messiah." Have you ever been a victim of FBI harrassment? Bond: No, 1 think Tve been under surveillance, but there's been no harrassment as far as I know. I wrote to the CIA and FBI for my files. The CIA file didn't say tnuch: mostly citations of articles I'd written and conferences I'd helped organize. I'm still waiting for my FBI and IRS files. SUN: Looking at this upcoming campaign realistically, t is unlikely that you would be the Democratie Party's nominee for President. Would you seek the Vice Presidency? Bond: Right now I have no desire to be Vice President. But no one's asked me to be, either. Depending what happens at the convention, I don't know what I'd say. There are certain people I could not be associated with: Governor Wallace quite obviously, and Senator Jackson. SUN: If the Democratie ticket were to be led by Jackson or Wallace, what would you do? Bond: If my choice were Wallace on the one hand and Ford on the other I'd campaign the length and breadth for Gerald Ford - reluctantly of course, but I believe that Ford at his worst is better than Wallace at his best. The so-called "new" Wallace isjust a pose, just a cosmetic change as far as I am concerned. Julián Bond claims to be the most left of center politician considering a campaign for the Presidency in 1976. "The spectrum runs from Wallace on the one side to me on the other. " While at this point it seems a remote possibility that a relatively leftist black man would win a spot on the national Democratie ticket after what many kingpin Democrats cali the debacle of the progressive McGovern's defeat, time is definitely on Julián Bond's side. For the Presidential election in the year 2000, Bond will only be 61 years old, an age when many men actively run for President. And there are six Presidential elections between now and then . . .