Paul McCartney breezed into a suite at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York, and immediately had all the Evian water removed to protest the fact that the French are conducting nuclear tests in the South Pacific. He smiled: "It'll be our little boycott." McCartney then sat for a frank talk with NEWSWEEK'S Jeff Giles. Drink up.

Would "The Beatles Anthology" have happened If John Lennon were alive?
I don't think so. it could have really been very difficult. This is conjecture, but I think it would have been OK with me and John. And I think Ringo certainly would have been OK with it. I had managed to make my peace with John a good few months before he was killed. George hadn't. I'm not sure whether they were not talking, or what it was. But George did his big book, his life story, and he [barely] mentioned John in it.

And John was upset.
Naturally upset. George is a very forthright character. He just says what he thinks. And in fact, to tell you the truth, he wasn't really keen on "Free as a Bird." He was saying to me, "I sort of felt John was going off a little bit towards the end of his writing." I personally found that a bit presumptuous, but I don't think we ought to get into that because this is going to sound sour. I felt that John was always a great writer. Some Of our early songs weren't massively meaningful. Some of his later songs weren't maybe massively meaningful, were rather romantic and sentimental. But he still had something for me.

When you talked with John toward the and, what did you talk about? Children?
Yeah, and we talked about him baking bread. And I'm quite, you know, kind of domestic. I'd been married for a little while, I had some kids. So we talked about his children. And, with Sean, John finally saw what parenthood was about. He finally understood the joy of being with your kids.

Your upbringing made you more comfortable with children.
We were once on a Greek island on holiday, and we were on a boat. It was George and Patti, John and Cynthia, me and Jane Asher, I think. And Julian was along. I played with Julian most of the trip. We'd run around the deck playing cowboys and Indians -bang, bang, you're dead, or whatever -and Julian loved it. And I remember John conming up to me ... In fact, it was one of the most poignant moments of our relationship. He took me aside and said, "How do you do that?" And I couldn't tell him. You either know how to do that stuff or you don't. Well, luckily, towards the end of his life John had found out how to do it. So he talked about his cats and padding around doing the dishes in his robe and making bread and playing with the baby. We just had those great kind-of-nothing conversations which are so precious.

Yoko's family recently visited your family and everybody recorded a song together. When I talked to Yoko about It the other day, she said, "You know, they've raised beautiful children, and that's a lot."
It was lovely of her to say that, because we've had such sort of crap over the years. Mainly just because of business. I mean, Yoko will still talk about the Lennon Camp. She still has to guard her end of the whole thing. But about the kids: that is absolutely true. And I'll tell you something else. All the Beatle children are good kids, man. They are such good kids.

People were surprised you were all spending time together.
Yeah. Because of all the crap that has gone down it seemed impossible. When they were staying at our house in the country, they staved the night. And it was very weird. but wonderful, for me to sort of wake Yoko in the morning. You know, "Good morning! There's a cup of tea for you in the other room!" And to see Yoko sort of waking up sleepy in her nightdress. It was a major culture shock for me. But it was very nice. We'd never been so warm and friendly.

Here comes a tacky question.
Good.

Michael Jackson owns the publishing rights to the Lennon/McCartney catalog, which some view as a travesty. When he was under investigation for child molestation, I remember wondering if he'd go broke and have to sell the songs to you. Did that thought cross your mind?
Yep! You know, it would be lovely. It would be right for me to be able to get back something of the songs because we were ripped off-not by Michael, but we were ripped off in the beginning and he bought a ripoff contract. The problem is that I have written to him three times and he hasn't replied. And I'm the only employee of the company now. I've been with the company 30 years! I put a lot of time in, man. So I feel a little bit like some sort of dishwasher in the back room writing to the boss and saying, "You want to notice me, man? I've been washing dishes here a long time. Hello?" Which is crazy, of course. I think Michael separates business from life, and it's not always a good idea. I would like him to do something because I think he's historically placed. He's the one guy who could recompense this whole thing. But what the hell, who cares? Life's too good. You can't just go bitching all your life.

You're a music publisher, but you specialize in dead people.
You're not screwing anybody, and you don't get people ringing you up at 3 in the morning asking you what you're doing to promote their new record. In fact, Linda and I were rung up once by Pete Townshend. This was a long, long time ago. And Pete said, "Hey listen, you're doing such a good job with Buddy Holly. Will you take my publishing?" And I was so tempted. Sorely tempted, was I! But we suddenly got these images of Pete ringing up out of his skull-because he did go on some benders -and saying, "What the f--k are you doing with the publishing, man?"

Another tacky question. Lennon is in the Hall of Fame as a solo artist. You haven't been nominated.
Which Hall of Fame is this?

This would be the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The Baseball Hall of Fame? I'm in that!

Seriously, how could this have happened?
I'm not really sure, actually. We are in it as the Beatles, of course, and that's kind of enough, isn't it? I mean, a million times in my life I've, like, not passed an exam or someone's beat me in something. All the Beatles, for instance, are MBEs, Member of the British Empire. Except John, who sent his back. It's the lowest honor you can have from Britain. It's the lowest. George Martin's got a higher one than we have. There's a guy who's a deejay called Jimmy Savile. There's Andrew Lloyd Webber. All these people are sirs. Sir Cliff Richard. But you can't sit around saying, "God, I wish they'd make me a sir." Or, you know, "I wish they'd put me in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame." I'm not that fussed, you know? I'm in my hall of fame. You've got to deal with yourself. Funnily enough, in his early days, John was very much wondering how he would be remembered. And I said, "You're crazy, man. What are you talking about? Number one, you'll be remembered as something fantastic. Number two, you won't give a s--t. You' 'll be in the cosmos somewhere. And I have a feeling that other things will be of more consequence at that point."