Warren Buffett advanced a mission with Bill and Melinda Gates to convince America's billionaires to publiclycommit to giving away at least half of their fortunes. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Buffett described how he roped in billionaire Larry Ellison and his view on the world's growing wealth.

Some excerpts:

WSJ: How did you get Larry Ellison (Oracle Corp. founder) to sign on to the pledge? He has historically been somewhat quiet about his philanthropic plans.

Mr. Buffett: I called him and he was on the move so I didn't hear back from him for a while. The he called back to me one evening and we talked it over. He said that it was already his intent to give substantial money for philanthropy but that he'd always treated it as a sort of a private matter.

It told him I admire that -- and a number people feel that way -- but actually in terms of changing the norms of society over time that it was important that people like himself that they publicize what they're doing and why they're doing it because it's going to affect not only what people do today but 10, 20 and 50 years from now. People will look to what those in the past have done just as we may look to a Carnegie or Rockefeller or something to get our own ideas. People do get ideas from the behavior of others, particularly others they admire. You've got young people that haven't made fortunes yet but they look at someone like Larry Ellison who's come from nothing and do what he's done in business and they're going to pay some attention to what he does with that wealth over time.

So we talked for a little bit and he said if I thought it would be helpful to go on the record on this he really was planning to give 95% of his money to charity and he would make a pledge and write a letter. That's happened with others.

WSJ: You make it clear in your Giving Pledge materials that this is a moral commitment, not a legal contract. But what will assure that people live up to their pledges?

Mr. Buffett: The press will be a pretty good monitor of that. I think the chances of there being any significant slippage of that are virtually nil. When people make a pledge like this I think if anything their commitment becomes stronger over time and in a very significant number of cases people have talked to me about that.

It's not impossible that someone totally loses their marbles at some point and gives in.

WSJ: You talk about the possible long-term impact of this pledge. What about now? Given the state of the economy and the needs of nonprofits, is there some hope there will be an immediate impact?

Mr. Buffett: I think it will have but we're not telling anybody what to do or when to do it. It's their money; they've all got their own individual situations. It's not an attempt to steer people. It's an attempt to bring out the best in people in a sense. I would guess that it would result in some more giving next year by the people that sign on that might not otherwise be the case in aggregate. It certainly won't diminish it.

A number of people expressed some doubt about their abilities to be as affective in the philanthropic area as they've been in the business area but they will gain confidence as they listen to other people. I've had people tell me that a couple of ideas that I've incorporated in my thinking -- that they hadn't thought about before.

WSJ: You've got 40 people who have signed a pledge. Does it become progressively harder to get more to sign on?

Mr. Buffett: Not entirely but we certainly called a number of people that we either knew personally or we knew something about their philanthropic intent. There are people on this list that literally changed their plans because of what's going on here. But we didn't take anybody that said 'I'm going to take it with me to the grave' and change their views. But I've had two people change their wills.

WSJ: What about the number of calls you made that came up blank?

Mr. Buffett: We definitely got some 'No's.' When people are doing it they tell you exactly why they're doing it and you can believe it. When they turn you down they may be just telling you something to get you off the phone.

WSJ: Most of your names are the U.S. What about outside the U.S.?

Mr. Buffett: Most of our focus has been in the U.S. On the other hand Bill and I will be in China in late September and we have a meeting scheduled that is essentially about this same subject. We are also doing the same thing in India next March. We would hope that maybe some other people would pick up this baton. America in certain ways gets copied around the world.

Robert A. Guth

• advanced [əd´vɑ:nst] a.先进的；高级的 (初中英语单词)
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• commit [kə´mit] vt.犯(罪)；把...判处 (初中英语单词)
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• charity [´tʃæriti] n.施舍；慈悲；博爱 (高中英语单词)
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• publicly [´pʌblikli] ad.公然；公众所有地 (英语六级单词)
• impact [´impækt] n.影响，作用；冲击 (英语六级单词)