13 10 250 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/8b281f038821877b5c6ffaac6ec6b695.jpg bf5e7247999d5aa55bbcfb75f9ed7e59 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/100431540e060eb86796f283148dff5c.mp3 9aa2a29114b1858a16cf6fffa51e64b5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 1997-07-23 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Todd Gitlin Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 3 microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Todd Gitlin is a sociologist, educator, political writer, novelist, cultural commentator, and author of sixteen books. He wrote about mass media, politics, intellectual life and the arts, for both popular and scholarly publications. He currenlty is a professor of Journalism and Sociology and chair of the Ph. D. program in Communications at Columbia University. He received his Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Harvard College and earned his Mater's degree from the University of Michigan in Political Science, and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in Sociology."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13311,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,4884200],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"9":0,"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dr. Todd Gitlin (1943-2022) was a sociologist, educator, political writer, novelist, cultural commentator, and author of sixteen books. He wrote about mass media, politics, intellectual life and the arts, for both popular and scholarly publications. He was a professor of Journalism and Sociology and chair of the Ph. D. program in Communications at Columbia University. He received his Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Harvard College and earned his Master's degree from the University of Michigan in Political Science, and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in Sociology.</span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Baby boom generation; Generation gap; Rebellion against authority; Nineteen sixties; Tom Hayden; John F. Kennedy; George McGovern; Nineteen sixties-Nineteen seventies music"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Baby boom generation; Generation gap; Rebellion against authority; Nineteen sixties; Tom Hayden; John F. Kennedy; George McGovern; Nineteen sixties-Nineteen seventies music</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 75:34 Subject LCSH Sociologists; Authors, American--20th century; College teachers; Columbia University; Gitlin, Todd--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Todd Gitlin Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 23 July 1997 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:00): Put it right here. TG (00:00:03): Put it where? SM (00:00:03): Oh. Well, first questions I want to ask is, in recent years there has been a lot of written materials and actually a lot of journalists and even some politicians who claim that a lot of the reasons why we have problems in America today is because of the boomer generation. Replacing direct blame on that group of 60 to 70 million, whatever the count is, for all the bills of society. They are doing it in general terms. And when I say this, of course, we are talking about the breakdown of the American family, the increase of the drug culture, the lack of respect for authority, the divisiveness in American society, and maybe in some respects, even though the lack of civility we have toward each other because of those times. Could you respond to that thought, that kind of mentality that is out there today? TG (00:00:54): Well, first of all, I think it is not a rigorous claim. It is hard to know what it would mean to blame a cultural development of great complexity upon a generation of six- if it is a generation of 60 to 70 million people. And you are talking about upwards of a quarter of the American population. So if you are saying that one quarter of the American population is responsible for an abortion and culture, I am not sure what you are saying, generations do not act in lockstep. I think what is meant is that there is a particular segment of this so-called generation, and I say so-called because I should clarify why I am skeptical about the term. The baby boom is classified technically as consisting of everyone born between 1946 to 1964. Does it make sense to call this body a generation? These are people who the oldest of whom are 18 years older than the youngest of them. In what sense is somebody born in 1946, a member of the same generation as somebody born the year of the free speech murder. Born after the Kennedy assassination. So I think there is a lot of sloppy thinking here. What is meant is the charge that there is some critical mass of people who were the counter cultural or some combination of political activists and hippies or quasi hippies and that they are the ones who undermined authority. Now I think there is some truth to that. It certainly was the intention of these cultural movers and shakers to be the instruments of unsettlement in the culture to undermine authority. Sometimes in a targeted way and sometimes in a rather indiscriminate way. But to say that they are actors without influences is to say something absurd. They would then be the only actors in history not to have influences. So if one asks why there was a thrust to dismantle or well, to challenge or at the farther realms to undermine authority, you would have to ask why was authority vulnerable? This has to be part of the answer. And part of the answer to that question is because there were grave and blaring social problems which were experienced as social problems by large numbers of people, not simply by the activist here, but by people with grievances. And the authority to a considerable degree discredited itself. That is to say it made claims, which it could not live up to. In itself incapable of ruling legitimate. The Vietnam War is a very important part of the story of the undermining of this culture. The emergence of commercial popular culture and youth culture is another important part of the story. The emergence of the drug culture is another important part of the story. The implosion of the (19)50s family is an important part of the story. I mean, this is a very complicated story. As soon as I have complicated it, then automatically I think I have discredited any single factor charge. And so I need to do. SM (00:04:52): Let me check my [inaudible]. TG (00:04:52): Okay. SM (00:05:00): In 1997 and as we get into 1998, if you were to just... Again, it is hard to define the 60 million, but if you were to say what define the boomer generation in 1997 terms and the overall impact that this generation has had on America as they approach 50. Because obviously when Bill Clinton became president of all the media was talking about he was leading the boomers because he was born in 1946. So just as of this juncture, as boomers are heading into this age of 50, what has been the overall impact so far on America with this group? TG (00:05:40): Bill Clinton is a baby boomer and so is Newt Gingrich. Trent Lott is a little bit older, but Dick Armey I suppose is a baby boomer too. What is the aggregate impact of these people? Obviously, it cuts across political lines. You could say there is a certain recklessness in this generation. Again, well, I still do not want to call it a generation, but by generation here, if we mean those born between 1946 to 1964, there is a certain recklessness, there is a certain unruliness, there is a certain arrogance, a certain belief that there is a destiny compounded by normal American self-grand and a destiny to remake the world, start the world war, and so on. But obviously the ways in which the members of this generation played out were very different, I mean Bill Clinton's form of arrogance is quite different in its imports, certainly as political import than Gingrich is. So I suppose overriding this political differences, there is a certain libertarianism that is the hallmark of people of this vintage often cutting across, let us say, lines of economic preferences and so on. A certain assumption that individuals make their own destinies and that they grow, they should not be current. Nobody should tell them how fast to drive and nobody should tell them what to smoke. You could argue there is also certain puritanism that goes with them. But once we are off into these questions of this magnitude, I find it impossible to say anything terribly meaningful about the politics or the cultural impact on this generation or except on to say individuals. SM (00:07:49): I am looking at, you teach college students today. TG (00:07:52): I actually teach mostly graduate students here, but... SM (00:07:53): I am going to see your graduate students returning students have been out in the world a while. TG (00:08:00): A lot of them. I do not know, probably 60, 50. SM (00:08:03): Well, just your thoughts on today's young people, and again, even this generation Xers, there are lot of Muslim hate that term. TG (00:08:09): I do not blame them. Probably, as much as I hate boomers. SM (00:08:13): Right. But looking at the boomers and the children of boomers, what influence have boomers had on their children in terms of the values that they held? And again, you cannot define the whole generation, but the values they held at that time. Because at that time you saw many young people active the civil rights movement, certainly against the war in Vietnam, the new movements, the came as a result of learning from the civil rights movement with the women's movement, the gay lesbian movement, the Native American movement and the environmental movement. They all kind of came around that period. There was this idealism, this passion. And I would love to have your perceptions on whether the boomers have been able to transfer these feelings to their children and whether they have been able to carry these passions on into their adult or themselves. TG (00:09:04): Well, to some degree, I think on questions of personal liberty, the carryover is substantial. It is not absolute, it is substantial. That is the more or less libertarian parents have raised a more or less libertarian generation. A skeptical generation of parents has raised or is raising a skeptical generation of kids. A disabused of authority, parent generation was raising an equivalently disabused of authority generation. I think the parental generation was hostile to racism and so are the children in general compared to earlier generations of anti [inaudible]. So in all those ways, I would say, and also let us say the degree of tolerance there is of gay and lesbians and people with different trait and so on. I think at least in the middle classes, there is a considerable area. On the other hand, it is part of the human condition. I think that the young go into rebellion, and I would not want to generalize it, the ways in which that happens. Sometimes it happens by becoming more conservative. Sometimes it happens by becoming more adventurous and reckless. I think that the impact here have less to do or many of the impact have less to do with the impact, with the influence of the parental generation. Remember the influence of a reality of a life world, which is different. In particular, assumptions about the economic future. The shift is from a society that assumes that there is going to be fat on the land to live off and a generation that to some degree is more edgy and anxious and assumes that the world is any less more attractive. I would add, by the way, you asked about the environmental issues. I think there has been some influence by the generation. Although there are too, it is hard to separate out the influence of the parental generation and the influence of media and the general culture. So I would be interrupted to think that you could... SM (00:11:40): If you were to describe the qualities you most admire and the qualities you least admire in the boomer generation, what would they be? TG (00:11:48): Well, again, I do not think I can answer that question unless you tell me what you mean by the boomer generation. SM (00:11:55): Well, I would say probably I would break it down to those individuals that were young in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, not so much the later boomers, because I see it even in higher education today. The people I work with that the younger boomers say those from (19)56 to (19)64 born in that period have no concept at all about what it was like then because they were too young. TG (00:12:16): Sure. SM (00:12:17): So I am basically referring to the people that were young through the mid-(19)60s, say through the mid-(19)70s. TG (00:12:22): And you are talking about the... I am sorry, go ahead. SM (00:12:25): So what do you think are the positive or the negative qualities of that aspect? TG (00:12:30): Are you referring to their qualities at the time or their qualities today? SM (00:12:34): Oh, just as you reflect on that era over time. The qualities, you can either say the qualities you had most admired then living through it or qualities that you reflected upon today and people that... TG (00:12:48): But you are talking about the qualities that they- SM (00:12:49): Yes. TG (00:12:50): ...embodied at the time. SM (00:12:51): Yes, at the time and whether the things that you felt were positive and some of the things you thought were negative. TG (00:12:58): Well, their rebelliousness against stupid authority and destructive and violent war making power was very fine. Much of it was driven by selfishness and much of it was not. Obviously, I admire the courageous and self-abnegating more than the self-interested. But I think it made a lasting contribution to American history. I admire, if that is the right word, doing this to take risks personally. Now to admire that is also to be willing to be critical of some of the consequences. Some of the risks were stupid and dangerous, especially the ones having to do with drugs. But I admire the riskiness and admire it, especially when I look at the subsequent young people who it seems too much more resigned to the world as it is. I also admire something else in, again, many of the people in this group. I admire something that here that by no means was generally shared. I admire the conviction that it should be done well, things should be done. And that meant well ethically. It also meant well technically, the spirit of commitment to doing work that one control, to doing work that was pioneering, original. All those things are admirable and some of those carry over into pursuits that are very different from what was it in play in the late (19)60s and carries over into running fancy restaurants with food, and get capitalism, if you will. SM (00:15:23): Looking at the two basic... TG (00:15:25): But in general, I think I admire people. I think in this culture it is very hard to care about doing good things and I admire people. Hold on a second, Steve. I [inaudible] missing. [inaudible]. SM (00:15:44): When you look at the two main issues of that era, which was the civil rights movement and certainly the war against Vietnam and the protest movement, I should say. I would like your opinion on how important you feel the young people were in ending that war and with particular emphasis again on that era, the late (19)60s, early (19)70s, what was happening on college campuses at the time, so-called 15 percent who were involved in some sort of activism. How important were they in ending the war? And the second part of the question is, how important were boomers in the Civil Rights Movement knowing that Freedom Summer was in 1964 and a lot of the civil rights war was in the (19)50s and the (19)60s and it would be about 18 years old if you were going down the Freedom Summer in the South because... So just your general thoughts on the impact that college students had on any of the war and how then if you could just how important the boomers were in the Civil Rights Movement. TG (00:16:46): The campus rebellion convinced the political leadership in the Democratic Party and political leadership to whom the Democrats were beholden that they should end the war because the war was tearing the country apart. And once Nixon was in power, the fact that the anti-war opposition was so demonstrative, convinced Nixon to Vietnamized the war that is to get American troops out. And eventually, I think and crucially place limits on the military expeditions, the military tactics that the US was willing to resort to in Vietnam, is what we mean by ending the war. I think if you performed the [inaudible] experiment and ask what would have happened if there had been no anti-war movement, if baby boomers had not enlisted any, it is hard for me to make a case that the war would have been shorter or less bloody. So I do not find that case persuasive. As for the civil rights movement, you are quite right. I mean the people made the civil rights movement happen. Were older than baby boomers, so case is closed. I mean some of them were foot soldiers in Mississippi in (19)64, and so they were not by themselves decisively. SM (00:18:17): You think they have carried on? TG (00:18:19): Again, I caution you against a hard and fast distinction between people on the basis of who might have been born in 1945 and who might have been born in 1946. SM (00:18:35): That is come up too, because many of the people I have interviewed are 55 and 54 and they quote, "Do not fall into the category of the boomer generation." TG (00:18:43): Well, the leaders... SM (00:18:44): They were on the front lines. They were like the... I remember Harry Edwards when he wrote that book, Black Students. He wrote down the definition of radicals, revolutionaries and activists and omics activists. I do not know if you remember the book. And basically a lot of the older students involved in the movement were the graduate students or at that time, or would be 55 years old now. TG (00:19:03): Sure. Yeah. But again, the category baby boomer comes along at a certain point in order to try to comprehend what was happening in terms that were not really political. And it is in that sense, itself an interested term. It is not a neutral term. It is a way of saying what we have here is a problem with a bunch of kids rather than what we have here is a certain stagnation and deficiency and often criminality in a political system. SM (00:19:39): And you were... TG (00:19:39): I am saying, I think, that what was in play were political controversies. The actions of generations. Generations were not the actors of the situations. SM (00:19:55): Individuals. In the groups. TG (00:19:56): Well, in groups, groupings, movements. SM (00:20:01): Let us put a time were back here and put back in time. You were obviously very involved with SDS and so forth and you were involved with many groups. You were against the war in Vietnam and you were obviously the epitome of the term activist from that era. I have asked this to everyone and you might want to go along the same lines of previous questions, but many people that I was around, I was allowed too on a college campuses, so I was assuming thing and firm and they want to [inaudible]. So I got around a lot of activist students too. We got about a lot of issues. We had a lot of things. But there was a feeling that we were the most unique generation in American history because of the times and you had made a reference of an adjective to describe the boomers or the group that was involved arrogantly. Is that a sign of arrogance by... Even you, you were involved that we were the most unique generation in American history. TG (00:21:00): I did not say that. SM (00:21:00): You did not say it, but some people felt that because of the times, because of the issues. Some people may even say in throughout history, nothing ever... There were so many issues that came together all at once. TG (00:21:12): Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in the introduction to a book by a school classmate of his, he wrote, "We thought the world was new because we were new in the world." He was writing about the group of French elite students who were born around 1905. He was describing during their 20s. Feeling that the world is new and that you are experiencing it is unprecedented, is not a new feeling. What was new in the (19)60s was that so many people felt that the world was an unprecedented world and so many of them had access to mass media, which were receptive to that message. And there you go to the rather arrogant claim that the novelty of this moment is unprecedented. I mean, yes, it was a terrible to stare at the war in Vietnam. It was terrible to stare at World War II. It was terrible to stare at story at the World War I. It was terrible to live through the Civil War. History is a nightmare. So I do not take claims like this very seriously, but it certainly is. It is factually true that many of the so-called boomers thought that the way in which their situation was essentially was new. Whether is that accurate? I do not know how to say. I mean it seems to be an unanswerable question. SM (00:23:01): This goes right into the next theory because we talk about maybe an attitude of uniqueness, but again, this quote, "We are going to be positive change agents for the world." It is an opposite. TG (00:23:12): Sounds rather arrogant. SM (00:23:13): Well, but during the Vietnam War protest, the immorality of the war, Dr. King been making that tremendous speech linking civil rights in the war in Vietnam. Seeing the morality not only at home, but in Southeast Asia. There was a sense of, I do not even know if we want to get in morality here, that many that were involved were morally right. TG (00:23:35): True. SM (00:23:36): And whether that feeling that we were positive change agents, that by we, meaning those that were involved in the movement and positive change agents for the betterment of society. And that is true that the war ended. TG (00:23:52): Do I think what is true? SM (00:23:54): That the individuals involved were positive change agents for society. TG (00:23:57): Absolutely. SM (00:24:00): Those positive change agents was you think many of those people have carried on? The war ended, so that is open. But the idealism getting involved, caring about others, do you think that has continued within this group as they have gone into their age? TG (00:24:18): As people age, they become more conservative. They have more to conserve. This generation, again, for all of its claims of novelty is no different from any other. It had other things to do. It had successes to make. It had property to acquire. It had families to raise. It had an America to live in. I do not believe that people will, a historical period into being, everything was in place for these movers to move and shake the world. In the (19)60s, they were great popular upheavals to be lived in and furthered and the period since, for a variety of reasons. The period since mid-(19)70s has been very, very different character, has been in many ways a rebellion against the rebellion. It has been a counter rebellion, which also follows from the tremendous magnitude and scope of the convulsions of the (19)60s. It was going to be a counter reaction, do not simply tell society to change and expect that it is going to cave in and say, "Okay, your kids are right." So when the convulsion came back, in the faces of the baby boomer, change agents. Many were cowed, many were chasing, many became more conservative. But all the evidence from sociological studies says that those who were politically active in the movements of late (19)60s and contacted 10, 20 years later were more likely to be politically active on the left than those of their peers who had not been politically active before. They made less money. They were more likely to be involved in so-called helping professions. But they are not 18 anymore. SM (00:26:32): The David Horowitz is not the world of rarity. TG (00:26:35): Well, David Horowitz was not a leader of the new left. David Horowitz is considerably older. SM (00:26:40): I want to get into the aspect of healing, getting back to the tremendous divisions of that era. Certainly the Vietnam War, civil rights, and of course the issue of rioting in the streets. We all know anybody who knows history of that 1968 Democratic convention. TG (00:27:00): Hold on a second. Hold on a second. SM (00:27:01): Yes. Okay. This gets into the question of healing. I made a reference to it earlier in reference to Senator Muskie, meaning we had. Do you feel that, again, I know you have a hard time with the term boomer representing the 60 some million or... TG (00:27:20): I have a very hard time with it. SM (00:27:22): But do you feel that the boomers who were acting, are having a hard time with healing from that era? Because, let me explain. The divisions were so intense and you know this. The divisions were so deep and today many people still do not forgive those who were on the other side. The Democratic Party actually is still they say, you are still having problems from that era, and the divisions within the party, within that era? TG (00:27:48): Sure. It is partly correct. SM (00:27:51): But do you feel that the boomer generation themselves are still having problems with healing from the divisions of that time as they have gotten older? That is those who were for and against the war, the veteran as opposed to the protest. TG (00:28:03): You mean healing internally or healing in their relation with each other? SM (00:28:10): Both. TG (00:28:12): Well, I think to feel abandoned by your country is a grievous feeling. Many people who were against the war and many people who were for the war came out feeling abandoned by their country. In a sense, both have a case to make. Both were abandoned in a variety of ways, and both had expectations which were not lived up to. So both feelings are understandable. Between each other, I do not take it to be given that people in a big and complex society should love each other. There was a huge political conflict. It is not a generational conflict. It is a political conflict. Societies that have been through bitter political conflicts do not easily heal. Those who were most committed on different political sides do not easily reconcile. Nor is it self-evident to me that they should. SM (00:29:26): I want to really get that... TG (00:29:27): But you see, there are many things that divide those who were devoted supporters of the war, and those who were devoted opponents of the war. There were many things divide. There were [inaudible] divisions here. The difference is getting wise. And so these differences also should not be collapsed simply into differences with respect to the experience of the war. But certainly it is the case. I mean, certainly the great division in American society was between those who had to fight in the war and those who did not. Now that was not of the making of baby boomers. That was making of the policy makers who decided who would be drafted and who should be sheltered for the draft. Those were largely class division. And that was a matter of political policy that was not undertaken by the boomers. The boomers did not make policy about who was drafted. Those policies were made by government agencies, by the selective service system, and ultimately by the political authorities who did not want to have middle class kids sent to war. So we had a highly selective draft. We had essentially a work class war. And of course, there was bitterness between those who went and those who did not. But what my point is, and it is not... There was also much bitterness between those who went and supported the war and those who went and hated the war. This is all very complicated. But my point is that it is not that the boomers created that division. That division was structured as a result of policy. SM (00:30:58): Do you think again, there should be efforts made to bring the opposing sides together, try to understand the intensity of the divisions, not only to heal more beyond the Vietnam memorial wall, which is supposed to heal the nation, transcribes books to heal the nation, which was geared toward the healing Vietnam veterans and their [inaudible]. TG (00:31:20): I will check. Make sure this [inaudible]. Should efforts be made to bring people together? SM (00:31:26): Yeah. Should efforts be made to bring posing sides together even today, to try to get a better understanding of the division so that there can be lessons of learning for future generations. That in times of difficulty, which may come forth, that there some specific lessons that can be taught and that healing should be one of them. Because I get back to that statement that Senator Muskie made, which was a surprise to our students and to me when I asked that question, because I thought he was going to go right back to (19)68, the divisions in America. That healing, that generations oftentimes become bitter and they carry that bitterness to their grave and that bitterness is transferred to their children who then carry it on for generations. And then may be one of the unique things that could have come up of the divisions of the (19)60s and its early (19)70s amongst the boomers is that, they make greater efforts to heal within the ranks. Not only between those who were for of those who were against the war, the tremendous divisions within the cities. I know the riots were happening. There is a lot involved here, but efforts be made to try to understand the passion of the times more. That efforts should be made to bring some together, knowing that we cannot heal 60 million people. But... TG (00:32:51): I think that conversation among people would disagree it is always... Do I think that no one should not have an illusions here? I think that the people who were on these supposed sides then largely do understand why they had the views they did. What they need is something much more elusive than understanding. And I do not know what it is. I do not know what it is. It alludes me too. God knows you have had plenty of conversations in America about the Vietnam War and what the complete [inaudible]. And I do not think there is a ritual solution. I think we keep looking for ritual solution to what was a deep political conflict. I do not think the wall does it. I do not think movies do it. I do not think boomers do it. I do not think anything in particular does it. I think it is okay for society to live with the differences. I do not know how. I mean individuals find their own way to avoid tangled landscape. But I do not know about collective solutions. I do not hear it. I just do not know. SM (00:34:13): [inaudible], of the old term [inaudible]. TG (00:34:16): I mean, I think the wall. I mean, just speaking personally, I think the wall is wonderful. It is very beautiful and very moving and very stirring and it does not feel me in this lightest, nor does it affect my views. Well, I value it greatly as a monument, but I do not. So as the work that is claimed for it. You think the nation... I am sure that the nation should be [inaudible]. A terrible war was done. Terrible crimes were done. Would it mean for me to change my view about the nature of these crimes? I do not know. They do not change my view. I do not have any regrets about that. And so there are consequences in history. People try to do difficult things and it is going to hurt. Why should we expect it is going to make us feel good. We live in a feel good culture. Why should we feel good about that history? I do not think history should make us feel good. I think history is shame. For me, not my project. I mean, I want to be a fully living human being, but I do not... I think life breaks everybody in some way or other. Anyway, who is right? [inaudible] strong and broken places, but the ways in which people are broken and then the ways in which they need to heal ourselves immensely the areas. I do not know how to think about doing it in one false move. SM (00:35:57): Sure. This site is working properly here. Could you, in your own words, define the generation gap that took place at that time between the boomers and the World War II generation? There has been books written about it, but from your own perspective, what did the generation gap mean to you? And then secondly, what does a generation gap mean today between the boomers and their kids? TG (00:36:22): Even in the (19)60s, I did not find the term generation gap very useful. I did not feel that I was involved in a generation gap. I thought I was involved in a political conflict. I mean, I also had differences with my parents, but those were also political differences. There is a lot of research by the way that goes to show that a great number of the activists of the left who did not especially experience a generation gap with their parents, they experienced a political conflict with the leaders of the country. Dick Flacks and many other researchers have discovered that the values of the student activists were not in general, not in general at least that where this was studied awfully different than the values of their parents. They came from relatively democratic families. That is the center of political families in general, where this was studied. So I never thought much of a concept and I still do not. I do not think it was a generation gap. It was a political country. SM (00:37:36): How about today between youngers? TG (00:37:41): You mean teenagers? SM (00:37:41): Yeah, teenagers and... TG (00:37:43): Teenagers are always at odds with their parents. The question is not whether they are at odds. The question is what social and cultural forms do they find and wish to express that? And those will always be different. My mother felt estranged from her parents in certain ways, but growing up during the depression, the circumstances were not conducive to, it was in a full-blown, acted out rebellion of this sort that we are. But it was not that there was no generational tension. It was enormous generational tension. I do believe it is in the human condition that there be such tensions and that young people need to set out to differentiate themselves in some way, which is a painful fixing process that hurts everybody, but is also necessary. SM (00:38:42): You teach a lot of college kids today and do you see activism happening that much amongst today's young people? TG (00:38:55): Not very much. SM (00:38:56): And I want to different age activism, because we all know chronical higher education stayed over and over again every year with [inaudible] studies that over 85 percent of law entering freshman in their high school years were involved in volunteer activity and continue to do so when they get into college. But I remember reading that volunteerism is often symbolic of a conservative era rather than a liberal era. That you have to define the difference between volunteerism on the one hand and true activism on the other, which means caring about the political process, voting and actually even being desirous of some juncture of getting into a position of common responsibility as a politician to serve others. And there is no issue in politics. [inaudible]. TG (00:39:39): It is a very different style of activity. I mean, I am not dismissive of it. I share this assessment that service is the, I have called it the silent movement of this generation again. And often enough it is in a certain sense conservative, not something expressive of a conservative era, but it is self-conservative because it aims to act in the name of conserving values. It aims to act in the name of values that are already in place. It aims to do something constructive. It wants to lay hands on and see a difference. It wants to tutor, it wants to take care of the battered women. It wants to take care of homeless people. It wants to reach out and touch someone. It wants to do good in a concrete palpable way. And that is very different from the activist style. There is not very much of the (19)60s activism. But which is not to say that there is no... Well, I do not know. I take it back. What is the state of the moral climate? What is the moral temperature of young people today? It is very hard to read. It seems significantly distracted and private, anxious, diffuse. It is very hard to find any pattern in it. It is a left wing, it is a right wing. It is identities. Certainly there is no thrust that I can make out. There is no pattern that I can make out. There is not certainly any organized movement. There is a great deal of fragmentation. Even among those who would describe themselves as activists, tremendous fragmentation. SM (00:41:38): Have there been any studies about, you mentioned, I do not get the gentleman's name, but that the sons and daughters of activists are activists. Any studies showing the percentage of those that were truly involved in those movements to pass this on to their kids? Or have they shared? This is another question. Have they really shared what they went through with their kids? Or do they feel that I am not going to burden them with what I went through with a young person because they have their own problems today? TG (00:42:13): I do not know of any studies. I am sure there are some. My impression is that most of them, certainly the ones I know have tried to convey to their kids what their (19)60s experience was. But also my impression that significant number of the kids could care less or feel burdened by it or sick and tired of hearing that of Gloria's old days, which understand saddled by memories which are not theirs. In some way imprisoned by their parents harking back to something that sounds so fabulous that they missed. Not a thrill for you. But I do not know of any studies that try to look at this system. I do not know. SM (00:43:10): I hate to use this term again because the quality that I mentioned that would be the most unique generation American history, but we were going into your own personal life. Do you feel that you personally, beyond your years as an activist now into the adulthood and middle age that you have made a contribution to society? Going back to that terminology that many people, that era felt that we are going to be change agents for the betterment of society. So the proof is in the pudding and the proof is in your life. TG (00:43:44): Yeah, I think I have made a contribution. SM (00:43:44): I guess, I say in what ways? TG (00:43:47): Well, I made the... You know I was a foot soldier in the Civil Rights Movement. But I think that was a great crusade that made small contributions towards the entire world movement. I think that was an absolutely necessary [inaudible] with largely healthy consequences. As we left [inaudible] intellectual, I tried to clarify what was happening as best I understood it. Try to make my understanding available to others. That is the intellectual project to try to certifying what is others to feel little more courage and less bewildered and more knowledgeable. I have done what I could in those directions. I think I have done it all brilliantly, no. I think I have done it perfectly, no. SM (00:44:54): When the best history books are written, and they will always say that history books, the best ones are 50 years after an event. Some of the best World War II books now are coming out now. Stephen Ambrose 1940 or early [inaudible]. When the best books are written in maybe even 25 years from now about this period, the (19)60s and a year ago is excellent. So I am not be degrading your book. I am just using what historians often says 50 years later, what are they going to say about movers? What will be the judgment? TG (00:45:29): Again, about 60 million people. I hope they are not making any judgment of 60 million people. But what could that possibly be? That is more than an entire population of Italy or France. What can you say about 60 million people? SM (00:45:46): But even judging even an era of that young generation, the (19)60s. That is booming on the late (19)60s and early (19)70s. What do you think they will be saying about that of the (19)50s? TG (00:45:57): The activists. SM (00:45:57): The activists. TG (00:45:57): Left activist activists. SM (00:45:57): Yes. The left activists. TG (00:46:02): Very different from the boomers. I mean that is a different, already you are down from 60 million people to maybe a few hundred thousand. We are talking about 1 percent of the generation. It is different. I think they will say what I have said. I do not think their judgment will be different. I think they will say that this generation had a big challenge. Did a lot of smart and important things. Made a lot of stupid decisions as well. You know they did. They do great things and they do awful things. And sometimes they do not know at the time which is which, and I think they will see as a generation with great successes and great failures. SM (00:46:43): If there is one... TG (00:46:46): I cannot imagine that they would say anything different. I mean, it would be goofy to do one to say part of that and not say the rest of it. That would be travesty. SM (00:46:57): If there is one event that stands out above all others in your life, the one event that changed your life more than any other, what is that event? TG (00:47:15): Probably the Cuban Missile Crisis. If I had to choose one event. SM (00:47:21): In what way did that have an effect on your life? TG (00:47:24): It convinced me that the respectable Emilio [inaudible], which I had worked in for years was... Its immediate effect was to discourage me from political activity altogether for one. But within a few months I had become president of SDS. I had [inaudible] and radical. SM (00:48:01): I am going to list some names of this period, names that are well-known. Just a few comments on each of them. What do you think? Just your thoughts on them. I have done this with every person and the gamut runs every different direction in terms of how they respond to these people. And these are the household names of the late (19)60s and the early (19)70s. Jane Fonda? TG (00:48:26): She was an actress who got in over her hat. SM (00:48:34): Did you place her? I met her in Tom Hayden at Kent State at the fourth reunion of Kent State [inaudible] before, at the room one and two. How would you rate her? I do not know how Vietnam better feel about it. But how would you rate her? Would you rate her really as a sincere activist? I know about you and about Tom Hayden and I know about Rennie Davis and I know the sincerity there. But was she a sincere activist? Was she really sincere? TG (00:49:06): I never met her then. I met her later. I cannot presume to judge her since I do not know her. SM (00:49:14): Tom Hayden. TG (00:49:18): Well, I knew Tom Hayden starting in 1960. It is hard to summarize. I wrote a great deal of Hayden in my book. Very gifted, charismatic person and strong. Late in the (19)60s, foolish and manipulative [inaudible]. But after that, deeply dedicated and effective. The figure through the early (19)70s when many people who have been involved in the anti-war movement has retired. SM (00:50:12): It is just a complicated figure. He has written a book on the environment recently. And then he just bought a book the other day that he edited essays on hunger in Ireland. He realized he was Irish. He was talking about his Irish background [inaudible]. TG (00:50:26): Middle name is Emmet, named after David Grish. SM (00:50:33): Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. TG (00:50:35): Well, I have also written a great deal about them. Abbie was also very gifted wild figure. Often creative, wholly unaccountable to others. Reckless. And after many relatively solid years, I think starting in 1967, she is quite brilliantly at times and creatively control and at the same time a brilliant cultural entrepreneur. Jerry Rubin far less talented. Far more manipulative and less sincere, self-promoted, less original. SM (00:51:43): About Black Power leaders of that era. The Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, the Black Power figures. TG (00:51:52): Well, those are not Black Power figures. Those are Black Panthers. There is the difference. SM (00:51:56): But Stokely Carmichael. TG (00:51:59): Stokely Carmichael. SM (00:52:00): Right. TG (00:52:00): Okay, so let us take him one at a time. Stokely Carmichael, a very talented and charismatic figure. [inaudible], power turn I think in the end was a serious mistake. As he became progressively more incendiary, became progressively more destructive. Newton, obviously very talented and deeply pathological poet crag. A crag boss in the making. Deeply dipping and delicate, unbalanced man. Bobby Seale. I do not know who he was when he started. He got in over his head. He had very strong authoritarian tendencies. Similar, which I saw in person. What damage he did is hard for me to say. I do not think he was a figure the way he really wants. He is of lesser historical significant. Cleaver. Very smart, very tricky. There was some talent who was promoted far above his... And you remember, let us not forget a long-time rapist. SM (00:53:45): We talk politicians at this time. Lyndon Johnson. TG (00:53:50): Brilliant politician who could have been one of the great presidents and [inaudible] away on Vietnam. The most tragic president of the 20th century. SM (00:54:07): Kennedy. TG (00:54:10): Rustling. A moral, not deeply tested. He died at 46. A brief conference. Oh, it is a very limited. Aggressively deceitful politician with some very shrewd political instance, which enabled him to become president and obviously, was once turned against his own self-interest were also his downfall or felt much for him. SM (00:55:07): Gerald Ford. TG (00:55:11): As a political figure in the late (19)60s or as a president? SM (00:55:14): As a president. TG (00:55:15): As a president, best unelected president we ever have. SM (00:55:25): How about Robert Kennedy? TG (00:55:27): Another great tragedy. Started as a passionate McCarthy, right? And a very bold prosecutor. A man of tremendous force and calculating, capable of learning. Comes in late in (19)68, but then had enormous potential. And how old was he when he died? Could have been 42. Could have been one of the greats. Could have been one of the great presidents. SM (00:56:11): George McGovern. TG (00:56:13): I am very fond of George McGovern. I think the world as in... He was a moral man. Comes out of the best of American Protestant reform. He was an honorable man who made obviously some real miscalculations. But I have never doubted his moral clarity and his decency. SM (00:56:40): Eugene McCarthy. TG (00:56:47): Worst possible leader for a respectable political insurgency. He did one great thing, which was to declare for the presidency. And then he abandoned his campaign and his people throwing the towel. Failed to make deals with Humphrey, which could have prevented the election of Richard Nixon. A terrible political leader, a narcissistic, and work with a political leader. SM (00:57:26): What about Hubert Humphrey himself? TG (00:57:30): A great moment. Civil rights movement was great. He was a very good exponent of nuclear disarmament in the early (19)60s. And then his weakness of character bring him into a marionette Johnson. And he did not come on. He did not. He declare independence soon enough to say it to the Democratic Party. So he has had great opportunity. SM (00:58:01): George Wallace. TG (00:58:04): I just saw it. Four little girls last night. The Spike Lee movie about the girls in Birmingham. It is a wonderful film. I was reminded watching George Wallace, that is how horrible he was. Worst of American racism. Simple Man of several things. SM (00:58:35): Have other people. Timothy Leary. TG (00:58:41): I remember self-promoting reckless, irresponsible, non-artist. SM (00:58:49): The Berrigan brothers. TG (00:58:52): I have respect for them. Holy serious, old, talented. Dan, there I knew. Very talented poet. They were good spirits. SM (00:59:07): Martin Luther King Jr. Make sure I get this there. TG (00:59:31): He is one of the great men. Great figure who Patty Riff might have done as well one of those. SM (00:59:31): Malcolm X. TG (00:59:31): Good to know about Malcolm X. I do not join in the worships that is so common today. I think he is a legend man, a self-created man. [inaudible] fast when he was killed. Rather primitive, I mean beliefs. I mean, let us recall that to be a black Muslim minister, meant to believe that the white race had been converted by a scientist Yakub [inaudible] world. But he did have the strength to recognize that when he brings that he had been committed to a fundamental racist view of the world. When he made a position for powerful position strip himself of the protections and comforts of that view, a set of wrong views, long views and oh wait, he was killed for it. I think most of his great, most of his great potential will not be known. We do not know who he would have been. SM (01:00:43): Dr. Benjamin Scott. TG (01:00:54): I think he was brave. I think he was a principal person who was moral and came to the board when was needed at some risk to his [inaudible]. SM (01:01:09): Pretty close to being down here. A little bit more on this side. A little bit more on this tape. Muhammad Ali. TG (01:01:18): I respect his political principles. I heard he was an immature, great boxer who became a... SM (01:01:34): Who others? Ralph Nader. TG (01:01:41): Pretty impressive, very American style crusader. The individual and of course had a huge impact, had a great ability to attack. Very skilled and devoted author. Many who went on to do... In later years, he has been like so many people coming out of (19)60s lost in the co-campaign. He ran- SM (01:02:09): With the Green Party, I believe. TG (01:02:12): Well, but he did not run. I mean, it was all right to take a Green nomination and run and raise issues that the Republicans and Democrats were having. He keep that apology, but he did not really run. He ran half-baked campaign. He should have raised money. If you are going to do that, you raise money, you go out and talk to the maximum number of people. You do not run a stealth again. That is childhood. That is the McCarthy sin. SM (01:02:33): Spiro Agnew. TG (01:03:03): Mediocre politician. This corrupt character with his politics is bad, man. SM (01:03:04): About Barry Goldwater. TG (01:03:12): Interesting figure. I take it a man of principle. Its rights. He [inaudible] as well in history. Partly because he has had the scope and the depth of character to be willing to change his mind on certain matters. Partly because he is willing, because he does not seem to be a party man. He seems to be willing to speak his mind. He is the heroic figure of the Republican Party. He made it possible for them to produce Ronald Reagan. There is no Ronald Reagan without Barry Goldwater. So in that sense, I think, I mean you are of the wrong direction, but certainly a very important figure. SM (01:03:52): Senator Fulbright, your thoughts on him? TG (01:03:55): I respected Fulbright. I am anxious for my case on the war. But he was the earliest among the late comers on race, he was witness alleged good for a southern white democratic politician. [inaudible] of substance. SM (01:04:20): Senator Muskie. TG (01:04:23): I do not think much of that Muskie one way or the other. [inaudible] Fulbright, he was quiet New England politician. I do not think he is a major figure in that history. SM (01:04:37): For the women of that period, the Women's Movement. Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, the Shirley Chisholm, the woman that read the forefront of the Women's Movement. TG (01:04:45): I love the... SM (01:04:45): The great Gloria Stein, you mean. Betty Friedan. TG (01:04:49): The greatest of them is none of those. It is Betty Friedan. Betty Friedan is one who deserves credit. She was a very smart woman, wrote a very fine book, created a movement. There is very few individuals who are properly credited with kick-starting the movie. She has had largely thoughts for herself and been willing to make enemies, which is important in politics. Featured figures in the second half 20th century. Gloria Steinem, I never thought much about. I considered her actually interesting. I cannot really speak to her influence. I mean, I know she had some. It is hard for me to... I see her as a light person. Bella Abzug. She comes into her own in the (19)70s. I do not see her as belonging. I think she is... What happened, same thing for Shirley Chisholm. Less reports, but neither of them I think are formative. The way that Betty Friedan. SM (01:06:07): How about this thing? We have Robert McNamara. TG (01:06:17): Well, certainly during his time in office, the most destructive people I have heard in history. Since then, the man who [inaudible] chance to redeem himself. The book raises as at least as many questions as it answers. But I honor him for making effort. SM (01:06:42): Henry Kissinger. TG (01:06:44): War criminal. Maligned, I should say. Maligned force. SM (01:06:51): I want your commentary here because when you look at the two, when you compare Kissinger and McNamara? There seems to be even among Vietnam veterans, a tremendous hatred for McNamara obviously. And even the book in retrospect was even in upset most of the veterans. TG (01:07:08): I wrote a very critical piece on it. I mean, I am not a fan of the book, but do not get me wrong. SM (01:07:14): It does not seem to be the dislike or Kissinger as much as there is for McNamara. And in realizing that at the end of 1969- TG (01:07:21): There is a lot or someone who do not know. SM (01:07:21): ...28,000 Americans still died under the President Nixon. TG (01:07:27): Right. And plenty more Vietnamese on it. SM (01:07:29): Right. TG (01:07:29): They do not know. They do not know. Henry Kissinger is a much smoother player with a much more ingratiating to the press. A much worse figure in my life. SM (01:07:42): How about President Eisenhower? TG (01:07:45): Well, with respect to what? SM (01:07:47): Just these are names that are in boomers’ lives as a president, as a figure. TG (01:07:54): Oh, at the time he seemed, what if this may strike you a strange word, silly. The President, in retrospect as a figure, as a Cold War figure, not bad. Just in general, he was not so easily intimidated. And as Kennedy intimidated into reckless conduct. But a very limited man, very limited. SM (01:08:35): Music of the era. When you look at the music of the late (19)60s, early (19)70s, you personally, who were your favorite artists? TG (01:08:44): Starring when? SM (01:08:45): Actually, we are talking about the late (19)60s through the early (19)70s. TG (01:08:49): Well, when you say late (19)60s. When do you want me to start? SM (01:08:54): Probably around the time the Beatles came over in (19)64. Okay. That year. How music changed from (19)64 on. Because prior to that it was certainly a lot different. Rock and roll was already here. But certainly the Beatles changed things. And the folk singers. And how important, not only your thoughts on the music of the year, how important it was to the young people and especially with the messages that it portrayed and your personal favorites and why. TG (01:09:18): Okay. My personal favorites. Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Leonard Cohen, Otis Redding. [inaudible] to who. Would be therein. That would be about. That is my list. That is my brother, too. SM (01:09:37): In the movement? What part did they play on in the movement? How- TG (01:09:44): In the political movement? SM (01:09:45): Yeah. How important was for that movement? TG (01:09:48): The only ones who were important in the political movement are Dylan and Joan Baez. SM (01:09:53): Any people in the movement can of just listen to the words they were capturing the time. TG (01:09:57): Just listen to the words now. SM (01:09:58): No. I met them on the music, but the music and the words. But... TG (01:10:01): Oh, yeah. SM (01:10:02): They kind of have sense of excitement and they had some passion. Phil Ochs was on that category too, was not he? TG (01:10:09): Yes, sir. SM (01:10:10): But was a figure. Yeah. Couple more names and we will be done. Woodward and Bernstein. Thoughts on that? TG (01:10:26): Reporters. Credit for what they did. They did real reporting and they were bold and they were right. So very important. SM (01:10:34): Richard Daley. TG (01:10:37): Nice. For the... SM (01:10:37): For mayors. What is very important? TG (01:10:42): Daley was rhetoric. Very, very limited man. Boss. SM (01:10:57): Okay, so then Daniel Ellsberg. TG (01:11:03): Ellsberg was an authentic hero. Okay. After many substitutes he did a very bold thing. And what he did had an impact. Personally courageous. Ellsberg year is a much more [inaudible] than... SM (01:11:25): Gandhi. TG (01:11:25): The first whistleblower. SM (01:11:33): I mean, first. I mean there were others in the past, but in other words, that is the first one I remember. TG (01:11:35): [inaudible] SM (01:11:44): He kind of, I asked right, was in the next [inaudible]. About the people around Richard Dixon is John Mitchell, Ehrlichman, Haldeman in that group. TG (01:11:49): Thugs. SM (01:11:52): Vietnam veterans yesterday told them Gestapo. TG (01:11:53): Well, I think that is silly. They are not Nazis. But these are very small people. SM (01:12:08): Again, the reason why I bring these names up, these are names that came of prominence during the... Actually the ones in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, the names stand. And the last one I have is Sam Ervin. The old gentleman there who ran the... TG (01:12:22): Sam Ervin represents the best of American Constitutionalism. [inaudible] way. SM (01:12:27): Are there any figures that have not been mentioned that you think should be mentioned when you can look at, I want to say I got the people that stand out of that era. Is there one that is missing that I have not... I know for example, I could have said all the big four of the Civil Rights Movement. Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young and James Farmer. I could have included that, but I am trying to... TG (01:12:48): I think very well of them. I especially I think well of Farmer. I think Farmer is a great man. Who has fully understood. Farmer's instincts were brilliant and he has a long history that most people are aware of [inaudible] on or something. I understand he is quite ill and in bad shaped. I know there was a bit of some hope to get him a congressional medal of honor, but has not happened. SM (01:13:20): On several years back that picked him up at the Wilmington train station. He was blind. TG (01:13:25): Yeah. SM (01:13:26): But he was okay every other way. The mental capabilities were strong. And we put him up with the holiday in and gave a great speech. Tremendous. He had not lost any... The vigor that was in his voice. The strength was still there. The passion. TG (01:13:40): I am glad to hear it. He was a great speaker. I can hear him speech. SM (01:13:44): We have that on tape, too. And I will never forget this, Doctor... When I took him to train station, I asked him as, "Are there any words of advice that you could give me in terms of my everyday work here in relationship with the university?" And I bring in speakers and all he... Because I had spent a day with him and I expected him to give me a long... Well, this is what you should do and that should do because we are killing time waiting for the train. And he said some two words, "Carry on." And as a result of that, in all my letters, and I will probably send it to you too, the grand of my letters, I always say carry on. Because I really admire what people do and how they live their lives. And those are the greatest two words that anybody can feel in that is to carry on, especially when working for others and caring for others. So it is one of those anecdotes, it is one of my metaphors, it is part of my metaphor. I am basically done. Are there any thoughts that you would to conclude here, that you would like to say regarding that group of young people in that era, in American history? That even though to us, it does not seems like only yesterday, but here it is, 1997 and to young people, it is like a century era. Any other final thoughts? TG (01:15:09): Well you are asking the guy written, depending on how you want to calculate it, three books about the (19)60s. Do I have any more to say? Lots of articles. Give a lot of talks. No. I do not know any more else. SM (01:15:27): I want to thank you for taking time out of your schedule. Really appreciate it. TG (01:15:29): [inaudible] SM (01:15:29): Do you mind if I take some pictures? (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Todd Gitlin Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Gitlin, Todd ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Sociologists; Authors, American--20th century; College teachers; Columbia University; Gitlin, Todd--Interviews Description An account of the resource <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Todd Gitlin is a sociologist, educator, political writer, novelist, cultural commentator, and author of sixteen books. He wrote about mass media, politics, intellectual life and the arts, for both popular and scholarly publications. He currenlty is a professor of Journalism and Sociology and chair of the Ph. D. program in Communications at Columbia University. He received his Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Harvard College and earned his Mater's degree from the University of Michigan in Political Science, and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in Sociology."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13311,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,4884200],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"9":0,"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dr. Todd Gitlin (1943-2022) was a sociologist, educator, political writer, novelist, cultural commentator, and author of sixteen books. He wrote about mass media, politics, intellectual life and the arts, for both popular and scholarly publications. He was a professor of Journalism and Sociology and chair of the Ph. D. program in Communications at Columbia University. He received his Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Harvard College and earned his Master's degree from the University of Michigan in Political Science, and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in Sociology.</span> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997-07-23 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.192a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.192b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 75:34 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/85675ac05b2f4469cd57b606563e498e.jpg ae68d53a4e584ba1d6bf13ef7fe11670 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/227288819d85c1196f5c5cd15ecfe6fd.mp3 f701598fe1945579dcd2245f69a9a4d3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 1997-09-03 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen Mckiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Anthony Campolo Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Tony Campolo is a speaker, author, sociologist, pastor, social activist, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Eastern University and former faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Campolo was a spiritual advisor to U.S. President Bill Clinton. He has a Bachelor's degree from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary at Eastern College and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Temple University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5003,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">Dr. Tony Campolo is a speaker, author, sociologist, pastor, social activist, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Eastern University and former faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Campolo was a spiritual advisor to U.S. President Bill Clinton. He has a Bachelor's degree from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary at Eastern College and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Temple University.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Generational gap; Ethics; Baby boom generation; Protest; Religion; Cambodian invasion; Vietnam draft; Lottery; Healing; Vietnam War; War photos; Richard Nixon; Gerald Ford."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":13228792}}">Generational gap; Ethics; Baby boom generation; Protest; Religion; Cambodian invasion; Vietnam draft; Lottery; Healing; Vietnam War; War photos; Richard Nixon; Gerald Ford.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 54:28 Subject LCSH Authors; Clergy; Sociologists; Political activists--United States; Campolo, Anthony--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Tony Campolo Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 15 July 2007 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:01): Dr. Campolo, the first question I would like to ask is in recent days, and in fact in recent years, there has been a lot of criticism of the Boomer generation in terms of blaming a lot of the problems of today's society on Boomers. Oftentimes we might hear a question, Newt Gingrich on the floor of Congress making generalizations about Boomers. George Will might write an article on the entire generation, blaming this group, that grew up in that era, for the problems of the breakup of the American family, including the divorce rate, the increase of drugs, the lack of respect for authority, and things like that. I would love to hear your thoughts on the Boomer generation and whether that criticism is a fair judgment of this 65 plus million. TC (00:53): I feel that the Boomer generation did rebel against authority. I think that it was a rebellion that perhaps was justified in some respects and in other respects it was not. The (19)60s, particularly, were a period where America was struggling to figure out what is right and what is wrong. [inaudible] Older people had absolute values of right and wrong when it came to personal behavior, and they were absolutistic about sexual activity, about what was right and what was wrong. They had absolute values about personal honesty. They had absolute values about respect, all those things that you mentioned. However, they abandoned any concept of absolute values and grappled with what, at the time, would have to be called situational ethics when it came to societal affairs. Case in point, civil rights, they would say, "Well, of course it is wrong to be discriminating against African American people." They would have said Black people, but it is not as simple as all of that. You got to consider the situation. We did not get into this mess overnight. We are not going to get out-out of this mess overnight. To expect immediate change, to expect that we are going to do everything right immediately on this issue is expecting far too much. We have to in fact be gradualists, very, very much into the situational ethic value system. The same thing can be said about the board in Vietnam. No one ever asked the question as to whether it was right or wrong. I do not think you could ask the older generation how we ever got into that war or what it was all about. There was a sense, however, that whether it's right or wrong, we need to stand behind our president. We have to stand behind our brave soldiers. Even if they are wrong, we must support them. And thus, the question was never, "Was the Vietnam War right, or was the Vietnam War wrong?" The question was always, "Are we going to stand behind the president and are we going to stand behind our soldiers, or are we going to be disloyal?" So, the issue was never phrased in terms of morality. It was phrased in terms of loyalty. This set up a conflict in which each generation accused the other of being immoral. The older generation said to the Boomers, "Look at you. You are smoking marijuana. You are sleeping around. You have rejected the sexual morays and values of our generation. You are libertine. You are immoral." The younger generation was saying to the older generation, "Look at you. You have maintained racial segregation. You oppress women. You propagate a war that is immoral without ever asking any questions about it." So that each generation was accusing the other of being immoral and there was a lack of respect across the line because neither group saw either the good or the evil, who never saw the good in those that stood against them, nor the evil in their own position. I do not think the older generation really understood the evil of maintaining a political economic system that fostered injustice, nor did the kids really understand the evil of deviating from moral patterns that their parents had established. There was a sense in which the kids saw the moral bankruptcy of the older generation on societal issues and hence felt that those people in the older generation had no moral authority with which to speak to them. To a large degree, I think that is right. I think that in fact, we lost our moral authority in their eyes because of our very refusal to deal with the social issues of our time in moral categories. We were very pragmatic, we were very realistic. We were very situational ethics oriented, and our kids lost respect for us, and that was the thing that gave them, I think, a sense that they had the right to create their own morality. SM (06:33): Very good. I got one follow-up. It is working. As a follow-up to this, if you were to look in 1997 at the Boomer generation, and Boomers are just hitting the age of 50, Bill Clinton is a forerunner of this. We also realize on some of the interviews that I have been doing that it is hard to define a generation, because people of 55 that I know in this process feel like they are closer to the Boomers than those that the younger Boomers might be, and Boomers being those born between 1946 and (19)64. If you are to look at the overall impact right now that the Boomers have had on America, could you give me again just a brief listing of the positive qualities of the Boomers, maybe some adjectives, and some negative qualities of Boomers, adjectives, knowing that Boomers are still right in their prime now and they still have many more years to live and produce? TC (07:25): I think the positive side was that they incarnated the best traits of liberalism. They were in favor of ending racism, sexism. They never really dealt with the gay issue in any significant way, although their openness to gay people was the beginning of the movement for gay and lesbian rights. They had a belief [inaudible] the government could be an instrument through which a just society could be created. They believed in the positive potentialities of political power. I do not think anybody believes in that anymore. I do not think we really see political power as something with positive potentialities. I think we almost see political power these days as a necessary evil that needs to be restrained and constrained. But in that era, they really believed that government could do things. They were the people who gave birth to the environmentalist movement. It's no surprise to me that a Gore and a Clinton should be such strong environmentalists, and an older man like Bob Dole does not quite get it. Decent to the core, but never really could grasp what all the fuss was on the environmental issue. I think that this generation, the Boomers also saw the evils that were inherent in corporate capitalism, and were suspicious of big business, and really raised questions as to whether or not we could have it just society unless big business was in some way constrained. Could we clean up the environment without restraining big business? I think of how they would have reacted if the information about the cigarette industry would have surfaced in the (19)60s rather than the (19)90s. There would have been an uproar on campuses. There would have been a furor that, beneath the surface, this is evil at its worst level. Corporate executives sitting around the table having concrete evidence that they have a product that is going to kill 450,000 Americans in any given year, and for the sake of profit repressing, suppressing that information. To me, the (19)60s, the Boomer generation, when they were in their collegiate years would have march, screamed, yelled, and would have, in fact, used that as a cause celebrity for bringing down the establishment. This is what American capitalism is about. I can just hear them. So, I think that that was their good side, that they saw the evils of corporate capitalism. They believed in government, they were idolists, and they really did believe that a better world was a social possibility. They believed they really could create a better world. SM (11:28): Negatives? TC (11:31): First of all, their values had no religious grounding. And I do not say that just because I am a religious person myself, but there was nothing beyond their own sense of right and wrong that legitimated their cause. They did not hear it. They did not hear a distant drummer. And so, when they marched out of step with others, they did so out of an existential decision, rather than out of a sense of oughtness from God. For instance, when I meet my friends from that generation, I recognize that many of them have given up and their response was, "You cannot change the system." And they gave up because their confidence was in themselves. And when they failed, there was no power to lean on beyond themselves. Religious people, on the other hand, I am talking about friends of mine like Jim Wallis. SM (12:50): He wrote a book. TC (12:50): Yeah. SM (12:51): On [inaudible], yeah. TC (12:52): The Soul of Politics SM (12:52): W-A-L-L-I-S. It is- TC (12:55): Yeah. But Jim is a guy who was active during the (19)60s. He is still active today. I would fall into the same category. It is an interesting thing, about a year and a half, two years ago, rather, it is a year and a half ago now, a group of us went down and protested the change in the welfare bill and were arrested in the capitol building. But the thing that was so interesting was that we were all older people. It was not the younger people that were there. There were elderly women given their... You went to court, as we had to explain why we did this, what happened? Why were not the young people there of this generation, number one? Number two is why we are the only people there to get arrested? Religious people, every one of us spoke out of a religious value system, so much so that the judge that hurt our case could say, "Instead of putting you in jail, I am going to ask you each to write an essay on why your religious convictions led you to stand against the government at this particular point." The fact that only the religious people are left, and the reason is that we recognize that the struggle is not a 20th century struggle, but the struggle is as old as the human race. And the calling to struggle is a calling from a God who transcends time and space. And hence we keep on struggling because we sense this higher calling and if we lose a battle and we lose more battles than we win, we lose battles in a cause that ultimately triumphs, which is what religion is all about. We do not have to see victory. I think the Boomer generation had to see victory. Victory would validate their efforts. And when they did not see victory, they did not have validation for their causes and hence gave up. And now they are selling stocks on Wall Street and have become part of that very establishment that they were so hard against. I think that the younger generation, that the Boomer generation to a large degree, was spoiled in the sense of being spoiled kids. In a sense, maybe more spoiled than this contemporary generation, because they were the last generation that knew that if they got a college education, there was a lot of money to be made after graduation. They never doubted that they were employable. They never doubted that the establishment would take them in on their own terms. This generation knows if they want to get a job, they would better play the ball game as the establishment prescribes it. I think another sense, I remember when the Cambodian invasion took place, there was a meeting at the Palestra at the University of Penn, and one student after another stood up and spoke against Nixon, the government, and all of that stuff, and a young man who is very religious but very radical stood, and he said, "How many of you believe in God?" Which seemed strange in the midst of this anti-war furor, and very few hands went up. He said, "We are the only ones who have a right to protest this war. And the reason is simple. If there is no God, then the highest law, according to the social contract theory, is the will of the people. Well, the people have spoken, they voted in Richard Milhous Nixon for a second turn. The American people want to pursue this war. We are a minority who oppose it. In a society like ours, we either have to win the election, which we did not, or go along with what the majority has prescribed. On the other hand, if you are religious, you never have to go along with the majority, because you are obligated not to the social contract, but to a biblical revelation." Strong point. And so, they were not grounded in anything beyond themselves. They were spoiled. They looked for, they had to succeed. They marched down to Washington like Joshua's army, marched around the city, blew their horns, and when the walls did not come tumbling down, they went home like spoiled little kids saying, "Darn it, they did not listen to us." So that is the negative side. SM (18:03): It is interesting and just a commentary for you in the next question, why is it? You know, I am of that generation, and I know that night when Nixon gave that- TC (18:10): Yeah. SM (18:11): ...speech on Cambodia because it was April 30th, 1970. TC (18:12): That is right. SM (18:14): And I broke my arm that night. It was my senior year at SUNY Binghamton, and it was two, well, weeks away from graduation. And I was in the operating room at the point that that invasion was taking place. And our campus was just being torn apart before graduation. And I will never forget being in the hospital a couple days later, the doctor, I was in a terrible accident, who saved my arm, and I had the magazine that my parents had brought in of the girls sitting over the Jeff Miller, and the doctor saying, "I wish they would kill all those damn students." And this is the doctor that saved my arm. And it was at that juncture that I knew I had to get in higher ed because of the lack of communication. TC (18:54): But I think that Cambodian invasion showed both the best and the worst of us. We stood against injustice and the obscenity of bombing people who wanted nothing more than the right of self-determination. It also revealed the phoniness of us. I was at Penn teaching on the faculty there at the time. They called off final exams. They probably did at your school as well. SM (19:20): They did. TC (19:21): And the purpose of calling off final exams was that students could participate, so that they could talk over the issues, so that they could develop a strategy for changing America. That was the lofty reason for calling off the exams. If you remember, the day they called off the exams, everybody got in their cars and drove home. SM (19:42): I was in the operating room. TC (19:43): Yeah. Well, that is what happened. SM (19:44): Yeah. TC (19:44): That is what happened. The discussion ended at that point, and they shouted and said, "How can you have final exams when we must deal with these issues? How can you have final exams at this time of crisis?" And so, the administration's capitulated and said, "You are right. You are right. We must, in fact, call off exams so that the students can come together and talk, and discuss, and come up with a strategy." They called off exams and the next day everybody was gone, which said beneath this veneer of concern was really not as deep a commitment to social justice as appeared on the surface. SM (20:20): See, some of the individuals that interviewed, just your thought on this that when the draft, because one of the big things was to end the draft, and again, Boomers, when they felt that that they had one on that issue, that there were no other issues. And even though knowing that, at this particular juncture in time, in 1970, the evolution of the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the Native American movement, well, Latino Chicano movement, they were all around that timeframe. TC (20:49): There is no question that it diffused a lot of the concerns, but I have to say that the anti-war movement predated the initiation of the draft. The anti-war movement, if you trace it out historically, basically before they were ever drafting for Vietnam in any way, there were strong protests emerging on campus. The teach-ins started very, very early on, I would say late (19)50s, early (19)60s, the teach-ins were already taking place. So, when the draft was instituted, that stimulated concern, because all of a sudden, "This is going to involve us." But even then, in the early stages of the draft, there was no real problem for students, because students were exempt, as you may recall. SM (21:45): Students. TC (21:46): And yet, even though students were exempt, the protest movements against the war were still in pretty high gear. When, of course, the lottery was introduced, then it took on higher proportions. There is no question that the lottery, and which brought in the drafting of young people who were in college threw fuel under the fire, but it was pretty intense opposition to the war long before it. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons for the lottery, intriguingly enough, if you go back and trace it, was that the students themselves were calling for it. They were arguing that the war was incredibly racist because the white students were away at the universities and exempt, leaving the inner-city Blacks as the only people left to draft. And so, there was a strong protest theme that the draft has to end because it is a genocide. Instead of them ending the draft, Nixon said, "You are right, it is racist. Therefore, we will start drafting college students, too." It was not exactly the result of the protest that they- SM (23:05): Todd- TC (23:05): ...imagined. SM (23:05): ...Gitlin did not say that. TC (23:06): What is that? SM (23:07): Todd Gitlin did not say that when I interviewed him. He would not, probably. He got a- TC (23:14): What would he say? SM (23:14): You know Todd Gitlin? TC (23:14): Yeah. SM (23:15): Because he still is a firm believer that any of those individuals that were in the movement on the left were right on everything. TC (23:25): Well, they may have- SM (23:28): And he has not changed at all. But you- TC (23:30): That is interesting. SM (23:31): ...raised a good point because, you see, what you are bringing up something that someone else has not said, and that is great about this project, is that, you know, we are getting different perceptions on- TC (23:40): Hmm. SM (23:40): ...different questions. If you were to look at the issue of healing, now, one of the concerns that I have seen at the Vietnam Memorial, I have gone down there the last five, six years at the Memorial itself, and tried to get a grasp on whether there has been healing within the Vietnam veterans, and maybe even the people who come to the wall who are not veterans. I would like your thoughts on the Vietnam Memorial that was put together in that was opened in 1982, your thoughts on its impact on America, whether the job that it has done with respect to healing within the Vietnam veterans themselves and in the Boomer generation. TC (24:19): Well, on a psychological level, I am sure that the wall in Washington has had- SM (24:28): Would you like some water? TC (24:29): No, thanks. SM (24:29): No? TC (24:30): ... has had very positive therapeutic effects. To see these veterans that are weeping at the wall, leaving their medals there, in many instances, reaching out and touching the names of their comrades, all of this has had tremendous therapeutic value on a psychological level. I am sure there are social consequences for that. But I would dare say there is no healing on a societal level about Vietnam, that those who are convinced it was right are more convinced than ever. And those that are convinced it was wrong are more convinced than ever. A good example of this is the whole attitude system towards Bill Clinton, who opposed the war on moral grounds. Once again, the question is not whether was he right? Was he wrong? The question was he was not a loyal American. That is what the American Legion says about him. The question is not morality, the question is loyalty. And he was not "a loyal American." And they are still couching it in those terms. The fact that the President of the United States opposed the war on moral grounds, he was not draftable anyway, he was at Oxford. He was a student. He did not avoid the draft. People seem to forget that he did not do anything different than any other college student in America did. But in the midst of all of that, he said, "I am not going, but because I am not going to be drafted." But, on the other hand, and this is the big issue, "This war is wrong." And I find that all across America, the conservative political establishment still says, "We do not care whether it was right or wrong." We just know that you were over there at Oxford and you criticized the US government." That is where we are. And I do not know that there is going to be any social healing on this issue. And there can be no healing for the same reason why, on the individual level, there can be no healing until there is confession. If you're psychologically messed up because of something that happened 20 years ago, you got to get that out on the table. You got to talk about it. If you did something wrong, you got to repent of it. You got to set things right. You cannot simply repress the past. You have repressed Vietnam. I could go out there tonight and ask a very simple question of all your students. "Can anybody tell us what the Geneva Accord of (19)54 said and how that became the basis for war in Vietnam?" And there will not be one out there that will know, not a one. And these are educated people. We have done what the Japanese have done, we have written out of history those things that we would as soon forget. And so, you look at a Japanese textbook for a high school student, and you are amazed. They were the victims of America. They do not acknowledge the fact that they bombed Pearl Harbor. They do not acknowledge the fact that they invaded. It is all forgotten. And history is rewritten in such a way that they repress these things. And only recently, there are those in Japan who are saying, if we are ever going to heal the wounds of World War II, we have got to face up to our responsibility as a nation. Well, what we are saying, it is about time that Japanese do. My response is it is about time that America does, that we, in fact, still suffer from a guilty conscience because down, deep inside of people, there is an awareness that something went on there that was terribly wrong. We dropped more bombs on this little country than was dropped on all the rest of the world during all of World War II. We used chemical warfare, Agent Orange. We devastated the land. For what? What was the point? And if you were to go out there and say, "Did you know that the whole war was about trying to keep a free election from taking place?" Which is what it was about. The Accord of (19)54 guaranteed a free election in (19)58, and the people in Washington at that time knew that there was a free election in Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh would have been elected overwhelmingly. And so, we went to war to save people from voting, because if they voted, democracy would end. The incongruity of that. And if you went out there and- [inaudible] SM (29:53): Out there and asked the students. TC (29:54): They would not know that. And yet, that is history. So, we really have to say that, in that sense, these things, there will not be any healing. The healing will not take place because America is not ready to face up to what it is done. And I think it cannot face up to what it's done for a very important reason. A generation or two will have to pass away before we can face up to it. Senator Kerry gave a speech before the US Senate hearings on Vietnam when he was- SM (30:38): Senator from Nebraska? TC (30:39): No, the senator from- SM (30:40): Massachusetts. TC (30:40): ...Massachusetts. SM (30:40): Okay. TC (30:41): ...when he was the leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and he was still in his uniform, he was still a soldier. I think he never has reached the pinnacle of greatness in that speech which will go down in history as one of the great speeches of history, as he said to the US Senate committee hearing, "How do you tell the last- " Peggy (31:06): "How do you ask a man to be the last- " TC (31:06): "How you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?" That is a good question. "How do you say to the families of 50,000 men who lost their lives there, 'It was a waste.' How do you tell them that? How do you tell them that they gave their lives, not only for nothing?" Which I think they are beginning to realize now. "Hey, our sons died, and what happened? Nothing." "But worse than that, your sons went over and died in order to perpetuate injustice. How do you tell American? How do you tell hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people who gave their finest and their best to this country they believed in, that not only was it in vain, it was worse than that, that their sons became the instrument of death for three million innocent people? How do you tell them that? That is the truth and how can there be healing when nobody faces the truth?" SM (32:23): You look at the Vietnam War, why did it end? How important were students on college campuses? How important was Middle America witnessing the body bags coming home on national television? Jack Smith said the reason why the war ended was because middle America finally saw what was happening. That was his thought. I interviewed him. But I have had different thoughts. TC (32:46): I do not know why it ended. I think that the American people, of course, demanded that it end, that, at a particular point, even Richard Milhous Nixon was trying to figure out how to end the war and he was the one that ultimately did. But let me just say that when I look at the end of the war, it never really ended. It just petered out. They closed in on the embassy, and we got on our helicopters, and we flew away, and there were nothing left. Nobody wants to face this. The war ended for one primary reason. We lost it. SM (33:31): [inaudible] that. TC (33:32): You do not ask the German people. "Why do you think World War II ended?" The answer is, "The Russians entered Berlin and the Yankees met them on the other side. It was over because we were destroyed." Please understand that the last image that I have of the war in Vietnam is a helicopter taking off and people hanging onto it, trying to get out, the Marines making their last escape. It was not like Hong Kong, where the British pulled down the flag, saluted, turned the country over. We left in the context of sheer chaos, and defeat, and confusion. The very fact that you asked the question is evidence to me why there will not be any healing. We have not faced the fact that not only were we involved in something that was totally immoral, but we are refusing to face the fact that we lost it. We are still kidding ourselves to think that we had a ceremony in which we decided to walk away. There was nothing left of us. They wiped out everything. They closed in, it was over. SM (34:47): Yeah. It is- TC (34:48): Then, when you ask, "Why do you think the war ended?" Answer, "We lost." SM (34:54): You are the first person to say that in 41 interviews. TC (34:56): Stop to think about it. Did not make any difference whether you were for the war or against the war. Ford was the President when it finally all fell apart. And when it happened, he introduced into Congress a bill to make another effort. And even the right-wingers voted him down. "We are out of there. It is over. It is done. It is kerplunk." What is it about this country, that we cannot face the fact that we sin and that we lose? Must we always be righteous and must we always win? SM (35:40): I want to get back to something. When I was young and a lot of people late (19)60s and early (19)70s, the Boomers who protested against the war, those got involved in many of the movements, used to always talk amongst ourselves, that, "We are the most unique generation of American history. The most unique generation of American history." As a person, I still feel we were personally, that is just- TC (36:00): Because you were. SM (36:00): ...my feeling. But your thoughts on that kind of an attitude, that many of that generation of our generation felt? And then you look at as they have gotten older, and you have already made some commentary about the idealism of their youth waned because they wanted to make money on Wall Street. So, your thoughts on, well, we have had some people who said that, "World War II was the most unique generation of American industry. They fought a war. They won a war, they beat Hitler." TC (36:30): Yeah. SM (36:30): So, it is just your thought. TC (36:30): I think it is wonderful. But we won other wars before. Up until the Vietnam War, and the Vietnam War was the climax of something that began during Eisenhower's years. Peggy and I are old enough to remember something you do not remember. It was the U-2 episode. You have no idea what the U-2 episode told us. President of the United States said, "We do not spy. America does not spy." Can you imagine that? Can you imagine a president standing up and saying, "We do not spy. The Russians spy. We do not have spies." And guess what? We believed him. All of America believed Eisenhower when he said that. And the thing is that they dragged out Powers. We will always remember him. And they stood him up in front of the camera, and they said, "What were you doing?" "I was flying a spy plane." Think of the naïvete that we had, that we, as Americans, did not spy. I remember being in school in U-2, when they said, "Do you know what? People in places like Russia, when they read the newspaper, they cannot be sure that what they're reading is true. Aren't you glad that you live in a country where, when you pick up the newspaper, everything you read is true?" You refuse to believe that. But that was not just Peggy and me, that was all of America. We were the nation that did not lie. We were the nation that did not spy. We were the nation that did not commit sins. "America, America, God shed His grace on thee." We were the new Israel. We were the City on the Hill. We were the best hope for democracy. We were the people who were the free. America was the kingdom of God realized in history, and we believed it. We really believed it. And starting with Eisenhower, the disillusionment began to set in. And then beyond that, the cracks began to occur. "Was Jefferson really the wonderful man we thought he was, or did he have slaves? And was Washington really all that good? And what about Lincoln? Well, he abolished slavery. Did not you really believe in the inferiority of Black people?" And suddenly, Eldridge Cleaver wrote a book, Soul on Ice, that was crucial, in which he said, "The heroes of America are falling. We do not believe in them anymore." These heroes played the roles role of saints. They were the embodiment of all that was good, and true, and wonderful. Suddenly they were not that wonderful. Suddenly American was a spying nation, just like the Russians. And suddenly we realized that our newspapers lied to us. We could not believe what we read. And the disillusionment began to set in. And Vietnam was the clash between one generation that was the end of an era, the end of the age of innocence. I am not the first to coin that phrase. The end of the age of innocence. And the (19)60s and the Boomers were the beginning of the age of cynicism. And that was the clash between the two. This generation that came along called the Boomers just did not believe. Think of the songs. (singing) Do you know that song? SM (40:24): Mm-mm. TC (40:29): See, I do not think you can understand this here unless you understand music. I think Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton, Joan Baez defined the age, the transition came with The Beatles, who made social revolution into a private thing. "You got to get your own head together." That was their message. "Forget the world, get your own head together." But here were the songs of the year. (singing) See the cynicism right at the end? (singing) The cynicism right at the end. (singing) And this song by Tom Paxton. (singing) I remember this song. SM (41:32): That is my [inaudible]. TC (41:32): You remember that song? SM (41:35): Yes. TC (41:36): "But you must teach me, Sergeant, for I have never killed before." Ooh. "Tell me about the hand grenade. Does it tear a man to pieces with its ... " And people were singing those songs. Bob Dylan singing, "The times- " SM (41:54): They are a-changin' TC (41:54): " ... they are a-changin'." Your sons and your daughters are beyond your control. There is a new value system out there, a new way of looking at things. We do not believe in you anymore. We do not believe in what you are teaching us. We do not believe in your sense of American history. We are not even sure we believe in American anymore. SM (42:12): I know Country Joe and the Fish was another group that sang, and in fact, country, Joe and the Fish did an album recently on Vietnam. TC (42:20): Yeah, it was an incredible era in which the music called everything into question. "Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tack." You remember those? SM (42:37): Mm-hmm. TC (42:37): The suburban dream that we all had. World War II, we were all going to buy a house in the suburbs. And suddenly, as Pete Seeger says, "What is this suburban community? Little houses on the hilltop, and people made of ticky tack and they all drink their martinis dry." SM (42:54): You made a very good observation, because most Boomers, and I being one, and others feel that the beginning of the change in the attitude of Boomers was assassination of John Kennedy. A Camelot, the idealism, "Ask for not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country." And you make a very good analysis here by saying, "A lot of the things in terms of cynicism started with Eisenhower." TC (43:16): Yeah. SM (43:17): The lies. And again, of course the free speech movement really began on the Berkeley campus in 1963. And they saw authority, just, they were not allowed to do something on a college campus. It spread nationwide, and young people got involved, freedom summer of (19)64 and so forth. But your thoughts, you have already talked about Eisenhower, but if you were to pick one major event that you think had the greatest impact on Boomer lives in their youth, what is that event? TC (43:46): Martin Luther King's death, maybe, if they were old enough to remember that, had America going up on flames. It had to be a defining moment. SM (43:58): We will finish up. It is 7:30. TC (44:00): Yeah. SM (44:00): I got a lot of questions, but I am at fault because you got our communication [inaudible 00:]. TC (44:04): But I think that would be a key thing for me, was the death of Martin Luther King. And the reaction to that was not a reaction of, "Let us go on from here and carry out his ideals." The reaction to that was total frustration, the total polarization of the Black and white communities. Up until that time, we were singing Black and White (Together). You remember that song? S M (44:33): Mm-hmm. TC (44:35): (singing) Peggy (44:35): [inaudible] we shall overcome. TC (44:36): We shall overcome, yeah. Suddenly, it was Black separatism, power now, and the Black people basically moved on the scene. This was the era when Muhammad Ali suddenly emerges on the scene and says, "I am not going to fight this war in Vietnam. So I got nothing against those people." You know? SM (44:58): Mm-hmm. TC (45:00): "And why should I fight to protect this America, this white America, that has trashed me and trashed my people? And we listened to him because there was a sincerity about him that could not be ignored. All of America saw a sincerity. Even those that despised him, despised him because of his sincerity. But I think that the death of Martin Luther King was the watershed for most young people, in which they had the sense that there would not be a peaceful, democratic solution to the agonies that were tearing this country apart. SM (45:44): This leads me into a question dealing with the issue of trust. Do you think we will ever be able to trust again? Now, you made reference to Eisenhower, and certainly, we know what happened with Watergate, and we saw what McNamara did, and the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, President Johnson was not really honest with the American public. So, we had a succession of leaders not being, and just basically- TC (46:07): Bipartisan. SM (46:09): ... crooks. And as young people, as growing up, they see this. And certainly, maybe the first lies we are seeing with Eisenhower lying to the public. Just your overall thoughts about trust, and then, most importantly, when we look at today's young people, the people that you are going to be talking to tonight in this audience, I do not think they trust. And so, where have the Boomer parents been, raising their kids? TC (46:31): My argument would be that cynicism had its raise in [inaudible] the (19)60s, but cynicism has now taken on a life of its own. Cynicism is cool. It was a cheap excuse for ignorance. Namely, you have students in a campus who want to look sophisticated. They have not read anything. They do not know anything. But if they walk around with an air of cynicism, it will be a cheap duplication of intelligence. "But I do not believe in politics." "Why," should be the question. "Because they are all a bunch of liars." "Oh? What is the empirical evidence that you have rounded up for that?" They have no reason for their cynicism? It is cynicism without a hook to hang it on. And it's part of the cultural milieu. It is part of what goes with being cool. And if you want to be cool on Westchester's campus, you better act cynical. And if you cannot explain the faces of your cynicism, that is all right. You can put people off simply by using obscenities like, "It's all a lot of bullshit." That is their word, bullshit. Everything's bullshit. And they sound like they have been there, and back, and they know it all. They have read it. They have experienced life. They know what life is all about. The truth is they do not know anything. It has become part of a garb that displays itself as intelligence when in fact it is just a cool way to be. And when cynicism is admired, the cynic should always be cynical, with tears in his eyes, not with the sneer on his lips. The cynic says, "I cannot believe in America anymore." And the tears are running down his cheeks because he cannot believe anymore. But to do it with an arrogant sneer, that, of course, is unbefitting any human being. SM (49:07): I am going to close over this question. The final question was going to be actually asking you a lot of names, here, and just getting your response, but I think the basic thrust of what I am after is in the meat of the interview in the beginning. I want to get into your thoughts on the concept of empowerment. Going back again to when Boomers were young, there was a feeling, a sense that, "We can be the change agents for the betterment of society, that we could possibly be the ones to end the war, that we could be the ones to bring Black people and white people together," you know, "because we see the injustices in- " TC (49:38): Mm-hmm. SM (49:38): " ...society, the injustices against women, injustices against gay and lesbians," all that whole period. Just your thoughts on this concept of empowerment that supposedly so many Boomers had as when they were young, and what has happened with a concept of empowerment today as they have gone into adulthood. TC (50:01): Well, I think that the best example of that may be with Bill Bradley, who still believes in the ideals of the (19)60s. I think he is really the best example of the answer to your question. He thought if he went to Washington and became a senator, and maybe even president, he could change things from the top down. He has not given up the idea of empowering people. "But you do not empower people," he is concluded, and I have talked to about this, "by seizing control of the government and doing what is right from the top down. Empowerment begins from the bottom up." And so, he has now gone on to identify with the communitarian movement. "And what we need to do is we need to people together on the grassroots level. We need town meetings. We need to gather people together in a given neighborhood, and have them exchange ideas, and determine what is best for their neighborhood. We need to stop looking to Washington for the answers and start looking to ourselves for the answers." And there is the initiation, I would say, of a whole new politic in America, that maybe is going to be led by the Boomers, who said, "We took a shortcut. We really made a mistake. We said, 'The way for you to have power is to elect me, and I will make the decisions.' No, the way to make power is for me to step out of office." That is why I say Bill Bradley, as a model, is me to say, "The answer is not you elect me. See, you have power, now. No, you do not have power. If you elected me, I have power. And all you have done is given me power." I love Bradley's comment, "People do not live in a democracy just because they are able to elect their kings. If the person up top functions like a king, the fact that he got the crown through tradition and inheritance or that he was elected king makes no difference if he functions like a king." And so, you have a Bill Bradley that said, "I thought that the way for people to be empowered is for them to elect me. I now see that the way for the people to get power is for me to give up my office, and go back, and organize grassroots meetings to get people to seize control of their destinies. And if they cannot do it on a national and international level, at least they can do it on the community level." That is why organizations like Habitat for Humanity are thriving, because the X generation has picked up that theme. "We, too, want to change the world, but we're going to change it from the bottom up, not from the top down. We are not going to go to Washington and ask them to put in a new government housing program. We are going to build a house up the street and we're going to do it ourselves. And when it is done, we are going to look at it and say, 'See, we did not change the world, but there's one family now that has a house.'" And Habitat for Humanity now is picking up momentum. And I was on the executive committee of Habitat for Humanity in its earliest stages of development. And we thought it was great when we completed 1,000 houses a year. Now we're completing 50,000 houses a year across the country. It is picking up momentum all the time. And there is a bottom up change. And so when you go to Washington and hear the State of the Union address, there is Newt Gingrich wearing a Habitat for Humanity button on his lapel, and there's Bill Clinton wearing his Habitat for Humanity button on the lapel. Both of them are committed to Habitat for- SM (54:09): Democrat- TC (54:09): ...Humanity. SM (54:09): ... nd Republican alike. TC (54:10): Yeah. So whatever is going on up here, there is a sense that real power and real change is going to take place from the bottom up and not from the top down. And I think that is the great discovery of the X generation as opposed to the Boomers. SM (54:24): Well, thank you very much. TC (54:25): Okay. SM (54:25): I will let you get some- (End of Interview) Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. 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Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Tony Campolo Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Campolo, Anthony ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Authors; Clergy; Sociologists; Political activists--United States; Campolo, Anthony--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Tony Campolo is a speaker, author, sociologist, pastor, social activist, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Eastern University and former faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Campolo was a spiritual advisor to U.S. President Bill Clinton. He has a Bachelor of Arts from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary at Eastern College and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Temple University. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997-09-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.62 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 113:55 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/bac1fef74b323b349e80a680e127c990.jpg dfc6695046460981748ce05b4e4cdd58 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/b268cfb34e5134e1d6285f64c254ebd3.mp3 993d90b7b9efe4d9510ea5c7155160c5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-03-18 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed William L. O'Neill Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. William O'Neill (1935-2016) was a historian, scholar, author and professor of history emeritus at Rutgers University. Dr. O'Neill was the author of more than a dozen books on subjects related to the twentieth century of American social and political history. He has a Bachelor's degree form the University of Michagan and earned his Master's and Ph.D. in History at the University of California, Berkeley."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13059,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,16777215],"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dr. William O'Neill (1935-2016) was a historian, scholar, author, and professor of history emeritus at Rutgers University. Dr. O'Neill was the author of more than a dozen books on subjects related to the twentieth century of American social and political history. He has a Bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan and earned his Master's and Ph.D. in History at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. O'Neill is the recipient of the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award from Who's Who in America. </span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"AFDC; Welfare; Baby boom generation; Eugene McCarthy; communism; Red Scare; Women's Liberation Movement; Hippies."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">AFDC; Welfare; Baby boom generation; Eugene McCarthy; communism; Red Scare; Women's Liberation Movement; Hippies.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 199:22 Subject LCSH Historians; Scholars; Authors, American; College teachers; Rutgers University; United States—History—20th century; O'Neill, William L.--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: William O’Neill Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 18 March 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:03): Testing one, two. Here we go. Again, speak up. I remember I said that a couple of times and, oh, all right, here we go. What was America like from 1946 to (19)60 in the following areas, just your perceptions? I know when you wrote American High, you talked about that you looked at it more from a functional perspective as opposed to an idealistic perspective than a lot of the boomers may have thought. Because they were fairly critical, but when you think of the 19 from this (19)46 to 1960, I have got five categories here that I like. Just your thoughts on what was it like to be an African American during that timeframe? A female. What was family life like? Religion? Because I know people went to church a lot. My grandfather was a minister. The leaders that you thought were the most inspirational during that timeframe, there is a lot here, but these particular groups, because this is when boomers were born and right up to the time they went to junior high school. WO (00:01:27): Well, of course, I do not know much about what it was like to be an African American. Segregation was of course, universal in the north too, as well as the south. In the south, it was a matter of law, and they had savage punishments if you violated it, they were still lynching people. In the north was intensely segregated too, but in a non-violent way. It was not a matter of law, it was a matter of custom. Realtors would not sell or rent to Black people except in Black neighborhoods. Of course, their income compared to whites was extremely low. Their opportunities were very limited compared to what they later became. The big compensation, I think, for them, was that their family life was so much better than it is now. The divorce rate was slow, the illegitimate rate was low. This was an era of two parent Black families who generally stayed together for life and raised their children and under very difficult circumstances, but what has happened since that is the opportunities for blacks who have improved and enormously, but the Black family has disintegrated. Over 70 percent of Black children are born out of wedlock now. Most Black children do not have fathers. Well, they have them, but they do not know where they are kind of thing. I never know what if I were Black, how I would look at that because ... SM (00:03:02): Do you blame- WO (00:03:04): ... Have been great, but the losses have been big too. SM (00:03:06): Do you blame Lyndon Johnson for part of that? Because a lot of people criticize him for the welfare state, and even though the Great Society was, is praised over what he did in Vietnam, a lot of people are critical that really hurt the African American family, because that is the 1960s, '63 after Kennedy died, right, till (19)68. WO (00:03:34): Well, what enabled Black women to raise all these illegitimate children was welfare or aid to families with dependent children. That was the actual title aid to families with dependent children. That was eliminated under Bill Clinton in I think 1965 or 1995 or (19)96, so that program does not exist anymore. Women, again, in most states, three to five years of that kind of support, and then it is over. If welfare had been the cause of the Black families' disintegration, then it should be recreated by now, but of course it has not been. It clearly could not have been the principal factor. SM (00:04:21): Mm-hmm. How about women? What was it like? You have written about it to be a female in (19)46 to (19)60 in the (19)50s and late (19)40s. WO (00:04:32): Well, it was a tradeoff. Women were discriminated against but of course, until Betty Friedan came along with the Feminine Mystique, there was not a strong perception of that among anybody, including, I mean, I knew lots of women. I married one and they did not feel oppressed or discriminated against, although in fact they were not necessarily oppressed, but they were certainly discriminated against. It was difficult for, for example, when I was a student at the University of Michigan, and we all took this for granted in the 1950s, the ratio of men to women was two to one. That was not because the women had inferior qualifications. It was because the admission system was rigged so that a woman had to have superior qualifications to the average male who was admitted in order to get in. Of course, when it came to graduate school, medical school, law school, the discrimination's far worse there. When I- something I have never forgotten, when I entered graduate school at the University of California in Berkeley in 1957, they had an orientation meeting and there were maybe, I do not know, 100 students who had just been admitted. One of the senior faculty, a full professor addressed us and he said, this is a literal quote. He said, "If you are married or female, get out of this program. We only have room for serious scholars." If you were married or a woman, by definition, you could not be a serious scholar. There were women who got PhDs then and they had a terrifically difficult time finding jobs. Now, the plus side is, in those days, men earned, including working class men, but particularly working-class men and middle-class men, they earned enough money to support a family by themselves. A male's wages or salary were sufficient for him to support a wife and three children, I guess was the average at the time. The divorce rate was quite low compared to what it is now, about half what it is today. The tradeoff was yes, women were discriminated against, but more than we were all conscious of. In retrospect, you can see this much more clearly. I did not see it at all at the time and not [inaudible] and then when I started thinking about these things, I am sure it was an eye opener for lots of people, but the plus side was that although women were discriminated against, for the most part, for most of them, they were able to marry, have children, be supported by their husband and stay married to their husband. It was a lifelong deal, and many of them did not think it was that bad a deal. SM (00:07:48): Some of the feminists, and I have interviewed a couple of them, one in particular actually is Dr. Lash, she mentioned that she fell, women were never asked how they felt in the 1950s. In reality, if you were to talk to them as they got older, they stayed together for the kids, but they really did not want to get divorced. Secondly, and then unhappy marriages and whatever that effect that had on the children, but they also, if she felt that if you asked a lot of the women of that period, they would say, "Yes, I was totally unfulfilled," because a lot of them had secretarial training and so forth, and they met their husband. They married young, had kids, but they were not able to use their skills until later on. Some others had exceptions of the rule. There were women that were working, but overall, they were housewives. Your thoughts of that kind of, that is- WO (00:08:49): That anecdotal evidence is really hard to deal with. Most of the women I know my age, more or less my age, have been happy with their lives. My wife, for example, this is just an anecdote, does not mean anything necessarily, but when we got married, I was still in graduate school and she got a job teaching at a public school in Berkeley, and she taught there for three years. She hated every minute of it. It was there, she was the new girl in school, and so she got the worst classes. She threw up every morning before she went to school for about six months, I think. She never got to like it. I mean, it was always rough. The minute I got my PhD at a full-time job, she quit and was thrilled to quit. She then spent several years because I was always at universities, taking courses in areas of interest in her and developing. She is in fact an artist. She was never able to make a living at it, but art is her biggest interest. She was able to take art classes and produce work, and then she was very highly motivated to have children. After a couple of years of taking courses, she then had two children. Are you a father? SM (00:10:19): No, I am lucky. I have been married to my job my whole life. WO (00:10:22): Okay. SM (00:10:23): My career. Thousands of students. WO (00:10:24): Well, it changes your life and it is not always an unmixed blessing, but she had never regretted that she was very highly motivated. She really wanted to be a mother. I have never asked her if she felt that she had a fulfilling life, but it seemed to me that she has had the tradeoffs that she had to make were ones that she made consciously and was not forced into. In fact, I did not want to have children. I was married to my work in those days, a young man and just getting started and had no money. Well, I had a salary, but it just barely covered our requirements. When she had wanted to have a ... And she just [inaudible]. She was very highly motivated. She was determined to have children. I went along with it. It is not like men do not make sacrifices too or did not. It is still true. We all do whatever the balance of power or whatever it is, men have to make compromises and sacrifices too. I went along with it. Our first child was so horrible. She grew up to be a very fine woman, but as an infant, she was just awful. Even she was defiant and a runaway by the age of two. SM (00:11:56): Oh my God. WO (00:11:56): It just made our lives so difficult. And then my wife said, "Well, it is time to have another child," and I said, "Are you insane? We could barely cope with the one we have." Well, we did it. We went and had Kate. SM (00:12:10): Right. You talked a little bit about the family life of the boomer family life. I am trying to make sure that when I talk about boomers, people had mentioned that they thought boomers were white men or white women, but I want to make sure boomers are everybody that lived from all ethnic backgrounds, gender orientation, you name it. Just your thoughts on what it was like to grow up as a kid in the 1950s, because I have not had too many people that I have interviewed that really have concentrated on that period. They like to talk about the (19)60s and the (19)70s, but they do not like to talk about the (19)50s. I need more information because I felt religion was very important in the (19)50s. My grandfather was a minister at the Peekskill Church in New York for, he died in (19)56, I was a little boy, but we went to church, and I know that his church was packed. My dad would come back in the late (19)50s when [inaudible] took his place and it was packed. Something happened in the (19)60s, attendance went down, but just the concept of what it was like to be a family life was like and religion in the 1950s. WO (00:13:22): Well, Chris, again, you have to remember that America was overwhelmingly white in that period. The Hispanic minority, practically non-existent. Immigration from Asia and Africa and South America was just impossible. The only immigrants who got in were whites from Europe. The country was about 89 percent white, something like that. Within that context, a lot of class and regional and income differences. What is striking about the family life in that period, first of all, is this is the era of the baby boom. Birth rates had been falling for as long as there had been censuses, and particularly since 1860 when the census really got professional and good. Every generation had fewer children than the one before it. The parents of the baby boomers were, of course, children of depression and war. They have been through a lot and made many sacrifices. With the case of the war generation, they have been separated for long periods of time and they were determined to make up for lost time. Veterans served in military on the average of three years at the time. They all regarded this as three lost years. I mean, not that they rejected the call to service. There were very few conscientious objectors in World War II. They accepted their duty. It was their responsibility to defend the country, but nonetheless, they hated the military, almost all of them, and regarded this is three lost years when they could have finished school and gotten married and had children. When they got out, they decided to do everything at once. It just baffled older people, social critics and the like. Here is a generation they know sooner get out of the army then they get married, have children go to college, all at the same time. You are supposed to do those in sequence, decent intervals between them and so on. It led to this very false school of social criticism about the lonely crowd and the corporation ... SM (00:15:37): David Riesman. WO (00:15:38): ... And all that. I am about 10 years older than the war generation, so I did not participate in their experience. Initially, when all this social criticism came about, again, the lonely crowd, the conformity and mindlessness and tacky houses in the suburbs and all that stuff, and without giving much thought to it, I went along with it. In later years, when I went back to study this, this period from many different demographic standpoints looked better and better, that the birth rate was high, higher than it had been in several generations, and higher than it would ever be again, at least up until this point. The marriage rate was higher too. The divorce rate was lowered. Family incomes grew steadily. The houses in the suburbs were, what is the alternative to a nice house in a suburb like Levittown? Well, a tenement, some crappy apartment in New York that you are paying. For most veterans who bought houses in Levittown, their housing costs fell. They were paying more in rent for overcrowded, under ventilated apartments in New York than for a nice two-bedroom expandable cape, with grass and a driveway and this kind thing. They were family-oriented to a degree unprecedented in American history before that time. The wives too, of course, were similarly motivated because they had had the same deprivation. They had been separated from their boyfriends, their husbands, their future husbands, whatever, and had worked in difficult conditions in war plants and things like that. They felt they had lost three years of their life too. As I look back on them now, I mean, I think they were a wonderful generation and we call them today, they never used that phrase at the time, and you talk about all the complaints that were made about the generation, now, we call them the greatest generation. They were great at peace time too. SM (00:18:05): Yeah. It is interesting because I want to get into the leaders here, but you say in your book in American High that when Eisenhower came to power, the country was infused with confidence. It is created expectations, and there was unity. Isn't that what happened when Kennedy came in too, that many of the critics of the (19)50s looked at Kennedy and said, "Whew, what a breath of fresh air, new ideas, somebody who's young," some fairly critical of the (19)50s overall, and as it says here, very complacent, as you said in your book, complacent, unremarkable, marked by intolerance, conformed to materialism. Of course, African Americans were treated poorly. You talked about lynching. Dr. King became nationally known. There were some really bad things happening, but it was kind of hidden. We knew about the Cold War, we knew about the threat of the nuclear bomb, but what was happening in America within our own borders was kind of hidden from boomer children, so to speak. That is why I think a lot of people are critical of the (19)50s because not only were these things happening, but we allowed them to happen and we did not make any effort to change. You talk about the fact also, in your book that after World War II, it was a kind of reconstruction period. It was everybody had been deprived. I know my mom, I know the stories my mom told me about they did not have any butter. I mean, there was no rubber. I mean, they could not drive very far in cars. There was all kinds of restrictions, but the social critics do not look at that. They look at the bad things and the status quo and the lack of being individual thought and your thoughts again. WO (00:20:08): The period looks ... Now, of course, the (19)50s did suffer from racism, sexism, and homophobia. Every previous era in American history had suffered from these things too. The (19)50s is not unique in that way. What makes the (19)50s unique is the progress that was made. This was the beginning of the period of the fight against racism. Now, that with around supportive education and then Montgomery Bus Boycott, and in the (19)60s, it would lead to the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, so race ... The greatest scandal of American life, which had been a scandal before there was a United States of America, that is the (19)50s is the era when the fight against it really takes off. The worst thing in American life is being seriously addressed for the first time. Well, since the Civil War, I mean, that was many, many hundreds of thousands of union men died to destroy slavery, but then that was it, and discrimination and lynching and all these other things just went unaddressed until really the 1950s. In that area, you get the start really important social progress. In other areas, I have become, I think more I have come to admire Eisenhower more than I did. For one thing, I was as a lifelong Democrat, I voted for Adlai Stevenson, but I have come to appreciate Eisenhower, despite his style, which in public, he was this homuncular, grandfather-like figure. Spoke in long, boring sentences and never seemed to say anything. Of course, we now know that was an act, that he really was not like that at all, but that was the public persona that he represented, which could hardly have been more tedious or bland. While he was putting out this facade of mediocrity, he was ending the Korean War, cutting back the military, drastically paying down the national debt, starting the interstate highway system. I know lots of people think this country pays too much attention to cars, that we are too car-centered and we should have more railroads and stuff. I think that is true also, but the interstate highway system was a tremendous stimulus to the American economy, not only in the jobs that were created in building it, but in the time that was cut from transporting goods from place to place. It was the greatest public works project in the history of the world. One of the big reasons why the American economy grew so rapidly during the (19)50s and (19)60s when it was of course, still rebuilding, built the St. Lawrence Seaway ... SM (00:23:04): Yeah, the [inaudible]. WO (00:23:06): ... He kept income tax up. The Republicans, even in the 1950s were gung-ho on tax cuts. He refused to do it, because his feeling was, and he said this publicly, that a strong economy is more important than a strong military because you can always build up a military, but if your economy is shot, you are screwed. Well, he did not put it in that way, of course, but that was his argument, and he said that repeatedly. He refused to cut taxes in order, to pay for the interstate highway system to pay down the national debt, to pay for the St. Lawrence Seaway. This is also a period, he was the first to provide federal funding to schools, public schools, and higher education. The country, during this period, the college population expanded between 1955 and 1960 by about 150 percent. Never been anything like it in the history of this country. Thanks to the fact that the economy is blooming, and the states are doing well, and the federal government is supplying some kind of money, this huge increase in enrollment was met by building new colleges and universities and expanding the old ones and hiring full-time faculty members with PhDs. That is almost all the hiring was done during this period. Now, when I look at us today, of course, this is parochial of me Because I have spent my life in higher education, but higher education has been decaying for such a long time now. So much of the teaching is done by exploited graduate students. The full-time, tenured PhD faculty keep shrinking everywhere, not just at Rutgers. That is happening everywhere. The university's trying to make up the difference by admitting unqualified students and charging a lot of money in tuition. In the 1950s and (19)60s, tuition was essentially free. I mean, there was a tuition, but it would be like $100 a semester or something of that sort. Today at state universities like Rutgers, it is $12,000 a year. That the whole concept that public higher education should be free is just gone. Nobody seems to care. Increasingly what you could get the education [inaudible]. That was not how we did it in the (19)50s and (19)60s or even before that. SM (00:25:28): I know Eisenhower, even you criticize him for not being very good in the area of civil rights, although he ... WO (00:25:35): He was very blunt. SM (00:25:36): ... Yeah, although we know what happened at Little Rock, but what is interesting is oftentimes pressure has to be put on leaders to get things done. Harry Truman, of course, integrated the military in the late forties, and I can remember the story of A. Philip Randolph threatening a march on Washington and ... WO (00:25:55): During the war. SM (00:25:56): ... Yeah, during the war, and Truman did not want that. He eventually integrated the army, which meant that I think (19)57 was when King was there for, I think, at the Lincoln Memorial. WO (00:26:14): Truman integrated the army in theory in 1948, but it took quite a long time to ... The services really dragged their feet that when they ended formal segregation, oh, in five to 10 years, something like that. Even into the (19)60s, although segregation had officially been ended, you barely saw a black officer. Black soldiers were mostly in construction battalions and riflemen. In fact, in the (19)60s, one of the problems of the Vietnam War is that in (19)65, (19)66 when the fighting really became intensive, Black casualties in relation to the number of blacks in the military were extremely high. Well, the reason was that they were all in the combat arms. Everybody who scored high on Army qualification tests, who would normally be white, got into intelligence and signals and things like that, and Blacks all got to be gunners and rifleman. SM (00:27:26): Yeah, McCarthy was an important figure. I can remember as a very young boy sitting on the floor in my home in Courtland before I went to school and seeing this man on television yelling to answer questions. I remember Roy Cohen, I remember that young lawyer to his left, but I remember he was scary to me as a little boy within that black and white TV. I was [inaudible] and even as a four-year-old that this is a guy that even a four-year-old was afraid of. David Kaiser's written in his book, 1968, that he sees Kennedy and McCarthy linked all over the place when you talk about the boom generation. He links three things that really affected the Vietnam War, and he thinks McCarthy, Kennedy and an attitude of appeasement, kind of like what happened in Munich that happened. When he talks about McCarthy, he is talking about all the links with the Kennedy’s, and they were friends and McCarthy- WO (00:28:33): Joan Kennedy in particular ... SM (00:28:35): McCarthy was challenged them- WO (00:28:37): ... [inaudible] supporter of McCarthy. SM (00:28:41): Right. Well, and of course you talk about in your book about the Hollywood ten. To me that was a precursor of the enemy's list that Nixon did and the COINTELPRO program. I know that M. Stanton Evans has written a book recently kind of saying some good things about Senator McCarthy, but yet- WO (00:29:06): Gee, what good is this? SM (00:29:08): Yeah. It is actually a revisionist look at the man. You have to get the book. M. Stanton Evans, he is a conservative, but your thoughts on McCarthy and how important he was during that timeframe in terms of shaping about fearing about speaking up. David Kaiser also talks about the fact that many white men in that period looked up to African Americans like Dr. King because they were not threatened by McCarthy. They spoke up against injustice, Dr. King in (19)57, Montgomery Bus Boycott, and they did not worry about him, but many white men who may have spoken up did not because of what was going on in America, soft on communism type of a mentality. WO (00:30:00): I am missing your question. SM (00:30:01): The question is, McCarthy, how important was he? WO (00:30:05): Well, of course he was about five years, he was tremendously important, but he was important primarily as a weapon used by the Republicans to get back in power into the meeting. Well, he had a sort of primitive shrewdness about him, but the man was completely incompetent, and so was his staff except for Roy Cole. Roy Cole was smart, but otherwise, he had a terrible staff. He would go around saying, "There are 185 communists in the State Department," and he would wave papers that presumably prove this. The next time he would ask, "Well, there is 65 communists in the State Department," and he would be president. Finally, he got down to Owen Lattimore, who was not even in the State Department. He was an East Asian scholar who had been serving as a consultant to McCarthy. Well, so where is the fire there? There was not. It was a damp squid. Owen Lattimore was a fellow traveler, but he was not in the State Department and had no influence on public policy and did not matter at all in terms of the life of the country. McCarthy's success was owning to the fact that the Republicans supported him strongly, including even Robert Taft, who was widely admired for his integrity, but did not hesitate to urge McCarthy to get down in the gutter and throw mud at everyone else and did some mud throwing in of itself. The proof of that is that when Eisenhower became president in 1953, McCarthy's days were numbered because he did not realize that he was just a tool, was a means by which the Republicans were going to get back into power. Now that they were in power, there could not be a 21st year of treason and all these other ridiculous charges that he made, and he did not get it. Part of it, I think, was because he was so alcoholic. When you look at the films that have been made of him, the documentaries like Point of Order, which is surely the best known one, you can see that he is visibly drunk when he is speaking. He slurs his words, and he gets things wrong. Here is this drunken fool who becomes a national figure and a real threat to civil liberties, solely as a mechanism by which the Republicans came back into power. Once they are back into power in 1954, they cut him off [inaudible]. SM (00:32:40): Do you think Nixon learned from McCarthy? He was not like McCarthy, but he saw- WO (00:32:48): No, he was so much smarter than McCarthy. SM (00:32:48): But he saw that he could threaten people with his enemies list and the COINTELPRO Program. WO (00:32:54): Yes, he did not hesitate to use McCarthy methods, but he was so much smarter than McCarthy and so much really more careful about who he went after and how he phrased it. He would usually leave himself an out some sort, so he could red bait and get away with it, but McCarthy was just so crude, and as I say, incompetent. He destroyed himself. SM (00:33:23): When you look at your three books that I brought with me today, could you describe what it means to what American High means, what coming apart means and what a bubble in time means? WO (00:33:40): Mm-hmm. Well, I have a general theory about modern American history, which these books fit into. I have been trying to think of a way to possibly write another book that would integrate this thing, but it seems to be the arc that the United States has followed, is in the 1930s ... As follow is in the 1930s, of course, it was the Great Depression and a good deal of national despair, which fortunately Franklin Roosevelt came along. And after that, people did not despair so much, but there was a long period of hardships experienced by a large part of the public. And then there was this awful era of appeasement. On the part of France and Britain, which the United States fully supported. Roosevelt was always sending encouraging messages, keep up the good work of surrendering handler, not with so many words, of course. And then when France fell, and Britain was all alone, the last beacon of democracy in a continent that had been completely taken over by the Nazis, the American people, as unfortunately polls pretty reliable by this time. But also, the American still did not want to get into the war. They wanted to wait until New Jersey was invaded and that would be the right point at which to start defending ourselves. And Roosevelt kept trying to explain it would be better to start defending ourselves using Great Britain while it was still independent as a phase. So that was kind of the nature of American life in the 20th century, I think. But once forced into the war, against the will, of course, the American people made a fabulous effort. And in saving much of the free world, they also rejuvenated the United States. And the self-confidence and the economy blossomed. And in the post-war period, we got this long run of success with the economy. The economy. Average incomes between 1947 and 1973 doubled. That is in real terms, that is adjusted for inflation. That is real terms. Since 1973, family incomes have only gone up by about 10 percent. And that is mostly because everybody is working more. Husbands are moonlighting, wives who never would have worked previously are now working part-time when men who worked part-time previously are now working full-time. We put in more hours. American families put in more hours of work than anybody else in the developed world. And that, plus borrowing, is the only reason why family standards of living have improved, or did improve up until what, 2000. But before that, in the year that ended in 1973, the American standard of living doubled because incomes doubled. Real incomes doubled. And as I said before, it is a period of tremendous reconstruction. In 1945, there is a huge housing shortage. In 1950, the housing shortage is over. And then you get the highway and all the other things, the huge expansion of education. It was gigantic on all levels because the baby boomers are here, this huge generation, bigger than the country had ever seen before. Which we did not have an infrastructure to support at the time they started coming. The infrastructure was created, the schools, the churches, which also boomed during this period. So, it is America. The racism, the worst feature of American life, is seriously attacked for the first time since the Civil War in the 1950s. So, this is a period of enormous national self-confidence, which is fully justified by the results. Then as you get into the 1960s, of course the picture becomes somewhat more ambiguous. The growth continues. It goes right on; the economic growth goes right on into the 1970s. Well, as you know, I am not a big admirer of President Kennedy, and he was a cold warrior from the beginning. He was determined to escalate the arms race. He campaigned on nonexistent missile gap between the United States and the Soviets. There was a missile gap, but it was in our favor by a big margin. The first generation of Soviet ICBMs had failed. And Eisenhower, Nixon could not say that because the information was derived from these illegal sky flights over the Soviet Union. And so, Nixon could not say, well, in fact, we were way ahead of the Soviets in ICBMs because owing to our secret and illegal overflights... SM (00:38:50): Gary Powers. WO (00:38:52): But I am not a big sympathizer with Nixon, but there is a certain irony in his hands being tied in this way. And then when Kennedy became president and Secretary McNamara finally gets the figures and he announces, well, there is no missile gap actually, we are way ahead. And Kennedy made him take that back and insisted on greatly increasing expenditure on missiles despite the fact that we already had this huge lead. The Soviets, of course, then had no choice but to reply in kind. And so, we ended up with something like 40, 000 thermal nuclear warheads on each side, enough to destroy the world many times over. And that all starts with Kennedy. It could have been avoided, it seems to me, with better leadership. He was extremely capable of certain ways, but he was such a hawk where the Cold War was concerned. He never thought about the long-term consequences of what he did. And then we get Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society, which is the biggest outburst of progressive social legislation since the New Deal and has never been matched since. Remotely. Nobody remotely has come close to the Great Society. And then he also gives us the Vietnam War. And that enables the war, is unwinnable and unpopular. And it gives us Richard Nixon as a president. And it also is the beginning of the inflation that become so marked in the 1970s, because since the war was so unpopular, Johnson did not want to pay for it. Or that was he wanted to borrow rather than the tax to pay for it. The country was rich at the time; you could afford it to raise taxes. If people were saying in polls, which they did up until 1968, that they favored the war, well want them to pay for it. But Johnson was afraid to push it because the polls showed there was a majority of Americans supported it. But he believed, I think correctly, that the support was rather thin and would not stand up. And if serious sacrifices were required, that support would wither away. So he avoided the tax increases that might have forced all the, I am not an economist, but all the economic histories that I have seen see the beginning of inflation in his trying to fight the war around borrowing money, at a time when we could afford to actually tax. But he was right about the support being thin because once the huge casualties started to come in and the Tet Offensive proved that all these optimistic projections are wrong, support really eroded very rapidly. And so, Nixon was able to come in and that is the end, actually, it was not the end of reform. Nixon was surprisingly open-minded. Currently there's a lot of discussion about the fact that Ted Kennedy, before his death said the worst thing, he ever did was to refuse Nixon's offer of universal health insurance in 1970. Nixon offered a more generous plan than Obama's trying to get now. And in his memoir, Kennedy says, that is the great mistake of his life. Because he thought he could get a better one. SM (00:42:23): Yeah, I read that memoir, I thought it was pretty good. Pretty good memoir. WO (00:42:32): So then, the economy is kind of shaky because the war's expenses are vaulting high, and the tax increases are not paying for it. In the end, Johnson did put through some tax increases, but they were not enough. So, when Nixon becomes president, inflation is starting to creep up. It is not a monster yet, but it is starting to creep up. And although Nixon, as I say, turned out to be surprisingly open-minded on a lot of social issues, he signed on to the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act and expanded funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities and a variety of other things. Not because he was a great hearted liberal or anything, because he was a smart politician dealing with a Democratic Congress. But the one thing that nobody was willing to do was to address the inflation issue. And then in 1973, you get the first oil shock. The young people are at war and the Arab oil boycott, which did not actually deprive the country of all that much oil, but it created hysteria and energy prices started to shoot through the roof. And Nixon did not deal with that, and Ford did not deal with it, and Carter did not deal with it either, although he wanted to, I think. And he did give speeches about energy conservation, all of that. But the inflation just kept getting worse and worse and worse. SM (00:44:13): Let me change this. WO (00:44:13): So, by the time Paul Volker, who bless his heart Has reemerged- SM (00:44:29): Oh yeah, he is always behind the presidents here. WO (00:44:32): Paul Volker, whom Carter had appointed as chairman of the Federal Reserve, finally decided to end the inflation because Congress would not do it. There are a number of tools for dealing with inflation, but what they basically involve is some combination of cutting government expenditures and raising taxes. But you got there is too much money, you have got to break the money supply down. And neither Carter nor Congressman would take any of these steps because they are unpopular. Nobody wants their taxes to go up and nobody wants their government services to be decline. And so that left only Paul Volker and he broke the back of inflation, as you I am sure remember, by jacking up interest rates. Labor at its prime was at 21 percent at one point, precipitating, of course, a recession, a big one. But with the Congress and the President having failed to act responsibly, he did not have any choice of the matter. In fact, Carter campaigned against him in 1980. His own appointee. Blamed him for the hard times that were coming. Well, my theory is, and it is not just mine, a lot of economists think this too, the economy never recovered from this experience. The rate of economic growth not only declined somewhat afterwards, but the whole way in which income was distributed changed as well. So that while there has been economic growth since 1981, when Ronald Reagan became president, the increase in growth has been funneled almost entirely to rich people. That was not true earlier. In the 1950s and (19)60s, if the economy grew by 3 percent the workers would get a 3 percent raise and the president of the corporation would get a 3 percent raise. And of course, he was making a lot more money than the workers. So, his 3 percent would be a lot more than theirs. But still, the ratio between what the CEO got and the workers got would be 50 to one, something of that sort. Since that time, and Ronald Reagan had a lot to do with this, but he was also the expression of a kind of national impulse in a way was to cut taxes. And people really wanted to have their taxes put out because of course, owing to the inflation of the 1970s, most people's income had fallen. If you were on a salary, as I was, we got raises, but they were never equal to the rate of inflation. And so, the real worth of my salary fell by a third, something like that, during this period. So, one of the easiest ways to deal with that from politicians’ point of view was to cut taxes, which Reagan did. But of course, he cut them particularly for the rich. Then he got the lion share of the taxes. But that began the era in which people came to see that the solution in every problem was tax cuts. And he restored some of them. It was a curious kind of dance. By the end of his presidency about half the tax reduction had been restored. But that still left tax cuts as the mantra on the table that the Republicans rallied both ceaselessly and as a solution for every problem. And with incomes failing to rise as they had done before, older Americans were had gotten used to having their real income go up 5 percent every year or two. And now suddenly it is not going up at all. Or by tiny infinitesimal amounts. SM (00:48:34): And pensions are not going up either. WO (00:48:36): And pensions are not going up. And if you get a tax cut, well that puts a few dollars in your pocket and it is only a few dollars, but it is better than nothing. And so, we got into the cycle, which we are still pursuing today. President Clinton was never really strong enough to be able to deal with this. He helped around the edges. He did increase taxes a bit on rich people. Did not restore the things to what they had been, but he did increase them a little. And we had the short period of budget surpluses. But that was due to the stalemate between the Republican Congress and the Democratic president. Clinton wanted to spend more, Congress wanted to cut taxes more, and they canceled each other out. So, of course, as soon as George Bush got into office, the Republicans fell on that tax surplus like the old son, the proverbial fold and what had been surpluses became huge deficits. So, anyway, so this is the arc of modern American history. We start from a low point in the 1930s in World War II. The country really redeems its failings and its slowness in recognizing the danger. Well, it never did recognize the danger. The danger was forced upon us. And at that point you could not deny reality anymore. But nonetheless, tremendous effort on the part of the whole population something. Everybody contributed to it one way or another. Victory over the forces of fascism and Japanese imperialism. And then this long, wonderful surge of growth, which benefited everybody, not just rich people. It benefited everybody. And this huge expansion of our infrastructure, and housing, and education, and just everything got better. Since 1973, most things have been getting worse. And the infrastructure is deteriorating. The free college concept, it is just gone. College is expensive now. Even public colleges are expensive. So, it seems to be that in most areas, the Civil Rights movement really matured. That progress did not stop. And of course, women relative to men are in a much stronger position than they used to be. The horrible immigration laws that kept everyone except white people from immigrating to the country, they are gone too. And I think as a nation, we are much better off now that we get immigrants from all over the world, and it is really a national asset. So, there are some pluses. But on the whole, it seems to me that in so many important areas of life, standard of living, quality of education, the state of the infrastructure. Country has been going downhill since the (19)70s. And I am hoping Obama can, I think expanding healthcare will help. That will certainly improve the standard of living, not just, I think of the people who are going to be added, the 30 million or so uninsured. But if the bill will go through with something like their present form, it's going to help everybody by slowing the growth of costs in health insurance, by preventing insurance companies from canceling people because they're too sick. And from denying coverage to people because they are already sick, that is going to help a very large part of the population. And one of the things that keeps this country from achieving its potential, I think, is that healthcare costs have been escalating at a rate towards sucking up everything else. And in the past 10 years, the cost of health insurance has doubled to the point where healthcare now takes up 1/6th of the gross domestic product. If this continues in 10 years, it will take up 1/3rd of the gross domestic product. We will be doing nothing but supporting healthcare. All this has just got to change. And if it does change, then I think there is some hope for the future. But I do not think the last 30 years has gone at all well. SM (00:53:00): Phyllis Schlafly, who I interviewed along with David Horowitz, say that the troublemakers of the (19)60s are now running the universities and teaching within the universities. Is that going overboard? WO (00:53:15): Not a lot. Not a lot. One of the peculiar features of universities is, whereas the left failed everywhere in American life, except universities. They had, the last was pretty successful in universities. And a lot of the faculty and many administrators are either former leftist who finally got a chance to put their abstract ideas into abstract practice, because it does not affect anything outside the university. It is inside our little world. Yeah, I would say that. And also, another curious thing is that the new left outside of the university has no heirs, but in the university, new left professors trained graduate students and imbued them with their views. Undergraduates are really hard to brainwash on. Conservative used to say, well, students are being brainwashed. It is very hard to brainwash students. I do not know why that is, but it is very difficult. And my efforts at this have been very largely failure. But graduate students, whom you work with much more closely and over a long period of time, are more susceptible to influence. And to fashion. Academic disciplines have fashions, it is just like everything else. And the undergrads do not recognize them because they cannot tell what is new from what is old. But graduate students like to be on the cutting edge, as they say, and latest fashions. And so, the only place in the country where the left has any real influence is in universities. SM (00:55:02): Yeah. Harry Eders, even in his books of Black students that he wrote around 1970, (19)71, where he defined the difference between revolutionaries, militants, activists, and anomic activists, talked about the fact that militants were the graduate students who were the leaders of the anti-war movement on college campuses. And many of them were the pre-Boomers that were born between (19)41 and say (19)46. Some of them. And because people like Tom Hayden and that particular group. What are your thoughts on the various academic studies programs that are an offshoot of the (19)60s and early (19)70s? Particularly talking about, I know you bring up in your new book, but about the women's studies programs, Asian studies, gay and lesbian studies, Native American studies, popular out west. Chicano studies on the West Coast, Black studies, and now even environmental studies. So, you have got all these different studies. Your thoughts on these are all the movements, the people of the late (19)60s, early (19)70s, these were all movements that looked to the Civil Rights movement as their role model and their teacher. Just your thoughts on all these various studies programs in university campuses. WO (00:56:26): Up to a point, I do not have any objection. In fact, I wrote the first critical history of the old feminist movement ever to be done by a professional historian. And I did that because I felt that women's history, which we did not even call women's history then, the book came out in 1969 and women's studies and women's history were not really defined at that point. They were a few years later. So, I was writing women's history in a sense without even knowing that I was writing women's history. But it was clear that women were clearly being underserved by historians, because here was this rich history and all these fascinating people involved in it who never got into the textbooks except a brief obligatory mention on note 27 or something. And so, I was really pleased to see student women's liberation of course, that movement really galvanized women in graduate schools. And young women, faculty members who could transition pretty easily from... One of the first women to teach women's history at Rutgers, for example, was a French historian. She got her PhD in French history. But having all that scholarly training, it was easy for her to switch from, I do not know what her dissertation, some conventional 18th century French stuff. She was able to transition very easily to women's history. And others did that as well. One of the ironies of the situation for me is that I regarded myself as a founding father of women's history, but all the men got frozen out. There were in, the 1960s, there were 10 or 12 historians who were writing on women's subjects, about half men and half women. Almost all the women went on to become presidents of the OAHA and the American Historical Association in the organization of American historians, things like that. The men all got forced out. Oh, I got insulted in meetings and it just, I never got invited to anything. So, we were all ostracized in that way and it kind of hurt my feelings a little bit on the end, until we're playing by things to write about. Anyway, a long way around by saying that in the case of women's history, I really did welcome it and I think it is a real field and I am glad to see it. I think some of the others too, some of these seem so small or have so little in the way of historical material to work with that I really wonder about them. But some of the Hispanic studies, Haitian studies, things like these are perfectly legitimate fields. They were taught in the past, not on a scale or the orientation that they are now. But what I think is wrong with the current education is that all this has been done at the expense of the basics. We get students, I get students, whose reading and writing skills are so primitive, they can barely write, they cannot write a grammatical paragraph, many of them. Their knowledge of almost anything is nonexistent. They do not know anything about the past. They do not know anything about the rest of the world. So, it seems to me that yes, it's good to have academic life open up in this way and to place emphasis on previously neglected areas, but at the same time it would still be good if students had the basic skills they did 30 years ago. 30 years ago, students were so much better qualified than they are now. They all could read and write. They had high levels, they had some knowledge of history, and they had good work ethics. Almost all of them. I did not know it was a golden age, but it was a golden age of teaching. I did not have to discipline them, or force them to come to class, or bludgeon them into reading the assigned books. They just did all these things. That was accepted. SM (01:01:00): Do you think there is any link between, again, I can remember back at Binghamton University students to get out of the draft went in teaching, but they had no interest in being teachers. They did it to get out of the draft and they planned to quit as soon as the war was over. Of course, we are talking 1970 now. And so, they would be influencing students in the mid (19)70s and then beyond, in high school. Do you see any link there between the poor-quality education, that these people were not committed to teaching? WO (01:01:36): I do not know enough about the secondary school system in this country. The one I went through was completely different than what exists today. All I know is that, again, 30 years ago, the students I got were just much better prepared for college work than they are now. Lot of them are just not prepared. And what the universities have done is dumbed down the courses. In order to meet their lowered abilities, we have lowered expectations at great inflation. And you can get away with a lot if you give students As and Bs, even if you are not teaching anything. And even if they are not learning anything. SM (01:02:18): That is so different, when I was at Binghamton, because Dr. Donnelley hardly gave one A in each of his classes, he taught Russian history. You really had to earn it. One A, and we are talking great students here. And I took three courses from him, and I got an A once, and I got a B once, and I got a C once. I was furious that I got a C. But in that day, you knew you were in a great professor, you knew he made you study. You had to work hard for everything, and you did not go off and, as I have seen today, students go into their advisors and say, I am a straight A student and this is wrong that you are giving me that thing. So, I think you, you are onto something here. One of the things you bring up in your new book too, because I have been perusing through, I got to read it full force like the other two. But I picked and choose some of the things that I read. About when George Bush was president in particular, George Bush Senior. I want to ask you; do you believe in political correctness? What did the universities learn in the (19)60s with respect to student activism? Our universities, as Clark Kerr said, beholden to the corporations, businesses, and applied research. And even Ohio State University now, if you look on their website, their biggest thing is they talk about their research. It is a research university. The question I am really asking here is, I interviewed Arthur Chicory, the great educator, about a week ago, and he's written a 20-page piece and it is going to come out in a major magazine, basically very upset with the universities today. He says the corporations are again running the universities. And then that, and he was referring back to the (19)60s and the Clark Kerrs and the uses of the multiversity kind of an idea. Are you seeing again that universities are beholden to the corporations? WO (01:04:27): Well, yeah, but I think in a different way. When Clark Kerr wrote his book, he saw the university service role in a very broad way. He was not just helping corporations make money, it was just strengthening society as a whole and provide it with this sealed, well-trained, well-educated people that are needed in various walks of life. But it did include corporations as among those who would benefit and took the perhaps naive view that benefiting corporations, which employ some millions of people, would benefit a large part of the population as well. Today it is a much more crass kind of arrangement in which universities support health, science, and engineering departments. I do not think humanities get any money from corporations. They support them to encourage the kind of research that will benefit their own company and complement their own research efforts. And often I think it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. So yes. And the reason for that is because universities are in big financial trouble. Have been increasing for quite a long time, but over the past 10 years, it has gotten awful. And so, the departments like the humanities department said they cannot do that. I do not know who would sell out to corporations. They do not walk for bias. So, we never have the opportunity to discover the extent of our... But when the state keeps cutting your funding all the time, and it's not just New Jersey, of course, it is every state has this. Universities like Michigan, California gets less than 10 percent of their operating budget from their states. They are almost entirely self-supporting. And you cannot do it on tuition, and you cannot do it on federal grants. You have got to have more money. And corporations, if it serves their purposes, will supply it. So, I do not see if there is any choice in this area. Yeah, corporations' influence is considerably greater than it used to be. I do not think it is because anybody likes it, but it is because universities are increasingly desperate. SM (01:06:39): Yeah, you have probably hit it right on the button here because the university I just came from, everything is linked to some sort of raising some sort of scholarship or fundraising. We had a basketball coach that refused to go out and do fundraising. He was a great basketball coach. He said, I am not here to be a fundraiser. I am here to be a coach. And he quit. And he was a historic basketball coach. He just said, I am not here for that. And they give a lot of scholarships out. And now it is almost like every program you do has got to be linked to, has a value to raising some sort of funds. George Bush, you really bring this out in a bubble in time. I think this particular section of your book needs to be read by everyone. In fact, I am emailing several people that I have interviewed to get your book and to read this section on George Bush. This is the section where the serious text on freedom of speech, President Bush's speech at Michigan, where he talks about the spirit, the speech, and the enterprise. And Marine Dow responded by saying that political correctness is a broad range of generally liberal attitudes, especially in support of the rights of women, ethnic minorities, homosexuals, or conservatives and traditionalists. Look at people who espouse these views to the exclusion of others' rights... These views to the exclusion of others' rights and free speech. Conservatives and traditionalists were the ones that are basically making these attacks. I find it interesting because the free speech movement in 1964, and I remember Sam Brown who was in the Carter administration. When he first got involved in activism, he was talking about that he could not bring a communist in to speak. So, what is the difference between what happened in Berkeley in 1964, where they were not allowed to hand out literature and thus it became a free speech issue, and Sam Brown's experience, I forget what college went to where they could not bring in communists to speak? And what is happening here about political correctness? Just your thoughts. Free speech, basically. WO (01:08:56): There is a big difference between political correctness and McCarthyism. McCarthyism was presented by most of the faculty. It was to the degree that university professors did not lose their trials. Three at Rutgers. You never stopped hearing about that here. Three professors in the 1950s lost their jobs for taking the Fifth Amendment before some investigating. But the great hope of the American faculty even developed from the conservative professors who were opposed to McCarthyism, were opposed to loyalty tests on the part of the faculty. Political correctness, on the other hand, has a very broad base of support among the faculty. Lots of it, which is why you could get those things through. Why you could get speech codes and these absurd regulations about what could be said and not said, and what kind of posters you could put up and this kind of thing. Political correctness is... McCarthyism was external. It was forced on colleges and universities. Political correctness is internal. It is the faculty that has come to believe that. There is a real irony in the reversal here obviously because in the (19)50s, faculty were always demanding free speech as an essential, universal freedom of course, particularly freedom among academics. How can you teach if you are not free to say what you believe is true? Now, you get faculty members who say, "No, you cannot say what you believe is true if it is going to offend women, Blacks, gays, transgenders, you name it." SM (01:10:43): You say that is a real negative on the boomers? The boomers have laid this on society, and because they are the teachers and the administrators, that is a very negative thing. I want to ask you about you, your personal background. Because I know you went to Berkeley. I believe you got your undergraduate degree, was it at Michigan? WO (01:11:09): Michigan, yeah. SM (01:11:10): Michigan. Tell me a little bit about yourself. In other words, when you were young in high school growing up, who were the people that you looked up to? Whether it be family members, people in your local community, people that you read about in history books, or people you saw on television or heard on the radio. Who were the people that really inspired you when you were young, and what did they have that you liked about them? WO (01:11:38): Well, I grew up in a small town in western Michigan, about 5,000 people. It was then this, well still is, it is the economy seat. It was basically a rural agricultural area, so it served farmers. A little bit of manufacturing. Tiny Paris Institute today at a quite large state college, but then just little tiny private institution. There was no real intellectual stimulation there. My family are Irish Catholic Democrats in a Protestant Republican town. 90 percent of the people were Protestant Republicans, so we were very much an isolated minority. I was bookish even as a child. That is not unusual among academic people. So, apart from Franklin Roosevelt, who was second only, or possibly even superior to the pope as a revered figure. He was superior, actually. The Pope [inaudible]. And Winston Churchill. My father, for some reason, although as I say as an Irish Catholic family, my father just adored Winston Churchill and did not chair the... Many Irishmen were still sore about British oppression and things like that, but my family then, even though they were poorly educated and had been in this country a long time, the founding O'Neill came over during the famine in the 1830s. By the time I was born, my family only been here for 100 years. So, the anti-British sentiment had faded over that time. Anyway, so it became a host of the big inspirational figures in my family. And there were some people I had, some teachers that I liked and thought were good. SM (01:13:52): Who were they? WO (01:13:52): I had an English teacher in high school, who was awfully good at... In many ways, I appreciated her more after I left than when I was there because she was one of those who made you learn and diagram sentences, and do stuff that seemed beneath you. Because you do that in grammar school and you should not have to do it in high school again. But she was absolutely right. She made us do it in our senior year and she said, "You are going to go to college now. The work is going to be a lot harder," which in those days it was. "It is going to be a lot harder than what you have here, so you really need to brush up on your basics." We were therefore learning the parts of speech and diagram sentences. We all felt this was kind of demeaning because here we were seniors and all that. But of course, it was the best thing she could have done for us. I really did appreciate it when I got to school. I did not have any idols, people that I looked up to. I read a great deal of history of biographies. And of course, being a young boy, I was not reading about Aristotle. I was reading about Napoleon, Caesar and figures like that. It was very much a part of the great man period history. It really appealed to me. SM (01:15:10): Your college years as an undergraduate and graduate student, were there any speakers that you saw when you were a graduate student, programs you went to in the out of classroom experience that influenced you? WO (01:15:21): Yes. Nobody in my family on either side had ever graduated from college or even really gone to college. My mother had what was called business school, but it was typing and that kind of stuff. So, there was nobody in my family with any experience at all in this. But being Catholics, of course, they adored Notre Dame and thought it was just the greatest university in the world. Since I had knew nothing and had no idea what I wanted to do, so I agreed to go to Notre Dame and I spent my first year there. It was really unpleasant. It was a boys' school at the time and I never had a date the whole year, and neither did anybody I knew. There was a small girls' college, St. Mary's, adjoining the campus, but you had to be an athlete in order to date a girl at St. Mary's, so that was really out. Otherwise, the campus was so stark. They did not have any of the things campuses listen to today. There was no student center, no athletic facilities except for athletes. They turned off the power in the dorms at 10 o'clock so you would not be studying. SM (01:16:42): Oh my God. WO (01:16:44): And then a priest would come around with flashlights to see if you were masturbating or studying. Either one would be [inaudible]. And you did, you had to check in for mass three days a week. You did not have to actually go to mass, but you had to get fully dressed to go down to the chapel and sign in, at which point you might as well go in. So, I told my parents that I just was not going to go back. They were paying my way and I said, "If you do not want pay my way, I will join the Army or something. I will find some way, but I am not going back." That was bad. So, I transferred to the University of Michigan, and I was short some credits because I had taken courses in theology or religion at Notre Dame. Did not transfer. So, I went to summer school and took Western Civ. I cannot remember the name of the professor. He was a senior faculty member at Michigan in those days. The senior faculty taught the introductory courses. That guy was a wizard. For one thing, the education of Notre Dame was very poor, but I did not know that because I did not have anything to measure it by. I would gone to a mediocre high school with a couple of good teachers, but no real [inaudible]. I took this Western Civ course, it was like the heavens had opened. A world I never dreamed of, even though I would read a lot of history and biography on my own. Focusing on military history and having no context, really. I was kind of an autodidact in that way. Then suddenly, here is this guy who is going over the whole sweep of western civilization to about 1000. I think that was the first half of the course, up to the year 1000 in a sweep of civilizations and incredible concepts. SM (01:18:42): Mesopotamia. WO (01:18:45): It transformed my life. It was just such a revelation. I never knew that anything like this existed. So, of course, I then majored in history. And he was not the only one. Almost every instructor that I had there, I can only think of one I did not like. Almost every instructor I had taught at such a high level. You really had to work your ass off of course because they were... Unlike today, where I assume my students knew nothing, they assumed we knew a lot. What they were providing us was material in addition to the vast body of knowledge we hope you possess. SM (01:19:27): I think Phil Donahue was at Notre Dame around the time that you were there. WO (01:19:32): I think he was, yeah. [inaudible]. SM (01:19:33): And I know Regis Philbin was the group before Phil Donahue, because he is another graduate of Notre Dame. He talks about that a little bit. WO (01:19:40): I can assure you, although I know Regis Philbin still loves Notre Dame, but he probably loves it for the football comradery. The university just sucked. It was terrible. I was going to say, going to mission was like ascending in heaven. So, bad. Wow. Eventually, of course, my father wanted me to go to law school. He had this belief that he would have been more successful in business if he had been a lawyer. I think he was quite mistaken. He did not have any of the qualities it takes to be successful in business, and he was one of these people who could not work for anybody else because he had such a bad temper. But he was such poor manager, he could not work for himself successfully. He was doing all right. He did [inaudible] away through school because he was doing all right then. But he eventually went pro. He had this false idea that a lawyer would have been more successful, and having no notion. But of course, once I entered into academic heaven here, I was getting these magnificent courses. Well, then I wanted to be a historian, too. And I would already been accepted in law school because I was programmed to do that. But in my senior year, Michigan offered an honors program. We offer much like the one that we offer here. It was very common. The payoff in that senior honors course was to write a very long research paper, 9800 pages, which I did. Then, I realized that if I could do that, I could probably write a dissertation, which meant that I could be any historian and I would never have to leave this life. I could dwell in the realm of ideas and narrative in a great box. SM (01:21:32): I think it is great that a teacher inspired you, though. That is the same thing with me. Probably that teacher had faith in you, too, did not he? WO (01:21:42): It was a real big course. SM (01:21:44): Yeah, but there had to be someone along the line that said, hey, you are not only a good student, but I have an interest in you in terms of your future. So, that was important sometimes, the faculty- WO (01:21:55): I do not think I really talked to a faculty member about that until I took this senior honors course. When there were two faculty members to like 18 students. Michigan, even then, was a very large university and most of the courses I took were very larger courses. It was not until that point that I actually talked to faculty members about this. Yes, I was encouraged. They told me, yeah, you could do it. SM (01:22:17): I have just some general questions and then we will finish up here. This might go a little bit over. One of the criticisms of the boomer generation is, and actually I do not think it's a criticism, but where they say that 15 percent were activists. That could be conservative or liberal. People that were activists for various causes in the (19)60s and (19)70s. WO (01:22:38): [inaudible]. SM (01:22:39): Some people say five to 15. WO (01:22:40): Or these activists as being difficult, very loosely. SM (01:22:40): People involved in- WO (01:22:44): I knew some student activists in the history department. The graduate students in history of this class had a very high percentage of activism. It was remarkable. But among the undergraduates, they might show up for a rally or a riot once in a while, but I would not call them activists. SM (01:23:01): Well, the question I am trying to get at here is that the people that criticize the boomer generation oftentimes say that only 15 percent were ever involved, whether it be five or 15. WO (01:23:16): That is fine, that is fine. SM (01:23:18): But my question is, can you agree that the larger portion, which is 85 to 95, was subconsciously still affected by this period? Because if you believe in student development theory, because that is what I am. I am a student of Arthur Chickering, Alexander Aston, Eric Erickson, Rogers. When you talk about you cannot pinpoint the effect that some experience is going to have on a student right away. It could be five, 10 years down the road. So, maybe there were fewer at that time, but then others stood up and spoke up, and later on in life, late 20s, 30s. Do you believe that this whole generation of 78 million was subconsciously affected by what happened in the (19)60s and (19)70s, and it is really affected their lives in some way? WO (01:24:10): Yes, I do. Yes, I do believe that. Well, the increase in divorce shot up. The divorce rate doubled in the years after the 1960s, is a reflection of the self-indulgence and self-absorption of the activists, the doing your own thing. Taking drugs and free love, live for the moment and suspect authority and do not trust anyone over 30. And of course, eventually became over 30 themselves. But the whole emphasis on the boomer generation, not everybody, I do not want to stigmatize them all, but the boomer generation to a degree unprecedented previously is self-indulgent, self-absorbed, and materialistic. Not anti-social exactly, but has a lessened sense of social obligation and responsibility. I think it all comes out of the (19)60s. Not the create a socialist revolution, which actually almost nobody believed. The SDFs and a few others were doing that, but the real message of that was personal freedom and self-indulgence. That really sold. SM (01:25:31): Yeah, it is interesting you say that because C. Wright Mills, who wrote white collar and we all read about him when I was in sociology class, Dr. Lehman, who actually was fired from Bingham for leading a protest in downtown. She was only there a year. But C. Wright Mills said that the goal of the university education is not to need the university. The individualism and think on their own, the concept of in loco parentis kind of ended during this timeframe. That the universities were not supposed to be parents and were not activists doing this in the (19)60s and (19)70s. So, the question I am asking here is that there is the individual right there. Some of the things that students are reading and being educated about, some of the writers we have looked up to, says that the individual is important. Carl Davidson has written a great book on the multiversity in a series on the 60s, and he brings this up about the importance of the individual. Because if the individual is not there, then you do not have freedom. And if you do not have freedom, you do not have power. And students wanted power. Or at least to be looked upon for their thoughts. Is what I am saying really true, what C. Wright Mills said? When you talk about that this is one of the goals of the boomers was to really be an individual as opposed to be a part of a collaborative group? WO (01:27:07): Well, I do not know how. They were just as conformist as young people always are. Young people are pretty much by definition, is- SM (01:27:14): Let me change... (01:27:14): Okay. WO (01:27:24): My impression of students in the (19)60s, and of course I was, which is derived largely from Wisconsin where I was a faculty member. It was not my self-esteem anymore. But my impression was that the students in the (19)60s were just as anxious and concerned about their identity and wanting to be a part of the group, and to conform to group norms and all that. Very few students want to be fearless individuals and completely unlike everybody else. They want to be popular and well- liked, and succeed in the areas that students think are important. But what developed among students was a feeling that this generation of students was too well-educated and sophisticated to be treated like previous generation of students, who had had all these regulations governing personal conduct. The girls had to live in, and boys had to live in segregated dormitories and there had to be hours. Well, they did not have lights out except at Notre Dame. At Michigan, for example, the girls had to be in their dorms at 10 o'clock at night on a school night. They could stay up until 12 on weekends. Well, with the beginnings of the sexual revolution and all that, students rebelled against these restrictions, against in loco parentis. But it was sort of collectively. It was not fearless assertions of individualism. It was they believed as a class that they deserved rights that their predecessors had been denied. The universities of course fell all over themselves in branding them, because you're also now getting the protests over civil rights and segregation in the south, and the war in Vietnam. Universities could not do anything about the treatment of Blacks in the south or the war in Vietnam, but they could integrate the dormitories and eliminate the in loco parentis restrictions. That was easy to do. They also did other things, too. The students in Wisconsin and other universities, students went beyond that to an end to the language requirement. Students had always hated the language requirement, but they have never been sufficiently impressive as a pressure group to be able to get university administrations to listen to them. Again, in the (19)50s, students had tried to organize a protest and said do away with the foreign language requirement. They probably would have been expelled, right? No, the university took a very hard line. The dean of women at Michigan was an ex-WAG colonel and the girls were terrified of her. So, the universities really started caving in. In loco parentis, sure that had to go. In the age of sexual revolution and self-expression and doing your own thing, you could not hold the line on that stuff and what was even the point? But when they gave away the language requirement, some of these other things, boy, that is when I think the downhill slide began through universities. Because now you are in the business of pleasing the customers, and that had never been the attitude before. Michigan took the view you were damn lucky to be here, and most of you will not graduate anyway. Michigan was one of those schools where it was terribly difficult to get in, but the senior graduating class was about one-third the size of the freshman class. And they bragged about it. They did not succeed, this is bootcamp. It is not bootcamp, but this is a task. It is going to be very difficult. Most of you are not going to make it. And they would see that right off. SM (01:31:20): Yeah, you probably looked to your left, looked to your right. WO (01:31:22): Yeah. Yep. SM (01:31:22): Yeah, they did that at Binghamton, and just everybody stayed. WO (01:31:24): Yeah, they did that at the university. Rutgers operated somewhat differently. Their admission standards were more stringent so that you did not have to fail. In fact, in my early years here, I hardly failed anyone. But they were actually students very well-prepared, hardworking. Even the kids got Cs, those were good, solid Cs. They made an effort to get there. Now, you get a C in many courses just for signing up. SM (01:31:51): I thought boomers many times, especially those that were activists, said I want to be around people who think like me, who have the same interests that I do. In other words, I want to be around people who are against the war in Vietnam. I want to be around people who went down south for civil rights issues. I want to be around any of these movements. People who think like I do. Well, isn't the goal of a university is to bring people together who do not agree? I have been thinking about this because that seems if you are just an individual and you are not part of a group where you listen to opposing points of view, that is not a university either. It is a lot of things that come up here, the contradictions of this whole era seem to really make you think. What do you feel led to the AIDS crisis? I have had many people, because when we talk about the (19)80s, and we think of Ronald Reagan. Of course, he said, "We are back," because he's going to bring the military back. During the (19)60s, all the society had gone downhill. But the AIDS crisis is something that he did not really deal with. He could not even say gay and lesbian, as a person. I have had scholars who were gay and lesbian scholars that I have interviewed said that they almost come to tears when they talk about Ronald Reagan. And then, of course, the AIDS crisis is one of the biggest crises of the time. For gay lesbian boomers, it wiped out maybe one out of every two men, who were living within the inner cities. A lot of them were scholars, a lot of them were great writers. The loss of talent. WO (01:33:37): I had a friend I remember in the history department, who died of AIDS. I liked him very well. He was gay, but he was... I do not want to make a pun here. He was just a great company. I loved him very much. But he was in the first generation who died. He was extremely promiscuous. They did not take any precautions. SM (01:34:04): You think that part of what the (19)70s was about, because a lot of people when they talk about the sexual revolution, they really talk the (19)70s, not the (19)60s. We still had- WO (01:34:15): I think it was more pronouncements. SM (01:34:16): Yeah, but that kind of led to the AIDS crisis, and then it is what happened after it was found out that people were dying from this, where Ronald Reagan is really dislike by many people, even bringing them to tears. WO (01:34:33): I do not know enough about it. SM (01:34:37): Right. Of all the presidents from 1946 to 2010, which is the time the boomers have lived, we have made a reference just about all of them in our conversation here. Is there anyone that you think had the greatest impact on the boomer generation, from Truman to Obama? WO (01:35:03): No. Not being a boomer, it is hard for me to say. I guess it would be John Kennedy, but not the actual John Kennedy. The myth of Kennedy was. Even today when people are polled and say, who was the greatest president? Well, they normally cannot think beyond the presidents they knew of their lifetime, the ones that they saw on TV or whatever. But Kennedy still comes up a great deal, and on the part of people who cannot possibly have remembered him. My gosh, he was elected 50 years ago. So, you go any younger than that, oh, you would have to be 60 at least to have any faintest personal recollection of his presidency. So, it is the myth of the candidate. The falsehoods, essentially. They have had a great effect. SM (01:36:01): What do you think if you were to, you are writing a book and you are writing two chapters, and chapter one is you are writing on one specific quality, that this was the best of the boomer generation and I am going to write about this and break it down? And what's the worst about the... What were the single worst and the single best, and how would you illuminate within the chapter? WO (01:36:30): Well, again, up until Bill Clinton, there were no boomer presidents. He was the first one. So, there have only been two. SM (01:36:41): Two. Yeah. WO (01:36:41): And I was too young. So, there is not a lot of choice there. SM (01:36:49): Right. In terms of maybe influencing their lives, some people will say that Lyndon Johnson, what a great person in the area of social issues, the domestic policy. But he was a dismal failure in Vietnam and some did not like his personality, and others did. You still get back to those two that are the boomers? Yeah. WO (01:37:18): And as different as Clinton and Bush were, they did share the negative stereotypes that people associate with the boomer generation. They were self-indulgent. Clinton of course, in gross and obvious ways, but Bush was, too. You had this dissipated youth that went on and on. Which typical boomers, not that they are always dissipated, but they hang on to their youth. They are more afraid of maturity and more reluctant to enter into it. I think those are real fair characterizations. Then once he became president, God, he vacationed more than any other president. More than Reagan, more than Eisenhower. Nobody spent as much time vacationing as Bush did, and as little time governing, and as much time working out. That is another boomer thing, working out. Previous presidents did not. Well, Theodore Roosevelt did. It is hard to think of previous president who were focused on exercise. SM (01:38:22): Harry did. Harry Truman, he liked to walk. WO (01:38:24): He took his walks. Yes, yes. SM (01:38:26): Yes, and I think that kept him alive a lot longer than most people because of all the tensions he went through. WO (01:38:32): It is a very good health habit. SM (01:38:35): Just a couple more things here. I know we talked a little bit about this, but I am not going to talk about very much of these things. You say that in some of your writings here, that the new left or the activist group within the boomer generation, really it was a short period in the end because they burned out. The draft ended, which was the main cause that united them. WO (01:39:09): Yes, I think by the end of the draft, collapsed. SM (01:39:11): The violence of groups getting frustrated that they had to go, whether it be the American Indian Movement, the Black Panthers or Weathermen, all three of them, they went to violence. Even the environmental groups today are dealing with this particular issue, which is really hurting their cause. That they get frustrated and they go the violent way. Is that the reason why? When people talk about the (19)60s, they talk about all these groups and all these people and Woodstock and the counterculture and the activism and protests on college campuses. You got the split between the white students and the Black students in the late (19)70s because one was protesting against the Vietnam War, the other was against working the area of civil rights. WO (01:40:10): I may say that I am happy that the left has collapsed, and I am sorry that it still lingers on in the university. Although, I have to say it never did me any harm, I do not think. I just did not like it. Was that they never developed an adult pace and they were overly dependent on the draft. Once the draft had Nixon, Nixon believed that he could get rid of the draft, that would be end of the student movement because he thought it was basically self-centered. And to a large extent, I think he was right. Take the draft away. The war in Vietnam is an on-campus issue as long as you have a draft. When the draft is gone, the issue is gone, too. SM (01:40:56): Do you see a link right now between what is happening on college campuses in California and across the country, that students are seeing the issue of their pocketbook and they are not going to take it anymore? Just like people said, I am not going to take the draft anymore? Because it is their self-interest. The middle class may not be able to go on to college because tuition is going up 17 percent. I know in Pennsylvania, they are talking about raising it $1500. WO (01:41:25): Students at Rutgers paid 12,000 a year in tuition and fees, but that is absolutely outrageous. It should be essentially free. It used to be essentially free. We're talking about 20, 25 years ago. SM (01:41:40): Do you think this issue could be something that unites the students around the country? And again- WO (01:41:44): Well, it is certainly something they all have in common. SM (01:41:46): Graduate students are taking a lead at Berkeley on this. And actually, I never thought I would- WO (01:41:52): Of course, they do not pay tuition in the world. SM (01:41:53): Yeah, but what is interesting is that these students are saying for the first time, I do not care if my career is threatened by this. It is wrong and I am out here and I am going to speak my mind. They are threatened by this. It is wrong, and I am out here, and I am going to speak my mind. That is what has been critical of the students of the (19)80s and the (19)90s and even the (19)10s. Is they fear, oftentimes, that by speaking up, they will lose a job, their career could be hurt. A lot of students in the (19)60s never thought that. Just your thoughts on- WO (01:42:22): No, they did not. SM (01:42:24): Just your thoughts on that, that this could be something that universities are very concerned about. WO (01:42:30): Well, they ought to be. Now, I completely understand why universities are doing this. When your state aid collapses, what are you supposed to... You have only got a few options here. And raising tuition, and many more students, which Rutgers does too, crank up the tuition and admit more students, and shrink the faculty. SM (01:42:49): Mm-hmm. WO (01:42:50): So, your student-generated income goes larger. There is a fewer faculty members you have to spread around, but Jesus, there is got to be a limit to that, and it seems to be a backlash too. SM (01:43:02): Yeah. And of course, faculty oftentimes say administrators need to be cut back, because after all- WO (01:43:08): They have actually expanded a lot. I mean, the percentage of employees who are administrators has gone up a lot over the last 20 years, and at a time when faculties generally shrunk. SM (01:43:23): My last little section here deals back again with political correctness. I want to get your thoughts on the quotes that you put in your book, which I am going to encourage my friends to read, because I think it is great. You have the quote from Barbara Ehrenreich, who I would met twice, that, "Political correctness is the enforcement arm of multiculturalism or feminism." Then you have got Leon Botstein, who I have brought to campus, who really challenged our secondary ed teachers. Oh, they are not were prepared for this. Because he is an advocate that he does not believe we need a senior year in high school. He thinks the senior year is a waste. But the quote here is, "In practice, the call for diversity now prevented any real exchange of opinions on campus." And then Dr. Asante, who responds, "Racists are hiding behind the First Amendment." This is an interesting thing on college campuses. First of all, I am surprised Dr. Botstein had said that, because he's very liberal, but this is oftentimes what people are afraid to say, and what they believe, for fear that they're going to be hurt, that their careers could be threatened. A faculty member may believe this, but I cannot do it because my department chairs, it could have an effect on me. And then students... Just your thoughts on Ehrenreich, Botstein, and Asante's commentary on the dialogue of today, and whether all that took place from the Free Speech Movement of (19)64, and all that happened in the (19)60s, through the mid (19)70s, about freedom of speech on college campuses. Different points of view. Everybody's equal. The concept that all voices count. And then you have these discussions here, where people are afraid to speak their mind again. This happened throughout the (19)90s, and obviously today, and you have seen it on a college campus throughout your career. WO (01:45:27): Yeah. I love that by Barbara Ehrenreich. I think, of course, it is actually true. The academic leftist, of course, have backed off considerably. The early (19)90s was the flood tide of these speech codes, and prosecutions of faculty members for making somebody feel uncomfortable. That was a serious charge, "So-and-so feels uncomfortable in your class." I guess your job as a teacher is to raise the comfort zone of everyone. I never thought that was my job. So, they had backed off, because the publicity was so terrible, and justly so. I mean, you claim on the one hand academic freedom, and then you are denying it to your colleagues over silly stuff. You're like that poor man of New Hampshire, with the Jell-O and the vibrator. SM (01:46:17): Mm-hmm. WO (01:46:17): And those things clearly well-meaning, and not attempting to be salacious. So, they have backed off from the deal. You do not see that stuff in the public area as much as you used to. Otherwise, where did you want to go from here? SM (01:46:37): Who is more correct? Is Ehrenreich correct? Is Botstein correct? I find Botstein is commentary something that should be put into a book. I know that [inaudible] wrote a liberal education. We all read that. I have seen him debate a couple times, he is very good at what he does. He debates the other person, that other person is very good too. It is a pretty civil debate. But to hear this from Leon Botstein, this young, I think of him from the (19)60s, because I think he was the youngest college president ever at Bard College, and he was a liberal, and I think he was 27 years old. And for him to say this, to me, sends a clear message that we need to be doing a better job within the university environment, and that tolerance, and beyond tolerance. We went through those phases of tolerance and beyond tolerance. Are we back to tolerance again? WO (01:47:39): It is hard to say. One of the annoying things is the, which I do talk about some of the book, is the tremendous overemphasis on identity, on sexual identity, particularly racial and sub-racial identities. Ruckers, for example, the current president is terrifically proud of the fact that the student body contains more racial minorities than it does whites. Well, this is a white majority state still, which means the whites are being discriminated against in order to achieve higher numbers of people in other racial groups. And such as the climate of opinion and politically correct universities is this is seen as a good thing; discriminate against whites, and usually Asians too. He never says that. SM (01:48:34): Well, my alma mater, they have gone through a terrible situation with the basketball team, which you have probably have heard. They won the division last year, because Dr. DeFleur, the chancellor, wanted to bring in strong athletic programs, and linkage with our strong academics there. She is a great president, I am not going to question her, but she has been under their heat because they had to fire the coach. They actually paid him, and because of the fact that they brought in mostly African American basketball players from New York City and elsewhere, and they were unbelievably players. And that put a lot of pressure on the other state universities, that they not only have to bring in quality athletes in linkage with the academics, but they found out now, through the last year, that there was agreements made between the admissions office. The admissions' person never would have admitted these people, but was pressured to do so. The coach was in direct linkage with this, who they hired. This is some coach in Georgetown. WO (01:49:36): I did read that. SM (01:49:37): And it has become such a serious issue. Dr. DeFleur is retiring, but I think she's retiring because I think there is a lot of pressure going on there. And there is a plan that has to go into places so this will not happen again, and sends all the wrong messages. And alumni are furious. Alumni are furious, and they want the administration all gone. And Dr. DeFleur has committed 19 years of her life to making that a great institution. But unfortunately, in this one instance, it is marring her, and it goes right back to this thing here. This is an issue that universities have to face. In conclusion, the violence that took place within the time that boomers were young and growing up, I mean obviously there has been violence. The holocaust happened for the World War II generation. Violence has always been part of what it is like to be a human being. I am very lucky that in July I am going to have two hours of the Robert Jay Lifton, and I am going to Boston, and we are going to talk about the psychology of the Vietnam veteran, but I have asked him to talk about the psychology of the anti-war protestor. And from his perspective, in terms of with veterans, it is post-traumatic stress disorder. But I want to get a better grasp of people that were on the other side, and he has agreed to do so. But the violence, it had to have shaped boomers, because they grew up with being in maybe 8th grade, 9th grade, 10th grade, with respect to the assassination of John Kennedy. (19)68 saw a United States senator and candidate murdered along with the greatest civil rights leader of all time. The unbelievable violence that took place, not only in Chicago, but the riots that took all... You know. The deaths in many major cities throughout the '60s. Then, obviously, you had the violence and the killings at Kent State University and Jackson State. And actually, I did not know this, but if you study it, there was a student killed at Berkeley, in 1969, at the People's Park incident. And we do not ever talk about him, and he has lost in history, and he should be discussed because he had nothing to do with the protest. He was just standing at the top of a building, and he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Do you think this did to the psyche? Forget the fact that they are the new left. They were part of the violence too. What happened in Chicago, with the Black Panthers that were killed, and the COINTELPRO, and all the bad things that happened. But the violence, I am talking about the violence. What did this do to the psyche of this 78 million, as they moved into the (19)80s, and (19)90s, and beyond? Any thoughts? WO (01:52:40): Well, it certainly upset me. The (19)60s were terrible. The (19)60s were terrible in that way. This is a violent country, since World War II, at any rate. Compared to most other developed countries, we have had far more violence than almost any of the Britain has. Its soccer hooligans, I guess. That is a highly specialized subgroup. But this is just normally a violent country. We have got a big homicide rate. We had lynchings, well, if you could count the murders of civil rights workers, right into the 1960s, were far more heavily armed than anybody in the first world. And getting more so by the day. So, we have a certain amount of background violence, that just, we hardly notice it all. It's there all the time. But the race riots, and the violent demonstrations of the (19)60s, went beyond anything that we have seen in peace time. As you consider a little bit the Vietnam War, it's hard to know what peacetime is. We always seem to be engaged, and we are shooting somewhere. SM (01:54:07): I- WO (01:54:09): I do not know. I really do not know. And certainly, was extremely upsetting to me. How could it not have been upsetting to him? SM (01:54:19): See, I know that there was a book that came out around mid (19)70s, by Oba Demery. I do not know, I think that is how you pronounce his name. It's called Violence in America. And of course, this is talking about what happened in the (19)60s, but it goes way back to the wild, wild west, and how we have been killing, God knows... Native American's wounded knee. So, it is part of what we are as a country, and as a race. As he said, we have been always been a violent nation. And with Howard Zinn passing away recently, whether he like his politics or not, he made a commentary when his last speech. They had it on YouTube. And in that speech, it was pretty powerful. He said, "I was a World War II pilot, and I came back, and I thought when the war ended we had ended war as we knew it. We were not going to have war anymore, because we just defeated the Japanese and the Germans." And he said, "You know, since I came back, and used the GI Bill to get my PhD, he says, we have had nothing but war. War, after war, after war." And as you bring up, the only time we had the break in here was the Clinton period for four years, but even he got involved and skirmishes, Blackhawk down, and those kinds of things. WO (01:55:40): It required other statements of other decades. There was really nothing. SM (01:55:45): Yeah. So anyways, I am done. Are there any questions that you thought I was going to ask that I did not? Any final thoughts on the boomer generation, that you would like to mention? WO (01:56:04): Well, I personally like many of them. But it is true that I am somewhat against them as a group. I am somewhat prejudiced. And what I think one of the paradoxes, that I have never been able to resolve, is that the war generation, which is now officially the Greatest Generation, produces the boomers, who are the most in self-indulgent generation. And maybe they were over-shielded by their parents. SM (01:56:34): But you see, the boomers also attacked the consumption, the materialism, yet you are right- WO (01:56:40): Very few. Oh, very few. SM (01:56:42): Well, they did not, and that is what the multi diversity, the students in the universities attacked them. That was the generation gap. That was a lot of the issues that were happening within that definition. WO (01:56:54): That was just this tiny group of leftists, who were not all representative, the students as the whole. Even in the (19)60s, students consumed as much as they could, and they were more affluent. The parents were more affluent than previous generations had been, so they consumed more. And of course, now it is unbelievable. It seems like every other student has a car. And of course, they have all got cell phones, and laptops, and every electronic device known to man. SM (01:57:28): I know that the 40th anniversary of Kent State is coming up in about six weeks. I am going. Been there three of the last four years. And Mark Rudd's going to be there, former SDS. They are having an SDS reunion there, because Kent State had one of the strongest SDS chapters in the country. And well, Allen [inaudible] and the group, they were some of the ones that were actually killed. Allison Krause and Jeff Miller were SDSers. The other two were innocent. But they got Mark Rudd, Bernardine Dohrn is coming back from, she was the Weathermen, but she was SDS. So, they are having a [inaudible]. They were having a revival of the SDS group. I was not SDS. But then they're going to have a lot of speakers. And of course, the representative from Jackson State is always there too, because two were killed. WO (01:58:19): I read lot ago that Mark Rudd had in effect apologized for the Columbia takeover. SM (01:58:25): I interviewed him for my book. And he wrote his, it is a very good book. It is called Underground. And he admits that they were... I mean, it was totally wrong, going into violence, and he says it is the greatest mistake he ever made. They were involved in a group of people that were, even if you did not like them, they were committed. They were generally committed to ending the war, and they had no violence in their aspects. It was all protest, non-violent protests. You could be arrested, you can take over, and you can disrupt. But I have interviewed a couple Columbia University students, who were there at the time, and when they went the violent direction, that ended SDS. WO (01:59:06): But others like, Bernardine Dohrn, specifically, are unrepentant, who claim everything they did was already justified. How were they going to get along to you out here? SM (01:59:16): Well, I wanted to interview her too. I did not want to interview her husband. But she did not respond. She is at the University of Chicago Law. She did professor there. She did not respond. Mark did. I really enjoyed my conversation with him. You really understand. He opens it all up. He tells the whole story. And if you know the whole history at the very end, Mark Rudd and Vernon Dorn did not like each other. And there was some friction within the... And then Mark went off in his own direction. He is now a grandfather. And the day I interviewed him, he was at the beach in California with his grandson. And he is proud of what he did within the SDS, but he is not proud at all about the violence. He is just- WO (02:00:04): So what profession did he go into? SM (02:00:07): Well, he is a teacher now. He has been teaching in a community college for quite a few years. He is really a mathematician. He is very strong in math. He has always been good in math. Of course, he was hidden. He was underground for a long time. And what is interesting... I got this still on. But what is interesting is that they all lived out in the Sausalito area in California. When they were hidden, it was the boats. WO (02:00:29): What a great place to hide out. SM (02:00:32): Yeah. And actually, my sister is going out to visit friends, who has a boat right there in Sausalito. And no one knew them, because there were a lot of hippies, and that whole group there. And so no, that is why they were stay underground for so long. But then he finally let himself- Loud if you can. Are you ready? WO (02:00:59): Yes. SM (02:01:00): Okay. When did the (19)60s begin, in your opinion? And why did it begin, and what was the watershed moment? WO (02:01:16): Well, I would say the (19)60s began in 1964. That was the year of the free movement at Berkeley. SM (02:01:25): Mm-hmm. WO (02:01:26): It was the year of the Civil Rights Act. Well, first Birmingham, then the Civil Rights Act. So, it was really, and of course [inaudible]. But there were a series of big events, and really things... SM (02:01:44): Mm-hmm. When you think of the (19)60s and the early (19)70s, what comes to your mind? Was there a specific event, or a series of events, that continued to shape the boomers, not only in when they were young, but also in their adult years? WO (02:02:00): The (19)60s really did not last very long. I mean, it could take (19)64 as the starting point, which for purposes of my book I had, you have to do these things by decades. So, I started in my book in 1960, but in fact, the events that things lost started in 1964. And by 1971, they were essentially over. So, a very lot happened in a very short period too. SM (02:02:35): But when you look at the term rebellious incident, well that is an adjective that is often used to define boomers when they were young. And we're talking about a generation of probably 70 to 75 million. Some people have written that a lot of them were rebellious because we had the draft at that time, and maybe they would not have been as rebellious otherwise. What is your response to that? WO (02:03:00): Oh, I certainly agree. The political activity had everything to do with the draft. And once Richard Nixon essentially eliminated the risk, even before... Nixon believed that- I hate to agree with Nixon. Nixon believed this was true. And so, he reshaped the draft to eliminate the risk to almost everybody. And the first thing he did was, you were only liable at the age of 19. So, if you were over 19, you did not have to worry about it. And if you were 19, there was a lottery that told you, to win, how high your risk of being drafted was. And he was reducing the brute strength in Vietnam very rapidly. Very few people were at risk. And so again, by 1971 chances of being drafted were negligible. SM (02:04:02): But when you look at all the different types of movements that came about in that era, which not only included the anti-war movement, and the civil rights movement was ongoing. And then you had the development of all the other movements; the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, Native American movement, Chicano movement, Earth Day, the environmental movement. There was a spirit happening out there, that they were tired of the status quo, that many of these young people were tired of that status quo. And of course, the question that ultimately asked is there truth to that? And secondly, have they carried these ideas into their adulthood? WO (02:04:43): Well, of course the environmental movement, it is still moving. SM (02:04:49): Dr. Neil, could you speak a little louder too? WO (02:04:53): I guess. I do not think I can turn up the volume here. SM (02:04:57): Okay, that is all right. WO (02:05:00): Well, the environmental movement became permanent, and it was not just a matter of young people. The [inaudible] came out at the beginning of the decade, and there were a number of others as well, so it was never... A new leftist was a young people's wisdom. Environmentalism was not, feminism was not either. That started relatively early, with Betty Friedan. SM (02:05:28): Mm-hmm. WO (02:05:30): And that is become, essentially, it is not the picturesque phase of feminist, the women's liberation movement, and that sort of thing. That died out in the (19)70s, but the more permanent of termination, to secure equal rights, never did die out. What are the others? We do not hear much about Chicano rights. A right for [inaudible]- SM (02:06:00): Mm-hmm. WO (02:06:01): Who is very much alive. But again, with the kickoff with the riots, at the bar in New York City, name that I cannot remember, that was relatively young people, but it became institutionalized. SM (02:06:20): Mm-hmm. WO (02:06:20): And you noticed, when you see today, for gay married and the like, it is remarkable. Many of them are middle-aged people. SM (02:06:31): Is there, when you look at that whole era of boomers, that are defined as those born between 1946 and 1964, some people have had a hard time looking at generations that are confined to years. And I have had that in my interviews. But is there one specific event that you feel had the greatest impact, an event, a happening, that affected this generation? WO (02:07:02): No, I do agree that it is a very specific generation. I mean, I do not even think it is a matter of opinion, really. The demographic had a population explosion in the (19)50s, and by 1964 or so, that explosion was over in the first [inaudible]. So, I mean, I do not see how you can deny the boomers are an actual generation has seen, still, the largest single movement in American history. But I do not see it as defined by a single event. For example, the things that are most common in my book, and in most books about the (19)60s, we are talking about the sort of tip of the iceberg. But the movement, like the work we have discussed, and famous individuals, when you are talking about 75 million people, a very small fraction of that total was involved in the things that we talk about. SM (02:08:06): Right. WO (02:08:06): The real change, the thing that distinguished the boomers, I think, from previous generations at any rate, more than anything else, the self-indulgence, and the pleasure consumed. [inaudible] rate goes way up. SM (02:08:22): Mm-hmm. WO (02:08:22): Drug use goes way up. The rebellion is not so much a form of political one as it is throwing off traditional American values. And that- SM (02:08:33): Yeah, that goes right into my next question. Please list some positive characteristics of this generation, and some negative ones. WO (02:08:53): I mean, at the time, in the (19)60s, and when I was writing my book, I had been impressed by the Civil Rights Movement, which was fabulous. And for a time, by the new left, but those movements burned out so quickly. I mean, civil rights reaches its peak, probably in 1965, with the voting right back, and the events [inaudible]. And then, by the end of the decade, we have got Black Power, which absolutely destroyed the integrated Civil Rights Movement. And you still have civil rights advocate today, but it is a kind of lobby, not a movement. SM (02:09:38): Mm-hmm. WO (02:09:40): So, the movement period did not last very long. And most of the things, the boomers, the public once again, to politicize the ones you read about at the time, most of them did not last very long. They burned out pretty quickly. And it is hard for me to think of the long-term positive attributes. And I think quite a lot of negative ones, again, in terms of self-indulgence, and the drugs, and the enormous increase in divorce rates, and the like. My favorite- SM (02:10:24): You bring up what George Will and Newt Gingrich have said, "Oh, for a long time, whenever they get a chance to take a shot at the (19)60s generation, or the Boomers, is that all the reasons for the breakdown of American society falls into that particular group." And George Will has actually written on it in his books. And when Newt Gingrich came to power in 1994, there were often times when he would say it, even though he was a boomer. And the divisions in our society, the breakdown of American society, the drugs, the families, the lack of trust in positions of leadership... Are George Will and Newt Gingrich right? WO (02:11:07): Well, they are half right. I mean, I do agree with them, with what Trooper said- SM (02:11:12): What is that? WO (02:11:14): But what they never said, that the other half of what's been damaging to America in the last 40 years or so, has been the rise of right-wing extremists, and the Evangelical Christians, and the politicalization of schools, the effort to prevent abortion, and to stop speaking of evolution in the schools, and the denial of gay rights. I mean, the right-wing has a great deal of influence, and they never mentioned that the problem with this country isn't the notion of mere self-indulges. SM (02:11:46): Right. WO (02:11:47): It is the calculated exploitation of people's fears, right when you are [inaudible]. SM (02:11:53): One of the interesting points, too, on the criticisms of the boomer generation, is they will always point out that only 15 percent of 70 to 75 million were involved in any sort of activism. And they use it as a negative, but that is still a pretty large number, isn't it? When you consider 70 million people. WO (02:12:13): I mean, the movement, can you think of that kind of participation? SM (02:12:20): That is a lot. Could you comment on how important the boomer youth were, in college students in particular, in ending the war in to Vietnam? WO (02:12:36): I think they were most influential in since of their parents. A lot of people in Congress, and in important... I am reading right now the new biography of Paul Nitze. SM (02:12:52): Oh, yes. WO (02:12:54): And- SM (02:12:54): Yes, I have it. WO (02:12:56): Nitze's children were part of the movement. They were opposed to the Vietnam War. So, there he was in the Pentagon, [inaudible]. He was trying to defend it. No, I think they had a lot of influence to their parents, and I think that was more important than marching on the Pentagon, or think. Huh. SM (02:13:18): One of the things, and this is getting into modern day universities, is I have had a sense for several years, and you as a professor, probably unlike your comments on this, that people in positions of leadership and universities today, i.e. administrators, are afraid of the term activism, for the main reason is that it brings back all the memories of what happened in the (19)60s and (19)70s. And to them, it means the disruption of classes, the break... there is a real worry that volunteerism is popular, but activism is not, they do not like the term, am I right in assuming this? WO (02:13:59): That is my impression. One positive thing I wanted, I omitted, but I think the boomers began, and that was the tradition of local activists. Not great sweeping, let us say the end of the world or whatever, but the fact that ordinary people in neighborhoods started mobilizing the developed freeway from going through the middle town, or waste plant being built in their neighborhood, or whatever. I mean, on this local level, which is an ideological. It is really based on trying to preserve their immediate environment. There is a tremendous amount of this grant activism that is not political, but that the date from, and certainly was inspired by the exit of the (19)60s, that is become a permanent piece of American legacy. SM (02:14:50): Mm-hmm. WO (02:14:54): But then, what you were saying about administrators, the access of the (19)60s began the process undermining the university. I am absolutely convinced for that. It started with [inaudible] credits. SM (02:15:06): Yes. WO (02:15:07): And I thought that was typically reasonable. I mean, by the 1960's in the effort, they usually did it through the female student. The dormitory in Michigan, where I was an undergrad student, women had to be in their dorms by 10 o'clock on weeknights, and 12 o'clock on weekends. And theory believes that boys were very little opportunities for mischief. I mean, that was such an outmoded thing. So, I thought the getting rid of the local [inaudible] was perfectly fine. Then we started educating against requirements like foreign language, with very considerable success. Most universities came in on that one. And so, we have not had required foreign language, but in a great many universities for a very long time. And then they went after other aspects of the curriculum... memory. Then they went after other aspects of the curriculum that they did not like? Like science requirements- SM (02:16:05): Mm-hmm. WO (02:16:06): ... and that sort of thing. And, it is very true Rutgers is where been I have spent most of my career and I know it is good, do not [inaudible] prestige as well, but there was a cutting of the curriculum and newspapers were putting in the word "Vietnam" or "abolish racism". They would get rid of the foreign language requirements, and things like that. And the curriculum, it never recovered from that. SM (02:16:32): Well, what's interesting is that the people that run the universities today are the Boomers that were on campus and they witnessed what was happening at that particular period. And I do not know if the people that are running universities are those that were more conservative as opposed to the more liberal students that were doing the anti-war movement and other movements. WO (02:16:53): Basically, I think it was the more liberal students because the administrators that I am familiar with fell all over themselves to introduce Black studies, race studies, and Ebonics studies. And I do not mean that these things should not be introduced, but they were done for political reasons not for academic reasons at a time when there was so few experts. I was in Wisconsin, I thought it was dumb when the Black studies program was introduced because some students were marching into classes and disrupting them and taking the microphone away from a person. And it would usually be like 50 white students and one black, and they were demanding a Black studies program along with honestly cobbled ones together, which included a nurse, a geographer. I mean, there were not any experts at the time. It was just placating the students. It was always, administrators [inaudible]. And it makes it relatively easy to blackmail them. SM (02:17:54): Well, what was interesting as you well know then, and of course I was a student at that time, is that you give into my demands and we will just demand more demands. WO (02:18:04): Right. SM (02:18:05): That happened an awful lot. A lot of the Boomers, at least when I was... I went to Binghamton University and I know there was sense there, as well as when I went to grad school in Ohio State, that we are the most unique generation in American history. WO (02:18:20): Oh, absolutely, [inaudible]. SM (02:18:21): Yeah, and I know a lot of people still believe that, that are in their early (19)60s, now. Your thoughts on that kind of an attitude? WO (02:18:31): Oh, they were very full of themselves. I have an anecdote, today, [inaudible] word. They will probably block that out, but it was really illuminating to me. One of the things... again, I thought it was constant from (19)66 to (19)71 and those were absolutely the worst years of student activism. And one of the things those graduate students demanded, the graduate students at the University of Wisconsin lead the whole campus-wide to left. And they demanded that the [inaudible] department meetings be open to all students who wanted to come. And so, the department caved in on that. There was a lot of caving going on at the time. And so, the radical graduate students started coming and the result was that regular faculty would not say anything. So, the meetings became meaningless because nobody would have an opinion that might inflame the graduate students or whoever. Oh, after about six months of this, everything had to be done by committees and behind closed doors not at the actual meetings. The department finally decided to rescind that rule and during the (19)60s everything controversial was all an elaborate parliamentary of protocols. [inaudible] school's order was dragged out at every occasion. So, before we got the vote to ban these sorts of departmental meetings, there were a series of preliminary votes and it finally got to the penultimate vote, which was if you voted "yes" on this it meant that you were going to vote yes with students because they were with the radical students sitting right next to me in school, but I put my hand up that I was going to vote. One of these students, he turned to me and he said, " O'Neil, you prick, we will get you for this." SM (02:20:34): Oh, my gosh. WO (02:20:34): I actually laughed because it was such an inflated opinion on their influence. I knew they were not going to get me. SM (02:20:43): My gosh. Yeah, this brings up a question of you personally. When you were a professor in the (19)60s and (19)70s, how did these students differ from other students from other generations? Say the Generation Xers, and the current Millennials. How did these students different? Were they more inquisitive? Were they more well-read? Did they have a better knowledge of history? Just your thoughts. WO (02:21:14): The actual (19)60s students and I was [inaudible] over the decade, essentially. On the one hand they were still extremely well-prepared for college work, the deterioration of the general educational system had not set in yet. So, they were extremely well-prepared. They were capable of doing high level academic work and because they had been so politicized by the war and race movement and things like that, that they asked... this is all apart from the demonstration movement... any regular classroom work, you had to be prepared and I always tried to anticipate before I gave a lecture, but, it might be interrupted as imperialistic. And if a student accused me of that, how would I respond to it? And it would not be just a matter of name-calling, they do not, for instance, they will say, "well, how can you defend the policy that entailed using the Philippines, whatever the issue." So, they were smart and well-prepared and well-read in subjects they were interested. It was the most exciting teaching I have ever had. I had not really signed up for exciting teaching but it turned out to be a more of a challenge than I had anticipated. All though, in later years I came to miss some of the manners of them and the one thing they all agreed on was it was important and you needed to get it right. Starting in the (19)70s, things started to go downhill and by the (19)80s it was very marked. Oh, they were poorly prepared, they were not interested... great inflation- SM (02:22:55): Yep. WO (02:22:56): ... a lot of students just were for teaching. So, teaching today is not remotely as much fun as it used to be. SM (02:23:07): Wow. I know when we had Tom Hadden on our campus and he met with, several years back, some of our students, student government leaders, they talked about the power that they had to be able to deal with budgets and everything. And Tom shook his head and he said, "I am talking about, do you have real empowerment, not power?" And they did not even understand the term empowerment. And I think that is another term that is referred back to that period of the '60s because of their desire to be involved in all committees and know how the money is being spent. Today's students do not seem to even care how the money is being spent. WO (02:23:43): No, they do not. SM (02:23:46): So, do you think that the students of that era, the Boomers, really understood empowerment, whereas today students cannot even define the word? WO (02:23:58): Well, we were all winging it, including them. It was not like they had a master plan. They tended to be moved by events. And then the faculty and the administration would respond to their reaction to the events, or they would raise up the bans periodically, usually [inaudible] watering down the curriculum or something of that sort. So, it was all very ad hoc. No, I do not know if they [inaudible]. SM (02:24:36): Could you describe a little bit about the generation gap? The differences that the Boomers had with their parents and... because today, college students and millennials seem to be closer to their parents then at any other time. Their parents are so involved in everything and there does not seem to be any generation gap. And the 2nd part of this question is, why did the generation Xers that followed the Boomers dislike Boomers so much? We actually have programs in this at the university in the early (19)90s and a lot of them just looked at Boomers and said, "you are too tight, we're sick of hearing about your youth, we are sick of hearing about the time that you were young." And they just had problems with it all together. Just your thoughts. WO (02:25:30): Well, the Boomers' parents, remember, were the war generation. Both of their parents born through at least part of the depression, and pretty much all of the war. They had endured hardship and [inaudible]. During World War 2, all eligible men went into the services and most men served for years. That was the average, the armed service, most of them received as a rule. So, their generation had gone through hardship and the women had worked in defense plants or they were single mothers and children were raised even by themselves. And then after the war, they became... they were even criticized for this, but they became really eager to make up for lost time and so they got married and everyone had children, all at the same time in a sequence. And they did this by working hard, by self-discipline, by practicing all these traditional virtues. And apparently, they spoiled their children in the process, because they had had it hard, they wanted their children to have it easier and the result was the overconfident, over privileged, self-indulgent Boomers. SM (02:27:00): The generations that followed, I want to clarify that, I think I said it wrong. They disliked them or liked them for two reasons: number one, those that disliked them were tired of hearing about the nostalgia of that particular era; and those that liked them were those that wished they had the same issues and causes that would unite their generation that they had. Your thoughts on just this complexity of responses to following generations toward this group. WO (02:27:32): I think that was true of college students. I do not know how it was in the general population because they are grad students, majority of people in any generation are not college graduates. And they are preoccupied with making enough money to live on and paying the mortgage and getting the kids through school and maybe they do not have time for that. I think it's strictly a phenomenon of some of the college... but it is true, I noticed that. SM (02:28:08): Okay, I want to read this and get your response to this: "do you feel that the boomer generation, or Boomers, are still having problems with healing due to the extreme divisions that tore the nation apart in their youth? And this could be linked to division between black and white. Between those who supported authority and those criticized it. Between those who supported the troops and those who were against it. And also, the Vietnam memorial has tried to play a part in the healing within the veterans’ generation and I do not know if it is done much to the general population. Do you feel the boomer generation will go to it is grave like the civil war generation, not truly healed? Am I wrong in thinking this way or has 35 to 40 years made the following statement true: time heals all wounds?" Is there truth to this statement? WO (02:29:11): [inaudible]. Look, as an academic I have a limited perspective. I deal with students and faculty, who are not necessarily representative of any generation in particular. But, my sense of the Boomers is that they are not wracked with post-traumatic stress disorders, anything of that... [inaudible] season in the (19)60s. They seemed to me to have remained so. SM (02:29:48): Hmm. How about the healing, do you think that is an issue? And I want to follow this up with something, I took students to see Senator Edmond Muskie before he died several years back and we asked that very same question to him, in a room with 14 students, and I had this actually videotaped. And he did not respond right away because we were trying to get at what happened in 1968 and the tremendous divisions of the Democratic Convention and the lack of healing. And his response said, "we have not healed since the civil war." And then he went on to talk for 10 minutes on the Ken Burns series that he had just witnessed while he was in the hospital and so, his answer to, we had any healing since the (19)60s, he said, "we have not had any healing since the civil war." Just your thoughts on that. WO (02:30:44): Well, I think that is true of the south. I think it is striking. The south has been forced to improve course through the voting rights act and the enforcement of it, and these things. But it is utterly remarkable to me how the south has [inaudible] very worst attributes. I saw the other day, just for example, in the last election only 15 percent of white males in Louisiana, compared to a number of other states, voted for Obama. These people they still have slavery because- SM (02:31:21): Oh my gosh. WO (02:31:23): So, I think where the south is concerned then that is certainly true. But the rest of the nation, though more in the North and [inaudible]. SM (02:31:33): So, you think the divisions are still here and that is just part of our history and we have no shot at healing, like many in the civil war when they went to their graves they still had not healed? WO (02:31:50): Maybe in another hundred years the South will fully [inaudible]. But I really feel this is outside of the national framework, pretty much for the rest of the country. SM (02:32:02): How about the Vietnam memorial? Obviously, you have been there and when I first moved back from California in 1983, the first thing I had to do was get down to the Vietnam memorial, and I go down there quite a few times every year. What kind of a job has that done with respect to trying to heal the nation, even beyond the veterans? WO (02:32:27): Well, at the very core of the memorial park, it means to heal. But then I still read about members of congress who are still blaming the democrats for losing the Vietnam War and the Boomers for being responsible for that wound that we just cannot let go. And there are the Vietnam veterans themselves who are still tormented by their experiences which should not be surprising because it was full of World War Two veterans. 50 years after the fact. I know World War Two veterans 50 years after the fact who still has nightmares, that kind of thing. The war is quite different- SM (02:33:18): Right. What do you think the lasting legacy will be of the boomer generation once the best history books are written? Obviously, you have already written best history books, but a lot of people think the best history books are often written 25 to 50 years after a specific era or time. What do you think will be the overall analysis? WO (02:33:45): And when I wrote my book, I was trying to represent what I felt was... what I thought was maybe some kind of ultimate verdict. You cannot make an ultimate verdict. The book came out in 1971- SM (02:34:00): Right. WO (02:34:00): ... so, giving the ultimate verdict. But, yeah, it is often true. Some of the best civil war writing history has been done in the last 20 years. SM (02:34:12): Do you think there will be more criticism or more praise? Or is it just impossible to say? WO (02:34:27): People even in the (19)60s, there was a cycle of opinion among educated and successful professional Americans, in which the first sentencing was mired, the Boomers because of their participation in the civil rights movement and the movement in particular. By the end of the decade, many of those same people who turned against because of the rise of violence and seeing the Black Power and the weather movement, those sorts of things. Well, the reputation of the Boomers in the (19)60s rose like a rocket and fell just [inaudible]. Have not changed my mind, yet. SM (02:35:24): Do you think the Boomers as parents and now as grandparents have really taught their kids about activism or have shared it or have been quiet or? Sometimes I make an analogy, I have talked to so many people, that it is like people come back from war and they do not like to talk about it- WO (02:35:47): Yep. SM (02:35:48): ... and the question is: do Boomer parents and grandparents talk about it to their kids? Do they share? Do they just go on and live their lives? I do not know if you can answer that but. WO (02:36:01): Now, seeing it in academia twice, I know a lot of former new-leftists, they are just rampant, still. And my impression is that all though they still cherish their youth philosophies, and indeed, we all hear stories about and still have the same values to the extent that they are compatible with professional success. But in the abstract. So, it is again, getting tenure and getting promoted and- SM (02:36:37): Right. WO (02:36:37): ... pulling your [inaudible]. But in the abstract, they are still in favor of [inaudible], usually [inaudible] and all that. SM (02:36:53): Quick- WO (02:36:53): There is so many impressions of their children but it's only getting passed on. SM (02:36:54): Yeah, but what is interesting is that people will look at Boomer leadership and they look to Clinton and Bush. WO (02:37:01): Yeah. SM (02:37:02): Because they actually are the Boomers and some will say they both have characteristics within them that really define them as Boomers, both of them. And actually, President Obama is a Boomer, too, he is a very late-stage Boomer at 48, now. But- WO (02:37:22): I really do not- SM (02:37:23): Yeah, he is a late-stage Boomer himself so he still has that little- WO (02:37:26): Oh, wait, does he? SM (02:37:28): He has a little bit of an influence. WO (02:37:35): Well, I do not see an influence. [inaudible], I feel like. I do see it in Bush. What is it about Bush? SM (02:37:40): Well, I do not know, people were all commenting based on qualities, "doing it my way or the highway" kind of an attitude or something like that. WO (02:37:52): I still see him as an old-fashioned reactionary. SM (02:37:57): Do you think this Peter Max slogan from one of his posters really defines the Boomers? Here is a quote: "you do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we come together it will be beautiful." Now that was a very important statement on Peter Max posters in 1972 when I at Ohio State because I had it hanging in my room. And I wish I kept it because that poster's probably worth money now. Does that really define them? WO (02:38:26): No, I do not agree with that at all. SM (02:38:28): Okay. WO (02:38:28): Many leftists that I knew, and at Wisconsin I knew a lot, because the graduate students were radicalized. No, they were completely intolerant. They did not have room for anybody else's opinion. You were either radical or a fascist, in [inaudible]. SM (02:38:47): Could you talk a little about the music of the era and how important it was in the lives of Boomers. Secondly, who were the artists you feel shaped the generation more than others? And maybe some of the songs. WO (02:39:01): That buffoon [inaudible] to me, I grew up in the big band era, my eras were the one by [inaudible] Frank Sinatra. That was my youth. When rock and all that came along as part of a culling. SM (02:39:22): Do you feel that part of the activism that was part of this generation, music played in important part? WO (02:39:41): I do not know, it was kind of like their sacramental music. others incited fervor. There was a boom but... yeah, to the degree that you were inspiring sort of religious type emotion and the sacramental music would enhance that. SM (02:39:53): I am going to seize a couple more questions here and then I have a section where I just mention some names. You have already mentioned, what does the- I am going to repeat myself- what does the wall... just say a few sentences here, what does the wall mean to you? WO (02:40:10): The Berlin wall? SM (02:40:10): Yeah, no, the-the Vietnam memorial. WO (02:40:13): Oh, well, it just think it is beautiful and moving. SM (02:40:20): What does Ken State and Jackson State mean to you? WO (02:40:22): Oh, well, those were bloodbaths. 196-[inaudible] SM (02:40:37): That was 1970. WO (02:40:39): Right. SM (02:40:40): Where were you when 1970 when you heard about that? WO (02:40:44): I was a visiting professor at New York from Pennsylvania and the semester had just ended. It ended several [inaudible] early. And so, the students who were at campus by the time that happened, there were not any real reactions. SM (02:40:57): Wow. WO (02:40:58): So, unlike at other universities where they had to [inaudible]. SM (02:41:02): Yep. What does Watergate mean to you? WO (02:41:09): Oh, the greatest [inaudible] reveled in Watergate. And I never thought the public really knew about all the scandalous parts within the institution and all of the fall-out all over the nation. No, I thought it was Nixon [inaudible] for weeks, then he got [inaudible]. He was just delightful. I wish I known now longer what I realized then, he would get acquitted at some point. SM (02:41:41): Do you think that had an effect on the Boomer generation? WO (02:41:49): No. That is in 1975, it is pretty well-formed at that point. (19)74, (19)70. SM (02:42:02): Okay, what does Woodstock mean to you? WO (02:42:05): Oh, it did not mean anything to me, I thought, as I said- SM (02:42:09): At least to the generation? WO (02:42:13): Well, I guess those at Woodstock had a great time, I know, I had some younger friends who went there but I do not see it as a great seminal world-changing event. SM (02:42:26): How about the term "counter-culture"? WO (02:42:30): Oh, that was a definite [inaudible] piece that took place in propaganda in the (19)60s. A lot of it has become cliched, 30 years later it is pretty difficult recap the origin. But at the time, I thought it was dangerous and quite remarkable. SM (02:42:57): I am going to change my tape here, hold on a second. Okay, and if you just speak at just a little bit louder, I know we cannot put the volume up, but. Okay, another one: the hippies and the yippies? Just your thoughts on them. WO (02:43:21): Well, the hippies started out at least as being pretty charming. I remember the first time I saw one [inaudible] was in Washington, D.C. I was working at the Library of Congress. And I was walking, got off the bus, and I was crossing DuPont Circle, and a guy with long hair came up and gave me a flower. That was, I think, the first hippie I ever saw. It must have been about (19)63 or (196)4, something like that. So, they were charming at first, but as you know they descended into gross and vanity. And there have been many similar children of hippies who were really kind of abused, mostly from neglect more than. But, [inaudible]. I got a big bang out of the yippies. I thought a lot of the stuff they did, the throwing dollars in the New York Stock Exchange and big demonstration... democratic demonstration, [inaudible] it was really about, this is Eddie Hoffman and some of the others, were really kind of geniuses when it came to turning the establishment on its head and creating a no-win situation but Chicago was [inaudible]. If the authorities had allowed the yippies to go ahead with their demonstration it would have been embarrassing to the democratic party and- SM (02:45:03): Right. WO (02:45:04): ... in the city of Chicago, to no end. But, in attempting to suppress them, they embarrassed themselves even more, so. But like all these things, the yippies ran out of steam. Eddie Hoffman [inaudible] in the later years [inaudible] caricature of themselves. SM (02:45:21): How about the Students for Democratic Society and certainly the Vietnam Veterans Against the War? WO (02:45:28): Well, SDC is a big different [inaudible] to me. I taught at University of Colorado before I went, and I was asked to be a student for faculty advice... and they had to have a faculty advisor in order to have a [inaudible]. So, I was the faculty advisor to SDS for a couple of years and this was still the era of non-violent activism. They were very much inspired by Martin Luther and so they would have non-violent demonstrations. But I liked them a lot, they were wonderful people. Well, I got to Wisconsin and the tide was already changing and the SDS, I dealt with there had abandoned non-violence and they were having street fights with the police. SM (02:46:20): It is the weathermen, yeah. WO (02:46:23): These were not actually weathermen, they were just regular SDC [inaudible]. SM (02:46:25): Right. WO (02:46:27): But they were having [inaudible] war from the history department windows pitched down on between the SDC and [inaudible] police. The police teargassed them... and the police would throw the tear gas back at them and then they would have [inaudible]. So, that was a healthy disillusioning. SM (02:46:51): How about Vietnam Veterans Against the War? WO (02:46:52): Well, the ones that I knew I admired very much and I think some their [inaudible] is really, well, in a better position he really represented some of the fears of the war. They were very thoughtful and well-informed. Very just kind of people. SM (02:47:15): How about the Young Americans for Freedom? WO (02:47:23): Oh, over-privileged Nazis. SM (02:47:23): How about the Black Panthers and Black Power? WO (02:47:26): Oh, I thought they were a terrible movement. Again, they destroyed the old civil rights movement, the non-violent civil rights movement which had accomplished everything we got in the civil rights act and the voting rights act and everything of value. And then these nincompoops came along and that old "power comes from the barrel of a gun" and other bullish cliches. And they ruined the civil rights movement, it was just appalling. The Black Panthers, I did not know this at the time, but there has been a lot of work done on them, were more of a criminal organization than anything else. SM (02:48:00): Because Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver. Remember, Kathleen Cleaver, Angela Davis, Hutton, they were all part of that group. WO (02:48:12): Oh, it was founded by ex-convicts. That should have been a clue. SM (02:48:18): Yeah, Huey Newton had that poster that was on a lot of campuses. Also, the term that Nixon used, "the enemies list", when you hear that what did that... how did you respond? WO (02:48:32): I thought it was hysterical because it included the president from Harvard and other universities. [inaudible], some football stars. It was virtually a mark of honor to be on the list. We used to go around lying about it, saying that they were on the enemies list. SM (02:48:55): Mỹ Lai? WO (02:48:56): Oh, that was horrible, that was terrible. And kind of summed up sort of "everyone's about the Vietnam war, actually." SM (02:49:07): 1968. The year. WO (02:49:09): Oh, well, that was the year that was... a lot books, I think, focus on that one year. SM (02:49:14): Yes. Wow. WO (02:49:17): Well, I thought the war was going to start... well, I saw fighting outside of my door. SM (02:49:24): Do you buy what some people said, that we were close to a second civil war? WO (02:49:29): No. That is the kind of overreaction you get when you are in the middle of things. SM (02:49:29): Okay. WO (02:49:43): I knew in the abstract that we would get [inaudible]. At the time I was writing my book but I did not still see myself sort of [inaudible]. SM (02:49:44): Right, and tech? WO (02:49:44): Well, that was what changed the world of war, that was the point... and it probably... over the world. And at this point, the public opinion polls supported [inaudible] up until then. And Ian [inaudible], and those other liars, they write [inaudible], blah, blah, blah. And they were all really [inaudible]. And it convinced Richard Nixon, I am sure of it, convinced Richard Nixon that could not facilitate policy [inaudible] to get reelected. SM (02:50:34): This is another question I would like to read. This deals with the issue of trust. And that is, the boomers experienced many leaders who lied to them and were dishonest in many ways. The result is that many, if not most, did not trust any leaders, no matter their role in society, whether they be a president, a congressman, a senator, corporate leader or religious leader, or leader in any role. What effect did this have on their trust both then and now? If boomers distrust do their children distrust? Psychologists often say that if you cannot trust someone then life has little meaning. Your thought on the issue of trust within the boomer generation. WO (02:51:16): Oh, I think they got over it. I mean, the public. One of the slogans at the time was do not trust anyone over 30. SM (02:51:24): Yep. WO (02:51:31): Well, they all [inaudible] over 30. The ones that I know retain a certain residual distrust of the federal government. But that does not [inaudible] seems to be [inaudible] the other institution is equally evolved. SM (02:51:56): All right. Why did the Vietnam War end? WO (02:52:00): Because Richard Nixon recognized that it was an absolute no-win situation politically, and that he had to wrap it up, one way or another. And of course, the way he chose was not [inaudible] by any means. And I do not know how else he could have done it. SM (02:52:18): When did the (19)60s end? WO (02:52:21): Well, I am thinking (19)71, thereabouts. SM (02:52:29): Is there a specific event that you knew, and when you saw it, it is over? WO (02:52:36): Well, the election of Richard Nixon. And then within, I do not know, six or eight months of taking office, he started pulling troops out of Vietnam. Very, very, soon and very rapid. The draw down was crazy. It was [inaudible] over bombing raids, but that was deliberate on his part, because he wanted the right wing [inaudible] that he was [inaudible] along, but in fact, he [inaudible] rapid rate that by the end of 1971 the offensive action [inaudible] Vietnam. The draft was over basically by then. And that was end of the (19)60s. SM (02:53:21): Mm-hmm. Please describe how important race, economics, and culture is in understanding the boomer generation and era they lived. WO (02:53:33): Well, race alone for [inaudible] was the first great cause. There were chapters, particularly on campus, the creation of [inaudible] and students and my own coordinating studies in 1960. That sit-in movement spawned a support group, I guess, in major universities all over the country. It was the first movement that the boomers [inaudible]. And in most cases, it was lifelong. I mean, even after white people got kicked out of the [inaudible] the Congress of Racial Equality and organizations like that, it did not change their views. Oh, I think that was terrific. SM (02:54:26): And I know Kennedy was very... President Kennedy and actually Teddy Kennedy, in his new book talks it about it too, about Michael Harrington talking about poverty and economics, and certainly that played a part too. It is not just about race, it's about how much money people make and poverty and so forth. That is certainly a part of this generation. WO (02:54:50): [inaudible] very interested in the problems of poor white people. SM (02:54:54): Right. Right. Couple more, then I am going to ask you some individual names, and then we will be done. What were the most important books that you felt were written at the time that may have influenced boomers when they were young? Authors. Books. WO (02:55:19): Boy, that is hard to say. I mean, I know the books that influenced me. SM (02:55:21): What books influenced you? WO (02:55:27): Well, Michael Harrington's book was a tremendous eye-opener. SM (02:55:32): Mm-hmm. WO (02:55:32): And Rachel Carson's book too. Of course, those were books that had tremendous impact. My views on Vietnam were shaped by Bernard Fall, who was [inaudible]. Did you read any of his? SM (02:55:52): What is his last name? WO (02:55:52): Bernard Fall. SM (02:55:53): Oh yeah, Bernie Fall. Yes. WO (02:55:57): One of my few successful prophecies was when I knew the Vietnam War was going to turn out badly, because I would read Fall. And the United States was making [inaudible]. So [inaudible]. SM (02:56:12): Yep. How about your personal story? How did you personally decide to become a history teacher? WO (02:56:25): Well, I was in a program when my father, who was not at college. In fact, he only went [inaudible]. And so, he ended up in the oil business, as a wildcatter of all things. And he felt that he was politically handicapped by not being a lawyer. He was always [inaudible] other people. [inaudible] career and I took it for granted too. I was the first person in my family to go to college, so [inaudible] knew anything about it. And I majored in [inaudible]. And in my senior year, I wrote... A lot of people think of it as a serious [inaudible]. You write a senior’s honors thesis to do with [inaudible] very long. And I realized... I think it was probably 100 pages. And I realized suddenly, just like a revelation, you're [inaudible]. Then I realized if I could do [inaudible] that way I could probably write a good thesis. SM (02:57:28): Wow. WO (02:57:37): Granted I could [inaudible] and I would not have to go to law school. By that time, I had moved... I had roomed with some law students, so I knew what a grind and how horrible it was, and [inaudible] and soul destroying. Then suddenly I realized I can make my living doing what I most like. SM (02:57:51): Discouraged? WO (02:57:52): It was [inaudible]. SM (02:57:53): You went to Berkeley too, did not you? WO (02:57:56): Graduate. SM (02:57:57): Were you there during the free speech movement, or... WO (02:58:00): I left a year before. SM (02:58:01): Okay. WO (02:58:01): Knew some of the students that were involved in it, because free speech movement just did not come out of nowhere. SM (02:58:06): I know. WO (02:58:06): And [inaudible] in Berkeley in [inaudible] between 1968 [inaudible]. And of course, in 1960 there had been the big demonstration against [inaudible] in San Francisco, and a lot of Berkeley students participated in that. Oh, I knew some of the students at the sit-in. [inaudible] But I left in [inaudible]. SM (02:58:37): When you wrote your book, American High and Coming Apart, and obviously you have written other books, and now your new one, what kind of feedback did you get from people when you wrote those books? Obviously, it is a sense of accomplishment to have written the first two that I mentioned, what I consider great books. WO (02:58:57): But you would be surprised, apart from reviews, but you would be surprised at the little mail books like that get. I once wrote an op-ed piece in The New York Times on Solzhenitsyn, and this was in, I do not know, (19)78, something like that. And it made it because the Harvard Review was critical narrative. [inaudible] I did not know why me. I mean, I know nothing really about Russia. Anyway, I did write an op-ed piece on him. I got more mail from that single op-ed piece than I have from all my books put together. SM (02:59:39): Unbelievable. Wow. WO (02:59:42): I mean, if I get 10 letters in response to a book, that is huge. SM (02:59:49): That American High book is a classic book. WO (02:59:53): Now, over the years, I have gotten [inaudible] letters. But I mean, I still get them. SM (03:00:00): Mm-hmm. WO (03:00:00): That is because [inaudible]. SM (03:00:03): In all of your experiences as a professor in the classroom with boomer students, are there one or two specific experiences you will never forget, that stand out? WO (03:00:19): Well, of course, the one I just told you about, the graduate students, that certainly- SM (03:00:20): Right. WO (03:00:20): ... stuck in my mind [inaudible] this absurdity. No, in class, I think [inaudible]. In class I had a lot of really thought-provoking periods [inaudible], but not since. SM (03:00:51): Mm-hmm. Before I ask the first questions on individual persons, are there any questions I did not ask that you thought I was going to ask? WO (03:01:04): No, I think I had a lot [inaudible]. SM (03:01:04): All right. This is the last part of the interview, and this is for just your immediate thoughts. You do not have to go into any depth, but just your thoughts on some of these individuals from the period, and terms of the era. Tom Hayden. WO (03:01:24): Oh, I admired him at the beginning, the Port Huron Statement and [inaudible] sort of thing, but by the time he became... By the end of the period, I felt sorry for him more than anything else. Living in this restrictive fear. SM (03:01:38): Jane Fonda. WO (03:01:45): I never hated... I do not hate her. I never hated her, or... I felt sorry for her too, I suppose. She did not have anybody to tell her who to... Well, and she's apologized. SM (03:01:58): Right. Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. WO (03:02:07): I admired them both in their early yippie phases. I thought they were funny and smart, and manipulated the establishment too. Abbie became kind of pathetic in later life. And Jerry Rubin was never able to find his bearings afterwards. SM (03:02:28): How about the participants in the Chicago Eight trial? The Eight. WO (03:02:33): Oh, yes. That was [inaudible]. I did not really have any opinion, other than they joined [inaudible]. SM (03:02:42): I am interviewing Rennie Davis in 10 days. WO (03:02:46): Oh, he was one of the ones. Oh. SM (03:02:48): Yeah, he has become a very successful entrepreneur. I think he is a millionaire. WO (03:02:53): Really? SM (03:02:53): Yes. If you go onto the web, you will see he is involved in the environment and he's still an activist doing unbelievable things. He does not talk about the (19)60s anymore. That is the past. But he is going to be... He has got his own life now, totally different. WO (03:03:12): Remarkable. SM (03:03:14): John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy. WO (03:03:18): I never liked John Kennedy [inaudible]. He was basically a very conservative Democrat. I liked Adlai Stevenson. I did not care for him. I did not like Robert Kennedy either until 1968, when he really seemed to have... At which time he really seemed to have gone through a change and become [inaudible] about being ruthless. But he really seemed to have become less ruthless and more deeply concerned with the social problems, so I came to admire him [inaudible] being assassinated. SM (03:03:57): How about Teddy Kennedy, since he just passed, and has got a big book out right now? WO (03:04:02): Yes. Well, I think like almost everyone, I thought Chappaquiddick was so despicable. For years bear the thought of it, but still he outlived it, and he paid his dues and became a great senator. And by the time he died I admired him a lot. SM (03:04:21): Lyndon Johnson. WO (03:04:23): Oh, he was so disappointing. I thought Johnson in (19)64 was just great, and the campaign was great. And he stood for peace and justice and civil rights and everything desirable, and then he sacrificed everything to the war in Vietnam. I was just crushed. SM (03:04:45): Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. WO (03:04:46): Well, Spiro Agnew was definitely successful. I do not know if he is still alive or not. SM (03:04:53): No, he passed away. WO (03:04:54): I never changed my opinion about him. Richard, I spent a large part of my adult life hating Richard Nixon. I hated him from about the time of the [inaudible] case on, I would say. And I got to vote against him repeatedly, because I voted against him in (19)56 and then in 1960, and then in (19)62 I was in California, so I got to vote for him again, against him again. And then in (19)68 and then in (19)72. So, I had a long record there. And there was nobody I hated more in public life. But years later, like, oh, starting in the end of the Vietnam War, I began to develop a grudging respect, because he did get us out of the war in the face of great [inaudible]. I have mixed feelings about him. He was an evil man who did open up China. Who ended the war in Vietnam. Who expanded the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Arts, and signed off on clean air and clean water legislation. [inaudible] I am ambivalent toward Nixon. SM (03:06:08): How about Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern? WO (03:06:12): Oh, I loved Eugene McCarthy. I worked for his campaign. [inaudible] But he was disappointing too because he frittered away the reputation that he had built up in 1968. He did not run again for quite some time. And then when he did start putting himself up as a presidential candidate it was under hopeless circumstances. He just threw his following away. It was one of the really... [inaudible] I never understood. McGovern. I liked McGovern, but I thought even at the time that he was going to ruin the Democratic Party. SM (03:06:57): The buses. WO (03:06:59): He was the captain of every little... SM (03:07:03): Sargent Shriver. WO (03:07:06): Oh, there is somebody, you know, solid life of service. Have to admire him. SM (03:07:11): Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. WO (03:07:15): Well, Martin Luther King is the greatest of all my political heroes. He changed the country. I did not know anything about Malcolm X until after... I used to see him occasionally on television when he was still a Muslim or a Black Panther. SM (03:07:34): Uh-huh. WO (03:07:35): And I thought he was kind of dangerous, because he was so smart and so clever, and pursued a Black racist agenda. It was only after his death I learned that he was a... through the autobiography, that I learned he was actually a more complicated person. SM (03:07:55): Right. Yeah-yeah, yeah. He said all white people were not devils. WO (03:07:57): Mm-hmm. SM (03:08:00): Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford. WO (03:08:05): Well, I know people who hated Ronald Reagan, and I never could because I grew up on his movies. My feeling now, while he was president of the States I always voted against him and I was really unhappy with his presidency in many ways. Since his death, there have been some books that came out that have explained in great detail what was never explained at the time which was how he and Gorbachev negotiated an end to the Cold War. And so now, while I still think his domestic program could hardly have been worse, I have come to respect his role in ending the Cold War, which it turns out was really an important one. SM (03:08:54): Gerald Ford. WO (03:08:55): Oh, he is just nobody. Through pure accident got to the presidency. SM (03:09:03): How about Dwight Eisenhower and Hubert Humphrey? WO (03:09:09): Well, Eisenhower, I have been a lifelong Democrat so [inaudible] heart is not in these the way... And one of my great political heroes, probably second only to Martin Luther King, was Adlai Stevenson. I thought Eisenhower was a peaceful president. And I thought that until I started writing Coming Apart and then I had to write a chapter on Eisenhower. 1960 was Eisenhower's last year. And then I had to start Googling up his record. He ended the Korean War. He did not start any others. He held the line on the [inaudible] anyone could. He nearly balanced the budget. He balanced the budget three times and he came pretty close the fourth time. [inaudible] Started the Interstate Highway System. He was actually a pretty good president, something I did not understand while he was president. SM (03:10:00): How about Hubert Humphrey? WO (03:10:06): Oh, Hubert Humphrey. Oh, I always liked him. He was such a great liberal. But he really sullied his name by becoming a cheerleader for the Vietnam War. SM (03:10:16): Yeah, I agree. How about Edmund Muskie, his running mate in (19)68? WO (03:10:21): Well, I admired him, and I am sorry he did not win. I think he was... In all the dirty tricks that people did, I think the one that was most [inaudible] the only ones that were really effective were the ones that [inaudible] Muskie. SM (03:10:37): Right. How about the women leaders like Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug? WO (03:10:42): Oh, I like them all. SM (03:10:48): What kind of an influence have they had on boomers? WO (03:10:54): You know, it is hard for me to tell, not being [inaudible]. SM (03:11:03): Right. How about U-2? WO (03:11:07): Oh, the band? SM (03:11:09): No, not the band, the Gary Powers. WO (03:11:11): Oh, oh, oh, the U-2 incident. SM (03:11:15): That seems to be the first time when boomers saw a person who lied to them, which was Eisenhower. WO (03:11:21): Yes. That was probably the worst thing Eisenhower did. In a sense, the big summit with Khrushchev in Paris was coming up and he allowed U-2 over-flights to be made right up until the wire. If he canceled them like two months before the meeting... And of course, he knew the Soviets knew all about them, they just were not saying anything because it was so embarrassing. Yep, it was a major blunder. [inaudible] SM (03:11:55): Robert McNamara. WO (03:11:58): Oh, did I ever [inaudible] him. I mean, bringing all that brilliance to bear in order to stop a war. And I [inaudible] for waiting 25 years to [inaudible]. SM (03:12:12): Right. He just passed away. How about Dr. Benjamin Spock and the Berrigan Brothers? WO (03:12:19): Oh, I liked Spock. I mean, [inaudible] influenced on [inaudible] book. As an antiwar protestor I thought he was pretty dignified and effective. SM (03:12:33): Mm-hmm. WO (03:12:44): Because the Berrigan Brothers could be rather [inaudible] appreciate that they alienate more people than they persuade beyond a certain point. SM (03:12:52): Jackie Robinson. WO (03:12:55): I am not a sports fan. SM (03:13:00): Okay. WO (03:13:00): Of any kind. SM (03:13:00): All right. WO (03:13:00): [inaudible] SM (03:13:01): The original seven astronauts. WO (03:13:03): I thought the manned space program was a [inaudible] in the beginning. And I think it has been proven [inaudible] it is incredibly [inaudible]. All the successes have been in the unmanned [inaudible]. SM (03:13:24): Just a couple more here. I think I may have already mentioned Huey Newton. WO (03:13:31): Oh, I thought he was a scoundrel. Yeah. SM (03:13:33): Yeah. WO (03:13:33): [inaudible] SM (03:13:35): Walter Cronkite? WO (03:13:40): I appreciated him. SM (03:13:43): Daniel Ellsberg? WO (03:13:45): Oh, I thought what he did with the Pentagon Papers was just great and took a lot of courage. [inaudible] go to jail. SM (03:13:53): And some of the simple things that influenced boomers when they were really young, Walt Disney and Howdy Doody. WO (03:14:01): Oh, I miss Howdy Doody. Yeah. Yeah, I did grow up on Walt Disney. SM (03:14:09): Yeah, Walt Disney, I am learning more about him after he died. Whoa. Things that I did not even realize. WO (03:14:18): He was pretty conservative. SM (03:14:20): Yes, he was. But his movies really had an influence. And John Dean. WO (03:14:28): Oh, I was [inaudible] very impressed with his performance at the time. Like everybody, I was glued to the TV during the hearings. And since then, as more and more revelations have come up, I have been staggered by the accuracy of his memory. Most people, including me... memory's kind of a fragile thing. And he had practically total recall that has been proven out for the most part. SM (03:15:02): He has written some pretty good books recently. WO (03:15:06): I bought his book Blind Ambition. [inaudible] SM (03:15:09): Oh yeah, that was very, very good. I think that is about it. Trying to think if there is any other names here. I cannot think of any. Finally, I just want to thank you for taking the time here. I wish I could take your picture. I take pictures of everybody. Somehow, I got to get a picture of you. But I will figure it out. WO (03:15:31): [inaudible] have pictures on my dust jackets. SM (03:15:35): Yeah, maybe if you could send me a picture on the computer or something like that. But all the pictures I have taken are ones like... You are the first person I would not have taken their picture. I have even interviewed people then I actually went to their place and just passing through took their picture. So, we might have plenty of time to do that. And I guess my last question is this, again, I want to get back, because you are probably a great professor. I have read all about you for years. You are not only a great writer but you are a professor with unbelievable academic backgrounds. When you think of all your years in the classroom, and again, I am going back to the boomer generation here, were there specific events where the students themselves walked into the class and said to you, "Today, can we discuss what is happening in the world as opposed to your lesson?" Because that happened a lot when I was a college student. Did you ever have that? WO (03:16:34): No. No. The way it worked... I came to Rutgers in 1971, and Rutgers is in a much more [inaudible] campus [inaudible] by a whole lot, and so the students I had were not political at all. Now, what would happen to me is that I would be talking about some historical event in the past and then the students would compare that to what had just happened. And then we would end up, through that door, talking about current events. I do not remember specific occasions [inaudible] when they would lead with it. SM (03:17:21): Okay. Very good. I am looking through my list at names here, see if I missed anybody. I think I did not mention... Did I mention the communal movement? That is the one thing I... Your thought on communes? WO (03:17:35): Oh, they always baffled me. SM (03:17:39): There is only three in existence today, as my understanding. WO (03:17:46): Really? Out of over 100. SM (03:17:46): Yep. And the thing, they were young people in the (19)60s, and they still live in these three communes, and they are now in their (19)60s. I do not know how they did it, but... They're in different parts of the country. Again, finally, are there any questions that I did not ask that you would... Any final thoughts on the boomers? WO (03:18:07): No. No. SM (03:18:07): All right. Well, that is it. Want to thank you very much for the interview. I will certainly send a transcript once we get the transcripts done, for you to give the final okay. WO (03:18:17): Okay. [inaudible] Edit out the ums and ahs. SM (03:18:24): Yeah. And again, I got a lot of transcripts to do here. I am doing this myself. I am transcribing it all myself, so it takes a little while. But got great interviews. And it has been an honor to talk to you. Just hope you continue to keep writing. I cannot wait to read your new book. WO (03:18:43): Well, I hope you like it. SM (03:18:46): Yeah. Have you gotten any reviews? What is the feedback? WO (03:18:49): The pub date was 10 days ago, and so I have not gotten any reviews yet. SM (03:18:56): Right. And you are still teaching part time though? WO (03:18:59): Yes, I teach one course a semester. SM (03:19:01): Yeah, please do, because you are good at what you do. And thanks again for writing Coming Apart and American High. They are unbelievable books. WO (03:19:09): Well, thank you very much. SM (03:19:12): Well, you have a great day. And it was an honor to talk to you. WO (03:19:15): Same thing to you. SM (03:19:16): Bye now. WO (03:19:16): Bye. (End of Interview) Description 3 microcassettes Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. William O'Neill Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource O'Neill, William L. ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Historians; Scholars; Authors, American; College teachers; Rutgers University; United States—History—20th century; O'Neill, William L.--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. William O'Neill (1935-2016) was a historian, scholar, author, and professor of history emeritus at Rutgers University. Dr. O'Neill was the author of more than a dozen books on subjects related to the twentieth century of American social and political history. He has a Bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan and earned his Master's and Ph.D. in History at the University of California, Berkeley. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-03-18 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.204a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.204b; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.204c Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 199:22 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/abc025a431a1c146a42ddfdd47107bee.jpg e83c83c726c9ee63007c3fd9e77d90e6 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/a61c46fc62f49f369fa26455193be36b.mp3 d5fde6ff7ae3efaa251234a5d7c43478 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-05-26 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Zillah R. Eisenstein Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Zillah Eisenstein is a scholar, political activist and Emerita Professor of Political Science at Ithaca College. Her work focuses primarilly on political struggles for social justice. She was able to document problems such as the rise of neoliberalism (both within the U.S. and across the globe), the growth of imperial and militarist globalization, injustices of racial laws, diseases and affirmative action in the U.S."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":6535,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"10":2,"11":4,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial"}">Dr. Zillah Eisenstein is a scholar, political activist and Emerita Professor of Political Science at Ithaca College. Her work focuses primarily on political struggles for social justice. She was able to document issues such as the rise of neoliberalism (both within the U.S. and across the globe), the growth of imperial and militarist globalization, injustices of racial laws, diseases, and affirmative action in the U.S.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 86:35 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Civil Rights Movement; Communist Party; Communism; Marxism; The Way We Were; Women's Rights movement; Feminism; Baby boom generation; Feminism; Racism; Black women; Abortion; Sexism; Second-Wave feminism; Women's studies; Eleanor Roosevelt."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":13689059}}">Civil Rights Movement; Communist Party; Communism; Marxism; The Way We Were; Women's Rights movement; Feminism; Baby boom generation; Feminism; Racism; Black women; Abortion; Sexism; Second-Wave feminism; Women's studies; Eleanor Roosevelt.</span> Subject LCSH Scholars; Political activists--United States; College teachers; Eisenstein, Zillah R.--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Zillah Eisenstein Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 26 May 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:03): Testing one, two. Could you give me a little bit about your background, your growing up years, and what it was like to grow up... The influences that were a force in your life that maybe helped you in your career path? And also, when you are talking about this, I am always asking people about their college experiences. Was there something during their undergraduate years that had an influence on you that... Where you changed and went in a certain direction in your life? ZE (00:00:38): Well, my growing up years were enormously influenced by being the daughter of people who had been in the Communist Party and whose whole life was committed to civil rights activity. So, I had three sisters and we just grew up. Saturday mornings, you went and picketed Woolworths. I mean, that was... SM (00:01:04): So you learned that as a little girl, then? ZE (00:01:06): Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, my politics is from the womb. SM (00:01:12): Right. ZE (00:01:13): So in some ways just giving... As I was walking down here, I just thought, "Well, maybe I should just talk about my parents rather than myself." You know? SM (00:01:26): Talk about your parents, because... ZE (00:01:28): But I will just say just quickly, and then you can kind of do what you want with it. But my mother actually is the woman that... The way we were. You know? SM (00:01:37): Oh, yes. ZE (00:01:39): Okay. Well, it is based on her. Her name was Fanny Price. And I always forget his name, but the guy who wrote and produced the film, mom used to always say, "We were told that," and mom said, "Do not be silly." My mother went to Cornell, she went to the ACT School. She was completely poor, she got the [inaudible] scholarship. That is how she went to school. It was like the ritual story that was always told to us as children about work hard to get your intellect, and then you will go forth with whatever you want to do. But they did that as communists, not as liberals. But anyhow, when he wrote his book, the guy, whatever his name is, in the book finally, it came out I think maybe eight years ago, he says, "The woman who I was mesmerized by in my days at Cornell was Fanny Price." And- SM (00:02:39): The person, Barbara Streisand... ZE (00:02:41): Yeah. SM (00:02:41): Wow. ZE (00:02:42): I mean, my mother was really annoyed, she did not like the film, she said that was not... But mom did. When she was here, she founded the Young Communist League at Cornell. And then, of course, I never really heard very much about this until I got my job at Ithaca College and came here. And then that first semester, I was feeling pretty lonely here. It was kind of strange. And they came up for a weekend and she said, "Come on, let me take you on Cornell's campus and I will show you where I gave the first young communist [inaudible] speech." And it was on Bailey Hall and stuff like that. SM (00:03:20): Oh, my God. ZE (00:03:20): So anyhow, that is my roots and my sister's roots. I mean Sarah, who was Roz's friend, we both did... We did civil rights activism at a very you age. My two youngest sisters, when my father along with Staughton Lynd and Howard Zinn, the three of them are taught at Atlanta University. Well, no, Staughton was, I think at Morehouse. My dad was at AU, which was the graduate center for the Black colleges. And then Zinn was at Spelman. But there was a picket. I stayed home to study for my SATs, my sisters Julia and Gia, who were very young at the time, like seven and nine, I think. Anyhow, all of them were arrested. And Staughton Lynd came to get me to go help find them because my sisters had been separated from my parents and taken to juvenile detention. So anyhow, that just gives you a flavor. I mean, our life was very difficult and intense and rich as children. But there was a lot of anti-communism, we often were ostracized for that and it was not your typical upbringing. I mean, my father and mother lost their jobs pretty regularly because, still, of the leftovers of the hounding of people out of jobs. And so we grew up just everywhere. I mean, we lived everywhere. SM (00:05:13): What was it like? Because we are talking about the boomer generation, but a lot of people I am interviewing, one third of them are not boomers, they just lived during that time. So it has become much more than just a boomer thing. But when you look at that period after World War II, which is the red diaper babies and the pressures put on people who were affiliated with the Communist Party through the late (19)40s and the (19)50s, even into the early (19)60s, what was it like living in America at that time, being the child or of parents who were communists? And how did you get along with your peers? ZE (00:05:48): Well, I mean, it was very difficult. If you were kind of found out, oftentimes you were found out though, in weird ways. I mean, you would say something in a class discussion and someone would yell, "You are a communist." Like if you said something about equality or whatever. I mean, it is not like you walked around... Nobody walked around saying, "My parents were in the party." You would have to be out of your mind. But at the same time, there was such a vigorous social community that was part of the civil rights movement. That really was the way that an awful lot of communists... I mean, my parents joined the Communist Party primarily because of their stance against racism. And that is really what... SM (00:06:37): Yeah. Like Paul Robeson. ZE (00:06:38): Yeah. Well, I mean most US Communists, it was the place, if you were truly anti-racist, you would be a communist. Although most of the time people think communism meaning the economics... My parents were economic communists as well, but... But even the way that we were brought up, nobody had private money in our household. Nobody. And it has to do with how my own family functions now. But anyway, so that is that. Then I go to college. College already is the Vietnam War period. I do remember I had a job in the kitchens to help pay for school. And I remember waking up one morning and there was a picket line outside the cafeteria. And again, it was just kind of this memory bank. I did not know what it stood for but I knew I could not cross the picket line. That is just how I was brought up. So I remember going back to my dorm and then trying to find out what it was. And I was a student worker, but this was at Ohio University. Most of the people really were Appalachian poor and I worked with women, uneducated. They were at poverty wages, so was I, but I was a student, so it was not comparable. You know? SM (00:08:16): So you were at the Athens campus for your undergraduate degree? ZE (00:08:18): Yeah. SM (00:08:19): What was your major there? ZE (00:08:21): Political Science. SM (00:08:23): And what years were you there? ZE (00:08:23): I was there (19)64 to (19)68. SM (00:08:27): Unbelievable, my first job was at Ohio University. ZE (00:08:31): Oh, yeah? SM (00:08:31): Yeah, I started in (19)72. I went to Ohio State Grad School, in (19)72 got my master's degree. Then I worked at the Ohio University of Lancaster campus as Assistant Director of Student Affairs. And I know it was one of the most liberal schools in the state of Ohio at the time. And what really got me when I got there was the fact that they had purged many, many students out of that school. And they went from a campus of 18-5 to 13-5 in (19)72. And what saved Ohio University, were the branch campuses, which was at Lancaster. I think they had one at... Oh God, [inaudible]. Well, they had three branch campuses. We had 2000 students, so it had really helped them and they did not go under. After Kent State, I guess all hell broke loose. ZE (00:09:20): Yeah. SM (00:09:21): And I had some unbelievable experiences of being in that conservative community in Lancaster. ZE (00:09:26): Yeah. SM (00:09:27): But I lived in Columbus, I commuted. But... ZE (00:09:30): Well, so anyhow. SM (00:09:31): Yeah. ZE (00:09:34): So that actually, the politics there about the strike, became... I became very involved in the class issues that existed in Athens and worked and was trusted very deeply by many of the real workers as opposed to student workers. And then I was pretty active in anti-war stuff. SM (00:10:02): Did you have Dr. Hunt for any of your classes? Ron Hunt? He was a professor for the science labs. ZE (00:10:07): No. SM (00:10:12): Was there any generation gap with your parents? Because obviously they influenced you and you had the same values in terms... ZE (00:10:18): No. There were not... SM (00:10:19): You did not really have any generation gap issues because you were... ZE (00:10:22): No, I mean we were a real community because of the hostility in which our family existed. But later in my life, when I became a graduate student and was doing my PhD in feminist theory and was also becoming very active in the women's movement, as a socialist feminist but still in the women's movement, I had enormous conflicts with my father who really believed that communism was sufficient, you did not need an autonomous women's movement. So the politics, the political struggles that we went through were within progressive politics, they were not your normal left, right, or whatever. SM (00:11:09): I know that Dr. Johnnetta Cole, who I really know... ZE (00:11:11): Oh, sure. I know her. SM (00:11:12): ...I am a big fan of hers. Her very first book, I think, was Sister President. And in that book, I remember reading years ago that she had a conflict there when she was in college because she was first of all, an African American. And second, well, she knew she was a female too, but there was a lot of pressure where she was going to school that you concentrated on race first and gender second. ZE (00:11:36): Right? Yeah. SM (00:11:37): Did you see a lot of that within the African American community during the times you were at... (19)64 to (19)68 in your PhD, that in the women's issues, that it was more dominated by white... ZE (00:11:51): A lot of them were. I mean, the mainstream women's movement, clearly white dominated. I became very involved in the early parts... When was it? I think it was maybe around (19)76 actually. Angela Davis, me, and Bell Hooks, the three of us did a big event at Haverford College. Hortense Spillers was the provost there then, and it was called Racism and the Women's Movement. Clearly, that was just huge conflicts that existed because the assumption about the whiteness of women or even the language that Blacks and women, Blacks are men, women are white. And then of course, Black women would say, "And we are just supposed to be brave." Okay? SM (00:12:40): Right. ZE (00:12:42): That is my whole life. I mean, all of my books, everything is about this question. So it is like I cannot really do it quick. SM (00:12:53): That is what is great about the interview process. We had asked questions I never expected to ask. We had JL Chestnut, the great lawyer who wrote Black and Selma on our campus many years back, 1990s, mid 1990s. We had the Black student union in that room. And the question I am asking is this, he started his lecture to talk about Selma and he looked over in the room and he says... Looked at the African American women and said, "I am very proud of you. You are doing great things." And then he looked at the men and he went after them. And it was almost as if the African American female in mid-1990s was very successful in life, whereas the black male is still having major issues because... Be in prisons and everything. And obviously, these males were going to be successful because they were in college and the... But they were a little shocked by it, and it was a great learning lesson. And to me, when you are talking about women's issues, that African-American women in the mid-(19)90s compared to African-American men in the mid (19)90s, obviously they were way ahead. In this man's eyes. ZE (00:14:03): Yeah. But I mean, we cannot... There is not time to... SM (00:14:05): Right. ZE (00:14:08): That is just also post-Reganism, it is the whole restructuring of the penal system. There is a whole new Jim Crow here and Jane Crow as well. So, I mean a lot of it is structural transformations and repositioning of women's labor, and particularly Black women's labor in the whole global system. I mean late (19)90s already. So the idea that you blame black men or that black men are the way that Cosby talks about it, or even Skip Gates, it is really, I think of incredibly retro politic. What you were asking is about black women, did they see a hierarchy of relationships between gender and race? And Barbara Smith, a well-known black feminist that I often have done stints with years ago. One time she was asked by a kid in the audience, which has been more difficult for you being black or being a woman? And Barbara said, "I am always both. So cannot answer that." SM (00:15:21): Wow. How has the relationship between men and women changed since 1946? Now, this is a broad question here, but we are looking at the boomer generation and I am trying to see what the women of the boomer generation, can you describe some of the changes that have taken place since 1946 with respect to some of the laws that were not in the books at that period after World War II, maybe even the activism, the movements, the creation of organizations, the sexual revolution of just some of the things that kind of define the women that were not born until after World War II? ZE (00:16:08): Well, again, I mean, I just actually started writing a new talk for this keynote that I am doing in Australia in about four weeks. And the question really is, for me, you need new feminisms just always need new politics because the structures of power are always changing. So on the one hand, it looks like everything has changed and everything has changed and nothing has changed. And both of those things are simultaneously true, I think. So mean, again, my answer would be different if we talked just even a year ago, but today, majority of women in the labor force, there are more women in the labor force in the US right now than there are men, first time ever historically. So the fact that there was in the early (19)70s through the (19)80s, enormous access to abortion. Right now, there is much less access to abortion. There are something like 80 percent of counties have no federally funded clinics at all. I have a daughter in medical school right now. In most medical schools, abortion is not being taught. Legally, totally the same. Okay. Roe v Wade, (19)73. SM (00:17:36): (19)73, yep. ZE (00:17:37): All right. But then there have been, and I did a whole book about this. There have been a series of about six different huge decisions that have whittled away at abortion, particularly for younger women, and that you need more consent, etcetera, from parents, doctors, etcetera. But the biggest issue right now is that although, and this is what I would say is abortion remains legal. So women in the US have the right to abortion, but they get to choose to have an abortion, but they do not get to have one. In other words, the access. And that is really. As we have become a much more unequal society since World War II. I mean post-World War II, it was a bit of a boom. And then we have been moving to now where we are one of the most economically unequal, I think one of the top five countries in the world. And what is his name? Jude, what is his first name? He has been writing all this stuff in the New York review of books. He was actually saying that inequality is much more devastating a problem for a society than even poverty is meaning the extremes of wealth and poverty. SM (00:19:00): And women still only make, and was it 80 percent of what a man's salary is? ZE (00:19:07): Anywhere between.72 to.77 cents on the dollar. But then of course, you still have sexual ghettos in the labor force, then you have, where you have women in the labor force in areas that did not used to be the case. You are still.77 cents to the dollar. So the sexual hierarchy of the labor force exists. But again, change. Well, 1971, you have a law that says sexual harassment on the job is illegal, did not exist before (19)71. You have all kinds of, again, laws that have changed the ability to bring charges of rape. You have even date rape law. I mean, all of that is new. Yeah, okay. A lot of the domestic violence law, new. And that all comes from technically a radical feminism that argued that the personal is political. And therefore that really is, I think, just one of the most revolutionary ideas of the last century. That idea has transformed politics every which way, including Bill Clinton and his penis. So... SM (00:20:45): What do you think of, I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly, and she was very nice, and we got her on her campus. She is a distinguished lawyer and she has not changed one iota from the Phyllis Schlafly from the (19)50s in terms of a couple of things she said. "The troublemakers of the (19)60s are now running the universities, and they run the departments." And she was, I think, referring to women's studies and some of the other areas. And then she said she was wanted to run for political office, but she asked her husband, her husband said, "Please do not run." And so she did not run because she was one to please her husband. That was the most important thing, was pleasing her husband and not pleasing her. ZE (00:21:30): Oh, I mean, I have written on her. I spoke with her one night. She was disgusting. She comes out and she says, I want to thank, I forget his name, for letting me be here. And when I stood up, I said, I want, I am really happy to say I did not have to thank anyone for being here. SM (00:21:48): The second wave is what happened in the late (19)60s of feminism. One of the things that I have noticed in all the interviews is the amount of sexism that was really prevalent in just about all the movements. The anti-war movement was well known for being sexist in the civil rights movement too. In fact, I remember we had a program once where we had a speaker that said of Dr. King, were alive today and be embarrassed when he was talking about not having very many women. There were Dorothy Heights. You look at 1963 in the march on white, you see Dorothy Height over the right and Mahalia Jackson singing, but very few females. And even in the Native American movement there was sexism, in the gay and lesbian movement there was there is sexism. I could not believe it. It is prevalent in all these central movements. Was that the major thrust as to why women left some of those movements and really started that second wave was because of the sexism and the movements of the late (19)50s and (19)60s? ZE (00:22:49): Well, I mean, clearly, I mean, there is just many, many different ideas about that. But on the whole, for women who were political activists, many of them did feel as though they needed to really make their own autonomous space. And there was even a big difference between saying that they were not separatists, they believed in coalition, but that they really needed autonomy to be able to give voice to themselves within larger communities. And I am a little on the young cusp here in that, I mean, I was very involved in the anti-war movement, but really it was not sexism that took me in that movement that took me to the women's movement. It was actually the intellectual work I was doing. And also given my own upbringing in terms of communism and realizing that there was a system of patriarchy and masculinist privilege that no politics theorizes or addresses. And even today, what is so interesting is the minute you talk about anything that is related to sex or gender, none of the normal political categories work. So you can have right-wingers and even feminists coming together on particular issues because the issue's related to the body. And it has no place in any political theory. SM (00:24:47): I remember that going back to the movie, The Way We Were. I remember the scene where she is out there speaking, and of course people were throwing all these words to toward Barbara Streisand, but it was like they were negative, so to speak. And of course, Robert Redford was fascinated by her in the end, but because she was so different. ZE (00:25:10): Right, exactly. Well, that is what this guy says about my mom. SM (00:25:15): What I said here, the describe the second wave of what were the forces that made it happen and describe the boomer women and the roles they played. One of the things that is been interesting in the people I have talked to is in respect to the Civil Rights Movement, they said, this is not a boomer movement. The Civil Rights Movement was already well established, and the youngest boomers were probably 18 years old when all these things were happening. Although they did Freedom Summer in (19)64, we all know about the white students, predominantly Jewish students who went down with African American students. And so you cannot deny that. And that many of the people of the free speech movement had the experiences of being there and Freedom Summer, even. Abbie Hoffman and some of the hippies were down there at that time, but they were a little older than the boomers. They were like the pre-boomers. And then the other thing in development on the women's studies on college campuses, would you say that is a big plus that boomer women have... ZE (00:26:15): So what are you defining as boomer women kind of starting when? SM (00:26:20): Boomers are born between 1946 and 1964. But I have had issues just about everybody has the issue with, they do not like the term boomers. They do not like defining generations. And many of them do not even like Tom Brokaw. Greatest generation, come on. They do not like these generational things. They talk about events, they talk about periods, not about generations. But when we are defining that young boomer women of the (19)60s and the (19)70s and right into the Reagan period there... ZE (00:27:00): Well, I guess to me, it would make more sense to actually call those particular women. They were feminists at that time. So the most significant movement of my lifetime, for me, was the women's movement. It nurtured me, it gave me strength, it made me very brave. And that is where I got my sustenance. I was in an all-male program, all male professors for my PhD, and I was doing work, it was actually on the relationship between Marxism and feminism and political science, which was for most of my professional life, an enormously male dominated field, when my husband would sometimes go with me to the national meetings, he would say, "This is worse than lawyers." I mean, it is like all men. And now that is changed some, but I did not care. I was fascinated by political theory. It still fascinates me. But I am a political theorist who is an activist as well. I do not think theory, if theory cannot be used, it is not, to me, theory. Theory has to really articulate the presence and movement of your own being. So it is not something that is foreign and disparate. And that is, of course, how I try to get my students to think about it. So the point here though is that these feminists did, many of them fought very hard for women's studies. Now, I would argue that a lot of women's studies programs today no longer have the clarity of politics that they had initially. And I was part of some of the earliest fights at the University of Massachusetts, actually. Some people wanted to call it women's studies and others, including myself, wanted to call it feminist studies. And there was a huge debate about whether women, I women itself is a term that already authorizes a system. And what we were saying is, we do not want to be part of the university as it exists, as feminists. We want to change the university, we want to change the base of knowledge, we want there to be new things to be studied. And there has been, I think that the struggle no longer exists, but through the (19)80s and early (19)90s, it was a fabulous struggle on college campuses, I think. About really whether you wanted to be mainstreamed as a women's studies program or feminist studies or gender studies as it is called more often now, or whether you really wanted to be a dissident location in the university. In other words, that you were trying to... That there is just a contradiction in terms that you cannot really create the kind of knowledge base that you want. Meaning here, again, if the personal is political that no academic discipline is set up without the parameters of those really the borders between those realms in economics, it would have to be that the family is an economic unit, not that the economy exists outside of. So the point here was that it was just huge conflict and that the conflict was good and that, you know, you really wanted to bring that conflict onto your campus. That does not exist today. SM (00:31:20): But where would you put that political correctness? Would that be part of that debate too? The PC thing that was so big in the Chronicle higher education that was books have been written out. ZE (00:31:30): Well, the PC thing, I think, was just really, it was a right wing part of progressive politics, and it was just a way of trying to, again, be able to contain and authorize as though there are only certain answers are acceptable. Whereas I remember a few times in my own classroom where someone would say something and say, "Well, I do not know if this is politically correct." And I said, "No, actually there is no correct. That is the point here." Now think, okay, but the idea that you want to take when people are trying to get you to think openly and then you come back with what the old stuff, which is just to say that there is only one way to think. So to me, that was not even interesting. SM (00:32:36): But what you are talking on basically about this debate over women's studies is like the (19)60s, the debate over the war in Vietnam, the movements and all the issues within the movements, it is a continuation, which is a sign of activism. And activism is continuing. Whereas some people are saying that a lot of those people just went off to make a lot of money, raise their families, and they realized at a certain point that idealism goes by the wayside. Do you believe a lot of people within that generation continue today to believe in the ideals that they had is when they were young? Because one of the critiques of that period is that, it was a period, and it was a unique time, not a unique generation, but a unique and different time that allowed them to have the freedoms that today's students do not have. because they have to work. And so... ZE (00:33:33): Oh, that is just bullshit. SM (00:33:34): Yeah. But how do you feel about your generation or the boomers? ZE (00:33:40): Well, again, the people that I who had been involved with, then none of them went off to make a lot of money. Are there people of the boomer generation who were completely self-centered? Yeah, but that is part of the problem with this phrase, boomer generation. Okay. So I mean, the point here is that you just, I mean, it is kind of a false construction. The boomer generation is just these people who by accident, happen to share a historical moment. Okay. But that accidental or random sharing gives them nothing in common other than the shared historical moment. Yeah. So if you want to say that historical moment was one of opportunity, etcetera, that existed, but simultaneously with that was existing struggles against the Vietnam War, struggles against racism, and then the real struggles against patriarchy and sexism. But those are not... SM (00:35:01): You raised a good point. If you were pressed, and only if you would not even do it if you were not pressed. But if you were pressed and you do not want to use that term boomer, would there be another term? The other terms that have come out is that the Woodstock generation, the Vietnam generation, the protest generation, the movement generation, knowing that when, another thing is one of the criticisms of the generation of (19)74 to (19)78, I do not even know the exact numbers here, is that only really five percent to 15 percent, depending on whatever person you are talking to or book you have read, were involved in any sort of activism. Anyways, the 85 percent to 90 percent, 95 percent people just went on with their lives and were influenced by the times. But we were not out there protesting, and we were talking both conservative and liberals here now were not inbound in any of the movements, but we were still talking about a large number. If we were talking 74 million, even 5 percent to 15 percent is a large number. So yeah, you raise a really good point here, because so many of the people I have talked to cannot stand these terms. ZE (00:36:15): Who, well, I mean, can understand. I think that one can take a term and use it and say that the term itself is, it is important because it creates a continuity of your thought, but that at the same time that continuity is false or I do not like false. The continuity is much more complex than unity. There is no unity here, although there might be continuity. And then the real issue is that within the boomer generation, if you want to give that as the, or Vietnam, I would call them movements, Vietnam, the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, the women's movement, that there were movements and that some people were in multiple movements who also happen to exist in this period called or identified as the boomer generation. But that really, on some level, the problem with the term boomer is the idea that was these were the ones who actually made it, right? But in a lot these movements, nobody was interested in making it. SM (00:37:43): Do you remember that moment where you have already mentioned how important the women's movement was in shaping you, inspiring you, being the force that drove you in your life. Do you remember the moment when you left the anti-war movement or any of the other movements and said, "This is the movement that I most identify with?" ZE (00:38:04): No, because I have always been more, I mean, because the civil rights movement is like when I was five. And I mean, even the work that I do, I have always worked with more black feminists than white feminists. And it is so much of the work that I am recognized for, and the rest of the world is the intersections of political struggles. So when I went to Bosnia or Cuba, I mean, it is always because I refuse to... It is not the problem with seeing the women's movement, even as a singular movement, okay, it is made up of just cacophonous differences. SM (00:39:00): Worldwide. Yeah, global. Look, that is the question I have later on. I will ask it now. And that is, when did the women's movement become global? Because when you talk about the second wave, you know, read the first wave, you talk about Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and then you about the period in the early part of the 20th century, and then the suffrage movement. And then you have the second wave movement of the late (19)60s, early (19)70s, but it was the United States movement. It seemed like the only person that seemed to be global was Eleanor Roosevelt who worked... ZE (00:39:41): But there were movements everywhere. I mean, and my newest in my book, Against Empire, one of the problems here is the idea that feminism is western and feminism is the United States. There were Egyptian feminists doing incredible things in the 19th century, you know, you have feminisms everywhere. The idea that now there are some countries that they have not used that term feminism, they will talk about women's movements. That is a much more encompassing concept. But that really what you are, if I can be so bold, what you are really saying is when you say, when did feminism become global? It is really... SM (00:40:37): It has always been? ZE (00:40:38): Yeah. When did the United States begin to recognize, when did the West begin to recognize other feminisms across the globe? All right. And even a lot of people talk about global feminism, and that is a way that they try to, it really means the women's movement in the US across the globe. And in my writing, I always talk about feminisms across the globe rather than global feminism. But if what you are also asking, early 1970s is really the beginning of the global economy. I mean, the modern global economy, and again, working with women of color, given the slave trade, okay, capitalism has always been global, so you got to be careful even about what, but the new modern, cyber, global, early 1970s. And is it interesting that, of course, that is when you start to have much more publicness and public viewing of the feminisms across the globe. SM (00:41:47): Where does Eleanor Roosevelt come into this? Because Eleanor, she was such an exception of a First Lady. To me, FDR was racist in some respects. And well, she put him in his place many times and she protected her husband. But obviously we all know about the incident at the Lincoln Memorial with Marian Anderson and her quitting the daughters American Revolution, the Declaration of Human Rights that she was found in the United Nations. She seemed to be in the 1950s, a female that was so at the forefront of everything. I find it interesting also, it is just a commentary here that the three people that had the biggest FBI records in American history are Martin Luther King Jr. Eleanor Roosevelt, and John Lennon. Eleanor Roosevelt? They must have worried about her because she was saying things that... Does she play in your thoughts, does she play any role at all in terms of an inspiration to those that found she died in 1962? ZE (00:42:53): Well, I think she was an inspiration to what you would call, I mean, of course, Blanche Cook, who... SM (00:42:58): Oh yes. ZE (00:42:58): She thinks... SM (00:42:58): Cook, yes. ZE (00:43:02): Me? No, she was not an inspiration for me and personally. And politically, I think that she is an inspiration within a kind of notion of liberal feminism. SM (00:43:15): I got to turn... ZE (00:43:21): And I do use these terms pretty technically, but liberal feminism here, and I mean that very much in terms of women who basically did believe that women should be given the same chances as men in our capitalist society. There was no criticism of capitalism as needing a system of patriarchy that could never give women equality. And Eleanor Roosevelt, on the whole, she was a liberal feminist, and liberal feminism is imperial. And it is used to, I mean, in my most recent political and intellectual work, I have really argued the way that feminism has been ill used by the United States to justify the wars, both in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the idea here of women's rights and fighting against the Taliban, etcetera, etcetera. Whereas the United States does not care about women's rights, not there or here. SM (00:44:33): Wow. ZE (00:44:36): But the argument, again, though, I am at this point in my life, I am uncompromising in the importance of the politics of every different form of feminism on this globe. And how could you not think that this is not the most central political struggle when everybody just, they need to wrap up, women not let you see their face need to [inaudible] their bodies to why is it that we have a medical plan? The one thing that could not be agreed on was abortion politics, East/West Germany, when they are trying to come together and unify, the only thing they could not agree on for a united constitution was abortion rights. Hello. So the point here, all right, and this has just been in really recent stuff with all of the issues around immigration, and the silence always is about the female in those dialogues. SM (00:45:50): I find it interesting too, my niece had a baby and she is finding all kinds of issues because of the fact that where she works, they have no place for privacy and this is an un... I have now read that this is a problem all over the country. When they want to nurse their child at work, there is no place for privacy they have to do in the lady's room. And then there is also the thing about the three month of the six weeks or three months, everybody agrees it should be three months of leave. And then it is, well, there has been a lot. ZE (00:46:26): But all I am saying is, how could anyone, right now, with more women in the labor force than men, how could anybody not think that there should be a daycare plan in this country? Yet, not a word. Now, my thing is the more silent something is, the more important it is politically. The noise... SM (00:46:48): Why are not there more people like you? Because of the fact we are talking about, okay, I am overuse this term. We are talking about boomer women who were in the late (19)60s, early (19)70s, got involved in the women's movement. Many of them gone on to become corporate leaders and so forth. Where are, are the women who we are talking about... ZE (00:47:08): Those are your boomers who, or someone like Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice. I mean, the point here is, and we have not even gone there, that part of when you asked what has changed, and I said, well, everything has and nothing. So, just the fact that Hillary Clinton is flying around the Secretary of State. But also what is interesting is that she lost her campaign because she could not get it right. She really just screwed herself royally, I think by running as his wife. And that just was not going to do it. She either had to run as her own self and maybe she could have won that way. SM (00:47:56): Some people even said if she had divorced him after his presidency that she may have won. I read that. ZE (00:48:01): Well, no, but she wanted it every which way. But what is interesting is that in the end here, she was radicalized by the people who did support her in the end, which were older white women. That is who supported her. They were probably a lot of your boomer people actually. All right. But everybody else hung her out to dry. So is not it interesting that now that she is Secretary of State, she and Obama have said that women's rights have to be central to the US foreign policy. So I am just, now that is new and different. Okay. That is never been said before. Okay. Now whether that means anything is just something totally different. SM (00:48:53): The great writers of that period, obviously you are really into books and reading and ideas. The free speech movement, to me, I think it is one of the greatest things that ever happened in higher ed. I, that is my degrees and Mario Samuel and Bettina Abigail and all those people, I just love them because it was about ideas. The university is supposed to be about ideas and debate. And so have we gone back in the university, the university, I interviewed Arthur Chickering, who was the great educator education identity, and he was surprised that I asked him to be interviewed, but he is retired now. And he said the biggest problem today on university campuses that he is really upset with is we have gone back to corporate control of universities. And when you look at the free speech movement back in the (19)64-(19)65 of Berkeley, that was one of the reasons they were attacking the university. It was what Clark Kerr was saying about the multi diversity, the corporate takeover. And he said the knowledge factory, just that term factory turned students off. Seems like we are going back to that again. ZE (00:50:05): Oh yeah. SM (00:50:06): And I think that might be part of the problem with the attacks on women's studies, black studies, gay and lesbian studies, is that whenever there is a threat to the bottom line, things seem to disappear. Are you worried what is happening on universities today? What I am getting at is that the lot of the people that are running today's universities are those boomers that experienced what we went through in college, but now they are running universities and they are using the experiences maybe in not so good a good way or whatever. ZE (00:50:41): Oh, I think that the university system in this country is in total crisis, total ethical, political, financial. SM (00:50:54): I am sensing the corporate takeover again. Decisions being made... ZE (00:50:58): Well, yeah, I mean there is... SM (00:51:00): Especially in that tough economic times too. ZE (00:51:02): Well, but I think also what is being done is that the tough economic times is also being used to justify political shifts that, and I mean, I said that straight out to our provost. I said, "Look, if you want to make changes, say what you want, those changes. But do not say that it is for the economic crisis because what you are trying to do here has nothing to do with the economic crisis." SM (00:51:30): I think there is the fear of controversy again, and whenever there is controversy, but debate is controversy. ZE (00:51:37): But the other thing that is also difficult is that so many of the junior people now, they really, they have been educated and have moved through and become professionals, and all they know is neoliberalism. SM (00:51:55): How important, what I was getting at here was the books, the writers of the period when you were in undergrad and graduate school, the Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, certainly Gloria Steinem and what she did, the political powerhouse of Bella Abzug. She was from New York and I was from New York. So they were powerful voices, very powerful voices. And Mauricia, I am going to actually be interviewing Susan Brown Miller in a couple of weeks in New York City, and I heard she had some issues with Betty Friedan or debating him or something, but she was also in that group who was also in Freedom Summer and also wrote a book, a children's book on Shirley Chisholm. And it was really involved. Were there any influences? Were any of those people in Kate Millett? ZE (00:52:48): Yeah. No, these are not my people. SM (00:52:50): Those are not your people. ZE (00:52:52): I knew them. I worked with some of them. Bella Abzug actually asked me to, when Carter was president, he held a forum in, actually it was in Texas, and it was, what do women want? And Bella Abzug called me and asked if I would come to the meeting and I said, "No, I will not come." And she said, "Why not?" And I said, "Well, that bullshit. They know what we want. We are supposed to tell them and they are going to give us what we want? No, I will not come." So she actually talked to some other people and they called me about that. And they said, Zillah, go and try to get them to think in the terms that you are talking about. And I said, straight out, "The work I have done is I have tried to get Marxist to become feminists. I do not know how to talk to liberals, why they should become feminists." And so they said, "Well, do it. Try to do it." So I said, "Okay." And that was the beginning of a whole new, I mean, actually the politics that I have done, it is not like I sit in a cubby hole and think about it. That was the next stage of my life. I mean, my earliest work when I was in my 20s was Marxism and feminism, given what I came out of then this was happening in our country, the Betty Friedan's, etcetera, which I just thought, "Okay." But look, who was she writing about? She was writing about white middle class women in the suburbs. Okay. That is not really interesting to me. I mean, definitely not what the age I was, the politics I came from, get a life. So anyhow, so the next stage really was, so why should liberals? And I still remember I was on a run and I thought, "Okay, so what would you say to someone like that? Okay, you want equality with men. Okay, now, okay, as a Marxist sealer, what would you say? Well, which men do you want equality with? Everyone of who you want equality with rich men, right? Rich white men. But how about the working class man? You want equality with him, well we already kind of got that." But anyhow, and then out of that politics came a book that made me pretty well known in a lot of... It is called The Radical Future of Liberal Feminism. People there were so open to becoming radicalized as feminists. And therefore, my whole argument was in that stage of my life that if you become a radical feminist, you cannot remain liberal. SM (00:55:49): Wow. ZE (00:55:50): Okay. It is just a conflict in terms. SM (00:55:53): What is a liberal feminist? ZE (00:55:54): A liberal feminist is someone who believes that you can attain equality and freedom for women like men in capitalist, patriarchal society. SM (00:56:07): Is that Gloria Steinem? Is that what... ZE (00:56:08): Mm-hmm. SM (00:56:08): That is And Ms. Magazine and Mary Tom and all that group? ZE (00:56:12): Yeah. Although it is interesting. I mean, Ms. just recently, I mean, I have been doing this work for, what, 35 years? Just recently has really started to say, "Zillah, will you do a block for us?" SM (00:56:24): Oh wow. ZE (00:56:25): So, things change. And politics does get more com, but Gloria Steinem? SM (00:56:37): I think another one was Caroline Bird. You, she wrote some books too. ZE (00:56:40): I do not know that. SM (00:56:41): Yeah, I think we have already gone over this. Where have the women made the greatest gains? I think we have already talked. Where is there still needs, where are the needs still today? What is the goal? We are talking global here now, we are not talking to the United States. What this book is about is mostly about the US. Although I am interviewing a professor at Harvard who teaches Vietnamese history when I am up there, and I am going to talk about boomer generation from the Vietnamese perspective, 3 million that died, which now only the people that survive will make up only 15 percent of the Vietnamese population. But I can really now try to get the other side of those who died. And where do you see, I will say this country, and where do you see the world in terms of things that women need that still have not been achieved? Is there one thing you would like to see in your lifetime that would happened? ZE (00:57:55): No, I mean, if we are, let us just talk about the United States. There is horrible poverty among women in this country. Horrible poverty right now. And there is also less, I mean, when you ask that, what do women... I mean, first of all, I do not really think that there are particular things that women need, but so much of what women need as human beings, they share with men. So, I mean, I have always deeply argued and believed that when people talk about women, you know, you think you are talking about something specific. And when you are talking about men and human, you are talking about the universal and the general. Well, if we look historically, what has happened is that we say that we are talking universally, and we would never get to the specific needs of what women need in terms of what makes us particular, like abortion, like reproductive rights, like prenatal care. I mean, the things that are particular to women. Well, the truth is, if we actually met women's needs, all of their needs, economic, sexual, racial, etcetera, well then everyone's needs would be met. Got to flip it. In other words, the more specific you get here, the more universal and human you become. So when you asked me what is it that women need? Well, what we need is we need a different economic system that does not racially profile, sexually profile, and exploit on that basis. People need to have what they need as human beings. And that does mean food, shelter, clothing, education, dreams, hopes. We are so far away from that in our country right now. SM (00:59:56): Do you feel though that universities are, that professors are sometimes still part of the problem? Because I have actually asked a couple of my fellow students to go into a class where they are talking about poverty, and the professor will always say, "There is the poor, there is the middle income, and there is the rich. And then raise your hand." Why does the professor always have to say that there will always be the poor, the middle class, the rich, and they one actually did. And basically tellable history has shown that there is always poor. So he did not get, it is forever. Itis part of the human condition. It will always be, maybe we need to be asking the question that it does not always have to be. That there is the ultimate, but we still we are always striving for something. ZE (01:00:54): But I just, at this particular moment that I think that our society has become, for your boomers, driven, isolated, competitive, and selfish. SM (01:01:10): How about the criticism of the women's movement, and this may be a right-wing thing, but it is all about identity politics. When the movements took place in the late (19)60s, we are not just talking about the women or all the movement, Civil Rights, the environmental movement, the gay legend, everything. It seemed to be, there seemed to be a unity. Now, whenever there was a rally, a women's issues event, you would see the anti-war people there. You would see the Civil Rights people there. You would see the, they would all be there. Now when you see protests, you see a single issue. It is kind of like the criticism is that it is identity politics now. It is not the, it is single issue, it is women's issues, it is Native American issues. Native American issues are not going to be at an anti-war rallying. Whereas in the late (19)60s, a lot of the movements were together. There was more of a sense of togetherness. And now there seems to be a separateness. You see it on college campuses where self-segregation is very common amongst college students. And when you ask the people who run the Affirmative Action Office or multicultural affairs, who I am very close to, they will say, "Steve, it is their choice. It is a different time. It is their choice. They still believe in working together, but they like to close their doors. They like to be around people of their own kind." When we were hearing that back in the (19)60s. So where has the progress been made? So I am, what I am getting at is, has identity politics really hurt each of the causes that we are talking about here? That when you talk about women's issues around the world, I think you can really identify if it is the United States. But when you are talking about what is going on with the way women are treated in the Middle East, I mean, I cannot even really identify with that. That is just plain wrong. And I would like to see groups coming together again that identify with a certain cause, but then they also care about this cause and so they are going to be over there fighting so that when you have the issues you are talking about that you have the environmental movement saying the what is happening to women here effect directly affects the environment, civil rights, Native American, gay and lesbian rights, you name it, they are all together. ZE (01:03:43): Well, I do think though, that there are, at this point, through some of the environmental work going on and related to actually issues around food and sustainability, that there is more and more, I think there is kind of less identity politics than there was for sure in the (19)90s. But I also think that what we are seeing is the incompleteness of some of what started to happen with what got called as identity politics, specifying particular needs within the larger community, which clearly needed to happen given that the specific needs were not being articulated. Then just as you are ready for some of that to really start to build interesting coalitions, you also have some of the most right-wing politics in this country that really starts to destroy the possibility of some of that unification. And so I think that oftentimes that term identity politics confuses the who really is at the helm here and really how the politics emerged. And I think that identity politics did, I mean, if we are going to use that phrase that it became pretty conservative, but that a lot of the conservatism of it was not about the identity politics or the particular politics, but really had to do with the way that then they were re splintered by the Reagan period, by the Bush administrations that really were, and even Clinton, I mean, Clinton was pretty bad on a lot of these issues. SM (01:05:53): See, when you had the Three-Mile Island situation, there was a perfect example over the environmental movement in the women's world should be united because it was affecting children and their futures. The same thing on the tragedy down in the Gulf right now. I see that directly as a women's issue. Why are you saying the women's issues? Because that is, we are talking about food, we are talking about reproduction, we are talking about a lot of issues here. I mean, the environment in the women's movement to me, seem like a great mix in so many different areas because it is about the future of the human race. ZE (01:06:26): Well, I mean, in Africa, most of the leaders of the environmental movement are women and women's activists. SM (01:06:35): It is interesting that one of the questions I have asked everyone is the blame game that is often that I got to be unbiased here and saying it, but that when Newt Gingrich, I asked him to be interviewed. And, of course, I have asked him twice to the interview and he said, "No." But in (19)94, when he came into power, he along with other Republicans or conservatives, make comments that [inaudible 01:07:00] another one in many of his books, that a lot of the problems we have in the world today and in society today goes right back to that (19)60s and that (19)60s generation, that is a term they do not call them the boomers, the (19)60s, generation, (19)70s, that the sexual revolution, the drug culture, the breakup of the family, the divorce rate, the lack of respect for authority, the beginning of the isms, it is all about me, me, me, me, and not about we, we, we. And then Dr. King was always talking about, we-we. He always preached we, but they are very critical of everybody that was involved in that timeframe. And how do you respond when you hear, even Mike Huckabee has this TV show, I will not even watch it. There is a constant little jabs in there. I do not dislike him as a human being, but I do not like the jabs. And certainly even John McCain, when he was running for president or when Hillary was running before she had to drop out, he made comments about her too, being within that generation, even though he was a close friend of her. Those little snide remarks. And we knew what he was saying. How do you respond to people like McCain, Huckabee, Gingrich, who is a boomer, and George Will, and people like that. I know they probably sue me if I put them in. So that is part of the question. And so. ZE (01:08:34): You mean about their... SM (01:08:34): How do you respond when they say that the reasons why we have problems in our society, the breakup of the family, which could be a women's issue, lack of respect for authority, the marriage does not mean that much. A lot of them do not believe in same sex marriage either the man and a woman, either it is like Beck, the Beck Show or O'Reilly or Hannity and Home Hannity, that group. They are powerful influences on the conservative side, Rush Limbaugh being another. And when people listen to them, oftentimes they believe itis fact what they are saying. They have that much of an influence over people's thinking. ZE (01:09:20): Well, their depictions, I think are just totally faulty. They are historically inaccurate and they are politically pretty naive. I do not see the so much of what it is that they are saying as valid. And again, the whole issue of the me generation and the self-centeredness, of course, people said that about feminism from the start. It was the idea that women were selfish about their own needs and not concerned enough about family needs and children. SM (01:10:15): If you were asked, and this is again a very general question, but you have known a lot of boomers in your life. You have probably taught boomers and you have had friends who are boomers. What are their strengths and weaknesses? Can you generalize? We are talking about a generation now that might be different than the World War II generation that is certainly different than millennials of today that are on college campuses. And certainly that Generation X group, which really despising boomers, we had programs on them. Were those born from (19)65 to about (19)80. They did not like boomers. ZE (01:10:56): Well, again, I mean, for me, given what we have kind of covered today, to me, the boomer generation is really, it was one of the last periods of successful and multiple political movements in this country. I think the richness of anyone living in this particular boomer generation is that they have been nurtured by the sense of possibility that can exist through collective action. And I think that in the post boomer period, that has not existed in the same way. The anti-Iraq war stuff, it never got mobilized at the level of the Vietnam War. Now there are real reasons for that. There was a draft, it was a whole different economy. The way that we were at war with people so disconnected from that war at this moment. But to me, the roots that I have in the movements I was a part of have enriched me exponentially. SM (01:12:34): Who are some of the people that, you mentioned [inaudible], but who are some of the people that your parents or your brothers or your sisters and brothers and you actually worked with or met during the time of your activism prior to getting your PhD? ZE (01:12:53): Well, when I was little, [inaudible] was a friend of my father's, and then there were just lots of people in, I was really such a kid. I mean, I do not know all the names of... Many of them were famous people at the time when I was really young. Our house was always filled with activists. I mean the people like Martin Luther King, that whole generation, I do not know who, I mean Julian, I think it was Julian Bond actually, who was the lawyer for my parents when they tried to take us away from my parents because of the time when Gia and Julian were in detention. They were challenged in the courts for being... It does not make sense. I would need to be more careful about people's names for... SM (01:14:10): Well, I know Julian, so I interviewed him early on in my project. ZE (01:14:17): I am pretty sure he was the lawyer who, and then people in Atlanta, like Asa Yancey, and they were part of the Civil rights movement. Of course, in terms of my own life, Angela Davis, Jeanette Cole, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Barbara Smith. I mean, these are all people, again, very well known in certain arenas. SM (01:14:49): Do you remember also some of the specific protests you were at? Some people were in 1967 at the Pentagon when they levitated the Pentagon or some people were at People's Park Berkeley in (19)69. ZE (01:15:06): The first one I remember is 1971, and it was the first all-women’s March against the Pentagon for the Vietnam War. And actually in my house, I have framed one of the incredible posters, I carried it then. But that I remember as kind of really a first kind of autonomously, meaning as myself, as opposed to just my parents, my sisters, stuff like that. SM (01:15:41): See how we are doing here, we still good. One of the questions I have been asking two things. The issue of trust and the issue of healing. We took a group of students, I have said this, that I have asked this question to every single person we have interviewed, 170. But it was partially because the students came up with a question. In 1995, we took a group of students to Washington to meet Senator Edmond Musky, and that was part of our leadership on the road programs. And he had just gotten out of the hospital. I did not know that when he arrived, but he had been ill. And the question was this, due to all the divisions that took part in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, divisions between black and white, male and female, those who supported the war, those who were against the war, those who supported the troops, those who did not at all, with all the assassinations that took place during that timeframe in (19)68 and the riots and the cities and the burnings and all these things that the current generation of students that I was bringing had only read about the history books. Do you think this was the beginning of another civil war? Did we come close to another civil war where the divisions, and secondly, do you feel that this generation, this boomer generation, is going to go to its grave comparable to the Civil War generation not truly healing from the war and all the divisions that took place? It was a broad question. It is about healing. I will tell you what Senator Musky said after you respond. But do you think, and then this is why I am going to be meeting with Robert J Lifton because I want to get his thoughts on the psyche and his thoughts on not just those who were in the war and protested the war, but the whole generation. Do you think there is an issue of healing here that even the divisions that you have had as you have gotten older, something really still stirs you when you are going to go to your grave really upset with like Susan Brown Miller, she was upset with, she had the division between her and Betty Friedan. I do not know. I do not know. I will soon find out what that song, but I read about it. So I heard it was pretty intense. ZE (01:18:06): Well, I do not know. I think that that question is maybe works better for people who had an identity and a political life during the Vietnam War and do not feel like they do anymore. I mean, for me, you heal and you re heal and you are scarred again and you heal again. And so, I mean, I have been through the stuff with the Bosnian war, particularly with women. I have been very involved with the Afghan and Iraq wars. So Vietnam was very significant at one moment in my life. But that is in the past. And I live in the present. And I think we have to remake our present all the time. So I do not know, life is, I have had a lot of pain in my life that has nothing to do with politics. I have lost my sisters to cancer when they were very young. I have struggled myself with cancer. I have a fabulous daughter who I [inaudible] the world that she is entering. So I mean to me, I do not get to not heal. I have had to heal. SM (01:19:40): That is brilliant what you just said because Senator Musky, I think the students are hoping that he would talk about 1968 because of the convention and all. He did not even mention it. It was to me, the whole question we were asking was about that. He said that we have not healed as a nation in the issue of race. And then he went, as we saw back in when he said he could not run for president, where he might show a tear in his eye. Well, he did show it. We had this on tape. He did not answer for about a minute. The students are looking at each other. What did we just do here? And we saw the tear. He said, "I have just spent the time in the hospital. I have been very sick." And he died sick within six months after this. And he said that, "I just saw the Ken Burns series and touched my life. 430,000 men died in that war. The south almost lost an entire generation. Now that is hard to heal from." And so he said, "The issue of race." And then he went on explain Why? ZE (01:20:55): Yeah, but I mean for me, what is going on in Rwanda, the way that people have had to repair themselves, the incredible atrocities in the Congo right now, I mean as a woman on this earth. But the point here is that you just do, I mean, do not know. SM (01:21:29): The other, just a good question of trust because a lot of the things that I have read state that this generation as a whole did not really trust a lot of people. And of course I can remember that experience as a college student where not trust. A lot of the people in this generation and particularly in the new left, did not trust anyone who was in a position of authority or responsibility, whether it be a university president, a United States Congressman or President, even a rabbi or a minister or a corporate leader. Anyone, you just cannot trust your leaders. And a lot of it was because they had witnessed political leaders lying, whether it be the Gulf of Tonkin, Watergate, other experiences. Do you see this as an issue within, even in the women's movement, the issue of trust that eventually, I remember what a professor said in my Psych 101 at Binghamton University once. He said, "If you cannot trust other people, you are never going to be a success in life." So there comes a point when you have got to trust others. And I do not know what your thought on thoughts are on the issue of trust, if that is an issue within the generation. ZE (01:22:47): Well, again, it is a made-up issue. I mean, do not trust anyone over 30. I mean clearly, all of that. For me, given my own childhood, just generational stuff, just has not really been much of an issue. And the question of I believe in people. I believe deeply in people. And if that means trust, I mean, fine. But I just think that the greatest challenge is as that the burdens that are created in this world that if you have no other choice but to believe that you can make an imprint and a difference. And that also my own, again, in my own life, people have always been there to help me through. And in my most recent book that is, it is about the Obama election. I mean... SM (01:24:18): When's that coming out? ZE (01:24:20): It is just out. It is called, The Audacity of Races and Genders. And then the subtitle is, A Personal and Global Story of the Obama Election. But there is one, it is made of 25 frames just, and it kind of goes all over the map, all over the globe, all over personal. And I actually, I was diagnosed with a rare and difficult form of cancer. And I had had surgery and then was coming through chemotherapy. And the election was, I mean this was during the primaries and there was this real tension that was developing between Obama and Clinton. And it was the issue here of he was a black man. She was a woman. He was black. She was a woman. And once again, in a lot of circles, the discussion was that feminism was going to get pitted against race. So several people who were working in the Obama campaign and friends of mine from who knew them etcetera, said, "Will you write something on this?" And I wrote this piece, which is in the book, it is called Hillary is White. And with the internet the way it is, it just went viral and it was translated into a gazillion languages, went throughout Africa. I mean, it was just unbelievable. And it was that into the campaign into, but I was really up. (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Zillah Eisenstein Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Eisenstein, Zillah R. ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Scholars; Political activists--United States; College teachers; Eisenstein, Zillah R.--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Zillah Eisenstein is a scholar, political activist and Emerita Professor of Political Science at Ithaca College. Her work focuses primarily on political struggles for social justice. She was able to document issues such as the rise of neoliberalism (both within the U.S. and across the globe), the growth of imperial and militarist globalization, injustices of racial laws, diseases and affirmative action in the U.S. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-05-26 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.47 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 86:35 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ae9d2523e20822f41d9ce6801059fc20.jpg 5040c3664b2082ca0f379d96cd80e1bb https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/582f0dc1dfb9726946ed05ea82ddc3ea.mp3 6b22a061da4dc2e6b9b58ae70f29dfba Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2003-08-07 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Edwin J. Feulner Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Edwin John Feulner is an author, journalist,administrator, educator, political scientist, government official, and the founder and former president of The Heritage Foundation. He was the president from 1977-2013 and from 2017-2018. Feulner received his Bachelor's degree in English from Regis College, his Master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, and his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13311,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,4884200],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"9":0,"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">Edwin John Feulner is an author, journalist, administrator, educator, political scientist, government official, and the founder and former president of The Heritage Foundation. He was the president from 1977-2013 and from 2017-2018. Feulner received his Bachelor's degree in English from Regis College, his Master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, and his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh.</span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Anti-war Movement; Vietnam; lack of trust; Baby boom generation; Richard Nixon; Lyndon Johnson; Nineteen sixties; Nineteen seventies; Democratic Convention of 1968"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Anti-war Movement; Vietnam; lack of trust; Baby boom generation; Richard Nixon; Lyndon Johnson; Nineteen sixties; Nineteen seventies; Democratic Convention of 1968</span> Subject LCSH Authors; Journalists; Political scientists; Public officers; Feulner, Edwin J.--Interviews Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 65:28 Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Ed Feulner Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 7 August 2003 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:03): No, not at all. EF (00:00:06): So I think with those you have got to make some differentiations there. In the sense poor Wes Marlin was given an impossible task because his commander in chief was micromanaging the war. Key, and who was the other one you mentioned? SM (00:00:25): General Cao Ky and General... President Thieu. EF (00:00:29): Why do not you just hang on the second because he has come back a couple of times. I want you to kill the interview. SM (00:00:33): Yeah. Okay, all right. There you go. EF (00:00:43): Ky and Thieu, well, patriots, anti-communists, working with a powerful ally again, which was restricting what they could do or what they wanted to do. Playing probably what was essentially a losing game all the way, but tragic basically, the word which comes to my mind for those two. SM (00:01:08): And then I have got two more names here and then we are basically done with one final question. Your thoughts on Ralph Nader. And I do not know if you know too much about Noam Chomsky. What do you think about the Noam Chomsky's of the world because he has been consistent? EF (00:01:26): Yeah right. Well, in a sense you have to admire Nader for sticking to his principles all of these years. Of course, I think he is totally wrongheaded in what he is trying to do. And maybe the word totally is too wrong, too strong rather. What I do not like about Nader is he tends to look always to the government to solve the problem. And I would like to be able to make it a more balanced approach to problem solving and not always look to the government first but look to government, if not last, at least next to last. Chomsky is an ideologue, of course. A man of the left who I think probably would not, even if you presented him with all the evidence in the world, would not change his position if it conflicted with one of his pet ideas and theories. Case in point, Alger Hiss, I am not sure whether he yet still admits that Alger Hiss was guilty of espionage. SM (00:02:53): The Berrigan brothers. EF (00:02:57): Yeah, sort of. Again, minor figures of the day, important at the time, believing they were doing the right thing. But I think probably in the greater scheme of things, I think someone like Thomas Merton is more important than the Berrigan brothers in terms of looking to Catholic models of the (19)60s. SM (00:03:36): And Benjamin Spock, Dr. Spock. EF (00:03:40): Right. Should have stuck to his babies. SM (00:03:48): I never asked about Norman Mailer. I will turn this off now. I am here with two questions. I know I said I am almost done but when the best history books are written, oftentimes the best history books are 50 years after the event. Some of the best books of World War II are now. When the best history books are written, say 25 years from now because we are halfway there on the boomer generation, what will their lasting legacy be in the history books? What will they be saying about that? EF (00:04:20): Well, I think they will be saying that it is one of the most influential generations of the 20th century and 21st century. Sometimes for good, but I think more often for ill. SM (00:04:45): And the very last question is this, and it was the last one I asked Dr. [inaudible]. The two events, the impact that these two events had on the psyche of all boomers, whether they were protestors or non-protestors, the events of the Kennedy assassination in 1963 and the deaths of the four students at Kent State in 1970. EF (00:05:11): Well, as I have already indicated, I think you are absolutely right, that became this period of a psychological of depression. This was the beginning of a trauma with the American psyche, with the boomers and with every other American, starting with the assassination. The famous thing that you ask people of a certain age, where were they at 1:30 on Friday on November 22nd, 1963, they will be able to tell you very precisely. So that will always remain with them and it certainly was the most important event. I do not know that the Kent State murders... SM (00:06:03): And I say Jackson State included in there a couple of weeks later too, six students. EF (00:06:07): I do not know that that was the second most important and defining moment of the (19)60s for the boomers. I do not know. I have to think about that. I might be more inclined to say, for example, just for political impact, the Chicago (19)68 convention. Maybe Dr. King's murder earlier that year. I do not know that that Kent State was that... I would not put it up that high. Certainly, if you want to talk about it being in the top 10 events, but not as number two. Certainly I think the Kennedy assassination was the preeminent event and trauma. SM (00:06:55): Is there a person that you thought I might ask about that I did not ask about that may surprise you? I had Barry Goldwater, conservative, I did not mention any other conservatives so to speak. Nelson Rockefeller, obviously, he is another person. He was my governor. Because that convention itself was something in (19)64. I thought that was an unbelievable convention. I will never forget it because Rocky was our governor and then Governor Scranton. That was one heck of a convention. EF (00:07:29): Surely was. Yeah. Well, I just think you probably could give some thought to maybe some other conservative figures of that time although not necessarily were boomers. But after all, you have to keep in mind Ronald Reagan did begin his political career in that decade. If you are looking for somebody who balanced off Herbert [inaudible] and you did not mention would be [inaudible]. Certainly Bill Buckley, that was the decade in which he began both his newspaper column and also his television program, Firing Line, both of which had major impacts of course in [inaudible] everything else that he was doing. SM (00:08:29): Has been on our campus too. I am a big Everett Dirksen fan so when I think of... And Hughes Scott, because Hugh Scott was from Pennsylvania. In fact we had a professor who was writing a... I do not know why he did not finish it. Dr. Meiswinkel was writing a biography on Hugh Scott and was actually going down visiting him when he was very sick. And then he died and he could not finish it. He did not get enough... Do you know if there has ever been a biography done? EF (00:08:55): I do not think everybody has ever written one on him. There have been a couple on Dirksen but I do not know. It seems to me there has been something on Scott but I could be wrong. Could be wrong. SM (00:09:07): He was on there a long time, distinguished senator. EF (00:09:10): There would not have been any Civil Rights Act in 1964 without Everett Dirksen, by the way. He was key to getting the Republicans support in the Senate for that act. SM (00:09:23): His daughter was married to Senator Baker I believe, and she died now he is married to Nancy [inaudible]. And now he is the ambassador to Japan. What a life he has lived. Well, I am basically done, I want to thank you very much. It has been an honor. EF (00:09:36): Very interesting and... EF (00:09:40): [inaudible] that there is a problem, a discussion and a solution all in a 30 second or a 30 minute, back then, time block on television. Now it is down to about two minutes on CNN or Fox News or whatever your choice is. And that is not necessarily the way the world works. I keep telling kids that instant gratification is not necessarily going to happen on your behest. So on the positive side, still a generation, I saw this both when I was in the Pentagon and subsequently on Capitol Hill and even now, young men and women willing to give their all for their country just as the world's greatest generation did in World War II. To use that [inaudible] phrase. And I am not sure it was, but anyway, that is a different question. Anyway, the point is, statistically [inaudible] to prove it but a willingness on the part of the majority, many people to really commit themselves and do what it takes to help others. Again, whether you are looking at the back end in terms of Vietnam or you are looking at the most recent end in terms of Afghanistan, Iraq or as I was two months ago up at the DMZ in Korea. So it is mixed like every generation is. SM (00:12:00): The anti-war movement, those who were involved, I have done a lot of studying of it and I am reading a lot of sociology books and the common term or number used is 15 percent of the boomers were probably involved in some sort of activism. 85 percent were not. And they were talking about civil rights and the women's movement, the anti-war movement and all the other movements that took place in that period. EF (00:12:23): Where do you put the conservative movement? Is that part of it? SM (00:12:27): Yes. I think yes it is because activism, as I define it, and if we try to do this at the university, that it is everyone. It is people who want to make a difference in this world. And that is how I define activism. I like your thoughts on the fact that when you study the (19)60s, the Young Americans Foundation was also an anti-war group and a recent book has been written on the fact that they were involved in the anti-war movement. And some conservatives were very upset that they were kind of excluded from books on the (19)60s talking about the anti-war movement. Your thoughts on the anti-war movement itself and the impact it had on ending the war and also the conservative students and adults who were involved in politics were also involved and very important involvement in the ending of the war. EF (00:13:26): By (19)69 I was working for [inaudible] the then secretary of [inaudible] and there was no question that the Nixon administration was trying to figure a way out of what they had inherited from LBJ in terms of the problems of Vietnam. The whole defense department program toward Vietnamization. The decision by Nixon after long and intense discussion both at the cabinet level and primarily under his I guess domestic policy advisor Martin Anderson at Hoover. SM (00:14:21): Oh yeah. I got his book. EF (00:14:23): In terms of ending the draft was certainly as much a concession to answering the objection that you were sending the children of working men and women to fight a rich man's war in Southeast Asia through the draft. Clearly, you cannot say that if people are there because it was an all-volunteer army. And it was as much, I hate to say it, Ernie and I would probably have a long debate about this, but he would say it was done for philosophical and principled reasons about objections to servitude or something. Well, maybe, but it was also an answer to a political problem that was out there. And so clearly the Nixon administration, both in those tactical responses to Vietnam and Southeast Asia, as well as more strategic, longer range... Changing the draft was certainly [inaudible] answers like opening to China. In effect, changing the subject. Putting America's policy into a broader kind of context. Even Kissinger, in his memoirs, talks about during the peace process, trying to find areas of agreement with the then Soviet Union to move ahead on because... I have to find a specific citation, but I am sure you can. Because of domestic political pressures. So there were certainly pressures there as from my perspective as a conservative, it was tough because again, I needed it from a question more of principle. Did I like the draft? No. Why did not I like the draft? Because I was a male age 27. No I did not like the draft because the draft in fact was based on a faulty premise. That the only way that a free society would defend itself is through conscription. I did not believe that. And so you go from that to a belief based on my first trip to Vietnam, advancing one of the early [inaudible] trips other than Secretary of Defense in 1969 to Vietnam. And seeing the situation and saying, well we got it right. Either Vietnam's got to be given the tools to do the job successfully on its own, or we got to go in there and do a lot more and do it a lot more quickly and a lot more effectively than we have been. Well the second option was instantly precluded by the politics back home. And it turned out that the first option started out and then Cooper Church and the other resolutions that went through the Congress eventually cut the money off so that you could not do it the other way in terms of Vietnamization effectively either. So then you ended up with, I saw on the history channel the other night, replaying the video tape of the helicopters taking the people off the roof of the American embassy in Saigon. SM (00:18:27): April 30th, 1975. Itis interesting when you look at the two dates, April 30th of 1970 was when the Cambodia invasion took place, when the President gave his speech at nine o'clock. And then interesting that five years later, that is to the day. And I do not know if... That was not planned. And the irony, I look at the irony in that and I think about it an awful lot because I was a senior in 1970 and our speaker was representing the United Nations. I was at State University of New York at Binghamton, and of course we had protests all the time. It was a liberal campus. But it was very hard to going into class that year because there was protests constantly and we had a lot of speakers on campus. When you look at the boomer generation, again, getting back to this whole business, the anniversary of Watergate is right now. And then you get the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and young people at that time. And history has shown that that may have been not a real deal there. That may have been made up. Just the thoughts about the whole issue of leaders and trust and the lack thereof. You are in a very important position here with the Heritage Foundation and you work with conservative leaders all the time. I really would respect your point of views on the impact that you feel that President Johnson and President Nixon had in terms of what they did in America and the lack of trust that so many of the boomers had as they grew up and gone on to different kinds of positions and responsibility. Just the whole issue of trust in America. And have they passed this on, this lack of trust to their kids. And by lack of trust I mean trust in all leaders. EF (00:20:25): The complex question so the answer is not simple. Number one, it is always easier to Monday morning quarterback. But based on the knowledge, again, looked at from a low level political appointee inside the Pentagon, when we were talking about Vietnam under Nixon and I was out by the time Cambodia was back on Capitol Hill. We were certainly making decisions and explaining/justifying our actions based on the best knowledge we had. And if somebody was doing it to cover something up or to hide something, it was done at a lot higher pay grade than I had then. And when you talk about the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or even some of the later justifications from the Nixon White House itself on Vietnam, I suppose it is easy today to look back and say, "Hey, how could they have been so wrong? Or how could they have been so deceitful?" Maybe. But I suppose I could also ask the same question about FDR and Pearl Harbor or going back through history at other examples that as a representative democracy we always assume people we elect have got a certain knowledge base that is more than what we have. So you have got to translate that. SM (00:22:31): Right. EF (00:22:34): Anyway, where was I? SM (00:22:38): Talking about trust. Talking about Nixon. Some of the things happening in the Nixon administration. EF (00:22:47): Looked at again, Monday morning quarterback, and you will get this, I think especially from a professional historian like Lee Edwards, the current generation that makes these sweeping criticisms and generalizations probably have read less history than just about anybody, any prior, whoever has in our country's history. And at the same time, because of TV and the internet now, know a little bit about a lot of things, a lot more things than you or I did when we were 20 or 25 years old. So it is kind of dangerous almost, I think to take some of these criticisms of earlier generations completely... Take them without a grain of salt. SM (00:23:58): I think when I refer to the lack of trust it is in reference truly to the boomers who are of college age or maybe just a spec older in the (19)60s and I would say through the mid-(19)70s. Because when you look at the numbers that were given by the Johnson administration and you read history books now and you read what was actually done there, I have a massive collection and I have done a lot of studying on it, but the more I know, the less I know. And that is so true. And the thing is here that I think you are right on track here with some people doing generalizations, but there definitely is a feeling from the peers that I grew up with, went to school with and actually worked with in a university environment, a lack of trust in anyone who was in a position responsibility. And I am wondering, and I say this only because I worry about the young people of today who are being given this information by their parents, whatever background they are, the boomer parents. And in this world, if you cannot trust someone, I know this some psychology. If you cannot trust somebody, you may not be a success in life. You have to trust people. And I worry, I see somebody's lack of trust of... It was very common, and this is not my interview, this is your interview, but it was very common on university campuses in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s that students did not trust university presidents. Did not trust their ministers. Did not trust corporate leaders. Did not trust anyone in a position of responsibility. And the excuse that was given as to the reason why they did not trust anyone, they would go back to Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Watergate. But much more than that, other political leaders too and things that university presidents did. So it is just your overall thoughts on that, the whole issue of trust, because I do not know if this is still happening in America today, but I sense it still is. EF (00:26:02): I do not know. You have a better handle on it in your day to day dealings with young people. We have obviously here, [inaudible] very active interns but they are a self-selecting group in terms that they tend to be right or at least center right and more traditionalist. So we are probably not as exposed to it as you are. What does concern me whenever I run into it is that as I look at the development of society and of both the social order and foundation, the most fundamental underpinning that I have been able to come up with is basically the rule of law. Which means every individual treated the same under the rule of law. And this goes directly to your point in terms of trust. If a large part of the upcoming generation does not trust the older ones, then they probably tend to think they are getting the short end of it. And if they are getting the short end of it, they might as well go for as much as they can for themselves because otherwise somebody is going to screw them down the road. Pardon, vernacular. So if what you are saying is really a generalized truth, then yeah, we got some real serious problems. But again, I do not see it reflected. Adam Smith said in the Wealth of Nations, it is one of my... I am a congenital optimistic in Washington. But he said in the Wealth of Nations there is a lot of ruin in a nation. And when you think about going back to the days of the founding fathers, down through our history of the heartbreak of the Civil War, the losses sustained in the First World War, the depression, we built up a hell of a lot of capital that I would worry that, to a certain extent, we have run down in the last generation. That concerns me. How generalized it is, I just do not know. SM (00:28:48): And that refers back to the boomers then. EF (00:28:49): Yeah. Back to whether the boomers trust or not and whether they have then conveyed a lack of trust to a subsequent generation. As I say, I worry about it if it is as generalized as you might portray it as or as other people might think it is. SM (00:29:08): When you look at the (19)60s and early (19)70s and the boomer generation of all the movements that took place, whether it be civil rights, anti-war, if you were to write a book or write a chapter or an essay to write a movement or an event that really defined the period, what would that be? There is many things, but one that just stood out. EF (00:29:34): I suppose the Democratic Convention in (19)68. That political dimension, a protesting dimension in terms of the anti-war, it was wrapped up to a certain extent, at least in the reaction from Mayor Daley and the police in terms of civil rights. Certainly as a conservative at the time, I remember thinking to myself, the Democrats sowed the wind and now they are reaping the rewards. But the ramifications of course were far beyond the Democratic Party. SM (00:30:29): I remember that so clearly. I remember buying My Life magazine and it was that picture of Hubert Humphrey and Ed Musky. And I have Barry Goldwater when he was with a horse wearing a hat. And I have both of them framed in my office because I am all about the (19)60s no matter who was involved in the (19)60s. You want to go on the other [inaudible] the Vietnam War really did a lot to divide our nation. Some of the people that I have interviewed really felt that outside of the Civil War, which is obviously one of the greatest strategies ever in our country, that we were pretty close to another civil war breakup of our nation back in the (19)60s. And so I would like your thoughts on that particular feeling and whether we as a nation have really healed since that time. I remember I interviewed Gaylord Nelson quite a few years ago one of my first interviews. And he said, Steve, I do not see anyone walking around Washington DC with healing, lack of healing on their sleeve or something like that. And people are... He was making a general comment. But then he said to me, the body politic will never be the same. And I would just like your thoughts on the divisions were so... Have they healed? Is Vietnam still, just the word, the mention of the word Vietnam brings all kinds of feelings to people. And it is not just thinking about the nation, it is what it meant to our country. Have we healed? EF (00:32:22): Yes. I think we have fundamentally healed, partly at least because the scar tissue is both thicker and because again, going back to the point where with the short time horizons of individuals, whether it is... I was talking to a conservative journalist this morning who said, I am so glad Schwartz never vote in the race. And I said, why? He said, because I do not have to hear about that damn Kobe Bryant every day. Until a week ago I did not even know who the devil Kobe Bryant is. And now he is every minute 200 news guys in some place [inaudible] Colorado or Esquire, Colorado, whatever it is called. What kind of trivialization of what is going on is this? And so you get the new cycle, et cetera, you got to fill it. And either you fill it the way CNN did until recently. Every Saturday afternoon, if you turned on CNN to find out what is going on in the world, you get 45 minutes on the latest French fashions or something like that because there just is not enough there, there is always news. So you get Kobe Bryant given this kind of prominence and in effect the same level of prominence as Colin Powell giving a major foreign policy speech to the UN or something. And if they both get 30 minutes of prime time over three consecutive days... Or more likely Kobe Bryant will get it and Colin Powell will not. Things are getting distorted and they are off kilter. And so I think that it is a couple of things. You get trivialization at that level. Then you got a shallow understanding what history is about. So a lot of people talk about Vietnam and well, that is a war that happened a long time ago. There is another place in Asia there too. What was that one called? Korea or something. And they are all kind of about the same time. So yeah, in terms of kind of looked at today, it is all... It is healed, but part of the reason that it is healed is because again, I said it about 15 minutes ago, I think that this generation just does not know as much history and has not read as much history as they should have. This same journalist, the guy we are buying the house from, was giving away a bunch of books and a bunch of college students... He brought them into his office and a bunch of college students they started pouring through them. And one of them came on a book called The Real Anita Hill. And she looked at them and said, who was Anita Hill? This is only 10 years ago. This is not ancient history like Vietnam or Korea. This is 10 years ago. Who is Anita Hill? SM (00:35:52): Unbelievable. I interviewed Dr. Hilty, he is head of the history department at Temple and he was really strong against the boomer. He is a liberal. Big Kennedy liberal. But very condemning against the boomers because he feels that the boomers were the generation that got the greatest education, Master's, but they do not have a whole lot of knowledge. And I never thought of that. I said their lack of understanding... They may be getting the degrees, but their depth of analysis, I am just like, how do you teach today? I am reading books on education, the proper way of teaching. It is not just always getting the high SAT scores and getting your school scores up. How do students think and analyze these things. When you are working with young people and they are reading things, how are they interpreting it and analyzing it? It is not just a score on an SAT question. And so there are some interesting things here and your observation is very good. Your thoughts on the Vietnam Memorial? I think it is one of the greatest things ever. How the Vietnam Memorial, when it was built in (19)82 and the effect this had on veterans and on the nation. Just your thought on the wall. EF (00:37:04): Very moving. Interesting that by the time it was really finished, in place and people saw it-it did what scrubs and everybody else wanted it to do in terms of healing. But during the whole course of it, when whatever her name was [inaudible] divisive, a stab through the heart of America with this black slab and all that. The rhetoric that went up about what it was. But today, to go there and to see some of my friends and contemporaries' names on the list as I have and to think about what it represents. Very moving. So it worked. SM (00:38:11): What would your thoughts be if you were sitting in a room with boomers and they were to say to you, we were the most unique generation in American history? EF (00:38:18): Bullshit. SM (00:38:19): Okay, because a lot of boomers felt that way when they were young. EF (00:38:26): Yeah. They were certainly the most pampered. After all our parents, and here I guess I would put myself in the boomer generation, they had gone through the depression. They vowed basically that we would be able to have more than they had. And this goes to Hilty's point at Temple. In terms of the best education possible. My father barely got himself through high school with a family, then went to college and almost got a law degree at night school. You will not have to do that. He said to me and my three sisters. None of us did. We were well-educated and that was very-very important. And then to have the earlier generation be basically so disappointed, I guess in their offspring as to have them copping out or doing drugs, to whatever extent that happened [inaudible]. That is disillusioning. And to have them just not appreciate what happened and then assume that because they got that again, that the notion of instant gratification is going to work for them and their kids. SM (00:39:54): Your thoughts, you have some fine, outstanding, young conservative youth here that work in the internship program. The sense that I have had and my peers is that when you look at the boomer generation, they again talk about the most unique generation of American history. Also, there is an attitude that we are going to change the world. We are going to make society better for everyone. We are going to end racism, sexism, or homophobia, everything they were going to end at all because they were the most unique generation. And they were also a very involved generation in the vote. But now we see a group of young people today that do not vote. And this is something I just wanted... I do not know if you have thought about this at times, I just sometimes sit in a park and why do today's young people and the boomers themselves, the parents, they do not vote. What is going on here? What have they transferred on to their kids with respect to the sense of empowerment? Their voice counts. They need to be heard. It worries me as a person. I have come up with several worries here in our interview, and that is another worry that I have because I want young people to know that they are empowered, that they do have a say, that their voice does count. So what happened to the boomer parents who were involved in these protests and activism changing things. And a lot of them did good things and some were just in it for themselves, but what have they done to their kids? Just your thoughts on that. EF (00:41:27): Well, you are better off asking them, I guess because our family, at least our nuclear family, in terms of my wife, myself, my kids and their spouses are very much involved politically and I think it has been transmitted. I suppose part of it is that frustration you talked about earlier from the earlier generation, from the boomers, that either they were not heard in terms of their cause. Maybe even it is a little bit embarrassing if anybody ever dares use that word anymore. Some of the excesses going way back when. In terms of the new generation, I would have to look at polls. I know what the broad numbers are in terms of the voter participation, but I would want to look at cross tabs in terms of the ones who are most committed to either a political party or a philosophy or an ideology of government, if you will, in terms of whether those who are most committed are more politically active. I have a good libertarian friend who has a bumper sticker that says, do not vote, it only encourages them. Well, this is a guy who comes at that decision from basically a philosophical perspective and managed to put it on a bumper sticker and you can understand that. That is not the way conservatives think, I do not think, but some libertarians do. And so it is not a case of just disinterest on the first Tuesday of November it is a case of... (00:43:35): In that case it is a conscious decision but I suppose again, you have the usual frustration or I am only one, why does it matter? Well, after Florida I think that is a non-argument anymore. Clearly everybody ought to know that their participation does matter. You can see that in the California recall that happened in October [inaudible] and you end up with whoever it was, Schwarzenegger on one side or the lieutenant governor on the other side [inaudible] being elected with 10 percent of the eligibles or something like that. In the fifth largest economy in the world, the largest state in the nation et cetera, et cetera, being elected by 1 percent of the eligible population. That is not exactly a mandate to go in there and straighten things out, whoever you are. I am not saying that is what happened [inaudible]. So does it worry me? Yeah, because again, and this go back to your earlier point in terms of trust and confidence in our systems. If there is not confidence in the political system, then confidence, again, the most fundamental thing in terms of the rule of law breaks down. Because if there is no legitimacy for the politicians, then there is no legitimacy in terms of what they are doing. Which means that people do not want to be governed by whatever laws they are passing. And that is not good for long term. SM (00:45:20): This is my last question before I get into personalities and that is, what do you think the lasting legacy will be of the boomer generation? When the best history books are written, and we are only 25 years out now from the Vietnam War and the best history books are often 50 years later, after an event. What do you think? How will history interpret this generation, this boomer generation? EF (00:45:41): Now a group of... On the one hand it could be a group of spoiled adolescents trying to feel their way out of a complicated situation by self-gratification. On the other hand, in a deeper sense, the people who did think they could change the world and do it... Every generation thinks it can change the world but here, I think you are on to something. The boomer generation thought it could change the world almost by themselves. Whereas in World War II you did it as part of the army, part of the Navy, you worked for big Bill Donovan at the OSS and later the CIA. Man, you were part of a team. But by the time of the boomers, you were kind of in a do it on your own more or less. So an individualistic way of expressing generally some high moral concerns. For that I recognize my colleagues on the other side of the political arena, but I also recognize my friends on our side who kind of came of political age and said, Hey, there has to be a better way to answer these social problems than the LBJ SDR big government one. SM (00:47:49): I at least remember a poster that I had on my door at Ohio State University when I was in grad school. Peter Max was very popular back then. And I will never forget it. I wish I would kept it, but it stuck in my mind. It basically said, you do your thing. I will do mine. If by chance we should get together. It will be beautiful. If by chance... EF (00:48:14): We get together. SM (00:48:16): Because it is interesting if by chance. And as a young person, as a boomer, that is sounded great for the time. But when you reflect on it, if by chance you have to work together in this world not hope that we just come together by circumstance. So anyway, I have a list of names here. I would just like some brief comments. These are all people from the period, Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda. EF (00:48:50): What do you want, one-word reaction? SM (00:48:53): Yeah, just your thoughts on the... EF (00:48:54): Traitors. SM (00:48:57): Lyndon Johnson. EF (00:49:03): Manipulative, clever and self-righteous. SM (00:49:16): Bobby Kennedy. EF (00:49:25): Cynical with a tinge of idealism. Cynical, going back to his days with Joe McCarthy, the senator. SM (00:49:35): John Kennedy. EF (00:49:39): Idealistic, almost naive... Idealistic, almost naive with a silver spoon, maybe brought on further and faster certainly than he otherwise would have, but maybe even further and faster than he should have. SM (00:50:15): Huey Newton, Bobby Seal on the Black Panthers. EF (00:50:19): In the overall scheme of things, irrelevant. At the time, strange and so far outside the mainstream it was hard to... SM (00:50:32): Go right into the Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. EF (00:50:41): Flash in the pans. SM (00:50:49): Barry Goldwater. EF (00:50:50): An idealistic trendsetter who never admitted to the limitations of politics. Certainly had an impact beyond his electoral politics. SM (00:51:18): Richard Nixon. EF (00:51:24): Deep global strategist with the fatal flaw that prevented him from really effectively doing what he was elected to do. He did not trust the people. Never did. SM (00:51:49): Your thoughts on his enemy's list. EF (00:51:53): Everybody has one, whether they write it down or they just keep it mentally. And his more graphic and in a way, almost more simplistic. SM (00:52:07): [inaudible] EF (00:52:22): A competent administrator of Baltimore County who then was rapidly beyond his level of competence. SM (00:52:31): Timothy Leary. EF (00:52:40): A person whose influence was far beyond what it should have been but who... At the same time, I guess if his intended audience had been better grounded, he would have been as irrelevant as he should have been but he was not always. SM (00:53:13): Martin Luther King. EF (00:53:21): A visionary dreamer who apparently had some personal flaws. But guess we all do. But who also had a big picture in terms of solving some very real problems in a non-violent way. SM (00:53:47): Malcolm X. EF (00:53:54): Malcolm X... Hello. Okay, be with him in a minute. Bye. (00:53:57): Malcolm X. The wrong kind of role model. Malcolm X [inaudible] of Chicago. SM (00:54:10): George McGovern. EF (00:54:18): A man who believed deeply and compassionately about a lot of things but alas, was wrong. But who certainly built a dedicated cadre of followers no unlike [inaudible] George Goldwater. SM (00:54:50): Robert McNamara. EF (00:54:52): A technocrat who never understood that people are not cogs and a big machine. SM (00:55:01): George Wallace. EF (00:55:06): A nasty piece of work without principles or morals. SM (00:55:11): Daniel Elsberg. EF (00:55:11): A man who deserted the truth that he should have known for lesser political interest. SM (00:55:34): Jerry Ford. EF (00:55:38): A great congressman from the district of Michigan, who by accident ended up where he was and tried to do a job that even today is... He was fundamentally decent to people I know. He got thrown a delta, a rough deck when he got to the top. SM (00:56:06): Hubert Humphrey. EF (00:56:09): Idealistic and intellectual, but unrealistic in terms of what human response would be to [inaudible]. SM (00:56:29): Muhammad Ali. EF (00:56:30): [inaudible]. SM (00:56:44): Gloria Steinem and Betty Fordan, and the women's movement leaders. EF (00:56:55): Inconsistent, hypocritical and not clearly thought through in terms of what their real objectives were. SM (00:57:18): I got four more here and that is Ralph Nader. EF (00:57:25): A man who tried to do some effective things but always pushed too far in terms of using coercion to achieve his objectives. So when he got to the point of curbs and things like that and compulsory student fees, instead of battling reasonable things like... SM (00:57:54): Down to our last three. EF (00:57:57): [inaudible] bumpers, et cetera. Yes... I want to apply for a city [inaudible]. I think I told Kathy, anybody from any bank that calls or anything with my mortgage is coming up she better put them through. SM (00:58:14): This is just a generalization now, but the music of the (19)60s. The Jimmy Hendrix, the Janice Joplins, the Beatles, the music, the influence that that music had on this generation as opposed to any other. EF (00:58:26): I do not know if it is the Beach Boys, I like it. If it is the Beatles, I do not understand it. So yeah, it is kind of mixed. I guess it is like all music. But if, like you were saying about history before, let us look back on it in 50 years and see what is still there. SM (00:58:47): Yeah. Cause you got Janet Joplin, when you think of the (19)60s, you think of Joplin, Hendricks and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and the list goes on and on. EF (00:58:54): Yeah, [inaudible] trio. SM (00:58:57): John Dean. EF (00:59:00): A man uncertain loyalty to... Well, just stop there. I never understood him. SM (00:59:08): And I am going to conclude with this. These are just terms of the period and just quick, SDS. Quick response. EF (00:59:26): Yeah. Perverted political agenda, trying to be imposed by compulsory means, which went against what their principles were supposed to be. Never quite understood how they got there. SM (00:59:48): Counterculture. EF (00:59:53): Sad because our traditional culture has got so much to offer why do you need one. SM (01:00:01): The Pentagon papers. EF (01:00:05): So what. SM (01:00:06): The Chicago Eight. EF (01:00:16): Representative of, as I said earlier, that incredible incident in the middle of that time period that tried to unhinge or destabilize a lot of what... A lot of our whole society, so not much sympathy. I do not know what they think their justification was. SM (01:00:47): And the last one is kind of a combination of three people. It is if you can put William Westmorland, President Thieu and General Cao Ky because Ky and Thieu were the leaders of Vietnam and Westmorland was [inaudible] Maxwell Taylor. EF (01:01:10): Man who tried to accomplish a mission without appropriate political backing from the United States' top officials in government. Therefore, without the backing of the US people he tried to carry out their orders as best he could. SM (01:01:34): I want to conclude on... First, I want to thank you very much. I admire what you do. I admire your organization. I am going to see Mr. Edwards next and we will hopefully continue to bring our students down here. The last question... There we go. EF (01:01:53): The Kennedy assassination did not start the (19)60s. The (19)60 election really did because JFK proved that the accepted order of vice president succeeding president was not necessarily the way things are going to go. And I think in retrospect that was almost more profound than the fact that Kennedy was a Catholic and proved that a Catholic could be elected. So I think that was a real turning point. But what the Kennedy assassination did for those of us who were around and affected by it was, it was a shock to the moral order of things that something like this could happen in this day and age. It meant that in effect nothing was sacred. That the highest elected person in the country could be zapped by a crazy guy down in Dallas. It was a shock to the body, I do not know about the body politic, but to the whole American society that had its reverberations for a long time. And I guess probably, in some respects foresaw then what was going to happen with Martin Luther King, with Bobby Kennedy and on and on. Attempted assassination on Reagan [inaudible]. Even I suppose you could, in that respect, almost link it to 9/11 and real traumas to the American system. And in that respect, it shook things up and helped... It made things unglue and we lost our compass for a while. And that one lasted longer than most. Kent State, I guess was I would describe as more a tragedy than a shock because Americans shooting Americans not in terms of stopping a prison outbreak or in terms of going back a hundred years plus then to the Civil War, but in basically a much more peaceful environment that just never should have happened. And I guess my problem to the whole reaction of the Kent State thing is that men are not angels and so we are not going to always do... Men who are in authority. Men who are in authority are not always going to do the right thing. Hopefully most of the time, under most circumstances they will, but not always. And so how do you make it happen more often rather than less often? At Kent State it sure did not. (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Ed Feulner Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Feulner, Edwin J. ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Authors; Journalists; Political scientists; Public officers; Feulner, Edwin J.--Interviews Description An account of the resource Edwin John Feulner is an author, journalist, administrator, educator, political scientist, government official, and the founder and former president of The Heritage Foundation. He was the president from 1977-2013 and from 2017-2018. Feulner received his Bachelor's degree in English from Regis College, his Master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, and his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003-08-07 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.188a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.188b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 65:51 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/d90828742579d480a2b7bdbe1d19befe.jpeg f33f71e1495a1488d7ab8330ddc9755b https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/e6fdac44d65a00295974d55cd9892c4c.mp3 bd6dd6af5e8993d65789f36180dfdb35 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 6 February 1998 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Ed Rendell Biographical Text Ed Rendell is a politician, and a member of Democratic Party. Rendell served as the Governor of Pennsylvania from 2003 to 2011, as chair of the national Democratic Party, and as the Mayor of Philadelphia from 1992 to 2000. He also served in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1968 to 1974. Rendell received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1965 and a Juris Doctor from Villanova Law School in 1968. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 20:49 Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Boomer generation; Revolution; Lyndon Johnson; Vietnam War; Vietnam veterans; Society; Trust; Government; College students. Description This interview was conducted in a public place. We apologise for the background noise. Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Ed Rendell https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/efb84b136d8c0b7a18619a5064b67a1b.jpg 8ee4fff5e8c89121a26e72e0aebba09f https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/de8f3becaa0742ac004963425c1ae962.mp3 b412091c52063b8781534edf748d5ea9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview ND Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Ed Sanders Language English Biographical Text Ed Sanders is a poet, author, musician, and activist who grew up in the state of Missouri. He attended the University of Missouri and New York University where he earned his Bachelor's degree in Ancient Greek. After college, he opened the Peace Eye Bookstore in New York City and started <em>Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts</em>. Allen Ginsberg, Ezra Pound, and Dylan Thomas were all early influences as Sanders tried to bridge the concerns of Beat Poetry and the counterculture of the 1960s. He is the author of many collections of poetry where he received several honors including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Sanders has written many books of prose, a non-fiction book, <em>The Family</em>, and published a bi-weekly newspaper, the <em>Woodstock Journal</em>. He is the founding member of the satirical and subversive folk-rock music group, The Fugs. Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 77:17 Keywords <span>Cuban Missile Crisis; WWII; Beatnik fashion; Beatnik; Beats; Allen Ginsberg; Jack Kerouac; Gregory Corso; William Burrough; Herbert Huncke; Ferlinghetti; Gary Snyder; Irving Howe; Watergate ; Curtis LeMay; Lyndon Johnson; Gulf of Tonkin; Eisenhower; U2 incident; President Kennedy; Robert Kennedy; Coup of Diem; Tom Hayden; Jimi Hendrix; Ann Waldman; Amiri Baraka; Ken Kesey; John D. Rockefeller; Vietnam Draft; Manhattan Project; Activism; 1960s music; Howl; Naked Lunch; William Buckley; The Fugs; freakout tent; Woodstock; Wavy Gravy; Medicare; Boomer Generation; Peter Max; Samuel Beckett.</span> Roosevelt Era; Baby boom generation; Red Scare; Activism; Vietnam War; Universal Health Care; Senator Edmund Muskie; Slavery; Beat generation; John Coltrane; Lester Young; Jazz; Neal Cassady; Silent Generation. Subject LCSH Poets, American, Singers--United States; Human rights workers; Environmentalists—United States; Authors; Publishers; Sanders, Ed--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Ed Sanders Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Carrie Blabac-Myers Date of interview: ND -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 0:04 ED: Get ready to go. 0:07 SM: Still there? Okay. When you think of the (19)60s and early (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? 0:15 ED: Liberation and the utilization of the Bill of Rights. 0:24 SM: Is there one specific event in your life that shaped you when you were much younger? One specific happening in our world or society? 0:33 ED: Um, I do not think so. I suppose, you know, the death of loved ones is always a pounding from the universe. My mother died when I was in high school in 1957. Others are, the most formative one in the (19)60s for me, was the Cuban Missile Crisis, when many people really did think that our eyeballs might melt in a nuclear confrontation. 1:11 SM: Um hmm 1:12 ED: I went to bed that night in October thinking that might be curtains for ̶ 1:22 SM: So you were probably watching that black and white TV set too when Kennedy came on? 1:27 ED: I did not have one but nobody in my nascent beatnik crowd had a telephone much less a television. No, we watched it at Stanley's Bar. It is depicted in my short story [inaudible] from Volume One of Tales of Beatnik Glory. 1:49 SM: Mm hmm. 1:49 ED: It tells it like it is, like it really happened. So I would say that the Cuban Missile Crisis and then to get out of class at NYU and all of the phones were dead because Kennedy had just been shot. I mean, we tend to be [inaudible] as we measure out our lives in [inaudible] in the (19)60's we measured on our life in assassinations and government ̶ 2:23 SM: One of the things in recent years, particularly in the 1990s, and into the first couple of years of this century, there was a lot of criticism of the boomer generation as to the reason to why we have a breakdown in American society. The breakdown of the family, the drug culture, lack of respect for authority; really attaching most of the negatives we have in our society on that particular group of young people, which was about seventy million. Do you think that's fair? Or is it just blowing air? 3:03 ED: I think it is bullshit. The boomers are not to be marked out as betraying their nation any more than any other generation: the lost generation of twenties, the Dadaists of Zurich any art generation the [inaudible], the beatniks, the hippies, the neo-realists. I mean, in all these movements, in other words, that what it is life is it really truly a fabric in a very complicated, weave. The boomers are just part of the overall weave. You know, some of the great things are still being done in the society by the remnants of the Roosevelt era in the (19)30s. The boomers began in this horrible scams, that used Red Scares (that started in 1948) just to prop up the defense contractors. And through Truman and McCarthy and the Korean War, which really did not have to happen, so boomers were given a loaded deck from the civilization and I thought they did pretty well. Especially beginning in the late Eisenhower era, around (19)58 (19)59 when they began to sniff that there was a lot of freedom guaranteed by the constitution that was not used. 4:32 SM: Mm Hmm. 4:32 ED: The generation of the late fifties and the early sixties started using that freedom and as a result, the content of television programs is much more freedom based than it was in say 1939 when the producers of Gone with the Wind had to pay a $5,000.00 fine because Clark Gable uttered the word "damn." 5:03 SM: I did not know that. Oh, wow. 5:05 ED: So flash forward to the early (19)60s when say Lenny Bruce was persecuted in the city. And they tried to ban Howl, Allen Ginsberg's poem in 1958 and there were others, there was William Burroughs Junky hug, William Burroughs Naked Lunch, they tried to ban. But anyway, one after another, these are artificial bans on artistic freedoms were translated to the society as a whole. I do not think there is a breakdown of the family at all, I think there is a definition of family has expanded vastly in our era, so that there are different modes of raising children. The issue is raising sane and honest and ethical and energetic and useful children who grow up to fill the various niches that society needs, from digging ditches, to flying airplanes, to being scientists, inventors, being singers and musicians. All the different spots to get people to fill those then. So there are different combinations of human beings that are raising children now. I think there is not a background, there is not a ̶ the code of Hammurabi type of ethics and the strict reading of the ten commandments is, except for things like: Thou shall not kill, which is of course, never followed by the government, especially one that has force. But anyways, I think all those rules from ancient civilization have been reassessed in a very widespread way. Now the boomer generation that you are writing about, I guess they are getting, they are not quite geezers yet. What are they forty-eight? They are about sixty-one now? 7:08 SM: Sixty-two. 7:08 ED: Yeah, so they are getting ready. They can have early Social Security, some of them if they need it. And in another three years they will be getting Medicare, hopefully, Obama will have adjusted Medicare so it actually pays for things like dentistry, eye glasses and long term health care, long term nursing care. If that happens they will have a good road to the Happy Hunting Ground. Of course, longevity is going to increase the First World War vet just passed away. I mean, the remaining the First World War vet there are very few if any, and others not in England, but maybe there is a few in the United States. So the boomer vet, the boomer gen, veterans of the boomer generation will live on and on and on, thanks to modern healthcare. 7:49 SM: Right. 7:58 ED: The revolution, they may last to, maybe 120 or 130 years old. I think certainly their great grandchildren will have long, long lives. 8:19 SM: If you were to put some just real quick adjectives, some strengths and weaknesses of that generation, what would you put down? 8:33 ED: Um? Strengths and weaknesses? 8:40 SM: Yeah. 8:41 ED: I do not really think like that. 8:43 SM: But it is okay. 8:44 ED: Because it is not really one homogenous generation, many, many different types of people. You can lump them all together because they grew out of the victory over Hitler and Mussolini in the energy of the post-atomic era, they exploded out. You know, they were not making cars in the years before that generation so there was this huge need for automobiles and baby clothes and new houses and jobs. An explosion in the economy in the (19)40s and (19)50s based on all this kind of energy and hunger from the generation that defeated Hitler and the others. 9:38 SM: I asked you earlier about, youth. 9:40 ED: No, no. It is like. The answer to your question is that, it is like, you cannot really say there are blue states and red states because within each state like very right wing states, I have very, very good liberal progressive friends in Texas. 9:59 SM: Mm Hmm. 9:59 ED: Or Arkansas and in Georgia for instance, they are more center left more center left than I am! But they are in these states that are judged to be red states. So it is the same way with the boomer generation it is a wide and diverse tapestry of people that have, through no fault of their own, been brought together as this entity, as they approach old age. So they are like a huge scientific experiment, I guess. And guys like you or, or the scientists that are analyzing them. Anyway, do you have another question? 10:42 SM: Yeah, it was a question about when do you think the (19)60s began? What do you think was the watershed moment? Now, you mentioned your watershed moment in 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis, but for the generation, what do you think? 10:57 ED: That was personal but generational? Well, there were many good things, I would think the invention of the wah, wah pedal in 1966, which gave Jimi Hendrix some of his most beautiful songs. In general the rise of technology to support the arts in the (19)60s. New types of paints and acrylics and techniques, such as the [inaudible] painting hybrid that was used by Andy Warhol or the montage collage carpentry of Robert Rauschenberg. And then in music, the rise of technology. The Beatles recorded many of their early tunes on four tracks, and then all of a sudden they had eight track and then finally twelve and sixteen tracks, and the same and so the recording technology, the ability to do overdub, to perform in public, they had to build new sound systems so that Crosby, Stills Nash and Young and the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones could play baseball stadiums and not blow out speakers. And there was a huge rise in an artistic technology in the movies. The invention of the video camera around 1967, which allowed Roman Polanski and others to film, their daily rushes in video and then run them right away and see how it was going. So there was all of this technology I think, starred in the mix of the best part of the early years of the boomers. 12:52 SM: When boomers used to say and many still do think that they were the most unique generation in American history because they were going to be the change agents for the betterment of society in so many ways. How do you respond to boomers who think that way? Not only then but now? 13:11 ED: Put up or shut up. 13:13 SM: Good point. That, that was all I needed to hear. That was excellent. Because one of the concerns I have had and we've talked about this at our university in certain programs, even Jennie Skerl has been bothering him before she retired is you know, some people copped out and some people continued to go on and on fight for issues. So how important were college students in ending the Vietnam War? 13:48 ED: Well, because they are part of that species known as young people, and young people they can extend, they often have others who are supporting them or helping support them so they could take time out they could go to freedom summers, they could go down to Selma to march. They could go sit-in against nuclear testing in Nevada. They could go to a commune learn how you know, life is. They could take time off to write a book that might not make them a lot of money, so they have time. You know, and they have, the college kids are part of that. Certainly one of the key things that these college kids did was to end the draft which finally ended in 1971. So, it was a huge effort to end that draft. I think ending the draft has prevented a whole bunch of wars that could have happened that now cannot happen because they never have enough troops. Really the Vietnam War had to start winding down because in like 1968, the military realized they did not have enough soldiers to fight in Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia and Thailand, all the other bigger wars. As well as to protect the homeland. The military has a default charge, and that is one which is foreign protection, foreign interest foreign wars, and then to protect the homeland. And after the riots in (19)67, and after the riots that occurred after the assassination of Martin Luther King in April of (19)68. The military had to start pulling back because they did not have enough soldiers to deal with all that. Ending the draft really prevented the military from expanding wars excessively throughout the world. So I think that the long answer to a short question is that it was a great gift of the young people and college kids, to end the draft. 16:17 SM: Do you think they have done a good job? Some are grandparents now the boomers and some are still having, are still parents, and grandparents. Do you think that they have been passing on some of their activism down to their kids and grandkids? Or? 16:33 ED: Well, you do that by two ways. One is by example that your children can easily observe and understand and appreciate. Or two, by teaching, reading and making sure your kids are exposed to the right music, the right songs, the right books, the right and take them out to protest demonstrations and show them what it is it to be against the war. Take them to meetings so that they can understand how grassroots activism is conducted. That is another method too. Many parents do not pass on the torch which is one of the tragedies of that era is that the torch was extinguished. And then now grandchildren. I do not know, it is a difficult thing because you never, suddenly a grandchild can take an issue, take an interest in issue and become very involved, it is really hard to predict. The fact that we do not have universal health care. The fact that we are in two or three or four maybe more wars right now, that you have things like Somalia, in the jungles of the Philippines, as well as Iran and Iraq. We, the boomer generation, the (19)60s generation, the (19)50s generation, the last three or four generations have failed to turn the United States civilization into a more humane, caring society in general, although we have a lot of freedom. We are really like the civilization depicted in Bertolt Brecht's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogany. Everything is possible, everything is allowed, as long as you have money. 18:28 SM: This is a question and I want to read this because this has to do with the issue of healing. We had a chance I took a group of students down to see Ed Muskie, former senator before he passed away. He had just gotten out of the hospital and we took our students there. And I read him this question. 18:43 ED: Oh did he have cancer? 18:44 SM: Yeah, yeah, he died. I think he died of cancer. But he was in remission for a short time before he came back and it did him in. Do you feel boomers are still having problems from healing from the divisions that tore the nation apart in their youth? Division between black and white, divisions between those who support authority and those who criticize it, division between those who supported the troops and those who did not? What role has the wall played in healing these divisions or was this primarily a healing for veterans? Do you feel that the boomer generation will go to its grave like the Civil War generation not truly healing? Am I wrong in thinking this or has forty years made the statement "Time heals all wounds," a truth? And I want to just finish by saying that when I asked Ed Muskie, that question, he had just gotten out of the hospital and he had been watching Ken Burns' Civil War series when he was in the hospital. And so he and he did not answer the question right away. He waited about a minute. And then he had tears in his eyes. And then he we had fourteen students there and they were all kind of looking at each other what is going on here. And he basically said, we have not healed since the Civil War, and then he went on to be talking about you know, the all the loss of life from that particular war and the loss of generations of kids that would have been born because the population during that war was a lot smaller than it is here so the proportion of men in America and the number of kids they could have had was astounding. But just your thoughts on, you know, whether healing should be an issue here within the generation. Ed, could you speak up just a little bit too? 20:31 ED: It used to be that the Swedes, rode out and sailed out of Sweden for instance or from Denmark, the Danes, toward England and landed and then slaughtered everybody they could find. Steal the women and the food and the jewelry and the people [inaudible] Fast forward four or five centuries and you know, Denmark and Sweden are [inaudible] pretty advanced [inaudible] marvelous health system and pretty advanced systems besides those, Denmark but it takes four or five hundred years often for a society to reveal its moral identity [inaudible]. However, with respect to the Civil War, I agree with Ulysses Grant, who said that the civil war could have been God's punishment for America undertaking the Mexican War, evil and the injustices, and slaughter, in the Mexican War and the karma of that, oozed forward into the karma of the Civil War. I think the Civil War leads directly back to greedy English planters in Jamestown, and from say, after the founding, in 1607 up to say, 1690 those first eighty years, deliberately bringing in more and more and more and more and more slaves from the dungeons of no return in Africa to do long term damage to the soil through first growing tobacco, this nasty tobacco from the Indies and then cotton. Those lines of slavery and the terrible exploitation of blacks [inaudible] Virginia in South Carolina down in the south, the karma of that leap forward to the Civil War and beyond. And then, you know there was plenty of people that were raised as racists even, especially among the boomer generation, and anti-Semites, there is plenty of anti-Semites, anti-black, and there is plenty of anti-Portuguese. The Italians put down the Irish and Irish sometimes sneer at the Italians. The Germans called Swedes stupid and the Swedes called the Germans cruel and barbaric and the Norwegians could not stand above them all the Scotch-Irish have carried their mean streak forward in America ever since they were shoved out of Ireland and Scotland you know, after the triumph of 1649 to 1660, after the Protestants took over. Who is that guy? 23:47 SM: Martin Luther? 23:48 ED: No, no, no. This is 1649. 23:50 SM: Oh 1649. 23:51 ED: 1660, he was the Protestant head of England and then after he died, his son tried to rule and then they brought back Charles the second. 24:02 SM: Cromwell? 24:03 ED: Cromwell. Ollie baby! So, you know, the, Cromwell was so mean to the Irish and then there was all this division of land and pushing out and they, they stole all the, all the common lands. There were these ancient common lands in England and all through the seventeenth century they closed off the commons and drove everybody out and some of them came to America and they were you know, bitter and angry kept those mean streaks going right up to now, some of these. I mean, I am Scotch-Irish. I am part Scotch-Irish anyway. 24:44 SM: That is what I am. 25:00 ED: Well, anyway, everybody brought their, their racial characteristics and their karmic characteristics into the boomer genesis, post-Second World War boomer generation. And they, people submerge their personal problems, they submerge their idiosyncrasies, and they submerge their mean streaks at least for a while into the general flow of getting up, getting to a job, having children, getting married, you know, eek out a living, set a little aside for when they are old, and just to get by as Americans. So but they cannot escape those plantations of a Jamestown and they cannot escape the evil of the Mexican War that [inaudible] protests against and what Ulysses S. Grant wrote about, and then the horrible slaughter of Antietam. 26:01 SM: Oh yeah. 26:02 ED: And all throughout Gettysburg and oy Shiloh. Oy! Oy! Oy! 26:09 SM: Mm Hmm. 26:10 ED: But then it goes back also to George Washington's surge in the late eighteenth century against the natives, the Indians of Western New York, just to clear land really and for further development by the Europeans who were surging to the west. Now that the English were defeated more or less in the Revolutionary War. So all this karmic gnarl cannot be separated if you know anything about history from this generation. This generation the boomer generation did not spring like dragon's teeth from the soil of America. They have karmic knots that go way back but they did good, it was an inventive era you know, the transistor and I do not know, they did interesting things and also the American culture. Jazz! Jazz poetry. Modern painting. Inventions and movies. There is science discoveries, longevity, cancer cures you know, we do not all eventually die of breast cancer thank god anymore, or some people are even starting to survive with pancreatic cancer for much longer. And so there is a, it is all a big fight against the Grim Reaper. 27:30 SM: Right. 27:31 ED: And also a fight for human dignity and freedom. And sharing really, people do not like to use the word sharing but it is to spread the wealth around to everybody. There is a decent drive, the baby boomers, a good portion of them to do just that. 27:49 SM: Um hmm. And I wanted to ask this, do you feel the Beats had a direct influence on the (19)60s and (19)70s, even though they were often identified with the (19)50s? 28:00 ED: Sure, because a lot of them live on and on and on. Kerouac died in 1969. Gregory Corso lived until (19)91. Ginsberg died in (19)90, no excuse me, Corso lasted until 2001, Ginsberg died in (19)97, and Burroughs also (19)97 but they were very active culturally. And this Beat generation was like a deliberate plan, they got together you know, they were going to call themselves a generation and they knew they had really smart men and women aboard that generation so they floated it and it worked. 28:38 SM: How did you become a Beat? 28:41 ED: Well, when I was when I was in high school, it is in my short stories, my book: Tales of Beatnik Glory. The story, one of, where I describe reading Howl when I was in high school. 28:59 SM: Okay. 29:00 ED: And I memorized it. I used to recite when me and my friends drove around drinking beer around the county courthouse, I would scream out Howl and I memorized it. It sort of saved my life. I always tell audiences I might have been an Eskimo Pie driver if it had not been for Howl. 29:21 SM: [laughs] 29:23 ED: So Howl. And then Allen became one of my best friends. And I knew all of them. Corso, Gary, Allen Ginsberg, Burroughs was a friend, Corso was a friend, Gary Snyder's a good friend. I wrote a book about Allen Ginsberg: Poetry and Life of Allen Ginsberg, so I was very tuned in to him. 29:44 SM: You know, the beats are often defined as rebels and do you think this mentality through their writings and lifestyle subconsciously filter into the boomer generation in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s? Were the feelings like it is okay to be different? And not be silent. 30:01 ED: That is true. It is okay to be different than they were perceived as being different. The girls wore a lot of Egyptian eye makeup modeled on Jean Paul Sartre's girlfriend Juliette Greco and they would wear sheer-toed high heels and mesh stockings, maybe a leather vest and very daring not to wear a brassiere back in (19)58 or (19)59 or they would wear these [inaudible] beatnik sandals. The guys for their part might sport a Florida maritime turtleneck sweater and a black jacket and sandals themselves. So it was a visual thing in part. And berets. Men wearing berets. Then of course when the hip you know they would never beatniks would have never have worn necklaces, it was not a few years later when the sixties hit that men started wearing necklaces, wore their hair long, and they wore robes and silk gowns and that was different. But the Beats were, came out of Second World War so they were, their dress was pretty dark and somber. Very existential. And they were, I guess you could call them rebels. You know, they smoked pot. They, they all of them knew John Coltrane riffs or knew Charlie Parker riffs. There was Lester Young. Went to Lester Young performances and knew a lot about jazz and picked up from the jazz singers use of marijuana and of course people like Neal Cassidy were; took a lot of uppers. But when I was in school in the (19)50s everybody took Benzedrine. The whole boomer generation. You know, in my opinion, the whole boomer generation got through college on coca cola and a few uppers to help them pass the test. They would never admit it but, uh. 32:27 SM: It is interesting that when I interviewed Hettie, I asked her this question, and she really well, she had some interesting comments, and that is why did the Beats want to be different in the first place? And secondly, obviously they challenged the norm during a time few people spoke up. This is kind of what the boomers did during their college age, some of them, maybe 15 percent of them because we were only talking about a percentage of the boomers, and describe you there is a link here to me between the silent generation and the boomer generation. 33:02 ED: Maybe there is always they always say that young people are more willing to shake the wall and make some changes. The older people who have been through a lot been through scrapes and through illnesses, and one or two marriages and worried about paying their bills that they have a different attitude. Many people tend to lose their youthful arrogance or their youthful; some young people can be a real pain, you know, they, they have this attitude of a, you know, I have, we have received the knowledge and 'go fuck yourself' so you know, I do not know, that's not a lot of kids but there are. I remember the socialist Irving Howe he was at a meeting and being harangued by studying was not sufficiently of the left was not enough for the people. Howe said something like this you know where you are going to be doing in a few years young man? You are going to be a dentist, so I always think of that. Sometimes I get a little static. I do a lot of college gigs and I answer their questions all of the time after my readings or lectures, there is a faction out there, very rarely, but they think they know it all without having read too many books. 34:52 SM: Yeah, that is what we try to always tell students, you know. Emotion is important. You got to have emotion when you believe in something, a passion but you also got to have knowledge. And when you have the combination of knowledge and emotion, it is hard to beat. Just all these movements took place during that period, too, because I have interviewed a lot of people and they know that the civil rights movement was kind of a model for the, the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, Native American, Chicano, environmental movement, a lot of different movements of that particular time that continued through today and have evolved. Were those Boomer, do you give that all credit to the boomer generation for those movements after the civil rights movement? 35:38 ED: I do not know. I think what the civil rights movement was, was a double empowerment, it was an empowerment of young blacks and also religious blacks. And also young whites, and then of course more established whites who formed bonds to decide that their goals on the surface of it were not that bad. They wanted the right to vote. They wanted an end to poll taxes and they wanted to drink water at fountains and ride buses, wherever they wanted and to use public bathrooms and restaurants. You know, and then, of course, Martin Luther King and [inaudible] brought the additional factor of, they want jobs. Jobs and economic interest between blacks and whites. So demand for economic equity, and these other, other civil rights things were I guess you can say that some of them, many of the participants were of the boomer generation. But I do not think, I do not know who invented the word Boomer, but I do not I do not think it was invented by the time of the great, by the lunch counter sit-ins or the freedom riots in (19)61. 36:17 SM: Right. 37:10 ED: The pool integration in (19)62. The commercial worship in (19)53. Selma in (19)65, voter registration and John Lewis; (19)56, (19)57, leading to the portion of (19)64 and Voting Rights Act in (19)68, the Great Society Acts. The real big cram with the boomer generation, was the Great Society legislation where basically a white congress voted in place beginning in the four ̶ 38:03 SM: Uh huh. 38:03 ED: A law, the Medicare, all the other karmic acts, all the great, great society cats ̶ 38:16 SM: Did you come in this is an area that, you know, you end the year with the Fugs and all the music? How important? Obviously we know it is but I like your thoughts on the music of that of the boomer generation, the music of the (19)60s in the (19)70s. And I talk about the music, it is not it is not just all the great bands and performers, the folk musicians, Motown. Just your comment and how important that was for this seventy million people. And second part of this question is, when I talked to Pete Seeger this past weekend, he talked about that, you know, he was always raised with the belief based on how his father raised him that that music was it's the words is what's important. It is not so much the musicians as it is the words of the young people will take the social messages and people take the social messages, and they will always remember them and pass them on. And there seem to be a lot of messages in the music of this particular time, just your thoughts and how important music was to the 70 million boomer generation. And I am going to change my tape here one second. Certainly you are involved in this. If you could speak up just a little louder too, thanks. 39:48 ED: Well of course, music is always important to every nation in every civilization. What was different about the music of the (19)60s into the (19)70s was that as I mentioned, there was a huge rise of recording technology so that you could do multitrack recording and then overdub and add vocals. Up till the early (19)60s the recording was done of like ten generation mono to mono. In other words, the orchestra would play on a mono between two fancy tape recorders then Frank Sinatra would lay down his vocals. And then they would run the same tape over, and then they would add the harmony singers and maybe some strings and other instruments. So it was very labor intensive. The beginning was the Beatles in (19)64 or (19)65, with the Fugs and other bands this new technology was suddenly there. And there were all these marvelous amplifiers. And more importantly, the music could be heard because they were out there, the sound systems that evolved even in little clubs but also in big places such as baseball stadiums, bigger venues so that the word could star in the mix. And that words, assumed great importance, because of the impact of people like Woody Guthrie and Harry Smith's anthology of American folk music, and the other Folkways albums. 41:38 SM: Mmm hmm. 41:38 ED: They would listen to it and then things like Pete Seeger who adopted a song he learned from a woman I think in North Carolina, and it became We Shall Overcome. 41:49 SM: Right. 41:50 ED: And then all the religious songs came about: Ain't Going to Study War No More and everybody was adopting these religious tunes Down by the River Side and We Shall Overcome. I have Been Buked and I have Been Scorned from the great March on Washington: Mahalia Jackson and Peter, Paul and Mary adopting folk music, folk songs, simple American folk songs, or European folk songs, adopting them. Putting secret messages in them, you know. Folk music, it often exists, like the Bible and has layers of meanings We Shall Overcome can be just as much of "we'll have a good life" but it also can mean we'll end slavery or we'll end racism or we'll win social equity. All these great songs evolved and they were singable, and of course music is more memorable. All ̶ We are Saying is Give Peace a Chance, that John Lennon wrote in 1969. You know, that, that did more to in the war in Vietnam, than any street demonstration. 43:15 SM: If you were to pinpoint, I know, there is so many of them, and it's not fair to others to exclude them but if you were to pick three, four or five of the top entertainers from that era, that really were the top echelon of that kind of music, who would they be? 43:34 ED: What were you talking about? 43:35 The musicians that influenced the boomers, whether they be folk musicians, rock bands, or Motown singers. 43:45 ED: Well who knows you know, you could start out with popular singers, some more scholarly and get into other things you could hear. You could hear Elvis Presley and then say, well what is this rockabilly stuff maybe I should look more into it ̶ 44:11 SM: Mm Hmm. 44:11 ED: You know, you start with Elvis or you might start with Mac the Knife by Bobby Darin and then go discover Bertolt Brecht that way. So you know, there are the obvious great musicians, Elvis, the Beatles, of course Bob Dylan, Joan Baez who had this huge impact on the generation with Hush Little Children Do not You Cry all that first album All My Trials. But somehow (Bob) Stravinski had a big influence on the avant-garde and people who wanted to change the world. 44:58 SM: Mm Hmm. 45:02 ED: I knew [inaudible] Stravinski and Joan Baez personally [inaudible] but then you go back into Bill Haley and the Fleshtones and Mickey and Sylvia: Love is Strange. Mr. Earl, that song. I do not know there was a lot of rock and roll that people were exposed to that, it truly was the harbinger of racial mingling. 45:31 SM: Mm Hmm. 45:31 ED: It was obviously a black phenomenon as was jazz. I grew up in Kansas City, I was exposed to a lot of jazz when I was a kid, but just I thought it was just regular music. I did not realize that when I was very young [inaudible] it was just good dance music. 46:03 SM: You mentioned that you thought John Lennon's music or song had a lot to do with ending the war as anything. What, why? Why did the war in Vietnam end in your opinion? 46:19 ED: Well, yes. Well, you know, it takes a long time, they started it basically, they started doing the defoliation in 1962 [inaudible] in (19)63, the supposition of the end and then, it did not really begin until (19)65 and then (19)66 through [inaudible] (19)68 I think because of all the scholar activists, all the people that were studying what was going on while raising their voices against it. And then the huge anti-draft movement. 47:09 SM: Uh huh. 47:10 ED: It took, people had to spend their whole lives every day protesting and raising money to stop this war. And the whole; it was: you know, they wanted to just like MacArthur wanted to drop H-bombs on North Vietnam, North Korea, or China on the border between North Korea and China. So too did people like General LeMay wanted to drop nuclear weapons on China. 47:41 SM: Yes. Yup. 47:39 ED: So it was what we prevented, more than anything. It was written that Nixon was thinking of using nuclear weapons in 1969. And so they sang John Lennon's Give Peace a Chance at the mobilization rally in DC in the fall of 1969 and Nixon was aware of that demonstration and said he realized [inaudible] and demonstrations all over America that they could not increase the war in Vietnam and they had to start pulling it back. A long, long I mean it was (19)75, six years and then hounded him out of office. I mean you know, it was so evil and such an injustice. However, they can build walls, honoring the dead, and I am sorry, there were any dead there and veterans, you can build a wall between here and the moon, but you are not going to do away with the evil of the Vietnam War. Never. 48:49 SM: What, in your opinion, were the best books that were that the boomers read in their growing up years that may have had an influence on them? 48:58 ED: I have no idea. I had my own life by then. I was reading my own classics. I have a question here and then; I just cannot figure out figure out what; you know, they start out reading books you know, Catcher in the Rye and branch out into you know different uh; they might have read, read Che Guevara's diary as part of a college class. They might have; who knows what avenues to read lead. 49:33 SM: I know that a lot of people with Mao's book. Chairman Mao's book. 49:39 ED: Yeah, because the, I forget what group was Maoist but they printed a lot of those. I had a bookstore. I had a bookstore for a number of years on the lower east side and somehow I would get these little red books and they were like free, they would get dropped off. 49:58 SM: [laughs] 49:58 ED: And they would urge me to sell them. 50:01 SM: Right. I have a question here on trust. Um, one of the things that this is this is definitely part of the boomer generation is a lot of the leaders lying to, lying to them and lying to the American public. Because you saw that was what Watergate was all about and certainly, Lyndon Johnson, the Gulf of Tonkin, Eisenhower in the U2 incident, even in recent years, President Kennedy and his linkage to the Coup of Diem and knew and of course, Ronald Reagan. It seems like at that particular period, I can remember when I was in college, and I went to SUNY Binghamton, a lot of students did not trust anybody. They did not trust the president, they did not trust anybody in any leadership role, whether it be vice president of Student Affairs, they did not trust the minister in the church, the rabbi, the head of a corporation, they did not trust anybody in a position of responsibility. And, and I have seen, I do not know if that has been passed down to their kids. But my question is basically this, I was in a Psychology 101 class in my first year of college and I remember the psychology professors telling the students that if you cannot trust in your life, then you will not be a success in life. That trust is a very important quality and I am just want your ̶ 51:24 ED: Tell that to John D. Rockefeller who you know, used distrust to take over all of the oil in America. I do not know it is a terrible thing to have. On one level, it's the Beavis and Butthead isolation of American civilization where there is a culture of impoliteness that spreads which is not that good ̶ you see it at events and public all over the place, sort of against general rudeness that's one thing. Another thing is, you grow up and every ̶ everything is a lie so you can either isolate yourself from everything and we were told basically to be existentialists, to be alien; and be alienated by the fifties. Being alienated [inaudible] say James Dean or Marlon Brando that was a public icon to be alienated. So, but if you take it to the extreme and feel alienated from all this, then you can become isolated or you become a pawn of the military industrial complex or a right wing capitalist who will take advantage of that alienation. You have great authoritarian control, and you have you know, the situation of 1984, where everybody is suspicious and there is rule and neo-fascism. So it is a difficult situation because especially when the government has shown for so many decades to have lied so much about many things. Even some of our elections like the 2000 election. So, the idea of having stolen elections [inaudible] computer voting, wars you do not know what they really mean. Can you really count on the government? And so you say fuck it I am just going to drink beer, play a little golf and head off into the sunset. 53:46 SM: What does that mean to activism though? 53:49 ED: Well, some people have it in their blood, you know, they vow to go out in a blaze of leaflets. My vow was to always stay very active in local politics. I stay active and I think a lot of people in our generation too, I mean, I admired people like Tom Hayden for instance. 54:07 SM: I interviewed him for this project. 54:10 ED: I stayed pretty active. 54:15 SM: When the best history books are written, you know they are usually written fifty years after a period. What do you think they will be saying about the boomer generation? 54:27 ED: I do not know. They may not even use the word boomer generation. 54:31 SM: Hmm. 54:31 ED: They may put, they may decide that the generation began with the first experiment in the Manhattan Project in 1939 or (19)40. They may begin it with Einstein's letter to Roosevelt to build the bomb. They may begin it at some date that Marian Anderson's concert at the ̶ 54:58 SM: Sure. 55:01 ED: I do not know. Or they may be accepted as the bona fide movement that lead to maybe something wonderful happening in the next twenty or thirty years, I do not know [inaudible] the spirit to America that will transform. 55:20 SM: The last part of the interview is just quick responses to just some terms or names. 55:25 ED: I am not going to be able to talk anymore. I got to get to a meeting. You should take your email you were supposed to call me at one. You are welcome to call another day. And I can conclude. 55:36 SM: Okay. 55:37 ED: I got to run and get to a meeting. 55:40 SM: All right. 55:40 ED: But you can call, you know what day you want to call? 55:44 SM: Well. I am going back and forth between New York, somebody just had open heart surgery up there. 55:51 ED: Who did? 55:52 SM: One of my relatives. 55:53 ED: Oh well, sometime within the next few days, I do not care. Call any time after noon, after like one and I am available. I just got to run to a meeting that I forgot about. 56:05 SM: All right, well, I only have about fifteen more. I think this, when we left the last time, I think I only have about twenty – twenty-five minutes and that will be it. 56:15 ED: Ok. 56:16 SM: Because it is basically there is just one little section left. But I want to ask a couple questions before I get into you responding to some of the personalities and the terms from that era. Could you go a little bit more into how the Beats, how important the Beats were in shaping the boomer generation, just for their attitudes and the way they lived. 56:46 ED: Um, well, define these people: Corso, Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Huncke. In certain ways Charlie Parker and Diane Di Prima, in other ways Gary Snyder. They came out of the World War II generation out of the (19)40s and out of the post war boom, the thought boom of the release in the United States after World War II the created abstract expressionism, detective novels. And both from the synthesis of the east and west coast. The Beat generation who flourished with the beginning with the publication of Howl and they flourished as a kind of statement against the McCarthy era and against the squareness and the constrained culture of the 1950s and caused the generation of the boomers, so-called boomers to relax a little bit and not to be afraid to be more individualistic and follow their own life. America always has had a streak of individualism and people who do not motivate it but the Beats helped push the generation along the so-called boomer generation and also by demanding more freedom under the Bill of Rights. The battle of William Burroughs over publication of Naked Lunch and the battle around his thirst for sexual freedom and for acceptance of overt homosexuality and for the fight, the struggles, you know, the Feds tried to stomp down Howl when it came out and so he helped prevail on that and Allen also helped a lot in the trial, the court case where they tried to squash Naked Lunch. So they helped create a greater sense of freedom so that in our own time shows like The Sopranos even or some of these shows that use language and overt gayness on television and movies. The Beats helped liberate the personal freedom areas and art forms. They had a big hand in helping to set the new freedoms. 59:45 SM: Hmm. Through the years as some of the Beats are getting older, whether it be Burrows, Ginsberg or Kerouac, Ferlinghetti, Ann Waldman, who was one of the younger ones, Snyder, Amiri Baraka and Ken Kesey, yourself. What did you think of this boomer generation? They were, you were a little older. And what was the feeling when some of these things were happening? Because obviously, the Beats in the (19)50s were pretty tight knit group. And, and there is a lot of camaraderie there. And then this new generation is happening with all these issues and whether it be drugs, the music, the dress codes, and everything, just your thoughts on how, what they thought of this generation when you were around them. 1:00:45 ED: I did not even realize anything about this thing called boomer generation until a few years ago, I mean, it did not occur to me. I mean it is obvious that when you have a literary generation, or a musical generation or a painting generation that there will come along, another generation nipping at the heels. And as you walk off the plank of life, they will emerge on the deck of the ship and say, it's all ours! So I do not know, I did not really think about them. I knew that there were always going to be younger, emerging art forms and artists but I did not think of it in terms of a general huge mass of people called the boomer generation. Again, what is the designation? They were born after the atomic bomb was dropped? 1:01:36 SM: Yeah, in 1946 to (19)64 that was the years they put down for them. 1:01:43 ED: They are all spoiled brats! 1:01:46 SM: [laughs] 1:01:46 ED: They swelled in on an empire that was not yet beginning to fade. So they, they were kind of spoiled little [inaudible] thinking everybody would cow tow to the United States. The battles seemed to be over. 1:02:08 SM: What is really interesting is that of all the Beats that I remember, and it is the Allen Ginsberg seemed to be around everywhere. Uh, and uh 1:02:20 ED: He had the metabolism of a chipmunk. He had a high metabolism. And if you look at history, I mean look, I wrote a book on Allen Ginsberg's life called The Poetry and Life of Allen Ginsberg. And in research and I knew him intimately for, oh from 1964 till he died in the spring of (19)97, so thirty-three years. 1:02:42 SM: Mm hmm. 1:02:43 ED: We were in almost daily contact so I realized what fanatic, fantastic energy, the guy had, he never really had to sleep. Sometimes I stayed at his house when I was in New York on business and he would be up in the middle of night doing work. I do not know if he ever really slept. He had a high metabolism and he was always in motion, he did more benefits than anybody in world culture. He must have done thousands of benefits for a wide variety of causes. But also, personal appearances at colleges here, in China, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Europe, all over Europe and India. He was always giving readings. And so I was always amazed at the huge numbers wide the wide cultural swath he made. People were coming from India from China from Japan. I mean, he was famous in Japan from Italy from Germany from France from England, from Scotland, from Wales. The guy at cultural connections to a huge plethora of countries. Pretty amazing. 1:03:58 SM: I just remember that time that he was on TV with William Buckley. Do you remember that? 1:04:02 ED: I did not see that show but I heard about it. 1:04:07 SM: Yeah, it was amazing because Buckley of course, being the conservative that he was, was fascinated by him. Literally fascinated. 1:04:15 ED: Well, they were friends. One good thing about Buckley, of course, not my cup of tea, but nevertheless, you know, took the stance against the far right. The anti-Semitic right and also was capable of having friends among liberals. He was a friend of Howard Lowenstein and in a way was a friend of Allen Ginsberg. 1:04:42 SM: You were in a band called the Fugs. How did the boomers look to that group? 1:04:51 ED: Oh, I do not know. We still get fan mail some younger people. I do not know. I am not sure how they? (19)46? Well, there was one born in the late (19)40s and early (19)50s would have been, could have been Fugs fans, [inaudible] around (19)67 or (19)68. 1:05:13 SM: Right. 1:05:13 ED: I remember they were always hiding Fugs records from their parents. 1:05:01 SM: [laughs] 1:05:10 ED: They would write in and complain that their Fugs records, that their parents had broken a Fugs record across their father's knee or something. They were indignant. If the definition is (19)46 and onwards then many of them, heck, probably our whole fan base was boomers. 1:05:38 SM: If you were described the Fugs' music, how would you put it in a few words or a few sentences? 1:05:50 ED: Well, it grew. It started out as a kind of primitive, acoustical folk music. We did not go to Juilliard School, so we taught ourselves. We grew up in the great school of American Jazz, American folk music and American civil rights songs and American rock and roll. Everything from, and also Country and Western and Hasidic. You know, we brought a lot of Jewish melodies to our music. I grew up in the happening, movement. So we were a happening. We were spontaneous. We were like action painting but for music. But over the years, our music, and a mixture through what was artful and experimentations that our music grew and grew in skill and quality. So by the time we did our final records for Warner Brothers, it evolved into [inaudible]. We rose up and did a major album. So our music always grew. We started out primitive. Got less primitive. Got into different types of music. So now like forty-five years after our founding, I have had a band together for twenty-five years and they are very, very, very accomplished. So, how to describe it? They have to listen to us. The Fugs are not a visual thing. We are all we are our songs. All The Fugs ever will be even apart from the stage remains the recording studio and live. We are the ̶ our stage. 1:07:32 SM: When we just had the fortieth anniversary of Woodstock, in fact, I think the last when I spoke to you the first time it was a couple of weeks before the big happening was going to take place and Richie was going to open, Richie Havens. I think you had a concert there in fact. What when you look at that Woodstock, do you think that that was more about fun, more about culture? More about issues? What, how would you describe it? 1:08:06 ED: Well, it was an act, part activism and part planning. I mean I guess 300,000 young people pushed out to Sullivan County you know and many of them were against the war in Vietnam, many of them wanting a new, a new living arrangement. Living outdoors so it was kind of a good commune. The food was free cooked by Wavy Gravy and the hog farm. Wavy Gravy you know, into the microphone, at I think it was on the first night, or? First morning or second morning of Woodstock? Said, "What I have in mind is breakfast in bed for 400,000 people." And then it also had the kind of medical system that we need in the United States, free medical care. I have a good I have a doctor friend who's now an eminent neurologist, who was a volunteer at the freak-out tent at Woodstock, so people who were having medical problems that got free medical attention from volunteer doctors/ Plus free food. The ticket system broke down so there was free music. There was a celebration of beautiful farmland it was on a huge I think 50 or 60 acre farm; a dairy farm. Celebrate the beautiful American out of doors. Then celebrate also the kind of music that was rising up at that time with Jimi Hendrix and his great National Anthem which was performed at dawn on the final day with this new miraculous instrument in the United States called the wah, wah pedal and his active patriotism. In its own way. It was very patriotic. He set the tone for the (19)60s with that one National Anthem. All the other singing? I do not know, it was also a triumph of technology because it was not until a year or so before that you could play the music through speakers that can be heard by 400,000 people so the technology rose very quickly. With Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and the others. So it was good. Technology, sharing, free medical care, all the outdoors. And then of course, a lot of pot and I guess there was acid there. Mainly pot I think. And beer. Pot, beer, acid, rock and roll, technology, love of the out of doors and having a good time. 1:10:59 SM: Who did you personally look up to? Who were your ̶ Well, I am not going to overstate this thing. Who are your heroes? Or who were the role models that inspired you? 1:11:12 ED: From those days? 1:11:13 SM: From those days or anytime? How did you become who you became? 1:11:21 ED: I do not know. I had heroes. It's like when they asked Michael Dukakis who were his heroes from the (19)88 election. You find heroes in your life from you know, Sunday school all the way up to performers and writers of course, teachers, I had a bunch of teachers [inaudible] like Sappho [inaudible] here other musicians that I admired [inaudible] when I was a kid. And also, rock and roll stars you know that rose later. I do not know. When I became an adult, Allen Ginsberg became my mentor. Carl Wilson before he was my mentor. [inaudible] friend, early on was one of my mentors. I looked to people for advice. You know, I am reading [inaudible] normally every week I read his stories for a while. I do not know, Norman Thomas was a mentor. Ghandi was a mentor. John Paul Sarte was big in my mind, and Samuel Beckett was an early hero as a writer and then somebody to emulate, at least in his persistence and overcoming his really [inaudible] world worldview with great art. 1:13:03 SM: How would you like to be remembered? What would? When you are gone what do you would, would you would like people to say about you? Or hope that people would say about you and secondly your writing. Your gift to people? 1:13:23 ED: Well, I hope with respect to my writings that they will, find, poems inside the body of my writing or short stories or other kinds of [inaudible] for 300 years from now. 1:13:43 SM: It in that this is very general and, and maybe impossible to answer but if you were to, if we were to ever bury seventy million people in one grave, which is the boomer generation and we put a tombstone on there, what do you think the, the epithet was say? The epitaph? 1:14:16 ED: [singing voice] Things go better with Coca Cola. 1:14:24 SM: Laughs. 1:14:25 ED: [singing voice] Better with Coke. Or we came, we saw. The word is not conquered. We came, we saw, we completed, man. I mean, you know, it is a generation. They come, they go. They are doomed. We used a plank image before. I mean, you know, you get born. What is it that Samuel Beckett said? You part with your? [inaudible] other ways to stride the grave really, it is not sing-song all the way but the idea is to have fun. One thing about the boomer generation is that their parents, having lived through World War II and all the, which really was a great triumph of American civilization. You know America defeated the militaristic Japanese which really is a wonderful thing. And so that generation told their kids, you know, have a little fun. You know? So I think the boomer generation was not afraid to have fun. [inaudible] now they are getting old. 1:15:50 SM: Let us hope that they are still having fun. 1:15:51 ED: Oh, well their arthritis causes them to not have as much fun. 1:15:55 SM: Yeah. Two quotes that come out of this era. One was one that Bobby Kennedy used a lot and another one was a Peter Max one. And, and the question is, which one better defined the boomer generation. And of course, the Bobby Kennedy one is, some men see things as they are and ask why. I see things that never were and ask why not? And the other one is Peter Max, You do your thing, and I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful. Those are two extremes. 1:16:32 ED: The quotes a little hippie dippy. I mean, you know [inaudible] that is the whole problem with 'do your own thing'. You know, I mean, that is what Hitler would say. Doing your thing is always um, problematic. But Robert Kennedy, Robert's, really, now that I am getting on in years, Robert Kennedy is emerging as a personal hero. I writing a book about him but it I do not know if it will take long enough to; if I figure out how many books to write, maybe I'll finally write my book about Robert Kennedy. 1:16:32 SM: Let me switch deep here and then we will get into these questions on the people hold on a second. (Only tape one of the interview is available) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Description 1 Microcassette Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. 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Title A name given to the resource Interview with Ed Sanders Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sanders, Ed ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Poets, American, Singers--United States; Human rights workers; Environmentalists—United States; Authors; Publishers; Sanders, Ed--Interviews Description An account of the resource Ed Sanders is a poet, author, musician, and activist who grew up in the state of Missouri. He attended the University of Missouri and New York University where he earned his Bachelor's degree in Ancient Greek. After college, he opened the Peace Eye Bookstore in New York City and started <em>Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts</em>. Allen Ginsberg, Ezra Pound, and Dylan Thomas were all early influences as Sanders tried to bridge the concerns of Beat Poetry and the counterculture of the 1960s. He is the author of many collections of poetry where he received several honors including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Sanders has written many books of prose, a non-fiction book, <em>The Family</em>, and published a bi-weekly newspaper, the <em>Woodstock Journal</em>. He is the founding member of the satirical and subversive folk-rock music group, The Fugs. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource ND Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.107 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 77:17 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/e591e68f3017126d87d97fd04f89121a.jpg 97fde756dd09051e58bc61e66f9f49e4 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/e22d01c3f515b0dc64b19daec0b0c4ac.MP3 26c0ce5b3a38949cee3ec62fe2c8eda8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 8/7/2019 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Edie Meeks Biographical Text Edie Meeks grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota along with an older sister and two younger brothers. She joined the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) in early 1968 and enlisted as a nurse in Saigon during the Vietnam War. Meeks left the ANC in 1970 and began her work in the operating room, which she continues to this day in the Northern Westchester Hospital of Mt. Kisco, New York. She graduated from St. Mary's school of nursing in Rochester, Minnesota. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:58:02 Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Nursing; Vietnam War; Anti War Movement; Saigon; Women's Memorial; 1960s; 1970s; Boomer generation Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Edie Meeks Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Shah Islam Date of interview: 7 August 2019 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: 00:01 Yep, we are all set. EM: 00:04 Okay. SM: 00:05 All right. First of all, thank you very much for agreeing to do this. This is oral history with Edie Meeks. Edie, the first question I want to ask you is, could you tell us about your background, where you grew up? Some of the early influences in your life, your family background, your schooling and high school, college before you became a nurse? EM: 00:27 Okay, I grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And I am one of four children. My other— older sister and two younger brothers. And I went to Catholic schools for 15 years. For grade school, high school and nursing school, which was St. Mary's School of Nursing in Rochester, Minnesota. SM: 00:51 Okay. Wow. And how did you choose nursing? For your career? Is there a family history of nursing? EM: 01:00 There is actually no medical family history at all. But I knew from the littlest of girls that I was going to be a nurse. And I always asked for the nurse’s kit in our Christmas from Santa. SM: 01:15 Yes. EM: 01:16 And for the doc— not even the doctor’s kits, just the nurse’s kits. But I always knew— it was either that or a roller derby star. And I figured probably I would not do that. So, I became a nurse instead. I have always wanted to be a nurse and I still love nursing. SM: 01:34 Are you still nursing? EM: 01:36 Yes, I am two days a week in the operating room. SM: 01:38 Wow. That is amazing. Yeah. EM: 01:40 And mainly because I love it. You know, it is really, you… stay current with everything that is going on. Now they have robots and all these other things, and it keeps your sharp. SM: 01:52 Yeah, very good. How did you end up as a nurse in Vietnam? Did you volunteer? Did you, did they send you, was your commitment to serve for so many years? And did you have any say where you were shipped once you got there? EM: 02:09 I was… I enlisted. And I did that because my brother Tom had been drafted. And it was the beginning of… March beginning. But there was rumblings about antiwar and all that. And I did not know whether it was good or bad. So, I just decided that, you know, if my brother Tom got hurt, I wanted to be sure somebody was over there that wanted to be over there. And so, I enlisted, but then he said, because he was a Marine, he said, Edie, the Navy takes care of the Marines. And I had enlisted in the Army. So, forget that. I think he was relieved, though, that he were not his sister would not be, you know, offering the same type of service that he was. And so— and when you enlisted, because all of the nurses did. And at the time that I went over all of the nurses volunteered. So, we were just, you know, got— we were going to do our part. SM: 03:17 So, all the nurses when they got there did not exactly know where they were going to end up. In terms of the medical facility— EM: 03:25 No, no when you got— when you got there, you were assigned to where you were going. SM: 03:29 Okay, very good. EM: 03:30 And the— when I arrived, I had been dating a guy at Fort Ord. And he, he had asked the Chief Nurse if I can be stationed in Saigon where he was. And so, when he— when I arrived, he said oh, you are going to be in Saigon, because Captain Meeks was. And I thought, what? Yeah, I was kind of forward, but anyway. And when I stayed in Saigon at Third Field Hospital, for six months, in the intensive care unit. And then I found that, actually, I broke up with Bill because, Bill Meeks, because it was too schizophrenic. I mean, you work 12 hours a day, six days a week. And you were taking care of these really horribly injured guys. And then you were supposed to go out to dinner and have small talk. And at the time, Saigon still had four-star hospitals. I mean, [inaudible] restaurant. So, you could go to the top of, you know, the Continental Hotel and, and all of these fancy restaurants. And it was like, I cannot do that after 12 hours of taking care of these guys, you know, from the field. So, I just told him, I could not see him anymore, that you became so tight with the unit that you worked with. But it just seemed bizarre going out. SM: 05:07 Right. One of the things I have always thought about for any soldier or nurse or anyone that went to Vietnam and came back, could you— could you describe your weeks leading up to your travel to Vietnam? What was going through your mind? Were you aware of the conditions that you might be facing once you arrived there? EM: 05:29 I do not think anyone was aware of the conditions you would be facing. Or the injuries. I mean, I had done… that I— did not go right out of nursing school, I had gone to North Central British Columbia to a 46-bed hospital there and worked for a little over a year. And then I went down to California and worked there for a few months. And that was when I decided I was going to join the army. And so, I had worked emergency rooms, and, you know, serious stuff. And I thought I could handle anything. But when I got over there, these guys were so young. And they were just blown to bits. SM: 06:16 Right. EM: 06:18 And it took me years to figure out what, what was out of kilter. It was, because when, in the emergency room, everything makes sense. You know, a big fat guy comes in with a heart attack or kid without a helmet has a head injury and, you know, falling out of a tree to have a broken bone. All of these things made sense. Whereas over there, these were perfectly healthy guys that were being loaned the best. And it just did not make sense at all. SM: 06:51 When you arrived— EM: 06:53 [inaudible] coming— but go ahead. SM: 06:55 When you arrived in Vietnam, you are not— you have seen in women, probably in movies, and I have read in books about what it was like when you first got off the plane. First time ever in Vietnam, the… the environment, the heat, did you feel that? EM: 07:14 Actually, no, it just may not seem strange, but I just talked to a lot of people. But in getting off the plane, the only thing I can say is that the Earth felt so negative, so injured. Just, just the ground under which everybody was walking. And I bet that was exactly what I felt. Was that the earth was hurting over there. And, but I— and I really had no idea what I was getting into. And I said yes, I will do intensive care. And they said, great. And you— really none of the nurses really knew what they were getting into over there. SM: 08:04 What kind of medical unit or hospital did you work in. Real emergency room only? Or were— and were their several— EM: 08:12 So, I did intensive… intensive care, that is what I did, which is different from emergency room SM: 08:16 Right. EM: 08:18 That is after they go to surgery. And they come back, and we have to stabilize them, and then either they are sent to a ward, or they are sent to Japan. And… sometimes we would have to stabilize them before they went to surgery, if they came in, really a wreck. So, it just depended on what we got. You know? SM: 08:41 The— when did you meet Diane Carlson Evans? Who became your hooch mate? And was that rate early on or halfway through your time there how— EM: 08:55 It was first week through. And what I found was that you did not go over as a unit, a hospital unit. People were inserted, you know, people would come and go, and you form these bonds with people and then maybe four months into your being there, they would leave. And I found that several of the people that I was closest with, were going to leave about, the seventh month that I was there, but see, I am going to leave first. You go someplace else, maybe it will be better someplace else. So, I said to them, I do not care where I go, I will just go someplace. And so, they sent me to play coup, which is in the central highlands. And Diane actually had been in country six months also and she was making a switch and we arrived on the same day as the 71st evac and play coup, and both being from Minnesota we formed a wonderful bonds right away. So that was nice and lived in the same home which— SM: 10:00 And your basically— your responsibilities were the same as nurses. EM: 10:08 What do you mean by that? We are nurses. SM: 10:10 Yeah. But I mean that emerg— not emergency room nurses, but the ones that are really— EM: 10:16 Oh, you mean that? Yeah, I did intensive care there. SM: 10:20 Yes-yes. That is what I was— What— this is kind of a general question. But people that will be listening to these things or, you know, learning about the war. And so, could you describe what a typical day would have been for a nurse in Vietnam? Number of hours you worked, you know, was it consistent wound— heavily wounded people? Just a typical day. EM: 10:50 We worked 12 hours a day, six days a week, and then— these— it was from seven in the morning till seven at night or seven at night till seven in the morning. And your workload varied. For instance, one night I worked, and the other gal who was supposed to be there, they usually had two RMS on its night, had not come back from R&R yet. I guess the plane got delayed or something. And so, we could manage the amount that we had in one side of intensive care. The other side was the recovery room. With the corpsman that I had; we could handle that. But then we heard that we were getting six guys. And they were all pretty severely wounded. So, we, you know, got ready. And I had to tell one corpsman that he had to take care of everybody over on the intensive care side, let me know if anything was going on that I needed to know about, that— that I was going to have to be available for the troops coming in. And so, we received four of those six. And one of them was the captain. And he had such severe abdominal pain that he just could not, we were trying to stabilize him before he went to surgery. And he just could not make it. He went into cardiac arrest and died. But what was interesting about that was the— as the evening went on, because we heard about this, maybe eight o'clock, nine o'clock at night, you know, one— every once in a while, the corpsman that worked there with Scott [inaudible]. How is it going? [inaudible] Oh, let me help out! Priests, and almost all of them were there working. Now a lot of them had worked before, you know. And here they were putting in until everything became stabilized enough, which was maybe one or two o'clock in the morning. And then he had to come to work the next morning. But this is what everybody did. We just did the most you could for these guys who were injured. SM: 13:13 The— how many nurses overall served in Vietnam between, when the whole period was that we were over there? EM: 13:21 I think it was between eight— eight— seven and eight— and eight thousand. I do not think the thing is that they did not keep track of them. Diane, you know, ask the Pentagon for the names of the nurses who served at— the Pentagon told her no women were over there. SM: 13:41 Oh my god. EM: 13:44 Right. So, they did not keep track of the women at all. I mean, our names might have been on the list, but we were not looked at as women. SM: 13:53 Oh, my goodness now. EM: 13:55 So, there were I think between, I think around 8000 who served in the war zone? In the army anyway. Yeah. SM: 14:06 We know that— I think there is there were nine that were killed that were— their names are on the wall. And did they keep track of safe for— nurses that were injured? You know, we talked about the 58,200 and some that had died in Vietnam that are on the wall. But there is no known really record of the number of people that were injured in the war with lifelong injuries, mental hit situations and so forth. Did they keep track of any of that with the nurses? EM: 14:38 No, I do not think many nurses were injured. I know that one of the nurses was killed when they were attacked, you know, with rockets. And I think her ward was hit directly and she was killed. SM: 14:56 That was Sharon Lane, I think. EM: 14:59 Yes, yeah. SM: 15:00 Yeah. EM: 15:00 Yeah. And— but the other— it was, you know, circumstances, like one of them was on a helicopter going someplace and it got caught in wire, and the helicopter crashed. And so— and-and for injuries, I have not really heard of any nurses that were injured, the keeping track of what happened to the nurses after, they [inaudible] did not even know what to do with the females that came back. I know that there were several who went in the (19)80s, early (19)80s, for help from the VA, and there was just no help to be had. So, they put them in men's group. And the women started taking care of the man, because that is what we do. And the women got sicker and sicker. Because they were not really taking care of themselves at all. Then they started being alerted that the woman— and the woman demanded too that they receive, you know, the same good services that the men got, and slowly to me has really turned around, especially now that there are so many female soldiers that are going to need help. Because the female is going to react differently no matter what you do, than the male. I mean, the two of them can shoot the same person. And inside, they are both going to react differently. So, they really need females to just females. Females talking to males does not do it. SM: 16:43 It leads right into my next question and why Diane created or worked hard to make sure the Women's Memorial became a reality. Why did it take so long for nurses to be recognized in the war? And I interviewed Diane a long time ago, and she came to our campus and her stories were unbelievable. But Diane's effort to create the Women's Memorial where she had to go before hearings in Washington and I heard some Congresswomen or people in politics, were saying kind of bad things to her. I mean, just your thoughts— you-you have known Diane, just the whole process of how long it took for nurses to be recognized. EM: 17:25 Right, and luckily enough, they had Diane as the, you know, leader, because she is just tenacious, I mean, she will not give up. And if you cannot get it this way, she will go around another way. You know and try that way. And she, I mean, I would not have had the patience that she did, but she just kept going forward and forward and forward. And slowly and slowly. And the thing is that the man raised, you know, millions for the wall in three years. And the women it took 10 years and a lot of that had to do with the fact that Jan Scruggs fought us tooth and nail. He did not want that Women's Memorial on the Mall at all. And so, he if he had given us any kind of a plus, you know, then I think it would have helped a lot. But he was so anti that memorial. And even after it was built, he was anti that memorial. SM: 18:36 Was it just him or the people that worked with him too? EM: 18:40 I think he surrounded himself with people that were like minded. SM: 18:44 Because I know there was Jack Wheeler, who was a power broker too. He raised funds. Sadly, he was murdered in Wilmington, Delaware about 10 years ago, but— EM: 18:56 Oh my gosh! SM: 18:57 But he— I do not know if you knew that. EM: 18:59 No! SM: 19:00 Yeah, he is passed. He was— it is a long story. But, you know, he was the guy that raised a lot of the funds for the Vietnam Memorial, and, and he was really close to Jan. So, I do not know if he was that-that way as well. You know, you have known Diane, did she ever tell you the stories about her going before [inaudible] committees? EM: 19:24 Oh, yes. SM: 19:25 Yeah, I cannot believe— I saw one of them on YouTube. I could not believe how— I could not believe how they talked to her! EM: 19:32 I know. SM: 19:33 Could you— you-you have— you know, could you explain that? What was going on and how difficult it was for, not only to get the Women's Memorial off the ground and there might be the Jan Scruggs of the world that are against it, but what about those congress people? You know. EM: 19:51 Well, you know, it is interesting because back in the ‘80s, things were not different than they are now. And it was almost as if, this is-this is how I perceived what was going on, was that men were the heroes, and women just cleaned up the men. And men always got the medals and always, you know, statues of heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes. And it was not until the Women's Memorial that I think fee— people really felt— the women themselves felt that they might be heroes. Because women have never been thought of like that in the United States. As heroes they might have been thought of as exceptional or— but not heroic. And the women who went over there were pretty heroic. Because they were not made to go over, they volunteered to go over. And they put up with a lot of stuff. And they did a lot of hard work, you know, seven days a week sometimes. And for me, I never felt— thought of myself as a hero until after the Women's Memorial. And my kids were saying— my-my daughter has, you know, when-when I went to Mount Holyoke to speak, it was the first time I had ever spoken about it. My daughter was going to Mount Holyoke and there was a fellow there who taught a course on Vietnam. And he would start his course by saying you women will never know what it is like to be a poor. Well, of course, my daughter is a little feminist, called me up. And he was-he was taking a course on the (19)60s. And she asked her professor, because they had eight hours on Vietnam, he— she asked her professor if I could come and speak. And the guy must have been really brave, because he said yes. And so, it was the first time I had ever spoken about it. And I went up, and my daughter said that there were maybe 70 young women there. My daughter stands up and she says, I want to introduce my mother Edie, me. She was a nurse in Vietnam, and I am so proud of her. And— well, of course, I almost collapsed. But to me, that was the first time anybody had said that. And it was later, is— the young woman came up. You are my hero. Mrs. Meeks. I was so surprised! Because my generation did not think of women as heroes. But her generation does. SM: 23:13 Yeah, that is, well that— EM: 23:14 That is what is good about the whole thing. SM: 23:17 Yeah, what you are saying really is the boomer generation did not look at women as heroes. EM: 23:22 Right! SM: 23:23 Yeah, and it is interesting, because it was the-the women's movement was happening during the time that— yeah well at least the boomers were very young at that age. But still, it is still well, that is-that is a tremendous revelation. And you know, I have been to the Women's Memorial so many times over the years. And I have heard all the testimonies from many of the soldiers who served over there and-and I— and I have heard the constant revelation that you are heroes. You are heroes to them. And it is-and it is, you know, why were not they saying that before the Women's Memorial was built? EM: 24:04 I think they did not know to say it. Again, the women were just supposed to clean up the mess. That is what they have done in every war. SM: 24:14 Right. EM: 24:15 The nurse [inaudible] the guys back to health or whatever, you know, whether it was the revolution or whatever it was. You know. SM: 24:23 Did you— EM: 24:24 And- SM: 24:25 Go ahead EM: 24:26 Go ahead! SM: 24:27 No, you go ahead, you can finish. EM: 24:30 But to me that-that is really what it was about was that they did not think of these women as being heroic. And the women did not think of themselves as being heroic. They just thought, oh this is my job. You know, I consider a lot of women heroes, who take care of the guys who come back from war. That is difficult. These guys have changed. They are not the same people who left. Just to deal with everything is really tough. SM: 25:08 When both you and Diane came home, even before the-the idea of a wall or a memorial being built, did you and Diane talk a lot after you returned from Vietnam about how all Vietnam vets, including the nurses who served in Vietnam were treated on your return by the American public and then we Diana's is set up many times you have to about you are not welcomed home, as well as most of the people who served on the battlefields is— what was hap— EM: 25:40 We never discussed it at all. In fact, it was interesting, because after I spoke at Mount Holyoke, I called Diane and I said, oh, I did this and this and this, and the other thing. She said, do you know— realize Edie that we have known each other 23 years, and we have never discussed Vietnam? And I said, oh my God, you are right! But we never did. SM: 26:07 Did-did was Diana, and— both you and Diane feeling that you were not welcomed home? Which was very common, right up till about— EM: 26:15 Oh yes, yeah. I mean you never told anyone that you-that you were in Vietnam. In fact, when the Women's Memorial was going to be dedicated, somebody newfound out that I was a Vietnam vet and put a blurb in the newspaper, the little local newspaper. And people would stop me in the Grand Union, which was the grocery store, the local grocery store where everybody meets. And— my God, Edie, I have known you for 20 years. I never knew you were a nurse over there! SM: 26:42 Oh, my God. EM: 26:43 So, you never told anybody. And one of the reasons was— I can remember, I was in the hospital working. And this patient said to me, I heard you were in Vietnam. What was it like? And I just had to turn around and leave. I mean, there is no sound, like, that tells anyone what it was like. So, it is almost impossible to explain in 30 seconds. So, you just did not talk about it at all. SM: 27:18 Did you feel that— you know this, that post-traumatic stress disorder was pretty common among nurses just like it was among the rest of the troops? EM: 27:28 Oh, absolutely. Yep. Absolutely. SM: 27:30 Yeah, and— EM: 27:33 They were seeing things that they never would have seen in the States. And they were-they were working with people, you know. And-and hours, and seeing wounds and being rocketed, and you know, just doing things that they never would do in the United States. SM: 27:55 Why was it so difficult for many of the people who claim they had it, to keep trying to prove it to Veterans Affairs that they had at— let me mention though, I go to the wall every year, as you well know, Memorial Day and Veterans Day, I have been going since (19)93. Have not missed— I have only missed one. That was President Barack Obama's visit, because they forced everybody to the back. I did not like all that. By the way, what did you think, I am diverting here, but what did you think of that memorial, or the Remembrance Day when President Obama was there? And I remember Diane had to walk from the back to go to the stage. Do you remember that? It was a very— EM: 28:42 I guess I do not. SM: 28:43 Yeah, that is only one I could not come because you had that— the security was so tight. And all the people that were— EM: 28:47 Oh yes, I can! She was not allowed to sit close. Right-right. SM: 28:50 Yeah, no, none of the vets were— EM: 28:51 The guy [inaudible] SM: 28:52 The vets were in the back and all the politicians were up in the front! EM: 28:56 I know. I know. That is what it is all about. SM: 29:00 Yeah. And it really got to me. But post-traumatic stress disorder, why did it take so long for the Veterans Affairs to recognize the validity of the claims made by our service— people who served in Vietnam, and I sat next to a person five years ago who came from Wash— state of Washington, and he said he is still trying to get— he is still trying to get claims because he has post-traumatic stress disorder, but he does not have the right numbers. They would go by certain numbers, and he says— and here it is— and some are still battling to be recognized that they have it. EM: 29:39 Yep. Yep. I think it is money. 100 percent of its money. It also has to do with— I can remember when I first sent in, because Diane was the one that taught me into sending in for disability. So, I sent in, and they gave me 10 percent for hearing or something like that. She said now you go for 30 percent, because you have to keep going, you have to keep going. So, the 30 percent, you have to write up this whole thing. And I get back, denied. [inaudible] you just poured your heart out, you know, about what happened over there. And you are sitting here thinking I bet whoever read this, or did not read, it, never served. You know, some civilian who has never served, is making a judgment about whether you deserve disability or not. And the thing about disability is, you just have to be tenacious, you have to keep at it and keep at it and keep at it. Which is too bad because it is— not only do you feel that you have PTSD from the war, but after that whole thing, you feel like you have PTSD because of the VA. SM: 31:03 Oh my gosh. EM: 31:06 Because you are so angry at those people, for not trusting you and believing you. SM: 31:14 Yeah, I remember going to a hearing when I first moved from California, and Bob Edgar, the former congressman, was-was he was only a two-term congressman. But the fact is that he was really involved in this particular issue. And I got to know the Vietnam vets from Penn's Landing here in Philadelphia, they are building the wall. He said, go to the meetings, I just went to the meetings. And he was pleading the case that he was trying to make a pass some sort of resolution in Washington, making sure that anybody who makes a claim for post-traumatic stress disorder gets medical coverage. And so, I heard the horror stories that all these veterans are telling about, you know, having it, claiming it and then having to prove that they had and so it is a-it is a long, long story. And I want to go into here something about that I think you have talked about many times, in— and those people who were very seriously wounded and many who were dying in the war nurses were right with them, in fact, in their arms many times and that you became— nurses oftentimes became the substitute moms. Because-because they have that here is a 19, 20-year-old male dying and… and he— they— they are talking— they want to see their mom and all this other stuff, could you talk about some a few of those experiences where that might have happened with you? EM: 32:43 I do not think it has so much happened with me, but by the time they got to the intensive care unit, they had been pre stabilized. Some of them did die, because their infections were so great, or the wounds were so great. And I can-I can remember them asking for mom, or— and you would just be there. You know. And you really tell them whatever they wanted to hear. You know. I am here, I love you. The whole thing. Because you figure, you know, if that was my son, or if it was my brother, that is what I would want. I can remember, at one point, this gal called me up and she said, I am a Vietnam veteran. I was a nurse over there. And I am doing my PhD on post-traumatic stress with women veterans. Would you be one of the people I interviewed? I said, Sure. So, she came up to my house. She lives in this city, New York City. And she came up to my house, in Garretson, a couple of times. And then the third time she came with the final thesis. And that was the time when she started talking about herself. She never talked about herself before. And I said is there anyone that you remember that you cannot get out of your head? And she said, I remember during test. This one young man who had been— they said that he was just so injured, they did not… could not waste the time operated on him, you know, would have taken too long, and they had too many other urgent cases to do. So, they pushed him to the side. And every time she passed him, he would say, is it my turn next? And she [inaudible] to take out, it will be just— not too long now. Not too long. And every time, she said, I always wondered if in doing that I prolonged his life. Because I gave him hope, because he did die. And I said to her, your mother, what would you want for your kid? You would want somebody to recognize them. And to be kind to them. And to love them by saying, your next, your next. And then he can just go to sleep quietly. So, it is that famous thing that-that stayed with you. SM: 35:43 Yeah, you spoke at the Vietnam Memorial this past Memorial Day. It was a fantastic presentation, number one. And number two, I think you mentioned about one particular soldier that had died, are there— you— that you had connected with some of them who had passed away? Could you-could you talk a little bit about maybe one or two of the-the soldiers that you will never forget? EM: 36:09 The one that-that kept bothering me when I was not paying attention to PS— PTSD or anything, but that would pop up in my head was this young man from Kansas, from a farm in Kansas. And he had a really bad abdominal wall that had a terrible infection, and we just could not get ahead of that infection. We did not have the antibiotics that we have today, for one thing. And you— If I remember really, he was nineteen. And he got a letter from his mom, and he asked me to read it. So, I did. And his mom was telling about his dad coming in from— it was in October. Hunting, [inaudible] cornfield with the family dog and… and I used to do that with my family down in my Uncle Albert’s farm in Southern Minnesota. And then the mom told me a little bit about what was happening in the community. And at the very end, she said, besides that she loved him, we are so proud of you, son. And like, three days later, he died. And the thing was that you could not tell the parents anything. You know, I would have loved to have written letters to some of these parents, and say your son was so heroic in the way he died. And, you know, such a good kid. But you could not write anybody. You were not allowed. SM: 37:44 Wow. When you returned home, did any of the… soldiers that you had help save or in intensive care, did they ever try to contact you to thank you for helping them? EM: 38:02 No, and I have a feeling that it is because most of them were pretty out of it when they were with us in the intensive care unit. You know, we were not a stabilizing force. And if you were really, really bad we would— you had your surgery, we stabilize you until you could be shipped to Japan. And then they would form relationships with those gals. You know that? The only one that I really remember that we heard from actually that wrote us a letter was a young man who came into the emergency area. And his heart had been nicked with a boarder shrapnel or something. And they often did ‘EM: up right there and fixed it and… then he came to us. He was with us for about two weeks. And he was there over Christmas. And then he was shipped to Japan. And he wrote us back from Walter Reed and he said I am doing fine. But that was the only one we ever heard from. I do not think a lot of them knew where they were, you know, because they were either, if they were really bad off, they had a lot of narcotics to keep the pain down. Or just— SM: 39:19 Well, that is kind of what— that is kind of what the Women's Memorial has done. Because it is brought many people to verify the experiences they had with nurses and to thank them. I have seen, you know, the programs you have in the morning and the afternoon, and it is… Over the years, there is just so many, and you see the connection between the nurse and the person that they have served, they waited on, helped. EM: 39:48 Right. SM: 39:49 And that-that— EM: 39:50 It also— It also helped me quite a bit. I remember one time I was down there, because I used to go every Memorial Day and Veterans Day, and I was down there to answer questions or talk to people. And [inaudible] had a patch over one arm. And it was his first time down at the wall and on this memorial, and… So, we started chatting, and he was from New Jersey and… and I— he said, well, where were you stationed? I said Third Field Hospital, he said, I went through there! Now, we did not have a neurosurgeon. So, if you had a head injury, you were shipped out right away. But they stabilized him in the emergency area, and then shipped him out to Japan, because he did have a head injury. And with a lot of head injuries, when you saw these guys, you think, I do not know if we are doing them a favor. But here was this fellow, he had lost his eye. But he had his own business, he has three girls, three daughters. You know, he lived a good life. And I said, thank you for being here. Because some of the patients that we had, I used to think, are we doing them a favor? And it is nice to see that those you know, we worked so hard for actually did have a good life. SM: 41:17 Good. Very good. That is, that is unbelievable. That is a great story. And I honestly, you were working these unbelievable hours, six days a week, 12, 12 hours? Where did you go for rest and relaxation? Did you have opportunities for— what was R&R to you? And how often were you allowed to have it. EM: 41:42 We had art, we were allowed two [inaudible]. And the first one I took with my roommate from Saigon. And we went to Hong Kong. Now this was toward the end of— I think it was the beginning of December that we went. And, you have to remember this is like five months with no shopping. SM: 42:09 Ha-ha, oh no! EM: 42:10 Honestly, you felt like throwing your money on the street and saying give me anything! 42:15 [laughter] EM: 42:25 [inaudible] really interesting. We had our hair done, you know, [inaudible], and bought presents for home, that kind of thing. The better one I took with Diane, and we went to Thailand, to Bangkok. And that was interesting because you take a boat up the river and see the— but again, it was so surreal that you would leave these guys who kept coming in and kept coming in, whether I was there or not, you know? And you go and vacation! And then you back! And I thought it must be even more bizarre for these guys who are in the field, who leave for R&R and then come back and then they are in the field again. You know, it is, it is such— it was such a bizarre thing. But interesting. I got to go to Hong Kong and Bangkok! So… SM: 43:22 Those are— with— now— remember I asked you a question how you felt that first time you got off the plane when you landed in Vietnam. And I am now asking the question of when you are leaving. When did you return— when-when did you return home? And could you describe your last few days what you were thinking in your final day, getting on the plane, and flying back? What were you thinking about? And how did it differ from your feelings when you arrived in Vietnam? EM: 43:56 Planning to leave, you almost felt like you needed to re-up for another year. Because you felt like you had not finished. I mean, you could not finish, you know. And you— I really had to make myself go home. But, in just in this last July, because I went home in July. And it was the 50th anniversary of the person landing on the moon. The night before I left Vietnam, they landed on the moon. And I happened to be in I think it was Cameron Bay waiting for the flight the next morning. Or wherever it was, I cannot even remember where it was that I flew out, but it was not the hospital. And somebody came out of the officer's mess and said oh, come you have to see this! They are landing on the moon! And I said why would I want to see that? That is nothing. Guys are dying over here. Why aren't people paying attention? To me, the landing on the Moon was nothing. And for years, I could not watch that. There was nothing. People should have been paying attention to all those young men that were dying. SM: 45:21 Yeah, that was 19— EM: 45:22 That was how I felt about it. SM: 45:24 That was 1969! EM: 45:26 Yeah, yeah, that is when I left. SM: 45:30 Wow. How long did it take for you to adjust back into society after you returned home? And I am not talking about— I am not going to the general perception that everybody was not welcomed home. But did your family and friends react differently and welcome you home? Or were you welcome home by people that you knew before you left? Or was there kind of, a kind of a silence from them? Or a fear— EM: 45:56 Well, you were welcomed home as if you did not wait to come. You know, you were— because they knew— did not have any idea what you have just gone through. Say, you know, oh, this is wonderful, you are home! And you know, everybody comes and gives you a gift. But it is like a welcome home like you were away any place, for any reason. So, it really did not have anything to do with being in Vietnam. It had to do with this— oh, and then they would never ask! SM: 46:38 How long— EM: 46:39 They-they— SM: 46:40 Go ahead. No, you go ahead. You can finish up. EM: 46:42 So, they— they, they had no idea what it was like and in a way, it was easier that way because there is no way to explain it to them. How horrible it was. SM: 46:56 Were there movies that that you have seen since you came home that said this is really what happened over there? I know that one movie that touched a lot of people was Coming Home, the one with Jon Voight and Jane Fonda. EM: 47:15 Oh, yes. Yeah. I saw that, and it was a wonderful movie. The movie that impressed me the most and— and I did not see any of the other war movies [inaudible] from Vietnam. The only one I did see, and it was years later, was Apocalypse Now. SM: 47:32 Yeah. EM: 47:34 And I said, I do not know, you know, somebody asked me about it, I said, I do not know if, you know, what happened. Really happened. But I am telling you that the feeling of insanity and weirdness and craziness and other worlds was absolutely right. SM: 47:58 Yes. EM: 47:59 They got the feeling of [inaudible], perfectly. And that war. SM: 48:04 Francis Ford Coppola was the producer of that movie. EM: 48:09 Right. SM: 48:10 Yeah. And I agree. I know one person that I interviewed, I re-interviewed Bobby Mueller this past Monday. And he, he had mentioned to me that the movie that he thought was really— [inaudible] was really like over there was Full Metal Jacket? EM: 48:30 Ah, yeah-yeah, I have heard that. SM: 48:32 So that is the one that he said, if you want to really understand about what happened to the guys over there, you watch that movie. When you came home, did you go right back as a nurse, or did you have a break in between before you went back to being a nurse? EM: 48:49 Well actually, talk about insanity, the guy that I told I could not date anymore, when I went to play coup. He started calling me. He was still in Saigon. But he started calling me. And we talked every night. Because of the job that he did, he had the ability to get a telephone and use it anytime he wanted, I guess. And so, as if in talking to him, it kind of saved my sanity. I did not have to date him. I did not have to go anywhere. But we just talked. And when I got back— he got out of the service before I did. I still had six months actually after I got out, after I came back. And I had a month off and then I went to Madigan General at— in Tacoma, Washington. And that was… the hospital for Fort Lewis, which was a huge basic training fort. And it was not until years and years later, that it dawned on me— you know, I thought, oh, well, of course, I will do intensive care nursing! I am used to that! That is the thing, you see I must have been crazy! But [inaudible] so you get there, and you are dealing with things that are totally different. But, to me, just as horrifying, and I did not realize that until later. Some of the things that were horrifying was that kids would come in with meningitis and die. They would die. And he had just been into basic training! And the parents would come. And they are saying to themselves, we just set this kid off to basic training. But because there was no vaccine or anything back then. You know, you just had to hope that the sergeant would pick up on it and send the kid to, you know, to get help. But sometimes the charities would say, just suck it up. [inaudible], you know, and by that time, they would come to us, the meningitis was so bad that we could not get ahead of it. SM: 51:06 Well, after Vietnam, of course, you got involved with Diane and the creation of the Women's Vietnam memorial that opened tonight and opened in 1993. And I know you have been involved in so many other projects, like the one you are involved in now with a purple heart. And could you describe those years? I know you were on the board, too, with Diane, I believe, could you describe those years of being with Diane and the battles in— kind of put it all together in terms of the initial first meetings to in the opening of the memorial in (19)93. I mean, just from your perspective, because you were on the board, and you were a close friend of Diane's. So, because people who are people who are going to be listening to this will probably many of them will have already visited the Vietnam Memorial and making sure that they visit the Women's Memorial as well. And it was not easy getting it. And that, that the only reason it is there is because of the tenacity, and the drive of people like Diane and yourself that makes sure that women were presented. So just your thoughts. EM: 52:16 Well, Diane was persistent. I did not— she would call me, and she would say we need somebody on the East Coast. Then I would say call somebody else, I do not-I do not know how you can talk about this. I cannot talk about it then. And it was not until up maybe a year and a half before— the dedication, that she called me she said, we really need people on the East Coast to talk about this, would you, do it? And I thought about it, I said, I will do it under one condition that I can stop anytime I want. Or if he asked me a question that I do not like, I do not have to answer it. And she said, great. So, I started talking to people. And the first time again that I talked in front of-in front of a group of people was Mount Holyoke. And what really happened with me being on the board was after the dedication of the memorial, I decided that I was going to go every Memorial Day and every Veterans Day to see Diane. And the second time we were there, I think it was second or third year. There were some people who were pretty rude to her. And she told me about it later. And I said, well, that is it. Diane, I am going to be there every time with you and just follow you around and watch your back. And nobody is going to speak to you like that ever again. Okay, so that is really what I did. We were just— we stuck together. And I was not going to let anybody abuse her ever again. And one year, I went down there, and she came in, she said, well, you are on the board. And I said I am? She said, yeah, I figured it was coming down, you might as well be on the board anyway. So, I said, okay, whatever you want. I also backed her up on the board because sometimes we would have problems with people who have their own agenda. And so, I would just backer with whatever Diane felt was right. SM: 54:47 Do you ever yourself have flashbacks, remembering those times in Vietnam. You could be in a mall or you are at-you are up at a fairground and you hear a helicopter flying in or— EM: 55:03 Oh, yeah, those are—or fireworks. Forget it, you know? I remember when I was asked to speak at the dedication of the Huey helicopter at the Smithsonian. SM: 55:22 Oh, wow. EM: 55:23 And it was the first time that any aircraft had flown over the mall since 9/11. So, I said, oh, sure! You know, you are gawking this thing like an idiot. And I— actually in my speech, I talked about the sound. But then, the helicopter comes, we are all standing outside. The helicopter comes in, it flies by. And it is not supposed to fly over the Vietnam Memorial, because they said so, well, of course, being Vietnam vets, all those guys did, you know. So, they flew down to the Vietnam Memorial, flew over it, and then flew back. And again, it was that hearing it before you saw it. And you could hear that. And then it slowly came into view, and then it landed and all these guys in fatigues got out. And I thought, I mean, I was like in shock. And then I had to speak. So, I spoke, and after the captain came up to me up the helicopter, and he said, have you been inside a Huey in Vietnam? I said, no. He said, would you like to? I said, no, I do not even want to get near it! He said, okay, sorry. So, he just tuck my hand, my arm under his. And we slowly were chatting, he was chatting with this person and that person, and he slowly walks to the door of the Smithsonian and then we walk through the door. Slowly we walk towards the helicopter. And we walked up to it. And he said, would you like to touch it? And he gave me the right to say no. Which I love. But I did. I touched it. And it was, it was extremely moving. I was supposed to be at a reception that night. And I said to them, I have to go home. I have to leave. So, I got my turn. I drove back to New York. It was really overwhelming. SM: 57:56 I never served in Vietnam yet when I come there every year to Memorial Day and Veterans Day as they are clearing out the area making sure there is no bombs, you know, the dogs that they bring down in there. They have this help. They have this helicopter flying overhead during that 12 to one o'clock timeframe, you know, when they are making sure everything is okay from before the ceremony starts. To me, I am not a Vietnam veteran, but that bugs the heck out of me, wondering if that is bugging of the veterans themselves, because of that-that sound, it is that sound— EM: 58:33 If it was a Huey helicopter, it would because it has— the Huey has a distinctive sound. SM: 58:39 Okay. EM: 58:40 A very distinctive sound. And so that would trigger a lot, I think. SM: 58:46 Yeah. EM: 58:47 You say helicopter, helicopter. You know, not so much. SM: 58:50 Yes, you know it is a— EM: 58:51 The thing that I thought was odd was I went to the dedication of the South Dakota Vietnam memorial. They asked someone to come from the Women's Memorial to be present. I said, okay. And after the ceremony, they had all these fireworks in the middle of the day. I thought, are these people insane? SM: 59:16 My gosh. EM: 59:17 Who thought of fireworks? I mean, I cannot stand fireworks to this day, SM: 59:21 Right. What do all Vietnam nurses have in common in your view, and at the same time, where do they most differ? When relating to the time they were in Vietnam? EM: 59:43 Oh, well, you know what I could say about having in common because everybody's experience is different. If you are on a malaria ward, you are experienced would be different from mine in an intensive care unit, or triage, or-or, or… And also, the war was different in different times. I remember a friend of my daughter’s; he is a dentist. And he went to Vietnam, I think it was 1966. It was early anyway. And he said, oh, would you like to come over and see the pictures that I took over there? I asked how on earth can he, you know, see more pictures of this? But they went as a unit to set up a hospital, which was fine. Nobody else did that after that. And the war was not really raging. (19)68, (19)69 there was a lot of fighting. (19)70 to (19)71, not so much fighting, but a lot of drugs. And the guys would come in with drug overdoses. So, it was different kinds of nursing at different times. Over there. SM: 1:01:19 Right. If you had to do it all over again, would you go back? If you were younger? EM: 1:01:26 Oh yeah. SM: 1:01:27 You would? EM: 1:01:28 Yeah. SM: 1:01:29 Have you returned— EM: 1:01:31 In fact, every nurse, I have talked to has said, in a minute. You know, if it all happened again, and would you say yes, and everyone said, yes, I would go. SM: 1:01:43 Have you returned— EM: 1:01:44 And even thought it was traumatizing and life changing, it was worth it. SM: 1:01:48 Right. Have you returned to Vietnam? EM: 1:01:52 No, and I will never go. And that is just me. You know, I remember when my daughter came to me, she said, mom I am going to Vietnam for vacations! I was like what!? A friend of hers was working over in Hanoi. And so, she is like, come on over! You know, go around. And she said, is there any place, you know, that is special that you want me to stop, and see? I said, no, just bring back new memories. SM: 1:02:27 Yeah, I think it is one of the number— one of the top honeymoon places in the world. EM: 1:02:34 Well, it is less expensive than a lot of places. I know that. So, I think that— SM: 1:02:37 Right. Yeah, I know somebody who went on their honeymoon over there. And they said it was it was unbelievable how beautiful the country is. EM: 1:02:46 Yes, yeah. That is what my daughter said too. That it is really [inaudible]. She said also, now this was, oh, gosh. Late (19)90s, I think that she went, and she said, and everybody was so friendly. But she said, but 50 percent of the population was not born— SM: 1:03:08 Yeah, that is true. EM: 1:03:09 —you know, then. So, none of them know what they have— what everybody went through. SM: 1:03:16 This— I am going into a section here now where I am just asking questions about the war. Your thoughts on the war? Did you support America’s involvement in the war as a nurse? And how about right after you returned home from the war? It has been many years later, do you support the war effort? And was it— or do you feel it was a mistake overall? You know, I have also wondered, when I see veterans, you know, their thoughts on the antiwar movement and those who were protesting at home, whether they— you were aware that what was going on at home with on the campuses and in the streets of America, all the protests. I know I threw out a lot there, but just your thoughts on the war overall. EM: 1:04:00 Well, first of all, my brother Charles, the youngest brother, he was arrested for protesting. And somebody said to me, well, how did you feel about that? And I said, well, I knew that my brother loves me, but he hated the war. And he was draft eligible, and he said, if he had been drafted, he would have gone. But he really felt that his duty was to protest the war. Personally, I feel that if the war had not been protested, we would still be there fighting and wasting lives. And I when I went over, I had no feeling one way or another about the war. You know I was just there to help. But I— and I went— the end of July, by the end— by October, I was so filled with rage and anger against our government and against the army, that I just had to really stomp it down. That was part of that— just kind of, you had to do away with your emotions, you know. I mean, we were not allowed to mourn the guys that we lost. Because we did not have time for one thing. You know, you were not allowed to say how angry you were at the army for wasting these guys. Because they felt like you were just sending them out there, only out there who cares? You know, let us send more numbers out there, and then we will win. Well, that is not how it works. And because we were the nurses that took care of them, we knew that these were not just numbers. These were sons, somebody's son, somebody's brother, somebody's, you know, lover, somebody's husband, somebody's father. And that is why when the Iraq war started, my PTSD went wild. And I was talking to my psychiatrist about it. And he said, the reason why it is affecting you so much because— channel 15, the public station that we have, would show pictures of each of the guys that was— or girls, that were killed. And he said, people look at those, and they are just faces and they are numbers. You look at them and you know, they are people because you have seen that before. So, for you, they are all very personal. And that is why it is so difficult for you. SM: 1:06:44 Were you, you know, not only were you having emotional issues with the men and who are dying in the battles, are dying in the hospitals. But how about the citizenry of Vietnam, a lot of the antiwar movement was involved in wanting to bring the boys home, so that they— we would not have any more death. And secondly, against all the massive killing of the Vietnamese citizens. With saturated bombing all over the place, the numbers game, you know, killing, they were even keeping track of the amount of animals that they were killing. They are, they are doing anything to build up numbers. And at least we do not do that today, at least I hope we do not in the saturated bombings when we are in the Middle East. But your— did— were you-were you sensitive enough to know what was going on to the Vietnamese people, too? EM: 1:07:45 I think at the time, you are so concerned about your own people, that you could care less. Whether they are Vietnamese, whether they were suffering [inaudible], you could care less about, you know, because you are caring for your guys. And the fact that these poor guys should not be here in the first place. And it was— one of the things that I became very cynical when I was over there was the fact that when there is war, and this has proved out to be true in Iraq, the first thing you should look at is who is making the money. And the problem: with that is that you are making the money on the lives of citizens. You know, these are not hired thugs that you hired for your army. These are citizen soldiers. That have gone because their country has asked them to. And to use them up so somebody can make money, to me, is the most appalling thing in the world. SM: 1:09:02 That is prophetic. Prophetic, not pathetic, prophetic. Because I think, because I think Bobby has said that— Bobby Mueller has said the same thing. In some of his deep thoughts about war. EM: 1:09:19 Yeah. Follow the money. SM: 10:09:21 Yeah. And yep, he is always following the money. When John Kerry went before the Fulbright Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee. A lot of people— Vietnam Veterans Against the War he represented, and in the description of the atrocities that took place in Vietnam, not only the atrocities that were being committed by our troops, but some of the descriptions of what was actually happening in there. Were you aware of that? Were you aware of some of these— EM: 1:09:56 You know, it is kind of like with My Lai. When My Lai happened, and they publicized it, I thought to myself, I can totally understand why that happened. These guys were all young, really young. They were not like— I guess the average age during World War Two was 26. These guys were 18 and 19! And they were marked by somebody who was 21! And they did not have much leadership over there. Everybody was passing the buck. And to me, to be put out in the field, to be afraid, day after day after day, for your life. To not trust anyone. You never do. I mean, that was true, in Saigon they told us do not kick the cans, when you are walking down the street, you see a can, do not kick it. Could have an explosive in it. And you never knew. Because they did not wear uniforms. It was not like, oh, here is the enemy and there is not. You know, we had— I remember we had a desk clerk who worked with us in the intensive care unit. And one morning, he was not there. And I said, well, what happened to so and so? Oh, he was killed last night, he was VC. We never knew that! SM: 1:11:31 Oh, my gosh. Sheesh. EM: 1:11:35 And so, you just did not know who your enemy was. And you could get crazy up there. It is kind of like when my daughter went with me for the dedication. And she came back to the room. She said, Mom, your guys down at the [inaudible] wearing their uniforms. What is with that? And I said, Gwyneth, your brother is now 19. The most he has ever done, in the wild, is to float down the Delaware with the Boy Scout troop. Think of him being put into basic training, and then dropped in the middle of the jungle, and living in fear, for a year. He would come back a different person. SM: 1:12:26 When the Vietnam Veterans formed that organization, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, I think it was around the time you came home, although they were at the 1970 Republican convention. I know Bobby was in that group. What did you think of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War because they were throwing their— this is right about the time that John Kerry did the presentation before the Foreign Relations Committee. They threw their-their medals away. EM: 1:12:59 Yeah. SM: 1:13:00 What did you think of— what do you think the majority of the Vietnam Veterans thought of this group in the beginning, even though that more and more were joining as the years went on, and what did the nurses think? You in particular? EM: 1:13:15 I do not— for me, I was all for it. Because I was totally against that war. I thought it was a useless war, that we were just throwing our young men away. For no reason. Because they were not allowing them to win the war. I mean, we had rules. And the Viet— they— Vietcong had no rules. They could do whatever they want. And so, we were— they said to us, and if you break those rules, it is against the law, you know, and you will be prosecuted. Well, none of the North Vietnamese were prosecuted for any of those things. And they did whatever they needed to do to win. I think that is just sad as it is, I did not— the only episode I have watched of the Ken Burns Vietnam thing with the first one, because I knew it would be about history. And the sad thing to me is that we turned Ho Chi Minh away when he came for help. SM: 1:14:27 That is right. EM: 1:14:28 He came to us first and said, we want to have a united country. SM: 1:14:37 Yes, I— EM: 1:14:38 And what a sad thing that is, you know? SM: 1:14:41 He was just a figurehead really. At the end of the war, he-he really had no impact. He was just a figurehead and of course eventually died before the war ended. But, that whole thing about Harry Truman had got a letter after World War II from Ho Chi Minh saying how much he admired Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence and then the story was we just gotten over a terrible war and Truman did not want to [inaudible] linked with another conflict someplace else. So, he just kind of avoided Ho Chi Minh. Boy, if Harry Truman had responded in friendship to Ho Chi Minh my golly— EM: 1:15:19 I know. SM: 1:15:20 I mean this never would have happened. History is amazing. When you are— when you think about Diane— we brought up Jan Scruggs and Jack Wheeler were— and I think, Bob Lubeck, or Dewback. Were the three men that were— really created the Vietnam Memorial, as an idea. Were you at the 1982 opening of the wall? EM: 1:15:39 No, I would not have gone for anything. I was still, for me, it was still too, too raw. I was [inaudible] SM: 1:15:53 Because it, you know, they got the documentary on that, that particular day. And oh, my golly, it is like everything changed on that day in terms of the views toward Vietnam veterans. The feeling of that they felt proud of what, you know, the brotherhood was amazing. And I am sure the sisterhood with nurses was amazing. It was just like a coming together, and kind of changed, for the better, the views of America and towards those who served in Vietnam, and in the remembrance, events have been there ever since I believe I know. Jan was the moderator for many years. Diane, in the Women's Memorial, she represented for quite a few years, your thoughts on the Vietnam Memorial, the battle to get the memorial in the first place? And then finally, here with Jan wrote his first book was the— To Heal a Nation. And we know that the effort was to heal the families of Vietnam vets and those who died and so forth. But it is a lot— it is a big question here. But your thoughts on that whole battle too, which eventually led to the Women's Memorial, being on the wall, even Jan [inaudible] may have opposed it. I mean, everything comes with a battle. EM: 1:17:10 Right, right, right. Well, everything does come, you know, with a battle. And I think— I bet the battle people never served. And that is the key is that these people never served. Those are the ones that are saying no. And that is why I think somebody mentioned the other day, everybody should do some kind of service. You know, whether it is in country or, you know, no matter what it is, you could do some kind of service for their country for a year or two. And I totally believe that. SM: 1:17:57 I do too. And— EM: 1:18:01 And then when the veterans calm, they would have some kind of— I mean, here are people who— their big thing in Congress or the Senate has been making money. And they just consider veterans parasites. You know, they use them when they want to make more money with a war. But then after they are parasites. SM: 1:18:32 Did the wall help heal our nation from that war? And because I still, I guess, I guess me, some people say I am obsessed with Vietnam and just move on. We are in 2019 now, but I see so many from lessons that we learn and then lessons that we have learned and lost. And I think it is healed a lot of the Vietnam vets. But— EM: 1:19:00 Yes, yeah. SM: 1:19:01 How about the need— how about the nation? Those are— because the divisions were so intense back then. EM: 1:19:11 And actually, for my generation, sometimes it still is. There is still some people that I cannot discuss it with. You know, that, and that is okay. As long as I know that I just will not discuss it with them. But I know what I know. And, but the thing is about that war, and the healing to me would be if they have learned something, right. And when the first George Bush said, oh, we are going into Kuwait to help the people. I said, they are lying to us again, they are going in there for the oil! If you just tell us the truth, and that was the biggest thing for me was that they lied all the time, about Vietnam. All the time. They lied why we are there. They lied, you know, about the numbers. They lied about getting out. SM: 1:20:12 Yeah, it was George Bush. It was George Bush who said the Vietnam syndrome is over. Remember, he said that in 1989? And I thought that I do not think he knows what he is talking about. EM: 1:20:25 Right? He does not. Yeah. SM: 1:20:27 Yeah. So, this— you— what you just said, there it goes right into this next question is, as time goes on, why must we must, why must we never forget the Vietnam War? And the lessons learned or lost from that war? Why is it important to remember rather than being, just then being a lost footnote in history, which seems to be all events had happened in history. 120 years should now like we are talking about the Civil War and reading all the books, while we are doing the same thing about the Vietnam War. But— EM: 1:21:03 I think the biggest thing that the American people, at least some of them, learned from the Vietnam War was to question the government. And to say, wait a second, is this really real? You know, because the government, again, is going to do whatever it wants. But it is actually the people that say, I beg your pardon? You know, and that is one of the reasons, for me, sending people over there. 345 tours over to Iraq, and Afghanistan is cruel and unusual punishment. If you do that, you should be giving them $100,000 a year when they retire. And every medical benefits they need, but they do not. They give them a hard time. And if you are injured, sick, they give them a hard time. And to me the torture that these people have had to go through. I mean, we had to go for a year. It is true, now their tour, I think is six months or something. But we have to go for a year. And what happens is… your mind gets twisted, but then you go back a second time. Pretty soon, it feels comfortable. Because you are used to the adrenaline and the camaraderie and all that— when you come home, it is even harder. And then you come back, and you are supposed to be normal! That is the thing. They are going to expect you to be normal. Nobody is normal! I think that the biggest thing about Vietnam is, question the government, always question the government, because there are people in the government who are not there for the good of the people. SM: 1:23:00 Do you consider— EM: 1:23:02 They are there for good of themselves. SM: 1:23:05 Yeah, I always say that the people that serve this nation, in the military, are our heroes, because they put their lives on the line. And I will always believe that. There is a bad, but there is bad within every group. But the majority of them are heroes. But I go a step further here. I also feel that those who are in the anti-war movement in the United States, and then even other parts of the world too that were genuinely, I mean, genuine, honestly, not to just create, you know, controversy and problems and everything. The [inaudible] were generally against the war because they wanted to bring our troops home, so no more of them would be killed, and certainly to say the Vietnamese citizens, I consider them heroes too. EM: 1:23:48 Right. Oh absolutely, absolutely. SM: 1:23:51 Yeah, and so— and I have said this to Randy Davis, who I have gotten to know quite well, who was one of the biggest activists in America at that time. He did— he was the organizer of the moratorium. And, and he says, well, thanks, Steve. But I really believe that because they— a lot of them were arrested, they were spied on they have, you know, there is just, it is just a case that if they were genuinely caring about the lives of our troops, and the people of Vietnam, and that is what— but if they are only doing it to raise hell. I am not speaking of them. So, do you feel the same way too? EM: 1:24:28 Oh, absolutely. In fact, the money that I send these days is to Veterans for Peace. SM: 1:24:35 Oh, yes. EM: 1:24:36 And to vote vets, who— finance veterans who are running for office SM: 1:24:46 Yeah, I kind of wish John McCain was still with us. Because no matter what you thought about him, I do not care whether he is Republican or Democrat man. He was outspoken, and we miss him in Congress, believe me, we miss him? EM: 1:25:01 Yeah, I know. SM: 1:25:02 When you— I am— EM: 1:25:04 It is really— it is such a shame because you are looking at the-the Republicans in Congress and you say to yourself, none of them speak up, what is wrong with them? You know, when verbal abuse is happening or bullying is happening or whatever, I cannot get over that, but none of them speak up. SM: 1:25:25 Yeah, it is you know, that whole term when we call about a politician or a statesman or stateswoman, we do not have, we do not have enough of them. And today— EM: 1:25:37 I know. SM: 1:25:38 And that bugs me. When I think of the (19)60s, I think of, you know, whether you liked the senators or not, I think of Edwin Muskie, I think of Gaylord Nelson. I know, William Fulbright, early in his years was a bigot. We know that when he was in Arkansas, but he was a hell of a senator. I am talking about statesman now, even the Kennedys, and Dr. King who was a— it is just a different— it is just something— there is something missing. When you when you think of the 1960s and (19)70s. What is the first thing that comes to your mind? EM: 1:26:14 Oh, boy. I think Vietnam. It was [inaudible], it was interesting, because when my daughter had asked me to speak, and she said she was taking a course on the (19)60s and I said, is that history already? I could not believe it! She said, mom, that was one of the most amazing decades in the history of the United States. And I never thought of it that way. But it is true. You know, with Martin Luther King and Kennedy and all of these people. So many changes, you know, even just women's [inaudible] coming true You know, and then the early (19)70s, then they finally made birth control legal. Which, I am sure that the young people today are just amazed that it ever was illegal. SM: 1:27:19 Yeah, is there one particular event in the (19)60s and (19)70s, that stands out above all the others in your view? EM: 1:27:35 There were just so many of them. The one that popped into my head, I do not think this was the most, you know, traumatic one, but was the one where the Russian ships were going to deliver something to Cuba. I was in nursing school at the time. And they put everyone on alert. And that if something happened, everybody would be high stepping notch in what they would have to do. Because they would have— who knows what would happen? You know if we had to go to war with Cuba or Russia. You know that to me was a real surprise. That— SM: 1:28:25 That was that was the (19)62, yeah that was the (19)62 Cuban Missile Crisis. EM: 1:28:32 Right-right. SM: 1:28:35 And now history has shown we were lucky to have JFK is our president. No question about it. EM: 1:28:41 Yes, yeah. SM: 1:28:44 It has been said that what made the (19)60s and (19)70s was the spirit of the times of feeling that everything was possible about the about once future that we were going to end the war, bring peace to the world. And racism, sexism, homophobia. There was it was just a feeling. Your thoughts on the concept that the (19)60s was about spirit? And please do not— my phone is ringing. Do not worry about that. EM: 1:29:24 I think it has to do with a lot of different things. The (19)50s were what I would call very controlled. You know, being a Catholic in the (19)50s its church was extremely controlling then. Really, you know, I— it is the kind of thing where I tell people when I was in grade school and they taught about, you know, “Thou shalt not steal,” they told us that if you steal $7 or more, it is a mortal sin. If you steal less than that it is a menial sin. So, it was that kind of thing where everybody needed to know what the rule was. And I said, but nobody ever said, you do not steal because it is not nice, and it hurts people. And it does not belong to you. Nobody ever said that. It was about the punishment. I told that to somebody who was there when I went to New York. She said, oh my God in New York was $12! SM: 1:30:28 I never heard this! Wow that is... EM: 1:30:31 Yeah. But I think it is because we were so controlled. Remember, Donna Reed? SM: 1:30:39 Oh, yeah, The Donna Reed Show. Yes. EM: 1:30:40 Perfect housewife, the perfect this, the perfect that. And then the (19)60s came and it was like, you know, we do not want this. We want real, not perfect. I [inaudible] now I do not remember this too much. But I remember going through that whole era where they persecuted Hollywood, you know, communists. What was his name? SM: 1:31:15 McCarthy era? EM: 1:31:16 Yes. The McCarthy era. I think that-that really wrapped around somebody— some people's heads too, you know, that this was not what we want in our country. We want freedom, we want openness. And I think that is really what, you know, the people were saying that this— because I can remember I was in California 1967. Everybody was doing everything. And the thought process was anything you believe is fine. Which for me was great, because it really opened a lot of doors as to what I wanted. And a God and what I wanted in a belief, which really held me through Vietnam. SM: 1:32:05 Right. You know, we— took mentioned The Donna Reed Show, there was Father Knows Best too that was, that was very popular— The Danny Thomas show and all those shows about families that went right into the early (19)60s as well. And then began the early (19)70s with All in the Family. Archie Bunker and oh, wow. Anyways, what was the watershed event in the (19)60s in your view? Might be repeated the further earlier question, but I hear from a lot of people that— might remember Paul Critchlow? You know, Paul, I interviewed as well, he is unbelievable. And he said he went into the service to go to Vietnam because he felt I had to be involved in the watershed event of my generation, which was the Vietnam War, and, you know, Paul could have gone on to grad school, you know. And they came in he, he was at Nebraska and, and of course, he was treated poorly when he returned home to Nebraska too. So, yeah, and a watershed is something that I have always heard as a history major is it is what is the event that really that stands out in the (19)60s and (19)70s. It can be something that happened one day, or it could be what you just described your— earlier the Vietnam War too EM: 1:33:50 I do not think that there was a watershed thing for me. I think that— because there just kept being one huge thing after another, you know, a death here and then another death, and then another death. You know, people kept selling off the good guys. And you are saying to yourself, how come nobody ever shoots the bad guys? But— and then Vietnam, and I think the whole, that whole decade is, especially the second half of that decade, was huge for me. SM: 1:34:35 At here at Binghamton University, I have tried to persuade the people I work with here on the new center, that when we talk about the (19)60s we are talking really up to 1973. I— you know, what happened from 1960 to (19)73. You had the Kennedy assassination, obviously, ending— although really the beginning of the first half of the (19)60s. And then you have got, as some people have said, all hell broke loose after (19)63 Right through (19)73. Because you know what happened in (19)70. And then (19)71, and (19)72, and (19)73 was really almost again, part of the (19)60s. And then all of a sudden things change. And by (19)75, it was no more because the commune movement and everything, the rise of the radical right in the religious community, and there is a whole lot happening. But anyways. EM: 1:35:35 But also, Nixon was— Nixon left. And then after he left, war was finally ended. He was elected to end the war. But he liked Johnson. Why? Because I can remember Jackson was saying, oh, no, we are not going to—this was during the election kind of thing—we are not going to spend any more troops over there. And then of course, he did. SM: 1:36:08 Yeah, it was, it was just so many different lies. I remember the first lie to me, and I was very young, was the U-2 crisis with Eisenhower, where he went on national— when he went on the national television in 1959, and said the guy was not a spy over Russia. Very obvious he was lying. And, you know, I do not— I am not going to, you know, that is the one time I disliked him. But, you know, I remember that as a specific lie in front of the American public about it about the U-2, Gary Powers. And then we start the whole thing going into Vietnam. So, it is kind of— the Boomers were kind of— saw it over and over again, if you could describe the youth of the (19)60s and early (19)70s. What would be the qualities you admire or and the qualities you least admire? The Boomer generation? EM: 1:37:05 Well, the best quality was that a lot of them thought outside the box, which had not been done before. And the boxes usually had been built by people who wanted to control people. And so now these guys and gals were thinking outside the boxes. It scared the, you know, the box builders. But for humankind, I think it was a great thing. You know that they were thinking, wait a second. And the biggest thing, again, that I think— one of the biggest things that the Vietnam War did for the people of the United States was, taught them not to trust the government, and to think for themselves. And to question. SM: 1:38:02 Well, that is something that is continuing because we are seeing so much questioning today. It is amazing. EM: 1:38:07 Right. SM: 1:38:08 Yeah, the question though— question we ask, though, is how many of those people who are questioning are really part of that Boomer generation or generations that follow? Like the millennials, and Generation Y and so forth. 1:38:23 But— actually, the boomer generation has really been a disappointment, I think, in that they did not follow up on a lot of what they hoped would happen, SM: 1:38:35 Right. Yeah— EM: 1:38:39 I think that a lot of the generations, like my daughter's generation, my daughter and son, are— is very proactive. My daughter is gay. And so, she is very proactive. You know, never before would you have been able to. SM: 1:38:58 Yeah, I think there is some very clear of strengths that came out. And there is some clear weaknesses as well. And the one thing that that I think is to me, and I just want your thoughts on this, and this was for— I am not paraphrasing Bobby Muller, but you know, he says, as the (19)60s move on, you know, we need to move on. But he did say one thing. And that was the lack of trust in our leaders, that seems to be common among the boomers. And the boomers because of the lies, the continuing of lies, lack of trust. And if you can recall, this was across the board. It was not only lack of trust in our president, but lack of trust in the head of the Board of Supervisors, the head of the like a president of the college and a university, the minister or priest or anybody in positions of authority or responsibility, anyone who was supposedly the head of a manager of a bank, they were all bad because you could not trust them because they were leaders. And that seems to have been across the board. And when you have Vietnam and Watergate and some of the other things… I— do you agree— EM: 1:40:19 But it turned out to be right. I mean, look at the Catholic Church. You know, you could not trust them because they were not trustworthy with your kids. SM: 1:40:27 Right, yeah so— EM: 1:40:31 The lack of trust was right! SM: 1:40:36 You have those, though, that this is a real— this is a— would be a great classroom discussion. Because philosophy, because the people that believe that— people that do not— are constantly— do not trust others, cannot be a leader. Because you have got to be able to understand— you got to be able to be trusted to be a leader, number one. And you have got to be able to do things that make people believe in you. So, if you are constantly not trusting others, who is going to trust you? So— EM: 1:41:06 I do not think it is that, that trusting others. I think it is, certain people in authority that are not trusted. You know, if you, say, running for office, you should trust the people that are helping you out. And you should trust what you believe in. But I certainly would not trust any big government people. And I would think, you know, I would be suspicious if some big company came and said, we really want to back you. Because what do they want? Nobody does it for free? So, there are a lot of people who are not trustworthy. SM: 1:42:00 Well, I know the— EM: 1:42:02 I do not think being suspicious and being careful is a bad thing. You know, if somebody comes to me, and I am a senator and says, oh, this is really— it would be great, it would be great. Why? Is it great for you? Or is it great for my people? SM: 1:42:27 Getting back to Vietnam, you know, they always I work in a university for many years, and universities are supposed to be a microcosm: of society. They always say that. Now, when you look at the Vietnam War, and you even mentioned it that, that the drugs kind of become very prevalent in the (19)69-(19)73, or whatever, period in Vietnam. And we all hear about the music that was being played over in Vietnam, just like the music being played in America at the time. What— you know, and the whole racism: issue between Black and white soldiers and troops, was what was happening in Vietnam, the same thing that was happening in America in the social scene? Where the tensions between people of color and people who were white, was prevalent, but of course, we all know that when you are in a war zone, you believe you work as a unit. So that kind of goes away when you are in battle. But it is when you are not in battle. Your thoughts on— was Vietnam a microcosm of what was happening in America? EM: 1:43:35 And I have no idea. The only thing I know is, it did not matter what color you were, if you were one of my corpsmen, you were part of the team. And it did not matter what color you were, if you came in as a patient, you were a patient. And that is all I really knew about any kind of, you know, it was not so— where I was, there was no conflict because we needed everybody. And you did depend on them. And they did work as a team. So, really was not a question for me, but I was not, you know— SM: 1:44:13 Did the increase in drug usage over there really hurt the war effort and in terms of— degrade our military preparedness? EM: 1:44:26 I do not think it hurt the war effort. Because from what I understand, a lot of the drugs taken over there were taken because they kind of let up. And were not really planning on winning the war. They were just kind of in a waiting. SM: 1:44:45 Yes. Okay. That is, it is a good description. EM: 1:44:49 And so, if you are bored, what do you do? And they were so readily available. That I am sure that people just said, well, let me try it, let me see what. If you are really busy shooting people, you do not take drugs. Or if you are busy just trying to stay alive, you do not take drugs. SM: 1:45:14 Or if you are concentrating to get the job done, you do not take drugs. Did you— EM: 1:45:17 Right. And if you have time on your hands in the middle of a jungle or whatever, or in the middle of Saigon or in the middle of whatever, then you might take drugs if they are available. Because who wants to be over there anyway? SM: 1:45:31 Yeah, the boomer generation when they were young, lot of them thought felt that they were the most unique generation in history, because of all the things we talked about earlier, they are going to make the world better for everyone. And they were not going to end things that have been here forever on planet Earth, like racism, sexism, so forth. Your thoughts, the boomer generation, were they the most unique group, ever? And secondly, have you changed— how did you feel about it when you were young? Being a part of it. And secondly, how do you feel now that you are a lot older? EM: 1:46:09 I think, as a group… What happened was a lot of stuff happened. It was not just civil rights. It was civil rights and women's rights, and, you know, on and on and on, about opening a lot of ideas. And it did not all get taken care of. But all of the ideas came out. And I think that-that was important, because so many they have been worked on, you know, one of the things that was allowed was all this fight about women's rights. Now, that is kind of, to me, a no brainer. But men seem to fight it like cats and dogs. And it is a power thing. You know, it is the same with just my kids. But the same with abortion. It is fine. If you do not believe in abortion, then do not have one. But if somebody else believes something totally different than you, what makes them wrong? You know, you are saying that what you believe is right, well, that fits right for you. But it is like kind of like religions, religions are all different. So, if you believe that life starts at the instant at conception, God bless you, do not have an abortion. But if somebody else actually believed, because of her whole, you know, that life happens at the moment of birth, then she has the right to do whatever she wants with her body. And yet, there are people who want to force their beliefs on other people. SM: 1:48:10 When you look at the (19)60s and (19)70s, I always say early (19)70s, not all (19)70s I should say. Who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? Who are the good girls or the bad women, the good women, I mean, it can be a group, or it could be an individual. EM: 1:48:36 I cannot think of any bad. The groups just were. And they all were for a different reason. You know, some-some of the African American people became more militant, because they felt that the peace thing did not work. I do not think that is necessarily bad. I think it is just that they were so frustrated they could hardly see straight, and they had been waiting for 100 years. That is a long time. You know, since the Civil War. And same with women's rights. Some woman was strident. And some women were, you know, wrap yourself in cellophane when your husband comes home. So— I think all of the ideas need to be out there. And all of them need to be looked at. And hopefully sanity overtakes. SM: 1:49:49 Right. And I guess— I am going to end right here because I have gone back to the Women's Memorial and the Three-Man statue and the Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial. When you enter that sacred ground, every time you go there, and you look at the wall, and you kind of— I do this even though I did not serve Vietnam, but Vietnam had such an influence on my life, and my peers’ lives. I like to be there alone sometimes. So, I will walk on the side where the Washington Monument is monument is where it is not as crowded. And I will just stand there for 30, 20-30 minutes. And I go back to when I was young, college, and all the things, watching the TV, like we all did during the war, the first war that was shown to the American public. And all these flashes go through my head, memories of back, what goes through your mind? When if when you go back there and look at the wall? I know you see the names there. But do you see— EM: 1:51:04 Actually, it is interesting, because one of the things that you said was sacred ground, and I do not consider— for me, It is not sacred ground. This is like home. And when I go there, and I have done this before, I have talked to my boys. I go to the area on the wall where I know my guys are, and I just talked to them. And I am glad that those memorials are there because that wall really shows what war is. Not just a guy on a horse, you know, with a sword. It is individual people. And it has been a meeting place of healing for Vietnam vets, where they can come, meet each other. They may never have known each other before, but because they are Vietnam vets, they communicate and it is a healing process. The same with the Women's Memorial. And the memorial next to the statue of the three guys, which is, you know, the memorial remembering all those who died because of the war. SM: 1:52:22 Yes-yes. They just redid that one. EM: 1:52:25 Yeah. That, to me is most important. Because there were so many who died because of that war. From Agent Orange or suicide or whatever it might be. SM: 1:52:40 Yeah, when I when I see that whole area there, I think of that word, context. Context being defined as a word that means everybody's feelings, thoughts, reflections, memories, matter. So that— what you are telling me today, the feelings that I have as a non-veteran, but who is a big supporter of veterans And what, you know, whether a person's anti-war supported the war, or, you know, I have spoken to a lot of conservatives, as well as liberals and the conservatives are, you are really asking us to be involved in this, you know? Yes, I am. It is the— it is context about— everybody's views matter. If you want to understand this very complex, decade or decade and a half from— I consider from 1960 to 1976, when we have celebrated our 200th anniversary, and of course, Jimmy Carter comes in as president, but it is that whole era. And there is so much. So, are there any other— I am done with questions. Are there any other questions you thought I might ask you or any final thoughts you want to add to the conversation? EM: 1:54:03 I do not think so. Whatever things you— when you mentioned the statue of the three guys what I remember was, when Diane and I had first went up and— we were together and we went up to the statue of those three guys, and I said to Diane, okay, when you look at the statue, what do you think first? She looked at and she said, those guys have great veins, for starting an IV. I said they do! That is the first thing I looked at, the veins on there, wow. That would be easy! SM: 1:54:37 Wow. EM: 1:54:41 We do things a little differently. SM: 1:54:44 Yeah, well, you know, just recently, you know, Ross Perot passed away and of course, he was a big critic of the wall. And originally, he was going to give a lot—give a lot of money. I think, I heard $171,000. he was going to give to Jim Scruggs and the people involved. But then when he saw the design of the— by Maya Lin, he wanted to take the money back. I do not know, I do not think he eventually did, but no matter what, whether it be the Vietnam Memorial, the— even the three man statue and the Woman's Memorial, the battles to have them even there is another story! It is another war! In respect, the war to get them— Yeah, so, anyways… EM: 1:55:26 But you know I actually tell you, looking at those three guys, one of the works of art that has meant the most to me, I found in South Dakota when I went through that. And it was a print made by a Vietnam vet out in Washington State. And it was the heads of three young guys, they had these helmets on, they looked like they just came out of the bush. And each face has the 1000-yard stare. But they also their faces have these splinters, you know, like a fractured piece of glass. With just cracks little teeny-teeny grips, but they are all cracked differently. Each face is cracked in a different place. And at the bottom, a dog tag that says PTSD. SM: 1:56:24 Wow. That is a drawing? EM: 1:56:27 And I gave— It is a- it is a— I can send it to you, if you have— SM: 1:56:32 Yeah, if you could send it on my— I am not here, I am up in Binghamton, I will not be able to get to it until I get home. But you have my email. I will give it— [inaudible]. EM: 1:56:42 I could use your phone number too; I could just take a picture and— SM: 1:56:44 Yes, that would be fine. Yep. EM: 1:56:49 Okay. But that to me was—said it all. And I gave it to my psychiatrist, one of the— I had a couple of friends. And I gave one to my psychiatrist. And he is no longer my psychiatrist, I have a female now, but he said— I saw him in the hall the other day. And he said, that is the first thing the guys noticed when they come in. And they said that is it. SM: 1:57:08 Wow. Yeah, I got to see that for sure. All right. Well, Edie, thank you very much. We almost did two hours here on what we are going to do is I will—Binghamton University will send you the tape to your email. EM: 1:57:24 Oh, great. Okay. SM: 1:57:25 It will be— I do not know how one is— how long it is going to take, but it will be a digital recording. And then you can watch it and then finally approve it so can be used for research and scholarship with all the other interviews here at Binghamton. EM: 1:57:39 Okay, great. Perfect. SM: 1:57:41 Well thank you very much, Edie, you have a great day, and I will be seeing you. Are you going to be out there at Veterans Day. EM: 1:57:46 No, I was there for Memorial Day. So that is it for me this year. SM: 1:57:50 All right. Well, I will see you next Memorial Day. EM: 1:57:52 Okay, saints alive! SM: 1:57:54 We will be in touch before then you take care! Thank you! EM: 1:57:57 Okay, you too! SM: 1:57:58 Bye! (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Edie Meeks https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/37c297add8ee6bbdd949c88198d0a495.jpeg 3c84f13f51873827db7b78e44772958f https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/5c8e97cb4a32125dbc47d150d0718fed.mp3 ebd3b69e47b2f416ce935181080a7fbc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2022-10-26 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Edith Lederer Biographical Text Edith Lederer is a war journalist and author. She was the first female resident correspondent in Vietnam and the first woman to head a foreign bureau for the Associated Press. She covered wars, famines, nuclear issues, and political upheavals during her four-decade career with the AP. She co-authored War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Who Covered Vietnam. Lederer has a Bachelor's degree from Cornell University and a Master's degree in communications from Stanford University. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:08:23 Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Vietnam war; Story; Women; Saigon; Associated Press; San Francisco; People; Bureau chief; Helicopters; Writing, Cornell University; Editor; Vietnam memorial; Journalist; Interview; News. Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Edith Lederer Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Oral History Lab Date of interview: 26 October 2022 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: 00:04 Edith, I want to thank you for agreeing to do the interview. EL: 00:06 My pleasure, thank you. SM: 00:10 And I love reading your section in the book, War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam. The first question I would like to ask is could you describe where what your growing up years were like your parents, where you grew up in elementary and high school and certainly your college years. EL: 00:34 I was born in Manhattan, at Beth Israel Hospital. My grandparents emigrated to the United States to escape pogroms in the late 1800s. My parents were both first generation Americans. My mother became a kindergarten teacher. My father was a pediatrician. Unfortunately, he got Hodgkin's disease then this was in the (19)40s in the early 1940s, which was incurable at the time. And he passed away when I was a year and a half old. My mother remarried when I was about six, and I grew up on Long Island. I graduated from Valley Stream, North High School, which was a new school at the time, we were the third graduating class. My parents did not have a lot of money. So, I definitely could not go to a private college or university. When my father died, my great aunt and uncle moved in to take care of my older sister and me. And I was lucky enough to apply to one of these state colleges that Cornell University, which was then called the College of home economics, and is now called the College of Human Ecology. And I got in and I graduated from Cornell in three years. It was partially me being a young woman in a hurry, but also finances. And I, I had not been on my high school newspaper, I was news editor. And when I went to Cornell, I thought I might go into the women's and journalism. I graduated from high school in 1960. And, you know, that was really just the dawn of the Women's Liberation Movement. SM: 04:01 Mm-Hmm. EL: 04:04 When I was at Cornell, I decided so I would rather go into Harvard news journalism. And I knew that as a woman, I would never get a job unless I got, I went to graduate school. So, I applied to all the major graduate schools in journalism. I got into all of them except Columbia, because they did not consider that I had an academic degree. Even though I had a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell. They did not like the College of home economics. And it ended up being a pissing match between the presidents of Cornell and Columbia, because James Perkins, who was then president, and the dean of the home at school were both outraged. Anyway, I did not care because I got into Stanford, and I got a resident assistantship, which pay my room board and two thirds of my tuition. So that was a huge, huge bonus for me. And in addition, it was a one-year master's program. So, it was terrific, in in many more ways than just financially because California opened my eyes to a whole different world. And I did my master's project on press coverage, the Democratic and Republican conventions. In 1964, I got to work as a messenger, a photo messenger for United Press International, which was amazing, because as a photo messenger at that time, you actually have access all over the floor of the convention. And I got I had a contact at editor and publisher, which was then a very influential magazine for jobs at cetera, and coverage of the news industry. And the editor writes My master's project, which was a series of articles. So much that editor and publisher published it. SM: 07:35 Wow. Very good. EL: 07:38 And this editor, saboteur who was what was Rick's last name, anyway, he, he told me to put an ad in and say you apply for jobs because I did not have any real contacts. And they made a mistake in the head. And instead of saying that I had a background in psychology, they said, physics. As a result of that, physics. I actually got an answer from a Scripps Howard news and called Science Service. SM: 08:29 Hmm. EL: 08:31 Which published a weekly newsletter printed, like sort of a skinny Time Magazine for sci fi on science based in Washington, and even though they were told immediately that I had no background in physics, but I did not know the social sciences, they hired me. And I had a fascinating year and they were writing back up on medical stories and also covering like the American Psychological Association, the American Sociological Association, a lot of very interesting stuff. I had never traveled out of the country and my uncle, as a graduation gift had given me a plane ticket to Europe. And I asked for a leave. So, I could go to Europe, because at that time, he only got like two or two weeks of vacation or less, and they would not give it to me. So, I quit. And I went to Europe and hitchhiked around Europe with one of my Cornell girlfriends for three months. And when I tell people that today they are shocked, but in those days, everybody hitchhiked in your I came back. And I then took out all of the early rejection letters that I had, because I did not have any experience because then I had all my clips from site service. And I was a finalist for a job at the Washington Post and lost out to a guy. But I was hired by the AP's New York Bureau Chief, Doug Lovelace to fill in on what was called AP local, which was a city news service that the AP ran. Wow, certainly in the (19)60s and early are for the many, and I am talking about a dozen, at least New York City newspapers, plus dozens of radio stations. And then, you know, television, I guess, been in New York City plus the surrounding area, which is of course, New Jersey, and Connecticut. And I, I worked on AP local. It was quite an incredible time. And I got to cover some amazing things. I mean, I-I covered Martin Luther King. I think in the first three days I was there, I covered Britain's Prince Philip, going to a toy fair, I covered student riots at Columbia University. And at that time, you know, I would not go I often worked nights, I would work from 3 to 11. And I do not the rubber, the rubber chicken circuit, I covered Bobby Kennedy Senate campaign and travel with him. And in 1968, I got asked if I wanted to go transferred to San Francisco, I got offered that and I said yes. And I arrived in San Francisco in June of 1968 on the day that Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. In Los Angeles. It was a time of incredible ferment between student unrest, the Black Power movement, the end of the hippie movement. There was a tremendous amount going on in California at that time. And, you know, I got to cover lots of it. And that was quite amazing. Every, every year, AP would send you sort of, like a form that we all nicknamed, you know, what do you want to do when you grow up? And I always said that I wanted to be a foreign correspondent. Because after-after going to Europe I was I was not, you know, seeing the rest of the world. But it was sort of a joke because the AP had a foreign editor at the time named Ben Bassett, who refused to have a woman on-on the foreign desk and you had to work on the foreign desk in order to become a foreign correspondent, he did not think that women had what it took to cover more disasters crews, big international stories. So, I was quite shocked. One day in the summer of 1972, to get a phone call from the president of the AP West Gallagher asking if I wanted to go to Vietnam. I have to add that while I was in California in San Francisco, I also would go to Sacramento to cover the California Assembly whenever it met. This was the era when Ronald Reagan was governor. And yes, there was a big jar of jelly beans on his desk. And it is quite amazing that the young, the young assembly men that I am and women that I met Ben, quite a number of them went on to great, you know, future jobs. I mean, of course, Reagan went on to be the governor went on to the president, but Pete Wilson, whom I sat next to in the assembly chamber became governor, Willie Brown became speaker of the assembly and Mayor of San Francisco. So anyway, it was it was, it was a fascinating time. In retrospect, SM: 17:08 When you look at the yet when you look at it- EL: 17:10 Go ahead. SM: 17:11 Go ahead. EL: 17:12 No, go ahead. SM: 17:13 Yeah. When you look at that period of time, when you were in San Francisco, there were so many things happening. Of course, the Black Panthers became a reality. There- I think there was the-the Angela Davis trial, the- EL: 17:26 I cov- I covered the Angela Davis tri- trial with my colleague from Los Angeles, Linda Deutsch, who became one of my best friends. And we are still great friends today. And she went on to an illustrious career as a trial correspondent. I mean, she covered everybody from Manson, Ellsberg. Michael Jackson, is OJ Simpson. He covered all those trials. SM: 17:59 Did you cover the counterculture too and Haight Ashbury and Golden Gate Park and all those things are happening there? EL: 18:05 A little a little bit of it. Yes. And, you know, that was I do not know whether you remember there was a professor who became president of San Francisco State S. I. Hayakawa [Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa] SM: 18:22 Yes. I know him real well. Yep. EL: 18:24 I covered I helped cover. You know him for sure. SM: 18:29 Yeah, remember, there is a lot of protests in San Juan in San Francisco. EL: 18:33 That is cor- That is correct. Lots of protests. SM: 18:36 He went on to become senator. I think Patricia Hearst was also the happened to be- EL: 18:43 Yeah, that is, that is funny, because I came back from Vietnam. In like September, October of 1973. Or maybe August, September. I am trying to remember when Patty Hearst got kidnapped. SM: 19:13 That was around (19)74, I think. EL: 19:18 Was it (19)74? While I was back in San Francisco, and the day she got kidnapped, was also the day that Angela, Angela, Angela, Mia Alioto [Angela Mia Alioto Veronese], the mayor of San Francisco's wife reappeared. Camping disappeared for, I do not know, two weeks. Nobody knew where she was. So, I ended up other-other colleagues covered the day of the kidnapping. I covered Angela Mia Alioto's return. And I mean, her story was quite crazy also. I guess she and Joe were not getting along too well. And she decided to go on a tour of all the California missions- SM: 20:17 Was in the capital of California at that time, I know the Black Panthers had a went to the capitol and surrounded it. And they were had their guns. And were you covering all that as well? EL: 20:29 No-no-no, I was not there when they did that at the Capitol? Definitely not. I mean, I, you know, there was Huey Newton, the Huey Newton trial. So-so, that is what I know. From that, from that Black Panther part, I certainly did cover the Angela Davis trial and all the fallout from that. And that was an amazing trial also. SM: 21:15 When you when you compare the journalism that you became a part of back in the San Francisco, and we were going to go to Vietnam in a couple minutes. How do you compare that today? But what I am trying to get at, I know you are a great journalist. And the thing is, what does it take for young people to take your life and to become a great journalist too what are the qualities necessary to be a good, a really good journalist that covers a story, and as you say, in your book, or in the thing, to be very responsible and doing it? EL: 21:54 Well, one of the things that I think has changed dramatically, is the arrival of the Internet for good and for bad. When I was growing up, newspapers had news on the front and nose sections of newspapers and opinions in the opinion section. And what I think has changed dramatically is the idea of balanced, well edited news. And I think that what the internet has done is that it has reinforced views that any individual may have, without exposing them to the idea of three, hard news that has reporting on both-both sides of an issue. And so, my message, my-my message to young people would be, quit your own political and social views in a box while you are working. And try and see both sides of whatever story you are covering, and try and report on the fact. And I know how hard that is to do. SM: 24:28 You got to Vietnam. Can you explain that? That time when you found out that you were going to be assigned there? And I know that you talked about that you are going you always dreamed of being a foreign correspondent, but then you ended up becoming a war correspondent. Could you talk about that? Just that very beginning phase, and those very first days in Vietnam, your first impressions of the country? EL: 24:55 Well, I was shocked, as I said, too when I got this call from West Gallagher and Penn, I did ask him whether I was going to New York to work on the foreign desk and he said, no, I was going to, I would go to Vietnam without working on the foreign desk, because do not forget Ben Bassett, the foreign editor anyway, I said that I had to talk to my parents, but I of course, knew that I was going to go. And I, I had actually been to Vietnam. In 1971, I had gone around the world with one of my [inaudible] Francisco roommate, who was a teacher. And we got on one of those panim around, we got pan ham around the world tickets. I had saved up a lot of AP vacation. And we had most been to Europe, but we never been to Asia. So we went to Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, and-and you can stop anywhere that Pan-am 101 stopped as long as you are going in the same direction. And it has stopped in Saigon. And so, we decided to go to see the war that while certainly was on the front pages every day and that I had been writing about certainly on the protest side. And so, I going back to Saigon was not a shock to me. And on that first trip in 1971, we were you know, we, we were sort of taken under the wing of the AP office because I was working for the AP in San Francisco. And I actually found out in at the end of the first Gulf War that the AP bureau chief in Saigon at the time, Richard Pyle had wanted to have a woman in the AP bureau. And after he met me on that trip, he asked was Gallagher to send me to Vietnam, but I did not find that out until over 20 years later. So, I-I-I showed up but of course, very different going as a tourist and you know, than getting on a plane and going to Bangkok and then and then going as a war correspondent, and I-I was very young and ambitious. And I wanted to prove that a woman could do that job. And Gallagher had told everybody want me to go out in the field. Well, actually, the big stories that the time that I was there were-were not really it was sort of the end of the combat phase although I, [inaudible] were that was the major story. Because I was there before, during and after the pullout of the last American combat troops- SM: 29:46 Right. EL: 29:47 That is not saying that the war did not go on because it was going on and I covered some of it. But the big story was what was, what-what was going to happen and we all know that two years later on April 30, 1975, basically, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong marched into Saigon and that was the end of the war and North Vietnam and South Vietnam became one Vietnam under a communist government. SM: 30:32 Yeah. Can you describe you do really good in the interview, in the book, War Torn about your perceptions of walking down the street and or going out in an assignment into the countryside? What it was like to be in Vietnam, looking at the faces of the people that lived there the country itself? Could you kind of describe that? EL: 30:57 Um, I have to say that the, you know, the AP Bureau was in an aging French colonial edifice called the Eden Building. And when you walked outside, you would see immediately the impact of the war on the Vietnamese people. There were Vietnamese of all ages, who had been crippled in various ways, sitting on the pavement trying to sell things. There were lots of military activity in in the streets. And there was a whole war culture of limb, limb for today. Because you do not know whether you are going to be around tomorrow. SM: 32:43 Did you fear your life? EL: 32:48 I-I am a fatalist. And I have in in Vietnam, starting in Vietnam, and then then all the other wars and conflict that I covered. Have I have been frightened sometimes. Certainly. Have I been worried that I might be cold? Certainly. But it is not something that was always in the front of my mind. It was certainly in the front of my mind in Afghanistan when whenever pro Soviet supporter was holding a pistol to my temple. Yes. SM: 33:50 Wow. If you talked, you mentioned the big story in Vietnam was a big story. EL: 33:56 It was a huge story. SM: 33:58 It is how you describe it in the inner- in war torn it because I want to bring up that word responsibility as a journalist because you link it-it is important to tell history the way it really is. Could you talk about that? Because that is really important. When you talk about reporting. I want to be honest, and truthful. And I have a responsibility because it is linked to history. Could you talk about that? EL: 34:26 Well, there was always every-every day in Vietnam, the US military did, Matt V did a briefing called which was nicknamed the five o'clock Follies. And it was called The Five o'clock follies because of the view that the lack of reality on what was being present into two journalists. And what was really happening out in the field. And the great thing about the Vietnam War was that there were almost no restrictions on where members of the media could go. If you went down to one of the air bases, and there was helicopters going off to some combat zone, and there was empty seat, you were a journalist, you could get off or a photographer or a TV camera. You know, and, and so my AP colleagues, and I could actually go and see for ourselves what was really happening. We did not have to take the US military's often skewed view of what was happening. And, you know, the media in some animals was blamed for the US losses of the Vietnam War. But frankly, it was the media that told the truth about what was happening. SM: 36:53 There was no censorship then. EL: 36:56 There was no censorship. And as someone who covered the first Gulf War, which was the first major US military involvement, post, Vietnam, the situation changed dramatically, dramatically. So maybe it could never go anywhere on its own and there will always minders. I still remember doing an interview with a general at that, during, in the run up to the war. And think about this, I am facing him asking questions. And behind me, was sitting, his PR guy shaking his head, yes or no on whether the general should answer the question. SM: 38:16 Man, either it is just a lie in your book against again, describing the scene in Vietnam with some of the people live there. I think it is, I just want to record it for record. The end, this is your words. "During my six years as a reporter, I had covered murders and seen plenty of dead people are dead bodies, but coming face to face with Vietnamese kids and adults in the prime of their life, who would be forever scarred by war, far, far harder on the emotions." So that is a beautiful quote. And it is that it is really about humanity and caring about humanity. So, it is almost the sense that you go to a foreign war area there you see kids, whether it be in Afghanistan, or Vietnam, or anywhere, these kids and children, and they deserve a legacy like all of us do. So that very well said. You also covered that period of time during the Paris Peace Talks, whether you are taking place with Kissinger going to Paris, and- EL: 39:23 Right. SM: 39:24 Could you talk about that? You know, I think it was on and off and on and off. You give really a description of that too. And then finally, when it did happen, and then people started leaving Vietnam, talking about that, too. EL: 39:37 Sure. You know, let me let me go back for a second to the victims of war. I- One of the things that always struck me was that every American soldier’s death was written about and honored. And rightly so. But the same was not the case with the deaths of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. And I had wanted to write a story about the impact of the war on Vietnamese families. And in order to, to get a green light to write it, I-I had to find a family that where the mother has lost, I cannot remember, but it was like four or five sons, she had one son left. She lived in basically what would be a shack with the roof that went over the walls of the two shacks next to hers. And, you know, her, her life had been turned totally upside down. And she was only hoping that her last some that have come she had not heard from, we were still alive. These-these are the real stories about the impact of war. The peace talks that were going on in Paris, were of course, incredibly closely watched in Vietnam. And there was all sorts of betting of what was going to happen. And there, there was, yes, there was an agreement finally reached. What, you know, first, the Paris Peace Talks collapsed in mid-December. And the US. This was 1972, when the US then launched this huge Christmas bombing campaign against Hanoi and North Vietnam. And when that ended, the peace talks resumed. And then the bearing on a ceasefire also resumed. And it was the ceasefire was finally agreed on, I do not know, late January 1973. And the question was, what would happen next? And that was we knew that the Americans were going to leave. And I think one of the most one of the stories I wrote that I know God, the best play was writing about the impact of the war on the bar girls. SM: 44:33 Yes. EL: 44:38 You know, they-they were the girlfriends of thousands of American GI. And I went and did this story going to a whole bunch of bars and-and that was so interesting, because I had expected them to be really angry. But you know, they were really quiet [inaudible]. But I, I wondered, even then how these young women, many of whom had children who were half American, would not survive. And I know for a fact that a lot of them had a very, very tough time, because in 2000, which was the 25th anniversary of the end of the war, the AP did a whole package. And I went back and interviewed. I did a story on the impact of the war on women in the north in the south, and I actually did get to talk to-to really interview one former bar girls, and find out what happened to quite a number of them. But the, you know, once, once this, this peace agreement was signed, there were all sorts of political and diplomatic games that were not going on. And there was a four-party commission that was coming into Saigon, I was covering a lot of that. And it was fascinating. And I also got to cover the arrival of the first American prisoners of war who had been held by the Vietcong in South Vietnam. And- SM: 47:31 You [inaudible]. EL: 47:32 That was incredibly moving. SM: 47:35 Could you describe that because I think there is two scenes in your in the book, when you talk about you the first time you saw the POWs and then [inaudible] time, and then there was the other time where the very last POW they got I think you also witnessed that. EL: 47:49 Okay. Right-right-right. Well, there we-we had waited four hours for, for this prisoner release. And then all of a sudden, there were six helicopters circling overhead. And, you know, I kept trying to imagine what those guys were thinking. You know, they, they had been picked up in a jungle clearing and they were about to take their first steps on friendly soil in years. Some of them had been prisoners for eight years. And it was very emotional. When the helicopter landed, the some of them were peering through the windows waving at us while others were not. And the first prisoner off was a young blond man on a stretcher, who was given a big chair. And when he heard that noise, he sat up and actually waved his good hand. And then his both his hands and he broke into a smile. But then, you know, all the rest of the prisoners got off some of them were emaciated. They all looked haggard. And they walked across the tarmac [inaudible] to a US military hospital plane. And the other thing that was sort of horrifying in retrospect was they each had a big-name tag hung around their neck. You know, it was, it sorts of reminded me as if, you know, they were packages going to be delivered. Not people who have suffered so much. And many of them were carrying white plastic bags, which, I guess, contained, the only belongings that they were taking from captivity? SM: 51:05 Yep. One of the another quote from you is a quote from I think it is General Wyant. And this is your quote, "General Wyant said the United States accomplished purpose. But to me, the North Vietnamese and its Vietcong soldiers were the winners, seeing off their defeated enemies." And then I go to this next thing, and you might not have been in Vietnam, but in this time in 1975, when the helicopters on the Embassy in Saigon, and coming back and forth and taking everybody away, and all the people wanting to go and leave the leave of Vietnam. EL: 51:54 Right. SM: 51:54 But what, you know, the peace agreement, peace agreement in 1973. And then you see, we are getting the heck out of there real fast, and people are struggling to survive. You know, what to get out of there? What are your What are your thoughts with the helicopter? EL: 52:14 Well, I think that after the peace agreement, you may not remember this, but President Johnson, President Johnson was in office and as I recall, Congress refused to fund anything in Vietnam anymore. So, all of the fighting was turned over to the South Vietnamese. SM: 52:50 Right. EL: 52:51 There was an American, you know, small military advisory group there. And, and that was the beginning of the end of the wars. So, the fact that the South fell, was not shocking how fast that happened was surprising to me. But then, you know, look at what happened in Afghanistan last year. SM: 53:30 Mm-Hmm. Yep. [crosstalk] When? When you go to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, in fact, this year is the 40th anniversary of the opening of the wall. And on November 11, of 1982. I will be down there reading 15 names, like probably hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of other people are going to be but your thoughts? First, I would like your thoughts the first time you visited it. And then what do you think every time you go there? I do not what do you see on that wall when you go there? EL: 54:08 Um, I am glad that all of those almost all men thousands and thousands, who died are memorialized. And I think to myself, as I did from the beginning of my tried in Vietnam and they need to die in that war. What was the end United States fighting for? I remember growing up when there was this whole idea of dominoes in Southeast Asia, countries that were going to collapse one by one. And I think that that underlying concern, perhaps is not written about often enough, but I still ask myself, and because there are people, I know on that wall also. And also starting in 1995, my AP colleague, Horst Faas, who has won the Pulitzer in the photography in Vietnam, and I started doing reunions for the journalists who covered the war. And another one of our colleagues did help started doing it also. And we did the 20th, the 25th 30th 35th 40th 45th. SM: 56:36 Wow. EL: 56:36 We did not do the 45th, because it was the middle of COVID. That was 2020. But we are planning to do a 50th years for sure. SM: 56:52 That is very important. I want you-you have read reference to how difficult it was for you as a woman to finally get to a position where you were a foreign correspondent or a war correspondent, as a female. You know, I find it interesting that it took a while for the women's memorial at the in Washington to also be built. And we know the story of Diane Carlson Evans and the battles she had to go through in Congress just even, I have seen some of her interviews and so forth. And so, it took a while for that to happen. And I know there was always some opinions of eve that why is a woman always on the stage at the Vietnam Memorial on Memorial Day or Veterans Day. No one ever told me it. But I heard some veterans tell me some behind the scenes stories. I do not know if they are true. But I think there is a perception there. It took a while for women to be recognized too at the Vietnam Memorial. And- EL: 57:46 Oh, yeah. SM: 57:47 And if you study the whole history of the civil rights movement, and the talk about the anti-war movement, women were in secondary roles. And part of the reason why the feminist movement became so major and important is because many of them left on their own to create it be a part of a leadership role in these movements. Why is it taken so- I think a lot of people have answered this, but I am still questioning why has it taken so long for women like you, I mean, you have already proven you are a great writer, to get into leadership roles that you should have been 50 and 100 years ago. EL: 58:21 Well, do not forget that after Vietnam. I did not become a piece first female bureau chief overseas. I was bureau chief for Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. And then that is a very long story. But I was kicked out of Peru for a story that I wrote, which was true. But I then was AP's bureau chief in the Caribbean, and I had, you know, more than a dozen countries. But I realized that that job I spent more than half my time collecting bad debts from Puerto Rican radio subscribers. And I really wanted to write so it was my decision to go back to writing and reporting. I probably could have risen to be, you know, a more senior editor at AP but I still I still loved writing and reporting. SM: 59:55 I know you went off to Cambodia to and we all know what happened there with a killing fields and Pol Pot. And you saw that you saw the beginning of that. And of course, the killings at Kent State in 1970 are directly related to Richard Nixon going into Cambodia on the 30th of April of 1970. That is what erected the campuses all over the country and so forth. But we had been there for a long time. EL: 1:00:23 Absolutely. SM: 1:00:25 I just-just some general questions here. What are the lessons learned from the war? And what are the lessons lost from the war? EL: 1:00:36 Well, that is a very long and difficult question. Certainly. Certainly, one of the things, learned from, I think, from Vietnam was to make, to hopefully to, you know, make sure that Americans know what, what they are fighting for in these countries. And certainly, I think that that was an issue in Vietnam. Maybe, maybe I am wrong, and I do not remember so well, but I think that that was an issue. And in terms, one of the bad things that came out of it was the blaming the media and the repression of the media in covering future actions where the US military was involved. And that is, that is pretty, that is pretty horrifying. And, and that goes on until today. And I can only say, that was one of the things that war correspondents of my generation, they were not war correspondents in foreign correspondents of my generation, say is that we have lived through the golden age of covering, big stories, including mores and conflict. And the reason we say that is that we had more time, more freedom. Because communications were not instantaneous. No cell phones, no satellite phones. And, and we-we were trusted more by our editors. Yes, if we did things that they did not like, we heard about it, but it was not like having somebody pick up a phone every 10 minutes. And say, where is this? When is this coming? And that puts a lot of pressure on, on journalists, photographers. Is anybody in the media today to speed things up and not be as careful as they should or could be. SM: 1:04:41 Alright, I think two more questions, and then we will be done. EL: 1:04:47 I hope they are short because it is 2:56 that I have to go cover this [inaudible] SM: 1:04:52 That is okay. Yep. But would you consider Vietnam the watershed event of the (19)60s even though we know civil rights was also would you consider Vietnam, the watershed event. EL: 1:05:04 So, I would certainly consider it one of the (19)60s. SM: 1:05:09 Yes. (19)60s and early (19)70s? EL: 1:05:11 Probably, yes. Yes. Because of the global impact, although I understand why you saying the civil rights movement, and but that that kept going for- that is kept going for decades. It still, it is still an unfinished piece of business. SM: 1:05:41 Have we healed? Has the nation healed from this war? Your thoughts? No- EL: 1:05:52 I do not. I do not think anybody under 50 pays much attention to Vietnam at all now. I mean, the saddest thing to me is finding Vietnam veterans out begging on street corners- SM: 1:06:15 Right. EL: 1:06:17 -in New York. And I, you know, if I see one, and they are really suffering, you know, give them some money. But it is, it is not, it is not right. And I think a lot of them feel forgotten. That, you know, the world has gone on to so many other issues, and so many other concerns and conflicts. And that is what I can say. SM: 1:06:54 And then, any words of advice, they asked us to everybody want to end the interview? What words of advice would you give to people, young people, older people, 50 years from now that are listening to your interviewer? What words of advice would you give them? EL: 1:07:12 My advice would be, first and foremost, be honest with yourself. And try to be as honest and balanced in whatever work you choose to do. And to young people, I would say, try and live your dream when you are young. And if you do not succeed, hopefully, it will put you on the path that will lead you to something that will end in a happy life for you. SM: 1:07:55 Edith Lederer thank you very much for this interview, and, and also for being in the book, which I encourage everyone to read War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam. And of course, the introduction just from Gloria Emerson, the late Gloria Emerson who wrote the great book, Winners and Losers. Edith, thank you very much. EL: 1:08:18 You are welcome. (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Edith Lederer https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/b4a39b6ab42e4ce7bd39a2932454e995.jpg 83b615680d3329309789e16c0bb7c289 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/bc9ed303608c04b20c61d2f85c166148.mp3 bc526d22b9f9febdf5aae322d77e0427 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-08-14 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Edwin Meese Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Edwin Meece is an attorney, law professor, author and member of the Republican Party. He was a professor of Law at the University of San Diego until 1981. From 1981 to 1985, Meese served as Regan's counsellor. He was then appointed as the United States Attorney General. Meese is currently serving as the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus at The Heritage Foundation. He has a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from Yale University and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. "}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15107,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,16777215],"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":10}">Edwin Meese is an attorney, law professor, author, and member of the Republican Party. He was a professor of Law at the University of San Diego until 1981. From 1981 to 1985, Meese served as Reagan's counselor. He was then appointed as the United States Attorney General. Meese is currently serving as the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus at The Heritage Foundation. He has a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from Yale University and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. </span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 62:19 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; Healing; Vietnam Veterans; Nineteen sixties; Activism; Free Speech Movement; Women's Rights Movement."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":14275305}}">Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; Healing; Vietnam Veterans; Nineteen sixties; Activism; Free Speech Movement; Women's Rights Movement.</span> Subject LCSH Lawyers; College teachers; Authors; Attorneys general--United States; Meece, Edwin--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Edwin Meece Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Meece, Edwin ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Lawyers; College teachers; Authors; Attorneys general--United States; Meece, Edwin--Interviews Description An account of the resource Edwin Meese is an attorney, law professor, author, and member of the Republican Party. He was a professor of Law at the University of San Diego until 1981. From 1981 to 1985, Meese served as Reagan's counselor. He was then appointed as the United States Attorney General. Meese is currently serving as the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus at The Heritage Foundation. He has a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from Yale University and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-08-14 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.87 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 62:19