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Dublin Core
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Format
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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
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
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English
Rights
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In copyright.
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Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Gaylord Nelson, 1916-2005
Date of Interview
1996-07-25
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
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2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Duration
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88:33
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Gaylord Nelson (1916-2005) was a politician and environmentalist who served as a United States Senator and Governor. He was the original founder of Earth Day, a leading consumer advocate, strong supporter of civil rights and civil liberties, and one of the earlier outspoken opponents of the Vietnam War. Nelson received his bachelor's degree in Political Science from San Jose State University and his LL.B. degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison."}" 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}">Gaylord Nelson (1916-2005) was a politician and environmentalist who served as a United States Senator and Governor. He was the original founder of Earth Day, a leading consumer advocate, a strong supporter of civil rights and civil liberties, and one of the earlier outspoken opponents of the Vietnam War. Nelson received his bachelor's degree in Political Science from San Jose State University and his LL.B. degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison.</span>
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Ken Burns; WWII generation; Environmental Movement; Liberals; Counterculture; Vietnam War; Generation X; Baby boom generation; Dysfunctional family; Earth Day; Activism."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Ken Burns; WWII generation; Environmental Movement; Liberals; Counterculture; Vietnam War; Generation X; Baby boom generation; Dysfunctional family; Earth Day; Activism.</span>
Subject LCSH
Legislators—United States; Environmentalists; Nelson, Gaylord, 1916-2005--Interviews
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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.
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Title
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Interview with Gaylord Nelson
Contributor
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Nelson, Gaylord, 1916-2005 ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
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audio/wav
Subject
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Legislators—United States; Environmentalists; Nelson, Gaylord, 1916-2005--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Gaylord Nelson (1916-2005) was a politician and environmentalist who served as a United States Senator and Governor. He was the original founder of Earth Day, a leading consumer advocate, a strong supporter of civil rights and civil liberties, and one of the earlier outspoken opponents of the Vietnam War. Nelson received his bachelor's degree in Political Science from San Jose State University and his LL.B. degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison.
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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1996-07-25
Rights
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In copyright
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.142a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.142b
Date Modified
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2018-03-29
Is Part Of
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McKiernan Interviews
Extent
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88:33
-
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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
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
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English
Rights
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-03-10
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
H. Bruce (Howard Bruce) Franklin, 1934-
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
1 Microcassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Bruce H. Franklin is an American cultural historian and scholar. He has received top awards in American Studies, science fiction, prison literature, and marine ecology. Franklin has written and edited nineteen books, three hundred professional articles, and has participated in several film productions. He was awarded the Pearson-Bode Prize for lifetime achievement in American Studies. Franklin currently is the Professor of English and American Studies at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. He received his Bachelor's degree from Amherst College and his Ph.D. from Stanford University."}" 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}">H. Bruce Franklin is an American cultural historian and scholar. He has received top awards in American Studies, science fiction, prison literature, and marine ecology. Franklin has written and edited nineteen books, three hundred professional articles, and has participated in several film productions. He was awarded the Pearson-Bode Prize for lifetime achievement in American Studies. Franklin currently is the Professor of English and American Studies at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. He received his Bachelor's degree from Amherst College and his Ph.D. from Stanford University.</span>
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Propaganda; Anti-war movement; Baby boom generation; WW II; Vietnam War; Richard Nixon; Rock music; Drug culture; Liberation."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Propaganda; Anti-war movement; Baby boom generation; WW II; Vietnam War; Richard Nixon; Rock music; Drug culture; Liberation.</span>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
46:50
Subject LCSH
Historians; Authors, American--20th century College teachers; Rutgers University; Franklin, H. Bruce (Howard Bruce), 1934--Interviews
Accessibility
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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.
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Bruce Franklin
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 10 March 2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM:
[inaudible] again, thanks a lot for agreeing to participate in my book project. The first question I want to ask you is I want to go into detail on what happened to you at Stanford. But what I do not know about you is your parents, your background. Who were your role models and inspirations before you went into the military? Because the material that I read is after that. So how did you become who you are?
BF:
Well, I grew up in Brooklyn. You know that much, right?
SM:
Yep.
BF:
And my father had six months of high school [inaudible]. And we lived in a working class neighborhood. Well, I was born, actually, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and then my parents [inaudible]... We were also talking about Engels. And as far as the work that I do, I would say that Engels' writing is probably more influential, directly influential, on my thinking than Marx's writings, especially Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. I think those are very powerful and important analyses today. Lenin, I think [inaudible] radical opus of communications. But I kind of see Lenin's writings as falling into two categories. One, his analysis of imperialism, which I think is still very, very helpful and insightful. And so, his [inaudible] Marx with 19th century capitalism, the key text was Lenin's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, in which he describes the political economy which was dominant in the world during the first couple decades of the 20th century and on through the period of [inaudible] the mid-1970s. But in that period, colonialism as a system was destroyed. And this is what makes the Vietnam revolution so important in 20th and 21st century history, because it was cutting-edge. [inaudible] 1945 and 1949, a quarter of the world's population gained national independence from colonialism. In (19)49, in the Communist revolution, another quarter of the world's population was breaking away from [inaudible] decades of the 20th century. The world that we have (19)75 to 2010 is a different form of imperialism from what Lenin was writing about, although he saw finance capital becoming primary in the system. So that pretty far-sighted to think. The other part of Lenin's writings really revolve around the question of how to do it, or as he put it, what is to be done? And I think that the relevance of that writing in the post-Soviet period has got a whole string of question marks after it. It is not a simple question. I do not think these labels are very helpful anymore. I think that my books and articles speak for themselves. I have developed my own theoretical constructs, which are there in the book. My main work is as a cultural historian. So although if you look at ... If you look at Warstar's... Although I do feel [inaudible] with the relationship between what Marx called base and superstructure of [inaudible] the industry, what Eisenhower had called the-
SM:
[inaudible]
BF:
...military-industrial complex [inaudible] a Marxist. To deal with that [inaudible] the main things I am focusing on really are consciousness issues [inaudible] cultural superstructure. And I do not think you will find much in Marx's or Engel's or Lenin's [inaudible] cultural superstructure. If anything, if there was one figure that was most influential on my approach to this, originally was Christopher Caudwell, C-A-U-D-W [inaudible], who himself was a Marxist and who died defending the Spanish popular government [inaudible]. I think Horowitz is such a fool. He and these other people who are whining about not [inaudible] themselves [inaudible] members of the faculty [inaudible]. The fact is that their work cannot withstand critical scrutiny. [inaudible] It is not well-researched. It is not [inaudible] by any standards. It is just foaming-at-the-mouth propaganda.
SM:
One of the first questions that I ask on the general area of questioning is the critics of the (19)60s generation blame a lot of the issues in the world today, the problems we have in this country, back to the boomers, the people that were either protesting the war, the 15 percent of the activists, who just could be about as many as 20, 25 million, and the breakdown of the family, the divorce rate, the drug culture, the sexual revolution, the beginning of the -isms, the pointing fingers toward other people for people's problems... And your thought on that kind of... And then secondly, because you have talked about the fact that small numbers of people can really make a difference in this world... And obviously, one of the critics of the (19)60s generation, or the boomers and the activists, is that only 15 percent were ever involved in any part of activism. So they use it as a negative as opposed to a positive, whereas 85 percent were just living their lives normally. I believe subconsciously everyone was affected. I do not care who you were. But how do you respond to people who generalize, again, that this period... And of course, this was when the Democratic Party was falling apart, too. And even Barney Frank wrote a book speaking frankly, where he states that the Democratic Party needs to separate itself from the war people, the anti-war, McGovern people, if it wants to survive as a party. So just your thoughts... And that was in (19)72 and-
BF:
The Democratic Party did separate itself from McGovern. That is what happened.
SM:
[inaudible]-
BF:
Because the people [inaudible] Democratic Party decided they would rather lose the election than lose their party. So they pulled the rug out from under him. The main thing is, who was right, who was wrong, the anti-war movement, or the people who got us into that war and kept us into that war and have kept us into war ever since? The people against the war were right. And in fact, it would be nice if the consciousness had not been largely erased, thus allowing this situation that we are presently in.
Here is the way I look at it, putting my life in [inaudible] context. And it must have been [inaudible] 15 or 16 in 1945. I was riding around in Brooklyn. I was 11 years old, riding around in Brooklyn in the back of a pickup truck with a bunch of other kids. And we are all screaming, "Peace, peace. The war is over." The sidewalks are thronged with people, and everybody is yelling, "Peace, peace." And we really believed that we were going to spend the rest of our lives in a world without war, because the fascists and Nazis had been defeated, the militarists had been defeated. Democracies [inaudible]. And the fact of the matter is that I have spent almost the entire rest of my life in a nation that has been almost continually in a state of war. And in fact, while we were celebrating that, the Truman administration was making a deal with France to transport an invasion army to Vietnam, and arm that invasion army, an invasion army consisting of the largest [inaudible] Nazi soldiers.
SM:
Amazing. I read that. Yeah.
BF:
Not that we knew what was going on, which is why, I think, people are cynical, people believe you cannot trust the government. People believe the government lies to us and manipulates us, because the government's run in the interests of a few. It is pretty obvious.
SM:
Are you disappointed? You mentioned nine years old when you were at Stanford ... or I mean, excuse me, when you were in college. The boomers were a lot younger. But I know it is very difficult to generalize about 78 million people, but they have become the leaders. They have become the head of corporations. They run the world now, really, and all of the Generation X-ers who had followed them, their sons and daughters. How do you feel about this generally, this boomer generation? How do you feel about the 15 percent who were activists? And as they got older, did they remain activists? How many lived their ideals?
BF:
A lot did. There is a whole website [inaudible]. Stanford had [inaudible] the Stanford [inaudible]. And it had a website and archives [inaudible]. And I have [inaudible] because most of the people seemed to me to lead engaged lives, very active in their communities. So the idea that everybody who was active just gave up... corporations [inaudible]... I mean, I guess this is where my analysis and your analysis maybe part ways pretty dramatically, is I do not think of the generation as a very useful category-
SM:
I have heard that from other people. Yeah.
BF:
...because [inaudible] a big chunk of time ... I have three kids who are boomers. And they were born in (19)56, (19)58 and (19)63. So I do not think of them ... My wife and I were talking about this relationship [inaudible]. We have never thought of our children as boomers.
SM:
Do they think of themselves as boomers?
BF:
I do not think so. No, I do not think so. It is true. My wife is the same age that I am. We were Depression babies [inaudible] babies [inaudible]. But I think social class, gender, ethnicity have a whole lot more to do with people's behavior. I suppose that as far as I know, the only thing you can really document about when you have a huge demographic bulge like that is that when that bulge reaches age 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, you are very likely to get an increased rate of crime. Historically [inaudible]-
SM:
Teenagers, yeah.
BF:
...because most of what we define as crime, as opposed to corporate crime, most of what we define as crime is committed by people of that age. So when you have got more people of that age, you are probably going to have more crime. And obviously [inaudible], but-
SM:
Well-
BF:
...[inaudible] and then there is all this medical research and everything that is come out, that people [inaudible] 16, 17, 18, 19, there is a core part of their brain that is not fully developed, which has something to do with their judgment. I mean, I look back at myself as a teenager, and what I know about other [inaudible] and I say, "How does anybody ever live through their teens?" They do not have a lot of sense. And a lot of people think they are immortal or bulletproof, or something. We knew some of the stuff that our kids were involved in. We have found out more [inaudible].
SM:
Did you have a generation gap with your kids, when you were... because they always say that boomers, they really had a generation gap with their parents [inaudible].
BF:
No. I mean, [inaudible] share our values. We are very close [inaudible].
SM:
Right. In your view, when did the (19)60s begin, and when did it end?
BF:
I would say the (19)60s began in 1964 and ended around (19)74.
SM:
What was important in (19)64, Johnson winning, or...
BF:
Well, the way I see it, the I Have a Dream speech marked the end of it, the big March on Washington [inaudible], that, and the assassination of Kennedy. And then (19)64 was the first of the long, hot summers. It was the Mississippi Freedom Summer. It was the Gulf of Tonkin. It was the [inaudible] full-scale [inaudible]. And then, of course, [inaudible] was assassinated [inaudible]. I think if you looked at King's (19)63 speech and the April (19)67 speech and you put them together, you will see, how could so much change take place in such a short period of time?
SM:
You are talking about the Vietnam speech?
BF:
Yeah, yeah. And by (19)67, he is saying, "The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my own government. We are fighting on the wrong side of the war [inaudible]." This is the same guy that gave the I Have a Dream speech? He was part of the culture, and the changed situation and consciousness [inaudible]. So by (19)67, obviously, we were really into it. Early (19)65, the first anti-war demonstrations, the teach-ins of early (19)65.
SM:
And it ended in, you say, (19)74. Was that because the Vietnam War was over, or...
BF:
Well, (19)74, (19)75, someplace in there. The creation of the prison industrial complex. In some ways, you might be able to take... if you were going a couple years later. By (19)78, it was clear [inaudible]. I mean, [inaudible] emancipation radically changed between (19)77 and (19)78. (19)73, the United States surrenders in Vietnam. (19)75, the war is over. The change in dance styles began [inaudible]-
SM:
We had disco, yeah. Yeah.
BF:
It really takes over in the (19)80s.
SM:
You talked about ... because you are a cultural expert, and I had a chance to talk with Dr. Morris Dickstein, who talked about his book. And he wanted to talk more about culture. And what was it... the boomers often felt that they were the most unique generation in history. When they were young, they were going to change the world, create almost a utopia, end the war, bring peace, end racism, sexism, you name it. And then there was this feeling that they were unique, more unique than any other generally. Your thoughts on that kind of an attitude? Because many of them still feel that at 62 or 63, as they have gotten older. But what I am leaning into is, after you answer the question on uniqueness, what was it about the culture that stood out so different ... I know the music was unbelievable, the art was unbelievable, the theatrical performances. I am fascinated by guerrilla theater, that I do not think ever existed before. All these things that were a very important part of the period, and the movies, and the TV shows and documentaries, and the personalities on TV, there is a lot here. First, the question on uniqueness.
BF:
Every generation is unique, because every generation... See, I do not even know how... I have to confess something. The way my mind works, categories in general tend to break down. Whenever I started looking at categories, the boundaries of the categories start to come through. So I have a problem even with the concept of a generation.
SM:
That is okay. So did Todd Gitlin.
BF:
Yeah. [inaudible] So I can understand gender. That category I [inaudible]. And I can conceptualize class. But when there is a generation, it really seems to be very... the boundaries are so fluid. Okay, after World War II is [inaudible]. But what difference does that make? There were all kinds of other things happening in the world that were affecting people of different generations. And when I think of the anti-war movement, concrete... a lot of the people who were most active were people in the (19)60s, (19)67, (19)68, (19)69, who were in their 50s, 60s, 70s and older. And I do not know by percentage. Now, if you look at colleges, it is true that there were spectacular events at colleges, because it is easier for college students to engage in spectacular activities than it is for people who are working in the factory.
SM:
You are saying we tend to dwell too much on the college-educated as opposed to those that did not go to college.
BF:
[inaudible] Well, people, maybe they went to college, but I am saying different ages, different classes. This is not to belittle the college movement. It is wonderful, and I will be honest, [inaudible]. But I think the images that we have are quite inaccurate. When I think of the particular participants who were there year in and year out, a lot of them were older people in the community. But that is not the image.
SM:
How important were the... I am going to get to the culture question. How important were the college students and college student protests in ending the war?
BF:
Well, if you listen to the Vietnamese, they were very important.
SM:
Right. David Horowitz.
BF:
(19)64 to (19)68 was a period of [inaudible], which probably had a more direct role. But these things are not unrelated to each other, because the people who were rebelling in the cities, a lot of them were people who were going into the military [inaudible] because [inaudible] I think that in the final analysis, it was people in the military whose anti-war activities had great effect in ending the war; other than the Vietnamese, of course [inaudible]-
SM:
And you are talking-
BF:
The Vietnamese were going to win. They were going to win, no matter what.
SM:
Can you talk about that? And I know it is a very sensitive issue. I have brought it up with Vietnam vets who went there, and they may not want to talk about this part of the... I remember Country Joe was on our campus many years back, with Jan Scruggs. And we were eating dinner. And Country Joe is a little older than Jan Scruggs. And then out of nowhere, during the middle of the dinner, he says, "Have you ever wondered why there were no POWs for the North Vietnamese? Because they were all killed," he said. [inaudible] they were all killed. And Jan C., he did not want to talk about it. That is an image that happens a lot, that they just handed them over to the South Vietnamese, and they did whatever they wanted to do with them. And there was truth there, but-
BF:
Yeah [inaudible] MIA [inaudible] I debated on [inaudible] of the POW/MIA [inaudible] Vietnamese [inaudible]. If you had a choice between being captured by their side and captured by our side, which would you pick? And he was honest enough to move away from this whole area of discussion.
SM:
Oh, wow. He just very... Spitting Image is a book that comes out. And I have read it [inaudible] read it. Your thoughts on ... you mentioned just some commentary here, it is in the book. But why were the Vietnam veterans or people who fought in Vietnam the reason why the war ended? What did they do besides... I know they ended up writing and the other...
BF:
Yeah. I mean, it is there. It is documented in Vietnam [inaudible]-
SM:
Yeah, and we got the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, when they came back.
BF:
Well, Robert Heinl, writing in Armed Forces Journal, has quite a formative essay called The Collapse of the Armed Forces. And that is pretty accurate, because they were collapsing. And this is why Nixon ultimately had to withdraw the ground troops. The only units that were really capable of coherent playing at the level were [inaudible]. The conscript [inaudible] worse than useless, from a military point of view. They did not want to be there. They were largely [inaudible]. They wanted to come home alive. And you could write off, if you wanted to, the motivation of a lot of the people in the army in Vietnam who were actively against the war [inaudible] confusing [inaudible]. However, after [inaudible] and Nixon decided to switch the strategy to depend upon naval air power, we then had a revolutionary newspaper being published on every aircraft carrier [inaudible]. I cite in the book 1,500 members of the U.S.S. Constellation signed a petition to have Jane Fonda's FTA show brought onboard the carrier. Insurrections on ships, sabotage on ships, to the point that by October 1972, five aircraft carriers and their attending fleets had to be brought back to San Diego because they were unfit for combat, because of the anti-war activity in the fleet. And you cannot write off those guys as just trying to save their skins, because they were not in any danger. So why would they physically have taken action against the war? During the Christmas bombing, there were B-52 crews who refused to fly. Intelligence officials who were doing things like leaking the Pentagon Papers. So the students who were protesting on campus had limited means to really apply leverage. [inaudible] but the anti-war people in the Army, Navy and Air Force had a lot of leverage.
SM:
Is not it true that what was happening in Vietnam was happening in America, and that is the division between Black and white... there were those who said when they got into battle, that may have been a different story. They would fight to the end. But times when they were not in battle, the tensions of racism were still there, the drug culture. Everything that was happening in America was happening in the service, and that was part of the reason why it was going downhill.
BF:
But on the other hand, a lot of what was perceived was just the fact [inaudible] was not. A striking example was when a major ship... It was an aircraft carrier [inaudible] San Francisco. And a large number of crewmen refused to go aboard ship to go back to Vietnam. And there is a picture [inaudible]. They had their fists raised, like this. And the captain said, "[inaudible] crew members raised their fist in the Black Power symbol." But then you look at the picture, and a lot of the guys were white. So it was not a Black Power symbol. It was something else.
SM:
We got just a couple more minutes here. One of the basic questions I have tried to ask everyone... Well, there is two questions here. One is, and you may not want to answer this, because you do not believe in the generation concept, but if you were to define the generation, would you call them the Vietnam generation, the (19)60s generation, the Woodstock generation, the protest generation? [inaudible]-
BF:
It does not compute in my brain.
SM:
You said this era was so important culturally, and different than any other. In just a few words, how would you define the uniqueness of the culture during the era of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movements and the evolution of all these movements in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s?
BF:
Well, if you wanted to think of it in one particular word that pulls a lot of things together, I think it is the word liberation. And it is a word that was widely used then: women's liberation movement, Black liberation movement, People's Liberation Army. So going in many different areas, there was a sense of liberation from something. Obviously, you can see it in the music. Rock was perceived as liberating, whatever. I think a lot of people thought that some drugs were liberating. But then you have to be careful when you are talking about this, because even then, and certainly today, what is America's number one drug problem? It is not marijuana and it is not heroin and it is not cocaine. It was the same number one drug problem that led to... the 18th Amendment? [inaudible] prohibition.
SM:
[inaudible]-
BF:
So alcohol. If we want to talk about the destruction of families, domestic violence, violence on the highways, shattered lives, lost careers... But a certain amount of people have looked at marijuana at some point. Other people looking at LSD. I do not think they were looking at meth as [inaudible]. Anyway, so-
SM:
Were the movies and the TV shows liberating, or how about the media culture, all those?
BF:
Well, yeah, I mean, whether they were or were not, there is the perception, I think, of that. [inaudible] in a lot of different ways. It was not just people who were involved in the anti-war movement [inaudible] that time, people were being liberated from something about the conformist and oppressive culture that dominated in the (19)50s.
SM:
Of course, TV was another part of this generation. They saw everything, and they saw the war on TV. One of the questions that our students came up with when we went down to Washington... I think it was like the year before you came to our campus. Senator Muskie was still alive. [inaudible]... This is what they asked him. I have got this right here, or is it here? They wrote it here. We usually have a hard time finding this. Oh, okay. The students wrote this: "Do you feel boomers are still having problems with healing, due to the extreme divisions that tore the nation apart in their youth, the divisions between Black and white, gay and straight, male and female, division between those who supported authority and those who criticized it, divisions between those who supported the troops and those who did not? What role did the Vietnam War play in healing the divisions, or was this primarily a healing for veterans? Do you feel the boomer generation will go to its grave like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? And are we wrong in thinking this way, or has 35, 40 years made the following statement true: time heals all wounds?" Your thoughts on whether we are a nation that cannot heal from all those divisions from that time, that maybe what we see today in our society is a lack of tolerance [inaudible] for other points of view, people do not want to work together. Do you see anything there? And a lot of these boomers are now going into senior citizen status. And I know we may not like to call them a generation, but the Civil War generation, a lot of them... because I have studied Gettysburg, and many of them never healed from that battle.
BF:
Well, again, I do not see this as being confined to a generation, because I think the chasms did open up in American society during this period in 1968 [inaudible] exposed [inaudible] most divisive events [inaudible]. I do not know if we can put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Certainly, today when we talk about red states and blue states, I mean, this is a pretty new concept, except that if you look at the red states, to a large extent, you are looking at lines that pretty much parallel the Civil War.
SM:
In fact, Muskie's response was, "We have not healed since the Civil War." And he would not even talk about anything else.
BF:
Yeah, but we have had a lot of elections since then which were landslides for one party or another party [inaudible] sections of the country voted the same way. You do not see that happening right now, although I think in 2008, it looked like maybe we were going to get out of this mess. Virginia, North Carolina voted for Obama. But since the Republican Party, I think accurately, decided that they had to destroy Obama in order to survive and flourish as a party, and then they kept developing a strategy based on that assumption, that those chasms have become much greater. I do not know if you have gone to any of the town hall meetings?
SM:
Yeah, with Senator Specter.
BF:
I do not know [inaudible].
SM:
It was not fun. It was like they talked down to him, just like he was nobody.
BF:
[inaudible]-
SM:
Whether you like him or not, you do not treat a politician... Boy, it was unbelievable.
BF:
Yeah. Well, my wife went to one in Montclair, which is a very liberal town. And she said it was really scary, really scary.
SM:
So as Senator Gaylord Nelson said, people do not walk around with lack of healing on their sleeve, but he said it forever affected the body politic. And that is the way he responded. It has not healed within the body politic itself.
BF:
But I think the main thing that is going on now is more and more [inaudible]. I do not know what forces there are right now that are going to reverse that [inaudible].
SM:
What are your thoughts on the Vietnam Memorial when you see it? Has it done the job of healing the nation in any way beyond the veteran community? What are your thoughts on that? What do you think of it?
BF:
Well, what I like about the Vietnam Memorial is that it does not glorify war. We have too many statues of people with swords on horseback. I guess it affects different people in different ways, but it is certainly not something which encourages militarism. On the other hand, what was... McNamara's estimate of the number of Vietnamese killed, 325,000 [inaudible] 250,000-
SM:
[inaudible]-
(End of Interview)
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with H. Bruce Franklin
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Franklin, H. Bruce (Howard Bruce), 1934- ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
Subject
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Historians; Authors, American--20th century College teachers; Rutgers University; Franklin, H. Bruce (Howard Bruce), 1934--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
H. Bruce Franklin is an American cultural historian and scholar. He has received top awards in American Studies, science fiction, prison literature, and marine ecology. Franklin has written and edited nineteen books, three hundred professional articles, and has participated in several film productions. He was awarded the Pearson-Bode Prize for lifetime achievement in American Studies. Franklin currently is the Professor of English and American Studies at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. He received his Bachelor's degree from Amherst College and his Ph.D. from Stanford University.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2010-03-10
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In copyright
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eng
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Sound
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.190
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2018-03-29
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McKiernan Interviews
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46:50
-
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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
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Audio interviews
Title
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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
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Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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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
2010-08-18
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Hal Phoenix Muscat
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
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1 Microcassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Duration
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79:59
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe; North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); Activism; American G.I.; WWII; Vietnam War; Vietnam Memorial; Vietnam Veterans Against the War; United States Department of Veterans Affairs."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":515,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":16370588},"12":0}">Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe; North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); Activism; American G.I.; WWII; Vietnam War; Vietnam Memorial; Vietnam Veterans Against the War; United States Department of Veterans Affairs.</span>
Subject LCSH
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Muscat, Phoenix--Interviews
Biographical Text
<p>Hal Phoenix Muscat is a Vietnam War veteran who became a GI activist when he began opposing the U.S. war against Vietnam, in 1968, while stationed in Germany. Upon his return to Fox Dix, N.J in April 1969, he became involved with <em>SHAKEDOWN</em> (an anti-war publication for GIs on base and off base at coffeehouse locations). He had two court-martials for distributing unauthorized literature and served six months in army brigs after the second conviction. He was discharged from Fort Knox, KY, where he worked on <em>FTA</em>, the newspaper on base. In 1988, he participated with other Vietnam vets going to Nicaragua. He is one of the four G.I. activists profiled in the film No Sir. Prior to this film, he was the co-founder of the San Francisco Bay Area "Vietnam Speakers Alliance" and is a key leader of the San Francisco chapter of Veterans For Peace. He is currently involved in Burning Man as a participant and activist. He lives with his family in the San Francisco Bay Area.</p>
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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
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Interview with Hal Phoenix Muscat
Contributor
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Muscat, Hal Phoenix ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
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audio/wav
Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Muscat, Phoenix--Interviews
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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2010-08-18
Rights
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In copyright
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.90
Date Modified
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2018-03-29
Is Part Of
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McKiernan Interviews
Extent
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79:59
Description
An account of the resource
Hal Phoenix Muscat is a Vietnam War veteran who became a GI activist when he began opposing the U.S. war against Vietnam, in 1968, while stationed in Germany. Upon his return to Fox Dix, N.J in April 1969, he became involved with <em>SHAKEDOWN</em> (an anti-war publication for GIs on base and off base at coffeehouse locations). He had two court-martials for distributing unauthorized literature and served six months in army brigs after the second conviction. He was discharged from Fort Knox, KY, where he worked on <em>FTA</em>, the newspaper on base. In 1988, he participated with other Vietnam vets going to Nicaragua. He is one of the four G.I. activists profiled in the film No Sir. Prior to this film, he was the co-founder of the San Francisco Bay Area "Vietnam Speakers Alliance" and is a key leader of the San Francisco chapter of Veterans For Peace. He is currently involved in Burning Man as a participant and activist. He lives with his family in the San Francisco Bay Area.
-
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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.
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Date of Interview
1997-07-14
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Harry Gaffney
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
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
112:37
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Harry Gaffney is an educator, administrator, and Vietnam War veteran. He currently is the CEO of Strategic Leadership Management. Gaffney graduated from St. Joseph's University with a Bachelor's degree in English and Villanova with a Master's degree in Educational Administration. "}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":769,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0}">Harry Gaffney is an educator, administrator, and Vietnam War veteran. He currently is the CEO of Strategic Leadership Management. Gaffney graduated from St. Joseph's University with a Bachelor's degree in English and Villanova with a Master's degree in Educational Administration. </span>
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Baby boom generation; Civil Disobedience; Kent State University; Students for a Democratic Society; Anti-War Movement; Weather Underground; Lyndon Johnson; Robert McNamara; Women's Rights Movement; Decolonization; Black Panthers; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Drug Culture; Nonviolence; Class Privilege; Civil Rights Movement; Communal Movement; Woodstock; Folk Song Revival; Black Power; Separation; Malcolm X."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":515,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":16370588},"12":0}">Baby boom generation; Civil Disobedience; Kent State University; Students for a Democratic Society; Anti-War Movement; Weather Underground; Lyndon Johnson; Robert McNamara; Women's Rights Movement; Decolonization; Black Panthers; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Drug Culture; Nonviolence; Class Privilege; Civil Rights Movement; Communal Movement; Woodstock; Folk Song Revival; Black Power; Separation; Malcolm X.</span>
Subject LCSH
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Educators; Gaffney, Harry--Interviews
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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.
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Title
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Interview with Harry Gaffney
Contributor
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Gaffney, Harry ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
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audio/wav
Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Educators; Gaffney, Harry--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Harry Gaffney is an educator, administrator, and Vietnam War veteran. He currently is the CEO of Strategic Leadership Management. Gaffney graduated from St. Joseph's University with a Bachelor's degree in English and Villanova with a Master's degree in Educational Administration.
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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1997-07-14
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In copyright
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.105a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.105b
Date Modified
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2018-03-29
Is Part Of
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McKiernan Interviews
Extent
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112:37
-
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f20548b3d85d7e41a81ecbf6ac5f8723
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
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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
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-12-02
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Heather Booth
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
2:56:02
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
MicroCassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
Baby boom generation; Civil Rights Movement; Women's Rights Movement; War protest; Suffragettes; Activism; University of Chicago; Freedom; School boycotts; Free Speech Movement;
Biographical Text
Heather Booth is a civil rights activist, feminist, and political strategist. Booth started organizing in the civil rights, anti-Vietnam war, and women's movements of the 1960s. She also started JANE, an underground abortion service in 1965. Booth was the founding Director and is now President of the Midwest Academy. She became the Director of the NAACP National Voter Fund, which helped to increase African American election turnout in 2000. She was directing the founding of the Campaign for Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2005. Booth became the director of the Health Care Campaign for the AFL-CIO in 2008. In 2009, she directed the campaign passing President Obama’s first budget. She was strategic advisor to the Alliance for Citizenship and has been a consultant on many other issues and with other organizations. Booth has a Bachelor's degree in Social Sciences, then in 1970, a Master's degree in Educational Psychology, both from the University of Chicago.
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 Heather Booth
-
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f106037500b185d02f99a83345bc68e1
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/409574f0375b627e5b55c6e953d48be7.mp3
b589ffdf58b1f2e7361af161c57c7497
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
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2009-07-06
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Hettie Jones
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Hettie Jones is the author of 20 books but is best known for her memoir of the Beat Scene. She started the literary magazine Yugen, has taught writing at SUNY Purchase, Penn State, the University of Wyoming, and is one of the faculty members in the graduate program for creative writing at The New School in New York City. She has been chair of a plethora of writing programs and has received grants to start a writing program in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Jones received her Bachelor's degree in Drama from the University of Virginia and pursued her postgraduate work at Columbia University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":4527,"3":{"1":1},"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}]},"6":{"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}]},"10":2,"11":4,"15":"Arial"}">Hettie Jones (1934-2024) was the author of 20 books but is best known for her memoir of the Beat Scene. She started the literary magazine <em>Yugen</em>, has taught writing at SUNY Purchase, Penn State, and the University of Wyoming, and was one of the faculty members in the graduate program for creative writing at The New School in New York City. She has been chair of a plethora of writing programs and has received grants to start a writing program in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Jones received her Bachelor's degree in Drama from the University of Virginia and pursued her postgraduate work at Columbia University.</span>
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
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Beat Generation; WWII; Art expression; American Art; Literature; Women; Sex; SDS; Baby boom generation; Atomic bomb; Freedom of expression; Hippies; Trust."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5041,"3":{"1":0},"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}]},"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">Beat Generation; WWII; Art expression; American Art; Literature; Women; Sex; SDS; Baby boom generation; Atomic bomb; Freedom of expression; Hippies; Trust; Beats; Seventies; Sixties; Fifties; War; Writing; Writers; Students; Activism.</span>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
105:31
Subject LCSH
Authors; College teachers; Jones, Hettie--Interviews
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium
McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Hettie Jones
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Carrie Blabac-Myers
Date of interview: 6 July 2009
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
00:09
SM: Still there? Hello, Hettie?
00:18
HJ: Are you there?
00:19
SM: Yep, I am here.
00:20
HJ: Okay. I do not know which phone is better, but I am just going to try them all out. Sometimes it is so difficult, and they are doing something to the street, you know, this is just an incredible area for change.
00:35
SM: Right.
00:36
HJ: But I have closed the windows and hopefully they are on a break. They started this I think at seven o'clock this morning doing something in the street, you know, and jack hammers
00:48
SM: Ah, yeah, there is a lot of that going around here. Not near me but road construction.
00:55
HJ: That is the way it is. Okay, well, I am trying this phone. Can you hear me well enough?
00:59
SM: Yeah, yep, I can hear you.
01:01
HJ: That is good. Okay.
01:02
SM: All right, let us start. The first question I wanted to ask is, when I met with Dr. Marilyn Young, the historian at New York University, maybe five, six years ago, and I asked the question, when did the (19)60s begin and she said, the (19)60s began with the Beat writers. And I think I mentioned this to you on the phone too, or in my letter, she is the only person that ever said that and all the people I have interviewed. Of course, she is a great historian. What do you think she was talking about when she said the (19)60s began with the Beats?
01:39
HJ: Well, because the (19)60s began with the television exposure and the media exposure. Do not forget that was just about the time, that television was growing into it as a medium for the dissemination of information. Before that, it was just sort of game shows and roller derby and just comedy and stuff like that. It was not a very serious thing. Yeah, they had the news but, the Beats somehow were well, I believe there were two things that I can think of: Jack Kerouac appeared on television, reading his poetry. And, what else was the other thing? Life magazine published an article about the Beats. So that these two small things, you would think small, things have made a big change. We were a very, very small group as I have written, you know. Everybody fit into my living room and it was not a very large living room. But then when we moved to a larger space, suddenly there were all these, well, I can only describe them as "wanna beats". And, the whole, the whole idea of rebellion had exploded, the whole idea of forging ahead with your own life and not conforming had made its way into the culture. And then there was suddenly hundreds of people doing that! And you know, in the later (19)60s, because of the Vietnam War and everything, people, young people felt that they could speak out. The threat of, I guess the silence that was imposed on the populace during the Second World War "Loose lips sink ships." You are not old enough to recall that, but I remember posters and things like that. So we were all expected to conform and to go live in the suburbs and be quiet and build peace and have a lot of children to replace all the people that died in the war. But suddenly it was not like that anymore. So that is why I believe it began, and we were a role model for people.
04:28
SM: I was looking up in a book, like four qualities that were described for the Beat Generation, which was, these qualities were: Eastern spirituality, alternative forms of sexuality, experimentation with drugs, and a rejection of a mainstream American values. And when I see that being described for the Beats, that is a lot of what happened in the counterculture in the (19)60s. That when you have the, the Beats, maybe the counterculture was the follow-up to those qualities in the in the (19)60s. Could you comment on those four qualities?
05:13
HJ: Well, you know, you are talking about everything except art. You are talking about everything except writing.
05:20
SM: Right.
05:21
HJ: So the Beats were writers. But they, if you want to include the entire Bohemia at that time, the abstract expressionist painters, the jazz musicians who were changing things. I think we were all interactive with one another, and it was more than lifestyle changing and more than attitudinal changing. It was really the Beats challenged the expected established ideas of what was American art. And you know, everybody knows that art goes before social change, it points the way to social change, points the way to real estate! Art is there, that is why they call us avant-garde! You know. And so, those four points that you mentioned, I would associate so much more with the people who came after us. The hippies, because, we were not; yes, we were doing that, all the points you mentioned it, but our focus was mainly on the commentary and the challenge to the culture that writing, that the writing brought, I think. But yeah, I guess certainly you know, they took the ball and ran with it. But they ran with it; the experimenting with drugs, for example, the only reason we did that was to achieve a higher consciousness and not for quote, unquote "recreation." And, I think it just had, it just had a little segue there into let us get, you know, who was it who used to say? Let us all get stoned, whatever that whoever made that, I forget! [laughs]
07:39
SM: Might have been Tim Leary. Who knows.
07:41
HJ: No, I think it was maybe Bob Dylan. [laughs]
07:44
SM: Yeah.
07:45
HJ: Do not forget, Bob Dylan was around in the village and if you read his autobiography, he attended LeRoi Jones' plays, he read On the Road. Yeah, he was very much influenced.
08:04
SM: When you talk about the arts here, obviously the arts of either the great writers of the Beats in the (19)50s and early (19)60s, and of course, they continue to write throughout their entire lives and are continuing to do so. But when you look at the, maybe some of the artists that came up in the (19)60s, or early (19)70s, whether they be musicians or painters, who would those that influenced the boomers. Who would? Who would they be?
08:33
HJ: Well, you know, it is hard for me to really project. I am not an historian and you know, I specialize in having a Zen mind. It is a blank mind so that I can write.
08:46
SM: Right?
08:47
HJ: So when I am thinking back into history, as to, I am not a critic, who influenced whom, I would still have to say, you know, thousands of people and billions of people read On the Road. Young black people have read or heard about or saw LeRoi Jones' plays. I think some of the women, but women were not really in the mix so much, but who else? Allen Ginsberg, of course. You know, millions and millions of people here and overseas listen to Allen and his rants. He was probably the most influential of anybody, and everybody wanted to "Mola Mola", you know. Turn over the establishment. Rail against war. Do this, do that. But they felt free to open their mouths because of those writers, I think.
09:58
SM: One of the things here, I put these thoughts down regarding the (19)50s. What were the circumstances in the late (19)40s and (19)50s that created the Beats and influenced the early lives of their children? Which are boomers. I put down some of the things that I would remember if I was just an elementary school kid from the (19)50s. President Eisenhower and his smile, the Space Race, Sputnik, Castro and (19)57, Khrushchev, Hungry in 1956, the Berlin Wall, parents had jobs that were secure, parents wanted to make sure that their kids were protected and they had more than when they grew up in the Depression. Moms were at home taking care of the kids and dads were always at work. And there was a seeming respect for authority. And certainly the term Communism was popular, was around at that time and of course McCarthyism, he was trying to find scapegoats and we all know that there is still a lot of segregation in the South. Just your thoughts on those qualities that obviously affected the Beats. They were commenting on them.
11:17
HJ: Well, we were running from them and, and doing whatever we could to set them aside and to try to invent a new life. You know, personally. I guess I experienced every single thing that that you have just listed and, my whole attitude was that I would just going to invent a whole new way to become a woman. From the clothing I wore, to my attitudes about being free to be a sexual being. Yes, certainly. I was in opposition to all of those, but I was not necessarily willing to engage all of those things that were in place. Because if you spend your time fighting, what is the established rule in every aspect, then you are just fighting and fighting, but you have not invented anything new. So my attitude and they attitude of all of the Beats that I knew and particularly women was simply go it alone or find kindred spirits, if you could, which we did a few of us. Just invent a new way of life by embarking on one and going forward rather than forever issuing challenges.
12:59
SM: Hettie, you bring up an important point, because when, when a lot of people think of the (19)50s, the (19)60s and early (19)70s, they see men always in charge of movements. And what was interesting is even when you look at the women's movement, and you study the history of it in the (19)60s, and how women were tired of being second figures and a lot of the anti-war and civil rights and all the other movements, that was when the Women's Movement really came to fruition. But what you are saying is there was a lot going on in the (19)50s with women trying to assert their attitudes and beliefs and feelings. Could you comment a little bit on women of the (19)50s, Beat writers who are female of the (19)50s and what they had to overcome?
13:49
HJ: Well, let us establish the fact that there were not very many of them. Very few, very, very few people. And of all the people who fit into my living room, probably a third were women. So, but they were all just running, you know. I think in a story, "Running from home as hard as they could, but bringing them, bringing it with them all the same." It is a line from a story I have written but we brought our attitudes. We, we were not out to particularly offend people, but only to seize our lives. To take control of our lives. But as I said, we were castigated. Let us think about a time when if you did not live with your parents until you got married and then live with your husband, there was something suspect about you. You were suspect for having your own apartment no matter where it was, in the village, in my case and then the case of many of the Beats. But you were suspect. If you were a sexual being you, you know? You were violating the law, but everybody knew that kind of subversive life. You know, also as I have written that supporting myself, women have always had sex, you know, you could always have sex. You could have sex in the backseat of a car or in the under the haystack or behind the barn, you know. But you could not talk about it. You could not feel free to live your life as though that were a part of your life. And that I think was very different, that we did what we did, but it was clear that it was open and aboveboard. And that made a big difference. We did not want to hide again. But I think that the, the women who say the women in SDS who came later and the women at Kent State, places like that, had somehow absorbed that idea through whatever effects the Beats on them and felt freer. It is like, you know, the pebbles that you throw in the water and the rings go out, and out and out.
16:39
SM: You raise a very important point here because if you study the history of the Students for Democratic Society, and I just read a book on them by the leader of the anti-war movement at Columbia, Mark Rudd. He talks about the women who were involved with SDS and all the, basically, all the sex they had with different partners, and it was encouraged! It was encouraged by the leadership of SDS.
17:11
HJ: Yeah but you see that was a little different and they are something different. Nobody was controlling it. The Beats were a small enough group or the art community that I am speaking of really basically, not just the Beats. Nobody going to tell you that was a ̶ you know, go ahead and have sex with this one and that one. You just did what you wanted to do. You were not - you know sex was not emphasized. It was just considered a part of everyone's life and you were lucky enough to be able to handle it. It was not, "Oh, I am going to go have sex!" It was more like, "Oh, I am going to live in New Year where people are challenging the establishment by making art and trying to describe life as we want to be able to live it." But it was almost with SDS people and all those people, it was almost deliberate flaunting and opposition.
18:24
SM: Right.
18:25
HJ: That is the ̶ I think that, maybe it is a subtle difference, but it was a bit of a difference.
18:33
SM: Well, I know we are going to ̶ we want to talk more about the (19)50s. But I do have to ask one question because you raise kids that are Boomers.
18:41
HJ: No, not really. Well, I suppose your definition says (19)64 but they do not consider themselves that at all.
18:51
SM: (19)46 and (19)64.
18:54
HJ: Right. My kids were born and (19)59 and (19)61. But there were, you know, black women who never considered themselves a part of that generation at all. They really grew up in a time that was more the Civil Rights era, and do not forget they have a very well-known father and they marched and they did this and that. So, they are a little different.
19:26
SM: What? Is there one a specific event in your life that shaped you when you were young?
19:32
HJ: Oh, well. You know, it is, I always saw that I was going, that art was a talent for me and I have written about this. In my memoir, there was that scene in the beginning of my book when I talked about weaving a basket when I was six. But even prior to that one, I was probably four. I remember making some comments. Making a metaphor and all the adults around me making a big fuss over me and it stayed with me for a very long time. And I have actually got a little written piece about it. So, I always I just always knew that I was a little bit, not a little bit, but a lot, but basically different from the rest of my family. You know, the whole changeling thing.
20:46
SM: Yes. This might be a repetition here, but this is a question I sent when I sent the six questions dealing directly with the Beats. Do you feel the Beats had a direct influence on the (19)60s and (19)70s, even though they were identified with the (19)50s?
21:04
HJ: Oh, yes! And, you know, they are no longer - you know, I taught classes on the Beats. And they are no longer identified with one particular era. You have to, when you are teaching young people who are so far removed from those events, you have to point out all of the historical patterns that led to what the Beats did. But they simply identify with the open road and the freedom and the wonderful writing. That is what they like. And the fact that, you know, that, particularly On the Road or Howl, or any other [those are the two iconic pieces from the time] that they are not about what is usually the case now. Novels are about relationships and poems are about looking at your navel and like that. I think young people appreciate the fact that these are works of engagement in some way or another, and they like them. They like the freedom. They like the spirit. They like the voice. I think that is what they like. So I forgot your original question. I am just meandering here.
22:41
SM: That is okay. To you, when did the (19)50s begin? Now I am talking, we know (19)50s begin in 1950 and (19)51. But when people talk about the (19)60s, we know the (19)60s really did not end until (19)73 and (19)74. So when did the (19)50s really begin in your eyes with the postwar and all things that I mentioned?
23:06
HJ: I feels like the (19)50s were always there, even in the (19)40s.
23:11
SM: Yeah, talk about that.
23:14
HJ: You know, everything was so devoted to the war. The war! The war, the Second World War began when I was seven years old. And I had just, you know, I was beginning to read and I was conscious of the world around me at that point. And the whole idea was to hunker down. Do not forget, I am a Jew, and therefore, we were kept very quietly at home. Because if it could happen over there, it could happen over here. So I lead a, what you would probably call a very comfortable, but ghettoized life. And that seems to be operative until the end of the (19)40s. I went to college in 1951. But at that point, I was beginning to think a lot about where I was in the world and what the world was in the midst of. McCarthy. The Rosenbergs. The atom bomb. All of that kind of stuff. And I had political opinions. I went to college in the South and encountered for the first time my life prejudice against me as well as against black people. The roommate with whom I had been assigned did not want to live with me because I was a Jew, and a Yankee. So you see, it all began for me as soon as I got away from home and started to see a little bit of the rest of the world and thankfully be way from having myself under wraps in a certain sense when I was at home. I already saw that I had to invent a new way of life at that time, and that was when the (19)50s really, really began for me. In the (19)50s, I began to be a (19)60s person. Does that makes sense?
25:48
SM: Yes.
25:50
HJ: Good.
25:51
SM: Yeah, that I will follow that up with when do you think the (19)60s and early (19)70s began?
25:58
HJ: Well, you know, the Bohemia that in which we lived in the later (19)50s and in the early (19)60s. It was short lived but intense and, everything just began around that time. I do not know, (19)62, (19)63. I remember, maybe (19)59, that was the first time we had a television set. And I remember watching someone college student being spit upon and that was the first time television had that much of an effect. Watching television and watching these kids at a lunch counter in some state, I do not know exactly where it was, shopping, their all dressed up in their suits and you know, Sunday go-to-meeting clothes, looking real respectable, and being spit upon in a diner in the South. The (19)50s began right there for me, because I already had one child and was committing that child for that, to that kind of life and wow, you know, my head was expanding every day.
27:29
SM: So that really is that experience of seeing that on TV and then having a child was kind of a watershed moment for you.
27:37
HJ: I guess so. I can still, I can still see it in my mind. Yeah, you know, you do not take a consideration like that lightly when you are thinking all the time and you are twenty-five years old.
27:59
SM: One of questions I wanted to ask and think I got a couple more before I switch my tape here. Allen Ginsburg, who you knew very well, seemed to be all the writers of the Beats the one that transcended decades. Because I can remember as a college student in 1972, seeing him at Ohio State in the Ohio union doing his chanting. And he never spoke, never read any poetry, he just was there for almost two hours chanting. And the room was packed. It was kind of, it was a, it was kind of a "be in", it was a "happening".
28:37
HJ: Yes.
28:38
SM: But he seemed to be at a lot of the anti-war protests. He was all over the world, was dealing with a lot of issues. What was it about Ginsburg? Because he obviously was very close to a lot of the Boomers and the (19)60s people. What separated him from the other Beat writers with respect to his involvement? He was out there, he was everywhere!
29:01
HJ: Well, God bless him. You know, he was the one to do it. You know. What separates Bob Dylan from all the rest of the people? He was a man with a message, right? A rolling stone. And Allen was a, you know, from his very beginning, even at Columbia, somebody who was breaking away from the future that had been ordained for him, had he followed the usual pattern and going into something wider, and he had lots of media exposure, and he was very good. He had marvelous stage presence. He had incredible concentration. Allen was a very, very multitalented man in that respect, and fearless! And everyone had a lot of respect for him, because he would just stand up to anything. And he was very, you know, all these things were people who were very well read. And they, they were intellectual, in a lot of senses. They were not just populist figures who came out of nowhere. They, they were men with the messages. And Allen particularly was good with audiences. His politics were radical for the day, but, and he used it and he used the forum. Any forum he was offered. But he is less of a figure today more of an occult figure, although he is still beloved by people who read Howl.
31:19
SM: Alright, go right ahead.
31:22
HJ: So he is still beloved, but you know he is not in that, young people caught onto him because they see his rants against the establishment as theirs as well. I do not think anybody but Barack Obama has taken young people by storm, since Allen.
31:51
SM: I often noticed, because I have a lot of books on the Beats and some actually like Ferlinghetti's poetry and I have a lot of the City Lights books and I know Ferlinghetti has written poems on the (19)60s and the (19)70s many, and also, Anne Waldman wrote a great group of poems on Vietnam and Ed Sanders; so there was no question that the (19)60s and (19)70s really have - that many of the Beats were still - this is a very important period for them.
32:22
HJ: Oh, yeah, I think so. Well, do not forget Anne Waldman is much younger than everybody, you know. Anne Waldman is a decades younger and was way younger than Allen too. So, she was. Oh, I think more, more, if you want to talk about I do not know that. She doesn't identify with Boomers but who are the Boomer poets? We think we I do not know really.
32:58
SM: I can only, I can only think of one: Rod McKuen.
33:03
HJ: Yeah, I am not even familiar with him. As I told you when we discussed this interview, during the (19)70s, I was, during the late (19)60s and (19)70s, I was trying to keep my head up, trying to not lose my apartment, of trying to keep my kids on the straight and narrow, you know. I was trying to earn a living, and become a writer and the world just had to fall away at a certain point because even the feminist movement had to pass me by. I was not interested in a glass ceiling. I was not at all. I was concerned in trying to reinvent a life between the races for myself. So when you talk about popular figures and writers of the (19)70s, I am going to be at a loss.
34:12
SM: Right. Well, what is interesting here is you are talking about the writers of different periods. I have a question here. Before I get to that question, I wanted, you in your email to me, you gave a one line regarding the fact about the Boomers. And, I know we are not going to basically talk about the qualities and so forth about them. But I did want to ask you from afar, if you were to be asked, what are your thoughts on the young people that were involved in the anti-war movement and, you know, they were challenging authorities during that timeframe, and also the fact that the intellectual links because you have reiterated over and over again, I believe this, just like you that the intellectual environment which was, was set central core to the Beats, that a lot of the anti-war, and a lot of the things happening in the movements was also happening in the university environment, which is supposed to be an intellectual environment. And the challenges were coming in freedom of expression on university campuses, just as the writers are writing about it, you know, in the (19)50s. Challenging authority. Do you? Can you see, again, the link somehow even from afar, between these two intellectual environments, and the challenging of authority?
35:42
HJ: Well, when we talk about universities, do not forget, up to that point, universities were modeled on the Greek model and we studied Western civilization. Right?
35:59
SM: Yes.
36:00
HJ: And that was really the core curriculum. I think because of the fact that a lot of information pops up, is the right word to use here, about groups who are tangential to all of that came into the culture. People, the young people in the universities, were challenging what was taught. And there began the movement or inclusivity that had been, again challenged every step of the way because nobody learns the same thing anymore. Because the universities have eventually bowed to that and began including courses about other aspects about America. Right? American literature. I mean who read Momaday? He was an Indian? Hardly anybody. You know, who read Langston Hughes? Hardly anybody. Because he is a black man. But trying to get all of these brains into the university as part of American culture. This was an era when film criticism grew as a discipline. When, jazz began to be considered as music! Instead of just entertainment. A lot of different disciplines that required intellectual attention were being promoted. And I think young people who now felt freer than ever to speak their mind were challenging the university's old ways of, you know, studying dead white men and that was all we ever knew about. I mean, you know, unless you took specific courses, you did not learn about the American labor movement. I never had a class in which I learned about the women, the Suffragettes. I mean, yes, I had some general ideas that women got the vote in, you know 19(00), whatever it was (19)11 or something or other like that, but one did not do close studies of that. So, you know, a lot was changing in the universities that had to do with the desire that somehow began to be abroad in the land, and that there was a lot more to learn than what you learned in school.
39:06
SM: One of the qualities you are also looking at Herbert Huncke, who you obviously know. When I am reading on the beats, very important thing came out to the edge of Beat came to the group through the underworld association with Herbert Huncke, where it originally meant tired or beaten down. And a lot of the people in the (19)60s had that same feeling about being beaten down. And so I see these comparisons constantly between the Beat writers, the intellectual writing, the arts, and a lot of the activism of the (19)60s, the feeling of being beaten down. And just your thoughts on that.
39:53
HJ: Well, oppression, you know. And I do not know. You know the word 'beat', 85,000 ways. [laughs] It was a, it was a very convenient, very convenient term, but nobody, you can define it any way you really want to. But the, you know, Huncke, of course, oh, I think he was right. I think, you know, that is the generally accepted definition of it. But I think more, you know, in terms of the people in the sixtes; the college students, they were not beat. They were not junkies hanging out in Times Square. The way they interpreted really all of that kind of feeling was that they will repressed and of course, they were repressed. It was every kind of repression going on. Suppression. It was political for them and sexual and everything, and I think they just responded to it by acknowledging it. And you know how many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man? Right?
41:17
SM: Yes.
41:20
HJ: They just took this fuse and I think popularized them. And of course, you know young people, they do whatever seems hippest. You have got to realize that when you are, well you know, when you are seventeen or eighteen, if you see something that is exciting, you will gravitate toward it that is where the cutest people were right?
41:48
SM: Freedom of expression is something you know, we just came off the July fourth weekend and our founding fathers and through two hundred plus years here in the United States freedom of expression is something we all love. We see what happens in Iran and the suppression going on over there. But if the Beats and their writing, obviously there was some suppression going on there. And even though we talk about freedom of expression in the United States of America, is not there a price one has to pay for truly speaking up? Whether it be through a great book, whether it be through an interview, or a TV show, or in the (19)60s through a protest? There is a price. Dr. King used to always say that if you are not willing to go to jail for your beliefs, then you really do not have any beliefs. And especially if there is injustice happening, this concept of free expression - if you were in the room right now, with all the great Beat writers of the (19)50s and you were just going to have a conversation on the term "freedom of speech in the United States of America in 1955" what do you think most of your peers would say?
43:14
HJ: That it was limited, you know, I am just thinking of McCarthy in his day. I know I was in, I think I was still in college? Do you have McCarthy's dates? When the House on American Activities was?
43:32
SM: Yeah. That was early (19)50s.
43:38
HJ: (19)52, (19)53?
43:39
SM: Yes.
43:39
HJ: Yes. So that it was evident that speaking out and were using to speak up. People were jailed, blacklisted, jailed! So that had happened in the immediate past. In 1955, it would have been on everyone's mind. The bomb. Speaking out against the bomb. Speaking out against. You were a communist sympathizer, if you even said that maybe there was something to socialism, not even communism but socialism heaven forbid. Equality for women, parity in the work ̶ We did not even get that far in the mid (19)50s. But, yeah, of course a price would be paid! You know the first demonstration that I ever went on was not until I had one child so it would have been 1960 and it was when Castro came to the UN, and we marched around the park. I have written about this in front of the UN. And they had a whole cordon of mounted policemen who [inaudible] us. And they did not let me march with my baby in her stroller.
44:31
SM: Hmm.
44:44
HJ: You know, and they made me go sit on a bench. They said it was too dangerous. So yeah. Oh dear, someone is ringing my bell. Steve can you bear with me because that may be a kind of a package.
45:37
SM: Yep, yeah, I will bear with it. I will wait.
45:38
HJ: I do not want it to go back to the - Okay, thanks a lot.
45:41
SM: Yep. Alright, I got my tape back on. Continue what you are saying.
45:48
HJ: Now I forgot what I was saying. I was so, what was I talking about?
45:52
SM: I am not even sure now. Maybe I will just go to the next question.
45:57
HJ: Sure.
45:58
SM: Okay. This is just again, I know we are not going to talk about specifically about the Boomers but just from that one line you sent me on the email again. If you were ̶ Just your general thoughts on the Boomer generation. What, what were their good qualities or bad qualities in your mind, from afar?
46:21
HJ: Um, well, you know, it is funny because all of those kids as I, I thought of them, and I never thought of them as Boomers I mean, we did not even we did not use that word then. I thought, the ones that I knew and who hung around my neighborhood and everything, were hippy. And, and that was how I saw them. I appreciated a lot of their impulses. That was what I appreciated, were their impulses. They had certain ideas: back to the land, nonmaterialistic culture, things like that. I appreciated all of that. However, they seemed to lack the kind of, I do not think 'political will' is what I really mean here, but they seemed this kind of laid back on, you know, 'let us go get stoned' sort of thing and that was not what we were about. We were about hard work and making our, you know making the changes that we wanted known through, were not only political protests, but through writing. And so I saw a lot them as, a lot of them were, aimless at first. But, you know, then throughout I think the (19)70s people had to shape up. But at first, they seemed, I do not know what they were living on, you know. Whatever they were living on, they might have been drifting? I just, you know, there were a lot, I because of my position I saw them a lot of the time as spoiled little white kids who could do whatever they wanted, because they did not have a hardscrabble existence. They could straighten themselves up and put on a jacket and tie and go work in an office when they wanted to. I felt that there was some, a little bit of a nonseriousness about them. But then, I am sure things changed. And do not forget, as you know, I have to keep reminding you, I was off in my own little world.
49:05
SM: Yes.
49:05
HJ: Kind of trying to figure out how to get through each month.
49:11
SM: A lot of the hippies went into the communes. What were your thoughts on the communal life that many of them participated in?
49:20
HJ: Well, if you look at the history of it, they did not really they did not succeed in a lot of ways, because they had forgotten to take into account the fact of human feelings; of jealousies and the need for privacy and, we were not all meant for a communal existence. Some of them, some of us are lone wolves. You know, I think you have to applaud a lot of what they, a lot of what they did. But you know, communal, well, there are still a few communes that are running but communes very often degenerate into cults. And I have seen and read the effect of cults on people. I have had students who had formerly been in cults and you know, directionless people looking for direction are going to look for a leader and sometimes the leader is less than trustworthy, were exploited.
50:41
SM: One of the one of the things about I always looked at where people genuine when they did things and obviously, I want to come in and if you felt the Beat writers were genuine in their writing. And also when you look at the generation of followed them, the Boomers, 15 percent of the people that were in that generation of seventy to seventy-five million really participated, though the rest of them did not. But always, the question that I have to ask myself to who experienced it, how genuine were most of them in in their concerns? Or you know - so basically, could you comment on how genuine the Beats were in their writing? Because obviously, they were intellectually gifted. They were deep thinkers. But the term genuine is something that is a very important quality in people. And so your comments on both the Beats of the (19)50s and the ones that continue writing today, plus the Boomers and their activism during that (19)60s and (19)70s.
51:54
HJ: Regarding genuine, you know, you certainly are genuine when you are putting yourself up for criticism and castigation because do not forget when the Beats were first published that they began to write. I mean, I worked, I ran the Partisan Review office at that time and the general response from the literary establishment was, oh, this is ridiculous. You know. This is just, you know, they just dismissed them. So if you are the genuine article and you believe in what you have to say, you are just going to say, okay, that is the way they feel and I will just continue to go on. I think that the fact that they were genuine is evidenced by the fact that they have lasted so long and are in now the tannin. You know? Now kids who take freshmen "Comp." are reading On the Road. So, there you go! Talk about the cannons they have been admitted. But had they not spoken from their heart, who would have bothered you know? They would have faded away.
53:19
SM: Well, were the anti-war, civil rights, women's movement, gay and lesbian, where would you place them in there?
53:28
HJ: Certainly somebody like Adrienne Rich, certainly. Yeah. You know, like the other people who really are associated with the beginnings of the feminist movement all of a sudden, I am blanking on their names. Who I do I mean? They had to! Of course they were genuine! Otherwise, they wouldn't have been considered so, over and over and over by so many different generations tracing the history of the feminist movement. And you know, genuineness is the fact that Allen spoke openly of homosexuality let a lot of people come out of the closet. The fact that the feminist movement led women to make demands of their own, do not forget, we were also we were making something like fifty-five cents on the dollar compared to men or sixty-five? I have forgotten. A very, very low salary. And you never saw women lawyers, you never saw, we hardly had any women doctors. The whole world has changed a great deal in terms of what we accept the ability of women to do! So, yeah, they were genuine. But as far as the writers that I think of they are more polemicists than artists in that sense. The writing is to formulate a political agenda rather than to create art, and that is a bit of a [inaudible] I think.
55:19
SM: One of the important questions I have asked all of my guests and this just applies to everyone here and you probably saw this on the list, it was number eleven. The concept of healing. I want to - I took a group of students, to see former senator Edmund Muskie before he died when I was working at the university and it was one of our leadership on the road programs. And I took fourteen students with me, we got into the room, we were taping we were talking about the (19)68 convention and all the divisions in America the anti-war movement, and of course he was he had long since retired and actually he was not feeling very well either he had just come out of the hospital. And I asked the question, I said, about healing and this is the ̶ I am going to just read it here: Do you feel Boomers and I guess I will say the people of the (19)50s too. Do you feel Boomers are still having problems with healing from the divisions that tore the nation apart in their youth and their growing up years? The 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 did the Wall play in healing these divisions in Washington? Do you feel that the Boomer generation will go to it is grave like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? Am I wrong in thinking this or has thirty-five years made that statement "Time heals all wounds," a truth? I bring this up and Senator Muskie when I asked him a question specifically about the divisions in America in the (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s and (19)80s. He did not even respond for about a minute. And then he looked up at us and said, "We have not healed since the Civil War."
57:06
HJ: Yes.
57:06
SM: And just your thoughts? To me healing, I have worked with a lot of veterans, I have worked with a lot of people that were involved with the (19)60s and they still have issues about you know, what happened then. And a lot of times people do not come together that are opposing sides. Your thoughts on this concept? Do we have a problem with healing in this nation?
57:29
HJ: Well, I think Senator Muskie was right, you know, the Civil War. But, then yeah, I mean, we keep going slowly toward it and then drawing away and slowly toward it and drawing away. It has so many little subtexts and so many ramifications. The war in Vietnam, of course, divided people. You know, any war. I am just thinking about the Gulf War, the war in Iraq. All the people who marched all over the world. All the people who marched here and try to keep it from happening. There are people, who still live with the idea that, that this is America. We are the strongest nation, we control. Everything we do is correct. And if you criticize, you are not patriotic. And then, of course, there is the other side who feel free to change direction. I think that was what everybody was hoping. Healing was what everybody was hoping for when they elected Barack. And we see it is hard. It is hard to do, but oh you know, we have to give it – we are a young country, with a lot of different immigrant groups who have not yet become an American thoroughly. We are still group identified. We play identity politics all the time. And that is a result also of that, push for inclusion in the universities. You know, everybody talks about that now, how nobody learns the same thing anymore and we are all half educated and half-assed. But if we live long enough and we do not destroy each other, if we can still manage to go to the polls and vote and not have this same sorts of guys who won the election then we can. You know, democracy is a very messy, messy thing. And generations change. You can see it in families, children think differently from their parents.
1:00:11
SM: Can you speak again more clearly into the phone?
1:00:15
HJ: Yeah, I am sorry. I got up, I moved! [laughs] That was what happened, okay? America is a young country and we are a young people. And eventually the whole country will look the way New York looks now, which is everybody is a different, slightly different color when you look at somebody. I sometimes have no idea when I encounter students and little children. I do not know. I cannot imagine what their parenthood is and why would you want to know? So we still have a ways to go. You know, Europeans who now call themselves Europeans, they have hundreds and hundreds of years behind them. And here we are, you know, we just dumped ourselves on the Indians not too long ago. [laughs]
1:01:18
SM: This business of healing and other one is the issue of trust. And I say this even to the Beat writers of the (19)50s. And, and then also to the Boomer generation, and the, the issue of trust because there was a lot of things in our lives when we were young and as we were growing up that we look at authority figures that really turn young people off. And the Boomers saw so many of them through Eisenhower and Kennedy and Johnson and Nixon and even Ronald Reagan in later years. I speak of the Iran Contra with Kennedy and what was really going on Vietnam, Johnson with a Gulf of Tonkin. Eisenhower lied about the U2 incident. And the Boomers really did not trust anybody in authority, whether it was a minister, a rabbi, a priest, a university president, a corporate leader. We did not trust anybody. The question I am asking you, and I, you know, be a great question also, while the Beats were in a room too, as they get as they grew up. I remember a psychology professor telling me this in PSYC101 at my university, Binghamton University. I can remember him saying this in our in our PSYC101 class that if you cannot trust somebody, and if you have no sense of trust, then you yourself will not be a success in life. And that always stuck to me and I remember that class and then as I got older. So what I am getting at is that you know, not having it - do we have an issue of trust in this country? And had the writings of the Beats and the activism of the Boomers of the (19)60s and (19)70s and hopefully in their lives, helped? What do they trust after all of their efforts?
1:03:25
HJ: Well, if you want blind trust it is one thing. If you add a trust with keeping your eye on, on what people are doing, I think that is a different thing. But we've learned to withhold our immediate sense of trust because we've been disappointed, you know, here, look at the most recent - look at the look at the war in Iraq! Who were we trusting? Who did? Did we question the evidence that was manufactured about weapons of mass destruction, etcetera, etcetera? And if you; we've learned over and over again, that people lie. That people in authority will lie sometimes to keep their own interest or what they believe to be right with, there is you know, the fact that there was no open discussion of well, there was open discussion, there was protests as you know, more recently with Bush and then he went ahead and did what he wanted to do. But why? Why would one? Why would one give them what I am thinking? I do not agree with your professor. If you do not trust anyone. Let me hedge that a little bit.
1:05:08
SM: Make sure you speak closer to that mike.
1:05:10
HJ: Oh, yeah, it is my phone. You know, sorry. I think that personal trust in one's daily interactions with people is a good thing to have. One should be open to the hope that one another instead of you having an exchange with someone, it will be built on mutual trust and respect. But we have to learn politically to cast a wary eye and I think that is a very good thing. That is what democracy is. You know, we are participating I think, when we criticize.
1:06:00
SM: Just a general question. Why do you think the Vietnam War ended?
1:06:06
HJ: Huh.
1:06:06
SM: What was the ̶ if they were to pinpoint one thing? Why did it end?
1:06:11
HJ: You know, McNamara died yesterday. I heard that on the radio this morning.
1:06:17
SM: I did not know that!
1:06:18
HJ: Yeah, he died. So they were talking a little bit about that. Why do I think it ended? Well, it was, you know, everybody - it was understood that it was a lost cause! That this was, well, was not our first war of imperialism, you know, if you think of the Spanish American War. That was also. But I think we learned what the French had learned and what the British had learned. There was so much protest here that I think that public officials had to understand and take into account the will of the people finally, finally. But, you know, it was a whole lot of different facts.
1:07:21
SM: Is it is it realistic, you know, the Wall in Washington and I do not know if you visited it, but it is, it is unbelievable. It was done an awful lot to heal veterans and their families. But also a lot of vets will not go there because it brings back sad memories but your thoughts on him? I, me, Steve McKiernan, the writer of this book, and the person who puts these questions together, am I kind of asking an almost impossible question regarding the fact of healing that, that one day we will not do what they did in the Civil War, which they never did heal, but that one day, people who are against the war in Vietnam and those who were for the war will hug each other?
1:08:09
HJ: They are all going to be dead Steve. [laughs] So it is not going to make one bit of difference. Right now we are focusing on what is going on over in the Middle East. And that has become, you know, it is not that we have a limited attention span. It is just that will have to that will take the war in Vietnam will remain a sticky issue and it can be argued by historians from then on and but the Boomers will go to their graves debating that. I think. Because they believe so firmly in, each in his own way. There was no win and there was no loss. So there were no winners and losers there.
1:09:11
SM: It is amazing at Gettysburg this past weekend, one of the park rangers; retired, his son, who serves in Iraq and I asked him point blank about the Wall and he went into a rage about the anti-war protesters and boy, he said, if he the chance, he'd, "put them up against a wall and shoot him!"
1:09:29
HJ: Yeah, right.
1:09:30
SM: So that the rage is still in some people. So,
1:09:34
HJ: You know, how old was this park ranger?
1:09:36
SM: Oh, he was sixty or sixty-one he was not a park ranger. He was a volunteer.
1:09:41
HJ: Okay. All right. Yeah. But, you know, he is still fighting the Civil War too, right?
1:09:47
SM: Yes. [laughter]
1:09:52
HJ: You know and the Civil War is not going to be over until the New South truly becomes the New South. You know, every time I go down south with my family, especially, I am always aware that the New South is just the Old South in a new dress.
1:10:11
SM: Hmm.
1:10:12
HJ: You know, many of the attitudes have not changed. You know, when I went to college in Virginia, it was in my sociology class, it was "our people," and when I asked, "What do you mean our people?" Well, it was "our Negroes." You know, and I was just shocked and offended.
1:10:32
SM: Oh my gosh.
1:10:33
HJ: that people my age, which was, you know, seventeen years old and eighteen years old, we were fighting the Civil War again, one hundred years later. So people will absorb what they learn from their families and what they are on in school. But I think right now, there is a whole generation of young people who are very willing to open their mouths. And Vietnam means nothing to them at all. What they are concerned about is what is happening now. And one of the differences is that the wars being fought by a volunteer army of generally poor people. Mostly poor guys from, from all over America who, liked the idea of picking up a gun and going to shoot people who wear head wraps. The same way there were those people who wanted to go in Vietnam and shoot at the "Gooks" or whatever they called them. But there is, but there is no draft. Were there a draft, boy that would be a whole different story? So, we'll see. I do not know, I mean, nobody knows what the future holds.
1:12:02
SM: Kind of a follow up to that, one of the things when you think about you in the in all the Beat writers is you would write and you are not afraid to go it alone. That you go it alone and then pay a price for it and one of the things we try to instill in college students when they become first year then by the time they graduate is the concept of self-esteem. Where they are comfortable with who they are, what they stand for, and what they believe in and they kind of develop a concept of integrity, which I believe the Beats have, and certainly the people that were genuine and the anti-war movement had. Do you feel? Do you sense this too? About how important it is that the Beats can really send a message to today's college students? Because of that concept of going at it alone? Because you have to have a sense of self-esteem to, to speak up and to believe in something and stand on your own two feet.
1:13:01
HJ: The kids I teach are far more vocal but these days, I am teaching graduate students. But I have taught undergraduates in the last couple of years and, and it is true that I am in New York, and I get really smart students at the New School but, I think there are pretty smart students everywhere. And they also they write a lot. Look at that! They write emails. They write all over Facebook. They do this, that. They are always expressing themselves, whether it is important or whether it is not important. But they have the idea of free expression, and that is a great entitlement. That is a very different thing. And in the course of expressing themselves, they are figuring out what they think. So that I think is a very, very good thing. And if I am me I have respect for, they are a little concerned about how they are going to support themselves, given the economy. There is no longer any sense that oh, well, I will just go get a job and stay with it then and then I will do my art on the side or whatever. Nothing like that! Their position is a little more open and scary. But they have to rely on themselves. Also, something we have not mentioned, which has to do with pop psychology. When I went to college, psychology and psychiatry and related professions, were very young. Not everybody went to be psychoanalyzed. Only a few intellectuals. You know, you did not have TV shows that explored people's motives and this and that and the other thing. There were not self-help books. The whole idea of self-correction was; hadn't even yet been developed. So there is a very different zeitgeist in that respect. That people think of their inner lives and, and their desires and are more willing to express them than before because that is socially acceptable.
1:15:36
SM: One thing, Hettie, though, is when you - willingness to express and willingness to act. And there is a big difference. I know today's college students are really into volunteerism. Probably 90 to 95 percent of college students are volunteering and helping people in a variety of ways. But when you define volunteerism, and you separate it from activism. Activism is twenty-four seven, seven days a week and three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Whereas volunteerism is a specific time you go and do things and even though it is part of activism, it is not the way one lives one's life. And my question to you is, the impact that Boomers have had that is, they are now in their late (19)50s and to mid (19)60s, or heading toward mid (19)60s is that activism is the willingness to speak but also the willingness to act. And, and I have gotten a sense, this is just, just me, that universities today are afraid of the term activism, and they will constantly talk about volunteerism. Activism reminds them of an era when students protested whether it be in the late (19)30s or in the 1960s and it connotes disruption of the university, a challenge to authority again, and they are fearful of it. And um, I'd like your thoughts on that if you are teaching college students, and also the fact that I am sensing that a lot of college students, aren't activists, they are volunteers.
1:17:15
HJ: Well, you know, I think you are right, because they, all of those who have, you know, take a look at the election. All the volunteers, the student volunteers for the election, they saw the electoral process as an act for which they have something they could do volunteer, no matter what you call it, that could actually have a result within the democratic process. And I, you know, that was the first time I have seen that and it was to be applauded. Now, you know, like, one of one of the things that you learn if you study [inaudible] and people like that. It is like when people are hungry, you cannot expect them to be active politically, they are looking for something to eat.
1:18:16
SM: Mmm.
1:18:17
HJ: And a lot of these college students today are looking for something to eat. They are not as you know, they are not as confident that daddy and mommy will support them. And they are looking around rather warily. But they believe in participatory democracy. They believe in helping. But I do not think they have reached that stage although, ho! ho! Ho! If you want to look for one example, look at what a few was last month when the students at the New School took over a building.
1:19:02
SM: I did not know that.
1:19:03
HJ: You did not know that.
1:19:04
SM: No, I did not.
1:19:05
HJ: Well you better read up on it! Okay. Everybody wanted Bob Perry, the President, of the New School to resign. And guess what? After enough foment, he resigned.
1:19:18
SM: What was it over?
1:19:19
HJ: What?
1:19:19
SM: What was the issue?
1:19:21
HJ: The issue was the management of the university and his taking control and appointing himself not only the president, but provost and pre-Provost as with under his tenure.
1:19:34
SM: Wow.
1:19:36
HJ: There were firings of professors who'd worked in various departments or a long period of time. I was a couple of years ago, there was a lot of reorganization at the university but I had been teaching a class on the beats at the invitation of the person who was the head of the writing program at the undergraduate school, Lange.
1:19:59
SM: Uh huh
1:19:59
HJ: And he said that nobody needed to study the Beats anymore. So he took away my class.
1:20:06
SM: Unbelievable.
1:20:07
HJ: So I was fired for, you know, somebody I know would been working at the New School in various departments for ten years was fired. You know, things like that. Anyway, there was general dissatisfaction and the students, they figured well, you better, you know, you can look that up and see.
1:20:17
SM: I definitely will. I am proud of the students!
1:20:32
HJ: They were on the roof with masks on and everything.
1:20:35
SM: Okay.
1:20:37
HJ: [laughs]
1:20:37
SM: Well, that is, well, that is, that is good!
1:20:42
HJ: Yeah.
1:20:43
SM: Because I have always felt that students need to be empowered and feel that they are.
1:20:48
HJ: Yeah, well, you know, like, as I said, this is New York, and we get a lot of people here who have come here, specifically to make a big fuss, make a lot of noise and to do art and whatever and they are doing it.
1:21:07
SM: If there was one event, if, if we had a room of five hundred Boomers. And if there was one event that had the greatest impact on their life when they were young, and I mean, between the time they were born and say, thirty, what would that event be?
1:21:26
HJ: Gee, you know, I do not know, if you have to give me a date and one event?
1:21:35
SM: After 1960.
1:21:37
HJ: In the (19)60s?
1:21:39
SM: It would be mostly ̶̶ because Boomers did not go to seventh grade until they were in the 1960s. So it would have to be when they were in high school or college or early adulthood.
1:21:53
HJ: Well, you know certainly the constriction for the Vietnam War. When everyone had to register for the draft. Now and the war and it was revealed early on as a useless, colonialist war. That it seems to me what has to be the point because that really caused the most foment.
1:22:23
SM: Right.
1:22:24
HJ: You know, I guess for my generation would have been more the McCarthy era, but it has to be the war the war was the biggest thing. The Vietnam War was.
1:22:38
SM: If you could just respond just a quick thoughts on these things. What just your quick thoughts: Kent State and Jackson State?
1:22:48
HJ: Oh, Kent State got a lot of notice because of the killings, because of the photography, because at that point, TV news could disseminate information easily. But Jackson State, you see there you go! Jack State demonstrates how, again, the lives of young white people were valued more than the lives of young black people.
1:23:22
SM: Hmm.
1:23:23
HJ: And that is the way that you know, this is the world. This is the world in which I was bringing up black children. So you can understand why my emphasis has more to do with that issue, the civil rights issue, than anything else.
1:23:45
SM: How about Watergate?
1:23:48
HJ: Oh, well, Watergate, you know. None of us liked Nixon anyway, but that exposure you know! What year was Watergate again?
1:24:03
SM: (19)72, (19)73, (19)74.
1:24:08
HJ: Right. Well, it was exposing that kind of terrible lying and shenanigans that you would never expect from quote your word "authority." And it made us disrespect the elected political figure.
1:24:35
SM: Woodstock.
1:24:35
HJ: Woodstock? Oh, you know, Woodstock. Woodstock was charming and all people were covered with mud and everything it was so cute. I had to look upon it from afar and think is not it wonderful that they had all the time to go listen to music.
1:24:55
SM: How about the term "counterculture" which they think is the expansion of the Beat Generation. Yeah,
1:25:02
HJ: Yeah. You know, counterculture. It is all part of the culture from this removes. The counterculture has consumed the other culture although we still read a Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald is quoted a lot these days. It will all be one culture eventually. I was thinking the other day about there is a guy on the radio on WNYC who has a program called the American Songbook. And I have a son-in-law who's a musician and we were talking on the fourth about music and of course, we were talking about Michael Jackson and I thought well you know the American Songbook; one of these days, they will figure out that it has to include Carole King, and has to include all those wonderful you know, "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay Wasting Time." You know, yeah, that is America and that is what, that is what, a lot of the rest of the world sees as American culture, so whether it is counter or not, it was counter then but it is not counter no more.
1:26:19
SM: How about the term "1968?" That was a pretty rough year.
1:26:25
HJ: Yeah, it was a pretty rough year, but, um, you know, it was personally harder for me than just about anything else. So, I do not know that I can quantify it.
1:26:39
SM: If you look in the while, you know, more than anybody, they have the beatniks whenever you know, especially in the (19)50s when I was a kid and I am sure a lot of Boomers this way they look they watched Dobie Gillis and of course Maynard G. Krebs. He was the beatnik and of course everybody loves Sandra D. is beautiful white girlfriend. But the beatniks became the hippies of the (19)60s then you had the yippies which was the extreme. What are your thoughts on the hippies and the yippies?
1:27:11
HJ: You know, everybody likes a name for something or other. The hippies, you know it was very cute. "Beatniks" also that that is something that Herbert (Huncke) made up after the beats had achieved some kind of note ̶ you know, it was right after Sputnik went up and that "N-I-K" is a Russian diminutive. I never thought us beatnik but people use it interchangeably with the Beats and I have to correct them all the time although sometimes I am too lazy to do that. But, you know, hippies, oh hippies wore flowers and smelled like patchouli and, you know, asked for spare change on the street and went barefoot and you know, were very sweet and very young and smoked a lot of dope.
1:28:14
SM: [laughs]
1:28:14
HJ: A very, very small group of you know, again using your word "activists", but they really did not have very much effect.
1:28:28
SM: Your thoughts on the students for.
1:28:30
HJ: Abbie Hoffman.
1:28:31
SM: Jerry Rubins.
1:28:33
HJ: Jerry ̶ yeah, but if you know if you think of the trouble in Chicago.
1:28:44
SM: Yes.
1:28:45
HJ: That was 1960 - what year?
1:28:48
SM: That was 1968.
1:28:50
HJ: Yeah, that was 1968.
1:28:51
SM: It was after the "Chicago Eight" when Bobby Seale was chained and that was the "Chicago Seven" because he wouldn't stop speaking.
1:29:01
HJ: But you see, that kind of thing.
1:29:04
SM: The SDS, the Students for a Democratic Society and The Weathermen and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, those groups.
1:29:13
HJ: Yeah, well, you know, I am personally acquainted with people who were in the Weather Underground, and they, they, if you talk about activism, they felt that what they were doing was just. But they did not realize, you know, they were naive. They were naive. They had no backing, they were just small underground groups of people and, you know, I am personally acquainted with some people who served time and many years in prison and some who still are in prison for those actions and they regret them. Because they were first acts that, you know, brought all of the all of the armor of the state against them as well as public opinion. You have to be ready if you are going to conduct guerilla warfare you have got to go up into the mountains and get a lot of folks around you, you can do it with ten people. I do not believe.
1:30:30
SM: When the best history books are written, and normally it is fifty years after an era, so when we are talking about the Beats, actually the best ones, are probably being written right now or in the coming years. And certainly the same thing is going to happen about the Boomer generation there has been so much written about the war and all the activisms be it right now and down the road are going to be the best books. What do you think? The, like, say one hundred years from now when students are in school, and they are reading about the (19)50s and the (19)60s and the (19)70s. How important were the Beats be in those history books, the Beat writers, and, and how important with the Boomers or the (19)60s and (19)70s be in those history books?
1:31:21
HJ: Well, I think, given the fact that we still read, Edgar Allan Poe, and we still read, oh, those wonderful Abigail Adams letters, it is possible that people will still be reading the Beats for their literary interest. But not but as I said, you know, I do not think much. I do not know what exactly people will be reading of the Boomer generation because that, you know, they did not have very much of an effect on me. So maybe there'll be maybe people will still be studying the history of the feminist movement. You know, when I was young, I used to be able to predict the future. And now that I am pretty old, I do not exactly know. Technology will change very many things. Who knows whether we'll, I hope will be reading. I do not know that we'll be reading books. If we cannot figure out some way to replace all the oil that is in the ground. We are not going to be able to have this wonderful internet anymore. So we got to figure out alternative energies. But you know, you cannot imagine. Could you imagine if you lived in 1850, the motor car? [laughs]
1:32:59
SM: My golly! Yeah, you are right in that, you know, the Boomers oftentimes, I do not know if this is the naiveté or whatever they always think they were the most unique generation in American history because they were going to end racism, sexism, end all war. And that is not every member of the generation, but certainly a lot of them that were involved in activism. What, what kind of, is that just youthful thinking? Or is there a belief that one day we can do that?
1:33:27
HJ: At least their desire was in the right place. They wanted to, they wanted to heal. You know, going back to our first question. They saw what was wrong and what needed to be remedied. And being the problem is not, it is not addressing the problem, but it is not curing the problem. Maybe -
1:33:57
SM: There you go. OK? I am ready. Still there?
1:34:04
HJ: Well, I am saying that their last, they are seeing all those problems and wanting to remedy them doesn't have any bearing on whether they were able to. But, you know, we had the Voting Rights Act, we had the Equal Opportunity Employment Act, we had all different kinds of governmental decisions that were based on popular desires. If they were not, generally they were, yes, some quarters, they were imposed but we were still challenging all these, these, these laws and everything and it was still, as I said, we were young country and we were still fighting and that democracy is messy.
1:34:59
SM: I agree. One of the novels that was written in the early (19)70s. I forget the gentleman who wrote it, he only wrote three, he wrote a book called, "I think, therefore I am." And for me, and you can comment on this, I would hope that when people are reading books one hundred years from now that they will look at the Beats and some of the activism of the (19)60s and the issues that people were involved with, is that people can challenge authority, when for justice and equality and things that are right. Dr. King said oftentimes that, you know, he was not about breaking laws, but if laws were unjust, you have to protest against those laws. And I hope forever young people will look at this era because of the examples that these people raised that they think therefore they are, and they stand for something. Just your thoughts on that.
1:35:59
HJ: Well that is from Descartes, 'je pense' [I think in French] they took the translation from French. I think, therefore I am. Well, of course, I have you know, the idea that one can participate in democracy implies a basic understanding that that is how democracy works. And that one can, in concert with others affect change. And that is what that is what protests meant. You know resulted in sometimes. Or they publicize the opinions that people share. So I think it is quite wonderful. I think we've gone through, through electronic means to be able to do what the Greeks thought they were doing, although of course, yes, yes, they had slaves but participatory democracy. You know, it is a great, great invention. And oh, I hope it will last.
1:37:11
SM: Yeah, that was the SDS manifesto too. Yeah, I know that Harold Brown wrote a book in the early (19)70s, called "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World." And, and so that was the kind of things that would be written at that particular time. My last question that centers on the, you know, the beats were often linked to San Francisco, a lot of the poets. San Francisco and New York. San Francisco and New York. And you look at one of the major happenings of the (19)60s, which was the summer of love and (19)67 in San Francisco and of course, Allen Ginsburg was part of that. But so you see these constant links between the beats and the boomers, particularly those that may be connected to the counterculture or activists dealing with a lot of issues. Your thoughts on some why San Francisco? Why New York? They were the two centers and youth obviously went to San Francisco in that (19)67: Summer of Love.
1:38:14
HJ: Well, you know, those are the two places that had established our, our colonies, if you want to call them colonies or whatever. Our scenes, our world, both coasts like that. You did not care about Chicago art, particularly nor did you hear about Dallas, Texas art or you know, or Knoxville, Tennessee, maybe, maybe the Grand Ole Opry. But those were places where one could live a bohemian life and it had thriving poetry scenes and that was that was why Allen was out there in the first place. That is why "Howl" was published there. Ferlinghetti had settled there, you know, he is from Westchester County, New York. And then of course, New York. New York was always thought of as, heaven help me, the cultural capital of the United States. People will disagree, I suppose. But even so, it remains that way. And I think all of us just figured those were the two places to be. I do not think there is any, any particular reason. Except that the swimming is good.
1:39:37
SM: Yeah. Well, I am not going to ask you to respond to all these names, because I am, you know, there is there are a lot of personalities of the (19)60s if you want to, but I think you are okay. Is there any question that you thought I was going to ask that I did not ask that you'd like to respond for a final comment?
1:39:59
HJ: No. Not, not really and, you know, as I told you, my perspective on the whole thing is from somebody who was always off trying to struggle through her life and invent myself. And, you know, talk about feeling trying to make a place in the world for the races. I suppose to interact, come together if they would. And so, that is what I am still doing, I suppose.
1:40:41
SM: As I conclude the interview, and I will go back to that very first question of Marilyn Young making the comment that the (19)60s began with the Beats. Could you make a final comment on why she felt that way? And you, I think, agreed. Why were the beats so important and as the precursor to the (19)60s.
1:41:01
HJ: Because we were the first people to open her mouths. (Laughs.) Against, everything that we saw that was wrong. But do not forget along with the beat there were, I keep plugging the painters and the musicians but you know, there was Tom Leherer who wrote "Little boxes, and they are all made out of ticky tacky," you know that song? *"Little Boxes" was written and composed by Malvina Reynolds in 1962, and was made popular in 1963 by Pete Seeger.
1:41:28
SM: Right.
1:41:28
HJ: Yeah, you know, everyone was beginning to see that the instructions that were given after the war, which did not end really, until (19)46. And then there was, you know, a period of people coming home and the (19)50s, but the ideas of go forth and multiply and make a lot of money and shut up, was not working anymore, because people were suffering under it. Under that load of silence and the Cold War so yeah, that is where it began, you know. Especially with Allen and Jack so we have to applaud the both and I hope they are watching.
1:42:10
SM: I am sure they are and then when you look at the musicians, people, the one person that comes to mind and that is just me is Nat King Cole. I just think he was an unbelievable person. They had him on television last night in a retrospective. He died in (19)65. But he was such a, he was the first African American to have his own TV show. So would he be included in some of these musicians and artists you are talking about?
1:42:38
HJ: Well, you know, I am just talking about not, not necessarily exposure, but style. And the inclusion of say, Jazz, not just as not popular music for entertainment but as, as a great American art form. So that has to do with studying women's history. You know, it is all connected with this push for inclusion, and for proper estimation, and quality above all, talk about counterculture of inclusion in American culture. A void, a voice, in American culture.
1:43:29
SM: What musicians in the (19)60s do you think had that feeling?
1:43:33
HJ: No, well say musicians in general. Look at Bob Dylan. You know, all the blues musicians who influenced him and were. Oh what about Aretha Franklin? You know all these people. Aretha saying "You better think, think about what you what you are trying to do to me." You know, all that. Oh, Michael Jackson. (Laughs.) there has been a lot of stuff about Michael Jackson and some people are very tired of it. But, you know, he was such an influence on my kids and you know.
1:44:17
SM: Oh yeah, I agree.
1:44:20
HJ: And, you know, every when I had the windows open all weekend, cars would go by with their radio blasting. Michael Jackson song "You got to be starting' something."
1:44:36
SM: His memorial is tomorrow.
1:44:38
HJ: Yeah.
1:44:39
SM: So well, Hettie, thank you very much. In a couple weeks, I will be sending you a form. It is a waiver form you just sign it and it is going to be a while for you all these things transcribed, but you will see it before I ever do anything with it. And wish Susan, I mean, I wish Joyce would still do it, but she is not going to I guess so.
1:44:58
HJ: Yeah. You cannot change her mind sometimes.
1:45:01
SM: Yeah, and I sent a letter to Anne but I never heard from her so I got to put a call through out to the school. And I have sent three letters to Ed Sanders and
1:45:13
HJ: I have no idea where to find him now.
1:45:15
SM: Well, nobody can. He has moved three times. Maybe on purpose.
1:45:20
HJ: It could be.
1:45:21
SM: But Hettie, thank you very much.
1:45:24
HJ: You are welcome.
1:45:25
SM: And you have a great day.
1:45:26
HJ: You too.
1:45:27
SM: Bye.
(End of Interview)
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Description
2 Microcassettes
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Interview with Hettie Jones
Contributor
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Jones, Hettie ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
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audio/wav
Subject
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Authors; College teachers; Jones, Hettie--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Hettie Jones is the author of 20 books but is best known for her memoir of the Beat Scene. She started the literary magazine <em>Yugen</em>, has taught writing at SUNY Purchase, Penn State, and the University of Wyoming, and is one of the faculty members in the graduate program for creative writing at The New School in New York City. She has been chair of a plethora of writing programs and has received grants to start a writing program in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Jones received her Bachelor's degree in Drama from the University of Virginia and pursued her postgraduate work at Columbia University.
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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2009-07-06
Rights
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In copyright
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.131a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.131b
Date Modified
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2018-03-29
Is Part Of
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McKiernan Interviews
Extent
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105:31
-
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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
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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
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
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English
Rights
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In copyright.
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Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Holly Near
Date of Interview
2009-05-15
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
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
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
114:37
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Holly Near, born in Ukiah, California, is a singer, songwriter, actress, teacher, and activist. She was on various TV shows including the Mod Squad, Room 222, All in the Family, and The Partridge Family. Near is founder of an independent recording label called Redwood Records. She was recognized for her work as in social change by receiving honors from the ACLU, the National Lawyers Guild, the National Organization for Women, NARAS, Ms. Magazine and the Legends of Women's Music Award. She attended UCLA for a year, then moved to New York to study vocal music and dance."}" 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}">Holly Near, born in Ukiah, California, is a singer, songwriter, actress, teacher, and activist. She was on various TV shows including <em>The Mod Squad</em>, <em>Room 222</em>, <em>All in the Family</em>, and <em>The Partridge Family</em>. Near is the founder of an independent recording label called Redwood Records. She was recognized for her work as in social change by receiving honors from the ACLU, the National Lawyers Guild, the National Organization for Women, NARAS, <em>Ms. Magazine</em> and the Legends of Women's Music Award. She attended UCLA for a year, then moved to New York to study vocal music and dance.</span>
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Anti-War Activism; Baby boom generation; Generation Gap; Nineteen sixties; Abbie Hoffman; Jerry Rubin; Richard Nixon; Eugene McCarthy; George McGovern; John F. Kennedy; Robert F. Kennedy."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Anti-War Activism; Baby boom generation; Generation Gap; Nineteen sixties; Abbie Hoffman; Jerry Rubin; Richard Nixon; Eugene McCarthy; George McGovern; John F. Kennedy; Robert F. Kennedy.</span>
Subject LCSH
Singers; Songwriters; Actresses; Political activists--United States; Near, Holly--Interviews
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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 Holly Near
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Near, Holly ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Singers; Songwriters; Actresses; Political activists--United States; Near, Holly--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Holly Near, born in Ukiah, California, is a singer, songwriter, actress, teacher, and activist. She was on various TV shows including <em>The Mod Squad</em>, <em>Room 222</em>, <em>All in the Family</em>, and <em>The Partridge Family</em>. Near is the founder of an independent recording label called Redwood Records. She was recognized for her work as in social change by receiving honors from the ACLU, the National Lawyers Guild, the National Organization for Women, NARAS, <em>Ms. Magazine</em> and the Legends of Women's Music Award. She attended UCLA for a year, then moved to New York to study vocal music and dance.
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
2009-05-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright
Language
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eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.140a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.140b
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
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114:37
-
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e15a69bf3ff45fdca7b57a718479abdf
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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.
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Date of Interview
17 March 2023
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Howard Means
Biographical Text
Howard Means, a native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is an award winning author, editor and collaborator. He is the author/co author of several books, including The 500 Year Delta; The Visionary's Handbook; Colin Powell: A Biography; The Banana Sculptor, the Purple Lady, and the All-Night Swimmer; and the novel C.S.A. Means now lives in rural Virginia with his wife.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:35:12
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
Kent state; Students, Nixon, Guardsmen, Anti-war movement, Sixties; Book, War, Talk, Campus, Shootings, Students, Activisim, People.
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: Howard Means
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Oral History Lab
Date of interview: 17 March 2023
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM: 00:02
All right, can you hear me? Yep. All right, on speakerphone. Today's interview is with Howard Means author of 67 Shots: Kent State and the End of American Innocence. Howard, thank you very much for agreeing to do this interview with me. And the first question I want to ask you is about your background. Your growing up years where you grew up, your family background, your schooling background, how you got into journalism and writing as a career.
HM: 00:36
Sure-sure. Glad to tell you all that. Born and raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, right in the middle of Amish country, not Amish by background, but my mother's family had been in Lancaster since the early 1800s. Went to public schools there, JP McCaskey High School I am a proud graduate of 1962 to give you some sense of how old I am.
SM: 00:59
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 01:00
Went from there to University of Virginia, and state through Virginia for a Master's I was a Ford Foundation program that had identified a critical shortage of PhDs in the humanities in the late (19)60s.
SM: 01:16
Hmm.
HM: 01:16
And so they gave us it was it was a hurry up thing. You get a master's in a year and then you rush out and get your doctorate and we plug the gap and then of course, the Vietnam War came along. And nobody left school. A lot of people did not leave school who might have left school they stayed on for doctorates to avoid the draft. I left after my got my masters in 1967, I became a school teacher. I spent one year teaching at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, and then seven years at St. Albans school in Washington, DC, part of the National Cathedral schools. There are three schools in the grounds the national-national cathedral is at all the all-boys school. And it was a very interesting time to be there because there were a lot of you know, there was a one of the Bush sons was there more Percy son was there. Kim Agnew was blinded a girl school across the way.
SM: 01:16
Hmm.
HM: 01:19
National Cathedral School, HR Bob Halderman’s son Hank was in my class. So it was a school that had you heavily involved in events of the time [inaudible] right. And I was on the well, I will come back to that a second- went from there; I did that until 1975. Then I segwayed into journalism because I could not figure out how to make a living as a school teacher. My wife was also a school teacher and teaching in Washington DC, teaching in that in a housing market like that gave you absolutely no chance of buying housing anywhere nearby. So I segwayed into journalism. spent a couple years with the Chronicle of Higher Education. spent time with Washingtonian Magazine in two [inaudible] interrupted by eight years, seven years with the Orlando Sentinel newspaper, where I was something called critic at large and an op ed columnist. And I wrote op eds I wrote, my God, I wrote about a million words worth in seven years, three a week. You had to have evergreens in the bank when you went on vacation. And then I ran out of opinions. So I accepted the magazine journalism, and did that until I started, I started in 1992. Somebody contacted me asked me if I wanted to do a biography of this young man who was making a great name for himself in the first Gulf War, Colin Powell. And I said, Sure, I would love to do that. And Colin Powell was not going to talk to me, reasonably enough. Why should he talk to punk like me? But I had a we knew some people and we knew somebody in common. And I just interviewed I think I interviewed 125 people who knew him.
SM: 04:07
Wow.
HM: 04:08
And a lot of them being good military people would call and report that, that they talked to me. So finally, he called my friend a guy named Ken Edelman and said, you can tell the son of a bitch, he has got me surrounded, I will talk to him. [laughter] And I did and we had a great time, I got to talk to Alma, his wife. And it was sad, And the book, the book did quite well, I was very happy with it. And then so from there started segwaying into doing my own books, over the course of and I have been self-employed since 2000. And I have written a bunch of books during those 20 years since- I let me see 20 no, I have to say 30, 30 here, [inaudible] book. And so I have just been a freelance book person for the last 25 years or so.
SM: 05:00
How do you pick the subject for your books? That leads me right into the rest of part of this question is, why did you pick a book on Ken State and in the title? Why did you pick Kent State in the End of American Innocence?
HM: 05:13
Well, I will tell you subtitles are hard to come up with. So I will break that down in a couple of different ways. But basically, what-what-what captures my interest? The just- books are books are hard things to write. They take a lot of time, they take low energy, and it has to be something that really grabs me and fascinates me. And I have been lucky to find subjects that have done that. The one-one of the more recent ones, the one before Kent State was an adult market biography of Johnny Appleseed, John Chapman.
SM: 05:56
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 05:57
I have always been interested in who the real John Appleseed John Johnny Appleseed was, and how myth, I got very interested in how people get trapped in their own myths. And events get trapped in the myths that build up around them. And I think that is part of why I was interested in Kent State too there was sort of the sort of, you know, for the people who were there for people like Alan Canfora and so on. There is, there is one explanation and that explanation is everything. The guard was all wrong, the students role right. And that is, that is too simplified for people on the other side, you know, the students deserve what they got, etc., etc. And it is so much more nuanced a story than that. And so, I would like trying to I like going into the nuances and trying to get behind the miss. The book I did before Johnny Appleseed was a book about Andrew Johnson, that called the Avenger Takes His Place, non-malign from Melville poem after Abraham Lincoln's assassination.
SM: 06:33
Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.
HM: 06:38
And a lot of a lot of myths accrued around Johnson. Johnson is not a likable person. He is an unsuccessful president. But-but they sort of 45 days after Lincoln's death before Johnson announced the terms of peace, were a fascinating time in American history where things could have gone in any one of a number of directions. And that is, I think, often been way too simplified in terms of Johnson's character and how it did, but back to Kent State, in this case, just funny. I do not know what got me thinking about Kent State, it might have been, I cannot remember what it was. But I had written a poem that I was I was teaching in St. Albans school in Washington, DC, I was teaching as I said, a lot of kids are good connections to this world, into the political world. And I remember going into the faculty lounge after-after work that day, about maybe about 2:30. There was a TV on and there was the story of this shooting at Kent State University. And it just given and riveted me for all sorts of reasons. One, the kids who were shot, and the kids who shot them were many of them just a couple years older than the kids I was teaching. Two, I had been active to some extent and anti-war protests, I thought, I thought and still think that it was a war that never should have been fought for, for reasons that I think Robert McNamara is, has stated-
SM: 08:30
Yeah, well, one of the things I want to ask you even before you thought about writing a book on Kent State and or-
HM: 08:30
It was a we got ourselves caught in the middle of a civil war that we had no business being in the middle of it. But all that said, so I was thinking about this. I went home that that evening, I was not yet married, I was about to married about a month later. And I wrote a poem about the whole thing I always thought it was-was perfect poem I ever wrote. And so when I started thinking about this, I went hunting for the poem. And I have a collection of things upstairs in the attic above my office. And I could not find the poem. And everything else from that time was there. And somehow, I taken that poem out and put it somewhere and could not find it. And so I said to myself, "Oh, heck, I will just write a book about it." [laughter], [crosstalk] And so I just started looking into it. And so for one of a poem, I wrote this book, I think, and I have since found the poem, and it is not anywhere near as good as I remembered it. [laughter] But, but I am grateful to it because I got the book out of it. And then and then the book was just, I mean, the book was a fascinating experience for me in all sorts of ways. We can talk about that further. Go ahead. What is- what else is in your mind?
SM: 09:44
Just doing research on it, when you-you said 1960 until you graduated?
HM: 09:52
From high school.
SM: 09:53
Yeah, you are, you are either just in the, just the-the with the silent generation or you are a boomer. It depends, you know, but-
HM: 10:01
Yep.
SM: 10:01
-they are all in that activist era, because the beats were in that the silent generation here, before discussing you know Kent State and the link to the (19)60s, what were the events in your young life that impacted you?
HM: 10:18
Mm-Hmm.
SM: 10:19
Do another one words, a lot of people I have interviewed that whole era of growing up in the (19)50s. And the (19)60s in the (19)70s was, man, it was so different. And the it is all a unique experience. What were the events that started to-
HM: 10:34
Right- Yeah, sure-
SM: 10:34
-shape your thinking about how you think politically how you think about social issues and justice and things.
HM: 10:40
Right. I wish I could say that it was John Kennedy's assassination, but I cannot. I was certainly affected by it. But I do not remember it. I remember as being something horrible in, in the world. But it just it did not impact me anywhere near as much as Martin Luther King's assassination. And there is a story behind that. I was teaching again at Deerfield academy that year, this is what 18- I am sorry 1968, April 1968. And I was, I had a I have a dorm master party was like it was a terrible job and all sorts of ways. But I had 35 high school seniors that I was in charge of an L shaped dormitory, including one Black student named Raj McKenney in watch, did not speak a lot. He was very bright guy from Boston area, became a lawyer eventually. But I was in my room that in my [inaudible], there was there was no television, you know, there was no TV lounge or anything like that. In those days. It was pretty Spartan living accommodations.
SM: 10:40
Like that? Mm-Hmm.
HM: 11:13
And it was about 9:30-10 o'clock at night. I think that kids were supposed to, you know, I think there was a lights out at 10 o'clock. And it might have been 9:30-10 o'clock and his knock on my door and I go and Raj McKenney standing there; tears rolling down his face. And he said he has just heard the Martin Luther King had been assassinated, and [inaudible] on the television, on my television. And we sat there for about an hour and 20 minutes or something like that watching. He just sat there quietly and cried the entire time. And that was a powerful, powerful experience for me. And I think that politicized me more than anything else has ever happened. To me, that one event. And I have not been a particularly political person up until that moment. Although I would have to say I was also kind of a clean Gene McCarthy guy as the as the (19)68 campaign went on. That was that whole year was my political awakening, I guess. And so the way the (19)60s there was all these forces moving through the Civil Rights and the, you know, the anti-war, everything. And they were, to some extent, toxic waters, they were just flowing through society. And I think I said in the Kent State book, all of those toxic waters flowed together in Kent, Ohio, on the week of the first weekend in May 1970. And it was hard not to bluff. Another example. This is this would have been, gosh, it was a weatherman demonstrate who is was it was an anti-war demonstration in Washington. And it had to have been in 1969, I think the spring of (19)69. The night before the weathermen had been done some, you know, trashing some stores and buildings along Massachusetts Avenue. And there was a- the next day, there was a demonstration done in the mall. And I walked down to it from where I was living, so walk down Massachusetts Avenue all the way to Dupont Circle. And when you get to the circles at every error race, at every radio office circles, and there are about six radios off of all those circles in Washington. There were military jeeps with four guards and four of my soldiers , army soldiers in them, each cradling a semi-automatic and they just, you know, stared at you and you walk down. And you know, you did not want to turn your eyes one way or the other, walked on down. And all that sort of stuff was just hard to be sentient in 1968, 1969. And not to one way or another, feel the spill these currents moving through American society. Especially if you were teaching school, you were teaching kids who are picking up on this stuff.
SM: 12:46
Right. Mm-Hmm.
HM: 12:51
So-so that was that was a powerful force, and the (19)68 presidential campaign to some extent, too that-
SM: 14:46
Oh yeah, the conventions and everything.
HM: 14:49
Yes.
SM: 14:50
It is interesting that we have forgotten to Kent State, Dr. McPherson, the great historian on the Civil War, and you wrote a book on Johnson and when he was a young person working on his PhD, it was during the (19)60s and in the late 50s, and (19)60s, and he kept seeing the comparisons between the civil war in the (19)60s and the terms of the divisions that were happening. What would since you say, the Civil War, and then in the (19)60s, what were the commonalities there, in those two wars?
HM: 15:25
Between the, between the, between the civil war in the (19)60s?
SM: 15:28
Yes.
HM: 15:30
Well, that is an interesting question. It was a deeply divided America. I think it was. Actually, our own time is very much the same today. And I see a lot of this today, too.
SM: 15:41
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 15:41
It was it was a deeply divided America was divided by- the difference between the civil war in the (19)60s and today, I guess, is the prevalence of mass media, and how mass media shapes public opinion.
SM: 15:58
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 15:59
And especially now how social media save ships public opinion. I think that is a huge difference, actually. The I mean, I think in the Civil War, people were sort of locked into their, their assumptions. Because they did not have a lot of interaction. I mean, guys in Massachusetts, were not going down to the party in Fort Lauderdale, and driving through, you know, slaveholding states.
SM: 16:23
Right.
HM: 16:24
When I was a kid growing up going my father's from Alabama, and we went back to Alabama with some regularity to see relatives. And I became quite conscious of, of, you know, colors only fountains and colors only entrances-
SM: 16:39
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 16:39
-and all that sort of stuff. And this is really strange. The so you became you are more, you know, intimately connected to those divisions in American-American society. The um, hmm. I do not know. It is interesting, certainly. [sighs] And I guess, I mean, I guess it was, in some ways, I mean, the South always claimed it was an illegitimate war.
SM: 16:39
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 16:39
It was a war of Northern aggression. This is still called in some, some quarters down there. I happen to feel the Vietnam was sent was an-
SM: 17:18
Right. Yeah.
HM: 17:18
-illegitimate war. So I guess, to some extent, and God knows what-what people are, you know, I do not understand how the party of Reagan has become the party of Vladimir Putin. But that is another matter altogether. But it certainly has happened in you know, in-in the last 40 years. That and less than that, I mean, if you get to figure that George W. Bush was-was of that Reagan era, that Reagan sort of sensibility, and all of a sudden, we are, we are. So you know, these are bitterly divided times in American society. And when that happens, toxic water starts flowing. And, and, you know, bad things can happen has happened to Kent State-
SM: 17:59
When you one of the things about Kent State, and I have written, read a lot of books and done other interviews on it in the past, is that it always comes up, why cannot state you have a single section in your book, you know, people saying why did that happen here? You know, you could be Berkeley or University Wisconsin or Ohio State here, but Kent State [crosstalk]
HM: 18:21
-places, it have-have been happened. Yeah.
SM: 18:23
And in your own way, could you save? Why Kent State?
HM: 18:30
Well, yeah, I mean, I will try to, I think there were a number of factors involved. And, number one, the college administration was not prepared for anything like this. They were they were not up to the moment in any way whatsoever. I think the President had a reputation as a very nice guy, white, but-but he had he was way over his head, this administration was way over its head. So that is factor number one. Ken Hammond, who was one of the student leaders this time made a really interesting point to me said also, the student demonstrators, he had been head of SDS [Students for a Democratic Society] when SDS was still in the Kent State campus. It was kicked off in 1969 because of some fight with fraternity boys and the attorney. Attorney. I know it was not kicked off. I just SDS was kicked off. And he said the problem there was that SDS gay protesters and infrastructure. You know, we had bullhorns, we had mimeograph machines we could get people organize in a way.
SM: 19:15
Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.
HM: 19:32
And what you had was what you had in the once the guardsman got there. And once the garden became the principal subject of this all you had, you had no infrastructure among the protesters no sort of coordination among the protesters. Everybody just kept repeating the same action expecting a different outcome. You had Jim Rhodes, who was the perfect tender for this for this sort of thing to happen. Jim Rhodes was a governor. Remember Rhodes was running. He could not succeed himself. He was running for the Senate seat. He was running for the Republican nomination for the Senate against Robert Taft Jr. and Rhodes saw this as I- when-when, when, first when his office was called early in the morning of Saturday-Saturday morning, and asked to send National Guard's Rhodes was man from heaven, because it could excite his base especially as Republican base especially in southern Ohio. A Friday poll had him trail and Bob Taft by 75,000 votes, I think it was your 69,000 votes.
SM: 20:35
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 20:35
Tuesday after the shootings was the primary election, he lost by 5000 votes. That almost put them over the top astoundingly enough. So you had that you had the guardsmen in this particular case, who were terribly led, who had no leadership whatsoever. So it was it was a perfect storm waiting to happen. At Columbia, people were used to this kind of thing, that at Berkeley, they might not have liked it any more than they do anywhere else. But they were used to this kind of thing. And, and also, I think part of it too, and I think I mentioned this in the book was tend to say it was it was a was a feeder school for the classrooms for teachers for north, northeast Ohio.
SM: 21:22
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 21:23
And teachers and I was one and I know a lot of them still tend to be naive. They tend to actually believe that we think they know everything they read in the Constitution and everything I say, Oh yeah, this is the way society works. I think they were I think they were simply naive about how you know what the guard was capable of. It is notable that that virtually no Black students participate in those demonstrations. In fact, they stake consciously away because Black students in Ohio as elsewhere know what police can do and-
SM: 21:55
Yes.
HM: 21:55
-what we will do-
SM: 21:56
Yes.
HM: 21:57
-if you get an adequately pissed off, they know what they will do. And in fact, when the ROTC building when the ROTC building got caught on fire on Saturday night the whole group of students from so called Black United students bus a clever acronym for the day boss and-and all that-
SM: 22:15
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 22:16
-these kids as soon as that started just-just as it caught on fire they showed up in the student union to have something eat you know or something like that. So they would be notably seen nowhere near this event.
SM: 22:27
Wow.
HM: 22:28
And they scared that they scared I think they the workers in the in the in the in the cafeteria, you know, the food, the food court area by all showing up at the same time. But so-so they were not naive the students were in lots of cases, I think naive. And then there was the fact that Jerry Rubin had been there to [inaudible] two weeks before-
SM: 22:52
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 22:54
-and had spoken and he had inflamed not only students but the townspeople of Kent. His talk was reported on and-and-and he had one of his famous lines which he always said was and you will your listeners will pardon me it goes something like "Just say fuck everywhere." [laughs] And you know, the townspeople cannot we are not quite ready for this.
SM: 23:18
No.
HM: 23:19
America was not quite ready for it is Jerry Rubin well, no Jerry Rubin was on the great self-promoters of all time. As was Abbie Hoffman for that matter? So that played a role too, because on Friday when the students [inaudible] I remember-remember the timing on this, the Thursday before the shootings. Richard Nixon goes on TV he gives a speech the war is being expanded into Cambodia. The 100,000 troops he was going to bring home or being you know are not going to be bought home and inflame students everywhere. Friday night, it is the first one of the first warm nights of spring. These are kids there is three to beer for sale to 18-year-old in that part of Ohio. I do not know if it is true. It was true then, all of Ohio there were bars downtown the kids go down. They start drinking they get a little rowdy. Somebody close to that with somebody orders the mayor orders the bars closed. So now you have got kids who has been the bands have not yet started that does not have the-the lead bands and [inaudible] that headliners not started. There is a, there is the New York Knicks and Lakers game is playing Wilt Chamberlain versus Willis Reed etc. For the NBA championship. All those people are watching out in the bars are thrown on the street now you got people who are just sore out on the street and they start to misbehave on the street. And that is with about within about an hour of that LeRoy Satrom, the mayor calls the governor's office and so that guards be sent in and that starts this thing on an inevitable- given the characters involved, it starts with on an inevitable march almost a tragedy.
SM: 24:25
Yep. You bring up in this unit and you are discussing this, the-the massive lack of leadership in every group that you talked about the fact that the-the years of SDS are no longer there because they had been kicked off campus than they did the organization's for many of the planning for protests. And of course, they would have weekly meetings on campus and his organization-
HM: 25:28
Right.
SM: 25:28
-there. And then the mayor in I have worked in university for years and the mayor of any city is in deep contacts with the president of the university in their own town. First person-
HM: 25:43
Yep.
SM: 25:43
-to be called and he ends up calm the-the governor.
HM: 25:47
Yep.
SM: 25:47
So there was lack of leadership their lack of leadership in the guard. When you bring that up beautifully describe it was some of the people who were in the guard, did not know who to take orders from and you did not know anyone who was in charge. And I think you had a line in there and I do not know who said it. It was like two people walking in the middle of the night just been passing each other and that would be the mayor and the leader of the guard. [laughs]
HM: 25:51
Yep. Yeah, and a perfect example of the lack of leadership. Okay, comes on Monday, comes on Monday at noon, everybody knows there is going to be a demonstration on you know, everybody knows what is going to happen. There is going to their students are going to gather, the guard will rebill, Ohio Riot Act in order to disperse, they will not disperse. They will fire tear gas and then we will see what happens. Well, so it is obviously an everybody knows what is going to happen on the students know what is going to happen the teachers are talking about in your classes that morning. There are signs posted in bulletin boards and all the academic halls. And “Where is the government," said “Where is the president of the university? Where all his top administrators?” At noon that day when it has been called for, they were having lunch at the Brown Derby restaurant a half a mile from the restaurant and from the from the scene of action. There is a command center that is been set up for-for crisis command center. And in charge of the command center is a 25-year-old graduate student named Ray Bae who I had a really great long interview with. Ray Bae is sitting up there. He does not have any windows in this command center. So good windowless command center with a crackly walkie talkie that you can you can periodically talk to people on a periodic cannot hear a darn thing that said, and this is when the whole thing started. You know, that is, that is, that is, it is, it is beyond, you are responsible. It is a way it is criminal irresponsibility, I think on the part of the university.
SM: 27:46
I heard in an interview, I will not mention the name. But in one of my interviews, the person said that they knew all about President White and whenever there was a crisis, he would that be seen, he would send one of his administrators to the crisis and had that person report back to him so that he would be free from the controversy or whatever.
HM: 28:05
I think he was also just a laissez faire kind of guy-
SM: 28:08
Right.
HM: 28:08
-to say that things will take care of themselves. He was apparently much loved. He was a good guy. But if-if, and we can talk another time, but yesterday, Glen Frank had finally not finally not acted after the shooting was when there was no worse could have been worse could have happened. Somebody had to take charge. Glen Frank finally took charge. But that is another story for later on.
SM: 28:31
But yeah-yeah. What a hero. He was, you know, and the tears in his eyes. When students saw the tears in his eyes. He knew he meant business and [crosstalk]
HM: 28:42
-broke them. I do not know if anybody has ever talked about that. He was never the same after that.
SM: 28:50
You talk to-
HM: 28:50
-his son, his son mentioned that to me.
SM: 28:53
You talk about you talked to the student activities director. He has listened. He was in your book here of canceling universal. Yeah, he said there was a plan. There was a plan. If there was a crisis, we had a plan. And they talked about all this business about the plan, then why did not you do it?
HM: 29:10
Because, well, the plan involves the Ohio patrol and the Highway Patrol. That was the plan. [laughter] Highway Patrol one had nothing to do with it. And then of course, there were the extraneous factors to that guardsmen that were brought over to Kent from Akron, where they had been on a teamsters strike, they had been sort of, you know, policing the roads over there, because, you know, people like teachers were firing at scabs and the trucks that were there, were taking the trucks out. So these guys retire. They, you know, they have done they have done fairly hard duty, they were sleeping on, you know, a gym floor and, and so, all those all those sorts of factors are part of that are part of the volatile putting that is being created on these three days that go along and as they go along.
SM: 30:00
I know when you talked about Richard [inaudible], he taught he talked about the importance of community.
HM: 30:00
Yeah.
SM: 30:00
-that whole concept that I we think we know our community. And then he looked at the videos after the after the tragedy and the killings.
HM: 30:06
Yeah.
SM: 30:06
And he said, I did not know any of those students. I mean, talk about administration. That was as Jerry, I think, Jerry Lewis, the professor said the-
HM: 30:27
Jerry Leis, yeah.
SM: 30:29
-wrong man at the wrong time. And that was so true. The people that are going to be listened to this interview are going to be hearing this 5-10-15-20 years from now, could you just briefly describe again, the four days leading up to the tragedy?
HM: 30:46
Sure-sure.
SM: 30:47
Yeah.
HM: 30:49
Thursday. Now that pick-up count backwards third, second, first, Thursday, April 30th, Richard Nixon gives a nationally televised speech, explaining why instead of bringing troops home from Vietnam, 100,000 troops home, he is expanding the war to interdict-interdict North Vietnamese and Vietcong soldiers in Cambodia. So this is everybody thought, "Oh, gee," you find these bringing people home, the war is winding down." It produced a pretty violent reaction on campuses generally around the country. So that is Thursday. Friday, there is a demonstration on the Kent State campus by a bunch of nerdy looking graduates who photograph is wonderful, who call themselves WHORE for an acronym for World historians opposed to racial something. I cannot think of what the EU would be right now. Racial exploitation, I think it was-
SM: 31:55
Right.
HM: 31:56
-supposed to, and they bury a copy of the Constitution at the at the bell, the victory bill, which was a big part of the campus of the of the commons area where the where the later events will begin. And then on Saturday, the things are fairly calm in the morning. There is some talk about ROTC building, going and attacking the ROTC building. It should have been it should have been anticipated. I am sure it was not just ready because ROTC buildings were being attacked nationwide and set on fire and in some cases bombed nationwide. So the evening comes, the guard has the guards, the guard is over in Akron, but they have been they have been put an alert they might have to come to campus. And students begin to attack to begin to surround the ROTC building and make some you know halfhearted attempts to set it on fire. The- Kent fire department is called they show up. They begin to try to put out the fire but there gets some flak things just people are throwing some things that somebody might have taken a machete to one of the fire hose it is hard to say. But the so they leave meanwhile, meanwhile on a ridge overlooking this that I think it is the vice president a guy whose name is going escapes me right now. Matson, I think it is standing up there with the Kent State Security Force. They are looking down at this at from this sort of height because the-the ROTC buildings at the end of this commons area, it is surrounded by some hills. And they do not do a thing. They just stand there. They- the fire department goes away, the students move in, they set the building on fire. And about that time the guard has been the guard has been summoned. And as the guard is driving into Kent, they see this. They see this sky lit up by flame and they say oh my god, what am I getting into with that was the ROTC building burning. And it burned it burned to the ground that night. I think the fire department returned and put some of the flames out or something I cannot remember that. The guard, the guard hits the ground running. They order people in the dormitories to do all sorts of things. There is a bunch of you know, back and forth hit and run sort of stuff the students are trying, the guard take control the situation. In some cases, they have been at a number of kids in the butt, or they were trying to climb in the windows. It was various other things. So the campus is- the campuses is tempestuous at this point. So that is Saturday night. Yes. Oh-oh, I forgot. I forgot okay. I had to go back on Friday night. I am sorry on Saturday morning after he calls him to guard LeRoy, LeRoy Satrum, the mayor of Kent also declares a curfew downtown Kent from I think it is from eight at night till six in the morning, something like that. So the students are now confined to the campus. They cannot leave the campus. The guard has showed up there some sort of major confrontation. So that night, Sunday comes and things are eerily calm in the morning. I remember who was in which was it Jerry Lewis, I think it was Jerry Lewis. One of the professors that teachers at Kent, told me about taking his kids down -
SM: 34:06
Mm-Hmm. him. That was him. Yes.
HM: 35:36
Yeah. To see the ROTC building it is surrounded by guards and the guards when the guardsmen by the way are carrying M M1 Garand rifles, which were sniper rifle their world war two combat rifles is what they are. It is an actually insane thing to be doing crowd control with, you do crowd control with bird shot.
SM: 35:55
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 35:56
And it just about the same time Israel started using rubber bullets for crowd control. These guys are using guns that are lethal, up to a half up to more than a half a mile out.
SM: 36:07
Wow.
HM: 36:08
Guns that can pick a 200-pound person up off the ground and throw them backwards through the air. That is how powerful they are. So Jerry Lewis said he was walking around with his kids. He said, I have been I have been in the army. I have been at Fort Knox guard in Fort Knox. I carry a gun. We never had any ammunition. And I never thought to ask these guys so they had live ammunition and their rifles who just did not seem to be possible. But there is a kind of a- it is kind of a carnival festival quality to Sunday afternoon. You know, the whole thing, you lovely young woman with-with-with buckskin fringe coats on, you know, put rifle put flowers in their rifles and the guards. There is some guards smiling back at the girls and all this sort of stuff that had a set of a playful quality.
SM: 36:55
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 36:55
That nights things go to hell in a handbasket. Huge confrontation of by the main gate, apprentice gates, and back and forth, back and forth. Helicopters are coming in and doing tear gas from the air. The places that some people who want one or two people came back to campus that that night, because classes started the next day they had been now a lot of kids. I have started commuted to Kansas State it was good and there were a lot of commuters from Cleveland and elsewhere going down there was not they did not live there. They were not residents students talk about these are a couple of people who have come who had been-been in Vietnam. They said they came over the hills coming down towards Kent State. They said it looked like-like-like Da Nang you know, helicopters, there was tear gas all over the place, there were people running every direction, etc., etc. So it is a- it is a- it is a fraught situation. They finally break that up sometime after midnight, the campus quiets down overnight. And there is a- now it is Monday, May 4, there is a demonstration has been called for-for noon that day. Same place other demonstrations has taken place and it is down on the on the commons area. Surrounded it is a kind of a natural bull. And so the students are on the hillside looking down in this natural bowl. The guards 600-700, some of them 792 or something like that. Their main the main encampment is down at the far end of the of the Commons. So they-they are down there. The guy who is in charge of the guards a gun in Canterbury, General Canterbury. He is sort of late to the party to a 10 o'clock meeting and he-he has a suit on. So he is not even in uniform. He is wearing a suit with-with a gas mask over his over his head on top of his head and communication, presumably a communication system. So it is now noon. The-the one of the one of the guys from the guards, or yeah, no, it is maybe the camera who it was. Gets his bullhorn tells the students they had to disperse. Under the Ohio Riot Act the students have no intention of dispersing of meanwhile, should add to they have not canceled classes, people are still walking to classes all around this scene. And it will be fatal for two of them. And within the next 22 minutes. The- so the students you know refuse to move Canterbury lines as his troops up, he marches him forward towards the hill where all these people are sitting. There is tear gas being fired. The students take off up the hill and down the other side of it. The guardsmen split into two camps going on one side of Taylor Hall and a large group on the other side of Taylor Hall. The main group of guardsmen end up down because nobody has this guy Canterbury has not tested, has no sense of the battlefield. He has, he has marched his troops down into a cul de sac, basically a football field on practice football field that has, you know, has a fence around it. And there is construction down there, which gives people you know, pieces of wood to throw at the garden, everything there, the other groups are disappears the other side, they do not become a factor. And so they are down there. This is now about, let us say, 12:15 around in there, 12:20-12:00-12:14, something like that. And so he is well, they start to march and back up the hill, they just came down. They get to the Pagoda, which is a campus, sort of little sculpture, it is a- it is a metal Pagoda kind of thing. They got their-their students thinking the guards, because they want to have the guards in the run are coming up the hill after them. The guards who in turn 19 of them, turn fire 67 shots into the crowd, they fire 67 shots, I should say. Some of them go in the air, some of them go in the ground. But there was an air of intentionality by that point. And, and nobody has ever been held responsible for this, I should say. You mentioned Joe Lewis earlier, Joe Lewis, in a what he called a colossal, colossal piece of bad timing. chooses just at the moment when the guards have turned to stand up and give him the finger. He gets shot in the ankle. Alan Canfora has shot in the wrist. He has been waving a flag, Black Flag during this this, this part of the demonstration he got shot on the wrist. Alison Krauss, who was very visible, it was very striking looking woman very much in the forefront of the protest is-is shot. Basically, bullet fragments insider and destroys virtually all of her viscera. And Jeffrey Miller, who has been again very active, short guy kind of buzzing around like a [inaudible] thing is just, it is just shouting out one of the basic chants. I suspect it was 1234 We do not want your fucking more when he shot in the mouth. Jerry Miller, Miller, Jeff Miller bleeds out on the ground. He is the one in the famous photo bleaching out as Marianas Accio stands with their arms up in there looking like a character from Edvard Munch painting. Screaming to just screaming basically. But I mean, those are what they are on. They are horrible, but they are the collateral damage, the incidental damage. So there is intentionality and all those cases I am sure that they ran at those people. There is no question about that. But then there were the shots that were just randomly fired, that were-were not fired up in the air, though. There is a parking lot behind where all these people have been. And that is where Sandy Shore is walking from one class to another. She is not even looking at what is going on. She is walking along, and an M1 bullet- service or jugular vein. And that is also where Bill Schroeder, who was he will just stop his books are in his arm and he has just stopped and you know, to ask people what is going on something like that. And he was number two in his ROTC class. He was a college basketball player 6-6 feet 1 or something 180 odd pounds. He is the one that no one bullet just picks up off the ground and throws back his arms and legs akimbo. A guy named Henry Mankiewicz was standing next to him and he describes it in something that will haunt me for my dying day, that description. And then there were other people who shot incidentally two or maybe not it is hard to hard tell some of those cases. So the guardsmen, then the guardsmen then reassemble. This This puts us off to everything you know what is going on nobody else the guardsmen are marched around to where they began. They have reassembled now at the far end of this Commons. And this is going on getting towards one o'clock on-on Monday, May 4th. The students are back over the hill and they were back where they were when this whole thing began. And there are a bunch of them who have stripped off their shirts and painted X's on their chest [coughs] excuse me and are getting ready to charge the guard. The guard has reloaded I mean it would have been able to my shooting ducks in a barrel. And this is when teacher named Glenn Frank, crew cut guy who had been a military guy himself and World War Two, just a complete straight shooter. He sees he sees the potential and he had another idea and one person start pleading with the students to not do this, do not do this do not do this and, and he does not know it but his son Alan is one of those people in the crowd. Who was who says he said[inaudible] house fraternity kid? I had no you know, I was against all this protest. And after seeing this, I was ready to strip my shirt off and charged with them. And Glen Frank cannot know this. But Glenn Frank, please and please, you can hear his voice is to tape recording. He is crying with tears in his voice. It is an incredibly passionate moment. And he finally convinces them to turn and-and disperse, which they do. And that is that is basically the end of the action although that night things intent, there been a lot of rumors flying around cat. Among the rumors was that the students are going to lace the water supply with-with LSD, which one I love that they were coming through underground tunnels, the sewer tunnels or something like that to set fire to a shopping center, strip mall and various other things.
SM: 46:08
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 46:09
And go and people store owners were spending the night with our deer rifles on top of your stores. The it was it was a very fraught place. And that night, there are a lot of people driving around sort of vigilante cars looking for students that because the initial report was students-students killed two guardsmen. That was the first report I think that went out. And of course, then that got corrected went along for the 11 wounded. So and then the story is kind of plays itself out eventually that day, they ordered the campus closed and-and that is sort of the end of it, at least at that level of action. Is that clear enough?
SM: 46:56
Yes, it is very good description, because-
HM: 46:58
Okay.
SM: 46:59
-it is a very good description. What is interesting is what is going on in Washington DC at this very same time. You know, I think you do-do a tremendous job in your book about making the context it is going on not only in Kent, but other places. The one thing that is very true, it happened to me, but it happened to so many other people at that time. Is the-the talk that I wish they had killed all those students, you know, people-
HM: 46:59
Yeah.
SM: 47:01
-going home to their families and-
HM: 47:08
Oh, my God, yeah-yeah.
SM: 47:13
-the whole community of Canton people. I mean, I mean to say something I was at Binghamton University, I am senior year and I am going to be graduating in two weeks. And, and I was in an accident. I was in the operating room in Johnson City, the night of Nixon speech, and, and I was in the hospital for about a week or so. But I am-
HM: 47:51
Yeah-yeah.
SM: 47:51
-in that magazine. My parents brought the magazine in with Mary Vecchio over Jeff Miller-
HM: 47:57
Life magazine. Yeah-yeah.
SM: 47:58
-but you know, my doctor who saved my arm, they were going to amputate it.
HM: 48:02
Oh no.
SM: 48:03
They were. Yeah, it was a very bad injury at my house back. And then near Ithaca. He came in and said, I was looking at the magazine. He said I wish to kill those damn kids.
HM: 48:15
Oh yeah-yeah-
SM: 48:15
I did not respond to him by saying I am one of those damn kids. But that was that that was a surgeon that saved my arm.
HM: 48:22
Yeah-yeah-yeah.
SM: 48:22
And he knew I was abandoned student. So that that is so important. [crosstalk] And also the late kneeling labeling of all people who happen to be in Kent as communists and all this.
HM: 48:34
Oh, yeah-yeah-yeah, exactly. Oh, no. And there was Brinsley Tyrrell who is I do not know when she is still alive. And he was an art teacher there. He was still alive when? Back in 2015, when I interviewed him, but he remember he was a young art teacher there. And he and his wife. Well, first of all, he told me two stories, three stories. Actually, I will tell you all three, because they are all they all relate to this.
SM: 48:56
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 48:57
The first one was, he and his wife were home. That I think it was late that night or the next day, when one of his students who had you know they had been thrown off the campus, they could not go out. He came and knocked on the door. And ft come in, and he said was sure come in. And he sat down and cried. He said he had gone home. And wherever home was, you know, a couple hours away-
SM: 49:22
Wow.
HM: 49:23
-and that he found the door locked. So he said, Hey, it is me. And his parents shouted through the through the mail slot. We do not ever want to see you again. And so he came to Brinsley's house, that that same day is two daughters. So they had tired a Black, Black ribbon around a tree in front of their house. Being good academic liberals and their daughters the next day were going out to school was closed the next day still, they are going to play with some friends and the kids in the neighborhood pelting them with tones, which just to me is just horrible beyond description.
SM: 49:25
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 49:27
And then the third thing is he remembers he remembered a day later even walking downtown from his house, and a neighbor, about half a block down. Sitting on his front porch with a shotgun. He said, he just trained it on me the entire way down in front of his house.
SM: 50:23
Wow.
HM: 50:23
I just walked down with this guy swinging, swinging as is aim along with me. And that and those stories are just beyond Dean Kahler, you know, got Dean Kahler, who has been paralyzed for life. He was, he was he was, he was nowhere near the action. He would take. He meant he was such a, he was such a polite and farm Ohio farm boy, that he called all his teachers that morning, Monday morning to tell them, he was afraid he had missed their class because he wanted to, you know, see what this is all about.
SM: 50:24
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 50:27
And he would just he just went a shooting star, he lay down on the ground and was shot in the back. And since he lost his feet because of lack of circulation.
SM: 51:04
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 51:04
He is our heroic person, and they are very decent person. I got to say. So yeah, those stories and that story was magnified nationally, but that was going on nationally. I mean, I can remember in Washington, DC, you know, having slightly long hair as I did, but not you know, not sort of not hippy length hair and like walking into barber shops and having you know, World War Two that just sitting there just glower at me as I, as I walked in waiting for my chair to say I never said that kind of thing. We were just going on nationally and all sorts of. And another example that after the week, that weekend, after the Kent State shooting, there was a pro there was a there was a demonstration in the financial district in New York.
SM: 51:47
HM: 51:47
For you know, in, in honor of the anti-war demonstration honoring the Kent State dead, wounded. And you will remember this, the construction workers showed up with their hard hats and crowbars and beat the crap out of some of the people who were doing demonstrating and that Gordon Brennan, the head of a construction union workers, job is Richard Nixon's labor secretary, if I remember correctly. [laughter]
SM: 52:17
You talked-
HM: 52:18
Richard Nixon, Richard Nixon. I mean, they will go ahead, go down.
SM: 52:21
Yeah, we are going to talk about Nixon. The-the context of this at that particular time was over the issue of law and order.
HM: 52:28
Yeah-yeah.
SM: 52:28
And you do a tremendous job here by explaining what Ronald Reagan did about a couple of weeks before Kent State-
HM: 52:36
Yep.
SM: 52:37
-with the students in California and then the governor of Ohio doing the very same thing with-
HM: 52:43
Yep-yep.
SM: 52:43
-the way he was acting. And then you go into what Nixon was doing in Washington and Haldeman's notes. Could you kind of go into all this? It is really good and-and I think the silent majority how the silent majority came about.
HM: 52:57
Yeah, right. [laughs] it is, it is an interesting, isn't that?
SM: 52:59
Yeah.
HM: 53:00
Well, just-just quickly on that, or the stretch my memory a little bit here. So well, Nixon, Nixon's first. Nixon's first instinct was, well, it was it was it was out of out of it was professional rabble rousers basically. it was outsiders. And he told J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, to find those outside rabble rousers, the you know, the-the agitators, the outside agitators who would cause this because the party line was that there was a group of people, SDS, leaders, yippies, like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, etc., who were causing all this trouble. It was not. It was not a, you know, an endemic American problem. It was this this sort of small group. And so J. Edgar Hoover has spent his people spent a lot of time in Kent trying to, you know, collecting, you know, information, none of which were out. And we just we talked about that [inaudible] would later say that you know, they I believe this to be the case too and when we looked at the photographs, they were all our own people we just did not know them they were not the kind of people we focused on these if we just did not know your work so-so-so Hoover was trying to collect all this stuff. Actually. There is a that is a good story too. I will get to that. So and Nixon meanwhile, so hold him is the one who goes in and wakes up Nixon. He is taking a nap on Monday afternoon he tells him about the shootings. And Nixon was apparently initially you know, very concerned about a horrible, horrible thing. Bob just horrible thing. And then of course, he begins to try to figure out how I can play this politically.
SM: 54:42
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 54:43
So he orders Hoover to find out who the outside agitators are. Meanwhile, Spiro Agnew, his Vice President, this is just red meat for Agnew who-who-who goes every who starts talking everywhere he can about-about the nattering nabobs of negativism that he used to call the people in the press and everybody else.
SM: 55:06
Sapphire was his writer. [laughter]
HM: 55:07
You have sapphire-sapphire, I hope I hope got into heaven nonetheless. It turns out that guidance that Gould who was what was-was spear lag news press secretary. And I knew that died a couple years ago. He is a great guy. I knew him pretty well. And so we talked about, he told me he actually told me he said that the horrible the real tragedy that the real tragedy said the thing about that Jim Rhodes said he was not he was not running for the Senate because he because he wanted to be a senator. He just could not think anything else to do with his time to do so he loses he loses the National Guard on Kent State. Because what the hell else am I going to do right? It is just natural become a senator. Rhodes is a horrible person and lots of money. Right. Okay. So-so-so Nixon was trying to figure out how to play this. And he does. He orders Agnew to just pike, turn it, turn it down a notch, turn it down several notches. Then he gives us a Thursday or Friday, Thursday. Thursday night? Yes, right. Thur- Friday night, he gives a speech to the American people, which starts out, you know, fairly conciliatory, but then gets a little rougher as it goes along. And meanwhile, hundreds of 1000s of people are preparing to gather in the mall the next day, the National Mall, Nixon was giving this speech in a White House, it was surrounded by DC transit buses, human barricade, and the middle it was literally surrounded, ringed by them all the way around the entire bus fleet, practically a DC transit buses. There are the 82nd airborne is overnighting in executive, the old Executive Office Building sleeping on the floor over there. And I know this because I was out in the mall the next day. And there are snipers on top of all the Smithsonian buildings and all the government buildings along the people high powered rifles. That is the sort of state things were in at that point. So, it was it was just it was a horribly-horribly fraught time. But I think you can make an argument that it was in fact, almost the end of the anti-war movement, the in any sort of in any sort of collective meaningful, high impact way that was happening at any rate, because the draft had ended in the December of 1969. So, the there was less incentive because it was now going to be an all-volunteer army. But I do think I do think they response. Oh, do you think I think I can safely say that was the beginning of the end of, and I think it was the beginning of the end of radicalism in America for many decades.
SM: 58:24
Mm-Hmm.
HM: 58:25
Really, I do not think we have ever seen it. We have not seen anything like that in my in my, you know, my, what is my really adult lifetime, as opposed to my 20s? So yeah, I think I think I say that in the book, and I think I feel that is still the case.
SM: 58:42
But what is interesting when-when you were talking about the Reagan, then the Rhodes and the Nixon is the words they used. And Reagan said, if it takes a bloodbath to end campus violence, let us get it over with no more appeasement. And then Rhodes comes back at you know, after Kent State or during Kent State. And about, you know, let us get rid of the law. It is a law no, deal with the symptoms. Let us deal with.[crosstalk]
HM: 59:15
Yeah, we are going to root-root out the problem. Yes. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. Real tough talk. You said that at the press conference, when he first came to Canada. Yeah, he was. He was a take no prisoners. The guy wrote. The not the right man for the moment. I do not think.
SM: 59:32
Yeah, certainly Nixon gone down in the middle of the night to the memorial.
HM: 59:36
That is what I was trying to remember.
SM: 59:37
Yes.
HM: 59:38
That is one of the weirdest moments in American presidential history. The Nixon this is after he has given the speech. He thinks it is a wonderful speech. He is feeling you know, really, he had said he would take no calls after the speech because he thought there might be you know, would not be, but he was he was he was had to completely opt out after the speech. And he made something like “God Oh,” I wish I had the numbers in front of simulate 50 calls in three hours. I mean, any maxed number them to Henry Kissinger as I remember correctly. For some reason Henry Kissinger I am not sure why. And then about three o'clock he wakes 3:15 wakes up is his valet what is his name Mano [Manolo] Sanchez, something like that. And says, "Have you ever been to the mall? " "No, sir, I have not." "So Oh, good, get dressed." They have got a skeleton crew, they go down, they wake up a couple of protesters who are in sleeping bags, have a chat with them. And you look at this, there is a famous photograph of Nixon there. And one guy who had a guy and a woman or you know, long haired-
SM: 1:00:46
Right.
HM: 1:00:46
-and they looked and they looked like my God, how much dope that I have last night? Why am I, why am I having this vision? [laughs]
SM: 1:00:55
Also, I guess he Nixon was upset because he did not hear favoritism from his cabinet. You had mentioned that.
HM: 1:01:01
Oh yes of course [crosstalk]
SM: 1:01:02
He was very upset. Yeah.
HM: 1:01:06
[inaudible]got in big trouble for that. Nixon-Nixon-Nixon had no capacity for it for small talk. I mean, he was- his-his staff wrote out small talk on index cards for him. So he starts talking to people and he says, you know, and then he started to tries to make small talk with them. And one person had gone to Syracuse University, as I remember. So we started talking about Jim Brown and you know, this area and Ben Schwartzwald are the old Syracuse football stars. That is what-what did this guy wake me up to talk about Syracuse football for? And then he goes from there. He orders that he says the Mantra he says the sen- of Mano if I am in credit. "Have you ever seen the House of Representatives," said "No, no." So they go tooling off to the House of Representatives. And they have to get secrets or people open the door. Somebody opened the place up and then they could enter the well the house and Mono has a nice look around. They go have breakfast somewhere and by then everybody's on alert to get him back inside. And take the phone away for a while I think.
SM: 1:02:13
Well, there was also the scene where he brought students from Kent State University to the White House.
HM: 1:02:18
Yes.
SM: 1:02:19
And-and he said that was a great meeting. And they were a bunch of nice kids. [laughter] [inaudible] radicals.
HM: 1:02:28
Yeah, carefully chosen if we can [crosstalk]
SM: 1:02:30
I think so.
HM: 1:02:32
Yeah, yeah. [crosstalk]
SM: 1:02:33
Could you-
HM: 1:02:35
He was capable of such strangeness?
SM: 1:02:37
Yeah, of course. Agnew. The guy had nothing to do so go out and go after the protesters. He, he put some words to you. You brought it up in the book. All they do is proclaim. [laughter] Why do not[crosstalk] they go and become educated? And you also mean, you said something very important that about the silent majority. Could you talk a little bit about that too.
HM: 1:03:05
Oh sure. Well, yeah, there was a guy who were the people that was it. Oh, I cannot think of the name of the people involved. Was it Ben Wattenberg?
SM: 1:03:06
Because that was happening at that time? Who were the silent majority. They were the on- the one they were the on Black on? Go ahead. And- Yes. Ben Wattenberg.
HM: 1:03:24
Yeah. [inaudible] and Wattenberg was one of them and so they set out to find out who the silent majority work. And they did all this determination. And they-they finally decided that the-the prototypical sat member of the sound majority was not going to have this exactly right. Was a 48-year-old housewife in Dayton, Ohio. And there was something else in that description that made me think oh, yes, a perfect candidate mother who was exactly the kind of person they were talking about. Kent State was a school you know, was-was a middle-class school. It was not it was not an Amherst or a Princeton or anyplace like that. But the-the person that the middle-class person they wanted was, in fact, the person who had been most dramatically affected in some ways by Kent State. So I find that fascinating. I wish I had the detail work in front of me, but I do not right now.
SM: 1:04:21
I think they were on young, on Black and on something else.
HM: 1:04:26
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SM: 1:04:28
What is an important thing to talk about here again, as a little more description of the of the guard?
HM: 1:04:34
Yes, okay.
SM: 1:04:35
And who they were, what-what kind of people were they? And again, you know, their role. You talk also about the number of guard that actually went and served in Vietnam, which is very small, like 1.5 percent or something like that. Very few. Yeah-yeah-yeah. but could you talk about what made up the guard and why they were there?
HM: 1:04:55
Let me do one thing first. Before I do that, I found that by Um, this is uh, this is Ben Wattenberg and Richard Scammon. And from their book, The Real Majority published nearly 1970. The average voter the two argued was on young and poor and, and Black and less interested in progressive causes than law and order issues. That is what it was. That is what Yeah. Okay. And then I am sorry, what was the question you just asked me?
SM: 1:05:24
It was about the guard itself. Who were they? I mean, I know,
HM: 1:05:27
Oh yeah-yeah.
SM: 1:05:28
They were young. They may even a couple years older than the students. But what who were they?
HM: 1:05:33
Well, the guard were. The guards were in by then a lot of the guard were people who were in the guards did not go to Vietnam. I mean, they joined the Guard to get out of Vietnam. The most famous person to join the guard to get out to go into Vietnam, I guess was George W. Bush, who join the Alabama Air National Guard, if I remember correctly. The- they were, they were mostly just there, but some of them were college students. They were they were in their early 20s, early to mid-20s. They-they did not sign up for anything like this at all. I do not think they were. They were not particularly political. I mean, I think they are more Republican and Democrat, probably. But they were there. A lot of them were people who were just doing guard duty because they did not have to go to Vietnam. And they signed up before the all they would have signed up before the all-volunteer army before the draft ended in the end of December of 1969. And the guardsmen, to me, it is really, I had I ended up having sympathy for the guard that I never expected to have for the guardsmen. One because they were so poorly lit. They were asked to they were put in impossible situations by people that who-who-who, you know, who had no bloody idea what they were doing. And two they have been living inside. Another thing that another contributing factor, I forgot to mention this on what happened on the fourth is that somebody forgot to check and see how many tear gas canisters they had before they started this whole operation on that noon that day. And they ran out of tear gas halfway through, when they got down the hill on the other side, and they were getting trapped down there in the in the, in the construction site, the football field, they had no they had no tear gas left. So you know, it was just when you think of all the things they did wrong, they certainly were horribly led. But then I have read the guardsmen were deposed in many cases 2,3,4 or 5 times. And the first time they were deposed was right afterwards. And they just said what they were told to say. But then, and then and later deposition, you can see they have sort of thought through this experience they had. And you begin to see what it must have looked like to them through a gas mask, they were tired, a gas masks are hard. They were lousy things that view the world through, you get a narrow lens through the gas mask, they were sweaty, they were hot. And they saw people and I think they honestly thought these people were 20 feet from them, and they were 20 yards from them. I mean, I got a sense of the suffering they had gone through in the later deposition. So I never saw in the first depositions, and much more honesty, and I thought I thought these people were put in a horrible situation impossible situation. And somebody owes them an apology.
SM: 1:08:28
Do you feel- do you feel at the question I have here with all the things that we have discussed here?
HM: 1:08:37
Right.
SM: 1:08:37
Everybody kind of failed in the area of leadership? Is there one person or one group that stands out above all? The reason why this happened?
HM: 1:08:48
That is a good question. Nobody had a plan B, that was really the problem.
SM: 1:08:55
Yeah.
HM: 1:08:55
And that that old definition of insanity, you keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result? I would say? [sighs] Well, it is a toss-up between the guard leadership and university leadership.
SM: 1:09:14
Right.
HM: 1:09:15
I would say I would say the Guard leadership is the single greatest factor in this.
SM: 1:09:23
Okay.
HM: 1:09:23
The- it is what they did was inexcusable. The university leadership you can at least you know, give them credit for being naive and not getting credit. You can excuse me a bit-bit for being naive. Or at least, but I think they are willfully blind in themselves in the possibilities. But the- yeah, I would say the card I would say the guard I would say Robert Canterbury is the- is the- is that if I had to have a lead villain in this, I probably wrote with the second and president of White would be third-
SM: 1:09:57
-press if the President had been a real press And then he, the may or may not may or may have contacted him and the garden we never been called. And-and if the- if the President had gone out to the gate and talked, it is so many, the President is never there.
HM: 1:10:15
Yeah.
SM: 1:10:16
He is a miserable-
HM: 1:10:18
He was- he had- he had an appointment that that weekend in what is that called the American College test day.
SM: 1:10:26
Right.
HM: 1:10:27
He was on the board of the AC T on a high in Iowa. So he was out there, he did come back slightly early. But he never should have gone. I mean, he should have seen that now thought the situation was not gone. And once he was out there, he should have come back right away when this happened. Yes. Before I forget, let me say something also talking about Nixon back to Nixon. Bob Haldeman had a set of facts in the observation in his memoir. And that was he thought that Watergate began with Kent State. And his argument was that because that because J. Edgar Hoover could not deliver the outside agitators. Nixon lost faith in him. And that is why he assembled the plumbers to do this do his dirty work for him. And I hold them and says that I have to give it some credence. The, but it is sort of an interesting. It is a bit of a stretch, but kind of interesting observation.
SM: 1:11:30
I have a lot. I have a little pair of paragraph here. I want to read because it is so well written. And I know you have said some of these things already. But I think it needs to be in the interview. It is on page 210. You have your book with you.
HM: 1:11:42
I got it right in front of me. Yeah-yeah. [crosstalk]
SM: 1:11:44
Could you go to page 10? And if you could read that last paragraph at the bottom there the stairs to Kent State shootings, I would rather have your voice in mind. I think it is, it is beautifully written.
HM: 1:11:56
Thank you, okay. The Kent State shootings also occurred at one of the most turbulent cross currents and unnatural in our national history. A gaping generational divide opposing interpretations of patriotism, the democratization of higher education, the tail end of a decade of assassinations, Kennedy, King Kennedy and race riots, Detroit watch DC, the general collapse of comity, and not least of all, but maybe most not most important, the most divisive war in modern American times. We are all in play that Monday noon, when the guard moved out across the commons and students brace for whatever lay ahead.
SM: 1:12:34
And then and the last one I have here is on page 213. If you could go to it as well. It is the section here it is the paragraph where it says Kent State was not just Kent State. that was yeah, this is- this is Bill Arthrell speaking and then you responding to what Bill says. Could you just read that paragraph?
HM: 1:12:48
Oh, yeah-yeah-yeah. Sure-sure. Yeah. That begins with a quote. Kent State was not just Kent State, said Bill Arthrell, he of the napalmed dog stunt that had so engaged locals, and even alarmed, KSU faculty members, "Kent State was a symbol of everything and indicative of everything." And he might have added a distillation of everything as well, because Kent State on that early afternoon of May 4 is where all the raging waters in the (19)60s. bad and good, evil and sublime. flowed together for one brief, horrible moment.
SM: 1:13:28
Yes, that is another really well written.
HM: 1:13:32
Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, the paragraph is kind of a paragraph above that is close. Ellis Berns, who was one of my, one of the people who fascinated me from all this.
SM: 1:13:44
You want to read that one as well?
HM: 1:13:46
Well, I do not know that.
SM: 1:13:49
I see him and well.
HM: 1:13:50
Yeah, I guess I could. Yeah. Ellis Berns was a friend of Sandy Scheuer [Sandra Scheuer]. And was happened to be walking beside her when she was shot. And he later he just wandered around afterwards, he-he tried to stick his fist in the hole in her neck. It just horrifies me to think about and then he later on, he was so mad, he walked around, he took off his jacket will just cover her blood and throw to a Guardsman. So, this is what else for instead of getting a quote, "I always believed that Kent State was the period at the end of the sentence for the (19)60s." said Ellis Berns, who would punctuate his own May 4 and maybe the (19)60s by throwing his army fatigue shirt, caked with Sandy Scheuer's blood at a Guardsman. "It was at that point when things became quite real. I know there was Jackson State and students killed, but Kent was like the exclamation mark. It was the point where things started to change." He was, he was, he was a really interesting guy. I talked to him a lot. He is out in California and he- if I were going to make a movie about this, I would make him one of the stars. But I think because I just find it fascinating.
SM: 1:15:05
You also talk you also mentioned several times, very some excellent thoughts from Jerry Casals.
HM: 1:15:12
Oh yeah. Right.
SM: 1:15:13
There is two places in the book where you his commentary is excellent. I mean-
HM: 1:15:19
Yeah, no, I was I was really lucky to get him to talk to me. He is the devo guy. Yes, yeah. quite famous guy. But I have a cousin who is a- who is- who deals with wine vineyards. And Gary Jerry Casals has a has a wind vineyard. And he knew him. So he got me connected. You never know when a customer is going to come in useful. Yeah.
SM: 1:15:41
Could you give? [crosstalk] Could you briefly just, you know, people probably wondering what happened when you do not have to go through all the trials and everything. But there were certainly trials. I know. Mr. Kraus got involved in this a lot. And certainly the all the families did are the four that were killed and all the ones that were wounded. There was some financial reward. But it was not very much for all that happened. But could you get-
HM: 1:16:08
A decade really litigation. And it finally ends when the state of Ohio agrees to pay? I think I have this number correctly. 375-350,000 dollars to the families of the dead, the four dead and to the wounded, but almost everything that for the wounded went to Dean Keller, who is I think what was left over the head, if memory serves me was about $75,000 or less, I forget the exact figures, but it was really just about funeral costs for that for the dead. Where the house where the heck after the place [crosstalk]
SM: 1:16:46
Yeah. I think that the people that were wanting to get 15,000 or something like that. I know, I think a long gap.
HM: 1:16:52
Yeah, the minimum amount. Yeah.
SM: 1:16:53
You know, I do not think I just do not think there was justice done to anybody who looks into this deeply and all of what the families went through and oh, my golly, and the whole thing that they can only sue the state as opposed to the individuals is that-
HM: 1:17:09
Yeah-yeah. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. They did all this. They did all this and nobody paid anything. I am just the taxpayers of Ohio are the ones that paid the paid the price on this. It is sort of like what happens to major banks, when they when they when they go to bed. They find that they find the shareholders. They do not. They do not-
SM: 1:17:33
Could you say a few words about the four who died, who was Alison Krauss.
HM: 1:17:40
Alison Krauss was a- had been an honor student and from Pittsburgh. And she was a she was a very, very- How would I put it? She was striking looking in a very late (19)50s kind of a Joan Baez late (19)60s way. And by all accounts, a really nice person. And she was she was active in the protests and against the war. She was often up front carrying a banner because she was tall, and she was striking looking. And she you know, what do you say? The- she had, there has never been somebody that had to targeted or I cannot I cannot think of anything else. Because when you turned around and you saw it and she was killed who was murdered. The you can call it something else. But we are intentionality is concerned. I think you have to say the least voluntary manslaughter. The-
SM: 1:18:46
Jeff Miller.
HM: 1:18:46
Jeffrey Miller, the Jeff Miller. It is funny the picture that you were talking about that Life magazine, the picture that went out of Jeff Miller around the country was that it was a high school photo and it just looks like it looks like a 14-year-old and the same. He had gone to I think it was Michigan State and transferred it goes to Michigan State. And he has become obviously somewhat radicalized. He was at longest hair. He is, he is, he is very easy to pick out in the photos. Even in the photo used in the cover of the book. You can see him at the front of whatnot. And that is a different photo. You can see him in the front line of people and he was he was in the front line all the way through. A- he got I remember there is a photograph in the New York Times of his funeral Cortes. He was from New York, from Long Island. And I think it was and his-his hearse going through the streets of Manhattan because his father his father learned about Jeffrey Miller's death. Because he was typesetting the story for The New York Times who was a lithograph for-for the New York Times. He was in the composing room when you learned about this, which is just beyond description Sandy Scheuer was a one to be a music educator she was she was in music education major, an absolute sweetheart of a girl. And, and the again she was just oh my god, you were just walking between classes what a college students supposed to do on a sunny day in May and-and absolutely senseless. I think her father was one of the people who just whose hard part was broken by listening to him afterwards, or, you know, reading about what he had to say. Bill Schroeder had transferred from Colorado College. I think it was one of the Colorado schools was a sophomore ROTC as I said basketball player. Stand-up guy in every regard. And the what was I thinking something I was going to mention about him to do to do to do ROTC? ROTC. Yes, fled my mind though some lovely fact about oh, well, this is interesting. I did just as an aside, so a friend of mine named John Pekkanen, guy worked with later years was a Life magazine stringer. And in Chicago, as soon as he had been assigned to go to scan because they knew this thing was going to take place. And he was supposed to, you know, cover it for further. Who was he who is a stringer for AP is a stringer for Associated Press? And so he was he had gotten there. And he arrived about 20 minutes after the shootings. So he, he took on Bill Schroeder as his subject. And he finally found his roommates, they are all gathered in his room. And, and so he tried to talk to them and ask them, you know, who what was, what was he like? And what do you think about this? And the kids would not say anything. Because I think what he what he understood from them from what they told him was that, you know, they were going to have to go out and find jobs when they were through his college, and they did not want this to be a stain on their record did not want to be associated with all this, which kind of breaks your heart-heart in some way too.
SM: 1:22:17
Right.
HM: 1:22:19
Speaking of that, of the end of the (19)60s. So, again, he was he was doing nothing. I mean, he was simply standing down there looking out and seeing what the heck was going on when, what-
SM: 1:22:34
You mentioned. You mentioned one of the other changes that took place, politically was the-the Democratic Party became much more radical. And, of course, George McGovern was picked as the candidate and he was destroyed in the election. But you know, if you know anything about Senator McGovern, he is one of the kindest gentlemen you will ever meet. I have met him several times. I have interviewed him. And everybody say, Oh, my golly, I know he got clobbered in the election. But boy, he was a better man than the man who won.
HM: 1:23:04
So he was a complete sweetheart. I interviewed him too. Yeah, the memory telling me that. He said, Oh, he said, he said, I see I did not mind losing the election, he said, but what really made me angry was when they booed my wife at a Redskins game. He was [inaudible] [laughter]
SM: 1:23:26
Yeah, well, he was a really good guy. We put them there on campus to talk about the death of his daughter he wrote, you know, she died of alcoholism.
HM: 1:23:33
Right. Yeah.
SM: 1:23:35
I have got about five more questions here.
HM: 1:23:37
Sure [inaudible]
SM: 1:23:39
One thing I did not want to say is that someplace toward the end of the book, you said "Finally the grown-ups are in charge now because now the-the students and the radicals are going inward and they are not going to be involved in activism anymore." So that was something that was true.
HM: 1:23:54
Oh, absolutely. Did the permissive (19)60s ,the permissive (19)60s- It ended with Kent State and they might have ended before they certainly ended with Kent State. And I can recall just a quick aside the-the that December that January before January (19)69. A year and a half before going to the counter Inaugural Ball in Washington DC. It was an attempt set up on the mall. And this was you know; Nixon protest and it was filled with a bunch of anti-war people. And a friend of mine was the treasurer of the thing so I thought I could and I walked in that tent the tent practically levitated from all the marijuana [laughter] in there and it was surrounded by policemen are just looking the other way but they could they could not have they could not have failed to notice Park policemen that there was a fair amount of illegal weed being consumed inside this and all that was all that-
SM: 1:24:47
Was Wavy Gravy there? This is just some quick questions here and what role did them murders at Kent State. And again I in honor of Alan I now say murders. Alan was very I mean, I really miss Alan-Alan was the force to keep this alive from the West Chester University students knew nothing about it had on our campus twice. And he just wished that we would all say it is not the tragedy at Kent State. It is the murders at Kent State. So I always say that now, what role did the murders that can state play in ending the war in Vietnam?
HM: 1:24:55
[inaudible] [laughter] That is a really good question. I that is a really good question. I think that the momentum, I think Vietnam war was ending. So I would I wish I could credit them with, you know, at least say that happened. But I think the forces were in play by then. So I think millennium was going it might have accelerated it somewhat. But I do not think you can say that for short. In the war, particularly. The-the war was on an inevitable downward trend. winding down trend. I wish I could give it more credit.
SM: 1:26:09
Because I am some historians will say that because this happened in the Midwest, and young Americans died in the Midwest to send a message to those that were so supportive of the war that maybe this war was wrong. And you have a-an interview with a young lady in your book, which is fantastic. She-she was not an active or not politically involved. And she goes home and her parents say, well, you know, they were very upset that she was, you know, they well- they thought she was communist.
HM: 1:26:40
Exactly. I know, I know. You know, remember, we threw those words around. So yeah, those days, too. Yeah. We just pigeonhole people by a couple of words. They were commies or they were whatever they were. And the words mean, no more than-than the words we throw around. Now do the- yeah-yeah. No, I remember that. That went-
SM: 1:26:44
Yes. when did it-
HM: 1:27:02
So, she went there guilt by so talking about guilt by association.
SM: 1:27:04
Yeah. When did the (19)60s began in your view? And when did it end? If it end?
HM: 1:27:12
Yeah. I think the (19)60s ended at Kent State. And I think the (19)60s began with Jack Kennedy's election. So, I would say (19)62 to June to May of (19)70.
SM: 1:27:26
Have you? Have we healed as a nation from the Vietnam War? And if so, why? And if no way?
HM: 1:27:35
That is a, that is a really interesting question. Well, you know, I think we have more so than we more so than we have. And I do not think we you could not say it is complete healing. It is interesting, one of the effects of the Vietnam War was to end the draft and the end the idea of national service. And I think that is been a big mistake in American society, I think we need to have national service. I just do not think it has to be everybody, you know, putting on a battle Hillman going off to wherever you would go. But I think that idea of national service was the man. That is what that is what the war, the war brought, the draft brought people together of all sorts of shapes and categories and sizes. And I think that is been a big loss not to have not to have some kind of national service, mandatory national service.
SM: 1:28:39
Now, the-the Vietnam Memorial was opened in 1982, which many people believe it is the first time that Vietnam vets were recognized for their service. The only time in American history when our veterans when they came home from war were treated pretty poorly. And-
HM: 1:28:57
Oh yeah, absolutely.
SM: 1:28:58
-and so, and I know Jan Scruggs and-and Jack Wheeler in the group and vowed Mr. Dewback that created this have done a tremendous job for their nation and for our veterans, but it has done a tremendous job in terms of Vietnam vets and their families and in terms of remembrance, it is not supposed to be a political entity. It is about remembrance, but has not healed our nation at all.
HM: 1:29:20
I think it has healed the vets to some extent. And I want to say here too, I think that one of the greatest continuing ed inequities in in in America today is-is the unwillingness to treat Agent Orange. Everybody in Vietnam, who was exposed to Agent Orange for-for them they should be they should be compensated for all sorts of diseases. That was a horrible thing to do is a horrible thing to rain down. paraquat on your on your own troops. And that was an inexcusable act to the people of Vietnam and the people And then the soldiers serving in that country, I think, I think that is one of the greatest injustice is. That is that is almost a war crime. As far as I am concerned.
SM: 1:30:11
I am going to get about three more questions here. One of them is just a general question regarding those people who served in Vietnam and the anti-war movement, those activists who genuinely wanted to end the war. I personally consider both of them heroes, both groups. And I know that a lot of VNFs do not like those anti-war people. But many times they will put in there unless they were seriously against the war, and not against us. That is that is your thoughts on that on the concept of heroes for both the true activists who were against the war and not the vets and the soldiers themselves who served?
HM: 1:30:54
So sure, no, I mean, I think I think nobody should have had to have been heroic. I mean, I do not divorce should not have been fought. But the fact that people went there and fought bravely and protected their-their not only their country, but their but their, you know, they were there. They were selling their fellow soldiers. That is, of course heroic to do. And I think people and I, I think that, you know, the people who risked a lot of, you know, a lot to protest the war are heroic in my mind, too. Because I think it was, in fact, in a legal war, and it should not have been fought. So yeah, I think there is room for heroism in both camps.
SM: 1:31:39
Yeah. And I think those Fulbright hearings with John Kerry and all the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, man, they played a major role and-and-
HM: 1:31:48
-that I would agree with absolutely, yeah-yeah. Yep.
SM: 1:31:51
And I got one last, I just want to say something Dean Kahler is an unbelievable person. I have met him a couple times. And he is on my Facebook, I do not talk to him at all. But he is, what a great human being, oh my God. And he is so sensible in everything he states and when he talks about any subject, and I, when he when he talked about the-the guns that were in Kent State, and again, it was you again, it is a tremendous context that you put in with him and his words, that, you know, I am a hunter. I knew, I knew they had bullets and those guns if you see a weapon, you know, they have bullets, but I thought they protect me.
HM: 1:32:34
Yes, I know. Isn't that something? Oh, my God. Yeah, no. Yeah, yeah. [crosstalk] That overwhelmed me when you said that. I agree.
SM: 1:32:42
Every time you have Dean in the book, it is you better be listening.
HM: 1:32:49
And to go through what he has gone through and not be bitter, I think is a triumph of the human spirit.
SM: 1:32:54
My last question is always something like this, I want you to go to the very last page to 228. And I just had one thing to add after you if you could read that last paragraph where it says here.
HM: 1:33:14
Let me get my glasses on. Okay, here we are here. Here are those of final thought the best thing that could happen for those who still carry the Kent State shootings, or the Vietnam War, gratingly close to their hearts is to get beyond who did what, when. In an interview during the 20, 20th anniversary commemoration in 1990, Janice Murray Wesco talked about an earlier speaker who had vowed she would never forgive, forgive, quote, “It tore my heart out, I will never forget. And I think there are real important lessons with this. But if there is no forgiveness, there is no healing, and the murder goes on forever.” Then I added on then at the end-
SM: 1:33:52
That is very [inaudible]
HM: 1:33:54
-that she blew me away that interview and then I talked to her. And she just, she was quite something. She is a she is a real person.
SM: 1:34:03
My last question is this.
HM: 1:34:04
Yeah.
SM: 1:34:06
People that are going to be listening to this tape could be 50 years from now.
HM: 1:34:10
Yes.
SM: 1:34:10
What message would you like to deliver to young people, high school students, college students, and even all Americans and people around the world? What lesson would you like to pass on to them for them not to forget?
HM: 1:34:28
Do not be afraid to stand up for what you know is right.
SM: 1:34:32
Now, that is good.
HM: 1:34:35
Okay. I want to have to think about that. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Okay.
SM: 1:34:41
We are done. I want to thank you very much of I have been interviewing Howard Means the book is 67 Shots Kent State and the End of American Innocence. And thank you very much.
HM: 1:34:56
Okay, thanks. See, this is a lot of fun.
SM: 1:34:57
And we will be emailing you with the video as soon as possible.
HM: 1:35:02
Okay.
SM: 1:35:02
Okay thank you for taking the time have a great day, bye now.
HM: 1:35:06
Thank you. You do the same, bye.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Howard Means
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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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
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Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
23 June 2022
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Howard Ruffner
Biographical Text
Howard Ruffner was born in Cleveland, Ohio. After high school, he joined the Air Force in 1965. His experience with photography started when he worked at the Air Force headquarters in Waco, Texas. After leaving the Air Force, he started college in 1969. While studying at Kent State University, Ruffner started working as a photographer for the university's student newspaper. He was a college sophomore when the shootings of May 4, 1970, occurred. He witnessed and documented this event and his photographs appeared on the cover of <em>Life</em>.
Duration
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1:28:20
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
Date of Digitization
23 June 2022
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
Kent State shooting; Students; Pictures; National guard; Campus: Taylor Hall; Protest; Photographs; Yearbook; Kent State University; Building; Guard; Photographer; Film; Fire.
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Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium
McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Howard Ruffner
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Lynn Bijou
Date of interview: 23 June 2022
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM: 00:01
Alright, can you hear me?
HF: 00:03
No, I can hear you fine.
SM: 00:04
Okay. Thanks, Howard. I start out, could you talk about your growing up years, where you grew up? What your parents did for a living, where you went to high school, your early interests? And were you the first to go to college in your family, that kind of stuff?
HF: 00:20
Well, my name is Howard Ruffner. I was born in Cleveland, Ohio. I grew up in Lakewood, Ohio, attended Lakewood High School. And while I was a student, I worked my sophomore, junior, and senior years after school at various retail establishments in the Lakewood area. As far as growing up, I am the oldest of seven boys, all born eight years apart. And my dad was the general manager for a place that actually made waterproof paper and film. And, he never owned a car. So, the furthest we ever got was any place was any, anywhere anybody would take us. So growing up in Lakewood, we walked to school everywhere. And I graduated school in 1964, spent about a year after that working, and taking an extension course at Ohio State University at the same high school and then decided after that summer, almost a year later from graduation. A friend of mine interested in the Air Force and asked if I wanted to go with him. And I said, "You know what sounds like a good idea." So I enlisted the Air Force in May of 1965, and spent two years in Waco, Texas, and about almost a little over a year and a half in the Philippines as a T.V. director.
SM: 02:03
Wow.
HF: 02:04
So, when I came back to the states in December of (19)68. I went back to my old job where I was working as a railroad clerk in the accounting department. I worked there until March of (19)69 when I took a leave of absence and, started university at the beginning of March 1969.
SM: 02:33
Well, now your parents, you say your dad did not have a car now-
HF: 02:39
Right.
SM: 02:40
-now at home, did you ever talk over the table about what was going on in America, like the Vietnam War, civil rights, a lot of the movements that were going on?
HF: 02:53
We talked about the Vietnam War in terms of being drafted and that kind of effort there. The, I was the, by the way, I was the first person in our family to graduate from high school. And I was the first person to attend college and graduate from college, not the only one. And all of my brothers went to Lakewood High School for college. My parents they did not own a car, but we got along quite well. He bought a house in Lakewood, Ohio, and it could have been a more, could not have been a better location because it was walkable to all the schools we had to go to. Of course that back then walkable was a mile and a half, right? Today. It is today it is two blocks. Even if you go to school today, and it is two blocks away, somebody walks with you. So we did everything alone, right. My first interest my first interest in photography, even though I worked in a camera shop in Lakewood, Ohio for a year I never took a picture never owned a camera. My first experience with photography was when I was in the Air Force, I worked in the Information Office at a headquarters that headquarters trunk Air Force in Waco, Texas. And I did PR releases and like photographer assigned to that base got me interested in photography and set out with a four by five camera taking, taking some pictures of people and stuff like that. So he my first interest became when I got involved with writing press releases and then when they take photographs of people coming back from Vietnam or different parts of the world.
SM: 04:47
Well, you were in the military at that time for that period before you went to Kent State. Did you ever experience [crosstalk], go ahead.
HF: 04:57
No, I, I made a conscious decision to join the Air Force and realizing that I did not have any way I was going to keep a deferment going. And back then in 1965, if you were drafted-
SM: 05:10
Yes.
HF: 05:10
-you just got into a line and the person in charge of the line would look at you and say, "You know, we did not get enough recruits the marine, so you are a Marine, or you are a Coast Guard-
SM: 05:20
[chuckles]
HF: 05:20
-go to the Navy. I did not want to have any of those choices put on me. So I made my own choice.
SM: 05:28
That is good you know, that, you are still wearing a uniform at that time. Did you ever experience the anti-war protesters, you know expressing feelings toward people in the uniform, yours or others?
HF: 05:42
Not while I was in Waco, Texas, no.
SM: 05:46
And-
HF: 05:46
Never happened.
SM: 05:47
-when you picked on Kent State, what was it about Kent State that, why did you pick that school?
HF: 05:55
Well, a couple of reasons. One it was, was relatively close to home, which did not matter because I was not going to be going home anyway. Two it was a state school and I could afford it with the G.I. Bill. And three because it had a strong broadcast program and I wanted to continue my broadcasting work that I started in the service. And I had always, in high school, I did record house with two of my friends, we were always involved with radio. And that was just a natural thing for me to want to be, stay in the media. And that is why I picked Kent State.
SM: 06:32
You picked a great school. Yeah, I did not go there. But I tell you, I have visited enough to know what a great university it is. And certainly the students that come from it, having known a lot of the people from the remembrance events. It is a great school. I, obviously, I am going to ask some political questions, too, because you served in the military, you did not go to Vietnam, but you did have concerns. Did you have concerns about America's role in the war? And were you for or against the war? And did you support Vietnam Veterans Against the War, when they came home and like John Kerry, and did those hearings before Fulbright's committee on the Foreign Relations Committee talking about their experiences and how we must stop the war? Your thoughts on any of that?
HF: 07:20
I was not for the war. I did not understand why we were in that war, respect to those people who had to go and make their sacrifice. I did not join a protest group per se, because I maintain myself as a journalist first after having gone through the Armed Forces Radio and Television Journalism School. And, so I was against the war. I supported the people against the war. But I maintained my objectivity by being a photographer and reporting on what I saw.
SM: 08:14
And what-
HF: 08:15
There were no protests in say, Waco, Texas, we took a bus to downtown Texas, downtown Waco every day, and there were never any protests. And in the Philippines, all we did was we heard about things, because I was in the news department over there and quad forces GB. We have heard about the news and what was going on. But it was, did not have much to do with us. We were surprised at things like the Democratic Convention, prior to (19)68, and a variety of things. And when I came back to the states, I came back to Denver, Colorado, and I saw people that were obviously against the war. And it was, it was surprising to me, it was a, I came back to a different culture than when I left.
SM: 09:06
Wow. When you were at Kent State, I think you took those pictures on the weekend of April 30 to May 4, 1970. You had already been a student there for one year. And I think you were involved in the student newspaper and maybe the yearbook as well. Could you talk about your very first year at Kent State and what it was like? Were there protests going on, even then, number one? And number two, your experiences with the newspaper and photography?
HF: 09:36
Well so, I started at Kent State, March of 1969. And I was unsure of my ability to be a student so I focused on getting my grades and getting stuff before I decided to do anything photographically. And a little after, after midterms for the first semester, first quarter there I thought, "Well, I think I can handle this. So, I need to find a place that offers free film in a dark room." And I did not go to the newspaper, I went to the yearbook office. And I was immediately told, "Sure, have some film and take some pictures." So, I was more aligned with the student yearbook, then the newspaper, although I did do some work for the newspaper. And my second year there after working on the yearbook for the first year, I became editor of the yearbook my junior year at Kent State, and put out the yearbook that had the stars, the red and white stripes, and the protest story inside of it.
SM: 10:45
Now, some-
HF: 10:47
Go ahead.
SM: 10:48
-some of your early photographs, not talking about the protests. You take general shots all over campus or in the community or?
HF: 10:56
Well the yearbook staff did not limit my ability to take pictures as I was still learning a lot of different things about photography. So, and I was not involved in any relationships. So, my only focus was getting great and getting an opportunity to take pictures of different groups, different things, gymnastics, rugby, sports. I took pictures of the homecoming queens. I took pictures of anything, all day long, and sometimes there were assignments from the yearbook staff to take pictures of a fraternity or sorority, or get this, or that. But other than that, pretty much left up to my own. And in the 1970 yearbook, you will see a lot more of my work as I was doing photography pretty much, all the time. I mean, any place that can give you a free film back then and a dark room, it was heaven sent.
SM: 12:02
That is great. Do you still have any your early photos of, before the tragedy at Kent State?
HF: 12:10
I do and the university does.
SM: 12:12
Good.
HF: 12:13
We have got all the yearbook, photographs and stuff.
SM: 12:15
Super, super. In 1970, your background states that you became a stringer for Life Magazine, and covered the entire weekend from April 30th to May 4th. Could you just describe some of the pictures you took? You know, just, just some of the pictures that you remember taking of not only the protesters but also of the National Guard, people, politicians who came. Most importantly, in this particular one, we were more than the pictures. What were you, personally experiencing, you were only a sophomore, and you were a photographer, and you were wanting to take pictures? But this is, I do not know if you were thinking this was a historic happening at that time, but it was.
HF: 13:10
Well, first let us get the record set straight here. I liked the pictures from May 1st until May 4th. And I did not become a stringer for Life magazine until the morning of May 4th. And being on campus, Kent State is a suitcase campus, a lot of students go home to visit friends, be with family, or to do a part time job. And so on the weekends, it was a pretty empty place. But, things were happening on campus that were unusual and for me, that was just another opportunity to take pictures and I did not, I did not need an assignment, and I was not thinking anything other than the fact that this is something that is happening and it needs to be recorded and my journalistic instincts said, take pictures because what else are you going to do with your time? So, I was not looking for any kind of historic event or anything like that. So what, what happened was over the weekend, May 1, I took pictures of the bearing of, bearing of the Constitution by the history graduate students. And that was pretty, non-event, 600-1000 students showed up, listened to them at noon. And by the time lunch hour was about to end, the people who organized the bearing of the Constitution realized there was a looser crowd, it was Friday. So they said, "Let us redo this on Monday. Let us go back and revisit what Nixon did and what the Vietnam War is doing, and the Constitution." And so, they were retired from that event waiting to call again on May 4th. They knew that they could not keep a crowd on May 1st, after school, or on the weekend because we would be going home. So, Friday, I did not take any pictures of downtown camp even though I did not, I did not know that, what was going on down there. I did not leave campus, but on Saturday morning, there were lots of rumors, and things that were supposed to happen or might happen about the ROTC building. So, I just followed people around and took pictures during the day. Some pictures that, not that much happened until the school set up marshals, because there was a curfew set on Friday night about being in town Friday night, and they were concerned about what was going on. The curfew extended to the university. And that evening, is when the ROTC building was burned down. I was with the editor of the Daily 10 stator. And before the building actually caught fire, we were there. But he said, "Let us go to, let us go to town." He said, "I heard that the National Guard are already in town." So, we ran down the hill or we kind of walked down the hill toward town and halfway downtown, halfway off campus, we were met by three National Guardsmen with fixed bayonets who came out and stopped us from going into town. And they asked us, "Why, where were we going?" Bill showed his press pass and we both were allowed to leave campus and then come back. We came back as the ROTC building was burning. And I did not get any pictures of that. I did not have the right equipment, flash, or rotation. But I stayed up until two or three in the morning, taking pictures of the fireman putting out the final embers of the building. And took some pictures of people in their dorms, standing, looking outside, looking to see what was happening because about two o'clock in the morning, the National Guard showed up on campus. And I can remember that distinctly because I was surprised to see these, or what I called "half-track," vehicle leading the National Guard onto the campus and surrounding the ROTC building. And I took several pictures of that, that were published in the yearbook and published in my book. The pictures there because I had to, I had to document what was going on. So, about two or three o'clock in the morning, Saturday, which would be Sunday morning. I went back to my dorm, we got up early because I heard that governor, when I got up on Sunday morning I heard that Governor Rhodes might be showing up on campus. And I walked around campus and I took pictures of the ROTC building. People returning to campus, even Saturday, {inaudible]. So this is Saturday, Sunday morning, and Governor Rhodes did show up, he arrived by helicopter or something by the airport. And I went with other photographers and we met in, at the ROTC building with General DeCorso and Mayor Cetrom, and also took numerous photographs of that. Drove to an elementary school where the National Guard were bivouacked, and we took, I took a few pictures there. And then, Sunday was pretty much quiet for me in terms of walking around the campus and just taking pictures here and there. The guards were pretty quiet. Students were interacting with the guard in a way that seemed very friendly. One of the questions I have asked myself is, "Why would a parent bring their students to a campus with nearly 2000 national guards on it, in campus and around town, and be comfortable with that?" Then I thought about it, and I thought, "You know what, they probably felt that because the National Guard was there the, the rioters and the people who were causing the problems were taken care of, and their students would be safe with the National Guard," kind of an oxymoron, if you think about it.
SM: 20:23
Right-right.
HF: 20:25
It did not work out that way. So Sunday, I know that there was several gatherings of students in different locations, one by the Music of Speech building where I was, that is where we got tear gassed, so we had helicopters flying over our heads. And then there was a [inaudible], and there was a curfew on campus, but students found a way to get off campus, and head up toward the Main and Water Street or on the major intersections of downtown Kent. And I, I followed them out there and I got pictures of them sitting. And the, the whole problem with all that was going on at Kent State was the lack of communication. People today, that remember that we did not have cell phones, we did not have a T.V. in every room. People did not have the kind of information at our fingertips that we have today. And the students who went downtown and sat in the center of the street, asked for one thing, they asked for somebody, a representative from the school to show up and explain what was happening, who was in control. No one was, no one ever showed up. The guard shortened the curfew, and forced the students back onto campus earlier than the original curfew had been set up. They just made the unilateral decision to move students out of downtown Kent and back onto the campus, that Sunday evening. And I have followed students, some students had been banned, and they were in, taken into fraternity houses or, mostly fraternity houses. And I was told I could not come in because they had a wounded student in there, and so I just proceeded back to my dorm until Monday morning. Monday, about 9:30, 10 o'clock, I wandered over to the student newspaper office in Taylor Hall. And it was fairly quiet. We talked about what was going on. But then there was a phone call from Life Magazine, Chicago office, the woman on the phone asked if there was a photographer there who had some pictures from the weekend, and if she could talk to him. So, I was the only photographer who was during the whole weekend, that Bill can remember. So, he gave me the phone and they asked if I would send some prints that day of the weekend. And would I mind taking some pictures of the, whatever happened on Monday, and I agreed to take pictures on Monday, and send some pictures of that evening. That is how I became a stringer for Life Magazine that day, and you are right that, that does change your perspective, even though I-I was doing it on my own without any motivation other than just to capture images of what was going on. Now that Life magazine had given me an assignment, it made it more, gave me more focus. And one of the things that I had done earlier in the week on Saturday, made sure to get a press pass from Major Jones who was with a National Guard. So, I had a National Guard press pass that would allow me to move in and out of the lines, and that is what helped me on May 4th.
SM: 24:16
Wow. Now you were, May 4th, when did you take your first picture on May 4th, approximately what time and where were you, when?
HF: 24:34
[chuckles] Oh, it had been between 11:00 and 11:30, I was just walking down the hill in front of Taylor Hall and took a picture of the people standing in front of Taylor Hall. And then, I got down a little further and took a picture, a couple pictures of the crowd standing by the victory bell, and I took a few more pictures of that area. And then I thought, you know, there is only so many pictures, I can take of the students here. So, I might as well use my press pass to go down behind the National Guard because, the assignment, and I need to show both sides of the story, and at least see what the National Guard is doing. So, I walk down behind the National Guard lines, showed my press, press pass, had no problems. And all sudden, you realize it was a bigger deal than, than people might have thought it was because local T.V. stations from Cleveland were there, a national reporter named Mike Pappas was there. And they were all very interested in what was going on. I just stood and took pictures with the National Guard with their weapons, with their band, fixed band, [inaudible] ones. As they marched, as they drill, not drill, but as they gathered by the front of the ROTC building and we were about ready to go uphill. All this happened between 11:30 and say, 12:15. And around, around 12:15 or so, a jeep pulled up near the crowd and said, "You need to disperse and leave this area immediately. This gathering is not permitted, you need to leave this area immediately. Please disperse." And, the sad thing is that there was nothing going on other than students were chanting, and giving the guard the finger, and throwing stones that fell way short of the 300 or so yards that the National Guard was standing away from them. And there was no, there was no riot involved, there was no rushing of students at anything. And shortly thereafter, that is when the guard was told, "We need to break up this crowd." Now this goes back to the same situation, on Friday, May 1st, had the crowd been allowed to wait until one o'clock instead of 12:30, probably would have broken up by itself it already was divided. There was on the ground, maybe 3 to 500 students who are actual protesters, but behind them were people who are either on the way to class, or just observing. And then on top of that, there was another layer of people just observing, some people who are supporting them, but you know, on a campus of 18,000 students, you really only had 3 to 500 students were protesting, and whoever else was in that area was just an observer. And so, the guy decided to move up the hill and disperse the crowd. And I believe they did this without any reconnaissance because they had no idea how big the campus was. And they went up both sides of Taylor Hall to one side between Johnson Hall and Taylor Hall to Prentice Hall, Taylor Hall on the left. They chased students up there and then they get themselves trapped in a football field, the practice football field, which has a chain link fence that goes around three sides. And they had to make a decision as to how they were going to, what they were going to do next in terms of dispersing the crowd or not. So, there was a crowd of students across the street from the practice football field, and there was a street that separated the two, and the guard had a choice of going back down to the practice, to the ROTC building area through Prentice Hall and Taylor Hall. Or, to again confront the students and cause them to just disperse by going straight ahead and then making a right hand turn and going down between Johnson and Taylor Hall. Well, the interesting part is that to go up to Johnson and Taylor Hall would mean that they would have to climb an elevation of about 20 feet, would put them in a higher elevations than the parking lot and the practice football field. And, as they made their climb, that is the place. That is the point at which, between Taylor Hall and the pagoda structure, Guardsmen who somehow got to the very back of the line was moving up the hill, turned, some kneeled down a little bit, and fired their weapons. And I was about 80 feet in front of them and to the, to the side, John Clary, and Joe Lewis, who were within an area that I was within, and they were both shot. So, that was a pretty eye-opening experience-
SM: 26:56
Wow.
HF: 26:57
-because no one expected that and no one expected live ammunition. Even if they turned and fired, it was, they were shooting blanks, or shooting, maybe rubber bullets. I grabbed my cameras and knelt down on top of this grating in front of Taylor Hall. And when I started to get up, I was told, "Stay down, sit down, oh my god, they are shooting real bullets. People are bleeding up here. So, do not get up."
SM: 31:14
Wow.
HF: 31:15
So, that is how that event took place, pretty, pretty frightening that they actually shot real bullets. And again, I, I kind of sucked my emotions and just let my camera work for me because I took a picture of Joe Lewis, took a picture of John Clary, I got up and I started walking down towards the practice football field. I was told by some girls not to take pictures, I said, "No, my job is to take the pictures, somebody has to document this." And that is when I went down, I saw Jeffrey Miller lying in the street. And I turned to my right a little bit and I saw Mary Vecchio, I took several photographs of her, those appeared in Life Magazine. And I kept taking pictures of people, and their reactions to what had just happened. And it was, just an unreal experience walking around campus at that point in time-
SM: 32:20
Oh man.
HF: 32:20
-because nobody knew what was going to happen next. And you know, Alan Frank said it best when he said, you know, "Stay down, do not let, I cannot be a part of this. Do not let them shoot any more of you." Because the guard was scattered over the campus then, if you, if you take a careful look at some of the photographs, and not just mine, but many of them, you will see that even though the students are like in a huddle in a big circle, someplace. If you look close enough, you will see the guard, not too far away.
SM: 32:56
Wow.
HF: 32:57
And that was, that was what was scary, so.
SM: 33:01
Did it ever, during this terrible, terrible happening, ask yourself, "Where is, where is the leadership of this campus? Where is the administration? Where are they?" And, and I, and then also, correct me if I am wrong, it was my, my information is that they were protesting against the expansion of the war into Cambodia. And that was initially, and then when the guard came on campus and showed their, their stuff that they were upset that the National Guard had, had come on to their campus. So, it was as much protesting against the war as it was against the, the National Guard being on their campus. And, and then the shooting. Oh, my God. Just your thoughts on that. Where was the administration?
HF: 34:03
Well, my understanding is that the president of the university had just returned from a trip, I think it was to Iowa, and he was now having, during this time having lunch with General del Corso, a local restaurant. And the administration had more or less given control of the university to the governor and to the National Guard.
SM: 34:31
Unbelievable.
HF: 34:31
And, and the students. Like I said the evening before, I had asked for somebody from the administration to talk to them, and no one came forward. So the administration, from my standpoint, failed because they did not have control of the campus. They let the campus becoming military state and gave up. If you look at the pictures, even the administration building had National Guardsmen in front of the main door letting people in or out, so.
SM: 35:04
Yeah, that is, this is an understatement. That was a massive failure in leadership at the administration level of the university, but it does show, which you already mentioned Mr. Frank and Mr. Lewis and others, faculty members who, who came to the scene, and were there with the students and trying to bring some sort of peace, and you know caring about the students. I mean, that says a lot about your faculty on campus. They deeply cared about the students that they were teaching. Yet, the administration was not there caring about the students that have applied and yeah, it just it was a terrible happening. And were you personally upset with the National Guard because they were on campus?
HF: 35:53
Oh, yeah, I thought it was, I thought it was abysmal to say the least. You know, I just had no idea why they were, why they were on campus, because the ROTC building was done. There did not seem to be any other rumors, or anything going on around, other things happening. And it just made no sense that the National Guard, and what also does not make any sense is, why did the National Guard have fixed bayonets-
SM: 36:26
Yes!
HF: 36:27
-the whole weekend? Fixed bayonets are for hand to hand combat, concentration, close range stuff. And this is, a college campus with students, why do you need to have a fixed bayonet? When the Ohio State [inaudible] came on campus, they had batons. That is all they had. I mean, that is all they carried in their hands.
SM: 36:56
Wow.
HF: 36:57
They did not need a fixed weapon of any kind to show that they had control of the situation.
SM: 37:04
In the afterwards of the tragic, I am going to say, Alan would say the killings. And, you know, I know, even Dean and John and they would say the killings at Kent State, quit saying the tragedy, the killings at Kent State.
HF: 37:20
Yeah.
SM: 37:21
The thing is, who gave them that order? Who's the person responsible for telling them to have the, the bullets? I know, they had a lot of trials afterwards. But, did they ever come up with a final, who gave the final order for that?
HF: 37:39
To have weapons loaded?
SM: 37:40
Yes.
HF: 37:43
That is not something I can address. I do not know who gave them that order, or why they had fixed bayonets. I mean, they came off the trucker strike. And they had been shot at during the trucker strike, but did not shoot back. Here they were getting stones thrown at them that cannot even get close to them. And they, they fired back at students. A lot of unanswered questions, because no one knows. There is lots of rumors as to somebody gave an order to fire. But to me, it does not matter if somebody gave an order or not gave an order. Some people had it in their mind that they were going to turn to fire, and they did.
SM: 38:34
Governor Roads being, being on campus did not help the situation. I know he is running for office and-
HF: 38:41
Yeah, I forgot about that.
SM: 38:43
Yeah, and he was talking law and order. Well, guess who talked law and order, it was President Nixon and Spiro Agnew, who were going all over the country making comments about any other protesters, they were. So you know, he came and he was elected, in part because he used law and order as one of his- the issues that he was going to come into the presidency for. And because there is a lot of activism going all over the country, and civil rights, and you know all the movements that were happening, certainly the anti-war movement in Vietnam, and here, you know, you can look the, I do not know how the president of Kent State could have survived his presidency. If he was sitting down, in downtown and he was out of town, and he comes in town, and he was sitting with a military leader, and not sending anyone in his place to kind of calm students down, or talk with a National Guard, or talk with anybody in authority. The governor, you know, it boggles the mind, basically.
HF: 39:47
He had given up his authority. I need to take a break for five minutes.
SM: 39:53
Okay, let me turn my tape off here and I will leave my-
HF: 39:58
I will be right back.
SM: 39:58
-yep. Okay, we are all set. Yep. One of the questions I wanted to ask you is that, I read someplace that you were working on taking pictures, but you even gave a camera to John Philo?
HF: 40:16
So [crosstalk], as the National Guard dispersed the crowd in front of Taylor Hall, after the crowd was already gone the, National Guard was on both sides of Taylor Hall. John Philo and I met at the base of the hill, [inaudible] hill. And John said, "You have an extra lens I could borrow, I have only got a wide-angle lens," and I said, "I have got a short telephoto lens." So, I gave him my telephoto lens to use. And he took that, and then he said he was going to go off the left side and I said, "I will go off the right side." And then we split, and we just continued covering the event. So yeah, that was a true story. And I subsequently gave that lens to Kent State University, so.
SM: 41:15
Wow.
HF: 41:16
Anyway, so the whole [crosstalk], huh?
SM: 41:20
That and he used that camera to take that picture that won the Pulitzer Prize, right?
HF: 41:25
Yeah, he used that lens.
SM: 41:27
Wow. I hope you he thanked you. [laughter]
HF: 41:32
He did.
SM: 41:34
Now, you were, I am just curious about what the student newspaper staff was doing at the time that you were taking pictures because obviously they were around someplace, recording all this. Did the, in the student newspapers over a several day period, before the campus was shut down, were they writing opinion pieces or articles on what was going on?
HF: 41:58
I could tell you I was not involved.
SM: 42:00
Alright.
HF: 42:02
Seriously, I was I, so after the, taking pictures that day, and they told us that the university was closed. I continued to take pictures of students as they marched or walked toward their dormitories to get their equipment and their gear, clothing, books, whatever they needed, to leave campus. I stayed until about six or six-thirty, I had to call Life Magazine back to find out what they wanted me to do with my film and the stuff I, the pictures I had taken. And I was told to put everything in a box, they bought a seat for it on an airplane out of Akron. And to, give it to somebody at the, just get it there and put it on the plane and they would get it in Chicago. And so, I did not have a car. So, one of my photographer friends, Fetterman drove me to the airport and later drove me home that night. So, I was busy getting my own stuff out of there. And, again, when we talked about the campus closing, I mean, people did not have cell phones, we did not have Uber, they had to find their own way home. And as you know, the people said the telephone lines on campus were not working. So, it was it was a tough situation for lots of students, how to get ahold of their parents, or find a way to get into town, get a bus, get something. I am sure there was some help that I did not know about because I was worrying about my own way of getting around. And that was, that was a big issue. And then the, then after everybody left, the National Guard searched all that rooms for anything that would be incriminating, and took any film, or anything that would be something that they thought they could use later.
SM: 44:15
They went into the residence halls and did that?
HF: 44:18
Yes, all the residence halls.
SM: 44:20
I did not know that.
HF: 44:22
Yeah, I think you could check with somebody else on that, but verify the fact that the rooms were searched and anybody who left a camera or left film, unexposed film, that was taken.
SM: 44:34
Well that is another legal issue, that the university, no university should allow that to ever happen. Wow. Well, again, lack of leadership there at the school protecting the rights of students and their property, my goodness. Did you know any other students, any of the students who were killed or wounded at Kent State before this tragedy?
HF: 44:58
I did not know any of the students who were killed at Kent State or any of the students who are wounded. I got to know Dean Kahler when he, I donated some large prints to the university. And Dean came up to me and said, "You know, that is the last photograph of me standing." So, it was taken before the shooting, and it was taken just, you know, while the crowd was growing. So, that is how Dean and I connected. But other than that, I did not know Alan Canfora, even though I know I have got pictures of him with the black flag. Alison Krauss, I had taken pictures of in 1969, when she helped protest the war on Vietnam by leading a group marched through downtown, the city of Kent. I learned of all these people through my photographs, and it is quite sad.
SM: 45:36
Right. Now John-
HF: 46:06
To know that, you-
SM: 46:07
-you go ahead.
HF: 46:08
-go ahead.
SM: 46:08
No, you go ahead.
HF: 46:09
You know, it is quite sad to look at the pictures. I gave a talk at Hanoi University in 2016, and I showed them a PowerPoint. And in the PowerPoint, I would show students with books in their arms and then I will say, "Oh, that is Sandra Scheuer. She is going to be dead in 20 minutes. That is William Schroeder, he is going to die in 25 minutes."
SM: 46:38
Woah.
HF: 46:39
And it brought tears to the students at the university because they realized the sacrifice that some students made to help in the war in Vietnam.
SM: 46:49
Wow, that was powerful. Your book is full of unbelievable pictures. And I know it is hard to pick, but I am going to ask you to pick, if you can, just a few of the ones that you are most proud of, or the ones that stand out in your mind of the, the best picture you took on the National Guard, you took a lot of them, is there one that stands out?
HF: 47:16
Well, it stands out would be like, for them, there was four heads in the back of their heads [inaudible] as they marched toward the guard that stand out to me. There was, there was a couple of them there.
SM: 47:38
How about-
HF: 47:39
Well there is one of them, in downtown Kent that is a silhouette of the National Guard with cross bayonets and in front of a service station window, and you can see bayonets in the air and their silhouettes.
SM: 47:51
Wow.
HF: 47:51
It was the day before.
SM: 47:55
How about the best pictures of the protesters?
HF: 48:03
Well, the crowd shot that is, just shows them standing there, Mary Beko with her dog, you can see just with this raised finger, yeah just that, the beginning crowd shots there. And the guard shot that stands out to me that, is one of those that was taken just as they fired their weapons because they fired, and I took a picture of them as they turned and fired. And then I got down but, as I am getting down you will see in the picture that there is one guy who looks like he has got his gun aimed for me so that stands out a lot.
SM: 48:48
Did you think you were a goner?
HF: 48:51
Well I know that I was standing up there and I had a, back then I had an old 200-millimeter lens which stands out pretty far, and another lens in my camera and I thought you know, "I probably look pretty silly up here, look like a target." So, I turned and went down on my knees, and.
SM: 49:08
Wow.
HF: 49:09
So no, but I was 6, I was only 20 feet behind, I think it was Joe Lewis, who was the first one shot. He was supposed to stand 60 feet. I was 80 feet. So-
SM: 49:21
Now-
HF: 49:22
-yeah, I was quiet, close enough.
SM: 49:24
How about, are there any of the state troopers and the, you know the-the politicians that came to stand out?
HF: 49:35
Well, yeah, they have got some nice, she would call, nice journalistic images of Governor Rhodes inspecting the ROTC building and standing with Mayor Cetrom, and General del Corso. So, got other pictures that stand out, what are this?
SM: 49:58
How about the best of the downtown shots and the, or the campus shots, just when?
HF: 50:04
Oh, downtown. We are using the light of the helicopters to take a picture of the students sitting down, downtown.
SM: 50:12
Wow.
HF: 50:13
That stands out to me. It did not have you know, back then, the equipment was a little bit different than it is today too. So, you had to be a little more in touch with your equipment, than, than that so, you did not have time to run up and take light meter readings, or even if you had a camera with a light meter in it. It is still a lot of guesswork.
SM: 50:36
Summers in the last couple of years you met with John Cleary. Now, did you? Did you stay in touch with John, when he saw that picture? Did you stay in touch with John over the years, or was this kind of a first meeting?
HF: 50:51
We met for the first time with at Kent State University in 2019 when I, when I, when I shared my book, we had a book signing ceremony. Yeah, so that is the first time I met him. And I shared with him some more pictures that I had of him that were never published.
SM: 51:10
Wow.
HF: 51:11
So yeah, John and I, we stay in touch on Facebook, but we are not, you know, buddies, in that sense. We are just good. We just have something mutual in common that we both respect and both understand.
SM: 51:24
Right. What happened to your film after it was shipped off? Because you, I guess that they had to, you did not know what the pictures were. I mean, you had not seen them.
HF: 51:38
Oh that is right.
SM: 51:39
So, what happened to your pictures? And most importantly, and I am so pleased that they came back to you, and they are yours.
HF: 51:49
So here is two stories. One, I had a handful of negatives that I gave to the life reporter that were taken between 1969 and, and they were actually probably all 1969, and maybe a few from the first, no, I do not think anything from May 1, but 1969. And they have been lost and I am lucky I found some. But the film, I just put in a box, I sent to Life Magazine, they called me at two o'clock in the morning to tell me they could not find it. Then, they called me an hour or two hours later and told me they finally got the box of film, and then we were going to send her off via processing. I think it was about a week later, not quite a week later, maybe three days, two or three days. I got a call again, real early in the morning, one or two o'clock in the morning saying that one of the photographs that I had taken was going to be used for the cover of Life Magazine. And that was interesting, because I had not seen any of the negatives, the FBI had come to my house, asking to see all my prints. And I had yet to see anything other than the cover of Life Magazine and the images inside. And the fact that they put a picture of me inside of the editors, editors page. The, the photographs, were in the hands of Life Magazine, and then the FBI came to my house when they wanted me to identify who they thought were radicals on campus. And you know, a lot of people get concerned about what the FBI is going to do. But in this particular case, the truth stands for itself. I mean, you are not going to, no one is going to get identified as a radical that I know because, they are not. But the FBI kept demanding and seeing my negatives, and my pictures and I told him, I said, "You know, they are not mine. They belong to Life Magazine, and I have not seen any of them. And as they left my house, they said, "Well if that is what you want to do with your gov. money, Mr. Ruffner." And because I never agreed to share them with them I guess. Life Magazine, Life Magazine made a decision that they did want to get involved with, you know, in a case about having the FBI come to them and say they want the negative, and the prints, and they did not want to get involved with all that stuff. So, they sent me a photo of the negative that they had of mine, and actually a friend of somebody else's too. That, they just sent me a box, full of prints of every negative, and they sent me the negatives, and they said, "We are going to let you handle this." So, it was my deal.
SM: 55:04
Wow.
HF: 55:08
It was a big deal. I mean, having all those, it was the first time I saw them, so I obviously took my time and went through all the pictures, and looked at them in quite amazement as to what I actually had. Because even though you think you know what you have, when you are taking the pictures, you do not really know, so. And the fact that they chose one of mine for the cover, even though there were other people there who had similar photographs, it was quite a feather, so.
SM: 55:37
Were there other photographers besides you and John Philo?
HF: 55:40
Oh, tons. Campus newspaper, photographer, the campus, campus photographer who worked for the University was there, two of them, they have pictures of John Cleary. Call it very, very similar to my pictures. I mean, any picture could have been used. So, yeah.
SM: 56:03
Wow. Now, when it was all over, when the, May 4th, and people are going home, the school shut down, of course. You know, the shootings, as you well know, set a wave of protests all over the country, and anywhere close to 275-300 schools were truly affected by this. And as far as Kent State goes, how was the campus when you returned in the fall? I mean, and honestly, I want to know how you felt, because you are an individual student, you were still a sophomore. I know you might be a little older, because you served in the military. But still, you were a young, you were a young student, and you were doing your job. But now, you know that this is affected the entire nation. You got the Time, Newsweek out there. So, you are a part of history. As a young person, how did you deal with this?
HF: 57:06
Well, let us start with fact that I kept coming back to the university before school started, because people would want to have a walk through. Rolling Stone wanted to walk through, this news group wanted to walk through. And I was one of the people they, they called to help walk people through the campus. And then, even though the campus was closed, and it did open for summer school, and I attended school summer school that year. And I took regular courses, and it was like nothing ever happened other than the fact that it did happen. Does that make sense? I mean, things went on as normal, was not, summer school is different than a regular university, regular university time. But yeah, I went onto school and then in the fall, fall started. I got involved. I was just selected to be the editor of the 1971 yearbook, which would include the, the killings of the poor students in the routing of the night. And it was my decision as to how to deal with that in the yearbook. And I do not know if you have seen the yearbook, but Kent has always been to me, a mild campus. It is not like Columbia's or other places where they have a lot of radicals who get up on their soapbox all the time. And it is a conservative school. So, I did the yearbook in a way that shows that the shootings interrupted what would have been a normal school year. I do not know if you have seen the yearbook or not.
SM: 57:53
Yes. I have not, I have not seen the yearbook, no.
HF: 59:04
Yeah, that is The Timeline.
SM: 59:07
Okay.
HF: 59:10
So yeah, that was quite-quite beautiful.
SM: 59:15
You went and you stayed, you stayed with that yearbook till you graduated?
HF: 59:25
I edited the yearbook that year, and I stayed with the yearbook, but did not do a whole lot my senior year. I did not do a lot of photography for it. I had already gotten, I have gotten married within that time, and my focus was on getting my grades, and graduating, and I graduated. I started to camp in March of 1969. And I graduated in December of (19)71. So, even editing the yearbook I got out of there fairly quickly.
SM: 59:59
Yeah. When you did graduate, there were more trials to come at Kent State over the football field, the trials of the families who lost loved ones, lawsuits, and do you kind of cover that in any way?
HF: 1:00:19
Let me say that. I was a witness of the Scranton Commission hearings at Kent State. Then I was the lead witness in the two civil cases in Cleveland, Ohio, against the guard, and I was the lead witness because I introduced all the photographic evidence. And it took three days on the witness stand. And the, the attorney for the National Guard was a very, very good attorney. And he was very difficult, but I introduced all that stuff. And then, and then when the second trial came, I was also the lead witness. And by the time I had finished, and the second witness was called, they had agreed to the settlement which they announced, which was the monetary settlement, and a letter by the National Guard that everybody else said there is an apology, but they, they disagree. So I, in second trial, I believe was in 1988. And I have to say that, Kent State has been part of my life every year since then, because of the, because I was in a unique position to have photographs for the entire weekend. I got calls from media, I got calls from eighth grade science history students who wanted to do, there is a history competition every year for eighth graders. I became involved and I am still involved as we are right now, still involved with the Kent State shootings. And, it has been a part of my entire life.
SM: 1:02:21
Wow. It, what were the final results of those hearings? There was a-
HF: 1:02:29
Well the National Guard awarded [crosstalk]- -it was against the National Guard and Governor Rhodes we do not want to forget that. And in the state of Ohio had to pay, I forget what it was right now. The total amount of money but and the, the primary amount of money was going to go to Dean Kahler because he had been living in a wheelchair for so long that it was felt that he should be given something to live on. And I think the total amount of money was over $450,000. Do you recall? I am not sure. But the families of the four that died, they were compensated, then.
SM: 1:02:31
-yes.
HF: 1:03:23
Yeah.
SM: 1:03:24
Yeah. And all-
HF: 1:03:26
They-they did not get much in return in terms of monetary. They, the idea was to get the guard to admit that they did something wrong.
SM: 1:03:34
Right.
HF: 1:03:35
And Dean Kahler got the majority of the settlements.
SM: 1:03:39
The question, Howard, that you have probably been asked 100 times, maybe more, was the question that came up about maybe about, 12 years ago at one of the remembrance events that Alan Canfora opened up with, that they have a tape where somebody taped the person giving the order to shoot. Now, I do not know what has happened since that remembrance event. But, others said they thought they heard it too. Did, when you are there you are close, did you hear any money give the order?
HF: 1:04:04
I did not hear anything from where I was. And I was as close as anybody. And like I said earlier, to me, it did not matter if-if there was an order because if there was an order, I only think there was a predetermined decision by a group of guardsmen to get to that point on the hill, which was the highest point on the campus at that place, and turn and fire because others behind them are totally surprised and if they say some things like though they heard a gunshot, well, everybody would have heard a gunshot. But even General Canterbury is in that photograph of the guard firing, and he looks totally surprised. So for me, it does not matter if somebody said fire or not. There was an action that required some kind of coordination between different folks to turn on fire.
SM: 1:05:25
And they knew there were bullets in there too.
HF: 1:05:30
Yeah, yep, they did.
SM: 1:05:31
They knew they were not blanks.
HF: 1:05:34
There were armor, some of them had armor piercing bullets because they went through the steel sculpture.
SM: 1:05:39
Unbelievable. Yeah, that hole in this, yep, that whole skill sculpture is still there. After Kent State and let people know what your career what your what happened with your career beyond college. I think that is very important.
HF: 1:05:56
Well, I went to work for, I was a photographer's assistant for a commercial photographer for almost a year. And when I decided that, that was not going to go anywhere, I chose to go to Ohio University to get a degree in something that was not production oriented, I wanted to get a degree in something that was not easy for me to do, like take pictures or run T.V. cameras. So, I got, I got my master's in communications research, which was statistics. So, and after that, I went and worked for cable T.V. for a while. And then, I did a little freelance photography and moved back to Cleveland and kind of traveled with Ohio Bell where I was a writer, photographer, and all-around PR type person, and did my career with AT&T in New York, New Jersey, retired in Denver, Colorado, in government affairs. But during that entire time, I can tell you that I did give many talks at Kent State at many different locations. So yeah, my career even though I did not pursue a photographic career in its traditional sense, while at AT&T I did a lot of photography, and made photography part of my job description regardless of what kind of job I had. So, did multimedia shows I did film, I did video, produced a lot of, wrote scripts. So yeah, I had a good career and, and having had the Life Magazine and the George Polk award for photojournalism, that certainly opened the doors and did not hurt me getting inside AT&T getting into AT&T in Ohio, giving me recognition for what I was doing.
SM: 1:08:02
The thing is, I think it is great that you did this book, that it is connected to Kent State, that you are still going out, and speaking about it. These are, this is something that should never be forgotten in our history. And this is all important. One things from going, I did not go this year, because I had an operation, I wanted to go to the remembrance event. But, I think four years, I think was four years ago was my last one. But there were several, several remembrance events where some of the panels talked about the fact that the truth is still not known. And the truth is, you know, like, who gave the order, like your speculation about those possibly played plan by us, certain number of National Guard. It is the it is the unknown truth that still haunts the people who want to know the what really happened. And the truth needs to be known because of the four who died. And, and so I think that, I do not know, have you heard anything more about the person who came several years back when Alan was here regarding the shooting, and that somebody gave an order then he had a tape?
HF: 1:09:15
Oh, there is, somebody found a tape. They sent it to an expert. That expert said he was able to unscramble the tape enough to actually here an order to fire. The person who, the audiologist who did that discovery has since passed away, which, I guess hurt their case about taking that to court and saying, "Here is my proof." But other than that there has been nothing else said about that tape in quite a while and I have to ask people, I mean, what? If somebody gave an order of fire, how does that change, anything? If there was no the order to fire, it is more of a conspiracy. So, this whole thing is going to go down like John F Kennedy.
SM: 1:10:25
It is true.
HF: 1:10:26
There is going to be rumors and myths about what really happened. But, you know, in this case, I know for a fact, as I sat there and witnessed it, as I stood there and witnessed it, the National Guard turned and fired, and I did not hear a shot before me, you will look at the evidence, there was nothing thrown at them to cause them to turn and fire. There is nothing on the ground. No, Kent State is a manicured campus. Taylor Hall is a manicured piece of property because it is one of the showcases on the University at the time. There is no rocks lying around, there is no, you know, so somebody is going to have to convince me otherwise. But I just feel that there is the conspiracy. And if you will notice that, if you go and look at all the records, you will notice that the people who turn and fire are almost all from the same unit, so.
SM: 1:11:25
And of course, the National Guard, just like students, they are now a lot older, and many are dying. So, who were who were there, because time has a chance to affect everything. You still-
HF: 1:11:44
Except the fact that those who turned and fire were older than the National Guard.
SM: 1:11:50
What was their age?
HF: 1:11:52
I could not tell you that, but, but they were a part of the 107 Calvary, and they were an older unit.
SM: 1:11:58
Wow. Alright. You still stay in touch with John Philo?
HF: 1:12:06
Not really. No, we-we, of course, we get together on Facebook like everybody else. But, he has his life and I have mine. We are both happy with that.
SM: 1:12:19
In your future, have you, have you taken pictures that you are just as proud of as the ones at Kent State in your later career, and what would those pictures be?
HF: 1:12:37
Yeah, I promised myself that the last picture published by me would not be a picture of Kent State. I had an opportunity to lead a group of people to China. And some of those were my favorite photographs of foundries in China. That is something not everybody would get an opportunity to do. So, I have continued my photographic work in different ways. The annual report for the Colorado Red Cross one year, and took pictures of people from Bosnia. So, I try to continue my photographic work in ways that will surpass, although it will change, but I do not want to be known only as a Kent State photographer. So, I have been putting a lot of my work on Getty Images right now.
SM: 1:13:38
Oh okay.
HF: 1:13:39
Kind of spread, I got many pictures while I was in the service of popular people like Bob Loeb, and Art Linkletter, Raquel Welch you know, so I have, with General Westmoreland. I worked for, so I, you know, I continue to do photography. And right now, I am not doing what photography, I am retired. My wife and I, I have seven grandsons, we were spending more time with our grandsons, and doing kind of family photography. Nothing. We are not doing it professionally. I am just doing it as a snapshot or snap-shotter.
SM: 1:13:55
Wow. I just have a couple more questions here. They are general questions. And, many people say the killings at Kent State changed the lives, changed lives forever, especially if you were a college student in the, in the United States of America. It was a shock to the youthful Boomer generation like Pearl Harbor. And FDR's death was a shock to the greatest generation. It changed. It changed mine forever. I do not know if you knew this. Alan knew it real well that I was going I go to law school and I changed everything. And when that happened, I was a senior at Binghamton University, and I graduated 1970. And I wanted to go and become a college administrator. So that, what happened at Kent State or Jackson State never happened again, I played in, I would play my own small role in that. And my story is not, is pretty typical. What happened to Kent State, to me is historic in a way that, way beyond the people even participated in it.
HF: 1:15:38
Oh yeah.
SM: 1:15:38
Because many people have written histories about the (19)60s say that, that tragedy, at Kent State, at a college that was not a radical college, but it was, you know, it was not known for that. But it happened there. And that showed to Middle America, and too, that the war had to end. And so-so that is what from historians’ point of view, but also from an individual point of view. And obviously, this has shaped your life, like no other. Do you ever have flashbacks?
HF: 1:16:14
No, I do not have time for flashbacks because everything is for me, for me it is always still too current. You know, it is like our conversation today. I remembered, I can feel it. But not as a flashback, it is as a real happening that I live with all the time. As far as how it changed things, one of the things I think it changed, in its, its colleges today no longer pretend to offer a liberal arts education. They are not looking for students to be liberal arts thinkers and be generalists in that sense. A lot of schools have given up their- a degree in a liberal arts field that does not have any workplace recommendation. So to me, colleges have changed they are more, you go to college to get a job, and you get to go, you get into a program that your first two years are your regular stuff. But then you are really focused on being an engineer, being an architect, being a political science, but a liberal arts part of colleges has really become, you do not see history majors as much anymore, or English majors. Therefore, there are different schools.
SM: 1:17:41
Yes. That is a very good analysis, that is so true. What do you want your, go ahead.
HF: 1:17:51
No, I just, nothing.
SM: 1:17:53
What do you want your legacy to be?
HF: 1:17:58
[chuckles]
SM: 1:17:59
In your own words, what do you hope your legacy will be?
HF: 1:18:02
That my book, on Ken State is a factual and truth telling book, because I wanted people to remember, for sharing the truth about something that was so horrific, and something that should never have happened, Kent State should never have happened. Sargent Snyder gives a talk at Kent State, and I got to hear it on a podcast once. And I disagree with it completely, because during the podcast, he says, "Just before the shooting, sometime before the shootings," he said, "Somebody decided to declare what was happening at Kent State. Students at one end, National Guard another end, somebody said this is a riot. Well, it was not a riot, but the National Guard was given permission then to go up and disperse the crowd, and because they had bayonets, and stuff and weapons, they can shoot people, and Governor Rhodes gave them that permission days ago and took advantage of it." But it should never have happened. There was never a riot. Students were at one end, guards another round. It is like it is like we have learned today, take time, let things fizzle out, and oftentimes and in very tense situations. So, the best thing to do is to let things fizzle out. That should have been what happened at Kent State and there was no need for anybody to die and no need for any of the guards to be shooting or they should, they should have said at that point in time. He should have said, "We have got this under control National Guard, you may pack up and leave your bags, leave and take your bags with you." It would have been fine.
SM: 1:18:02
Yeah.
HF: 1:18:25
Nothing would have happened.
SM: 1:20:15
That is why the lack of leadership that we mentioned earlier that it was in the administration. I think one other thing is about Jackson State that happened, like about 10 days later.
HF: 1:20:26
Yep.
SM: 1:20:26
And I think Kent State is so right on the students who have been leading these remembrance events for a long time, are so ahead of America as a whole, because it was Kent State, who made sure that what happened in Jackson State is not forgotten either. And then what happens there toward African American students, and what happened at Kent State, which was predominately white students. They are all one. And even though they tried to say that the protest of Jackson State was about, about the Vietnam War, it was not about the Vietnam War, it was about racism. It was about the history of racism within that area, and Jean Jung bless his soul, came many years to campus, I met him I actually had dinner with him once when he was here on campus. And, you know, that is what Kent State should be remembered for. Also, with this tragedy is that they cared about another campus that went something, a Black college campus in Mississippi, and saw the linkage between the between the killings at their school and the killings at Kent.
HF: 1:21:46
Undeserved with very little justification, no justification [chuckles].
SM: 1:21:56
Yeah, that, you know, I am interviewing another person on that later today, or tomorrow. I guess I am just some final thing. So who do you just a general question, I got three more, and that is it. Why, who was responsible for the Vietnam War? I know we went to war, and we can blame a president. But in your view, everything has dots. The history is about dots. And when Kent State happened, there was a dot directly to it linked to a Vietnam War, and to a president. But it was something, dots go back on this too. So your thoughts, what caused, who do you blame for the Vietnam War?
HF: 1:22:40
I blame Nixon because, he did a lot of fakery stuff and stopped Johnson from ending the war. And you can read the history about that. But he, he did some things to cause the Vietnamese people to support his position and not go to peace talks as they had planned with Johnson. So, I blame him for continuing what he did.
SM: 1:23:14
Could you also kind of talk about the great things that have happened to Kent State with respect to making that, where this happen a historic spot, not only to have the Kent State Senator, which is unbelievable. But, markers being placed making sure it is it is forever remembered in terms of remembrance. And it is historic, and just everything Kent State now in terms of the administration is unbelievable. And I-I know that they have had issues over the years, but there is no question when you hear Alan Canfora say positive things about an administration and then it has got to be good. [laughter] Because he went through many years, where there was not so good. But, just your thoughts on the site where this all happened and your thoughts as a graduate of Kent State, who went through this, that this spot where it happened is forever preserved for history?
HF: 1:24:18
It has to be preserved for history because that is how we learn, and how we continue to grow. Cannot, it cannot be forgotten because we do not want to have a, it is like a T and square. It is something that should never happen again. And as long as we can remember what happened at Kent State, good chance that will not happen again.
SM: 1:24:49
What is the number one lesson of Kent State and Jackson State, the two together for future generations?
HF: 1:25:02
Communication, and communication with the right people making the right decisions. It is all about communication and getting rid of politics and getting rid of egos. It is all about solid communication between individuals and people, especially about things that matter most, like people's lives.
SM: 1:25:30
Right. And my last question is a question I have been asking now for the last 15 interviewees. Your tape will be listened to 50 years from now, long after you are gone, I am gone. And most of the boomer generation will be around either, so no one will be alive when Kent State happened. And that is the purpose of our centers to make sure that there is research and scholarship on these events. So, they are never forgotten. So what words of advice would you give to young students, faculty, national scholars who are studying this story, 50 years from now, words of advice?
HF: 1:26:24
Words of advice to those of you who are listening to this tape, years from now, is really listen, and listen to the other tapes as well. And try to understand what mistakes were made, and how important it is to be able to communicate and be a part of the process and not hide from it. And Kent State should not have happened. But, protest in this country should be allowed, not violent protest, but protest, like they were at Ken State, it was just a protest. It is part of our culture, it is part of who we are. And it will never stop. But, respect communication of what is going on and respect people's lives.
SM: 1:27:35
Very well said and I just want to say that I always ask a question, usually when I say what are the lessons learned and the lessons that cannot be lost from the (19)60s or from any of the Vietnam War, or even Kent State? You already answered that question. With one word, communication.
HF: 1:27:57
Yep.
SM: 1:27:58
You hit it right on the button. Howard, I want to thank you for this interview.
HF: 1:28:05
You might, you might consider putting a link to the oral history I gave to Kent State too.
SM: 1:28:10
I will do that. I got to deal with Binghamton University, but I will deal with that and I am going to pause the tape now. Thank you very much for the interview.
(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 Howard Ruffner
-
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c3b1365c25f20c00222cff01dae49b11
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/b279253da26ae698cbbb1355b798aaa5.mp3
19a26828668f1d7154aa5cb3f0aa5bc5
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
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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
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Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
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English
Rights
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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.
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Jack Smith, 1945-2004
Date of Interview
ND
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
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2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Duration
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94:27
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Jack Smith (1945-2004) was an Emmy Award-Winning former correspondent for ABC News. Smith is known for reporting on the Iran-Contra affair, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and technology in the Silicon Valley. He received Bachelor's degrees from Carnegie Mellon University in 1971 and from Oxford University in 1974."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13059,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,16777215],"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">Jack Smith (1945-2004) was an Emmy Award-Winning former correspondent for ABC News. Smith is known for reporting on the Iran-Contra affair, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and technology in the Silicon Valley. He received Bachelor's degrees from Carnegie Mellon University in 1971 and from Oxford University in 1974.</span>
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Baby boom generation; Sexual revolution; College; Counterculture; Labor union; Flat wages; VISTA; End of Vietnam War; Self-indulgence; Consumer Movement; Jane Fonda; Vietnam Memorial."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Baby boom generation; Sexual revolution; College; Counterculture; Labor union; Flat wages; VISTA; End of Vietnam War; Self-indulgence; Consumer Movement; Jane Fonda; Vietnam Memorial.</span>
Subject LCSH
Reporters and reporting; ABC News; Smith, Jack, 1945-2004--Interviews
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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 Jack Smith
Contributor
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Smith, Jack, 1945-2004 ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
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audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Reporters and reporting; ABC News; Smith, Jack, 1945-2004--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Jack Smith (1945-2004) was an Emmy Award-Winning former correspondent for ABC News. Smith is known for reporting on the Iran-Contra affair, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and technology in the Silicon Valley. He received Bachelor's degrees from Carnegie Mellon University in 1971 and from Oxford University in 1974.
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
ND
Rights
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In copyright
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.151a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.151a
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.
94:27