R.F.K.: "WHAT THIS COUNTRY IS FOR"

WHEN Robert Kennedy gets down to specifics, as he did in three private sessions with TIME Correspondent Lansing Lament last week, he offers a blend of pragmatism and utopianism that defies any tidy ideological compartmentalization. R.F.K.'s view of the issues:

NATIONAL PRIORITIES: Most important is to end the strife between our own people and solve their problems. I suppose the most pressing issue is to resolve the war in Viet Nam. If we hadn't been so involved in Saigon, I think we could have dealt more effectively with our own cities, with inflation and all the rest. We can't withdraw, and there will be dangers in the future. But I think we have to make an effort, especially a military one, only when our national security really demands it and where we have a real chance of being successful. If Viet Nam makes us rethink our foreign policy around the world, which is very different from the 1950s, when we took on the role of global defense, then it will have had at least one important good result.

THE QUALITY OF LIFE: We talk so much about poverty, we can't forget other people have serious problems--whether it's high prices and interest rates, crime, pollution and all the rest. If we are trying to improve the lives of everyone, that in turn will make us more willing to make a real effort for the poor. If the country recognizes the serious concerns of the middle class, we can get greater understanding for the concerns of the poor.

POVERTY: Welfare has proved ineffective and demeaning. The only answer is to create jobs. I'd do it through tax incentives to the private sector, using the Government as employer of last resort. I think business can handle most of it if we make it economically attractive.

EDUCATION: We don't just need more classrooms; we need to worry about what happens in the classrooms.

We give students marks, and we should also give them to the system. I don't think they'd be very high in some parts of the country.

NUCLEAR CONTROL: Until a real peace is assured, we are going to need nuclear weapons to deter the Soviet Union and Chinese. But we must move toward less reliance on these weapons. There is something terribly dangerous in the fact that men, with all their possibilities of error and weakness, can blow up the world in an hour or two. So we have to move toward agreement, perhaps beginning by further restrictions on nuclear tests.

THE PRESIDENCY: I'd work in a major way to get people across the country to become involved. I would not just have press conferences in Washington. I would go around to the schools and to small communities. I'd hope to bring new people to Washington to unleash what I think is a great talent that is seldom called upon except in times of crisis and war. I'd look for innovative ideas. And I'd look for people of talent who have no ties or commitment to the past but only to the future.

THE MOOD OF AMERICA: Basically, we are spiritually healthy people. But there is a sort of unrest, even a sense of emptiness. Most people need a sense that they're part of some common purpose, and it has to be a purpose that they believe in and think worthwhile. We've lost a lot of that really because people feel cut off by bigness and the rapid growth of today's society. Everything seems beyond their control. I don't want to dismantle the Federal Government--it's sort of heresy on my part to talk of decentralizing control--but I do think that a lot of the things now being done by Washington could be done at the local level and by private business. This would not only be more efficient; it would enrich the life of the individual, and that's what this country is for.

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