At the time [circa 1969], my friend Louis Menashe and I had a regular radio program on the Pacifica Network, a weekly political discussion show in which we interviewed Movement figures and engaged in political and theoretic discussion. Since Scheer was still considered an important figure on the Left…I got out my trusty, top-of-the-line SONY that WBAI had recommended we purchase, and began the interview. Scheer, however, said that he would talk on the record about only one topic - the only topic that mattered - the realization of the socialist utopia in Kim Il Sung's North Korea.
For over two hours, Scheer talked and talked about the paradise he had seen during a recent visit to North Korea, about the greatness of Kim Il Sung, about the correct nature of his so-called juche ideology - evidently a word embodying Kim's redefinition of Marxism-Leninism in building Communism against all obstacles and with the entire world in opposition… At one point, I asked him incredulously: "Bob, do you really believe this crap?" Scheer responded with complete earnestness that he did - that Kim had charted out a path that other nations could and should take as an example of the art of the possible….[Finally], the interminable interview ended, leaving me recalling Woody Allen's famous words to Annie Hall's demented brother: "I have to go now. I'm due back on planet earth."