If You Ask Me
by Eleanor Roosevelt

Every delegate to the UN for a General Assembly session reports to the head of the permanent delegation (in our case, Mr. Adlai Stevenson) and does whatever he or she is asked to do. I have been told there is no committee work for me at this session. Therefore, my duties will be to attend the General Assembly sessions and do anything else I am asked to. In ordinary sessions, the delegates and the alternates would be assigned to a committee; but in this extension of the last session, there is no need for more than two or three committees to be active.

Certainly not, if they have no desire to do so. It would be ridiculous to ask people who are citizens of other countries and happy there to go permanently to Israel unless they felt this was the fulfillment of a strong and lifelong desire.

You have made a statement I have no way of verifying without requesting the State Department to give me a full list of all appointees and the qualifications of each man appointed. I think I can say, however, that President Kennedy has tried to find the best people to fill the different embassy posts and has found those who either can speak the language or will study the language immediately. He has certainly not chosen anyone merely because of his wealth or party affiliations. On the whole, I would say his choices are freer from political pressures than I have ever known any to be.

I will begin with your last question. I have never had the feeling that all religion is a sham. I go to my church in Hyde Park absolutely regularly when I am home. I belong to no other church and do not go regularly in other places, for the simple reason that it is not an easy thing to do. I think there are very few people in the world who do not pray, and while I do not consider prayer a solace, I think prayer is an essential to most human beings.

Except for Mr. Dore Schary, who has done a movie about one incident in my husband's life, I have not been approached by any other film company. I think it would be difficult to do a movie on my husband's entire life. I would much prefer to see it done in episodes, as I think Sunrise at Campobello was a fine film.

I think the Peace Corps is a remarkably good idea, and I think it can accomplish a great deal. It is, however, a developing organization, and many things will change during its development period, so one cannot judge it now as a finished organization. In fact, it will never be a finished organization, because it must always fit into the general organization of the whole United States program abroad.

I never believe in anything that encourages people to become informers. I think this is a bad practice. I would certainly try to prevent anyone I really knew from trying to evade a tax of any kind, though I think it is entirely legitimate to pay a tax and fight it if you feel it is unjust.

I come and go entirely freely and without any special security measures. I am a private citizen. People are polite to me, and they may facilitate my getting accommodations or getting on and off planes or through customs because of respect for my late husband; but no security measures of any kind are set up.

My mother—somewhat cold, but very beautiful.

A strict interpretation of the old Monroe Doctrine is really out of date now. South and Central American countries are on their own. We all join together in the inter-American organization, but we join as equals. We meet for our joint security and to make our joint plans, but the United States no longer occupies the position of "big brother." The menace of Communism must be fought by the nations themselves. Although we can consider the menace collectively, there is absolutely no action we as an individual nation can take.

Ordinarily, I do not cross a picket line unless I know enough about the circumstances of the strike to know that it is a strike I do not approve of.

I do agree. I think that it would be better to space school vacations, to give young people a shorter summer vacation and a longer winter vacation.