My optimism is not based primarily on the successful march of democracy in recent times but rather is based on the experience of having lived in a fear society and studied the mechanics of tyranny that sustain such a society.

We Hoosiers hold to some quaint notions. Some might say we 'cling' to them though not out of fear or ignorance. We believe in paying our bills. We have kept our state in the black throughout the recent unpleasantness while cutting rather than raising taxes by practicing an old tribal ritual - we spend less money than we take in.

Americans are terrified because so many of them have been laid off in recent years and months and they fear that they may be next. Even if they have not been laid off or have not known anyone laid off they definitely know someone who has lost his home.

I woke up full of hate and fear the day before the most recent peace march in San Francisco. This was disappointing: I'd hoped to wake up feeling somewhere between Virginia Woolf and Wavy Gravy.

I have also just finished three weeks on a soap opera in England. The soap opera is a rather famous one called Crossroads. It was first on television 25 years ago and it has recently been brought back. I play the part of a businessman called David Wheeler.

I'm often asked if I regret not going to Hollywood. I'm glad I didn't go because if I had I wouldn't have my extended family which is the fabric of my life. Only recently have I realised how special and unusual it is.

I am struck by the fact that personal faith and political agendas are intertwined more closely now than at any other time in recent history.

More recently as faith gave way to materialism anti-Semitism assumed a secular mode harnessing itself to the dominant ideologies of both the Left and the Right.

Until as recently as November of 1966 I had complete faith in the Warren Report. Of course my faith in the Report was grounded in ignorance since I had never read it.

We have actually experienced in recent months a dramatic demonstration of an unprecedented intelligence failure perhaps the most significant intelligence failure in the history of the United States.