22 10 250 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/df753b4355ebba091101334dc2e87f3b.jpg 9664591256b5b84bc9dbdc710b93549a https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/a7ca9b9911672660423c33be25a7c556.mp3 c85b3890001ae58728c074c90e81f46c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Rick Synchef Date of Interview 2010-12-15 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 153:58 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":"Dr. Martin Luther King Jr; Black Panther; Angela Davis; Vietnam Veterans; Baby boom generation; Beat generation; Earth Day; Activism; Vietnam War; Free speech movement; Activism."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5009,"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}]},"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">Dr. Martin Luther King Jr; Black Panther; Angela Davis; Vietnam Veterans; Baby boom generation; Beat generation; Earth Day; Activism; Vietnam War; Free speech movement; Activism.</span> Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Rick Synchef is a counterculture collector and historian. He began collecting political paper and ephemera when he was an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison during the 1960s and 70s. Synchef consistently meets writers and obtains autographs for his large collection of books related to the 1960s."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":6535,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"10":2,"11":4,"14":[null,2,1184274],"15":"Arial"}">Rick Synchef is a counterculture collector and historian. He began collecting political paper and ephemera when he was an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison during the 1960s and 70s. Synchef consistently meets writers and obtains autographs for his large collection of books related to the 1960s.</span> Subject LCSH Counterculture--United States--20th century; Historians; Synchef, Rick--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Rick Synchef Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 15 December 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:02): Testing one, two. Okay. The first question I have been asking at least the last 50 people that I have been interviewing is, Rick, can you describe your growing up years, your high school years, where you grew up, maybe some experiences you had at that school prior to going off to the University of Wisconsin to college, and also if you had any early role models before you went off to college. Either parents or people in the news or people that you read about in books. RS (00:00:42): I had a fairly normal childhood growing up in the suburbs of Chicago. I want to go off the record. I do not know how much of this you want. I may say more than is necessary, so you may- SM (00:00:55): Go right ahead. RS (00:00:56): Okay. President of my class in eighth grade, politically interested, writing letters to the editor in high school for our local newspaper. I have to go off for a second. If I make grammatical mistakes, will I be able to correct them at- SM (00:01:12): Oh yeah. You will be able to correct them because you will see the transcript. RS (00:01:17): Because I would rather just speak and if I say something, I do not want to have to worry about my grammar so much when I speak with you. SM (00:01:22): That is okay. RS (00:01:23): Okay. SM (00:01:24): Yep. RS (00:01:24): All right. Always interested in politics. Followed politics. Senior year in high school, actually just graduating after senior year in high school. It was 1968. Since I just graduated, I was not allowed by my parents to go down to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August at night. I went with a couple of friends the following day to the Grant Park area. We walked into the Conrad Hilton Hotel, and this tear gas smell was just terrible. Started tearing up right away in the lobby of the hotel. But go back a bit. I was very normal, very athletic, a jock in high school, but was interested in going to a good university and furthering my education, and at that point, I was already fairly sure I was going to become an attorney but did not know. We went to visit a number of colleges and one of them was the University of Wisconsin in Madison. I had already been to some fairly conservative schools like Miami of Ohio, University of Illinois. Then when I got to Madison, we had walked out of the administration building after meeting with a counselor, or somebody regarding college admissions, and they were doing construction across the street and there was plywood everywhere and on one big sheet of plywood, written in spray paint, "LBJ sucks." I had a feeling that is where I wanted to go. Looked and sounded like fun. People on roller skates, dogs with bandanas. That was for me. SM (00:03:30): Yeah. Yeah, that was (19)68 and that summer... That was an unbelievable year. Now, I know I have some questions later on here and I am going to ask you about that year and your years in college, but going to... You went down there. What did you think of that whole experience, that Democratic convention with the police and against the young people, and they were all students, but there were a lot of young people there, and of course, there was chaos even inside the Democratic Convention itself? RS (00:04:04): A complete overreaction to what I viewed as non-violent political participation in the democratic process. Of course, being born in Chicago and having a family or relatives in Chicago since the 18(19)70s, I was fairly familiar with the Chicago police, but not firsthand. Never had a problem. Parenthetically, I grew up in a suburb 25 miles north of Chicago and only saw "the good parts of Chicago" when I came into the city. But I was shocked seeing people being beaten with clubs, tear gas, National Guard, Army... I do not know the exact terminology, but there was an Army personnel carrier with tripod-mounted machine guns and barbed wire around them. Chicago was transformed into an armed camp. It was quite an eye-opener at 18 years old. SM (00:05:17): And you were not allowed to be there at night, but you were there during the day. RS (00:05:22): Two friends and I went down there after the event in Grant Park that night, and on Michigan Avenue then, the prior evening. The smell of tear gas was just really awful. It was new to me. First time. Really awful. SM (00:05:47): I bet you when you first heard the rock group, Chicago, they had that first album and it was a prologue. The whole world is watching. The whole world is watching. Did you hear any of that? RS (00:06:02): I did. Actually, the name on their first album was Chicago Transferred Authority. For obvious reasons, they changed it. They shortened it to Chicago. I did. I knew I was interested in politics before then, but I became even more interested and I ended up majoring in political science. SM (00:06:25): Well, as a young person at 18... I know this. I got this question later, but that was the year before you graduated from high school when Martin Luther King was killed in April, and Bobby Kennedy was killed in Los Angeles in June, and this is before your high school graduation, and then you got the Chicago Convention in August. RS (00:06:47): Stunning. Absolutely stunning to see people who I looked up to and admired, assassinated. I did not really know what to make of it at that time, being 18 years old, but I knew something was terribly wrong. SM (00:07:04): When you went to your high school graduation, that must have been around the third week of June, or somewhere around there? RS (00:07:10): A bit earlier, but yes. SM (00:07:12): Yeah. Was what was the theme of your high school graduation? Was there talk of what was happening in America in (19)68? The main speaker of the student speakers losing those two great leaders, but the nation seemed torn apart. What was your high school graduation like in terms of what people were saying? RS (00:07:33): It appeared that what was going on in the larger world was irrelevant. It was a very standard high school graduation, held at a very nice facility called Virginia Park in Highland Park, Illinois, and it was as if those events had not happened. SM (00:07:54): Wow. What was it like? And I am getting to your college years at the University of Wisconsin. I got quite a few questions here. I had a friend that was in graduate school with me from the University of Wisconsin. He was a political science major and he was a PhD candidate, and his name was Alex Sapkowski. Does that name ever ring a bell to you? RS (00:08:14): It does not. SM (00:08:15): Now, he came from Wisconsin, and he was there at Ohio State in (19)71, but what was it like to be a college student at the University of Wisconsin from (19)68 to (19)72? Just your overall feeling when you look at that four years, what was it like because people reading this are going to be high school and college students that were not alive then. RS (00:08:39): Initially, I was a "straight person", meaning I went to see a Janice Joplin concert in 1969 wearing a coat and tie. I thought that is what you did when you went to a concert. Dressed nicely for class and took my studies very seriously. SM (00:09:03): Right. Yeah. During those four years, what kinds of protests did you see and what were the issues that they were protesting? RS (00:09:14): There were a number of issues. Everything from civil rights to the war, of course, and maybe I should say the Vietnam War for young people. The Vietnam War. The environmental movement was just starting. The first birthday was held in April 1970, and the University of Wisconsin was prominently involved in the Senator Gaylord Nelson was the, I believe, first person who proposed having an birthday. SM (00:09:46): Yeah. And I interviewed him for my book. RS (00:09:49): I saw that. SM (00:09:51): Yeah. RS (00:09:51): I saw that. So there was a lot of what you could call a consciousness-raising in so many different areas from migrant workers to civil rights to, of course, the war and the... To borrow one expression, the military industrial complex, but medicine was a very progressive, politically aware, and politically savvy place. SM (00:10:29): Obviously, were they... Were a lot of the students against ROTC on campus too? Blocking military recruiters. Was that... RS (00:10:38): In fact, freshman year in college, ROTC orientation was compulsory as a class- SM (00:10:46): Oh my gosh. RS (00:10:48): ... For incoming freshman. And that was changed; I believe a year or two after I became a student. Near the ROTC building... I do not know if you want to print this, it was regularly burned down during the spring. It was an annual riot. SM (00:11:08): Oh, you mean... Oh, they burned it down there too? RS (00:11:13): Yes. SM (00:11:14): Well, how many times was it burned down? RS (00:11:16): I believe at least once annually. SM (00:11:19): Oh my goodness. Kent State was only that one time. Wow. That was crazy. And of course, did they have to call in the National Guard at your campus? RS (00:11:32): National Guard was on campus regularly. Bayonets, tear gas... There was a Black student strike in the winter of 1969, and that was really the first large demonstration that I saw on campus. And subsequent to that, there were of course, many, many demonstrations primarily having to do with Vietnam War. SM (00:12:08): At that time, at the University of Wisconsin, what was the relationship between the students? Now, I am not sure, again, what percentage of your students were involved in anti-war activity or activism, but what was the relationship between a lot of the students and the administration and the faculty? RS (00:12:33): The relationship between the students and the administration was adversarial. They viewed students as a... This might be too strong. I do not want to... I was going to say necessary evil. I do not want to say. Something necessary, but I believe the [inaudible] were doing students a favor to let them attend the university, and that they were not sufficiently grateful for their opportunity. Politically, the faculty was by and large, very progressive, and there were a number of excellent professors who taught... Give me a... Who used materials such as by Howard Zen and other liberal political scientists. There were George Moscone and Harvey Goldberg come to mind as two professors who were teaching political science in a... I mean, I am searching for a word. I do not want to say alternative way, but using-using materials that were not customary. SM (00:13:57): Yeah. Yeah. Were the faculty more kind of partners with the students as opposed to... Were faculty mostly against the administration too? RS (00:14:10): I suppose it would depend on the department. SM (00:14:14): Right. RS (00:14:16): I do not want to make generalizations. This was a long time ago. SM (00:14:21): Right. RS (00:14:21): But I believe in the hard sciences, they were more conservative rather than in the liberal arts areas, they were, I believe, much more progressive. SM (00:14:34): Yeah, I know that it is hard to generalize, even when you talk about 74 million boomers. You can only... Depending on who you talk to, only about 5 percent to 10 percent were ever involved in any kind of activism during that area in the entire nation. RS (00:14:52): Well, I assure you, at the University of Wisconsin, it were much more demonstrations. Brought out on occasion 10,000, 20,000 people. SM (00:15:00): Wow. RS (00:15:01): And just very, very [inaudible]. SM (00:15:09): So, the relationship between... How was the relationship between students and the community of Madison and the Police Department of Madison during those four years? RS (00:15:19): Well, I believe it was a... I am hearing feedback. SM (00:15:27): I do not. I am fine on my end. Are you having feedback? RS (00:15:34): I am. It just started too. SM (00:15:37): Okay. Are you okay now or... RS (00:15:40): Let me see if I hear it. That is better. SM (00:15:42): Okay. RS (00:15:42): That is better. Could you restate the question? SM (00:15:47): Yeah. Well, the question was the relationship between the students and the community of Madison, the citizens of Madison, and- RS (00:15:54): I believe it was more like a traditional town versus gown atmosphere. Police, of course, being blue collar and from, by and large, parts of the city of Madison, which were not located near the campus, really disliked many of the students intensely. They viewed them as spoiled and... Let me think. Overprivileged people who were fortunate even to be there, and that they were in some ways desecrating a place where many of them had grown up. I can refer you to a movie called The War At Home, which is excellent. SM (00:16:45): I have it. RS (00:16:46): You have it? SM (00:16:46): Yes. RS (00:16:46): Okay. SM (00:16:49): Yeah. This is something too important, because I noticed this on my campus, but I wanted to hear from you. There seemed.... What was the relationship in the late (19)60s and early seventies between White students and African American students? There seemed to be a split. RS (00:17:07): In Madison, I think by... Or I should not say Madison. I said at the university, by and large, I think it was very good. SM (00:17:14): Because at around (19)69, (19)70, you noticed at Kent State, there were no students of color at that protest. They were told to basically not be seen by the African-American leaders of the campus, and actually the student government president was African-American, but what happened is during the Black Power there was a split where most of the white students continued protesting the Vietnam War and African American students started fighting for rights for African Americans, and so there was a split. Did you see that on your campus? RS (00:17:52): I really did not. I would say that they were not mutually exclusive, that many of the activities involved both. There was a large overlap. SM (00:18:04): Yeah. It got so bad at Ohio State University that in (19)71 and (19)72, in the Ohio Union, African American students had their own separate dances and White students had their dances in another part of the building, so there was some tension there. RS (00:18:22): I cannot recall something like that happening. I am not saying that it did not. But I vividly recall events such as what happened on the night of the massacre at Kent State with police charging groups of students, police helicopters hovering overhead, massive amount of tear gas. They used so much tear gas on the campus that they eventually ran out and switched to pepper gas, which hurt you more. SM (00:18:53): Oh my, God. Did you guys have graduation that year, or did they close the school? RS (00:18:58): No, everything happened, but the classes after Kent State were... I should not say the word canceled. Were switched to using a pass/fail system for the semester. But the police would throw tear gas everywhere students congregated, whether it was in the student union, the library... I should not say the library. Let me strike that. I cannot promise that. In the student union, fraternity houses, places of worship, anywhere that students congregated to get away from them. No place was safe. SM (00:19:37): Who were some of the speakers that you saw that came to your campus during the year (19)68 to (19)72? I do not know if you went to see these speakers. Could be national leaders or activists; did you go to see speakers? RS (00:19:58): I have to tell you. In all honesty, I do not remember. I am sure I did, but I cannot recall specific people. I just know that many of them came to campus, including people during Chicago Southern Conspiracy trial. But yes, many, many people came to campus. I believe Todd Gitlin, who had former president of SDS, Tom Hayden, I believe Paul Krassner came. Many, many people came to the campus, but frankly, I was not as interested in the leaders as I was learning about the issues. SM (00:20:39): Very good. What was the relationship between the protestors on campus at Wisconsin and members of fraternities and sororities and some of the student athletes and the ROTC students? RS (00:20:56): Initially, it seemed like an adversarial relationship, but what the police actions and the administration's conduct resulted in was radicalizing formerly conservative people like fraternity members. When the police come in and throw tear gas in your fraternity, you suddenly do not like them quite much. SM (00:21:19): Oh my, God. Yeah. RS (00:21:22): So, they had a reverse effect from what they intended in that they caused people to question authority and say that things did not work as they had assumed that they were. SM (00:21:42): Oh, yeah. Yeah. It is interesting because that is what the free speech movement was all about. A lot of the people in Berkeley in (19)64, (19)65, did not agree with the new left and their politics, but when they were not allowed to hand out literature, that was an attack on all students and they all kind of united. RS (00:22:04): I think this was a longstanding policy by the University of California to keep the campus "pure". SM (00:22:11): Yes. RS (00:22:12): And refrain from any political activity on campus, which included the setting up of card tables with literature on them, which resulted in the free speech movement in the fall of (19)64. SM (00:22:32): And it is interesting too, that what was going on in American in the fifties, were there fear of communists and that kind of led to some of the mentality of college administrations and so forth. Did you see the evolution of other movements on your campus at that time? Because you were on a university campus in (19)68 to (19)72 when just about all the movements came to fruition, particularly in the early seventies, because that is when the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the Native American movement, and even the Black Power and a lot of the Black Panthers, kind of all evolved around that timeframe as kind of an offshoot of the anti-war movement and civil rights movements. Did you see those evolving on your campus? RS (00:23:19): I knew they were present, including the environmental movement that I previously mentioned, but the primary issue for me was the Vietnam War, and for many, I believe. People my age were being sent over there to die for what many of us thought was no logical reason until they already left. I believe that the goals were not really clear enough to make the... Let me rephrase that. I believe that young people did not see that the end justified the means. SM (00:24:08): And what were some of your classes like? Did you have professors that said, "Today, I am not going to teach my class. We are going to talk about what is going on in the world?" There seemed to be some of that. Did you have that in any of your classes? RS (00:24:21): Yes, I did. It was easy to do when you smelled tear gas [inaudible] through the windows of the classroom. SM (00:24:27): Yeah. What were some of those conversations? You are sitting in a room with all your fellow students. What were some of the thoughts that were going through some of those young people's minds? RS (00:24:40): Well, I think most of the people were as naive as I was when we started. It was quite an eye-opener. Of course, there were a few students from Europe that did not see this as anything unusual who thought socialism was... God, let me rephrase. That is awful. I am making generalizations. But we discussed socialism and other more leftist ideas as if they were completely normal and nothing to be afraid of. But again, for myself and for many people being suburbanized. This was quite an eye-opener. SM (00:25:23): Oh, yeah. So in the... And were there any teach-ins at your school? RS (00:25:30): I remember one for the environment. I remember for the Vietnam War. I also remember reading lists of people who had died that week. The area around the university library became probably the main meeting area for student demonstrations. And at times there were many thousands of people there. SM (00:26:01): Now, these demonstrations, were they approved or did they just kind of happened? RS (00:26:07): They were spontaneous in many times, and often people would hand out pieces of paper saying, "Meeting 8:00 PM, library mall," or something like that, to make it an event that was passed. Information was passed on from person to person without a great deal of publicity, presumably to keep it [inaudible] from the authorities. SM (00:26:36): So a lot of times when it happened, the police were at the sides then watching the students. RS (00:26:42): Well, I do not know for sure, but I have a feeling that the police were in with the students as well. SM (00:26:48): You are probably right because infiltration was very big in those days, particularly in groups like SDS. We all know about the book that came out in the 19(19)80s called Rads. RS (00:27:05): Yes. SM (00:27:05): Which is where the lab was blown up at the University of Wisconsin and one student died. RS (00:27:10): [inaudible]. SM (00:27:13): Yeah. I do not... Could you give a little more information on the... I think that happened when you were there. RS (00:27:19): Well, actually it happened while I was a student, but it happened during the summer and I was not on campus when it happened. SM (00:27:28): Well, what was it all... Could you tell a little bit more about it? Because people have not read the book of Rads or... What was it? Who did it? Did anybody pay the price for the bombing of it? And who was the young man who died and what was the reaction of the campus, particularly when school started in the fall? RS (00:27:47): It happened at, I believe, 3:45 in the morning and was purposely designed so not to hurt anyone, and it was assumed that nobody would be in the Army Research Center at 3:45 in the morning. Four people were involved; three of which were punished, and one has never been caught. SM (00:28:15): Were they students? RS (00:28:17): I believe that... I should not answer that. I cannot answer that question. I believe to a [inaudible] for certain. I do not remember. But there were two brothers, Dwight and Carl Armstrong, and two other people named David Fine and Leo Bert. I believe Leo Burt has never been caught. SM (00:28:40): And the other three, did they serve time in jail or... RS (00:28:45): I know Carl Armstrong did. I believe his brother Dwight did, and I believe David Fine did as well, but I cannot be for sure about him. SM (00:28:59): Now. What was- RS (00:29:00): I know for certain Carl Armstrong. SM (00:29:02): What summer were- RS (00:29:02): Actually, let me interrupt you for one sec. They were actually from Madison, the brothers, which was quite a shock to the Madison community that some of their own could be involved in this. Many, many times activities were blamed on out-of-state agitators. Yet they were from the same town. SM (00:29:31): And they were students too then, correct? At Wisconsin? You are not sure. RS (00:29:36): I am not sure. They were older than me. I believe they may have been students before I got there. SM (00:29:43): When you came back in the fall, was that the number one topic of discussion? RS (00:29:47): It was. It was really stunning to see this huge building reduced... Well, damaged. I should not say reduced. Damaged substantially. And it was quite an eye-opener, again, for young people who had not seen anything like that before. SM (00:30:10): You went on to law school. Now, you mentioned early on in the interview that you kind of knew in high school you wanted to be a lawyer. Why? RS (00:30:22): I wanted to help people. Law is very complex. I thought I could get involved and make changes in society and in an individual's life in a meaningful way. SM (00:30:42): And so probably your undergraduate degree... RS (00:30:47): Political science. SM (00:30:48): Yeah. Political science was a good preparation for that. RS (00:30:51): It was. It was. Again, I got an excellent education at the University of Huntington. SM (00:30:57): That is a great school. RS (00:31:02): It was a fine school, and I also got a street education. SM (00:31:08): Did you join organizations? RS (00:31:10): Excuse me. Let me interrupt you for- SM (00:31:11): Yep. RS (00:31:11): For some of the students, parents gave them gas masks before they departed for campus for fall. SM (00:31:19): Oh my, God. RS (00:31:19): Do not believe that happens today. Parent giving their sons and daughters gas masks for the upcoming year at school. SM (00:31:31): I wonder how many parents said, "Do not get involved in any protests." RS (00:31:36): Well, not only do not get involved, but do not sign anything. Many of the parents will remember the Red Scare. Do not join any groups. Do not sign any petitions. Quite fearful of repercussions for political activity. SM (00:31:54): Wow. So your plan was to become a lawyer. What did you specialize in law? RS (00:32:05): I did what was called tort work involving personal injury worker's compensation, and occasional medical malpractice. But one thing I am very proud of is representing over 600 Vietnam veterans for free on the Agent Orange class action litigation. SM (00:32:25): Yeah. I am going to go... I have a question on that. I am going to go... That was later in my interview, but that is very important. I have got a question here regarding this. You represented vets linked to Agent Orange. How did that happen? RS (00:32:40): Can you be a little more specific? SM (00:32:44): Yeah. Did one vet come to you and say, "We need help for the 600," or... RS (00:32:53): That is exactly what happened. One vet came to my office and said he had been in Vietnam and had a terrible, terrible rash on his skin, and he did not know what it was from. I said... That is bad grammar. What had caused it? I started dealing with a nurse at the Veteran Administration Hospital on the west side of Chicago where they had been seeing a number of people for these unexplained problems. Her name was Maude DeVictor, and when she saw that I was involved and not interested in obtaining anything for my services, but trying to help, she started referring a few clients to me. And I was one of the first 50 people in the law... I should say, attorneys in the country involved. SM (00:33:50): Wow. It is a big issue. Still is. RS (00:33:53): Well, this resulted in me receiving a death threat and having my telephone tapped. SM (00:34:00): Really? RS (00:34:01): Yes. SM (00:34:03): That is after you were working very hard on behalf of the 600? RS (00:34:07): Yes. I mean, I worked in conjunction with attorneys both locally in Chicago and across the nation, meeting with epidemiologists and other experts in diseases regarding the cause. And one of the attorneys I worked with in Chicago was a very establishment lawyer, but he was so convinced that his phone was being tapped, that he was tape-recording all of his own conversations. SM (00:34:40): And you think you were being tapped? RS (00:34:44): I heard the clicks on my line repeatedly. SM (00:34:49): Who do you think was tapping you? RS (00:34:52): I do not want to speculate. SM (00:34:54): Okay. Who would be against helping veterans though? Unless it is the government. Anyways. RS (00:35:02): Well, the chemical company- SM (00:35:03): ... Anyways. RS (00:35:03): Well, the chemical companies were making a great deal of money from this product. SM (00:35:06): Right. RS (00:35:09): The lawsuit included Dow Monsanto, Diamond Shamrock and a number of other chemical companies in addition to the US government. SM (00:35:22): What was the final result of the lawsuit? RS (00:35:28): In 1984, the class action case was settled. I would have to check, but I believe the settlement result was $180 million. I believe there were changes subsequently, but the time I was involved, the maximum they were paying was approximately $14,000 to the survivor of someone who had died as a result of the Agent Orange exposure due to cancer, leukemia or other problems. People with lesser problems got less. SM (00:36:07): So in the end it was more than just the 600. It was people all over- RS (00:36:15): We represented approximately a little over 600, but there were many, many thousands of claims. SM (00:36:22): And that is still an issue today. RS (00:36:26): I know it is. I know it is. SM (00:36:26): I am met a vet down on Veterans Day at The Wall who was having a hard time. He has got Agent Orange issues and having a hard time getting his medical coverage and so forth. For those young people who will be reading this and certainly students that were not alive during the Vietnam War, can you explain what Agent Orange is and what it did in Vietnam? RS (00:36:54): It is a chemical defoliant. The purpose of spraying Agent Orange was to kill all the vegetation, so that the enemy could not hide. It was sprayed in areas along the rivers, basically the forest to just kill everything, to prevent the North Vietnamese from having cover, and it caused horrible defects, birth defects, miscarriages, and apparently is one of the most toxic. Agent Orange was contaminated during its manufacture by a... I have to start again. I am not phrasing this right. The production of Agent Orange caused a byproduct called dioxin. Dioxin is one of the most toxic substances known to man. A miniscule amount can cause terrible problems and the subsequent discovery during the case, showed that the government had known about it since 1957, that it caused terrible problems. SM (00:38:15): And so these Vietnam vets were coming back after serving their nation, and they were having a hard time getting medical coverage for this issue. RS (00:38:25): Yes. SM (00:38:26): And it kept going year after year after year. I know politicians got involved in it. In fact, I just talked to Bob Edgar last week, the former congressman. He went back to Vietnam, I think it was about a month ago, and Agent Orange is still an issue in Vietnam because so many of the population was affected by it. RS (00:38:48): Well, also, in addition to spraying it, what would happen is it would accumulate in ponds, and people would drink water from these ponds in incredibly high concentrations of the chemical. SM (00:39:02): Yeah, it is terrible. What did that say about... Vietnam Vets obviously are not the anti-war protestors. Some came back, became veterans against the war, John Kerry and that group, Bobby Muller. But what did that say to those veterans who came back to America after serving their nation? What do you think the lesson that comes out of this? RS (00:39:31): Some of them that I represent, were very-very bitter. Basically, many of them considered themselves chemical cannon fodder. And that they were knowingly exposed to something that eventually caused many of them to die. SM (00:39:56): Wow. Yeah, that is a major issue, and that is certainly an issue that was known by anyone alive at that time. I do not know whether you were for or against the war or anything in between, Agent Orange was in the news constantly. When you were at Northwestern, you had mentioned something just on your email to me. You said when you went there to law school, you say it could not have been more different on that campus than it was at Madison. Explain the difference between Northwestern Law School and clinical science undergrad at Wisconsin? RS (00:40:41): I was barely familiar with Northwestern Law School because my father went to law school there. In fact, when I was a little kid, I was dressed up wearing a tee-shirt that said Northwestern Law when I was a toddler. I knew about the place. I got a very good legal education, very conservative corporate oriented school. The old saying when I was there was that, you go to the University of Chicago to become a judge... Excuse me, I should say law school, University of Chicago Law School to become a judge. And they go to the Northwestern Law School to become a corporation council. So again, I got a very good legal education, but politics were not relevant to learning the law and their view. In fact, my corporation's professor... I do not know if I should give his name because I do not want to- SM (00:41:45): No, you do not need to do that. RS (00:41:47): But said in a discussion of corporate law, morality and ethics were irrelevant. SM (00:41:57): Well, I think Berkeley students in (19)64, (19)65 realize that. RS (00:42:07): We were there to learn the law, and in that way, it was an old school Socratic method type of education. If you are familiar with the movie, The Paper Chase. SM (00:42:18): Yes, I am. RS (00:42:21): It was very much like that. SM (00:42:23): Wow. I forget the lawyer that was in that, the older actor. Oh, he was good. RS (00:42:28): Named... SM (00:42:30): I see him now. RS (00:42:32): John Houseman. SM (00:42:33): Yeah. What a great professor. And I think, was it Ryan O'Neill? RS (00:42:36): Timothy Bottoms. SM (00:42:38): Oh, that is right. Timothy Bottoms. You got it. RS (00:42:41): And it was based on a corporation... Let me see, corporation's law professor at Harvard. SM (00:42:52): Yeah. I had here because you were at such an activist university as an undergrad and you went to Northwestern. I am sure there probably was some activism there for the undergrads, but the question I was... Basically was three things here. Bear in mind as I mention these, was the difference when you made that statement because of the campus and the type of students that were there. Number two, the things were beginning to wind down, and the anti-war movement, particularly around that time of (19)72, (19)73, (19)74 and people were tired of the acrimony. And third, that law school, the people were career oriented. They wanted to get a good job, money and a career, and they were not into social issues anymore, because they were going for a career. Did all those play a part in the differences of the two campuses? RS (00:43:47): To say that they were career oriented would be an understatement. Many people went to the law school, and again, I cannot speak for everyone because I did not speak to everyone in my class. By and large, many students knew that once they graduated, after having done well in law school, they were looking for jobs at the large corporate oriented law firms in Chicago and elsewhere. SM (00:44:24): Were there- RS (00:44:24): Which paid very well. SM (00:44:26): Were there many lawyers that said, I am going to go back and work around a university to help students, and not make that much money? RS (00:44:34): Not that I recall. SM (00:44:36): I know that was a big thing at that time for law students. They can go back and represent college students. Did you sense that when you were at Northwestern, that things were winding down in the anti-war movement? RS (00:44:52): Well, they were. The war was winding down. We had missed the draft. Miss is the wrong word, had not been drafted and self-interest seemed like it was the rule of the day. SM (00:45:15): In those years, (19)75 to (19)81, you practiced law, that was in Chicago, correct? RS (00:45:24): Yes. SM (00:45:24): Now, this is a fulfillment question. Did you feel more fulfilled during those six years as a lawyer, or were you more fulfilled as a college student during your four years at the University of Wisconsin? RS (00:45:38): No, I would call college more a formative experience than a fulfilling experience. It was sort of like making a piece of sculpture where at first you have to put the body and the arms on, before you can make the fingernails look the way they are supposed to. SM (00:45:56): Right. RS (00:46:00): It was more formative. I was oriented toward being an attorney, but I was not quite sure what area of law I wanted to do. I just knew that it was a vehicle for helping people who did not know the law, understand it and wind their way through the system with as little trouble as possible. SM (00:46:29): Yeah. I put down here because I concentrate a little bit. We are going to get into memorabilia in a few minutes, but I think your college years are fascinating and that your career's fascinating, just from what you have given on your brief email. RS (00:46:47): Off the record, you were asking me to pull up memories that are 40 years old. My short-term memories is not what it used-used to be, but neither is the rest of me. SM (00:46:55): Yeah, but I can tell from the way you are responding though, that these memories are important to you. RS (00:47:03): They were exciting... I should not say. They were incredibly exciting, interesting, vibrant times. SM (00:47:10): Yes. RS (00:47:11): You woke up in the morning never knowing what that day would bring. There was an excitement and electricity in the air, that I just do not see happening anymore. SM (00:47:23): Yeah. RS (00:47:23): It was an incredible time to be alive. SM (00:47:28): Yeah. I can remember taking buses from school. Just getting on a Greyhound bus and if you were a young person, you had this... Not that you were arrogant, but you felt like what a world we were living in. It was just a feeling, there were some bad things happening in the world, but there seemed to be some sort of unity between the youth at that time. RS (00:47:50): Well, you are absolutely right. There were so many idealistic, risk taking young people, who believed that anything was possible. SM (00:48:02): Right. RS (00:48:04): They sought to transform society with emotional and physical commitment, and boundless, often playful energy. Our distrust of the establishment, also known as the Man, was prevalent. Also with varying degrees of success, young people tried to manifest their own divinity. Consciousness raising was taken seriously as a truth seeking path towards personal enlightenment and positive social change. SM (00:48:38): Did you read any of those books of that era when you were a college student? Some of the best books ever came out in that- RS (00:48:47): [inaudible] Carlos Castañeda? SM (00:48:48): Yeah. RS (00:48:49): Of course. SM (00:48:51): Yeah. Of course, I know that Saul Alinsky was a big person because I think he is out of Chicago. RS (00:48:57): He was- SM (00:48:59): Was it Rules for Radicals? RS (00:49:01): He was a community organizer. I actually have a signed copy, first edition of his book, Rules for Radicals. SM (00:49:08): Keep it, it is valuable and pass it on. RS (00:49:12): I intend to. SM (00:49:13): It is an unbelievable thing because I know Hillary Clinton was influenced by him when she was a student. And then of course the other books were... I do not know if you read The Greening of America by Charles Reich? RS (00:49:28): I have a copy, which I had signed by him about 10 years ago. SM (00:49:33): Wow. I am trying to interview him. In February he is coming back to teach a course at Yale Law School. He is kind of hibernated, he lives in San Francisco. RS (00:49:40): Yes. SM (00:49:43): But I do not even know how to get ahold of- RS (00:49:43): He lives in Mill Valley. I am not certain. He may have... I should not say that. I do not know. He is in the Bay Area. SM (00:49:51): Yeah. RS (00:49:52): If I may, one of the most significant developments of the 1960, was really greatly increased involvement of young people in the political process. People got involved. They were passionate. If you have ever seen any video or film from the protests, people put their bodies on the line. SM (00:50:21): Right. RS (00:50:22): And many were beaten. They risked being tear gassed for what they believed. I do not really see that happening today. It is as if young... To me, and perhaps it is aging that says this, but there is not the passion. They are almost defeated before they begin, many of them. It seems like an end to, why fight the system we cannot win. Well, that is self-defeating. You will never know if you can win or not if you do not step the ring. SM (00:50:57): That is what Teddy Roosevelt said, " Got to get into the arena of life." RS (00:51:06): I did not know. Truly, I did not know, but many of them seem defeated and they have been... As George Carlin said, many of them been bought off by gizmo's and gadgets. SM (00:51:18): And of course George knew that those... What is it? The eight words he could not say or something like that... RS (00:51:23): Seven. SM (00:51:25): Seven. He said them anyways. RS (00:51:28): He did them at the Milwaukee Summerfest concert, I believe 1970, he was arrested for them. SM (00:51:33): Wow. RS (00:51:34): But it was a really exciting, electric time to be alive. There were so many changes taking place in society. If you want, I can give you a few obvious ones. SM (00:51:49): Yeah, go ahead. RS (00:51:51): I mean like a revolution in fashion, highlighted bright colors and tie-dyed clothes, long hair on men, replaced short cropped haircuts. New developments in graphic art, including the use of nonlinear writing and flowing colors, marked a pretty stark departure from the past. That was most evident in posters produced to promote rock events, but not exclusive. Television seemed like a fairly conservative medium and a skewed controversy. They started showing rock and roll performers and highlighting drama with frank and sometimes explicit adult themes. The sudden and prolific emergence of underground newspapers and comics. SM (00:52:47): Yes. RS (00:52:47): Disseminate liberal ideas and breakthroughs in art to an interested, sympathetic audience, that could be counted in millions. Again, this is long before email, cell phones, the widespread use of fax machines. I do not know if you want to write this, but I have many leaflets, these were vehicles of communication. People would hand out handbills. SM (00:53:18): Right. RS (00:53:21): And actually little notes, demonstration 8:00 PM, Library Mall, which I know I said, but this is how people communicated often. Underground newspapers and underground comics as well, you can include them. There has always been a bohemian or nonconformist or countercultural movement in America, which is parallel of mainstream society, consisting of free thinkers who were dissatisfied with conventional values, and people who sought emotional and spiritual satisfaction in ways other than the acquisition of wealth and power. And conformity, for do not sake, was seen as a compensation for a lack of ability, or I will say courage, for yourself. SM (00:54:15): Yeah. That is beautiful. RS (00:54:19): I mean, this is how I feel, and it was a rebellion against conformity, but it became more open as opposed to people in the (19)50s. The Beats who I admire very much, were really well mocked and I want to say pigeonholed. Could say the water overflowed the cup and it was impossible for the establishment to keep it inside. SM (00:54:48): Hold on a second. [inaudible]. RS (00:54:57): A year or two ago, when he received a lifetime achievement award for his writing, was held in the [inaudible] public library. SM (00:55:03): Is that the same ceremony that Paul was involved in? RS (00:55:06): No, that was in Oakland. It was the Pen. P-E-N. SM (00:55:10): Okay. RS (00:55:11): Oakland. SM (00:55:12): Yep. RS (00:55:17): But I believe this might have been Pen San Francisco, but I would go to every reading I could have, and he has not done one in a long, long time. SM (00:55:24): Yeah. Someone said his health is not very good. RS (00:55:28): It is unfortunate to hear, because he was a really active guy. He would swim at the YMCA regularly, drive his bike when he was in his (19)70s, through traffic in San Francisco. SM (00:55:40): Yeah, I got some of his books. I got another question here. Are you finished with that information or... RS (00:55:54): But I am here for whatever you want to... SM (00:55:56): Yeah. This period, (19)68 to (19)72, you already talked about your senior year when you graduated. And you talked about the 1968 in Chicago and MLK, but some other major events that took place during those four years away from your college, was Woodstock in (19)69 and certainly... I got a list of them here. I will just list these and then you can comment on any of them as a whole. You had the Kent State, Jackson State of 1970. You had the big protest in Washington in 1969, known as the Moratorium. In 1969, you had the first openly major protest, Stonewall for gay and lesbian people in New York City. Then you had Altamont that some people say was really the end of the (19)60s, because you had Woodstock, then you had Altamont. Then you had Attica at the prisons. You had the American Indian Movement from (19)67 to (19)71, that began with Alcatraz and ended at Wounded Knee. You had the Black Panther trials, particularly the one in Yale or in New Haven. Earth Day in 1970. You had the Angela Davis situation with George Jackson over at San Quentin. [inaudible]. Then you had the SDS going to the Weathermen. Then you had Johnson withdrawing from the race in (19)68, and then you had Agnew- RS (00:57:31): That was quite a stunner. That was quite a stunner. SM (00:57:32): And then you had Agnew going all over these campuses, yelling about hobnobs and all the other things, attacking young people and- RS (00:57:45): [inaudible]. SM (00:57:45): Yeah. And then of course Nixon was elected in (19)68 and (19)72, and then we had The Pentagon papers with Ellsberg, and then the evolution of Vietnam Veterans Against the War in (19)71. Then of course you had the hippies and the Yippies and so forth. All these things happened during that (19)68 to (19)72 period. RS (00:58:02): Yes. SM (00:58:04): You were obviously aware of all of them. Any of these stand out, that... RS (00:58:10): Well, again, being in Madison, Madison was isolated in the sense that it was not anywhere near another metropolitan area. The closest one was Milwaukee, which is approximately 90 miles away. And while being a wonderful place, we did not really interact much... How should we say? People came to campus, spoke or whatever, and left. It was not as if they were there permanently, as if you were in a large city like New York or Chicago. I was aware of what was going on through reading the newspaper, television and radio, but I did not go to any of those specific events you mentioned. SM (00:59:01): Were students... Did you see the- RS (00:59:02): These were rock festivals in the Madison area and Milwaukee. SM (00:59:13): Yeah. Did you see on the campus though, the evolution of the Black Panthers, from the nonviolent protest ala Dr. King, and then you saw the SDS, and then they went to become the Weatherman. What were your thoughts on those? This was a big transition. RS (00:59:35): It was. I had mixed emotions. On the one hand, I felt frustrated that no matter what we did, did not seem to make any difference. But on the other hand, I felt that some of the other activities such as the bombings, could possibly be counterproductive and not change the minds of the people whose minds we wanted to change. SM (01:00:02): The contrast, again, when you see Altamont, then you compare it to Woodstock. What seemed to be (19)69, and then Altamont was (19)70, was the exact opposite. Then you had the- RS (01:00:19): There were too many factors involved with that to make a real comparison. Woodstock sort of happened. SM (01:00:26): Right. RS (01:00:28): And it is wonderful that it did. Altamont seemed like a convergence of just the bad things. SM (01:00:37): Yeah. It was tragic up there with the motorcycle gang that beat up that guy, and of course... [inaudible] and then some of the atrocities in Vietnam are coming out at this time, revealed to the American public and... RS (01:00:54): Quite stunning to a suburban kid. SM (01:00:56): Yeah. And then of course, the American Indian movie went from Alcatraz, which was a good thing, to Wounded Knee, which was bad. RS (01:01:06): Yeah. SM (01:01:06): So you have a lot of these interesting contrasts. I did not know if they affected the students there or not. To go over the books again, we mentioned the Greening of America with Charles Reich, but there was another one. There were several others too. There was the Making of a Counterculture by Theodore Roszak. RS (01:01:28): Yeah, I met him again about a year ago, this year actually. Very bright, interesting person. I believe his new book is The Making of the Elder Culture. SM (01:01:39): Yeah, I wanted to interview him, but he says he is retired and he has got a health issue. RS (01:01:48): He do not look the healthiest, but when he took the book reading, he was in Berkeley. He was very good. SM (01:01:56): Good. Yeah, and then the other ones were of course, Soul on Ice with Eldridge Cleaver and Harry Edwards Black Students. And you had The Other America by Michael Harrington and... RS (01:02:08): Yes. SM (01:02:08): And then there was the Erik Erikson's books on the psychology, I believe of the American youth at that time, and I know Kenneth Keniston also wrote a book, Youth and Radical. So, there is a lot of really good books out that I did not know if they were popular on college campuses. RS (01:02:27): They were. People like Abbie Hoffman's book Steal This Book. Gary Ruben's [inaudible] of course, The Realist by Paul Krassner, it was great. But a lot of the information we got was from underground newspapers. They seemed more willing to print what we thought was the truth. SM (01:02:52): What were the underground papers you liked? RS (01:02:52): There was one in Madison called Takeover, which was good. Chicago Seed was very good. I did not really see much of the Berkeley Barb being where I was, but I would heard of it. SM (01:03:06): Right. RS (01:03:07): And these which other I knew, was very significant. Occasionally I saw a copy. SM (01:03:12): Did you ever read Ramparts? RS (01:03:13): Sure. SM (01:03:14): Yeah. RS (01:03:14): Sure. Excellent investigative journalism at the time. SM (01:03:21): Yeah. Peter Richardson's got a whole book out on it right now. RS (01:03:23): He did a reading here. I want to go off the record with this but Warren Hinckle became an alcoholic. It was just not a [inaudible] at a bar and he was just... To use a cliche, a shell of his former self. SM (01:03:40): Yeah. I tried to get him to be interviewed and Peter told me the only way you can find him is in a bar. RS (01:03:45): Yes. I do not know, and I should not be saying this, and I ask you not to repeat it, but I think he and Paul Krassner must have had a falling out because he and Paul... And I cannot remember why exactly, but we walked into some place where Warren Hinckle was there and did not even say a hello to each other. SM (01:04:03): Well- RS (01:04:04): Unusual for people who shared many of the same values. SM (01:04:08): Yeah, it is not Paul. I think a lot of people realize he is a drunk. I am not going to say that, but I do not even know him. RS (01:04:19): Peter. SM (01:04:20): Peter said the only way he got the interview, and he was talking about it because Hinckle was brilliant. What a writer. RS (01:04:28): Yeah. SM (01:04:28): But he always had a problem with alcohol and- RS (01:04:32): Oh, I should add Rolling Stone to my group. SM (01:04:34): Yeah, he probably will die an alcoholic. RS (01:04:40): I would not be surprised. The way I saw him drinking, I am surprised he is alive now, but I do not want to pass judgment. SM (01:04:45): Yeah. RS (01:04:46): It is unfortunate. Who knows the pressures that he was under from the government or God knows who else. SM (01:04:55): Right. Yeah. Of the personalities of the (19)60s and (19)70s, who were the ones that you feel had the greatest impact on the generation, or particularly had the greatest impact on you who were a part of the generation? RS (01:05:06): I would have to start with Ken Kesey. Yeah, I remember a quote of his, and I may be butchering it, but I believe it was, "Most people are destined to leave their lives never having moved off of dead center? SM (01:05:23): Wow. That is a beautiful quote. RS (01:05:25): I did not want to be one of those people. SM (01:05:27): Very good. RS (01:05:29): I did not want to be one of those people. What he did in terms of promulgating light shows that... I do not want to say promulgate, that is the wrong word. Of using light shows, of course, the Grateful Dead is his house band. SM (01:05:48): Right. RS (01:05:48): And Acid in the Punch Bowl when it was still legal, probably after it was illegal. Seemed like they were the counter culturals, I will say funsters. Of course their name was Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. SM (01:06:13): Yeah, it is Wavy Gravy, I believe. RS (01:06:13): Yes. SM (01:06:13): And Paul was in their group? RS (01:06:16): Yes. As opposed to Timothy Leary, who as you know, begin doing scientific research, the [inaudible] and other hallucinogens. I remember reading about how bummed out Kesey and the Pranksters were going to Millbrook in upstate New York, and they were taking everything so seriously at Millbrook, which is not the wrong thing to do, but it was a very different approach from the West Coast. SM (01:06:46): Were there any other personalities besides Ken Kesey, that you think really shaped the generation, and then you as a part of the generation? RS (01:06:57): I liked Paul Krassner's writing very much. SM (01:07:02): I got a couple of his books, but I got to get more. RS (01:07:04): And The Realist was a wonderful publication. Of course, you never know what was true and what was not. SM (01:07:16): Right. His sense of humor is unbelievable though. RS (01:07:19): Oh, he is a brilliant, brilliant man. He told a story about writing an article for the AARP Magazine, and when he got it, his article was not... They told him they would publish it and it was not in there. They called him and they told, they published three different magazines, one for people over 50, one for people over 60, one for people over 70. He was surprised to find out he was too old to read his own writing. SM (01:07:47): He said they had a- RS (01:07:51): He said that many times. Yeah, he said that- SM (01:08:00): I am laughing just... And I saw it yesterday on YouTube. RS (01:08:04): Still I love him. SM (01:08:06): He is a great guy. I got to meet him. I am going to come to LA next time instead of San Francisco. RS (01:08:10): He is in the Palm Springs area. SM (01:08:13): Yeah. How far is that from LA? RS (01:08:17): You got me. I cannot answer that. I know it... I do not know. SM (01:08:21): I know Cleve Jones moved there too. The AIDS quilt guy. RS (01:08:27): Okay. SM (01:08:30): He left San Francisco. He got tired of the overcast skies, so he is not there in San Francisco anymore. A lot of people are moving down there, according to what I am hearing. What do you think were the most impactful movies in that time that you were in college, that you remember, that you think were very influential on... RS (01:08:53): Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool, very interesting, being from Chicago. It is a cinéma verité film, a great deal of which was filmed at the Democratic Convention Street protests, it was good. Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde was a new type of movie. Maybe I should not say new type. It was influential. Joe with Peter Boyle was a frightening movie. SM (01:09:22): I remember that. Yeah. RS (01:09:26): Joe was a very, I will say a conservative person, who at the end ended up shooting his own daughter. He was goaded into... Excuse me, I should not say that. Let me back up. I made a mistake about the content of the movie. Should I just say it was a very influential movie about extremely conservative… SM (01:09:54): Yeah. RS (01:09:55): I do not want to use the word redneck, because he was a northerner. SM (01:10:00): Well, only about 150 million are going to read this, so it is... SM (01:10:02): Well, only about 150 million are going to read this, so it is... RS (01:10:02): Well, how about if I just say he was a very influential... It was a very influential... SM (01:10:11): Yeah, that is fine. Any others? I always want to know- RS (01:10:17): Well, Woodstock of course. SM (01:10:18): Oh, yeah. RS (01:10:19): Groundbreaking movie in terms of its techniques and portrayal so many phenomenal rock bands. Similarly, Monterey Pop. SM (01:10:28): Hmm. RS (01:10:32): And Give Me Shelter by the Maysles brothers of Altamont was a- SM (01:10:37): Yeah. RS (01:10:37): ... great movie. And of course, Easy Rider. SM (01:10:40): Yes. RS (01:10:41): Which was frightening, which I saw in LA in 1969 and walked out of there with friends shaking. SM (01:10:43): Yeah, I did not expect that ending. RS (01:10:53): I do not think anybody. SM (01:10:54): I often wondered when his friend got shot away, why he kept going. RS (01:11:01): Well, he turned around and then he got to... there was a prequel, it was showing the future before it happened. SM (01:11:09): Oh, okay. RS (01:11:10): And he turned, Dennis Hopper, turned around and got shot too. SM (01:11:14): Yeah. RS (01:11:16): But that was a frightening movie. SM (01:11:20): How about the Graduate? Was that the- RS (01:11:21): Very interesting film. Saw it and was still in high school. SM (01:11:30): And then, the Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice was supposed to be about the sexual mores of the era. RS (01:11:36): Yes. Sexual mores at the [inaudible] in at the end. SM (01:11:40): Right. And I think there was another movie that seemed to be the Zabriski Point. RS (01:11:47): God, you have a good number. Yes, I think there was a Strawberry Statement as well. SM (01:11:52): Yeah. That came later. And then there was the Sterile Cuckoo, Liza Minnelli. RS (01:12:03): I should remember that. But I do not, all I remember was Liza Minnelli's name. SM (01:12:10): Yeah, and Wendell Burton- RS (01:12:13): Okay. Go ahead. SM (01:12:13): Yeah. Liza Minnelli and Wendell Burton. And then of course Shaft. RS (01:12:15): Yes. SM (01:12:16): Yeah. RS (01:12:16): Interesting. SM (01:12:22): Was there anything on TV that you think will really... Well, you mentioned about the black and white TV and the Boomers were all in junior, or excuse me, in elementary school during that period. Or, just when I think of the (19)50s, I think of Howdy Doody, I think of Captain Kangaroo, I think of Dave Garaway Peace. I think of Hopalong Cassidy Lone Ranger. RS (01:12:52): How about Pinky Lee? SM (01:12:53): Yeah, Pinky Lee. RS (01:12:54): Pee-wee Herman's... what is the word? Influence. SM (01:13:02): Yeah. Rootie Kazootie. But there was also Walt Disney and all those shows, the Mouseketeers, Westerns galore. Very few African-Americans- RS (01:13:14): Start with the political things. Like that was the week that was, I thought a very interesting TV show. SM (01:13:20): Right. RS (01:13:20): Taken from the British show doing politics. Of course Laugh-In. SM (01:13:26): That was the (19)60s though. RS (01:13:28): Yeah. The Smothers Brothers, of course. SM (01:13:30): Yep. RS (01:13:30): Were very influential. What they went through just to put on the people like Peter Seeger was unbelievable. SM (01:13:37): Uh-huh, yep. RS (01:13:42): I did not watch much TV, but there was, God, I am trying to... Ted Paulson Show, very good. SM (01:13:45): I know in the (19)50s, Edward R. Murrow was seen to be a pretty honest guy. RS (01:13:58): Was. SM (01:13:58): Yeah. RS (01:13:58): Then Walter Cronkite took up the mantle. SM (01:14:01): Right. RS (01:14:02): When he said the war in Vietnam was unwinnable, I think that was a little turning point of the country. SM (01:14:07): Mm-hmm. RS (01:14:09): But there were so many written influence, such as underground comics, Robert Crumb, like Zapp! Comics written for kids. SM (01:14:21): Oh yeah, and that made into a movie in 1971. RS (01:14:24): Yeah, which was not that wonderful, I saw it of course. SM (01:14:24): Right. RS (01:14:32): But there were, I mean, so many influential publications, so many underground newspapers, magazine comics, countercultural publication, it seemed like eventually some of it eventually seeped into mainstream society. SM (01:14:53): One question I have been asking everyone is today you have members of the right, or conservatives, attacking the (19)60s generation, or the boomers that were young in the (19)60s and (19)70s as the reasons why we have all the problems in our society today, or most of them, because of the drug culture, the lack of sexual mores, i.e. the sexual revolution, the extreme divorce rate, breakup of the American family as a unit, the lack of going... families not going to church anymore. Went from going to church or synagogue to kind of an inner spirituality, and we saw that through the Beatles and the Maharishi and that group, the Moonies. Then we have, again, they attack the generation for the welfare state, the handout society, the sense of, "Well, I got to have it now." Type of an attitude, extensive consumerism where, "I got to have everything. I got to own everything. And, "If I cannot have it, I got to have it now." Kind of mentality. And that is why we have the financial problems we are in today. So, there is a lot of things. The other thing is too, that we have come into a society where it is all about rights. Everybody wants their rights, but lost them are irresponsible. Your thoughts of those attacks by people on the right? RS (01:16:46): I think back to a Bob Dylan line of, "Do not criticize what you cannot understand." SM (01:16:51): Well, that is good. RS (01:16:54): That is a fundamental misunderstanding of the goals of what we tried to do. Making a more equitable and egalitarian society I think has been and always will be seen as a threat to the establishment. I mean, there have always been the proletariat, bourgeoisie, but in the electronic age, such as we have, it seems like things are happening so much faster. The concentration of wealth, I think was one of the major problems. It was not enough to make a lot, you had to make more, and the other person had to have less. I think it is up to that, I think it is based on fear by and large, that there is not enough to go around so, "I am going to get mine and good luck with yours." SM (01:17:43): Mm-hmm. Yeah, it is interesting because I know Randy Shaw, who you may know in San Francisco, the Tenderloin, and he also graduated from Berkeley. He wrote a book called The Activist Handbook. And in that handbook, he talks about the definition of what an activist is. And it is if you ever say the term, "What is in it for me?" You are not an activist because it is supposed to be, "What is in it for we?" And so that was interesting what you just said there, because there was some kind of a linkage. And how important- RS (01:18:30): I am a little punchy, so forgive me and please do not let me take things off the record, but it was about Plato being forced by the establishment to drink hemlock for telling the truth. SM (01:18:44): Mm-hmm, that is right. RS (01:18:48): You can include that. I am a little punchy, I was going to say Socrates... SM (01:18:51): Yeah, but there is true to that. Yeah, the sort of [inaudible]- RS (01:18:54): Because he taught young people what he believed was the truth. He ended up with a phony trial and being forced to drink hemlock, I think is nothing though. SM (01:19:03): I know there is a book up, but I.F. Stone wrote called The Trial of Socrates. RS (01:19:09): Stone wrote, yeah. Yes, yes. This is nothing new. SM (01:19:13): Yep. Now you mentioned that again. How important were The Beats in shaping the generation, in your opinion, in shaping certainly the new left? RS (01:19:27): Well, the older get, I guess the more I see their influence. I mean, so in America, there has always been a Bohemian side, but it seems like after World War II things seem to coalesce in certain areas, like Greenwich Village in New York City, North Beach area in San Francisco. Returning GIs from the war. Jazz musicians, liberal writers, they seemed to start gathering in certain places. Maybe they were always there, and I just did not know about it. But for example, in the early (19)50s, Lawrence Ferlinghetti opened up City Life Bookstore in San Francisco. He originally intended it only to be a store that sold only paperback books, but it became a magnet for disaffected writers and artists. Of course, he was put on trial for publishing Howl in 1956 an obscenity trial where the mores at the time said the police could decide what was obscene or not. If police did not like what you did, you did not do it. SM (01:20:46): Right. RS (01:20:46): Lenny Bruce is a good example. SM (01:20:50): And do you think that even that historic book that Kerouac wrote On the Road, it is symbolic of freedom, sense of- RS (01:21:01): Absolutely, it was adventures and observations of his encounters with America while being on the road. SM (01:21:07): And he is not being controlled by a boss, or by... he is just free. RS (01:21:13): Well, for me, it is a landmark of Pete writing was Ellen Ginsburg's Howl, you know about the dehumanization and degradation of the individual by the all-consuming corporate monolith. You know, you asked me about movies, Network was another one, which is- SM (01:21:34): Oh, yes. RS (01:21:34): ... very, very good. SM (01:21:37): Go out to that window and say, "I am not going to take it anymore." RS (01:21:41): Yes. But also Ed Beatty as, maybe the CEO or president of a large corporation. The world is business, and it is really sad that people see the world as a business. SM (01:21:58): Another movie that you brought up I just thought of is Deliverance. RS (01:22:04): Yes and no. I mean, that was a... SM (01:22:04): He was in that too. RS (01:22:11): Yes, he was. Oh, you brought him up. Yes. SM (01:22:13): Yep. RS (01:22:14): I do not know that that is relevant politically. SM (01:22:16): Right. RS (01:22:20): It was culture, culture clash. But Howl... SM (01:22:24): Yeah. RS (01:22:24): The thing with the... and with Network, forgive me, Peter Fitz said, "It was not America that was finished, it was the individual that was finished." Afraid things are going in that direction. It seemed as though in the (19)60s we could be one step ahead of the man. Right now, it seems with all the high tech equipment and other means of control, they are one step ahead of us. SM (01:22:56): In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin? When did it end, and what was the watershed moment? RS (01:23:03): I think it really began, if you want to speak about the (19)60s and not what led up to them, such as The Beats. I would say Ken Kesey, the epitaph, the Merry Pranksters and Grateful Dead, whom I like very, very much, playing long improvisational music. But Kesey was a very, very bright man exposing the world. The Magical Mystery Tour about the Beatles, as you know, was really a copy of what Kesey did. SM (01:23:43): When did it end? RS (01:23:46): Probably as the war wound down, the draft was abolished, it was became more self-interested, and less society... this is a bad phrasing, society interested. SM (01:24:01): Was there a watershed moment? RS (01:24:07): Possibly the reelection of Nixon, that area, that time, early (19)70s, after Jimmy Hendrix had died, Janice Joplin had died, Jim Morrison had died. Many political people, Fred Hampton had been assassinated in Chicago. It seemed to start losing its steam. SM (01:24:38): The generation gap. Did you have a generation gap of your parents, especially after you went off to college? RS (01:24:46): Yes and no. My father always said it was more important what was in my head then what was on it. And I believe that is true, we are hung up on the looks of rebellion rather than the ideas of rebellion. SM (01:25:05): Excellent. Yeah. There is no question that the generation gap was an issue between World War II generation and the boomers. Do you remember that Life magazine cover that had the boy on the cover that... wearing his blue glasses or whatever and the father's pointing a finger at him on one side of the glasses? RS (01:25:27): Yeah, I do. SM (01:25:28): And the son's pointing on the other. I had that magazine, it was pretty serious for many. RS (01:25:35): Well, I remember a quote that Ronald Reagan said while he was governor of California during protests at the University of California in Berkeley, "That if there is going to be a blood bath let us start now." He talked about killing people's own children. SM (01:25:54): Yeah, it is... And he came to power on two issues, this law and order on college campuses to end the student protestors from breaking up colleges, and secondly, to end the welfare state. And it is interesting because Watts took place in (19)64 in Los Angeles, so obviously what went on at Berkeley, what was going on in Watts and a lot of these things are directly related to him. And of course, that was a thrust onto the national stage in (19)76, and of course we know the rest of the history. RS (01:26:37): It was stunning how easily people were willing to... What is the word? Take extreme measures against people who thought different. SM (01:26:55): Right. RS (01:26:58): We used to call them the thought police, and I think we were right. SM (01:27:03): In your own words because you are a boomer and I guess you are 60, you were born in (19)49? RS (01:27:09): 60 going on 19. SM (01:27:12): That is... Time and peace, same with me. I am not 60. RS (01:27:17): I am still trying to figure out what I am going to do when I grow up. SM (01:27:21): Yeah, Rick, that is the same thing with me. RS (01:27:25): My hair is just as long, I have worked out a lot. No, you can grow older without growing old. SM (01:27:36): I agree. And I believe the young people of that era, even though they stay in shape to try to stay young and so forth, there was a period of time many did not think that they were going to be mortal people, but they were going to live forever, I think they realized they were not going to now. But you know- RS (01:27:57): I saw people in law school in their early 20s who look like old men. SM (01:28:04): Yeah. RS (01:28:04): Not physically, but so much is spiritually. SM (01:28:08): Right. RS (01:28:09): You could see the... Yeah, their adolescence was a distant memory. SM (01:28:17): Yep. RS (01:28:17): Was all about the buck. SM (01:28:20): Yeah. RS (01:28:22): A work, go work hard in a law school, hope that a big corporate law firm hires you, 80 hours a week, make partner, buy a big house and then get divorced, move on to your... get rid of your starter wife and move up the social ladder. SM (01:28:43): And have a heart attack by 50. Sam... Describe the following years in your own words. You said, this is the era the boomers have been alive, do you like the term boomer? RS (01:28:56): I do not think it has been well defined. I mean, what is a boomer? Just because you were born a certain age, at a certain time period. I think it is more what you do than the time you were born. Were the boomers, by many people's definition, they psychologically were. SM (01:29:17): Yep. Yeah. I am finding that out that- RS (01:29:20): Ginsburg was a, if you want to think, Allen Ginsburg was a boomer. SM (01:29:26): Mm-hmm. Richie Havens was born in 1941, but he said, "I am a boomer. I am more of a boomer than the people who were boomers in the last 10 years of the boomer timeline." A lot of them believe boomers are really people that were born say around (19)37, (19)38 and go to about (19)56 or (19)57. RS (01:29:47): Rachel Meadow said something, and I know I am mangling her quote about, "Being put in a category so you could be satirized easily." SM (01:29:56): Right. Well, when you look at these periods, again, it is defined, higher ed does this for a reason, the boomers of those born between (19)46 and (19)64, that is the definition. And Obama would be a boomer because he was born in (19)62, I think. (01:30:14): But I am going to give you six timeframes here just put some words to these timeframes. For 1946 to 1960, what was it like to be in America at that time? Just a few words. RS (01:30:31): Conform, and they were wearing t-shirts, white t-shirts with nothing printed on them. I think Country Joe McDonald did something like that, "We wore white t-shirts, but we did not have anything written, nothing was written them. SM (01:30:45): Yep. I remember that. RS (01:30:50): When you graduated from high school, you went to work, went to college, or joined the army. SM (01:30:56): Mm-hmm. How about that period? (19)61 to (19)70? RS (01:31:06): You know, for me, probably the low point was the assassination of John Kennedy. I knew right away nothing would ever be the same. SM (01:31:11): Mm-hmm. Where were you when he was shot? RS (01:31:17): I sitting in the classroom in seventh grade when it came over to the intercom. SM (01:31:22): And were you let out of school early? RS (01:31:25): I believe so. I believe so. That was a terrible time, and I believe the country lost a great deal of its innocence and naivete. SM (01:31:36): When you look at that whole period about (19)61 through (19)70, besides Kennedy, what comes to mind? Or, does he dominate? RS (01:31:48): Could you repeat the question? SM (01:31:50): Yeah. Between 1961 and 1970, what comes to mind besides Kennedy? Or, is that assassination the dominant theme? RS (01:31:59): Kind of, for me a good analogy would be changing from watching a black and white TV to watching a color TV. Things exploded. I mean, there was the free speech movement in Berkeley. There was Ken Kesey and the Mary Pranksters, the use of cut... expanding drugs, a certain more openness to question what had been taken for granted. SM (01:32:33): Mm-hmm. How about the period (19)71 to 1980? RS (01:32:43): Liberalism, but retrenching. Talk about legalizing marijuana by Jimmy Carter, and I do not want to put words in his mouth, that was not what he said. Possibly the decriminalization, and I should not quote him either because I do not want to, but the decriminalization of marijuana, the mainstream acceptance of some of the arts. Including music, drawings, clothes. Yet, retrenching at the same time. I will never forget when I came out to Berkeley in 1976 to visit, I went into the Good Earth health food store and the girl working behind the counter was wearing a shirt with an alligator on it. I knew things had changed. SM (01:33:42): Yeah. How about 1981 to 1990? RS (01:33:55): Yeah. Think about that one. I cannot give you something off the top of my head. That is hard. Disco? No, that was earlier. I should not say disco. SM (01:33:59): That was the (19)76 to (19)80. RS (01:34:12): Oh God, I am dating myself. SM (01:34:13): Ronald Reagan was that period. RS (01:34:16): He was. Just say no, the demonization of the (19)60s and the counterculture. SM (01:34:29): How about 1991 to 2000? RS (01:34:35): At first, the belief that we had elected for president one of us. Clinton playing saxophone on Arsenio Hall was something I never expected to see a presidential candidate do. Well, Nixon played the piano on Jack Paar, I believe. SM (01:34:55): Right. RS (01:34:55): Not the same. SM (01:35:00): Yeah. I think- RS (01:35:00): The idea that we had elected someone who would understand, to use a cliche, where we were coming from, because he and his wife were one of us. SM (01:35:15): Mm-hmm. And the period- RS (01:35:28): Art, hip. SM (01:35:29): Right. RS (01:35:29): Intelligent and presumably liberal. SM (01:35:30): Then the period 2001 to 2011? RS (01:35:35): Frightening. SM (01:35:38): Certainly 9/11 defined it. RS (01:35:40): Frightening. The rationalization of entrenching further and further government control in every aspect of people's lives, and the justification for taking away people's liberty. SM (01:36:01): This is just another thing too. When you are talking about the period, how did the Cold War, McCarthyism, the threat of the nuclear bomb, the space race, the March on Washington in (19)63, the Kennedy inaugural speech, "Ask not what your country can do for you..." And his assassination, the Cuban Missile Crisis, shape your life? Those are all major happenings. You already talked about JFK, but were those other events in some way affect your life? RS (01:36:34): Well, not directly, but it really made you feel how vulnerable you were. If the president can get shot what can happen to me? SM (01:36:46): You are right. RS (01:36:50): The impermanence of everything, if the mighty and powerful can be taken down, how about the little guy's chance? I keep going back to the movie Network, which I thought was excellent, about America not being finished. It was the end that we sit in our houses with our color TVs and we have some steel-belted radials. There was also another movie by Jules Pfeiffer, named Little Murders, with Elliot Gould. SM (01:37:27): Elliot Gould? RS (01:37:28): Who sat there living behind steel shutters in New York, sniping at people and then shooting back. Kind of like Escape from New York... let us see, a prequel to Escape from New York. SM (01:37:43): Wow. RS (01:37:43): I do not know where I am coming up with this. SM (01:37:48): Yeah, what is happened with a lot of my interviews is that I interviewed... Well, who was it? [inaudible]... Richard Flax. You know Dr. Flax? RS (01:37:59): I do not. SM (01:37:59): He helped write the free speech move... excuse me, the Tom Hayden, and he was a professor of UC Santa Barbara and I brought up things in it, and boy, he loved it yesterday or two days ago because it was bringing back these memories and he was pretty good at remembering things. And he felt real good at the end of the interview because it stretched his mind and made him remember things he had not thought about in a long time. Do you think we as a nation have an issue with healing, problem with healing? We took a group of students to Washington in 1995 to see Edmund Muskie and the students that I took down to Washington from my university were not alive in the (19)60s, but they had seen the 1968 convention, the terrible battles between police and young people, and they saw what happened inside the convention hall. They had seen movies of what was going on in the (19)60s. They knew the two people that were murdered in 1968, and they had seen some people in those videos saying that we are having a second civil war coming and all those other things. And since we had Edmund Muskie to talk to, he was the vice-presidential running mate. And so they thought he was going to respond to this question based on 1968. And the question was this, do you feel that due to the tremendous divisions that took place in our society, that during the time that the boomers have been alive, that they are going to go to their grave, like the Civil War generation not truly healing? That the bitterness, the vindictiveness, dislikes have continued in many ways and we see it today in our divisive nature, in our politics, and of course the backlash we see. So do you think we have a problem as a nation with healing? RS (01:40:06): I do, and I am not optimistic. Views seem to be getting more and more and more entrenched. I mean, an example is Fox News and MSNBC, I cannot recall the name of the writer of a wrote about mirror culture, how you only want to see things that reflect back what you already want to see. I think that is very true. I am guilty of it myself. I think conservative people will go to their graves saying that we ruined America and liberal people will go to their graves saying we tried to save it. SM (01:40:53): Do you think that the wall, the Vietnam Memorial, which I know you probably visited. RS (01:41:02): Actually, I have not, but I am familiar with it. SM (01:41:05): Yeah. Has that done anything, as Jan Scruggs said in his book, not only did we build the wall mainly to heal the vets, the families of those who died, and the 3 million who served, but that we tried in some way to heal the nation. Do you think the wall has done that? RS (01:41:23): I do not. I think it is a wonderful monument to people who died, in my view, unnecessarily. But as far as healing goes, I do not know. I think it is a place for people to go and grieve family or friend, but an influence beyond that, I do not think, I do not so. SM (01:41:45): Do you think, I have a question here too regarding trust. That one of the major qualities that the boomer generation possesses, and I kind of include all 70... I do not like to generalize, but I think in this one I am that all 74 million, those who were for or against the war, liberals, conservatives, or even the 85 to 90 percent who were not activists in any way and just went on with their lives, so to speak, but were subconsciously affected that this is a generation that did not trust. It did not trust because of the fact that so many of their leaders lied to them. Whether you were astute enough to see Eisenhower lie to elementary school kids in 1959 about U2, the spy plane that he said it was not, and it was. To the Gulf of Tonkin with Lyndon Johnson, to Watergate with Richard Nixon, to all the lies that came out of Vietnam in terms of numbers. And there did not seem to be any trusting in our generation toward anyone in the sense of authority, whether it be a president, a university president, a corporate leader, a rabbi, a priest, a minister, anybody in a position of leadership, we do not trust them. RS (01:43:04): I think it is a health mistrust. I think not questioning authority is unhealthy. Again, I keep going wait to the classics, the Greek classics. SM (01:43:20): Right? RS (01:43:21): People have always been punished for questioning the predominant, I do not want to use rulers, what is a better word than rulers? Governing authority. Remember a bumper sticker, "Subvert the dominant paradigm." That is very good. That is very good. SM (01:43:56): Do you remember as a young person, when you were a college student, you would see a car that had an American flag on it and you knew that the person who had the American flag was a conservative saying that, "I am a better American than you are." Basically a statement to those who were against the war. RS (01:44:15): Absolutely. I remember a friend telling me a story about he was attending the University of Iowa, going into this small town for whatever reason, meeting hostility and running into some guy who he saw also had long hair, was as if had met his brother, you knew you could trust him. You knew who someone was by their looks, I should say you knew what they believed by their looks. Now, I think there are a great deal of wolves in sheep clothing. SM (01:44:51): Yeah. I think there were a lot of wolves in sheep's clothing, but I can remember just getting off the subject, but I was picked up by my dad, we were going home from college and he pulled into a gas station and there was a man who had a white... He pulled into a gas station and there was a man who had an American flag. I did not have that long hair. I had longer hair, but not real long. RS (01:45:10): Were you a communist homosexual radical? SM (01:45:13): No, but what happened was I looked at that flag and I said to my dad, "I got to say something to that guy." My dad said, "Steve, do not start something here." Because basically I would learned that putting an American flag on your car then, not like it is now, it is different today, but putting a flag on your car then was basically saying, "I am a better American than you are." And that pissed me off. RS (01:45:39): Well, the prevalent attitude by many people was "love it or leave it." SM (01:45:42): That is right. RS (01:45:42): Instead of love it or change it. SM (01:45:42): Yes. RS (01:45:49): That is not the right way to say this. Love it and change it. SM (01:45:53): Exactly. RS (01:45:54): It was not, if you did not like it, get out. Because if you like it, help it. SM (01:46:01): What are the lessons learned from the (19)60s? And what are the lessons lost from the (19)60s? RS (01:46:10): I think one of them is to have fun. To have fun. I remember in the movie Citizen Kane, Edward Everett Horton, who played Bernstein, saying to the reporter interviewing him, "It is very easy to make a lot of money if all you want to do is make a lot of money." I want to do a lot more. Although I could certainly use the financial, cannot count it when you are dead. Although, oh, that is a stupid thing to fix. You cannot count anything after you are dead. But try hugging it when you are lonely or scared. Human... There is a word I am searching. Human values rather than material value? SM (01:47:11): Yeah, materialism. RS (01:47:15): It is necessary, but it is not sufficient. How about that? SM (01:47:25): That is great. RS (01:47:26): Accumulation of objects and wealth may be necessary, but it certainly is deficient. SM (01:47:29): What are the lessons you think we have lost from the (19)60s and the (19)70s? Or when boomers were young? RS (01:47:37): Certainly there is more cynicism, bitterness. I think what we lost is the sense that we can make a difference. As I said earlier, many people, young people, I believe give up without trying. How will they know? SM (01:48:05): I know that when you hear people like Tom Hayden and some of the other activists who have been unbelievable leaders their whole lives, they look at the positive side of today's generation as they see some of the activism that they are involved in on the computer. It is changed somewhat, but there is a lot of activism going on-on the internet and so forth, so there are some good things. It is just one of them seems to be that they are not publicized and so we do not know. RS (01:48:38): I disagree. I am very late to the technological revolution. I do not believe that someone sending you an email from Australia telling you "your friend" makes them your friend. I thought a friend with someone you could call late at night when you needed them and they would come. That is someone who wants to get on a social network and say, " I am your friend," but then if you ever actually spoke and called them and needed help, will they be there for you? SM (01:49:10): Good point. Yep. I am now to the section I want to ask you about your memorabilia after all this time. Sorry, make sure the tapes back on here again. And it seems to be working. All right. You said in your email that you have a thousand items and 700 are signed. RS (01:49:44): I have several thousand items. SM (01:49:45): Wow. Have you broken these down into different categories? What are the categories? RS (01:49:56): Books. I collect first edition books. Books, posters, handbills, leaflets, underground newspapers, underground comics, bumper stickers, records, clothes, pinback buttons, and a lot of miscellaneous stuff. SM (01:50:28): I should have told you, I just got rid of all my (19)70s clothes. RS (01:50:31): Oh. SM (01:50:33): I gave them to the Salvation Army. I had them all these years. They were in great shape too. RS (01:50:39): Do not tell me stuff like that. SM (01:50:41): Well, I figured they did not have any value. RS (01:50:43): I do not know. I have clothes, but I have no idea what the value is. SM (01:50:50): Right. Well, I still have some of them, but it is the clothes I wore. You know those shoes that were platform shoes and those kinds of things? RS (01:50:57): Absolutely. SM (01:50:59): Well, I did not get rid of those, but I do have some of the items. RS (01:51:04): Glam Rock stuff. SM (01:51:06): Oh, yeah. Now, how did you accumulate? Did you buy these or did you... And how did you get them all signed? Or did you collect them while you were in college, or has this all been something since your college days in collecting? RS (01:51:21): No, I started collecting things in college: underground newspapers, comics, posters, leaflets. Political protest leaflets I would take off a telephone pole. They looked interesting, and many of them were period pieces with artwork. I knew these things were unique to the time period, and I felt that they should be preserved. SM (01:51:50): Excellent. RS (01:51:50): Later on, in the (19)80s, I got a catalog from someone who had taken many items. And it was the first time I had seen these things categorized and broken down into logical, coherent categories. I bought a few items and it became obsessive. SM (01:52:13): It is like me, I am a bibliophile, so I have thousands of books. So, I have a lot of (19)60s books. RS (01:52:20): I have a lot myself, but I thought that it would be wonderful to meet some of the people who were involved and participated in all the activities. And I started going to book signings and political discussions and just hearing all the lecturers, authors, as well as scrounging through used bookstores, junk shops, yard sales, catalogs, Paper Collectors Magazines, record stores. That is quite a bit. SM (01:53:00): Yeah. Well, what is interesting, I have collected anything dealing with Vietnam on magazines. And I have ordered them all. And so I have just about anything linked of Vietnam. I have all the Look, Life magazines that have Vietnam. I have gotten a lot of Newsweek and Time magazines dealing with that as well. RS (01:53:23): Posters. I am sorry to interrupt. SM (01:53:25): Yeah, go ahead. RS (01:53:26): I think posters could be broken down into two different groups, really. Posters that were used for one specific event, such as a protest rally or a music concert or a literary event. The posters produced either commercially or underground dealing with politics, ecology, et cetera. One example of the first one are Fillmore or Avalon posters, meaning posters used to promote events at the Fillmore Auditorium or the Avalon ballroom. SM (01:53:57): Oh, yeah. RS (01:54:01): And posters for political events or handbills such as the Yippies passed out before the Democratic Convention. And then just generalized things like "Make Love Not War" was one classic. Just in general cultural items. SM (01:54:23): Bill Graham, somebody bought a warehouse of all his stuff. RS (01:54:28): Sure. I bought some things from Ben Friedman, he used to have a store called The Postermat at 601 Columbus in San Francisco. SM (01:54:34): Right. RS (01:54:36): Yes. SM (01:54:36): They were sitting there for years, just in the closed warehouse, is not that correct? RS (01:54:41): Yes. Well, I do not want to get off, but this is off the record, but people from the company called Park Rock bought it. This is what they paid. Oh, they bought it for a million dollars, made the first payment and then stiffed them. And they made a small fortune on this stuff. SM (01:54:57): Oh, wow. RS (01:54:57): It is more than a small one. SM (01:54:59): Wow. Yeah. Now, when you talk about how many... I broke it down here. I thought you had had books, posters, records. Do you have toys? RS (01:55:11): I have miscellaneous of things. A jigsaw puzzle with Agnew on one side and Nixon on the other. I do not know toys per se, but miscellaneous items: little figurines, clothes, just all sorts of things. SM (01:55:32): Yeah. I still have all my cowboy and Indian sets from the (19)50s. RS (01:55:39): Wow. SM (01:55:40): Yeah. And army, those metal army figures. I accumulated them all. They are all going to my... I am creating a center for the study of the boomer generation at my parents' college. RS (01:55:54): What I would like to do very, very much is get some of my stuff in display cases. SM (01:55:59): Yes. RS (01:56:00): Exhibit. I spoke with the director of special collections for the University of Virginia Library, and he is very interested, but they have a lag time for exhibits for two years. They have a large collection of their own. And he said he would run it by a committee to see if they wanted to get involved with my stuff, but I do not think they have a budget to do it. SM (01:56:25): Yeah. Do you have a website with some? You do not put your stuff out there on the pictures. RS (01:56:28): No, I do not. I am private that way. I do not want someone to see what I have. SM (01:56:28): Yeah. I think you need to keep that private. RS (01:56:35): I would be happy to show it to them, but I do not really publicize what I do, what I have. SM (01:56:40): Yeah, same here. I have a condominium here and I got two of the rooms are stacked with books and books everywhere and people cannot believe all the books I have. RS (01:56:49): Yeah. What I have is my stuff. There is a company that makes archival things called Light Impressions, archival storage boxes with pH neutral cardboard and Mylar sleeves. I have hundreds and hundreds, if not more, of my handbills and leaflets in Mylar sleeves. SM (01:57:15): Wow. Those are— RS (01:57:15): Supposedly, Mylar is chemically inert and will last for a hundred years. SM (01:57:18): Wow. Yeah, you said you have used them in a college course. What college and how did they use them? RS (01:57:27): There was a course at the college at Marin on the 19(19)60s, and I brought some to show. But I enjoy meeting some of the people who were involved or caused so much of everything to happen. Like everyone from Jerry Rubin, Paul Krassner, people involved with the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park. Rock musicians. Of course, Ginsburg, Berliner, Getty, Michael McClure, Tim Leary, John Sinclair from the White Panther Party. Then Tom Hayden. SM (01:58:13): Do you have presidential memorabilia too from that era? RS (01:58:17): Not really. I have political posters, but I would not call it presidential memorabilia. SM (01:58:28): Yeah. RS (01:58:28): And anti-Nixon, anti- Johnson. Yeah. SM (01:58:37): I actually, this is your interview, but I collected as a kid, so I had the Eisenhower/Nixon stuff, and then I have the Nixon/Lodge stuff who ran against Kennedy and Johnson. Then I have Kennedy/Johnson, and then I have Barry Goldwater and Miller. RS (01:58:55): Well, I have a Gene McCarthy item signed by him and a George McGovern item signed by him. SM (01:59:04): Great. Yeah. You noticed the people that I have interviewed, most of them have signed their books. And then, of course, I worked at the university for 30 some years, and so everybody that came through, I had them sign their books. So I have a lot of things too. But I am curious, I listed some names here from Jerry Ruben to Ken Kesey, Alan Ginsburg, Leary, Paul Krassner, Jerry Garcia. Any of the Black Panther stuff? RS (01:59:33): Sure. SM (01:59:34): Yeah. I wonder what happened to all that stuff that was over in Oakland. Did anybody ever keep any of that stuff besides you? RS (01:59:43): I believe the Black Panthers sold their archive to Stanford University. But sure, Bobby Seale, Kathleen Cleaver, and a number of other people's signatures. SM (02:00:00): Wow. How about the free speech movement? Any materials on that? RS (02:00:03): Absolutely. Mario Savio who passed away long ago signed a few of my things. Michael Rossman, who passed away did. Yes, I do. I really have a well-rounded collection in a lot of different areas: political, social, artistic. SM (02:00:28): And then of course you had... I do not know if you had materials from the Summer of Love, which was (19)67 and— RS (02:00:35): A great deal. There was a group in the 1967 Summer of Love in The Haight-Ashbury called The Diggers, which was— SM (02:00:42): Oh, yeah. That is with Peter Coyote. RS (02:00:45): I have approximately 40 of their handbills. SM (02:00:48): Wow. RS (02:00:51): Sure. I have all five handbills the Human Be-in. SM (02:00:57): Oh my gosh. RS (02:00:57): And two printer variants. Each one has signed by about 15, 20 participants in the event. And one of the two Human Be-In posters, which is a classic. I have an original Acid Test poster from 1964, which is extremely rare, signed by Ken Kesey, and Allen Ginsberg, and Paul Krassner and others. SM (02:01:21): Wow. Yeah. How did you find that? RS (02:01:27): I got it from Kesey's son actually. I used to be friends with him in the (19)80s, (19)90s. SM (02:01:31): Oh, wow. RS (02:01:33): Zane Kesey. I was friends with him, and I actually went up to Oregon for the world premiere of a play his dad, Ken Kesey, wrote called Twister in the early (19)90s. And then when they put the play on here at the Fillmore Auditorium for two nights, I did the video camera work for one night. SM (02:01:56): Yeah. Do you have any things from Kent State too? RS (02:02:09): I have something that is absolutely unique. I got it from one of the attorneys for some of the National Guardsmen involved died, and in his estate was an actual transcript of where interrogation is, might be wrong, questioning of the National Guardsmen under oath as to what happened afterwards. It is one of a kind. SM (02:02:34): Wow. Yeah, I know recently, in the last couple years, one of those Guardsmen died that had actually spoken. Most of them have not spoken, but he was the one that had, and then he passed away. I forget his name. RS (02:02:51): I have Judge Julius Hoffman, who presided over the Chicago Seven trial in Chicago's Christmas album during that time with Christmas cards from Mayor Daley and the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, and a number of other people. SM (02:03:05): They did a record? RS (02:03:07): No. They did... Look, this is actually Judge... Let me back up. This is Judge Julius Hoffman's Christmas album. I do not mean album. I mean his own Christmas cards that were sent to him that he put in an album. SM (02:03:20): Oh my gosh. Wow. RS (02:03:25): I have quite a bit. SM (02:03:26): How would you ever find that? How do you find some of these things? RS (02:03:30): In the Paper Collectors Magazine about 20 years ago. SM (02:03:34): Wow. RS (02:03:35): Hang on for a second. Let me just grab some more water. SM (02:03:36): Yep, that is okay. RS (02:03:37): I got a lot of early SDS publications from the the early (19)60s and one called the Port Huron Statement. It was a pivotal document that came out in 1963. I do not know how much you want to hear about this. SM (02:04:16): Yeah, I just want just some of the items because it is important that this is history and this is all about history. RS (02:04:19): Sorry. Sorry, I interrupted you. Please go ahead. Go ahead. SM (02:04:21): No, I am done. Go ahead. RS (02:04:23): The Port Huron Statement was... What is the word? It had to do with student participation which is participatory democracy. A number of similar leaders from all over the country met in 1963 in Port Huron, Michigan to put together a manifesto for student participation in politics in society. I have a mimeograph draft version that Tom Hayden wrote, which I believe may be the only copy in the world. SM (02:05:03): Wow. RS (02:05:04): Signed by Tom Hayden. SM (02:05:05): Yeah, because you see he and Richard Flax were the two that wrote it. Wow. RS (02:05:08): I believe The Port Huron Statement was primarily written by Tom Hayden. SM (02:05:09): It was, but Richard Flax was a very good writer and Tom got to know him quite well, and he was involved in making some corrections and proper English, so he was there. I interviewed him on Monday. He is a retired sociology professor. RS (02:05:35): Huh. SM (02:05:36): And he has written some great books. He has written three major books on the (19)60s. He is a retired professor. RS (02:05:46): No, I have, as I said, a lot of early SDS items. I have Weather Underground items, Yippie items; hand bills mostly. Of course, Woodstock related items, including tickets and the program for Woodstock, which is very rare because it rained for three days and the programs were mostly destroyed. SM (02:06:11): You are right. You are right. RS (02:06:14): So, I have an original Woodstock program signed by some of the participants of Woodstock. SM (02:06:19): Wow. So that is really neat. Yeah, I have quite a few books that are signed by people, but it is fun, is not it, trying to get them to sign things if they are still alive, some of these people. RS (02:06:36): And some are nice and some are not, but I guess that is the way people are. SM (02:06:40): Right. RS (02:06:42): Some of them insist on dating things because when they date them it makes it less valuable than if they had just simply signed their name. But word records that are very rare dealing with politics or drug use, a whole host of things. It is hard to summarize several thousand items. I made a mistake. The Port Huron Statement, in addition to having the mimeograph, I also have a second printing. I just have the mimeograph draft statement. SM (02:07:22): I think the original was in a brown cover? RS (02:07:25): God, yeah. Yeah, you are right. Yes. Yes, you are absolutely correct. Yes. SM (02:07:31): And guess who has that? RS (02:07:34): You. SM (02:07:34): Yes. I found that in a used bookstore. RS (02:07:39): Well, I have the second printing and I have the mimeograph draft version, but I do not have a first printing. SM (02:07:48): Wow. RS (02:07:50): And then the San Francisco Oracle was the quintessential underground newspaper. Only 12 issues were put out. It was in San Francisco by Allen Cohen. And I have every issue also signed by Allen, who passed away. Fillmore and Avalon posters, as I said, and handbills. SM (02:08:19): Wow. RS (02:08:20): Several hundred pinback buttons, political and cultural, such as Make Love Not War. SM (02:08:31): The black fist for the Black Panthers? RS (02:08:33): Sure. SM (02:08:34): Yeah. Wow. RS (02:08:36): The many anti-Nixon, anti-Johnson, Gene McCarthy, George McGovern. SM (02:08:45): Wow. Excellent. RS (02:08:53): I really feel an obligation to try to preserve as much of the counterculture as possible. SM (02:09:02): Yeah. Now that you have got this collection together, what do you plan to do with it? You going to pass it on to a university for protection someday? RS (02:09:14): I really do not know. I have not decided. SM (02:09:14): Unless you got a family that cares about it. RS (02:09:16): Well, I am single. SM (02:09:22): As a person who is reached 62, (19)60s, I have had to think about where my stuff's going, and my family, none of them want this stuff. So, I am working on an arrangement with my parents' college that they will take my collection for nothing, as long as they protect it, preserve it, and they follow guidelines that I give to them. And it has to be for education, and it has to be for students and research. RS (02:09:55): Good. SM (02:09:55): Because you just cannot let it just go. And it has to go where it is going to be appreciated. And to me, it has to be used by students. And it is going to take a couple years, because this college, I could have done it to my alma mater SUNY Binghamton and I would have gotten a much bigger response and a much faster response. But I am doing it because my parents went to this small school outside Syracuse, Cazenovia College, and I want to be able to do something to improve their campus, but they have got to protect it. And it is going to take a while because they do not have the building, they do not have the money. And times are tough, but I know what I want them to do. And for items like you have, you also want to make sure that if a university ends up... you need to have a person that is going to check on them every so often, someone that you can trust that they are following through with what they said they were going to do with the materials. So, I have my niece, even though she has got... I have picked one person. She has agreed to do it. So that when all my items are there and all documented and everything, that no one professor can take items away from it and keep it for themselves. Secondly, some items have to be worn with white gloves. Thirdly, and most importantly, they cannot be taken away from the university and they cannot be taken away from the research area where they are. They are for student and faculty research. It is pure education. It is a lot easier said than done right now because that place is almost 400 miles from me. I am not going to die tomorrow, I hope, but I do know that I have it now that they are going to get them. RS (02:11:57): It is a good plan. I have not taken it that far yet. SM (02:12:00): Yeah, but you need to know that your items are valuable. And you know something? Rick, I think sometimes even beyond the person who collects, there is a reason why you are doing it that you may not even realize it while. You are doing it because you like it and you personally care about these things. RS (02:12:22): Well, also because I feel I have, for whatever reason, an obligation to preserve as much as possible of a time period I do not think it is ever going to happen again. SM (02:12:32): I agree. RS (02:12:35): This was a, I cannot say unique because every time period is unique, but a groundbreaking explosion of human potential. SM (02:12:49): Yeah. I think some of the things you have got are unique, because they have never existed before and will never exist again. RS (02:12:58): Well, showing how society had changed so much. I feel like a cultural historian. SM (02:13:06): And I know Paul, when he gave the names, it has taken me a while to contact the names. I think I had your name six months ago from Paul. But I have contacted everyone and the only person in the list that he gave me is Stewart Brand was the only one that did not want to do an interview. He is the only one. RS (02:13:24): Funny you mentioned him. About 20 years ago, I asked for some autographs on things. Excuse me, I have to eat something. I feel my blood sugar dropping down to zero. I was living in Mill Valley. Stewart Brand had a place in Sausalito where he did the Whole Earth catalog. SM (02:13:46): Yes. RS (02:13:48): I called and said, "I collected some things. They are not for resale. This is just for me. Would you sign all my stuff?" He said, "No autographs!" Just like that. "No, autographs!" SM (02:14:01): Yeah. Well, he must be a friend of Paul's. But he just simply said, "I have no interest at this time." But he also is a multi-millionaire now, and so he has got— RS (02:14:15): I think after he went to MIT and became a technocrat he kind of lost his roots. SM (02:14:20): Yeah. He is the only one. And then the other one is Ina May Gaskin. I interviewed Steven, but Ina May has not responded. So she is the only other one. And it took me a while to get Carolyn Garcia, but I finally got Carolyn. RS (02:14:39): She is sweet. SM (02:14:40): Oh, she is really nice. I interviewed her on the phone and when I was out there I took her picture just outside Golden Gate Park. She is a very nice person. By the way, she does not like that new book on Ken Kesey either. RS (02:14:51): Which one? SM (02:14:52): It is a brand-new book out. I bought it right over there by the Golden Gate Park, the Haight Street... RS (02:15:06): The Booksmith. SM (02:15:06): Yeah. And it was in there and it was brand new. And I mentioned to Carolyn when I was... She just drove over so I could take her picture at the entrance to the park to be at the top of her interview. And she says, "He was not supposed to print that book. There were certain things that I objected to and that I did not like." So, there is some mistruths in that book. And I do not know anything about it, but I think there is going to be some issues going on down the road on that. My last question is this, do you have any more to say on the memorabilia? RS (02:15:42): It is an incredible window into a wonderful time period in American history. Give me a second. SM (02:15:54): Yep. RS (02:15:54): Can I say something that if you want to put this in somewhere you can? SM (02:15:58): Okay. RS (02:16:00): I went to about 160 Grateful Dead concerts. SM (02:16:03): Wow. RS (02:16:04): Some of the best times in my life. SM (02:16:06): I only went to one. RS (02:16:08): Wonderful, wonderful. My first one was in Madison, actually, College. And at that time things were so loose that, looking appropriate, I just simply walked up some stairs up to the stage and spent the whole concert leaning on the bass player's, Phil Lesh's, amp. SM (02:16:28): Oh my God. RS (02:16:28): That is how things were in 1970. (19)71. Actually, this is (19)71 now. SM (02:16:28): Right? RS (02:16:36): Yeah. I have about 300 Grateful Dead tapes of concerts. One of them, I was friends with a friend of one of the guys, and at the 1986 New Year's show, they got me backstage. Not only backstage, but actually into the band room after the show where all the guys were. There were so many tanks of nitrous oxide, it looked like a hospital. SM (02:16:59): Oh my gosh. RS (02:17:01): And I had some of the best times in my life at those shows. I think Joseph Campbell called them a Dionysian Celebration of Life. I cannot improve on that. SM (02:17:16): Yeah. Jerry Garcia was a hell of a talent. And what a great guitar player. And I never met him. I just mentioned to Carolyn, just from what I saw, and I see him on YouTube a lot, he seemed to be a very gentle person. RS (02:17:29): He was. SM (02:17:29): Even with interviews with him and Ken Kesey, they looked like they were brothers. They were having a good time together. There was a mutual respect. And he seemed to be a very humble person, because he came from tough times. RS (02:17:48): Well, he said, I think after being in the Grateful Dead for 20 years, he was just starting to learn how to play a guitar. SM (02:17:53): My God. Huh. RS (02:17:57): I used to see him driving his BMW around Mill Valley. He was friends, well not only friends, for many years with David Grisman, who was in the New Riders of the Purple Sage, and a phenomenal mandolin player who lived nearby, a few minutes away from where I lived. I would see him driving his black BMW. SM (02:18:14): Well, is not it amazing that the San Francisco Bay area has all this talent? I am amazed. And of course when I lived... I lived out there from (19)76 to (19)83, Huey Lewis and the News came up and the Tower of Power were there and Boz Scaggs over in Marin County. And there were a lot of different groups. I know John Handy and his saxophone playing down at the Embarcadero Center. RS (02:18:40): There it’s s one event that stood out in my mind, and I do not know where you can put this in the interview if you choose to, but after I saw the Jefferson Airplane do a concert at the University of Wisconsin Field House two weeks after Kent State, there were about 15,000 people in the audience, and the conclusion, the last song they played was called Volunteers. It was off the Volunteers album. And one of the lines was, "Up against the wall, Motherfucker." And 15,000 people put their fists in the air. SM (02:19:19): Wow. RS (02:19:20): Something I will never forget. SM (02:19:22): Yeah, you mentioned at Wisconsin that you saw the Grateful Dead and you saw— RS (02:19:25): Janice. And Hendrix. SM (02:19:25): You saw all these people there? RS (02:19:32): I remember seeing Jimi Hendrix. It was after Woodstock, but before the movie came out. And I remember during the concert, somebody said, "What can we get you, Jimi?" And he said, "A joint." They started throwing joints at him. Joints are bouncing off his chest, off his guitar. SM (02:19:51): Oh my gosh. RS (02:19:54): 20 or 30 of them must have hit him. Joints. And then the last thing he did was appeared in the Woodstock movie doing the Star-Spangled Banner. RS (02:20:03): Appeared in the Woodstock movie doing the Star-Spangled Banner. SM (02:20:07): Oh yeah. RS (02:20:07): Which was before the movie came out. And then I had never seen In The Purple Haze. SM (02:20:09): Oh my God. RS (02:20:11): Phenomenal. SM (02:20:14): And you say you saw Janice there too? RS (02:20:18): Sure. (19)69, going to the concert November, wearing a coat and tie. SM (02:20:28): Unbelievable. RS (02:20:28): By the Kent state time I had changed. Can I tell you something that must be off the rec? My roommates and I used to buy hash from and Glenn Silber who did the War at Home movie. SM (02:20:36): Oh my gosh. RS (02:20:38): I have been around my friend. SM (02:20:40): Yeah. Well when Janice Joplin was, that was the Chief Turtles album, right around that time. I have a story, I have interviewed so many people, but the hippies were upset with her because of the fact that the hippies were into drugs, not alcohol. RS (02:21:00): She was into Southern Comfort. SM (02:21:01): Yeah, she was into Southern Comfort, and a lot of the hippies did not get along with her. She broke a rule. Hippies do not drink alcohol. RS (02:21:10): Maybe beer, but that was it. SM (02:21:12): Yeah, but they did not like the fact that she was doing that. RS (02:21:15): Mind-expanding. SM (02:21:17): Yeah. Any other rock groups or single performers that you saw in Wisconsin? RS (02:21:25): Country Joe to Jefferson Airplane to the Grateful Dead. So many of the people from that time. I mean, it would be hard to give, but all the usual suspects. SM (02:21:43): You know what is interesting, I have one last question here, but I will mention this just for general, it will not be in the interview, but when I was in college, I went to SUNY Binghamton and we had winter break and we had spring break and we had- RS (02:21:54): Wild place. SM (02:21:56): Yeah. And we had the Paul Butterfield Blues Band all the time performing at the campus center Friday. But we had Judy Collins, we had Arlo Guthrie, we had Odetta, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington. And then we had Iron Butterfly and the Turtles and the Mountain. RS (02:22:22): Sure. SM (02:22:25): And the Chambers Brothers. We had all these groups. Love and Spoonful, and even The Birds and Anthony Imperials. I will just never forget all these groups and these concerts when I was a college student. There is no other time. RS (02:22:45): There is no other. I can give you a quote that I remember. If you want to use, so be it. Remember how they used to say drugs are for people who cannot handle reality? Our saying was reality was for people who cannot handle drugs. SM (02:23:00): That is a great quote. I will use that. RS (02:23:07): I did not make it up. SM (02:23:08): And do not forget, you are going to see this transcript, so you can scribble some of this stuff out. My last question is this, and I have asked this to everybody. When the best history books are written about any period, it is usually 50 years afterwards. The best World War II books were coming out in the early, well, about 2000, 2001. And so some of the best World War II books are coming out now. What do you think historians and sociologists and commentators will say about the (19)60s or the Boomer generation? I think I am going to say this, Boomer generation, this generation that was born after World War II, and was very young in the (19)60s and the seventies and early eighties. What do you think they will say? What will be the lasting legacy? And I say this knowing that the Boomers are now reaching older age, they still got 15 to 20 years left so they could change old age, but just your thoughts. What do you think they are going to say? Especially after the last Boomer may have passed on? RS (02:24:10): Well, that was the flowering of you and potential. So, we did not take anything at face value. So, we questioned authority, and that we can make a difference, and we did. SM (02:24:27): That is great. Is there any questions I did not ask that you thought I was going to ask? RS (02:24:37): About the specific items in my collection, which I do not have to tell you about, but I really thought that is half of what you would do would be about what we had discussed, and half what would be about collecting counterculture member review. But I understand this is a sociology book and not for collectors. SM (02:24:53): Yeah. Well, you can tell me more about your collection because I did not know what items you had except some general items. I can ask specific questions like the items you have linked to Ken Kesey or any of the beats. RS (02:25:09): I mean, I have highlight, I have to tell you, in all honesty, I am pretty punchy. And not because of you, it is because I thought we would go for an hour and it is two and a half. SM (02:25:20): I think that is enough. RS (02:25:21): So I thought you said an hour and a half. But no, I am not complaining at all, I am just saying I am starting to wander a little. My mind is not quite as disciplined as when we started. But I think that we did make a difference. So I know we did. And then from now on, no one will take unquestioned the statement from the government to the mainstream media. That you need to think for yourself, draw your own conclusions, do not accept anything at face value without running it through your own mind and deciding whether it makes sense or not. And the motivations for what was said by whoever was saying and why? What are they looking for you to do? Is it in their self-interest or is it in yours? SM (02:26:06): Yeah. Using a Paul Krassner line, we just hit the midway point. Yeah, I think Paul would laugh at that. Tell you, fantastic. RS (02:26:20): Pleasure speaking to you. SM (02:26:23): Yeah, no, Rick, I wish I would come out when I was out to San Francisco. I had not been out there in 10 years. RS (02:26:27): You are always welcome to- SM (02:26:29): And I might go out again next year and I want to meet Paul and Nancy. I will even drive down if I have to down south just to see him. I want to take their pictures and stuff like that. There is a few other people in LA. But I regret that I had not called you before I went to San Francisco because I met seven people to take their pictures. I met Carolyn Garcia, took her picture. Peter Richardson, who wrote the book on Ramparts Magazine, Jim Quay, former head of the Arts council who lives in the Bay Area, and- RS (02:27:03): Wait, girl was sweet. SM (02:27:05): Huh? RS (02:27:06): Carolyn Cassidy was known during the pranks, it still is, its mountain girl. SM (02:27:12): Yes-yes. And then I- RS (02:27:14): Very sweet person. Lived in Ballenas for many years, which was another counter cultural, it is on the Pacific Ocean. Incredibly beautiful, very isolated. You have to drive over Mountain [inaudible] here in Marin County to get there. SM (02:27:31): I think Charles- RS (02:27:32): Go ahead. SM (02:27:33): I think Charles wrote a book, something to do with Ballenas Bay too. RS (02:27:38): Probably. It is very beautiful, wildlife and all that, but a lot of the, she lived right near there for a long time. SM (02:27:49): Wow. RS (02:27:55): I really do feel an obligation to preserve as much of this time period as I can. SM (02:27:57): I think it is a great thing that you are doing. RS (02:28:00): Thank you, Stephen. SM (02:28:01): I admire you for doing it and we need more people like you because in the end I think subconsciously you are preserving it, but you are preserving it for others. It is that (19)60s mentality. I know that I have been collecting all my books and all this stuff and I am collecting all these interviews for a reason because I want young people, students, college students and general public, to get a better understanding of the times we lived in and to not have the new Gingrich's of the world and the people condemning an entire era because they do not like the politics or the personalities of the people or the long here. You got to understand the times. RS (02:28:45): Cultural warfare, they have a vested interest in the status quo. Just as the seed money, 90 percent of the seed money in the eighties for the partnership with Drug-Free America. You know where that came from? Tobacco companies and the alcohol companies. SM (02:29:01): Yep. You are right. RS (02:29:04): I wonder why because they did not want any other recreational interest horning in on their market. SM (02:29:11): Charles Wright is coming, he is teaching a course at Yale this spring. I found out so I am going to contact the Yale law and hopefully I can get an interview with him. But boy, you cannot even reach him in the Bay Area. He does not even have a website. RS (02:29:21): I thought he was in Berkeley. SM (02:29:21): Yeah. RS (02:29:28): Yeah, I think he is in Berkeley. SM (02:29:28): Well, if you ever find out a website for him or an email, let me know because I would like to try to interview him because he did write the Greening of the Merit. RS (02:29:36): I can tell you where he did the reading in Berkeley was six months ago at the bookstore. SM (02:29:40): Okay. RS (02:29:42): It is called Books Incorporated. Fourth Street of Berkeley. SM (02:29:48): Fourth Street. Okay, I could give him a call. RS (02:29:52): That is where he did his last reading. SM (02:29:53): Okay. RS (02:29:55): I know you are calling me to write a book and I know this is off the wall, not off the wall, but it is unrelated. I want to get my stuff in display cases somewhere where people can see it, whether it is a library, university, if you could keep me in mind, I am not looking to make any money, that would be nice, but nobody has money to pay for that kind of stuff. SM (02:30:15): Well, the connections that I have are only with three. I have left where I used to work, so I am done with them. I have worked there 22 years. But my alma maters, I am Ohio State, Binghamton University, and then Cazenovia, so I do have links with all of them. RS (02:30:34): You happen to see an opportunity where I could get my stuff in display cases or on a wall somewhere for an exhibit, I would be very- SM (02:30:42): I will, yep. RS (02:30:44): Something needs to be seen instead of being in archival boxes in my closet, Stephen. SM (02:30:49): Yep. Let me talk to a few people. There might even be a chance that, I am not sure, maybe at Binghamton and Seattle, Ohio State, I was a grad student there. All of my professors are gone, but I do believe there is a professor in the history department there who is a (19)60s guy, and I mean he is younger than a Boomer. Well, he is a young Boomer, but he is not, he was not old enough to be around when all this other stuff was happening. So, there is a good person there at Ohio State, but Binghamton's still the school it was when I was there, back in- RS (02:31:30): Let me think. I can tell you one final anecdote before you get off the bus. But that is another quote I should have given you. You are on the bus or you are off the bus. SM (02:31:41): Yes. Very good. RS (02:31:44): It is true. SM (02:31:44): Yeah. Definitely true. RS (02:31:46): You are off the bus. SM (02:31:48): Well, do you talk to Paul at all? RS (02:31:52): You send the emails constantly. I do not talk that much but we said we are in constant contact. SM (02:31:58): Good. Yeah. I just sent him a response to his Facebook message about, I thought it was the [inaudible] thing. Tell him I said hi. Tell him and Nancy I said hi. RS (02:32:09): He said he is getting off Facebook because there is just 5,000 friends he is never met. SM (02:32:26): I think what he is going to do, he is staying on Facebook, but he is going to cut the number down. I think that is what it is. RS (02:32:26): Well Saturday he told me he is getting off it, but I do not know. He could change his mind, but I am so happy to speak with you. It is been a pleasure. SM (02:32:36): It has been a pleasure here too. RS (02:32:37): Wish you a great deal of luck with your book, you are doing such a good thing. SM (02:32:41): Well, thank you very much. People like you and Paul and all the people that I have interviewed, I love that year that I grew up in, I obviously you do too. I feel fortunate that I was alive. RS (02:32:55): Well, I never left. SM (02:32:56): That is good. RS (02:32:58): Well, I will let you on the one final thing. Kesey came to the San Francisco area for a book tour. They drove the bus. This was not the original bus, but a new version of the bus from Oregon here. Outside the books in store at Hay Street, I went in, it was Kesey and a few other people, smoked a joint on the bus with Kesey. How about this? Oh, and then he tested a bottle of wine and he says before he drank, "it has lithium in it." Oh no. Hey, it could have been [inaudible 02:33:35]. Anyway, I am not going to regal you with stories, but I have been around as they say, and I have paid my dues and I have counter cultural Street cred. SM (02:33:49): Great. RS (02:33:50): Thanks Steve. SM (02:33:50): Thanks, you have a great day. Happy holidays to you. RS (02:33:54): Take care, Steve. SM (02:33:54): You bet, bye. RS (02:33:55): Bye. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Description 3 Microcassettes Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Rick Synchef Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Synchef, Rick ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Counterculture--United States--20th century; Historians; Synchef, Rick--Interviews Description An account of the resource Rick Synchef is a counterculture collector and historian. He began collecting political paper and ephemera when he was an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison during the 1960s and 70s. Synchef consistently meets writers and obtains autographs for his large collection of books related to the 1960s. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-12-15 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.175a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.175b; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.175c 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. 153:58 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/1bb025971bbe1fe133c088980ab91587.jpg 5fa9658b75f35ba089ac15af29de9b1b https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/8c88eb894f70071cc1591da72d8a968f.mp3 acbba5227040ef65fb669010373df51f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-12-03 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Robert Edgar, 1943-2013 Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Robert William Edgar (1943-2013) was a businessman, administrator and politician. Edgar was a member of the Democratic Party and congressman in Pennsylvania for 6 terms. He received his Bachelor's degree from Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and a Master of Divinity degree from the Theological School of Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. Edgar died from a heart attack after running on the treadmill at his home."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15105,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":10}">Robert William Edgar (1943-2013) was a businessman, administrator, and politician. Edgar was a member of the Democratic Party and congressman in Pennsylvania for 6 terms. He received his Bachelor's degree from Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and a Master of Divinity degree from the Theological School of Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. Edgar died from a heart attack after running on the treadmill at his home.</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 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Religion; Bishop Fulton J. Sheen; National Council Churches; Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Environment; Poverty; Televangelist; Ronald Reagan; Brown v. Board of Education; Baby boom generation; Fox News; MSNBC; Pete McCloskey; Anti-War Movement."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":13689059}}">Religion; Bishop Fulton J. Sheen; National Council Churches; Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Environment; Poverty; Televangelist; Ronald Reagan; Brown v. Board of Education; Baby boom generation; Fox News; MSNBC; Pete McCloskey; Anti-War Movement.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 137:41 Subject LCSH Legislators—United States--Pennsylvania; Democratic Party (Pa.); Edgar, Robert, 1943-2013--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Robert William Edgar Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 3 December 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:01): Thank you very much for agreeing to be part of this. The interview itself includes questions that have been asked to all people, but there are also some specific questions that have been geared toward your life as well. How did you become who you are? Could you describe your upbringing, your high school and college years, and maybe some of the role models and or historic figures you read about that inspired you? BE (00:00:31): I am glad I gave you a copy of my book so you can find out all the details because the book is more of a biography of how I have done what I have done. As you know, I have been a United Methodist minister. I have been a congressman. I have been a faculty member at Swarthmore College. I ran a finance area for Senator Paul Simon of Illinois when he ran for president. I was head of the Committee for National Security under Paul Warnke, who negotiated the SALT II agreement. I spent 10 years as president of a graduate school. I spent seven and a half years as head of the National Council of Churches. And now I have been three years as president of Common Cause. All of my vocational life in all those different professions have centered around my mantra, which I have kind of rephrased in the last couple of years. But it is to address fear, fundamentalism, and Fox News with a commitment to peace, poverty, and planet Earth. My wife of 46 years, who I have known for 52 years, will tell you I only have one speech and a thousand illustrations, focused on ending the poverty that kills, healing the earth, and working on peace and nonviolence issues. Now, you asked the question, how'd I get started? I grew up in a blue-collar family, in a white-collar community. I grew up in suburban Philadelphia. While we were in a lower economic bracket than our neighbors and friends, my father never owned an automobile, never drove a car. I taught my mother how to drive when she was 48 years old. We did everything on buses and trolleys between Philadelphia, upper Darby, Chester, Media, communities around Philadelphia. We were, my brother and I, my older brother, we were sent to church so that my mother and father could sleep in on Sunday mornings. And I went to Sunday school and church services in the Methodist Church. And in those days, which was in the 1950s, there were an awful lot of progressive ministers who were linking gospel messages to civil rights, human rights, people's rights. When I became 15, 16, I went to a church camp, and I discovered some ministers that taught me that ministers do not have to be boring, that they can be committed to social justice. I also took a tour of some poverty areas in Philadelphia and was surprised by my reaction to seeing poor people. In June of 1968, the Methodist Church sent me to 11 countries in Europe... not (19)68, in 1961, they sent me to 11 countries, including Italy, Germany, Austria, France, but I also got in behind the Iron Curtain in Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1961. And one of the most powerful experiences was in an orphanage that we visited in Naples, Italy. You had to travel by bus through a terrible slum, seeing the worst poverty you could see. And the bus went through a large, gated building, and inside were a couple hundred children who were orphans, all clean, all dressed, all cared for by faith-related folks, all singing and joyful. And so the contrast between the abject poverty on the outside of the building and the care that was given on the inside, had an impact on me. I had decided pretty early on to be a minister and thought that my whole life was going to be in the ministry. I wanted to be an urban minister, and in fact, that is the direction I went. A couple other incidents shaped my thinking. One was at age 19, I became pastor of my own church called the Gilberton United Methodist Church in Gilberton, Pennsylvania. This is June of 1962. I am all of 19, had never been to a funeral. I was given permission to do communion and baptisms and weddings, and most of it was to pay my way through college. After they had given churches to ordained elders in the Methodist church and retired ministers and seminary students, they had churches left over. And so as a young, beginning my second year in college, I was pastor of a church. And the interesting thing was, the church in Gilberton, the whole town was owned by the Gilberton Coal company. All of the parishioners were related to the coal mine. They owned only the inside of their houses. The coal company owned all the land underneath their houses. And it was a strip mining area. The men were all dying in their 50s of black lung disease. And even though the people were very poor, they were very loving and caring and adopted a young preacher, taught me a lot. So those kinds of experience began to move me. I would say another defining experience, which I do describe in the book, is in February of 1968, I was invited by William Sloane Coffin, who was at that time the chaplain at Yale, later to become a minister at Riverside Church in New York. But Bill Coffin invited a group of people concerned about the Vietnam War to a meeting here in Washington at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. And I boarded a bus in northern New Jersey where I was at seminary and traveled to Washington for the first time. And as we got to the door of the church, the bus came to the curb. The radical religious right of that day was a guy by the name of Carl McIntire, and he was out of Cape May, New Jersey. He was the Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Jim Dobson of that day. And he had organized a protest carrying signs that said, "Kill a commie for Christ's sake," and trying to get us not to cross his picket line. And as coming out of a blue-collar union family, I broke my father's dictum, never to cross a picket line, and went inside the church, went up into the balcony of the church, and listened to speaker after speaker connect the issue of poverty and war. And in doing that, I began to recalibrate my own thinking. And the keynote speaker was a young guy, 39 years of age, by the name of Dr. Martin Luther King. SM (00:08:48): Oh, my God. BE (00:08:48): This is five weeks before he was assassinated. And he inspired me. I think of myself as a disciple of Dr. King, read his material. Less than 10 years later, by accident, I got elected to the United States Congress. And a couple years after that, I was one of 12 members of the Select Committee on Assassinations, looking into the death of Dr. King. These books over here are all the documents on the committee that was researching the death of Dr. King and John F. Kennedy. So I interviewed James Earl Ray, the assassin, as a young member of Congress. So Dr. King, by accident, has had quite an impact. This just gives you the smallest. It is only those persons that were serving- SM (00:09:57): Walter [inaudible]. Yes. Remember him, and met him briefly in California. Yep. BE (00:10:02): Yep. Chris Dodd. Bob Edgar. So this is a long answer to your short question. I think poverty and King vaccinated me to care about ending the poverty that kills, connecting poverty to war. And it was my father who connected me to the environment. He loved the trees and the land that he worked so hard on. So he paid $13,000 for a house in the suburbs without the ability to have an automobile or car. He worked 37 years at the same desk, testing relays for General Electric. Died at age 56, probably killed by the chemicals he was using in the workplace or the fact that he smoked a lot. He was offered a million dollars for his piece of land to build a shopping center, and he turned them down because the trees on his land were more important and the environment. And he introduced me to the early books in the (19)60s, The Greening of America. Some of the early conversations about the environment. When I decided to run for Congress, I became kind of the environmental candidate. And if the Republicans had run any candidate against me who cared about the environment, or cared about women's issues, I would have lost, because my district was the most Republican district in the nation and I am a Democratic congressman. And I got elected at age 31, as you know. SM (00:11:56): Yep. When you were in that room with, I did not know you were in the room with Dr. King six weeks before he was assassinated, I am- BE (00:12:05): We also marched in Arlington Cemetery that same day together. SM (00:12:11): Wow. He touched your life, obviously, with his words, and obviously, he was a great preacher in his delivery and everything, but I interviewed another person whose husband was in Harvard when Dr. King came, or excuse me, Michigan State, when Dr. King came to speak, and he had said that it was the greatest experience he had ever had in his life listening to him. But I do not know if he is putting me on, but he said there was something about the aura and the atmosphere that he said, "I did not think this guy was going to live long." And that was a commentary from his Michigan State speech when this person was in college there. I do not know if you felt that at all, because he was certainly different in his... he had a lot of enemies. BE (00:13:09): At the time, I was not smart enough to think those thoughts. I was all eyes and ears. Except for the assassination of President Kennedy, I was lulled into thinking we were a peaceful nation, but if you look back on the assassination of Kennedy, King, Bobby Kennedy, and the attempt on Wallace's life, and you go back and look in history in terms of all the attempts on presidents' lives, you realize we are a pretty violent nation. I think there is an author that wrote a book, Violence in America, [inaudible] Demery. It was a very popular book in the (19)70s and talked about Native Americans and all the things that we had done to people itself. It is interesting, we are about the same age, and I think I mentioned to your secretary that my grandfather was a Methodist minister, Peekskill, New York, from (19)54... excuse me, from 1936 to 1954, and he died in (19)56. And then I went to Methodist Church in Cortland, New York growing up as a kid, and Dr. Nason was our minister. And it is interesting you said about social messages. My mom used to tell me a story that we would go to church, I do not remember this, but we would go to church and I used to say to her, "I wish they'd cut all the singing out," because all I cared about was hearing his message. And this is a second-, third-, fourth-grade kid. There were messages that he gave. So you were right on about the social messages. One of the things, when one talks about the (19)50s and (19)60s, one rarely talks about the religious leaders that influenced the Boomers growing up this. So when I look at religion, not just politics, religion itself, I think of Billy Graham, Norman Vincent Peale, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, who were very religious, Bishop Sheen, who- SM (00:15:25): Happy trails to you. BE (00:15:25): But they were very religious too, and they had Christmas albums and they took in kids. Bishop Sheen was on TV then. And then, of course, Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel and Jesse Jackson, Reverend Schuller, Pat Roberson, these are people that I think influenced Boomers over... founding of the National Council of Churches was founded in 1950, was very much part of the Civil Rights Movement. Brown versus Board of Education. The National Council Churches had, I was General Secretary of the Council, but in 1957, had Dr. King as its keynote speaker. Had a lot of lay people, including there was a guy by the name of Jay Erwin Miller. He was a layperson, and in October, 1967, Esquire Magazine had a cover that says, "The man who ought to be the next President of the United States." He was head of Cummings Engine, which was a big industrial thing. He was a Republican. Also, he was chair of the board at the National Council of Churches. And he was one of the founders of Common Cause. He worked with John Gardner. There were three Republicans who were on the articles of incorporation. One was a guy by the name of Andrew [inaudible], who was head of Time Publishing, one was John Gardner and one was Jay Erwin Miller. SM (00:17:06): Yeah, I had Gardner [inaudible]. BE (00:17:06): You look at some of these pictures, Jay Erwin Miller is with Dr. King, in some of the signing of the Civil Rights Movement issues. And so there's a whole bunch of Republican, mainly, moderate Republican, Eisenhower Republicans, who began to speak up on civil rights, human rights, and people's rights, who were also people of faith. And I think it goes back to winning World War II. I am born in 1943, May 29th, Life or Look Magazine came out that week and had Rosie the Riveter on the cover, the woman who symbolized women working in factories to win the war. But the war is won, and the Congress passes the most important piece of legislation after the war, which was the GI Bill and- SM (00:18:22): (19)48. BE (00:18:28): -all of the blue-collar workers who went to war came back and became the white-collar workers of the (19)50s and (19)60s. Some of them became ministers, some of them became teachers, some of them became lawyers and doctors and other kinds of things. Sprawl started, people started to get wealthy from development of communities and suburbs expanded, people were moving out of the cities. Churches were being built, every few minutes a new church was being dedicated, and churches were packed. It was a sense of victory. We fought evil and we won. And every child will do better than their parents did. And their parents are doing better than their parents did. And the American dream is alive and well, and we had that sense. Brown versus Board of Education happens in (19)54. And some of the hostility of civil rights. And suddenly in the (19)60s, you have got not only the war in Vietnam, you have got the burning in the cities, you have got the tension around civil rights and human rights, you get the Commission on Poverty that comes out with a scathing report, that Johnson began the War on Poverty efforts. And I think the faith leaders had read the Bible thoughtfully enough to discover that God cares about poor people. I think some of the new religious leaders, the conservatives, have read the Bible and somehow did not find out that Jesus cared about poor people and misread all of those stories and somehow come out of the text believing God is a god of wealth, God is a god of prosperity. But the (19)50s and (19)60s, we were vaccinated by faith leaders who challenged government to respect people by race, regardless of creed or color and were willing, in a sense, to fight a civil war over it. And we did not go back to the battlefield with the South in terms of military war, but we did send in troops to make sure that schools were integrated and people who were part of our society became full partners. And Dr. King was kind of the disciple of that movement. SM (00:21:23): It leads into the area with I wanted to address, and that is these periods that Boomers have been alive. Keep in mind that those people born, say, between (19)37 and (19)45, I think are closer to the Boomer, the front-edge Boomers, that were born between (19)46 and (19)56 than those born between, Boomers, that are from (19)57 to say (19)64 because they were graduate students, they inspired, and were right by the side of many of the older Boomers. But when you look at the different periods in America since 1946, and we are talking 64 years here now, it was the first Boomers now coming into Social Security this year. You have already said something very important. When you look at church, and I can take the experience of my life, I love going to church, when every Sunday, all throughout the (19)50s, when in the (19)60s, then my dad moved and we were quite away from the church, but it was that period that I saw church attendants seemed to wane as we started to head into the (19)60s. And then something happened, like you mentioned, in the (19)70s, and I would like your thoughts on this. In the late (19)70s, the religious right seemed to come into power. Jerry Falwell, whether it be Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson. BE (00:22:57): Jim Bakker, Tammy Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart. What happened was that (19)50s and (19)60s were upward mobility, growing of the suburbs, challenge with racism, challenge with poverty, but a society that said, we have got to address these issues if we are going to be great. By the early (19)70s, parents were telling their kids, "Do not go into ministry, do not go into social service, get an education, go to college. Some of us got to college by the skin of our teeth, but you're smarter than we are, so get a degree so you can make money." And the prosperity gospel got caught in. And on the political side, you had the aftermath of Barry Goldwater's loss and the conservative political right. And then you had the emergence of religious conservatives who stayed out of politics mostly. Billy Graham stayed out mostly. And many of the evangelists were talking about personal salvation and not very interested in politics. But you get into the (19)70s, and alongside of the secular effort to make money, you had a whole bunch of what I call charlatan religious leaders who said, "Send us a dollar and we will pray for you. Put your hand on the radio set, and when we finish this prayer, write us a check for a dollar- SM (00:24:54): The Reverend Schuller? BE (00:24:57): -5 dollars, 10 dollars. And this is Jimmy Swaggart and Jimmy Bakker and those guys, the televangelists. They did not want the money as much as they wanted your name and address because they were smart enough to use computers and know that they could amass large amounts of wealth by putting those names and addresses on a computer and keeping track and talking to them by region and by area, and initially, putting a stamp on a newsletter and getting it out to folks, but then getting it into a computer, so it was even cheaper. SM (00:25:38): Like the DNC today. BE (00:25:39): Right. Well, I think in 1980, there was a civil marriage, probably started in (19)76, (19)77, (19)78, a civil marriage between these charlatan religious radical right and the political right that made Ronald Reagan the Christian president and Jimmy Carter an also-ran. Ronald Reagan would not go to church, but he was envisioned as being the guru. He was going to stop Roe versus Wade, which was an early (19)70s Supreme Court decision that all the conservatives hated. And the religious right and the political right out-hustled the left. The left took 50 minutes to answer a question. The left did not deep frame from the justice language. Whereas the religious right, the political right, were willing to sloganeer simple statements. And so the left gets out-hustled, and I think the religious right thought that if they had this civil marriage with the Republicans, that they would turn back Roe versus Wade. That they would be able to prosper in kind of not just the old-time religion, but focused on personal salvation. And the wealthy were blessed by God because they were wealthy, God must be blessing them. I think they forgot the passage that talks about how hard it is for a rich man to enter Heaven, where they said it is easier for a camel than go through the eye of a needle than for rich man to enter Heaven. And they saw Jesus in a tuxedo more than touching the hem of a prostitute, hem of the dress of a prostitute, or touching the leper or hugging a poor person. And so you have got this tension that I think has actually grown into the split in our country. We are divided three ways, radical Christian and political right on one side, moderate to progressive liberals on the other side, and a whole host of people that are in the middle. And the reason I wrote the book, Middle Church, which goes against... the reason I wrote that book was to go after Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and the religious right, but it is middle church, middle synagogue, middle mosque. And my argument in the book is that the religious left failed, and we failed because we would do point-counterpoint with the religious right, we forgot to evangelize the middle. And you have got a whole host of Americans in the middle who are too easily swayed by patriotism and false morality that many on the left have forgotten to use that patriotism and morality language. And that book could have been called Middle America, it is more of a secular political book than a churchy book, but it will give you some idea if you read it, of some of these thoughts. SM (00:29:50): But where would you place... we all know what the Beatles did. They went into, not organized religion, they went off to the Maharishi or whatever. It was fairly common that a lot of people were going off into Zen Buddhism. I interviewed Peter Coyote and he told me, the actor, that if it was not for Zen Buddhism, he would not be alive today. I mean, it's that important for him to relax. He's been doing it for 35 years. And so a lot of people became Zen Buddhist. A lot of people like the Beatles, and not just the Beatles, because they were well known, but other people, got into all these Maharishi, and they came to college campus in the late (19)60s. You had the Moonies that were everywhere. And there was this attitude, and correct me if I am wrong, that a lot of the Boomer kids and a lot of the young adults for some reason went against anything that were position of authority. They were against their political leaders, they were against their religious leaders, they were against politicians, the college administrators. So the inner spirituality became the thing in the late (19)60s, in the (19)70s. Your thoughts on this inner spirituality where you do not need to go to church, it's just that kind of- BE (00:31:14): I will answer that question, but let me challenge something you said. I would not use the phrase "a lot." I would use "some" because I think the majority did what their parents told them to do. Go to college, become something, get a profession. But the (19)60s and (19)70s are marked by a search, a search religiously, a search psychologically, a search for meaning, a search for life. And not only did folks search alternative religions, but they also searched alternative lifestyles, commune movement, and others. And you remember some of this came out of Woodstock, some of it came out of the anti-war movement, the draft was there, and people had to ask themselves, "Is the United States worth dying for? And if not, do I go to Canada? What do I think about 58,000 people being killed in Vietnam and hundreds of thousands being wounded? And what do I think, if I care about integration, about the fact that liberals were disappearing here and there, being killed and lynched and blacks were being attacked," and it was a big struggle for the identity of America. So there is not one issue, it was a small, important cluster. I remember when I got elected to Congress, some of my friends said, "Why would you do that? Why do not you stay on the outside of government and fight the corruption, fight the bad guys who are in government?" And those days, you know, had Watergate and you had a lot of lack of modeling of good behavior. And I think there was that tension in our society. My own personal view is that you need people inside the tent and people outside the tent, people inside government, people outside government. I have got five honorary doctorate degrees, but only four arrests for civil disobedience. If I have any regrets in my life, it is that I have not been arrested enough. SM (00:34:13): Dr. King would be proud of you because Dr. King used to always say that, "If you are not willing to go to jail for your beliefs, what are you out there for?" BE (00:34:20): Right. SM (00:34:21): Not doing violent things, but. BE (00:34:23): My friend Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul, and Mary sings a song for me once in a while about, have you been to jail for justice? Good words in that song. SM (00:34:33): You are right. Right. One of the things, you well know that when President Kennedy, well, when he was running for president, the issue with the Catholic Church and that religion would influence his decisions. Obviously, that did not happen, but what did that say about the America of 1960, about fearful that the Pope was going to run the United States government, and. The Pope was going to run the United States government, and John Kennedy obviously saw the concern, but he said that is not going to happen with him. BE (00:35:11): Yeah. Well, like John Kennedy, I believe in the separation of church and state but not the separation of people of faith and institutions of government. You want your elected officials to have an active faith statement, but you need to always remember that you are not serving in public office a particular denomination or religious tradition. Henry Waxman, who is Jewish, was elected with me in 1974. I want him to be a faithful member of the Jewish community, but he would never intend to have the Jewish community make the United States a Jewish nation. I think it is true of Muslims who might serve in Congress. I want them to be faithful. I want them to read the Koran, but I do not want to have Sharia law be the law of the land. For conservative Protestants, I want them to be themselves. I do not have any animosity to people who are in the religious right unless that religious right once elected thinks that it can make this a Christian nation. Our founding fathers were very smart to help all of us understand this is a nation that believes in religious pluralism, and we want people of faith and people of no faith to use morals and values that grow out of their tradition, but not to ever allow any individual faith tradition to dominate. In our history, we used to hang people who were Roman Catholics, and we used to torture people who were a different kind of Protestant than we had. I think the founding fathers and mothers said, "Wait, that is not going to make us a very healthy nation, so let us respect everybody's religious tradition." SM (00:37:29): What is interesting is that we all know the founding of this country, and the people that come here are made up of people who left their homelands because of religious persecution in many cases. We all know that America is a xenophobic nation that is afraid of people who are different. It has been the whole history. I mean, the Irish. I was even educating my dad more about some of the things that happened between England and Ireland and the Potato Famine and so forth and the treatments. What amazes me today, I am very concerned about that, and I like your thoughts. Some of the attacks on President Obama, and some people say his close links with the Muslim faith. Some people say he is a Muslim. He says he is a Christian. They will not listen to his word. They have their personal opinions. It shoots me back to what was happening in 1960 about the fear of the Pope. Well, now there is a fear that Islam will take over. I know they use the issue of terrorism, but I see this continuing oftentimes a trend where- BE (00:38:38): Just remember that the kid that blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City was a Roman Catholic, raised in the United States. And if there are terrorists in 60 countries, we do not stop terrorism by bombing capitals. Part of our problem in this country is racism. Part of our problem is fear of the other, and part of our problem is we carry around in our head World War images of what war is about. I think some of the leaders that Obama has, many of the leaders that Bush had were focused on World War II images of the world, and we got to change that view. We need an international police effort on terrorism, but we ought to cut in half our military expenditures. I laugh when I read the newspapers with a tear in my eye when I think about all of the conservatives who say, "We have got to balance the budget, but you cannot cut defense. We have got to balance the budget, but we are going to go to war in Afghanistan and in Iraq without paying for it, without raising taxes." And we got these big deficits. "Oh, those deficits are caused by overspending on healthcare and education and Social Security." That is hogwash. We are in this predicament because we, after 9/11 were manipulated by Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush on the issue of fear. We went after a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11 called Iraq. We went after it even though the inspectors were there. There was no hint that they actually had nuclear weapons, or nuclear capability. On the one hand, the political right and the religious right want more expenditures on defense, more expenditures for war, but somehow that does not impact on their thinking on deficits. SM (00:40:53): Do you see the link here? You're talking about the fear. Now. The fear in the (19)50s was the fear of the Cold War, the boomer generation when they were younger. The fear of the Cold War, of the potential- BE (00:41:11): The Cold War fear started this before the Boomers were elected. The fear of the Cold War grew out of separation of Germany right after World War II. The building of... Russia was a world-class military but a third-class country without the ability to really have an economy that worked. There were all these myths about the former Soviet Union, and I think people who lived through World War II saw it in terms of the exchange of nuclear weapons. I think by the time the boomers got here, and they were very small and children at the time, that fear not only got intensified with the East West struggles, but it also pointed out that even when you tore down the Berlin Wall, you had to find another enemy to be fearful of. So, I think Rumsfeld and Cheney were able to use 9/11 as a way of tapping into the fear that people have. My complaint about Americans is we are dumb. We do not learn from history. SM (00:42:34): We do not read history. BE (00:42:35): We do not read history. And we do not realize that we have got to send our young people to get an international education and not just a domestic education. SM (00:42:47): Global? Yeah. That is been the tough. We have to prepare students for the global world. I remember Henry Cisneros at a conference, way back in the early (19)90s. He was speaking from a Mayor I think of San Antonio. This beautiful college administrator stood up and said, "Well, what is America be going to be like if it is the majority are minorities?" It was shocking to hear it from her, but she was asking a question. I will never forget what he said. He said, "You should not be fearing the future. You should be preparing for the future, because you are going to have bosses who are Latino. You are going to have bosses who are Asian-American, from India, you name it. So we have to prepare students for the world they are going to face because it is a global world." You raised some good points. It is interesting also that McCarthyism, which was trying to label people who spoke up or were politically active as Communists. I see sometimes today for people who may support Muslims in America, they are sometimes paying a price, too. We did a conference, Islam in America, at Westchester University. It was my last coup before we left. We packed the place the entire day, and we brought in the spiritual leader from Detroit who had written a book, and we brought in two authors from New York and we did a tremendous program. It was nine straight programs. We had 400 for every session, and we got criticized for it. In fact, some of our professors went out to speak at other universities and they had people in the audience trying to, "Do you remember when you were at that conference?" That kind of stuff. BE (00:44:46): It is the same thing that is happening to Obama by calling him a Socialist and some of the Tea Party folks making him a Fascist. They do not know what a Fascist is. My own concern is that he is not socialist enough. SM (00:45:05): One of the things too, that I think it is important, when you think of the (19)60s and the (19)70s, and you think of the Boomer generation, and particularly the activists of that period who were anti-war, they were involved in all the movements. Many of them were the New Left, so they attacked liberals as well as conservatives because LBJ was a liberal, and he was running the war. Nixon, even though he was conservative- BE (00:45:33): They defeated Humphrey because Humphrey was not liberal enough. SM (00:45:37): Right. How we doing time wise? BE (00:45:41): I have got about 15 minutes and then I have got to close up. Sorry. I talk too much. SM (00:45:46): That is okay. When did the (19)60s begin, in your opinion, and when did it end? BE (00:45:56): It is a silly question. SM (00:45:56): It is a silly question? BE (00:45:56): I am pulling your leg. SM (00:45:56): Okay. BE (00:46:03): It began 1960. It ended 1969. I think the (19)60s, this is going to sound strange to you, but since you are talking about the boomers, I do not think the (19)60s had as much impact on the boomer generation than the 1970s had on them. I think the 1960s had more of an impact on my generation, those of use that were born in the late (19)30s and early (19)40s and came to adulthood in the (19)60s. And those of us... I was... In 1961, entered college (19)65, graduated from college, (19)68, graduated from graduate school June of (19)68, was full-time minister in city of Philadelphia, riding with the Philadelphia police clergy unit. I think that, starting with the assassination of President Kennedy, where we all were taught about guns in America and war and violence, plus the civil rights tension and the dogs and the fire hoses and that kind of thing, I think that had much more of a psychological impact on my generation. I think that the boomers coming were teenagers in the (19)60s, some of them. Early boomers. Some were tainted by the drug culture and LSD and that kind of thing. But most of them who got into adulthood in (19)71, (19)72, (19)73, where they were tainted, they were tainted by Watergate. They were tainted by prosperity gospel. They were tainted by some of the televangelist movements. They were tainted by money being God as opposed to God being God. And I think it led to the resurgence. They brought us Ronald Reagan, they brought us George Bush. They modified a little bit with Bill Clinton, but I think of President George Bush Jr. was not as impacted by my generation as he was by the... SM (00:49:03): 1960s. BE (00:49:05): Well, more of the 1970s. I think the late (19)60s, (19)70s part of that. So to answer your question, for me the 1960s have not ended. SM (00:49:21): You are not the only person who said that. BE (00:49:24): Okay. But it is diminishing in that it is smaller and smaller group of us who were impacted by the (19)60s. And I think the next generation is going to be modified by resource depletion. Dr. Jonas Salk spoke at a group of us in Congress before he died. He invented the polio vaccine. And he had a great lecture about what he called epoch A and epoch B. Epoch A for him was those that came after World War II. They are going to raise their kids, they are going to have more money, everything is going to get better. And epoch A was symbolized by consumption, quantity of life, competition. And he said, we need to evolve into epoch B, where we replace competition with cooperation, quantity of life, with quality of life, where the whole limited lifestyle was his view of the future compared to the past. Someone asked him, "Dr. Salk, how do you get from Epoch A to epoch B?" And he said, "Well, in every change in human history, there have been intellectual mutants." And he said, "What we need are teachers and ministers and prophetic leaders who help to bridge the old and the new view." And I think that is at the heart of our current political trauma. We have got people who are lamenting the demise of epoch A, and resisting moving to more stewardship of fragile resources, and are denying things like global warming, denying that we are running out of fossil fuel oil denying that we are running out of natural resources. So I think there is, kind of put it this way, I think there is a new civil war going on that is going on without guns and weapons, but it is going on for the heart and soul of Americans. And in a sense, the heart and soul of the world. And I think those of us who are progressive and liberal need to figure out how we do a better job of being the intellectual mutants that we need for this time. SM (00:52:22): The generation gap was certainly well documented. If you remember, there was a Life magazine cover with a young man with the glasses on, and he had the father pointing a finger at him, and the son was pointing a finger back. And in 1980, because you are a very... You care about Vietnam vets, that is where I first met you for the first time when you did a symposium on Agent Orange in Philadelphia. And this book was called The Lost Generation. And it was Senator Webb, Phil Caputo... BE (00:53:07): Ford Foundation found out that I had been a leader of working on Agent Orange back in the late (19)70s and early (19)80s, and forcing our government to care for our veterans that they sent me to gather a religious allegation and go to Vietnam and see the impact 35 years after the war on the children and grandchildren of the Vietnamese who are being exposed to Asian Orange. SM (00:53:35): Can I have a copy of this? BE (00:53:36): That is yours. SM (00:53:37): Because that is how I first met you. You probably do not remember, this is even before you came to Western. You were at a symposium, I think it was down near Temple. It was full of Vietnam vets, and you were talking about Agent Orange. And I was very impressed, and I know I am a friend of Harry Gafney. I do not know if you know Harry. And Dan Fraley and Steve Silver and that whole group, Dwight Edwards. And that is how... That was the beginning of I getting to know a lot of the Vietnam vets. And what I am trying to get at you here... BE (00:54:07): Do you need more than one copy? SM (00:54:12): If I could have a couple of these, I had appreciated it. I think I am going to turn this... It was a book that had a symposium documented, and the symposium was with Phil Caputo, Jim Webb, I think it was Bobby Mueller and James Fallows. And one other person, it was unbelievable. BE (00:54:42): Bobby Mueller is working with us on this. SM (00:54:45): Well, Bobby was at my retirement. I asked Bobby to come. He is one of the six people that was at my retirement. And what came up in this program is that I think they were talking about the generation gap and Jim Webb made a comment. The comment was, the generation gap is not between parents. Well, it is between parents and sons and daughters, but the real generation campus is within the generation between those who went to Vietnam and those who did not. And Bobby will remember this. It was a great interaction. And it was documented in the Wounded Generation book. Your thoughts on that commentary, whether, and this gets into my real big question here is, as a nation, I ask a question oftentimes, have we healed from the tremendous divisions that took place in the (19)60s and (19)70s between those who supported the war and against, between those who are black and white and all the other issues? And I took students to Washington to meet Senator Musky in 1995, and we asked this question to him, and I will give you his response in a minute. And I know Senator Nelson said it affected the body politic. But people do not want walk around Washington saying, I did not heal from the Vietnam War. Your thoughts on whether we as a nation have a problem with healing within this generation that grew after World War II, particularly those who served in Vietnam, 3 million plus, and those who may have been the anti-war people. BE (00:56:25): Well, before I answer your question, let me just say, I was the first anti-war activist on the Veterans Affairs Committee. And had I not been put on the Veterans Affairs Committee, I would have lost my elections. And at first, I did not want to be on the Veterans Affairs Committee, but I learned that even though you oppose the war, you can love the warrior. And even though you oppose the war, you can work on things like readjustment counseling centers, Agent Orange, post-traumatic stress disorder, et cetera. I would go to your question about the healing. I would only modify the comment about the generation gap being between those who went to war and those who did not. I think it is more complicated than that. I think it is between those who went to war and those who did not. Those who supported integration and those who did not. Those who understood the need for African Americans to be part of the quality of life in America and have resources. Expanded to those who believe that you cannot build walls to keep out Mexicans or people crossing your border, because the world has gotten complicated. I think there is a division between those who live by the God of money and those that live by the commitment to social justice and caring for people. So it is too simplistic to say it is just as though every... Because every veteran who served in Vietnam was not a hero. SM (00:58:24): So you know that from me, Eli, right? BE (00:58:27): Yeah. Many were. But there were good people and bad people in the war, and there were good people and bad people in the anti-war movement. And as human beings, what we have done to each other has been to pour salt on the wounds of race, the wounds of violence. And I think there is a division, a generation gap between those who think you can solve the world's problems by military action, and those who think you need to solve the problems with something like three cups of tea. The book that gentleman wrote is my thinking about how we should have handled Afghanistan. We are handling it with weapons and war, and every time we inadvertently kill a civilian, we have made a family of terrorists. And that is where the gap is. And I think you see it every day on nightly news. The gap is between Fox News and MSNBC. The gap is between Colbert and Rush Limbaugh. Glenn Beck is the hero of the anti-movement. And I would say both the left and the right, but mostly the right love and thrive on not allowing the nation to heal. And you see it internally in the Senate today where McConnell says, we are going to be the... We are going to be no until we can defeat Obama. And we do not want Obama to succeed. And one of the reasons I am president of Common Cause is I think John Gardner was right, that everybody had special interest in Washington except the average, ordinary people. And hostility of the generation gap is an internal gap between those who, once elected, serve the public interest as opposed to the special interest. And money is a corrosive influence in our whole system. So it is too simplistic to say it is those who went to war and those who did not, because those of us who did not go into the war, many of us worked very hard to provide the warrior healing through Regis counseling centers, the new GI Bill for the all-volunteer military, and to make sure that whether you are for or against a war, you are always for healing the soldier who goes to war. Some of us work to try to stop war. SM (01:01:42): Do you believe that the people who were the anti-war people, many of them are college students and well-known anti-war people, that they consider themselves veterans of the war too? BE (01:01:59): They are. We just gave an award, a lifetime Achievement Award to Daniel Ellsberg. SM (01:02:06): I am interviewing him. I am interviewing him a week from Monday. BE (01:02:10): He just received the John Gardner Lifetime Achievement Award in California. And he was introduced by Pete McCloskey, a marine. Former congressman. Former Democrat now... Former Republican now Democrat. But Pete McCloskey introduced him. The three of us were on the same stage together. There is two former congressmen and Daniel Ellsberg. I think of Dr. King as a hero. I think of William Sloane Coffin as a hero. I think of Kate McCloskey as a hero. I think of Daniel Ellsberg as a hero. SM (01:02:52): Daniel and Philip. BE (01:02:53): And Philip. I think of... SM (01:02:57): Malcolm Boyd. BE (01:02:58): Malcolm Boyd was a hero. Yeah. You do not have to go to war to be a hero. I think that people have given their lives for justice, peace, they are heroes too. My picture, and I have got to leave... My picture of a real hero, is the Chinese guy with two shopping bags standing in front of the tank. SM (01:03:28): We do not know whatever happened to him. BE (01:03:30): He is my hero. SM (01:03:38): Wow. BE (01:03:38): I guess I respect those who are willing to stand in front of the tanks. SM (01:03:42): Do you have any final thoughts on the boomer generation itself with respect to... A lot of the boomers when they were young, felt that they were... Last question. They were going to be the change agents for the betterment of society, that they were going to hopefully end war, bring peace, end racism, sexism, really kind of cure everything. Kind of be the panacea for a lot of the issues that were facing us in the (19)60s and the (19)70s. Do you feel that because of the fact that we still have a war and that we still have a lot of the, we still have racism, although we have come a long way, we still, as David Garrow said to me, the historian, I said, the accomplishments for gay and lesbian Americans has been unbelievable in terms of one of the results of the (19)60s. And of course, you got the environmental movement of Gaylord Nelson. BE (01:04:42): Let me answer your question because I got to go. I think that the every generation makes its contribution. When I grew up, everybody I knew smoked. No one smokes anymore. When I grew up, women were making 30 cents on the dollar that men were making. That gap is closing, and there are more rights and privileges according to women. When I grew up, there was segregation. There is still separation of the races, but much more tolerance, much more sharing, much more riding in the same bus together, in all the seats, any seat being used. So in terms of racism, there have been good movements. Environmental movement has been good. Much more quality of life issues have been improved over time. So there is good things. And one other good thing we have not talked about, which I want to think about in your book, I think the Boomer generation is going to teach us how to retire better than previous generations. They are going to want exercise rooms and theater and all of the amenities to be close to retirement. But hopefully they will also teach us that there is life after retirement. That 65 to 95-year-old need a job. They may not need a... SM (01:06:22): I am going back to work in a year. BE (01:06:24): They may not need as much of a salary, but they will need a stipend and benefits. We need a whole Peace Corps for senior adults. We need to find out how the 65 to 95-year-old can make a contribution to our society. So there is lots of positives. I think the negative is that there has been an increase in greed. Hold on second. See what happens when you talk about greed, whole thing goes up. SM (01:06:50): Let me just turn this over here. This is the slow one. There we go. BE (01:07:08): I think there has been an increase in greed, an increase in selfishness and cause of the religious right's personal salvation push, There is too much everyone for themselves. And I think one of the negative legacies that this generation is leaving us, and part of my generation is responsible for it too, is that nobody wants to pay taxes. And if you think about it, all the states are now moving to casinos to fund their schools and their elderly programs because nobody wants to pay taxes, even though we pay less in taxes than we did 30 years ago as a percentage of our income. And I think that is a very damaging legacy to leave. The other damaging legacy that has been left by those who are about to retire is that too many politicians have been caught with their fingers in the cookie jar. And too few young people see public service as an honorable profession. And my tears this week over Charlie Rangle was more about how many young blacks will avoid going into public service because they saw an 80-year-old black politician tarnished by his own lifestyle. And much of Charlie Rangel's problem was not corruption, it was sloppiness and arrogance and all of those kinds of things. SM (01:08:48): And how about the Vietnam veteran Cunningham, who was revered for his Vietnam service, now he is in jail. BE (01:08:54): Well, he took almost $5 million from military folk. So the handful of boomers who modeled bad behavior impacted more than a handful of others and other generations to have soiled views of the future. I have got to go. SM (01:09:23): Let me take two more pictures and then... I am going to take one definitely with only the backdrop. So this one is the one you are going to give to your wife. So if you stand right in front of it, and I will make sure the only thing I have in the back. Okay. Right there. So the only thing I am going to have in the backdrop is going to be that. BE (01:09:42): I think you should turn it on. SM (01:09:42): Yeah. And maybe one more. BE (01:09:42): That camera still have film in it? SM (01:09:53): Yes, it does. BE (01:09:54): Oh man, you are old fashioned. SM (01:09:56): Yep. Well, I have a digital, but this camera is good. There you go. Very good. Do you think when Janrus wrote his book... SM (01:10:03): Very good. Do you think when Jan Scruggs wrote his book, To Heal a Nation, that the wall has done some sort of a job in healing the nation? He not only talked about healing Vietnam vets and their families, but he talked about the nation itself. BE (01:10:17): It has helped, but remember Ronald Reagan said, "Tear down the wall." Maybe we need to tear down walls, but we need memorials. So I think that more as a memorial. Memorials are healing. SM (01:10:36): Here, if you can sign that to me, and I am glad you are in charge. I have John Edgar... Oh, not John Edgar, John Gardner's books. I have. I think I have all of them. Remember I read, No Easy Victories and then I had his book that I remember. I kind of encourage students to read, which is his book- BE (01:10:54): What do you go by in terms- SM (01:10:56): Stephen. BE (01:10:57): Stephen? SM (01:10:57): Yep. BE (01:10:57): P-H? SM (01:11:12): Yep. P-H-E-N. The interview itself includes questions that have been asked to all people, but there are also some specific questions and that have been geared toward your life as well. BE (01:11:21): Okay. SM (01:11:22): How did you become who you are? Could you describe your upbringing, your high school and college years, and maybe some of the role models and or historic figures you read about that inspired you? BE (01:11:35): Well, I am glad I gave you a copy of my book so you can find out all the details because the book is more of a biography of how I have done what I have done. As you know, I have been a United Methodist minister, I have been a congressman, I have been a faculty member at Swarthmore College. I ran the finance area for Senator Paul Simon of Illinois when he ran for president. I was head of the Committee for National Security under Paul Warnke who negotiated the SALT II agreement. I spent 10 years as president of a graduate school. I spent seven and a half years as head of the National Council of Churches, and now I have been three years as president of Common Cause. All of my vocational life in all those different professions have centered around my mantra, which I have kind of rephrased in the last couple of years. But it is to address fear, fundamentalism, and Fox News with a commitment to peace, poverty, and planet Earth. My wife of 46 years, who I have known for 52 years will tell you I only have one speech and a thousand illustrations focused on ending the poverty that kills healing the earth and working on peace and non-violence issues. Now you asked the question, how did I get started? I grew up in a blue collar family in a white collar community. I grew up in suburban Philadelphia while we were in a lower economic bracket than our neighbors and friends. My father never owned an automobile, never drove a car. I taught my mother how to drive at age, when she was 48 years old. We did everything on buses and trolleys between Philadelphia, Upper Darby, Chester, media, communities around Philadelphia. Yeah, we were, my brother and I, my older brother were sent to church so that my mother and father could sleep in on Sunday mornings. And I went to Sunday school and church services in the Methodist Church. And in those days, which was in the 1950s, there were an awful lot of progressive ministers who were linking gospel messages to civil rights, human rights, people's rights. When I became 15, 16, I went to a church camp and a couple ministers that I discovered, some ministers that taught me that ministers do not have to be boring, that they can be committed to social justice. I also took a tour of some poverty areas in Philadelphia and was surprised by my reaction to seeing poor people. In June of 1968, the Methodist Church sent me to 11 countries in Europe, not (19)68. In 1961, they sent me to 11 countries, including Italy, Germany, Austria, France. But I also got in behind the Iron Curtain in Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1961. And one of the most powerful experiences was in an orphanage that we visited in Naples, Italy. You had to travel by bus through a terrible slum, seeing the worst poverty you could see. And the bus went through a large gated building, and inside were a couple of hundred children who were orphans, all clean, all dressed, all cared for by faith related folks, all singing and joyful. And so the contrast between the abject poverty on the outside of the building and the care that was given on the inside had an impact on me. I had decided pretty early on to be a minister and thought that my whole life was going to be in the ministry. I wanted to be an urban minister. And in fact, that is the direction I went. A couple other incidents shaped my thinking. One was at age 19, I became pastor of my own church called the Gilbert and United Methodist Church in Gilbert and Pennsylvania. This is June of 1962. I am all of 19 had never been to a funeral, had never... I was given permission to do communion and baptisms and weddings, and most of it was to pay my way through college. After they had given churches to ordained elders in the Methodist Church and retired ministers and seminary students, they had churches left over. And so as a young, beginning my second year in college, I was pastor of a church. And the interesting thing was the church in Gilbert, the whole town was owned by the Gilbert and Coal company. All of the parishioners were related to the coal mine. They owned only the inside of their houses. The coal company owned all the land underneath their houses, and it was a strip mining area. The men were all dying in their (19)50s of black lung disease. And even though the people were very poor, they were very loving and caring and adopted a young preacher, taught me a lot. So those kinds of experience began to move me. I would say another defining experience, which I do describe in the book, is in February of 1968, I was invited by William Sloan Coffin, who was at that time the chaplain at Yale, later to become a minister at Riverside Church in New York. But Bill Coffin invited a group of people concerned about the Vietnam War to a meeting here in Washington at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. And I boarded a bus in northern New Jersey where I was at seminary and traveled to Washington for the first time. And as we got to the door of the church, the bus came to the curb. The radical religious rite of that day was a guy by the name of Carl McIntire, and he was out of Cape May, New Jersey. He was the Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Jim Dobson of that day. And he had organized a protest carrying signs that said, kill a commie for Christ's sake, and trying to get us not to cross his picket line. And as coming out of a blue-collar union family, I broke my father's dictum, never to cross a picket line and went inside the church, went up into the balcony of the church and listened to speaker after speaker, connect these with poverty and war. And in doing that, I began to recalibrate my own thinking. And the keynote speaker was a young guy, 39 years of age by the name of Dr. Martin Luther King. SM (01:19:22): Oh my God. BE (01:19:22): This is five weeks before he was assassinated. And he inspired me. I think of myself as a disciple of Dr. King, read his material. Less than 10 years later by accident, I got elected to the United States Congress. And a couple of years after that, I was one of 12 members of the Select Committee on assassinations looking into the death of Dr. King. These books over here are all the documents on the committee that was researching the death of Dr. King and John F. Kennedy. So I interviewed James Earl Ray the assassin as a young member of Congress. So... SM (01:20:13): Wow. BE (01:20:14): Dr. King by accident has had quite an impact. Let us just give you the smallest, it is only those persons that we are serving- SM (01:20:27): Walter Cronkite. BE (01:20:28): Yes. Remember him and Sam briefly in California. SM (01:20:31): Yep. Yep. Chris Dodd. BE (01:20:34): Yep. SM (01:20:37): Wow. BE (01:20:39): So this is a long answer to your short question. I think poverty and King vaccinated me to care about ending the poverty that kills, connecting poverty to war. And it was my father who connected me to the environment. He loved the trees and the land that he worked so hard on. Someone... He paid $13,000 for a house in the suburbs without the ability to have an automobile or a car. He worked 37 years at the same desk testing relays for General Electric, died at age 56 with probably killed by the chemicals he was using in the workplace or the fact that he smoked a lot. He was offered million dollars for his piece of land to build a shopping center. And he turned them down because the trees on his land, the environment were important and environment and introduced me to the early books in the (19)60s, The Greening of America. SM (01:21:48): Oh yeah. BE (01:21:49): Some of the early conversations about the environment. When I decided to run for Congress, I became kind of the environmental candidate. If the Republicans had run any candidate against me who cared about the environment or cared about women's issues, I would have lost because my district was the most Republican district in the nation. I had a Democratic congressman. SM (01:22:16): Yep. BE (01:22:17): And I got elected at age 31 as you know. SM (01:22:19): Yep. When you were in that room with, I did not know you were in the room with Dr. King six weeks before he was assassinated, I am- BE (01:22:28): We also marched in Arlington Cemetery that same day together. SM (01:22:31): Wow. Did... He touched your life obviously with his words and obvious he was a great preacher and his delivery and everything. But I interviewed another person whose husband was in Harvard when Dr. King came, or excuse me, Michigan State, when Dr. King came to speak. And he had said that it was the greatest experience he had ever had in his life listening to him. But I do not know if he is putting me on, but he said there was something about the aura and the atmosphere that he said, I did not think this guy was going to live long. And that was a commentary that from his Michigan State speech, when this person was at college there, I do not know if you felt bad at all that because he was certainly different and he had a lot of enemies. BE (01:23:27): At the time. I was not smart enough to think those thoughts. I was all eyes and ears except for the assassination of President Kennedy. I was lulled into thinking we were a peaceful nation. But if you look back on the assassination of Kennedy, King, Bobby Kennedy, and the attempt on Lawless' life, and you go back and look in history in terms of all the attempts on president's lives, you realize we're a pretty violent nation. SM (01:24:06): I think there is an author that wrote a book, Violence in America. Olga Demery was a very popular book in the (19)70s and talked about Native Americans and all the things that we had done to people in the south, you... It is interesting, we are about the same age. And I think I mentioned to your secretary that my grandfather was a Methodist minister Peekskill, New York from 54, excuse me, from 1936 to 1954. And he died in 56. And then I had, we went to Methodist Church in Courtland, New York growing up as a kid. And Dr. Nathan was our minister. And it is interesting you said about social messages. My mom used to tell me a story that we would go to church, I do not remember this, but we would go to church and I used to say to her, I wish they would cut out the singing out. Cause all I cared about was hearing his message. And this is like a second, third, fourth grade kid. There were messages that he gave. So you were right on about the social messages. One of the things when... The one talks about the (19)50s and (19)60s, one rarely talks about the religious leaders that influenced the boomers growing up. So when I look at religion, not just politics, religion itself, I think of Billy Graham, Norman Vincent Peale, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, who were very religious, Bishop Sheen that- BE (01:25:33): Happy trails to you... SM (01:25:33): But they were very religious too. And they had Christmas albums and they took in kids. Bishop Sheen was on TV then. And then as we, and of course Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel and Jesse Jackson, Reverend Schuh and Pat Robertson, these are people that I think influenced Boomers over the- BE (01:25:49): Founding of the National Council of Churches was founded in 1950, was very much a part of the Civil Rights Movement. Brown versus Board of Education, the National Council of Churches had, I was General Secretary of that Council, but at 1957, had Dr. King as its keynote speaker, had a lot of late people, including a guy by the name of J. Irwin Miller. He was a late person. And in October 1967, Esquire Magazine had a cover. It says, 'The man who ought to be the next President of the United States.' SM (01:26:28): Wow. BE (01:26:29): He was head of Cummins Engine in, which was a big industrial thing. He was a Republican. He was also chair of the board at the National Council of Churches. And he was one of the founders of Common Cause. He worked with John Gardner. SM (01:26:49): John Gardner. Yeah. BE (01:26:50): There were three Republicans who were on the articles of incorporation. One was a guy by the name of Andrew High School who was head of Time publishing. One was John Gardner and one was J. Irwin Miller. And you... I had Gardner look at some of these pictures. J. Irwin Miller is with Dr. King in some of the signing of the Civil Rights Movement issues. And so there's a whole bunch of Republican, mainly madder Republicans, Eisenhower Republicans who began to speak up on civil rights, human rights, and people's rights who were also people of faith. And I think it goes back to winning World War II. You get, I am born in 1943, May 29th Life or Look Magazine came out that week and had Rosie the Riveter on the cover, woman who symbolized women working in factories to win the war. But the war is won and the Congress passes the most important piece of legislation. After the war, which was the GI Bill- SM (01:28:20): (19)48. BE (01:28:25): All of the blue-collar workers who went to war came back and became the white-collar workers of the (19)50s and (19)60s. Some of them became ministers, some of them became teachers, some of them became lawyers and doctors and other kinds of things. Sprawl started, people started to get wealthy from development of communities and suburbs expanded and people were moving out of the cities. Churches were being built. Every few minutes a new church was being dedicated and churches were packed. The sense of victory, we fought evil and we won. And every child will do better than their parents did. And their parents are doing better than their parents did. And the American dream is alive and well and had that sense. Brown versus Board of education happens in (19)54 and some of the hostility of civil rights. And suddenly in the (19)60s, you have got not only the war in Vietnam, you have got the burning of the cities, you have got the tension around civil rights and human rights. You have got the Commission on Poverty that comes out with a scathing report on the, that Johnson began the war on poverty efforts. And I think the faith leaders had read the Bible, thoughtfully enough to discover that God cares about poor people. I think some of the new religious leaders, the conservatives read the Bible and somehow did not find out that Jesus cared about poor people and misread all of those stories and somehow come out of the text believing God is the God of wealth. God is the God of prosperity. But the (19)50s and (19)60s, we were vaccinated by faith leaders who challenged government to respect people by race regardless of creed or color. And were willing in a sense, to fight a civil war over it. And then we did not go back to the battlefield with the South in terms of military war, but we did send in troops to make sure that schools were integrated and people who were part of our society became full partners. And Dr. King was kind of the disciple of that movement. SM (01:31:07): It leads into the area where the ones you address, and that is these periods of boomers have been alive. Keep in mind that those people born, say between (19)37 and (19)45, I think are closer to the boomer, the front edge boomers that were born between (19)46 and (19)56. Then those born between boomers that are from (19)57 to say (19)64 because they were graduate students, they inspired and were right by the side of many of the older boomers. But when you look at the different periods in America since 1946, and we are talking 64 years here now in the First Boomers now coming into Social Security this year, you talk very, you have already said something very important when you look at church, I can take the experience of my life. I love going to church when every Sunday, all throughout the (19)50s, when in the (19)60s, then my dad moved and we were quite away from the church. But it was that period that I saw church attendants seemed to wane as we started to head into the (19)60s. And then something happened, like you mentioned in the (19)70s, and I like your thoughts on this. In the late (19)70s, the religious rights seemed to come into power. Jerry Falwell, whether it be Oral Roberts, they were very Pat Robertson. BE (01:32:36): Jim Bakker, Tammy Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart. What happened was that (19)50s and (19)60s were upward mobility, growing of the suburbs, challenged with racism, challenged with poverty. But a society that said, we have got to address these issues if we're going to be great. By the early (19)70s, parents were telling their kid, do not go into ministry, do not go into social service, get an education, go to college. Some of us got to college by the skin of our teeth, but you're smarter than we are. So get a degree so you can make money. And the prosperity gospel got caught in. And on the political side, you had the aftermath of Barry Goldwater's loss and the conservative political, and then you had the emergence of religious conservatives who stayed out of politics mostly. And Billy Graham stayed out mostly. And many of the evangelists were talking about personal salvation and not very interested in politics. But you get into the (19)70s and alongside of the secular effort to make money, you had a whole bunch of what I call charlatan religious leaders who said, send us a dollar and we will pray for you. Put your hand on the radio set. And when we finish this prayer, write us a check for $1, $5- SM (01:34:25): Reverend Schuller or- BE (01:34:28): $10. And this is Jimmy and Swaggart and Jimmy Bakker and those guys, the televangelists, they did not want the money as much as they wanted your name and address because they were smart enough to use computers and know that they could amass large amounts of wealth by putting those names and addresses on a computer and keeping track and talking to them by region and by area. And initially putting a stamp on it, on a newsletter and getting it out to folks, but then getting it into a computer. So it was even cheaper. SM (01:35:06): It is like the DNC today, right? BE (01:35:08): Well, I think in 1980, there was a civil marriage between, probably started in (19)60, in (19)76, (19)77, (19)78, a civil marriage between these charlatans religious radical and the political right that made Ronald Reagan, the Christian president and Jimmy Carter and also ran Ronald Reagan would not go to church. But yeah, he was envisioned as being the guru. He was going to stop Roe versus Wade, which was an early (19)70s Supreme Court decision is all the conservative state and the religious right and the political right out-hustled the left. The left took 50 minutes to answer a question. The left did not deep frame some of the justice language. Whereas the religious right, the political right were willing to sloganeer simple savers, and so the left gets out hustled. And I think the religious right thought that if they had this civil marriage with the Republicans, that they would turn back Roe versus Wade. That they would be able to prosper in kind of not just the old time religion, but focused on personal salvation. And the wealthy were blessed by God because they were wealthy. God must be blessing them. I think they forgot the passage that talks about how hard it is for a rich man to enter heaven, where they said, it is easier for a camel than go through the eye of a needle and for a rich man to enter heaven. And they saw Jesus in a tuxedo more than touching the hem of a prostitute, hem of the dress of a prostitute or touching the leper or hugging a poor person. And so you have got this tension that I think has actually grown into the split in our country. We are divided three ways, a radical Christian and political right on one side, moderate to progressive liberals on the other side, and a whole host of people that are in the middle. And the reason I wrote the book, Middle Church, which goes against, goes against now that is- SM (01:37:54): Oh, Okay. Yep. BE (01:37:55): The reason I wrote that book was to go after Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and the religious right. But it is middle church, middle synagogue, middle mosque. And my argument in the book is that the religious left failed, and we failed because we would do calpoint, point, counterpoint with the religious right. We forgot to evangelize the middle. And you have got a whole host of Americans in the middle who are too easily swayed by patriotism and false morality that many on the left have forgotten to use that patriotism and morality language. And that book could have been called Middle America. It is more of a secular political book then a churchy book. But it will give you some idea if you read it, some of these thoughts. SM (01:39:01): But where would you place in, we all know what the Beatles did. They went into any now organized religion. They went off to them, Maharishi or whatever. It was fairly common that a lot of people are going off into Zen Buddhism. I interviewed Peter Coyote and he told me, the actor, that if it was not for Zen Buddhism, he would not be alive today. I mean, it is that important for him to relax. He has been doing it for 35 years. And so a lot of people became Zen Buddhist. A lot of people like the Beatles, and not just the Beatles, because they were well known, but other people got into all these maharishis and they came to college campuses in the late (19)60s. You had the Moonies that were everywhere. And there was this attitude, and correct me if I am wrong, that a lot of the boomer kids and a lot of young adults for some reason went against anything that was in a, were position of authority. They were against their political leaders. They were against their religious leaders, they were against politicians, the college administrators. So the inner-inner spirituality became the thing in the late (19)60s, in the (19)70s. Your thoughts on this inner spirituality where you do not need to go to church. It is just that kind of- BE (01:40:21): I will answer that question, but let me challenge something you said. I would not use the phrase a lot. I would use some because I think the majority did what their parents told them to do. Go to college, become something, get a profession. But the (19)60s and (19)70s are marked by a search, a search religiously, a search psychologically, a search for meaning, a search for life. And not only did folks search alternative religions, but they also searched alternative lifestyles, commune movement, and others. And you remember some of this came out of Woodstock, some of it came out of the anti-war movement. Some of it, the draft was there. And people had to ask themselves, is the United States worth dying for? SM (01:41:30): Yeah. BE (01:41:31): And if not, do I go to Canada? What do I think about 58,000 people being killed in Vietnam and hundreds of thousands being wounded, and what do I think if I care about integration, about the fact that liberals were disappearing here and there being killed and lynched and blacks were being attacked. And it was a big struggle for the identity of America. So there is not one issue that it was a small important cluster. I remember when I got elected to Congress, some of my friends said, why would you do that? Why do not you stay on the outside of government and fight the corruption, fight the bad guys who are in government in those days, you know, had Watergate and you had a lot of lack of modeling of good behavior. And I think there was that tension in our society. My own personal view is that you need people inside the tent and people outside the tent, people inside government, people outside government. I have got five honorary doctorate degrees, but only four arrests for civil disobedience. If I have any regrets in my life, it is that I have not been arrested enough. And- SM (01:43:09): Dr. King be proud is because Dr. King used to always say that, if you're not willing to go to jail for your belief, what are you out there for? BE (01:43:16): Right. SM (01:43:17): Not doing violent things. BE (01:43:18): But my friend Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul, and Mary sings a song for me once in a while about, "Have You Been To Jail For Justice." Good words in that song. SM (01:43:28): You are right. Right. What other things we... Well know that when President Kennedy, well when he was running for president, the issue with the Catholic Church and that religion would influence his decisions. Obviously, that did not happen. But what did that say about the America of 1960, about fearful that the Pope was going to run the United States of government? And John Kennedy obviously saw that the concern, but he said that is not going to happen with him. BE (01:44:05): Yeah. Well, like John Kennedy, I believe in the separation of church and state, but not the separation of people of faith and institutions of government. You want your elected officials to have an active faith statement, but you need to always remember that you are not serving in public office a particular denomination or religious tradition. Henry Waxman, whose Jewish was elected with me in 1974, I want him to be a faithful member of the Jewish community, but he would never intend to have the Jewish community make the United States a Jewish nation. I think it is true of Muslims who might serve in Congress. I want them to be faithful. I want them to read the Quran, but I do not want to have Sharia law lead the law of land. SM (01:45:02): Right. BE (01:45:02): I do not want to have Sharia law be the law of the land. For conservative Protestants, I want them to be themselves. I do not have any animosity to people who are in the religious right, unless that religious right once elected thinks that it can make this a Christian nation. Our founding fathers were very smart to help all of us understand this is a nation that believes in religious pluralism. We want people of faith and people of no faith to use morals and values that grow out of their tradition, but not to ever allow any individual faith tradition to dominate. In our history, we used to hang people who were Roman Catholics. We used to torture people who were a different kind of Protestant than we had. I think the founding fathers and mothers said, "Hey, that is not going to make us a very healthy nation, so let us respect everybody's religious tradition." What is interesting is that you do not know the founding of this country and the people that come here are made up of people who left their homelands because of religious persecution in many cases. We all know that America is a xenophobic nation, that is afraid of people who are different, in the whole history. I mean, the Irish. I was even educating my dad more about some of the things that happened between England and Ireland and the Potato Famine and so forth and the treatment. What amazes me today, I am very concerned about it, and I would like your thoughts on some of the attacks on President Obama, and some people say his close links with the Muslim faith. Some people say he is a Muslim. He says he is a Christian. They will not listen to his word. They have their personal opinions. It kind of shoots me back to what happened in 1960, about the fear of the Pope. Well, then there is a fear that Islam will take over. I know they use the issue of terrorism, but I see this continuing, oftentimes a trend where- SM (01:47:17): Just remember that- BE (01:47:19): The kid that blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City was a Roman Catholic raised in the United States. And if there are terrorists in 60 countries, we do not stop terrorism by bombing capitals. Part of our problem in this country is racism. Part of our problem is fear of the other. And part of our problem is we carry around in our heads, world war images of what war is about. And I think some of the leaders that Obama has, many of the leaders that Bush had were focused on World War II images of the world, and we got to change that view. We need an international police effort on terrorism, but we ought to cut in half our military expenditures. I laugh when I read the newspapers with a tear in my eye when I think about all of the conservatives who say, "We have got to balance the budget," but you cannot cut defense. We have got to balance the budget, but we're going to go to war in Afghanistan and in Iraq without paying for it, without raising taxes, and we got these big deficits. All those deficits are caused by over-spending on healthcare and education and social security. Hogwash. We are in this predicament because we, after 9/11, were manipulated by Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush on the issue of fear, we went after a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11 called Iraq. We went after it even though the inspectors were there. There was no hint that they actually had nuclear weapons or nuclear capability. And on the one hand, the political right and the religious right wanted more expenditures on defense, more expenditures for war, but somehow that does not impact on their thinking on deficits. SM (01:49:24): Do you see the link here? You are talking about the fear now. The fear in the (19)50s was the fear of the Cold War from the boomer generation. They were [inaudible] the fear of the Cold War, the potential- BE (01:49:41): Cold War fear started before the boomers were elected. It was the fear grew of the cult war grew out of the separation of Germany right after World War II and the building of... Russia was a world-class military, but a third-class country without the ability to really have an economy that worked. And there were all these myths about the former Soviet Union, and I think people who lived through World War II saw in terms of the exchange of nuclear weapons. And I think by the time the boomers got here and they were very small and children at the time, that fear not only got intensified with the East-West struggle, but it also pointed out that even when you tore down the Berlin Wall, you had to find another enemy to be fearful of. And so I think Rumsfeld and Cheney were able to use 9/11 as a way of tapping into the fear that people have. And my complaint about Americans is we are dumb. We do not learn from history and- SM (01:51:01): We do not read history. BE (01:51:01): We do not read history, and we do not realize that we have got to send our young people to get an international education and not just a domestic education. SM (01:51:10): Global. Yeah. That has been the talk. We have to prepare students for the global world. I remember Henry Cisneros at a conference, golly way back in the early (19)90s. He was speaking for a mayor, I think, of San Antonio. And this beautiful college administrator stood up and said, "Well, what is America going to be like if it is the majority are minorities?" And it was shocking to hear it from her, but she was asking a question and he said... I will never forget what he said. He said, "You should not be fearing the future. You should be preparing for the future because you are going to have bosses who are Latino. You are going to have bosses who are Asian American and from India, you name it. And so we have to prepare students for the world they are going to face because it is a global world." And you raised some good points. It is interesting also that McCarthyism, which was trying to label people who spoke up or were politically active as communists. I see sometimes today for people who may support Muslims in America are sometimes paying a price too for... We did a conference, Islam in America at Westchester University. It was my last coup probably before we left. We packed the place the entire day and we brought in the spiritual leader from Detroit who had written a book, and we brought in two authors from New York, and we did a tremendous program, and it was nine straight program. We had a 400 for every session, and we got criticized for it. In fact, some of our professors went out to speak at other universities and they had people in the audience trying to, "Do you remember when you were at that conference," and all that kind of stuff. BE (01:53:04): Well, it is the same thing that is happening to Obama by calling him a socialist, and some of the Tea Party folks making him a fascist. They do not know what a fascist is. And my own concern is that he is not socialist enough. SM (01:53:19): Well, one of the things too that I think is important. When you think of the (19)60s and the (19)70s, and you think of the boomer generation, and particularly the activists of that period who were anti- war. They were down in all the movement. Many of them were the new left. And so they attacked liberals as well as conservatives because LBJ was a liberal when he was running the war. Nixon was the... Even though he was conservative- BE (01:53:47): They defeated Humphrey. SM (01:53:49): Right. BE (01:53:49): Because Humphrey was not liberal enough. SM (01:53:51): Right. How are we doing time-wise? BE (01:53:54): I have about 15 minutes and then I have got to close up. Sorry. I talk too much. SM (01:53:59): That is okay. When did the (19)60s begin, in your opinion, and when did it end? BE (01:54:03): It is a silly question. SM (01:54:12): Silly question? BE (01:54:14): I am just pulling your leg. It began in 1960 and it ended in 1969. SM (01:54:18): Oh, yeah. BE (01:54:27): I think the (19)60s... This is going to sound strange to you, but since you are talking about the boomers, I do not think the (19)60s had as much impact on the boomer generation than the 1970s had on them. I think the 1960s had more of an impact on my generation, those of us who were born in the late (19)30s and early (19)40s and who came to adulthood in the (19)60s. And those of us, I was... In 1961, entered college in (19)65, graduated from college in (19)68, and graduated from graduate school. June of (19)68 was a full-time minister in the city of Philadelphia, writing on the Philadelphia police clergy unit. I think that starting with the assassination of President Kennedy, where we all were taught about guns in America and war and violence plus the civil rights tension and the dogs and the fire hoses and that kind of thing. I think that had much more of a psychological impact on my generation. I think that the bloomers coming were like teenagers in the (19)60s, some of them early boomers. Some were tainted by the drug culture and LSD and that kind of thing. But most of them who got into adulthood in (19)71, (19)72, and (19)73, where they were tainted, they were tainted by Watergate. They were tainted by the prosperity gospel. They were tainted by some of the televangelist movement. They were tainted by money being God as opposed to God being God. And I think it led to the resurgence. They brought us Ronald Reagan. They brought us George Bush. They modified a little bit with Bill Clinton, but I think of President George Bush Jr. was not as impacted by my generation as he was by the... SM (01:57:05): 1960s. BE (01:57:08): Well, more of the 1970s. SM (01:57:08): (19)70s, yeah. BE (01:57:12): I think the late (19)60s and (19)70s were part of that. So to answer your question, for me, the 1960s had not ended. SM (01:57:22): You are not the only person that said that. BE (01:57:27): Okay. But it is diminishing in that it is a smaller and smaller group of us who were impacted by the (19)60s and think the next generation is going to be modified by resource depletion. Dr. Jonas Salk spoke at a group of us in Congress before he died. He invented the polio vaccine, and he had a great lecture about what he called Epoch A and Epoch B. Epoch A for him was those that came after World War II. They are going to raise their kids. They are going to have more money and everything is going to get better. Epoch A was symbolized by consumption, quantity of life, and competition. And he said, "We need to evolve into Epoch B, where we replace competition with cooperation, quantity of life with quality of life," where the whole limited lifestyle was his view of the future compared to the past. Someone asked him, "Dr. Salk, how do you get from Epoch A to Epoch B?" And he said, "Well, in every change in human history, there have been intellectual mutants." And he said, "Well, we need our teachers and ministers and prophetic leaders who helped to bridge the old and the new view." And I think that is what is at the heart of our current political trauma. We have people who are lamenting the demise of Epoch A and resisting moving to more stewardship of fragile resources and are denying things like global warming, denying that we are running out of fossil fuel oil, denying that we are running out of natural resources. So I think there is kind of a... Put it this way, I think there is a new civil war going on. It is going on without guns and weapons, but it is going on for the heart and soul of Americans and in a sense, the heart and soul of the world. I think those of us who are progressive and liberal need to figure out how we do a better job of being the intellectual mutants that we need for this time. SM (02:00:13): The generation gap was certainly well-documented. You remember there was a Life magazine cover with a young man with the glasses on, and he had the father pointing a finger at him, and the son was pointing a finger back. And in 1980, because you are a very... You care about Vietnam vets. That is where I first met you for the first time when you did a symposium on Agent Orange in Philadelphia. And this book was called The Lost Generation, and it was Senator Webb, Phil Caputo... Wow. BE (02:00:55): Ford Foundation found out that I had been a leader of working on Agent Orange back in the late (19)70s and early (19)80s, and forcing our government to care for our veterans that they sent me to gather a religious delegation and go to Vietnam and see the impact 35 years after the war on the children and grandchildren of the Vietnamese who are being exposed to Agent Orange. So, I- SM (02:01:21): Can I have a copy of this? BE (02:01:22): That is yours. SM (02:01:23): Because see, that is how I first met you. I am trying to remember, this is even before you came to Westchester. You were at a symposium. I think it was down near Temple. It was full of Vietnam vets and you were talking about Agent Orange. And I was very impressed, and I know I am a friend of Harry Gaffney. I do not know if you know Harry and Dan Fraley and Steve Silver and that whole group, Dwight Edwards. And that was the beginning of my getting to know a lot of the Vietnam vets and what I am trying to get at here- BE (02:01:52): You need more than one copy? SM (02:01:53): Yes. If I could have a couple of these, I would appreciate it. I think I am going to turn this one over. The question I have is, there was a book called The Longest... Let me get this here. Sorry. It was a book that had a symposium documented, and the symposium was with Phil Caputo, Jim Webb, I think it was Bobby Mueller, James Fallows, and one other person. It was unbelievable. BE (02:02:28): Bobby Mueller is working with us on this. SM (02:02:32): Yeah. Well, Bobby was at my retirement. I asked Bobby to come. He was one of the six people that was at my retirement. And what came up in this program is that I think they were talking about the generation gap, and Jim Webb made a comment. The comment was, "The generation gap is not between parents. Well, it is between parents and sons and daughters, but the real generation gap is within the generation between those who went to Vietnam and those who did not." And Bobby will remember this. It was a great interaction. And it's documented in the Wounded Generation book. Your thoughts on that commentary, whether... And this gets into my real big question here. As a nation, I ask a question oftentimes, have we healed from one of the tremendous divisions that took place in the (19)60s and (19)70s between those who supported the war? And again, between those who are Black and White and all the other issues? And I took students to Washington to meet Senator Musky in 1995, and we asked this question to him, and I will give you his response in a minute. And I know Senator Nelson said it affected the body politic, but people do not want walk around Washington saying, "I did not heal from the Vietnam War." Your thoughts on whether we as a nation have a problem with healing within this generation, the group after World War II, particularly those who serve in Vietnam - 3 million plus - and those who may have in the anti-war people? BE (02:04:06): Well, before I answer your question, let me just say, I was the first anti-war activist on the Veterans Affairs Committee, and had I not been put on the Veterans Affairs Committee, I would have lost my elections. And at first, I did not want to be on the Veterans Affairs Committee, but I learned that even though you oppose the war, you can love the warrior. And even though you oppose the war, you can work on things like readjustment counseling centers, Agent Orange, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, et cetera. I would go to your question about healing. I would only modify the comment about the generation gap being between those who went to war and those who did not. I think it is more complicated than that. I think it is between those who went to war and those who did not, those who supported integration and those who did not, those who understood the need for African Americans to be part of a quality of life in America and have resources expanded to those who believe that you cannot build walls to keep out Mexicans or people crossing your border because the world has gotten complicated. I think there is a division between those who live by the god of money and those that live by the commitment to social justice and caring for people. So it's too simplistic to say it is just as though every... Because every veteran who served in Vietnam was not a hero. We know that from Eli, right? SM (02:06:01): Yeah. BE (02:06:01): Many were, but there were good people and bad people in the war, and there were good people and bad people in the anti-war movement. And as human beings, what we have done to each other has been to pour salt on the wounds of race, the wounds of violence. And I think there is a division, a generation gap between those who think you can solve the world's problems by military action. And those who think you need to solve the problems with something like three cups of tea. The book that gentleman wrote is my thinking about how we should have handled Afghanistan. We were handling it with weapons and war, and every time we inadvertently kill a civilian, we have made a family of terrorists. And that is where the gap is. I think you see it every day on Nightly News. The gap is between Fox News and MSNBC. The gap is between Cobert and Rush Limbaugh. Glenn Beck is the hero of the anti-movement. And I would say both the left and the right, but mostly the right love and thrive on not allowing the nation to heal. And you see it internally in the Senate today where McConnell says, "We are going to be no until we can defeat Obama, and we do not want Obama to succeed." And one of the reasons I am President of Common Cause is I think John Gardner was right, that everybody had a special interest in Washington except average ordinary people. And the hostility of the generation gap is that internal gap between those who once elected, serve the public interest as opposed to the special interest. And money is a corrosive influence in our whole system. So it is too simplistic to say it is those who went to war and those who did not because those of us who did not go into the war, many of us worked very hard to provide the warrior healing through Regis counseling centers, the new GI Bill for the all-volunteer military, and to make sure that whether you are for or against a warrior, you are always for healing the soldier who goes to war, and some of us work to try to stop wars. SM (02:09:05): Do you believe that the people who were the anti-war people, many of them are college students and well-known people, that they consider themselves veterans of the war too? BE (02:09:21): They are. SM (02:09:21): And we- BE (02:09:22): We just gave an award, Lifetime Achievement Award to Daniel Ellsberg. SM (02:09:28): I am interviewing him. I mean, a week from Monday. BE (02:09:31): He just received the John Gardner Lifetime Achievement Award in California. And he was introduced by Pete McCloskey, a Marine, former congressman, former Republican, now Democrat. But Pete McCloskey introduced him. But the three of us were on the same stage together. There are two former congressmen and Daniel Elizabeth. I think of Dr. King as a hero. I think of William Sloane Coffin as a hero. I think of Pete McCloskey as a hero. I think of Daniel Ellsberg as a hero. SM (02:10:11): Daniel and Philip. BE (02:10:12): And Philip. I think of... SM (02:10:15): Malcolm Boyd. BE (02:10:16): Malcolm Boyd was a hero. And you do not have to go to war to be a hero. I think that people have given their lives for justice and peace. They are heroes too. My picture... And I have got to leave. My picture of a real hero is the Chinese guy with two shopping bags standing in front of the tank. SM (02:10:44): You do not know whatever happened to him. BE (02:10:46): He is my hero. SM (02:10:48): Wow. BE (02:10:53): I guess I respect those who are willing to stand in front of the tanks. SM (02:10:56): Do you have any final thoughts on the boomer generation itself with respect to... A lot of the boomers when they were young felt that they were going to... This will be my last question. They were going to be the change agents for the betterment of society, that they were going to hopefully end war to bring peace, end racism, sexism, and really kind of cure everything. Kind of be the panacea for a lot of the issues that were facing us in the (19)60s and the (19)70s. Do you feel that because of the fact that we still have of war and that we still have a lot of the... We still have racism, although we have come a long way. We still, as David Garrow said to me, the historian said the accomplishments for gay and lesbian Americans have been unbelievable in terms of one of the results of the (19)60s. And of course, you got the environmental movement, Gaylor Nelson, and... BE (02:11:54): Let me ask you a question because I got to go. SM (02:11:56): Yep. BE (02:11:59): I think that every generation makes its contribution. When I grew up, everybody I knew smoked. No one smokes anymore. When I grew up, women were making 30 cents on the dollar that men were making. That gap is closing, and there are more rights and privileges according to women. When I grew up, there was segregation. There is still a separation of the races, but much more tolerance, much more sharing, much more riding in the same bus together at all the seats, any seat being used. So in terms of racism, there have been good movements. Environmental movement has been good. Much more quality of life issues have been improved over time. So there is good things. And one other good thing we have not talked about, which you might want to think about in your book. I think the boomer generation is going to teach us how to retire better than previous generations. They are going to want exercise rooms and theater and all of the amenities to be close to retirement, but hopefully, they will also teach us that there is life after retirement. That 65 to 95-year-olds need a job. They may not need a- SM (02:13:30): Yeah, I am going back to work in a year. BE (02:13:31): They may not need as much of a salary, but they will need a stipend and benefits. We need a whole Peace Corps for senior adults. We need to find out how the 65 to 95-year-olds can make a contribution to our society. So there are lots of positives. I think the negative is that there has been an increase in greed and an increase in selfishness. And because of the religious rights of personal salvation push, there is too much everyone for themselves. And I think one of the negative legacies that this generation is leaving us, and part of my generation is responsible for it too, is that nobody wants to pay taxes. And if you think about it, all the states are now moving to casinos to fund their schools and their elderly programs because nobody wants to pay taxes, even though we pay less in taxes than we did 30 years ago as a percentage of our income. And I think that is a very damaging legacy to leave. The other damaging legacy that has been left by those who are about to retire is that too many politicians have been caught with their fingers in the cookie jar and too few young people see public service as an honorable profession. And my tears this week over Charlie Wrangle was more about how many young Blacks will avoid going into public service because they saw an 80-year-old Black politician tarnished by his own lifestyle and much of Charlie Wrangel's problem was not corruption. It was sloppiness and arrogance and all of those kinds of things. SM (02:15:37): And how about the Vietnam veteran Cunningham, who was revered for his Vietnam service? Now, he is in jail. BE (02:15:43): Well, he took almost $5 million from military folk. So the handful of boomers who modeled bad behavior impacted more than a handful of others and other generations who have soiled views of the future. I got to go. SM (02:16:10): Let me take two more pictures and then I am going to take one definitely with only the background. So this one is the one you are going to give to your wife. So if you stand right in front of it, and I will make sure the only thing I have in the back... Okay. Right there. So the only thing I am going to have in the backdrop is [inaudible] do that. BE (02:16:29): [inaudible]. SM (02:16:29): Yeah. Three, six. One more. BE (02:16:29): That camera still have film in it? SM (02:16:39): Yes, it does. BE (02:16:39): Oh, man. You are old-fashioned. SM (02:16:41): Yep. Well, I have a vision over this camera is good. BE (02:16:44): There you go. SM (02:16:45): Very good. Do you think when Jan Scruggs wrote his book To Heal A Nation that the wall has done some sort of a job in healing the nation? He not only talked about healing Vietnam vets and their families, but he talked about the nation itself. BE (02:17:02): It helped. But remember, Ronald Reagan said tear down the wall. Maybe we need to tear down walls, but we need memorials. So I think of it more as a memorial. Memorials are healing. SM (02:17:20): If you can sign that to me. I am glad you're in charge. I had John Edgar... Oh, not John here. John Gardner's books. I think I have all of them. I read No Easy Victories and then I have his book that... I remember I kind of encouraged students to read, which is his book. BE (02:17:37): What do you go by in terms- SM (02:17:38): Steven. BE (02:17:38): Steven. SM (02:17:39): Yeah. (End of Interview) Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. 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Title A name given to the resource Interview with Robert William Edgar Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Edgar, Robert, 1943-2013 ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Legislators—United States--Pennsylvania; Democratic Party (Pa.); Edgar, Robert, 1943-2013--Interviews Description An account of the resource Robert William Edgar (1943-2013) was a businessman, administrator, and politician. Edgar was a member of the Democratic Party and congressman in Pennsylvania for six terms. He received his Bachelor's degree from Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and a Master of Divinity degree from the Theological School of Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. Edgar died from a heart attack after running on the treadmill at his home. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-12-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.45a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.45b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 137:41 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/52c578e25841b26676579fc310f193e2.jpg 36e07a4d765bdbe55226834a5bc0baab https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/4c5d16464216ef472a4a319b0e3c2c05.mp3 eb31b45ee34b7fc28e1c65aee9ada4e5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-12-13 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Roberta Price 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":"Roberta Price, born in New York City, is an author, photographer, educator, and intellectual property attorney in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After college, Price lived seven years in the Huerfano (\"Orphan\") Valley and published a memoir of her experiences entitled, Huerfano: A Memoir of Life in the Counterculture. She left the commune to pursue a law degree. Price has a Bachelor's degree from Vassar College and a law degree from the University of New Mexico School of Law. "}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15107,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,16777215],"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,4342338],"15":"Arial","16":10}">Roberta Price, born in New York City, is an author, photographer, educator, and intellectual property attorney in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After college, Price lived seven years in the Huerfano ("Orphan") Valley and published a memoir of her experiences entitled <em>Huerfano: A Memoir of Life in the Counterculture</em>. She left the commune to pursue a law degree. Price has a Bachelor's degree from Vassar College and a law degree from the University of New Mexico School of Law. </span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Western America; Huerfano Valley; March on the Pentagon; Photography; Commune; Vietnam War; Hippies; Baby boom generation."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Western America; Huerfano Valley; March on the Pentagon; Photography; Commune; Vietnam War; Hippies; Baby boom generation.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 86:51 Subject LCSH Authors, American; Photographers; Intellectual property lawyers; Price, Roberta--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Roberta Price Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Price, Roberta ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Authors, American; Photographers; Intellectual property lawyers; Price, Roberta--Interviews Description An account of the resource Roberta Price, born in New York City, is an author, photographer, educator, and intellectual property attorney in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After college, Price lived seven years in the Huerfano ("Orphan") Valley and published a memoir of her experiences entitled <em>Huerfano: A Memoir of Life in the Counterculture</em>. She left the commune to pursue a law degree. Price has a Bachelor's degree from Vassar College and a law degree from the University of New Mexico School of Law. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-12-13 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.205 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. 86:51 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/7a01c9700dfd7e49241a95c334258f7f.jpg 1f37270d48fddbd2c6d9f3d701d184bc https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/b0caa59d6c07c6de15fd224ff0681b36.mp3 a2028080b873b58b312144a5b366c67e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2009-12-10 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Roger Clegg Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Roger Clegg is the President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He was the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for both the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. He specializes in legal issues arising from civil rights laws including immigration and bilingual education. Clegg received his Bachelor's degree from Rice University and is a graduate of Yale University Law School. "}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":6531,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"10":2,"11":4,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial"}">Roger Clegg is the President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He was the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for both the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. He specializes in legal issues arising from civil rights laws including immigration and bilingual education. Clegg received his Bachelor's degree from Rice University and is a graduate of Yale University Law School. </span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Vietnam War; Bill Buckley; Native American/ American Indian Movement; Civil Rights Movement; Kent State; Watergate; Richard Nixon; Counter Culture; Hippies; Yippies; The Black Panthers; Baby boom generation; President Obama."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":13689059}}">Vietnam War; Bill Buckley; Native American/ American Indian Movement; Civil Rights Movement; Kent State; Watergate; Richard Nixon; Counter Culture; Hippies; Yippies; The Black Panthers; Baby boom generation; President Obama</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 160:15 Subject LCSH Lawyers; Center for Equal Opportunity; Clegg, Roger--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Roger Clegg Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 10 December 2009 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:04): Testing. One, two. I was not checking. First off, thank you very much for participating in this project. RC (00:00:21): Sure. SM (00:00:21): First question I would like to ask is, when you think of the (19)60s what is the first thing that comes to your mind? RC (00:00:29): I think of unrest, I guess. The protests, the anti-war protests, civil rights movement, riots, a very unsettled time. I think of the politics. I think of it as being a very political, politicized decade. I should say that I was born in 1955, so by the end of the (19)60s I was certainly politically aware, and was becoming interested in following politics. I was only five or six years old, so less so. SM (00:01:32): How did you become who you are? I have been asking this probably for the last 50 people that I have been interviewing. How did you become who you are as a person? Was there some magic moment in your life when you were in high school, college where you kind of knew the direction you were going, or the thought you had? Was there anything during that time when Boomers were young, and you were right in the middle of the Boomers in terms of (19)55 because it goes from (19)46 to (19)64. RC (00:02:07): I think in terms of my professional life and what I decided to do as a career, I have always been interested in politics, in history. I do not think that there was one particular moment where it dawned on me that this was something interesting. This is something that I have always been interested in. I think that I have always been a conservative with a libertarian streak. That is been true for a long time as well. And so, you put those two together and I am now a conservative lawyer. I do not think that there was a particular defining moment. That was something that was part of my makeup early on. I did not always want to be a lawyer. I tell people that the course that I took in college that persuaded me to be a lawyer was biochemistry. Up until then, I was thinking also medical school. I just decided, this is my junior year, that I really was more interested and more comfortable, better at political science and history, and things like that. That made the decision for me that I was going to go to law school. SM (00:04:15): Did you have role models when you were young? RC (00:04:18): I was going to say that it will be interesting to see if you have other people that give you this answer. For conservatives of my generation, I think that a lot of them had to have been influenced by Bill Buckley. He was a hero of mine. At that time, I think that there were not a lot of prominent popular culture conservatives. He was really it. Even if there had been others, he was clearly I think a star. I early on starting reading him, subscribing to National Review, watching him on Firing Line. I think he was a very influential person for me. Later on, I read other conservatives too. When I went to law school, one of my professors was Robert Bork. I was older then. This was the late (19)70s by then. When I was coming of age, Buckley was I think the person who was most influential. Obviously, in my own family, I do not want to ignore my parents. My grandfather was somebody who was also... He was not a lawyer, but he was very interested in politics and I had a close relationship with him. In terms of people outside my family, I would have to say it was Buckley. In fact, I remember when not long after I had come to work here, a guy who was also here left to go to work for National Review. I called him and said, "Look, I would love to shake hands with Wayne Buckley. Do you ever see him? It does not have to be a dinner or anything like that. I just want to meet him." He said, "Well, Buckley is getting older now. He does not come to Washington a lot, but he is going to be in Washington for this event at..." We were talking about ISI before and he was going to be I think honored at some ISI event. He said, "I can introduce you there." I got there and it was this huge event. This was before cellphones and all that. Stupidly, I had not arranged ahead of time where I was going to meet my friend. Anyway, what I decided to do was, everybody had to come through this one entrance and get checked in on the guest list. I got there early so I thought, well I will just hang out here and keep my eye peeled. Sure enough, Buckley came by. And so, I just kind of got in line behind him. At some point he turned around and I stuck my hand out. He was so... This was very not characteristic of him. He was so gracious. I said, "Hi, Roger Clegg. I write for National Review," which I was. I was a contributing editor for National Review Online. He just said, "Oh, hello Roger," and stuck out his hand. "It's good to see you. Have you met my wife? Here is my wife. Have you met my son?" Chris Buckley was with him too and everything. Anyway, that was my big moment, meeting my [inaudible]- SM (00:09:03): He came to Westchester University. We had him there, and we had him in Phillips Library for the lecture. He was a cool speaker. He was fantastic. He was very tired though. The issue that we had was the auditorium was very hot. It was before they did those renovations. During the program he said, "Can you turn the heat down?" Because it was really affecting him because you could see his face was getting red and everything. RC (00:09:28): How old was he? SM (00:09:30): We're talking mid (19)90s. Mid (19)90s, and he was a major lecturer there too. He was fantastic. When you think of the Boomer generation, what are some of the characteristics, the positive or the negative qualities, when you look at this 74 million population group? RC (00:09:51): Obviously, a group that big it is dangerous to generalize. There is all kinds of people in there. Yeah, when people think of the (19)60s and the Boomers, they think of I guess hippies, and the people who stuck out more. Obviously, not all Boomers were hippies and protesters, and things like that. That is what first comes to mind. I do not know whether it is fair to make generalizations like this. Obviously, we are thinking out loud here. Of course, the events that helped I think sort of shape that generation was the Vietnam War. And of course, a lot of people were understandably skeptical about the war, particularly when it was their own life that was going to be at stake. I think that for technological reasons, with the invention of the pill, the sexual revolution was something else that happened then. For some reason, drug use became more popular then too. These were all things that I associate with the Boomers, and these are all from my perspective are all negative things. I think that the sexual revolution was bad, drug use was bad. I think that the Vietnam War was badly run, but not a, I think what Reagan said, a noble cause. I think that a lot of the anti-war movement was very noble. As I say, all of those are making generalizations about a generation which are generalizations. There were obviously lots of people whom did not participate in the sexual revolution, who did not buy into the counterculture, and it is drug use and all that, and who served honorably and uncomplainingly in Vietnam. SM (00:14:04): Some people criticize the Boomer generation as they say that only 15 percent of that generation were involved in any sort of activism. 85 percent were not. I have read in books. When you figure that there is 74 million and 15 percent were involved in some sort of activism in some way, that is a lot of people. RC (00:14:26): Right. SM (00:14:28): I think sometimes when it is brought up, it is brought up in a way to make it look negative as opposed to looking at the final numbers of those individuals. You are right, other people have told me that it is very hard to generalize 74 million. When you could have 20 people in the room and two are really involved in activism [inaudible]. One of the interesting things that came out, I know when Newt Gingrich came into power in 1994, I read some of his things, speeches and so forth, he made some pretty sharp attacks on the (19)60s generation, the Boomers generation, is a lot of the reasons why we have a lot of problems in our society was a breakdown of the family, the divorce rate, the drug culture, the lack of respect for authority. Even going into the area of victimization. I am not saying he said that, but other people. Then George Will, whenever he gets a chance in his newspaper articles or [inaudible], I have got his books. He will have these little commentaries about this generation in which he is a part, and really make it kind of the same way, that there is more negative than positive. When you hear people like Newt Gingrich, George Will, and others attack this generation for a variety of reasons, [inaudible] problems as they enter society, how do you respond to that? RC (00:15:53): I think that... I assume that they are talking not about every person, but about the sort of social trends that marked the (19)60s. It is certainly true that there are... It is sloppy to suggest, if it is being suggested, that... I will not say sloppy. I assume that that is what they are talking about, and I think that anybody would have to agree that there are problems with saying, "These are things that went on the (19)60s. There were a lot of people, Baby Boomers, that supported these things. Therefore, the whole generation should be criticized." There were lots of people who did not share the zeitgeist. Conversely, a lot of the people who were not Baby Boomers also share some of the blame. These folks are following... The hippies had their older role models, Noam Chomsky, or Herbert Marcuse, and people like that. They were not Baby Boomers. SM (00:17:43): [inaudible]. RC (00:17:45): Yeah, so... Norman Mailer, so forth. These people were not Baby Boomers, so you have got to blame them too. On the other hand, I guess that you cannot let people off the hook just because they themselves maybe were not direct participants. Edmund Burke, I think, said that "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for a good man to do nothing." If your friends are using drugs or protesting, or draft-dodging or whatever, and you do not condemn them or ostracize them, or if you smile and nod, well you are part of the problem. The other thing that is going on though is that people like to simplify history, and put things in categories. That is just part of what... This is very pleasing to think of history in terms of decades and generations. We have the (19)20s, and we think of it as being... Everything that happened in the (19)20s has to fit into this model of the Roaring (19)20s and the (19)30s, and so forth. We do that for the (19)60s too, even though there were things going on in the (19)60s that maybe do not really fit in with that model. And by the same token, we do the same thing with generations. We have the Greatest Generation, we have the Boomers, we have Generation X, and so forth, even though those kinds of generalizations are dangerous too. One thing about the Greatest Generation which gets very good press these days is they delay... Well, if you buy into this, you have got the Greatest Generation, and then you have these no-count Baby Boomers. Well, who raised the Baby Boomers? It was the Greatest Generation. So, if you buy into this they... One thing about the Greatest Generation is they must not have been very good parents, or there was some kind of failure there. Anyway. SM (00:20:51): Yeah, especially one of the qualities that WWII generation supposedly had was to make sure their sons and daughters were not lacking for things, because they went through the Depression, they went through a horrible war, and they did not want their kids to go through what they went through. They gave them everything, but they still rebelled. They did not rebel in the 1950s, but we are going to get into that a minute, the (19)50s. What are your thoughts on the movements? One of the qualities that is often defined when the Boomer generation is all the movements that were either started, or there was a carry-on mentality. Of course, the civil rights movement was already taking place in the (19)50s, and by the time the earliest Boomer is 46, they were like 18, 19. Many of them did go south though in the summer of (19)63. Talk about the anti-war movement, the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the Chicano movement, the Native American movement, and the environmental movement. And I know there was even the disability movement was really starting to fledge around that time. Your thoughts on all these movements that came about during this time frame? These movements have been carrying on into today. Are these movements good, bad, or different? Your thoughts on the movements. RC (00:22:12): Again, I think you have to look at them individually, and you have to look at them over time. Some of the movements might have started out okay but then went off the rails, or developed splinter groups that were more problematic than the original movement. I am going to just give you a few examples. You have the anti-war movement, and they are... I guess I would be maybe the least sympathetic with it, particularly to the extent that it became Wallace and even revolutionary with the weathermen and the SDS, and so forth. That was the movement that I think was misconceived to begin with because I think that it was a poor... While the Vietnam War was not well-run, the basic idea of resisting communism was a good idea. Certainly, to suggest that people should dodge the draft, that not only was the war a bad idea, but that the Communists were right, and that it's an okay thing to hamper the war efforts in the United States, all of which is truly more extreme parts of the anti-war movement, I think reprehensible. The other extreme though, I think it is difficult not to be very sympathetic with the civil rights movement with respect to equality for African Americans fighting Jim Crow and segregation. I think that that movement and the Boomers who supported that, it is very... I think that they were right. That said though, some of the... There were excesses later on. Excesses is too gentle a word. The riots, the Black Panthers, things like that were reprehensible too. Feminism, I think it is more of a mixed bag. I think that changing the law so that women have more opportunities was a good thing. On the other hand, there were... I think that the feminist movement came to denigrate traditional female roles which I think that is not okay. There is nothing wrong with being a stay-at-home mom. I think that there are some feminists who suggest there is. You just sort of have to go through each of these movements. I think that some of the other ethnic movements, it's a bad thing for Chicanos to be discriminated against because they are Chicanos, just as it is wrong for African Americans to be discriminated against because they are African Americans. On the other hand, that does not justify violence. It does not justify quotas, racial preferences. Those things are bad. Gay rights, again I would be more nuanced than saying that well it was good or it was bad. I think certainly people should not be beaten up or brutalized because of their sexual orientation. On the other hand, I think that there is nothing wrong with individuals believing, as I do, that having sex with people of the same gender is immoral. That does not mean that we put those people in jail or beat them up, but it does mean that it is okay to say publicly "This is a bad lifestyle," and that it is okay to say that marriage is something that is between men and women, not between two people of the same sex. When you talk about was the gay rights movement justified or not, well it depends on what the specific aim of a particular part of the movement is at a given time. SM (00:29:14): How about the Native American movement, because that was really strong. It identified a lot with some of the more radical elements within the anti-war movement, because of Wounded Knee, and the takeover at Alcatraz, and Dennis Banks and Russell Means. RC (00:29:33): They actually killed people. I think that that is... I do not think that people should violate the law, and they certainly should not kill people, and they should not kill law enforcement officers, which the extreme elements of the Native American movement did. On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with consciousness rising and protesting. People are being mistreated because of their ethnic group, that is wrong. There is nothing wrong protesting that and trying to change the laws to reflect that. SM (00:30:32): In 1970, Earth Day happened, and that really put this environmental movement... Of course, we are talking about Copenhagen, and all these issues, Dennis Hayes, and Gaylord Nelson, the Senator, was linked to it. I did not know until I interviewed a guest last week that Dennis Hayes and Gaylord Nelson had to meet with the anti-war movement. They had to meet with the leaders of the anti-war movement before they had Earth Day to make sure that what they were doing would not take away from what the anti-war movement was all about. They were liberals both in terms of bringing this about. Just your thought on that because this has carried on, and this curated an unbelievable divide. Just your thoughts on it, because that really is directly related to a lot of Boomers. RC (00:31:21): Yeah, well once again, I draw this sanction between the vile and a law-abiding, or violent versus the non-violent, and the law-following versus the law-breaking parts of these movements. Killing people or threatening people, or blowing up things because you do not like their environmental policies I think is reprehensible. I think that the... SM (00:32:18): I am always checking to make sure, and it is. RC (00:32:26): Some of the aims of the environmental movement I am very sympathetic with. I think that there was too much pollution that was allowed, and that passing laws to restrict, that pollution made a lot of sense. On the other hand, I think that there are reasonable people who can differ about- RC (00:33:03): More people can differ about a couple of things. One is, how bad the pollution is and what its effects are. And then, also about what kind of government regulation makes sense. We cannot just ban all pollutions because a lot of people would starve to death if we did that, literally. The pesticides, and industrialization, and farming, this is how we feed people. And just a flat out ban on any kind of technology that changes the environment is clearly not something that makes any sense. So, it becomes a line drawing problem of where are we going to draw the line? How much pollution is too much? And, should the government be in the business of micromanaging the private sector or should they try to create proper incentives? And conversely, should they ensure that there are not perverse incentives where people are actually encouraged to exploit resources or pollute. And again, there is this whole managed working environment division of the Justice Department. And reasonable people can disagree about this, there's this whole tragedy of the commons and if there is a role for government. But, I think reasonable people can differ about what the role of the government should be. SM (00:35:22): One of the big groups that came out of this rule was Amnesty International. And boy, they will confront ships and they will try to stop them. RC (00:35:29): Maybe you mean Greenpeace. SM (00:35:31): I mean, yeah, Greenpeace. Excuse me, Greenpeace. RC (00:35:35): Right. Right. Yeah, right. Yeah. SM (00:35:35): They will risk their lives to save whales and things like that. But that came as a direct result of, I think of... This generation oftentimes thought themselves as the most unique generation in American history. Its uniqueness. I can remember when I was young in college, a lot of students felt that way because they were going to change everything. They were going to end war, they were going to bring peace, harmony, change the world for the better, and be different than any other generation that preceded them or probably will follow them. So, this uniqueness became a mentality within many of them when they were young. And many of them still have it as they approach (19)60 because of the times they lived in. I have noted that students that I have worked with over the years, whether they be generation Xers, or those born between 1965 and I believe 1992 or something like that, and now you have got the millennials, which is the younger group. I think they were born, excuse me, they were (19)82, excuse me, millennials yeah, until (19)82. And, a lot of the issues that generation Xers had with boomers is that they got tired of hearing about what it was like when they were young. Or, the other extreme, I wish I lived then because there were causes I could get involved in. You had a cause. We do not seem to have any. Now, that was a couple years ago. Your thoughts about this uniqueness attitude that many of the boomers seem to have. RC (00:37:14): Well, I am skeptical of that. I think that one thing that distinguishes liberals from conservatives is, and of course I am a conservative, so I am biased, but I think that conservatism is inherently a little more modest and constrained in its vision of how much any individual and how much any generation can know. And, how much we should be willing to say that, "Well, we do not care about how things have been done. We do not care about other people's opinion. We have figured this out and we know the right way to proceed." I think that that, yeah, I mean, Thomas Sowell has written about this- SM (00:38:38): I like him. RC (00:38:39): ...in a book called, Conflict of Visions. SM (00:38:39): Yeah, I like him. RC (00:38:42): Yeah. And the whole point of that book is there are these two separate, two very distinct visions. And, it goes back, this is sort of a summary of Edmond Burke or Friedrich Hayek. And so, I think that for any generation to say that, "Well, look, we have figured this out. We're unique. Everybody before us, they had it wrong. Everybody that came after us does not know anything. And in fact, the people in our own generation who disagree with us, they are wrong too." I think that that is a very arrogant and misguided approach to making public policy. On the other hand, I think that it is certainly true that for whatever reason, they may have been bad reasons, but for whatever reason, there was more political ferment during the (19)60s. And so, it may have been true that there were more causes to get involved with back then. Now, I am not sure that it was a good idea because I do not think a lot of these causes were a good idea. And, this is something where I disagree with conservatives. Some conservatives say that, well, it is sort of, national greatness conservatives that, "Well, people need a cause. And, they need to believe in something bigger than themselves. And so, the government of the country should provide that." Well, I do not buy that. I mean, I think it is true that people do need to believe in something larger than themselves, but I do not think it's the role of the government to do that. As a Christian, my own view is that the main thing that you ought to believe in that is bigger than yourself is God and serving Him. But even if I were not a Christian, I do not think I would say that, "Well, it is up to the government to give people something to rally around" I mean, okay, if you want something that you want to fight for, well go ahead and do that. But, try to do it in a way where you are not bossing other people around. I mean, if you think that there is a lot of poor people who are suffering and who need to be helped through food or educational opportunities, or whatever, that is fine, go do it. And get together with your friends if you want, and raise money, and buy food for them, or volunteer and go into depressed areas, and help kids after school. That is all great. But, you do not need to say that, "Well, we have figured out that this is the most important thing that needs to be done and we are going to force other people who do not agree with us to give us their money so that we can go do this." SM (00:42:04): You raise a good point, because the people I admire the most are people that oftentimes do things and they do not want publicity. I can remember, and I am not going to put this in the interview, but Charles Barkley, regardless of whether you like or dislike the man and what he has done on TV, and his gambling and all the other stuff, he has given thousands of dollars for scholarships to kids that do not have it. And he said, "I am doing it, but you do not let the word out." He gets very upset. "I am doing it because I want to do it. I do not want to have an article in the newspaper." Now obviously, someone found out about this and they have written things on Charles because he wants to be the Governor of Alabama one day. But, that is an interesting point there. I like the fact that when people do things, it is not because they want the world to know they have done it. It's, they do it because they want to help people. RC (00:42:57): Right. Right. SM (00:43:00): Again, what do you think are the... What was the watershed moment... Want to make sure we do not go over. Yeah. I am almost done with the first half of the tape. What do you think was the watershed moment when the (19)60s began, and the watershed moment when it ended? RC (00:43:20): Well... SM (00:43:24): Let us see here. Do I have to change this tape? Let us see. We have got about a minute I think left, then I will stop. RC (00:43:37): Okay. Briefly, I think you could mark the beginning of the (19)60s in a couple ways. You could say that, well, it is maybe with the civil rights protests that began in Montgomery, which we put it in, actually, the (19)60s, starting in the mid-(19)50s. Or, you could start it with the escalation of the war in Vietnam, which would put it in the (19)63 or (19)64, or something like that. I think the end of that, most people would say it is probably the end of the Vietnam War, or the end of American involvement. I think the Peace Accords in Paris were signed in, I think January (19)73, something like that. So, I think those are sort of how I would bracket it. I mean, clearly, the zeitgeist in the (19)60s lasted a little bit beyond 1969 because you had Kent State and the invasion of Cambodia, and all that stuff. I think that was actually in the (19)70s. SM (00:44:39): Yeah, it is interesting because there is a lot of activity through (19)73, and then all of a sudden, in the fall of (19)73 it just... So, (19)73 is a big year because that is also, we got out of Vietnam, and the activism started to really drop, and a lot of things were happening. In fact, I have written in my little segment, the introduction, that I felt it ended when streaking happened, and that was 1973 in the fall. And someone said to me when I was working OU, "Come to Ohio State." I said, "Why? Is there a protest? 'Oh, no. It is something new called streaking.'" I am going to switch the tape first. If I were to have 500 people, you may respond the same way about generalizing about boomers, too. But, if I were to have 500 people in an auditorium that were, let us say, the first half of the boomer generation, those born between (19)46 and say, (19)56, the one event that had the greatest impact, single event that had the greatest impact on their life, what do you think they would say? And when I say young, I mean really, when they were in elementary or secondary, or college, basically. RC (00:46:25): Well, of course everybody always says that you remember where you were when Kennedy was assassinated, something like that. And then, that may be true, but I am not sure if that really influenced people's lives that much. I think that the things that probably you had a direct impact on people's lives was becoming 18 years old and eligible for the draft. I think that that is probably really affected people, because I think that probably affected a lot of people's political outlook. I do not want to be unduly cynical here, but if you were not wild about the idea of going to Southeast Asia and maybe getting shot at, then it is very easy to want to come up for reasons why your reluctance to do that is justified. And so, you are going to be sympathetic to the anti-war movement. And, as you have sort of indicated, a lot of these movements, they were all interwoven. And so, if you buy into the anti-war movement then you also buy into a lot of these other movements. And, just generally buy into the whole left-wing agenda. And, I think that that probably happened to a lot of people. SM (00:48:23): It is interesting though, I know when I interviewed Ed Foner and Dr. Lee Edwards, Dr. Lee Edwards was adamant, the fact that the Young Americans for Freedom were a conservative organization who was as anti-war as the SDS. And they were conservative, diehard conservatives, and no one has written on it. There has been one book written about this particular group. I have had a lot of reactions. Some people do not remember them, but they have been left out of the history books. But, they were big-time anti-war. And they were to the right, and they were conservatives. I remember Bill Buckley even mentioned it in one of his books about the Young Americans for Freedom. So, there were conservatives who were against the war. RC (00:49:11): Oh, absolutely. SM (00:49:11): Yeah. Yeah. RC (00:49:12): That is true. That is true. And there has always been a strain within the conservative movement of people who, they're anti-Communist, but they are also isolationist, or they are very skeptical about foreign involvement by the United States. We see that even today with Ron Paul, for instance, that kind of, well, with Libertarians and also, people like Russell Kirk, I think, and others like that. And, I am sure it's true. Lee Edwards and Ed Foner were much more familiar with these groups than I was, because it was really a little bit before my time. SM (00:50:02): And Ron Robinson, who I interviewed, was one of the student leaders in that organization, now heads the Young America's Foundation with Pat Coyle. And, he did not even know the extent of what Lee was talking about. Lee's the historian, and he knows. And I said to Lee, "Why do not you write a book?" He has writing too many other books. RC (00:50:25): Yeah, he writes lots of books. SM (00:50:26): But anyways, I want to throw that in. I want to read this one. There were two basic issues I want to concentrate on in this book besides the general questions I have been asking. And then, I am spontaneously going in a different direction. The issue of healing and the issue of trust, which I personally have defined as part of this generation of issues that are affecting them. And, I want to read this. I want to start out by saying that when I was at Westchester University, I took a group of students to meet Senator Edmund Muskie about a year and a half before he passed away. I knew Gaylord Nelson, and Gaylord was able to secure nine meetings with nine senators, because we had brought him to the university. He was such a nice guy, and what a senator he was. He was a statesman. And so, we worked it out so that we met these senators. When we took the students to see Edmund Muskie, it was one of the best student groups we ever had. In fact, three of them have gone on for their PhDs by now. And, I had really picked them because we were going to ask some questions about the (19)68 convention, the tremendous divisions in the country, and all the things. We asked the question, and everybody was excited because this is the one question we wanted to ask them. And the question was this, and this is the way we read it, "Do you feel the boomer generation is still having problems from healing from the divisions that tore this nation apart in their youth? Divisions between black and white, divisions between gay and straight, divisions between those who support authority and those who criticize it, division between those who supported the troops and those who did not?" And then, I throw in something here about what role has the wall played in partially healing the veterans and the generation. "Do you feel the boomer generation will go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? Am I wrong in thinking this or has 40 years made the statement, time heals all wounds, the truth?" When I ask him this question... And, I know two of the closest students. One just became, I am throwing this in here. I am not going to have an interview, he just became the Director of Admissions at Southern Illinois University. I am so proud of him. He is 38 years old, and he is now been the director of admissions at three schools. PhD. But, when we asked him this, we were expecting the 1968 convention, and he did not even mention it. He had a melodramatic pause. He had, looked like a few tears in his eyes, and he said, "I just got out of the hospital. I have been pretty sick, as you might know. And, I just saw the Ken Burns series on the Civil War." And he recommended that if we did not see it on PBS, that we get the tape. He said, "We have not healed since the Civil War." And then, he went on to talk about the reasons why the 400,000 men who died on both sides, the lost generation of children that we never had, almost a lost generation compared to the numbers we have today. But, that was his response. I thought about it because I know veterans come back to The Wall, and I know that non-veterans come back to The Wall. And, some probably feel guilty that they did not serve when their kids asked them, "What did you do in the war, daddy?" Just your thoughts on whether you feel we have an issue with healing within this generation of 17-some million. I know you cannot break it down, but do you think it is something to be concerned about? RC (00:54:09): Well, I think that people who were on opposite sides during a big conflict probably do have a challenge to overcome that later on in life. And I suppose, that the more dramatic and important the conflict, the greater the challenge is. I mean, being on opposite sides of the barricades in the Civil War, knowing that somebody was shooting at you or shooting at your friends, yeah, that is probably something that is difficult to overcome. The (19)60s were not as dramatic but it is, I guess, more dramatic than whatever divisions there were, say in the (19)80s. There were people that like Reagan and people that did not like Reagan, but we were not shooting at one another the way we were in the Civil War. And we were not even throwing bottles at one another the way we were during the (19)60s. On the other hand, I think there are people who do not like people who disagree with them in any generation. And, they do not like people who disagreed with them... They do not like people who disagree with them now, even if they were in agreement 20 years ago. So, I think it can be over overstated. I mean, I am thinking in my own life, how would I feel about somebody of my generation that I disagreed with back in the day, back in the (19)60s? Well, I do not think I would view that as unforgivable. I do think that I would think that they were wrong, and there might be still a little distress there. SM (00:57:55): The Wall itself has done a pretty good... Jan Scruggs of the book, To Heal a Nation, obviously it has been a fair... You cannot heal a lot of veterans because the wounds will always be there for a lot of the vets. It has done a lot to help veterans and their families remember those who died and those who served. And so, I have been there for the last... I know how important it is to that side. RC (00:58:18): Yeah-yeah. SM (00:58:19): I have seen it. I have always wondered though, I guess, I even asked myself, I did not serve, and I was a college student from (19)66 to (19)70, then I went on to grad school. And, I could not go because I had asthma. Then, I had been in an automobile, not automobile, I was in a very bad accident at my house. And so, I can always say, "Well, these were my reasons." But, I know a lot of vets will look at you with an eye. When they hear asthma they, "Eh." Bronchial asthma, yes. Asthma from weeds because some people went in and were veterans who had problems with weeds like grass. So, I do not know. I just ask this. I have been asking to everybody. It's, "Ah, it's no big deal." And others say, "Yeah, you might have something there." Everybody has to heal on their own. So it's individual, so to speak. But The Wall has done a tremendous job. What do you think when you look at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington? And obviously, you have been there. What did it do for you, and do you think it has gone as far as Jan Scruggs says in his book, To Heal a Nation? RC (00:59:37): Well, I think that memorials do have powerful symbolic value. I mean, that is why we have them, right? And, maybe there is something uniquely powerful and healing about that particular memorial because of the fact that it was a controversial war, and because of the structure of it itself, and that you have all these individual names written on it. That, that helps the recognition. And maybe, veterans of that war are particularly grateful to have that recognition given the fact that it was controversial. Yeah. I mean, I think that that is... I do want to say one thing though. That I think that some of the emotion though that you are talking about, people might feel even without the context of a war. I mean, for instance, I turned 18 in April, 1973, and the Peace Agreement had been signed in January, 1973. And of course, the draft had ended even a year or two before that. So, I was never somebody where going to Vietnam was a real possibility. And then, the next war that the United States was in, I guess was not until Grenada, right? And by that time, I was through law school and in my mid to late twenties. And of course, there was not a draft. There has not been a draft since then. And yeah, I mean, I will tell you, the one regret that I have in my life is that I never wore a uniform. And I look back, and I do not know when I would have... I mean, there was not really a logical time for me to stop what I was doing. I mean, I could have gone into the army or into the service after college, or after law school, or something like that, but there was- SM (01:03:19): I think you can go in right up to 40. RC (01:03:23): Yeah. But I never did, and I regret that. I regret that. So anyway, I mean, I feel that even though I was not somebody who was not serving when other people were being drafted, or when there was a big war going on and I was sort of on the sidelines, and I did not have that, and yet I still have this regret. SM (01:03:48): Yeah. I do not know why I always ask this question. I have asked it to everybody and I have had some interesting responses. Gaylord Nelson was, in his own unique way, always responding in Gaylord Nelson way. And that is, he said, "I do not walk around Washington DC with lack of healing on their sleeve." He said, "But it did affect the body politic. And that is where the effect has been. It is the body politic. You keep bringing it up in just about every war." And we have even, as we are getting later on, when Ronald Reagan said, "America's back," it was back from the (19)60s. And then, George Bush, senior, saying, "Vietnam syndrome is over." Oh, boy. Because, some people really reacted to that, even more than Ronald Reagan. But, I have a question here. The second area is trust. Boomers, in their lives, saw a lot of leaders that lied to them. I am sure the leaders have lied throughout history, but when boomers were young and in college, they saw a president lie to them about getting involved in Vietnam with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. And, anybody who was up on what was happening knew that was a lie. There were things already written about it. If you were cognizant, and when you were in fifth or sixth grade like I was when President Eisenhower on TV said that, "The u2, Gary Powers was not a spy." I remember him on TV saying that, and then he lied. Why? And, I like him. And then of course, Watergate with Richard Nixon, and the list goes on and on. College students and the people of the (19)60s seen... The Vietnam generation did not trust anybody in position of power or authority, whether it be university or president, college administrators, ministers, rabbis, priests, politicians, heads of corporations, anybody in the leadership role, you cannot trust. And so, I am wondering if this is an issue that we define this generation as a very non-trusting generation. That it might have- SM (01:06:03): It is a very non-trusting generation that might have passed this on to their kids and their grandkids. I preface this again with a question that political science majors, of which I was a history major in political science, is that it is healthy. Political scientists always say it is healthy to challenge government and to not trust government, because that is what a democracy is. Keeps them on their toes. So you have got that extreme, but just your thought on the effect that these leaders have had and their lack of trust in so many leaders when they were young and the effect this may still have on America today. When I say this, I am not only talking about the activists. I am talking about the hundred percent, because subconsciously they all experienced the (19)60s. RC (01:06:50): That is a very interesting question. I do not know the answer to that. It would be interesting to try to figure out if people a hundred years ago were more or less trusting of these various leaders than they are now. I mean, again, there is a danger that each generation thinks that it's experiencing everything for the first time. That, oh, well, nobody else, no other generation has been disillusioned the way we are or is skeptical the way we are or whatever. Of course, it is not true. Each generation thinks that they are the first, but it is really not. Now we think that, oh gosh, the United States is polarized in a way that is never been polarized. There is a lack of civility, et cetera. Well, yes and no. You go back and you look at political campaigns that were run a hundred or 200 years ago, and they were pretty uncivil. I suspect that Southerners, prior to the Civil War were pretty skeptical about President Lincoln and did not trust him, thought he was a liar. I remember my grandfather, he certainly was not somebody... I mentioned him earlier, he was very skeptical about the veracity of different leaders. So, I think that skepticism about politicians maybe is something that is not brand new. Maybe the numbers are much bigger now. Maybe 50 years ago, 10 or 20 percent of the people thought that FDR was a liar, but now 80 percent of the people think that whoever is the president is a liar. So, maybe it has gotten worse. I just do not know. These other leaders that you talk about, the clergy, businessmen, so forth, well, again, I am sure that there were lots of... the whole populous movement was based on skepticism about the good faith of American corporations and businessmen. So, I do not think that they thought that John D. Rockefeller could not tell a lie. I do not know. SM (01:10:23): I know. As follow up, because I can remember Teddy Roosevelt when he was president and served two terms, he was very supportive of William Howard Taft taking over, but he came back in 1912 because he said Taft was a liar. RC (01:10:39): Yeah. SM (01:10:40): Lied. "He said he was going to follow through on my policies and did absolutely nothing." Friends to bitter enemies. RC (01:10:47): Right. Yeah. SM (01:10:49): So there is a lack of trust there. I think of examples, I always think of how the population responds, whether they respond... The activism in the thirties was something also like the (19)60s. I want you to respond to, what do these things mean to you? They do not have to be very lengthy or anything, but you have already mentioned what the wall means to you. RC (01:11:13): Yeah. SM (01:11:13): So what does Kent State and Jackson State mean to you? RC (01:11:19): Well, I remember more about Kent State than about Jackson State. I have to say that my recollection of Kent State was that it may well be that... It was a tragedy, clearly. But I remember when I was in the Civil Rights Division, learning that I think the Justice Department Civil Rights Division prosecuted the guardsmen there. I was very skeptical about that. I am not an expert on the facts, but this was a protest. Things were being thrown at these guardsmen. My instinct is to be sympathetic. Now, if the bottles had been thrown five minutes ago and the protestors were a different group of protestors and they were 300 yards away, well that is different. I just know about the facts, but that is my recollection, is that well, it was a tragedy. It was real wrong that these guardsmen did what they did, but the protestors should not have been throwing bottles at the guardsman either or whatever they were. SM (01:13:01): Watergate. RC (01:13:06): Well, I think that Nixon lied. He covered up. He abused government authority, abused trust, all of that. Was it an impeachable offense? I do not know. Again, I would have to go back and look at it. I mean, I remember the response of a lot of people was that, well, look, yeah, all what Nixon did was wrong, but it is not particularly new. These were things that other political leaders had done, and that to a substantial extent, this was an excuse that was seized upon by Nixon's political enemies. Example was a popular button at the time was, I was for impeachment before Watergate. Well, I mean, it was meant to show how right the person was. But I remember, I think it was Bill Buckley saying, well, exactly. That is the mindset, and that makes us skeptical about whether impeachment really makes sense here. I mean, I do not want to be a Nixon apologist. I did not like Nixon. In 1972, I was not old enough to vote yet, but we had a mock election at my high school. I supported the third party candidate then. John Schmitz was his name. Nixon was not a particularly conservative president, and there were a lot of things that he did. So, I am not a great fan of Nixon, but I think that I like Nixon's enemies even less. I am open to the suggestion that Watergate was seized upon by Nixon's political enemies to get rid of him. All that said, though, the way he handled Watergate was wrong not only politically, but also morally. SM (01:16:04): Goes right into enemies list. That was my next- RC (01:16:07): Yeah. SM (01:16:08): Just your thought on his enemies list. It is a long one. RC (01:16:12): Yeah, it was a long one. I think that it was described as being put together and that the machinery of the federal government was going to be used to screw, and those were his words, our political enemies. Well, that is wrong. I cannot do that. SM (01:16:31): How about Woodstock? RC (01:16:32): It was a bunch of stupid hippies. That would be my two-word response. I think there was some good music there. But was it a great moment for a Western civilization? No, I think it was probably not. SM (01:17:03): Going to have to put the Summer of Love in there too, which was (19)67. RC (01:17:07): Yeah. I mean, again, I think that I do not like the counterculture. I like the culture. SM (01:17:17): That is the next word. It is counterculture, because Theo Roszak wrote that very historic book called The Making of a Counterculture. He just retired. I am going to interview him. He just retired from the University of California at Hayward. He has written a brand-new book now on the Boomers in old age, some of his projections. I am not reading it until I interview him, but just the term counterculture. RC (01:17:45): You know what I said. I do not like the counterculture. I like the culture. The culture that was being countered was, I take it Western civilization and American culture in particular. I think that American culture is good and does not need to be countered. It can certainly be improved. To the extent that the counterculture was about getting rid of racial discrimination or stopping the dumping of poisonous chemicals into the water, our rivers, yeah, that is fine. But if it is about using drugs, having promiscuity, rejecting religion, no, I think that the culture is much better than the counterculture. SM (01:19:17): Two different groups, but the Hippies and the Yippies. The Yippies were Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and the Youth International Party. RC (01:19:25): Right. SM (01:19:26): Different. RC (01:19:27): Yeah. Well, I did not like the Hippies, and I like the Yippies even less. I mean, I guess the Yippies are a more radicalized and politicized version of the Hippies. I reject their Yippies political agenda and the lawless means they would use to pursue it. The Hippies, I would define I guess as people who embrace the counterculture, particularly younger people who got into long hair and bell bottoms and drug use and promiscuity and all that. SM (01:20:11): We have already set a few things. Students for Democratic Society and the Weathermen, they were different. RC (01:20:18): Well, sure. SM (01:20:20): I know for a fact that many members of SDS, when the Weatherman started, they split. It is over. Wanted nothing to do with that. So, those are two unique groups, even though they are part of SDS. Just your thoughts on SDS from its beginning, Tom Hayden created with the Port Huron Statement. Just your thoughts on those two entities. RC (01:20:47): Well, it was very left wing from the start. As a conservative, therefore I was unsympathetic with them from the start. So long as the agenda was merely dissenting and not lawless and revolutionary and violent, I would be unsympathetic but tolerant. But once an organization starts breaking the law, killing people, blowing up buildings and so forth, then they should be treated as criminals. SM (01:21:35): How about Vietnam Veterans Against the War? Because they took over the anti-war movement when SDS died. RC (01:21:41): Yeah. SM (01:21:42): They were major. RC (01:21:44): Well again, I mean, would draw the same distinction. I was anti-antiwar, but so long as the... the parts of the antiwar movement that were simply dissenting, you have to tolerate dissent in a democratic society until it becomes violent or lawless. I do not know enough about the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. I guess my-my recollection, I do not associate them with the violence and lawlessness of, well certainly of the Weatherman. SM (01:22:42): What do you think were the most important books that were read? What did you read when you were young? What do you think were the most important books for the Boomer generation? What were people reading then? RC (01:22:57): Well, and I mentioned from my side of the aisle, I was a fan of Buckley's. Of course, Buckley was publishing books that I remember reading, books that were... I mean, a lot of them were compilations of his columns and other essays, but he also had some standalone books too. I think The Unmaking of a Mayor, which was his [inaudible] running for Mayor of New York City against Lindsay, Up from Liberalism, I think. SM (01:23:39): God and Man at Yale was classic. RC (01:23:40): Why, sure. Yeah. I think that was written in the early (19)50s, McCarthy is an amazing and so forth. So yeah, I think that Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind, there were lots of... the whole staff of National Review, James Burnham, Whittaker Chambers. Goodness knows that was a little bit earlier, but I think that those were all important books for conservatives. For the left, I remember The Greening of America by Charles Reich, reading that. Garry Wills was sort of an interesting guy who started out as, I guess as a conservative and became liberal. I remember reading Nixon Agonistes and I am not sure- SM (01:24:58): Classic book. RC (01:24:58): Yeah. I do not know how I would classify that. I think that Wills may have written that when he was in transition. But I remember it was an important and much read and discussed book then. Well, and then from the Martin Luther King, Why We Cannot Wait, his speeches, those were obviously very important books. SM (01:25:32): Your thoughts on the music and the art of the era? Obviously, we are talking about rock music, Motown, folk. What was the music that really turned on you and some of the conservative Boomers of that period? I thought some of this music appealed to everyone. RC (01:25:51): Yeah, no, I think that is true. I think that is true. SM (01:25:52): They had so many social messages in their music too. RC (01:25:55): That is true. Although I do not know that there really were very many, that there was much conservative movement, conservative music, conservative, popular music back then. SM (01:26:13): Burl Ives. RC (01:26:16): I guess The Ballad of the Green Beret. SM (01:26:19): He was a liberal, man. RC (01:26:22): But I enjoyed that music. I tell you, I am Bob Dylan fan. I like him. Of course, a lot of Dylan's work it is hard to... it is not maybe as easily pigeonholed, particularly in retrospect, as people think. Dylan himself is an interesting character. I do not know if you have read- SM (01:26:56): Yeah, I have read quite a bit on him and actually about the song, Like a Rolling Stone. People have read the words. You take away different meanings. RC (01:27:06): Yeah. Yeah. SM (01:27:07): In fact, one person I interviewed said, "Listen to the words. He is very critical of the Boomer generation. Listen to the words on a Rolling Stone." Now that might not be what he was later, when he was with Joan Baez, but just listen to the words. RC (01:27:24): Yeah. Well, and his chronicles and his memoir, I mean I was sort of surprised, but he talks about that era. He thought that Goldwater was a great guy. He singles him out among politicians like, "Yeah, I read. Oh, you really made a lot of sense to me." I liked a lot of the (19)60s' movement. I would say that probably the more stridently political it was, the more problem I would have. But a lot of it, you can convince yourself to like it. I remember Emerson, Lake and Palmer, the song Lucky Man. SM (01:28:16): With the eagle or the swan or whatever it was, or a dove. It was a dove on the cover. RC (01:28:24): Yeah. SM (01:28:24): Yeah. RC (01:28:27): I guess their biggest hit was probably Lucky Man. Right? SM (01:28:29): Mm- hmm. RC (01:28:32): I am sure it is supposed to be very sarcastic in characterizing this guy who was killed as being somehow lucky. But you read it, I said, "Well, it would not be such a bad way to go," to live and die. But no, the Beatles obviously have great music. The Rolling Stones had great music. Rolling Stones is another group that is interesting, that they certainly were countercultural and not role models, but their music was not really very political. SM (01:29:17): Well, I got two more questions and then I am just going to read some names, just quick responses and then we will be done. The one question is, there were three... someone corrected me and said there are four, but I am going to continue to say there are three slogans that really defined the era. I would like the one that you feel defines the era more than the other or a combination. One of them was Malcolm X's By Any Means Necessary. Of course, that was on a lot of residence halls and colleges. The second one was Bobby Kennedy, who... actually, I think it was a Henry David Thoreau quote. He said, "Some men see things as they are and ask why. I see things that never were and ask why not." Then the third one was a Peter Max poster that was very popular on college campuses in the early (19)70s. On that poster it said, "You do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful." So those are three different slogans of an era, one being more radical, one more hippie-ish, and one sense of responsibility, the idea of making a difference in the world for other people. Your thoughts on those three? And again, I am going to make sure... this tape may be going to an end here. Yeah, I am going to... Okay, here you go. RC (01:31:08): Yeah. I was trying to think if I can recall other catchphrases from the (19)60s, burn baby burn, do not trust anybody over 30. SM (01:31:31): It was Cleaver [inaudible] kept saying that. I cannot remember what it was. RC (01:31:37): Yeah. Well, I guess of those, the one that... I guess the two that I would pick out as emblematic are the Bobby Kennedy and the Malcolm X one. Chronologically, the Kennedy one may have come after the Malcolm X one. I am not sure. But I think that the Kennedy one can unfortunately degenerate into the Malcolm X one. The reformist impulse that the Kennedy quote shows is everybody's in favor of reform. Nobody thinks that the status quo is perfect. I mean, Edmund Burke believed in reform. I think Burke said that when we change the existing institutions, we should approach the body politic as a son approaches the wounds of his father. You should be very gentle, very careful in the way that you treat those wounds and in the way that you try to make things better. The most important thing is to do no harm. When you start saying that, well, we're going to do things by any means necessary, that we have figured out what needs to be done and we do not care about process, we do not care about consensus, we do not care about following the rules in order to bring about what we think needs to be brought about, then you lose me. I think that you should lose anybody who is responsible. I think that unfortunately in the (19)60s, a lot of this understandable reformist impulse degenerated into the lawlessness and violence of by any means necessary. SM (01:34:51): What were the photographs or the pictures that stand out in your mind that really caught your attention during this time, that had the greatest impact on you? I have three that I will mention after you respond. And then there is a fourth that someone told me, "How could you forget that one?" RC (01:35:13): Well, I think that when I think of the (19)60s, I think of Vietnam. I guess the two photos of Vietnam that come to mind are the South Vietnamese official summarily executing the Vietnam guy and then the famous naked little girl running from the Napalm. SM (01:35:45): Kim Phuc. Yeah. RC (01:35:45): Yeah. SM (01:35:46): Mm-hmm. RC (01:35:47): I think those are the ones that come to mind about Vietnam. I think of, I guess maybe pictures of the Kennedy assassination, the still photos. I think of... I mean this does not really have anything to do with what we have been talking about, but the men walking on the moon. In terms of the Civil Rights Movement, I do not know. I can picture different photographs of Martin Luther King and other civil rights figures, but I cannot really think of a particular one. SM (01:36:53): There are, I think four pictures that are in the top 100 of the 20th century. One of them is the girl over the body at Kent State. RC (01:37:04): I could think of that one. Yeah. I was going to say that one. SM (01:37:06): That is one I was thinking of. That was Mary Ann Vecchio. Then the other one is Tommie Smith and John Carlos in the (19)68 Olympics in Mexico City with their fists up. RC (01:37:15): Right. SM (01:37:16): You hit the third one of mine. What was it now? Oh yeah, Kim Phuc, who we actually brought to Westchester University. But one that I was told that you cannot forget is the Mỹ Lai Massacre, dead bodies and I do not know. RC (01:37:32): Well, I was thinking about that, but I do not remember... I remember pictures of Calley, but I do not remember that photo. SM (01:37:37): Yeah, there are others. Yeah. RC (01:37:39): Yeah. SM (01:37:40): Of course, Spiro. The last question before, I just get the names here now, and I just want to get back to the (19)50s. Now, you obviously are younger than I am. Of course, Boomers, the frontline Boomers start going into seventh grade around 1960, (19)59, (19)60. So the thing that always puzzles me, and I would like your feelings on it, what was it about the 1950s that shaped this generation? I know we had Eisenhower as a president. He was a gentlemanly old man, but he was war a hero. The kids of this era grew up watching Mickey Mouse Club. All the westerns on TV, my golly, all these westerns were always, the Indians were the bad people and the cowboys. You had Howdy Doody for the real young ones, Rootie Kazootie. You had The Ed Sullivan Show. You had the black and white TV, three channels. The list goes on and on, on the types of TV shows that were on in the (19)50s. But parents are trying to give as much as they could to their kids. Of course, we're not talking about all the African American kids or others, but even in that period, there seemed to be a more stable family unit, even within the African American community in the- Well, the family unit, even within the African American community in the 1950s. RC (01:39:04): It is true. SM (01:39:05): Much more stable unit with a mother and father. They may not have had a TV set, but there were a lot of things happening, and then you get into the (19)60s or the beginning of the (19)60s when President Kennedy became president, and I know the war and the draft and all these other things, but there had to be something as children are growing up, given all this stuff, and they were rebelling against their parents, the generation gap, and all the other things. How did this happen? And two things that I remember. I can remember as a little boy overhearing the McCarthy hearings on TV and this man screaming saying, "You are a communist," and all this. I can remember that, and obviously the threat of nuclear war and all the other things, but my friends did not never seem affected by that. And then, of course, the beat generation where anybody that knew about the beats, they were the first to rebel against the status quo. There is a lot of stuff happening here. Just your thoughts on what was it about the (19)50s that shaped the boomer generation? Forget the (19)60s and the anti, all this stuff. What was it about it? RC (01:40:22): Well, I think the conventional wisdom would be that, well, the (19)50s were very stayed conservative era and repressive. Repressive of women, repressive of racial minorities, and that the (19)60s generation got fed up with that and wanted to end repression and to have more freedom, more equality, so that is what the rebellion against the (19)50s was about. I am not a social scientist, I am not a historian, but I am skeptical of that view. I think that there certainly was discrimination in the (19)50s, but of course the discrimination against minorities and women was not new in the 1950s. It was in the (19)40s and the (19)30s and the (19)20s and so forth, too. So it is kind of unfair to single out the (19)50s. In fact, the (19)50s in some respects, starting to move in the right direction on these issues. I think that a more cynical explanation of what happened in the 60s would be this. It was not a rebellion against the 1950s at all. That what you had was a generation that was spoiled. As we discussed before, the greatest generation had gone through the Depression and they did not want their kids to suffer, and so they indulged them. So you had that, you had a couple of technological changes with the pill, which made it much easier and less risky to have premarital sex. You had a continuing decline in traditional morality and religion. Again, this was not something that began in the (19)50s, but I think it maybe was continuing in the (19)50s. And then, the catalyst was that you had the Vietnam War and people for largely self-interested reasons, rebelled not against the (19)50s, but against this war. And as a result of that, and as a result of the fact that the ideology of the anti-war movement was interwoven with a lot of other left-wing ideology, bought in to the rest of the left's agenda, which did include rejection of all that was bad and good about the 1950s and American culture generally. I think Midge Decter wrote a book, which I have not read, called Liberal Parents, Radical Children, which I think may talk about some of this. SM (01:46:04): Good. How many years ago was that? I probably have that book. RC (01:46:09): Yeah, she must have written that I think in the (19)70s. SM (01:46:18): We're at the end here in terms of just responding to some of the names, just quick response. They do not have be any kind of great detail. There might be a few smaller terms here too, but I am going to start out with just your thoughts. Jane Fonda? RC (01:46:35): What do you want from me, a thumbs up or a thumbs down? SM (01:46:38): Just your thoughts, just a few words, what you think of her. RC (01:46:42): Well, yeah, I did not like her. She was, if not a traitor, she certainly... And if not, she did not engage in treason, she certainly gave aid and comfort to the enemy. SM (01:46:56): How about Tom Hayden? RC (01:46:59): It was... At a minimum, I am very unsympathetic to his political agenda, and my recollection is that the agenda was not only objectionable, but advocated lawbreaking and... Well, I will not say violence in this case, but certainly breaking the law. SM (01:47:46): And a follow-up is his close friend, Rennie Davis. RC (01:47:49): I do not remember Rennie Davis. SM (01:47:52): How about Abby Hoffman and Jerry Ruben? RC (01:47:55): Well, again, they were certainly on the Wallace part of the protests. Whether they were... I think that they certainly tolerated violence if they did not engage in violence themselves. SM (01:48:14): Chicago Eight, or seven, when they took Bobby Seal away. RC (01:48:18): Well, again, I would put them in the same category. I do not remember how... I mean, I am sort of drawing these distinctions between dissent, lawless dissent, and then violent dissent. SM (01:48:30): Right. RC (01:48:30): And the Chicago Eight, that was a trial about Wallace. I do not know what it was about. Well, I guess, actually did not they blow up a monument or something? I cannot remember if that was part of the- SM (01:48:45): Well, I know they took over a monument, but that was a whole group of people, but they did not blow it up though. RC (01:48:49): Yeah. Oh, okay. Maybe- SM (01:48:51): I have not asked this before, but since you're a lawyer, what do you think of William Kunstler? RC (01:48:56): Well, again, I do not like him. I think that he abused the legal system, acted very irresponsibly. SM (01:49:09): The premier of his documentary is Saturday. There is a documentary coming. He and Leonard Wineglass worked together in Chicago. RC (01:49:16): Yeah. SM (01:49:18): Timothy Leary. RC (01:49:23): Irresponsible. Advocate of drug use. SM (01:49:27): Dr. Benjamin Spock. RC (01:49:33): He wrote a decent book on child-rearing, but was wrong about the Vietnam War. SM (01:49:41): How about William Sloane Coffin? RC (01:49:44): Also wrong about the war. SM (01:49:50): How about the Black Panthers? And I am going to list them because there is five of them that are well known: Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, Angela Davis, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver. There is five of them. They were well known. The other one was murdered, Norman, in Chicago. RC (01:50:07): Well, the Panthers were not only dissenters, but they were lawless and violent dissenters, and they killed people. David Horowitz, I think, was well written about this. I cannot remember... I mean, well, I do not remember anything about Kathleen Cleaver. Angela Davis, I remember, and I remember that she was convicted of helping a... Oh, I guess then the conviction was overturned on basically a technicality, and now she is ironically a law professor. She is a devout Communist, so I do not like her. SM (01:51:09): Kathleen, by the way, is a law professor at Emory. RC (01:51:12): Is that right? SM (01:51:12): A very good law professor. RC (01:51:14): That is funny. Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton and- SM (01:51:23): Bobby Seale. RC (01:51:23): ... Bobby Seale, I would have to read up on which did what. I think that Cleaver was actually convicted of rape at one point, in addition to what he did with the Black Panthers. I think that, I cannot remember if it was Huey Newton or Bobby Seale that was killed eventually in a drug related- SM (01:51:58): Huey. He ended up getting a PhD too. RC (01:52:07): Yeah. SM (01:52:07): He was a smart guy. RC (01:52:08): Yeah. Well, I think that he's the one that David Horowitz talks about in his memoirs the most. Yeah, being smart, but very dangerous. SM (01:52:16): How about the Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Gloria Steinem, the feminists? RC (01:52:29): I actually think of Chisholm more as, not principally as a feminist, but- SM (01:52:36): Black, female politician, ran for President. RC (01:52:39): Right. As I said, I think that the feminists, I sympathy with providing more opportunities for women, but not sympathetic with the denigration of traditional female roles, which should also be things that could be chosen. And I think some of them, I think had a sort of generally liberal agenda, and so I would disagree with her about that. SM (01:53:40): Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. RC (01:53:46): Well, I think that both of them did a lot of... Really let down Republicans and conservatives through their law-breaking. In both instances, I think that there are those who would say that, well, the penalty that they paid was disproportionate to the laws they broke, but nonetheless, they did break the law and I think they let us down. SM (01:54:47): I did not mention two other Black Panthers, H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael. They were big. RC (01:54:53): Yeah, yeah. And I put them in the same category. Advocates of violence. I think that Rap Brown is back in prison. SM (01:55:00): He is in jail. I think he is there for the rest of his life. RC (01:55:08): Yeah. SM (01:55:11): John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy? RC (01:55:16): Well, I think that John Kennedy is greatly overrated as a president, but is a much more conservative president than is remembered. He was strongly anti-communist. I think his views, he would have a very hard time getting nominated to anything in the Democratic Party these days. Bobby Kennedy, I think was also somebody who had, I think he was becoming more liberal as he got older before he was killed, but I think his... Both of them I think are more fondly remember today than they would have been had they not been tragically assassinated. SM (01:56:43): How about Teddy Stein? RC (01:56:47): Well- SM (01:56:48): Some people say he was probably the greatest senator during this timeframe in the (19)70s, when he became 62 to now. RC (01:56:58): Well, he certainly was an effective senator. I did not share his agenda, and I think that his significant faults were all whitewashed during the mourning over his death. And I think that some of that is understandable. When somebody dies, that is not the time to point out their faults, but he could be a very nasty politician as witness what he did to Robert Bork and had a personal life that was at least for long stretches, immoral, and even criminal. SM (01:58:41): How about Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern? RC (01:58:47): Well, I think that both of them are, unlike Kennedy, I think are personally very well-behaved, moral men. McGovern was a war hero, and I am not aware of anyone that is criticized their character. They are both political liberals, so I disagree with that, but I do not think that they had the personal failings that the Kennedy has had. SM (01:59:40): How about LBJ and Hubert Humphrey? RC (01:59:45): Well, very different. I mean, I guess, they had similar politics. Again, both of them, I did not share their politics. I think that Humphrey was someone, again, whose personal life and personal morality, I have not heard criticized. Johnson was a much rougher character. SM (02:00:20): Couple more here. George Wallace? RC (02:00:28): Well, he began as a racist demagogue and eventually became just a demagogue. I mean, think that he shed some of his racism. He is somebody who is political bottom line, I shared in many respects in terms of being more accepted in the civil rights area, but in terms of the war, the rejection of the counterculture, I was sympathetic, but he was, I think somebody who thinking conservatives were never entirely comfortable with. SM (02:01:33): Daniel and Phillip Berrigan, Catholic priests. RC (02:01:37): Yeah. I sort of have them same category as Sloane Kaufman. There were a lot of mainline clergy who were opposed to the war, and I do not remember... I did not share their rejection of the war. I do not think that... I think you can be a good Christian and also support the Vietnam War. I cannot remember whether to what extent they were not only dissenters, but also broke the law- SM (02:02:35): They did. They threw blood on nuclear weapons, and then they also destroyed direct records. RC (02:02:40): Yeah. SM (02:02:42): Barry Goldwater and Dwight Eisenhower. RC (02:02:46): Well, I liked Goldwater. SM (02:02:57): Yeah, it is the first time. I will turn this off. RC (02:02:58): I think Goldwater was hero to conservatives during the (19)60s, and I think Eisenhower was a president who for a long time was underrated, but I think there is now more recognition that he was a very effective and good president. SM (02:03:22): How about Harry Truman when boomers were babies? RC (02:03:29): Yeah. I think that in terms of foreign policy, Truman largely did a good job, domestic policy. He was a liberal, and I think less so. SM (02:03:52): Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon papers. RC (02:03:57): Yeah. As I recall, he stole and made public classified information. SM (02:04:24): Right. RC (02:04:27): Which the Pentagon papers were, and you should not do that. Even if you think that... I mean, this again gets to this conservative point that even if you're convinced you're right, that does not mean that you break the law. SM (02:04:54): John Dean? RC (02:05:13): I know that he was an excellent White House official and was one of the first people to blow the whistle, to reveal what the administration had done with Watergate, but I do not remember much else about him. SM (02:05:55): Muhammad Ali? RC (02:05:57): Was a great boxer. I did not share his politics, but he was not a political philosopher. I guess the question is whether he was a draft dodger or somebody who, for legitimate religious reasons did not want to serve. I am more inclined to the former view than the latter, but I have no window into his soul. SM (02:06:53): Woodward and Bernstein? RC (02:06:57): Good reporters. I have no objection to reporters doing their job. SM (02:07:13): Yeah. You already responded to Woodward and Bernstein. RC (02:07:18): Yeah, I think they were reporters doing their job. SM (02:07:22): William Westmoreland, the guy who oversaw the- RC (02:07:26): Yeah. No, he was the general in charge for a lot of the time during Vietnam. I am not really in a position to critique- SM (02:07:39): The ERA and why it failed? RC (02:07:42): Well, I think it failed largely because of the efforts of Phyllis Schlafly. I think that she was right to oppose it. The problem with the ERA is that nobody knew, and nobody still knows, what exactly it would do. And it does not make sense to amend the Constitution for what was essentially symbolic reasons when you do not know with a fair degree of certainty what the actual effects of that amendment are going to be. We already have the 14th amendment, which makes it very difficult for governments at any level to engage in sex discrimination. Nobody is in favor of prohibiting sex discrimination to the same degree that race discrimination is prohibited; and yet, I mean, there is a good argument that the Equal Rights Amendment would do that. And so, does that mean that, for instance, the military cannot make any distinctions with respect to sex? That sexual distinction is not going to be allowed with respect to government jobs where it is a bonafide occupational qualification? For instance, hiring prison guards or things like that, medical research. I mean, it purports to be a categorical ban on sex discrimination. I think that nobody is really in favor of a categorical ban on sex discrimination. SM (02:10:06): Harvey Milk, because he is the epitome of the gay and lesbian movement. RC (02:10:11): Yeah. I just do not know enough about that. Again, I said at the outset, I think that gay people should not be beaten up or jailed or anything like that; but on the other hand, I think that objection to homosexuality is not the same thing as racial discrimination or gender discrimination. SM (02:11:01): Tet. RC (02:11:04): Well, I think that... I guess it is now pretty much accepted that while it was a military failure for the communists in Vietnam, the Tet Offensive was a political defeat for the good guys of Vietnam and that the media bears some of the blame for that. SM (02:11:51): I am down to the final thing, which is the final presidents that we are going to ask about, but since you were a lawyer, I cannot leave without asking you, just a quick thought on Roe V. Wade- SM (02:12:03): Just a quick thought on Roe v. Wade and the two civil rights bills that President Johnson signed in (19)64 and (19)65. We're talking about three major events. Roe v. Wade was in the (19)70s, but these are major decisions in boomer lives. RC (02:12:18): Yeah. SM (02:12:18): So just your thoughts on the two civil rights acts. I have not asked this to other people. I am only asking it to lawyers. RC (02:12:26): Well, I think that one point that I always make about the two pieces of civil legislation is that in both houses, the percentage of Republicans who supported it was higher than the percentage of Democrats who supported it. Both pieces of legislation, yeah. And that is something that is frequently forgotten. SM (02:12:50): Is that because Everett Dirksen was such a big supporter of it. Because Everett was a big supporter. RC (02:12:55): Yeah, he was. And that would explain the Senate. It would not necessarily explain the House. I think that part of it was because there were so many Democrats at that time, so the Democrats were opposed to it. Yeah. But anyway, it shows, I think the Republicans now do not get enough credit for that. I think that both bills obviously had much good in them and were certainly well-intentioned. I think that in both cases, the way that the bureaucrats and the judges subsequently interpreted and enforced them turned them on their heads to some extent, so that instead of prohibiting discrimination across the board the way they were written and intended, they now are interpreted to allow, and in some places require politically correct discrimination on the basis of race and ethnicity. The Roe versus Wade was a very bad Supreme Court decision. There is nothing in the Constitution, one way or the other, about abortion. And it was a classic instance of judicial activism for the court to read such a constitutional right into the Constitution. And it has had all kinds of bad consequences. Not only bad consequences in the sense that there are lots of dead babies because of it, but also bad consequences in that it has removed the whole abortion discussion from the political and legislative arena and put it in the courts, which are not really equipped to deal with those issues. SM (02:15:09): I am going to end with the Presidents, because we have already talked about many of them up to the 1970s. Just your thoughts on Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. RC (02:15:29): Well, I think that Ford will be remembered positively for the role he played in the nation's healing. After Nixon, we needed a Gerald Ford. We needed a very down to earth man of strong, positive character who was a quite unpolarizing figure. Carter was one of the, I think, least successful Presidents of the century, partly because his policies did not make any sense, partly because of his own personality. And I think the failings of his personality have become more evident since he left office. It was just a very... SM (02:17:12): How about Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr.? Both of them. I am going to turn this- (02:17:24): Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. RC (02:17:27): Well, I think Reagan will be remembered as one of the great Presidents, not only of the 20th century but also in American history, because of his leadership in bringing the Cold War to a successful conclusion, and also to returning the United States to free market principles at a time when we were headed away from them. And more generally, for a renaissance of conservative leadership. George Bush, Bush 41, I think that he was an unsuccessful President in terms of persuading people that he knew he was doing in terms of domestic policy. But I think that he may still be remembered well by historians because of his foreign policy. SM (02:19:13): The Gulf War. RC (02:19:15): Well, even before the Gulf War, he presided over the demise of the Soviet Union and the liberation of Eastern Europe. And that was a very critical period, and it could have gotten screwed up, but he did not screw it up. SM (02:19:49): The last two, obviously, Bill Clinton and George Bush. And I say these two gentlemen, because in some of my interviews people say these two gentlemen really define the boomer generation. And they give me their reasons. Even though they one was a conservative and one's ... I am not sure if Bill is truly a ... I think he is more center than what his wife's turned out to be. But what is it about them that people would say that both these men truly define the boomer generation? And then your overall thoughts on the [inaudible] Presidents? RC (02:20:27): Well, they were boomers. And I guess they were the first Presidents who were boomers. And I suppose in some respects, they were on opposite sides during the (19)60s. Clinton avoided serving in the war and smoked pot, even if he did not inhale. He certainly seemed to have bought into the sexual revolution. And I think you are right that to call him just a liberal is maybe an oversimplification, but certainly more liberal than Bush. I actually think that it's more problematic to call Bush a conservative than it is to call Clinton a liberal. And of course, Bush was not exactly a war hero either, nor was he somebody who eschewed mind-altering substances. But I think it would be hard to argue that Clinton was an unsuccessful President. I mean, he was President during a period of peace and prosperity. And I think that the extent to which he deserves credit for either of those, it is up for debate. And you can argue that by not being more proactive with respect to terrorism, that he sowed the seeds for 9/11. So I do not think he will be badly remembered because of the substance of his presidency. I think that he will always be associated with Monica Lewinsky, which is too bad for him, but I think it is also too bad for all of us. Bush, I said that I am not sure that you really can characterize him as conservative. I think that in terms of domestic policy, there are many respects that he was not a conservative. He certainly was not a small government conservative. He cut taxes. I suppose that that is conservative. But he also increased federal spending in lots of ways. In my area, a mixed record at best in terms of civil rights. I think that history will judge him based on the War on Terror and how that turns out. That was certainly his top priority. And I do not know enough, and it may be that nobody really knows enough yet to know how successful he was, to what extent what he did is the reason why there were no subsequent successful attacks in the United States, whether the progress he made in fighting Al-Qaeda and killing or capturing its leaders made a big difference. We do not know yet. And of course, depending on how this President does, that will affect how he has judged. SM (02:25:26): A question I asked earlier about the trust factor, about how many boomers did not trust because leaders did things; well, as boomers’ approach senior citizen status, as the frontline boomers are now 62 years old, eligible for social security, the last two Presidents have also done things that are just the same old SOS, as they say. President Clinton being on television, "I did not have sex with that woman," and then George Bush, the weapons of mass destruction. As many people believe, there's two liars right there again. So it is just some people interpret it as such. RC (02:26:04): Well, I do not know. Of course, I am a conservative Republican, so maybe I have my own prejudices, but I think those are two very different statements. And I think that Clinton's statement that he did not have sex with Monica Lewinsky is either a flat-out lie, or what would in some ways be even worse, a sort of ... I forget how he worded it exactly, but something like, "Well, since I did not have actual vaginal intercourse, therefore I did not have sexual" ... you know. It would almost be better to lie, I think, than to mislead somebody and pretend that you're telling them the truth, the whole truth, which is what you would have there. I am not convinced, and I am not sure that anybody ... well, there probably are some people, but I am certainly not convinced that Bush, at the time he said that there were weapons of mass destruction, did not believe that there were weapons of mass destruction. SM (02:27:38): Colin Powell said it, and many people think that ruined his career. RC (02:27:40): Yeah. I mean, if you make a statement that turns out not to be true, but you thought it was true, that is not a lie. SM (02:27:49): Right. I agree. RC (02:27:49): You have made a false statement, but it is not a lie. A lie, there has to be intent. So if Bush knew that there were not weapons of mass destruction and was deliberately making a false statement, okay, well that is a lie. And truth be told, that would be a bigger lie than lying about sex, because the stakes are higher when you are telling a lie in order to justify getting the United States into a war as opposed to trying to save your own political high. But I do not think it was a lie. SM (02:28:32): I end by saying that President Obama's of course the last President of the boomers, and he is a boomer. He would have been two years old in the very end, but he still is a boomer. And of course, [inaudible] does not remember all this stuff, but it's too early to judge him overall. A lot of people want to judge him early. But- RC (02:28:51): Nobel prize. SM (02:28:53): Yeah. That really shocked me. But a lot of people that were involved in the anti- war movement, a lot of the liberals from that period, a lot of my friends feel that finally, after all these years, we had one of ours back in there. It was not Clinton. It is Obama. This is a man who really ... even though he was not in the (19)60s, is part of the (19)60s because of who he is, what he believes. Your thoughts on just the short term. And most of the times, when I interview people, I never get a chance to ask some of these questions here on the Presidents because I have sometimes only an hour, sometimes 30 minutes. So it is great. Just your thoughts so far on President Obama and what he really stands for. And to a lot of boomers, he stands for progress. RC (02:29:40): Well, I think that that is what a lot of conservatives are afraid of. They too think that Obama is much more left-wing than he ran as. And I think that there's a lot of evidence of that. And we will see. But of course, we elect Presidents. We do not elect kings. And that is relevant in two respects. Number one, no matter how liberal a president is, there are political constraints on what he can do. We have existing laws, we have courts, and we have Congress. Even though the Democrats do not control Congress, changing the laws, he has to go through Congress, and there are enough Republicans there to slow or even stop more radical kinds of change. On the other hand, when you elect a President, you elect not just the President, you elect a whole administration. I think on some issues, like civil rights, the President himself may have somewhat more conservative instincts than the people he is likely to appoint. But you are stuck with the political appointees, excepting the relatively rare instances where an issue gets [inaudible] away to the Presidents- SM (02:31:52): A lot of people believe that if Hillary had won and gotten in, there would be no difference. Just a different color. Because she is a liberal too. RC (02:32:00): Well, yeah. I think you have to ask, whatever they themselves think of these different views, they are going to be facing the same Congress, they are going to be facing the same constraints, and probably a lot of the people that they would have appointed would have been the same people. And so it is not a choice between King Barack and Queen Hillary. It is between an Obama administration and a Clinton administration. And there may not be a lot of difference between the two. SM (02:32:36): When the best history books are written, and they are normally written 50 years after an event ... a lot of the best World War II books are coming out now, and I wish my dad was alive to be able to read them, because he died seven years ago. But when the best history books are written about the boomer generation, maybe as boomers have passed beyond when they are alive, what do you think historians and sociologists will be saying about this generation? Because after all, the people that will be writing these books will not be boomers. They will be generation Xers who will be reaching old age, there will be millennials who will be in middle age, and there will be the following generation, generation Y or whatever it is called. What do you think they will be writing about this generation, and saying about it? RC (02:33:30): I do not think that they will be writing about it as a generation. Think about it. I think to some extent, this is a phenomenon of the fact that we are in it now, but 50 years from now, I think that most historians will write about individuals. Individual biographies and the individual issues and events and all that. And they may write about radicals in the 1960s, or conservatives in the 1960s, or civil rights leaders in the 1960s or something like that. But as we have discussed, I think that there is too much heterogeneity among boomers for it to be a useful analytical device for most history. And I think that it is rare to have history, I think, that focuses on generations. I think that most history looks at events and individuals and particular groups of individuals. Now, sometimes there are exceptions to that. And when we talked about the Civil War generation, that may be different. When you have a cataclysmic event like that, where literally a whole cohort of people are swept up and have to go off to war and a lot of them are killed, that may be different. And maybe even the greatest generation, with the twin events of World War II and the Depression, maybe you can treat that generation as... But still, when you think about it, when Brokaw wrote The Greatest Generation, this was something that was sort of new. People had not written about the (19)50s generation. Or I do not know what they would write about, but I think it is very novelty shows. This is not the way that history is normally written. And I think it will remain the exception, rather than the rule. SM (02:36:40): I cannot believe I did not ask you, just your quick thoughts on Martin Luther King Jr. He gave that great Vietnam speech, which set him apart from the other civil rights leaders, and he got criticized for it. But just your overall thoughts on him. You have already talked about Malcolm X. You have said some things about him. But Dr. King and his importance in this period? RC (02:36:59): Well, I think that King will be remembered. And the reason that we have a national holiday is because of his crusade for racial equality. And that was a literally heroic effort. I think the word heroism is overused these days, but in that time and place, he was putting his life on the line, and ultimately died because of the principle of racial equality. I think, unfortunately ... well, not unfortunately. In addition to believing in racial equality, he believed in economic redistribution and the anti-war movement and a lot of things like that, which are much more open to debate. But- SM (02:38:13): And he was a proponent that to get anything, you have got to agitate. You have got to continue to agitate. Now, he believed in the non-violent approach. He and Bayard Rustin were of the same realm, the non-violent approach. And that famous picture with Stokely Carmichael standing next to Dr. King. Dr. King had his arms like this, and obviously he was tense, because Stokely Carmichael was telling him, "Your time has passed." And he was telling him. And that is the same thing that Malcolm X did to Bayard Rustin in a debate they had at, I think, Columbia. "Your time has passed." Like James Farmer, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King, Bayard Rustin, all that group. Jesse, even though he was younger. "Your time's passed. Black power now." So Dr. King had to put up with a lot. Some people said he had the heart of a 70-year-old when he died, because he was under medicine, blood pressure. Unbelievable stuff. RC (02:39:19): Yeah, yeah, sure. I am sure that is all true. SM (02:39:24): But I have asked you a lot. Is there a question I did not ask that you thought I was going to ask that you wanted to add? RC (02:39:30): No, I do not think so. I will think about it. If there is anything I want to add, I will send you an email or call you up. SM (02:39:38): I have a waiver here, which I am missing. If I can find it here ... oh, got it. I guess we have to make a copy of this. Would you be able to make a copy? RC (02:39:49): Sure. SM (02:39:50): And then you could sign it and you can read it and keep a copy to yourself. I wrote on this one. RC (02:39:53): Oh, okay. That is all right. SM (02:39:57): See, the first 50 people, I did not know I had to have a waiver. I was new to this. (End of Interview) Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. 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Title A name given to the resource Interview with Roger Clegg Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Clegg, Roger ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Lawyers; Center for Equal Opportunity; Clegg, Roger--Interviews Description An account of the resource Roger Clegg is the President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He was the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for both the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. He specializes in legal issues arising from civil rights laws including immigration and bilingual education. Clegg received his Bachelor's degree from Rice University and is a graduate of Yale University Law School. 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 2009-12-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.38a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.38b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 160:15 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/32264e48644f38df8546aeb227dd4a2b.jpg 60e741077397563658a521e7bce10d76 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3db5a7c4f78e21dc590b59cf38d0fe35.mp3 7058cd8ccdc32bf52785b0090d256f28 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 1997-07-16 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Ronald D. Castille Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Ronald D. Castille served on the US Supreme Court in Pennsylvania from 1994 to 2014 and was promoted to the Chief Justice in 2008, staying until 2014. Castille retired from office at the age of 70. He received his Bachelor's degree in Economics from Auburn University. He joined the U.S Marine Corps and received several awards along his journey. Castille received his Juris Doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law after his medical retirement from the Marine Corps."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":7043,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial"}">Ronald D. Castille served on the US Supreme Court in Pennsylvania from 1994 to 2014 and was promoted to the Chief Justice in 2008, staying until 2014. Castille retired from office at the age of 70. He received his Bachelor's degree in Economics from Auburn University. He joined the U.S Marine Corps and received several awards along his journey. Castille received his Juris Doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law after his medical retirement from the Marine Corps.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Anti-war protest; Civil rights movement; William Buckley; Bill Buckley; Hippies; Sexual Revolution; Drugs; the Vietnam War; Counterculture; Activism; Equality; Jim Crow; Segregation; Black Panthers; Feminism; Gay Rights; Native American Movement; Baby boom generation."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":13689059}}">Anti-war protest; Civil rights movement; William Buckley; Bill Buckley; Hippies; Sexual Revolution; Drugs; the Vietnam War; Counterculture; Activism; Equality; Jim Crow; Segregation; Black Panthers; Feminism; Gay Rights; Native American Movement; Baby boom generation</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 73:36 Subject LCSH Marines; Pennsylvania. Supreme Court; Judges; Castille, Ronald D.--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Ron Castille Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 16 July 1997 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:05): So, I am going to do that here today as well. Thanks again for taking time out of your busy schedule. First question I would like to ask deals with the issue of, how much time do we have today? We have about an hour? RC (00:00:19): Yeah. Because we have to take a break at about three o'clock real quick to go ahead and get free ice cream sundaes. SM (00:00:26): And then we can come back? RC (00:00:27): Yeah, they are bringing them to the floor. SM (00:00:28): Oh great. RC (00:00:29): I guess some kind of commercial deal by the [inaudible]. SM (00:00:34): I saw that in the hallway there, near the elevator. First question is today I have seen a lot of the media that commentators like George Will, I have even heard [inaudible] and several individuals, politicians from both the Democratic and Republican side who will look at the issues facing America today and the problems we have in America today and they will pinpoint them back to when the boomers were young basically blaming the problems on boomers for what is happening in America today. I would like your thoughts, just your personal thoughts from whether that is true historically, and from your own personal experience what your thoughts on the boomers’ impact and linkage with the problems of today in America. RC (00:01:19): I guess it did impact society in that just the opposite of what JFK said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Well that era sort of got away from that what I can do for [inaudible]. They go their individual rights elevated above everything else. It became kind of selfish to some extent in that the focus was not on the greater good of society but was on whatever made them happy. Hence all that stuff about free love, and dodging the draft, and what is good for me is what is right. So the focus became inward rather than outward. And we're probably only just starting to come back around. SM (00:02:14): So, in a sense you are kind of in agreement with those social commentators that a lot of the things today in America, whether it be the breakup of the American family, which is of course the high divorce rate we see today, the drug culture amongst young people which is on the increase, some of the strife we have, the lack of respect oftentimes for authority figures. You see direct relation to the boomer. It is a bloomer quality. RC (00:02:38): Yeah, I see that. It is all to that time. I kind of grew up in the (19)50s. That was the country and the parents and the church, [inaudible] the institutions of government held in high esteem [inaudible] Vietnam [inaudible]. For me it is all [inaudible]. The nation where everybody thought, at one time they thought the marijuana was really bad [inaudible]. It might have been the drug of choices at the schools, at the law school in (19)69, (19)68, graduated in (19)71. Just one side were the juicers, which [inaudible] and the doper is the one that smoked marijuana. I have got people that were experimenting with drugs and [inaudible] it is I guess the taboo that drugs were that [inaudible]. SM (00:03:37): Check your [inaudible]. That will do fine. What do you feel is the overall impact of the boomer generation, if you look at the year 1997 as we are heading into 1998? This is kind of a two-part question. What has been the overall impact of boomers on America? Because boomers right now are reaching 50. Because boomers are categorized as people who were born between 1946 and 1964. And what would you say would be the positive qualities and the negative qualities of the boomer generation? RC (00:04:19): The negative, some of that I just spoke of. The elevation of individual rights over the collective common good. I guess the positive things, sure they make people a little more questioning rather than just going along with the institutions of society and questions about how they function, and some of the problems they have been ignored were brought to the forefront. So, there was more of a typical questioning of what was going around their society. The civil rights movements, the [inaudible], which was partly the boomer generation at the same time. And the [inaudible] all these different rights. Like the stop and search, and the suppression it was forward in the (19)60s. To some extent that is healthy questioning the society and what it is all about, what it does and how it handles some of the problems. But because we're better off today than we were back then, certain groups are always complaining about racism, if you could transport them from today back to the (19)60s you would find a totally different problem. I went to Auburn in Alabama, I graduated in (19)66, and I think in (19)65 was when they integrated [inaudible]. [inaudible] about diversity at Auburn. So, it was an all-white school [inaudible] civil rights because of that. So, I guess it was helping that they questioned society what was provided to people. So healthy skepticism and a willingness to make things better [inaudible]. SM (00:06:16): One of the things that I am trying to get at is, because I work in a college environment today, and boomers were young once. There is a lot of activism happening during that era, but the overall impact that boomers have had on their children. I bring this in because I feel that looking at a term that was often used in those times, the generation gap. That was the world war two generation, the boomers, the gap that happened there. And now if there is such a gap between boomers and their children, which is generation Xers. Could you comment on your thoughts of that time using your own metaphor of your life? Any experiences you may have had regarding that generation gap. And also comparing that to a generation gap of today. RC (00:07:00): I guess back in the (19)60s there was a real generation gap once people started wearing long hair and listening to rock and roll. So yeah, that really was not the change or the gap that they referred to was [inaudible] age and changing totally. That Glenn Miller era, Elvis Presley and The Beatles. I think they [inaudible] trending styles. [inaudible] with whatever they were told and what was handed out to them. [inaudible] the IRME sort of started going back to as far as I can tell is trying to get more altruistic and involved in society [inaudible], no protests [inaudible]. SM (00:07:53): Occasionally there will be protests, especially over issues like lack of representation on a student newspaper. African-American students might do that, and that is happened in the last couple of years at different universities. Lack of representation, but other than that no. I have not seen a whole lot. RC (00:08:10): That is what's changed. They are more willing to be, I would not say docile, but believe that the institution of society serves a function, and they have some good. [inaudible] just like, let us tear it down and start all over, [inaudible]. Then an organization like the SDS or weatherman frequency that we have. SM (00:08:36): No? RC (00:08:36): No that is the difference, I think [inaudible 00:08:38] were things that made this country strong over the years, morality. But unless you're just like us aides. I think they like to drink beer and stuff more, do not they? SM (00:08:48): It is a definite yes. RC (00:08:51): Well that is not a norm back in the (19)50s. SM (00:08:54): Party time was a very important term. This takes right into another aspect, activism. Activism was always an adjective to describe many of the boomers, but we know from studying sociology and so forth that only 15 percent of the 76 million boomers were really active. It could be liberals or conservatives, but it really got involved in some aspect of the issues of the time. And 85 percent really just went on with their daily lives, so to speak. Your thoughts on the concept of activism at that time? And whether that activism has transferred into boomers lives as they have approached 50. And whether they have been able to transfer that activism to their children. RC (00:09:37): I do not know about their children, [inaudible] children. Activism, the most active people of every-every color. [inaudible] and marching, and not willing to have a rational conversation, not willing to work [inaudible] active people of that time. I went to law school. I was I just at the battle in Vietnam. I spent 15 months in a hospital in Virginia. And at that time there was all those campus protests and all that stuff. It seemed that Virginia, [inaudible] got a small minority out there just yelling and waving the Viet Cong flag [inaudible]. Well, the institution was like college campus, functioning student newspaper, fraternities and things like that. So there probably was a small group of activists. I do not even think those people are activists anymore unless they are [inaudible] communities trying to make their [inaudible] traditional [inaudible] school and things like that [inaudible]. SM (00:10:41): [inaudible], yeah. RC (00:10:42): If they were to walk out today, and you say how many other people are there like this? [inaudible ]. My perspective, [inaudible] is tainted to some extent. There have always been elected officials where we could have bettered society. SM (00:10:59): Would not you say though that what you're doing with your life is carrying out some of that activism. Going on to become a lawyer, going on to become a judge. And then you ran for political office. One of the most admirable qualities- RC (00:11:10): I am a [inaudible], I am not an activist. I was always involved in things. I was in the student body in high school, I went to Air Corps Marines, and that drove me to [inaudible] always be the best. And [inaudible] in student counsel in college too. Senator [inaudible]. So, he started to do that, I was always active in that sense and in that sense without more [inaudible] the existing system. When I was in law school I was the Vice President of the law school, I was one of the editors of the-the law school students’ newspaper. I was doing that. And I was elected DA two times here in the Supreme Court. It is not activism, I think they look at activism as destructive kind of stuff. I am more of a dragging on of tradition. Some people would call me reactionary. SM (00:12:12): But I can give you a [inaudible] Harry told me about that if you're talking about your contribution to society being a judge and a lawyer, that you got involved with the Vietnam Memorial here in Philadelphia. And the contribution to society and showed activism there of seeing something that needed to be done and doing it. That was certainly activism at its finest. RC (00:12:33): Yeah, that was a healing sort of thing. Everybody does a preliminary when I was in law school. There was probably a bunch of guys in Vietnam [inaudible] was an assistant DA. There were guys that he knew and served [inaudible]. I brought people all over the city. We have talked about it, [inaudible] publicity that I have because of the [inaudible]. That was sort of a healing tone. It felt like [inaudible]. SM (00:13:01): [inaudible] year anniversary coming up. RC (00:13:02): Yeah [inaudible]. We did a good job on that one [inaudible] $2 million. I was actually and owner of the memorial at one time because [inaudible] gave us a property but on the condition that we turn it over to the Fairmount Park after we are through. But the Fairmount Park did not want it because I know [inaudible] raised X hundred thousands of dollars more from- SM (00:13:29): The ends of this issue a [inaudible]. RC (00:13:32): [inaudible] I am on the board of the boy scouts, I am the US Ward[inaudible] handicap people are [inaudible] some kid of activities that help. Then we have sports [inaudible] it was more of the traditional sense of prolong what I think are good things- SM (00:13:57): [inaudible] the two major issues of boomers was certainly the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. And your point-blank thoughts on how important the boomers were in ending this war. Whether it is direct response to the students who were protesting on college campuses. Again, probably that 15 percent that were involved. How important were they in ending the war and what was the reason that the war ended? RC (00:14:22): They probably had some input in it. They actually got to see war a lot more than we did because of television. The Korea War, they did not have towers and TV and what brought things home pretty radically to the people. And then [inaudible] it was in your living room. So [inaudible] was [inaudible] a lot of the protest. None of them want to be there and get shot [inaudible] pressure. Probably rethink their positions. And then a lot of people came with us military guys that came back from Vietnam and started raising hell about it. [inaudible] what they did [inaudible] return their medals and speak out against the was saying [inaudible] the whole thing was misguided and screwed up. I think when those kinds of people started raising their voices too- SM (00:15:17): And their [inaudible] RC (00:15:17): Yeah. SM (00:15:17): [inaudible] RC (00:15:18): Yeah, they have [inaudible] saw them on TV [inaudible] educational channel. I think it is probably one of those [inaudible]. Yeah, when those people start speaking up [inaudible] students handled with care. We do not want people coming back and complaining about the screwed up [inaudible] lost. The thing was prolonged for years. They played a role [inaudible]. SM (00:15:44): Also so when Jack Smith said from ABC news, because I interviewed him last fall he point blank said that the main reason why this war ended was when the body bags started coming home and mothers and fathers and middle America saw it on television. Said there's no other reason why, that is the reason why. Do you agree with that? RC (00:16:04): I absolutely agree with that. The first one where you could get a 15 minutes of combat right at dinner. This was the-the first-time war was an actual war, the reality of it was brought home by the [inaudible]. We did not get to see the whole thing. That is probably the military's biggest mistake was letting the reporters out into the field to do whatever they wanted. SM (00:16:31): Had more controls on that during the Gulf war. Remember they had to stay back there and they did not allow them. RC (00:16:36): They had to stay in the rear with the gear and they give you a brief. SM (00:16:39): How important were the boomers in the civil rights movement? RC (00:16:43): They were important too. I think other than the blacks down in south, if nobody came down to help them it would probably have still been the same. And the college kids were spending their summers down there. [inaudible] that I was in the south at the time so I can put the [inaudible] tremendously. Contested the old John Crow laws. SM (00:17:04): Have you changed your opinions at all on the boomers for the last 25 years? Your thoughts when you were a college student at Auburn, and then when you were a young professional and coming back from the war. Then to go through rehab and then now as a judge. Do you look at things differently or are you pretty consistent in your thoughts? RC (00:17:22): I am probably pretty consistent in my thoughts. A bunch of them were jerks, a bunch of them were cowards, [inaudible]. Or cutting back on the use of drugs. Some guys that served in Vietnam were addicts and stuff like that. I respected those individuals. I actually respected the people that said [inaudible]. The others I [inaudible] wen to Sweden and Canada. I hope they never come back. [inaudible]. Those individuals that totally evaded all responsibility. SM (00:18:10): [inaudible] all the respect of, if you were to have a meeting with several of those individuals to sit down and have a civil dialogue, or you just would not even deal with them? RC (00:18:19): I have dealt with them. One guy was John [inaudible] who we dealt with. SM (00:18:23): That is right, the one that Howard stern destroyed. RC (00:18:30): He was really helpful to us in [inaudible]. But he never served in the military, he was a war protestor himself. But no, he did not go to Canada or wherever. He might have had a deferment and everything. But I guess those people were misguided to some extent in that they were protesting the war and did not even have content. They started seeing the light after [inaudible 00:18:57]. So I work with people like that. The ones I do not like nowadays are the ones who were in Vietnam when they were in the military when they [inaudible]. SM (00:19:12): Oh, I know that because I have been going down to them a lot the last couple of years to the ceremonies on Veterans Day and Memorial Day. And I will never forget that my conversation with Joe Galloway. I do not know if you know him? RC (00:19:24): [inaudible] yeah. SM (00:19:24): Yeah, he was US news [inaudible] and wrote report, he wrote When Were Young Once. That was an [inaudible]. I interviewed him and he said, that is the thing that upsets him the most. You cannot believe how many Vietnam imposters there are in there at the ceremonies. Yes, and they lie and they sit there and they actually have a medals on. There is no question that is the... We have got a target there because that is what Joe was talking about too. RC (00:19:50): [inaudible] he was the worst of them all. [inaudible]. It was a human example of stark cowardice [inaudible]. SM (00:20:02): Later in the interview we are going to go over some names here, but now that you have mentioned his name, your thoughts on that book in retrospect. Whether you bought the book or have you read the book, your thoughts about that, knowing about 1967, that he knew back then that the war was bad mistake. RC (00:20:20): He was a coward, he did not [inaudible]. He gave a speech to Valley Forge Military Academy, a graduating class. Mentioned him [inaudible] in the military [inaudible] say what you think is correct. And this otherwise, and not mention [inaudible] power he was when he came to his conclusion that the war was wrong in (19)67. That is something like seven to 10,000 dead. But he did not say one thing to Johnson. [inaudible] and just never said one thing about it until 20 years later. SM (00:20:54): And one of the characteristics that boomers used to say, we are the most unique generation in American history. We are different than any generation that proceeded us. And because of the times with the civil rights, protests against the Vietnam War, the women's movement, the Native American movement, there were a lot of movements at that time. There was somewhat of an arrogance and the cockiness that the boomers at that time felt they were the most unique generation. Some may still feel that. Your thoughts on that terminology that the boomer generation is the most unique generation in American history. RC (00:21:25): They were just a collection of assholes. Probably the most unique generation we have ever had is the people that moved out of the east coast of the United States. They were going into Kentucky and Tennessee. I always go to these state parks and I look at these things and say, man can you imagine somebody driving a wagon through this place. [inaudible] unbelievable hardship to settle in a country. So the people who moved out of the original colonies and moved across the nation to California who's encompassing more than one generation. But the boomer generation [inaudible] danger was you might get drafted and go to Vietnam. Most of the time you will not be near that much danger in Vietnam. SM (00:22:15): Of the 3 million that served in Vietnam, how many actually served on the front lines? RC (00:22:20): [inaudible] something about that where they said for every soldier [inaudible] had had nine people packing them up. SM (00:22:24): This feeling that many hand that we are going to change the world in a positive way, that was a mentality in 1968, in 1997. Have they? RC (00:22:38): The generation before them is the generation that changed the world, the world war two people when they came back. American was a different place pre-world war two and then after world war two, [inaudible] the country up until the Bush [inaudible 00:22:55] Strongly against communism, Vietnam being part of it. But they held on against communism, and when those individuals that came back [inaudible] I am serving four years in the war I was just strongly as a country man [inaudible]. SM (00:23:14): I referred earlier to the fact that sociologists and historians will say that 15 percent of the boomers, which is 76 million, really got involved with some sort of activism. And that could be liberals or conservatives. Whatever their stance was at that time on different issues. Some have said that that is a lessening of the impact of this generation has had, because they will say only 15 percent were really involved, 85 percent went on with their lives and did not really care about the issues. And thus, when you look at today and you see that their children do not vote and they do not vote that that 85 percent is having greater impact than the 15 percent as they have gotten older. Your thoughts on that and whether you feel that that kind of mentality is lessening the impact again on the boomers and their involvement in the issues of the time. Whether it be against racism, sexism, some of the issues linked to the movements. RC (00:24:04): I do not really know. Are you saying that they had no impact at 15 percent? SM (00:24:12): No, they had impact, but by saying that they had only 15 percent of them were involved was really 85 percent were not involved. RC (00:24:21): And they were involved in it at some extent in that they were carrying on the tradition of our society, the institutions, home, family, jobs. SM (00:24:32): They were involved. RC (00:24:32): To that extent though they have been part of what America is all about. [inaudible] by the activists. People talking about the way that you should be. Why should we take everything verbatim or per se or [inaudible] follow along, let us have some questions. Which I think I think that generation did that asking questions. And it did help change the [inaudible] problems of society. In the (19)60s with the civil rights movement, all this questioning of the status quo that everybody could be talking about it and [inaudible] who has to decide [inaudible] the debates started back in [inaudible] there was no debate in the (19)50s [inaudible]. SM (00:25:25): I have been to the Vietnam Memorial, we got four more minutes on this side of the tape, I have been to the Vietnam Memorial many times. I am sure you have in Washington. Obviously when that wall was built, it was meant to be a nonpolitical statement. It was to pay on honor tribute to those who served. Knowing that in this nation the Vietnam veterans were not treated properly when they returned. And it was in a Jan Scrubs and the people involved in that, they did a tremendous job. And they certainly have encouraged many morals around the country like you that were involved in here as a nonpolitical entity. So, we were getting into the aspect of one of the goals of that wall, which was the healing. The healing of not only the Vietnam veterans and their families and loved ones. But just basically the divisions that took place in America at that time, even by those who were for and against the war. Those who served those who did not serve. Your thoughts on the healing process in America as 1997 with respect to, has the nation healed from this war? Which was one of the goals of the wall. And has it healed up certain groups more than others? And in what areas do we still have a long way to go with respect to healing and bringing our nation together because there were so many divisions at that time? RC (00:26:46): Well actually the first thing that brought the healing was when they had the unknown soldier from Vietnam [inaudible] at Washington. People filed by that by the millions I guess. [inaudible] realize, yes Anne. Anne (00:27:06): Pardon me, I just want to let you know that it is ice cream. RC (00:27:08): Okay. SM (00:27:12): People started filing by that. RC (00:27:15): [inaudible] then realizing that this guy gave up his life for his [inaudible] in Vietnam, it is still a dead American [inaudible]. That was really the first step, that soldier. And then the second one was the wall. When they built that that caused some problems too because to look at a black gash in another [inaudible]. It was pretty impressive to see [inaudible] two of those were really the beginning to getting over the Vietnam war. [inaudible] when it was the Gulf war [inaudible] when I served in [inaudible] to Washington [inaudible] started painting. There is still parts of society that think there is no healing. The blacks are real with the world. I think most of the problems commonly caused by Vietnam are probably behind us. SM (00:28:17): [inaudible]. Again, and we will go to the ice cream. The issue of the divisions. I have been to the wall and had a chance to try to get an ambiance or feel. I feel I must be there to get a feel amongst the veterans as I talked to them. I Got to know Jan and Joe Galloway and some of the people down there. I have brought students to the wall. I do hear things like we can never forgive Bill Clinton, he was the typical draft dodger. We will never forgive Jane Fonda. And obviously she's a lightning rod. But the question is, is this an issue in the lives of Vietnam veterans or is it an issue in your life that, I have moved on with my life time heals everything, the wall was doing a great job, but the divisions of that time, tremendous divisiveness, the lax, the shouting, the disrespect, all these qualities that some people may say have been transferred today into our everyday dialogue. Is it a direct result of that time? And where is the healing over some of these things? RC (00:29:25): I guess we are pretty [inaudible]. I do not think people like Clinton would go to clearly manipulate the system. To an extent they did not like [inaudible] because he had [inaudible]. One-time government had [inaudible] of the guy [inaudible]. The cherry-picked people on the [inaudible]. People like [inaudible] Clinton did it [inaudible] then he bailed out and went to Canada. SM (00:29:53): Fulbright helped him, Senator Fulbright was one of the biggest advocates against the war eventually. RC (00:30:00): I will not say too much, [inaudible] politicians can be. SM (00:30:02): Do you want to get that ice cream now, and [inaudible]. What are your thoughts on people like David Horowitz, or anybody from the left at that era who have become conservatives to the extreme right. Which David Horowitz has become. And of course, he was the editor at Ramparts magazine, now he is one of the leading conservatives going around the country bashing the boomers who were protesting the war and issues of civil rights. Your thoughts on those people who were on the left, who have just totally did an about face and that are condemning those who did not. RC (00:30:45): Maybe they saw the light. Maybe they saw that they were wrong. You cannot condemn a person. You can point it out that he was wrong, and then try to make amends for it. That just sounds like what the guy is trying to do. Could have made a moon [inaudible]. SM (00:31:02): He is one of the biggest names out there now, of people on the college campus, speaking to a lot of different issues like that. RC (00:31:09): People actually come here? SM (00:31:10): Yes, he is drawing good numbers. RC (00:31:13): I was always amazed too [inaudible] I was running for DA or something. They said come [inaudible] be like two people, three people. SM (00:31:29): So [inaudible]. RC (00:31:33): So, I guess the liberal [inaudible] sort of party in the background. Have you ever studied [inaudible] to some extent he was. SM (00:31:43): Just check this man. What do you feel your impact has been on society as a boomer? A person who now is in a very prestigious position. But if you were to look at your, as boomers felt they were going to be change agents for the betterment of the world, do you feel as a boomer or a little bit older than a boomer that you fall in that category? RC (00:32:10): [inaudible] I was born in (19)44. SM (00:32:13): You are in that area because a lot of people [inaudible] feel they are boomers right up to 55 and 56, even though they do not fall into the category. RC (00:32:23): [inaudible] maybe I have had some impact on society. Being an assistant DA, clearing the streets of criminals has some impact. [inaudible] being the DA of the city. Just fix it. It has had some impact on society. And with all the people on death row, it does not matter who [inaudible]. And then this job I am in now is in Speak with Justice, we have an impact on the law an- the structure of [inaudible]. I am trying to bring our hardcore [inaudible] towards the leftist positions [inaudible] personal rights [inaudible] everything else. SM (00:33:12): Do you see yourself running for political office again down the road? RC (00:33:18): Well I do not know, I could probably be in this job for 20 years [inaudible]. But what I am doing in this job is high level work. [inaudible] respect most of us. Mostly the lawyers. A larger section of society, never can say never. That is what my buddy Bob Dole is going to be president. I might have a shot at the US Supreme Court. What does a [inaudible] war veteran [inaudible]. I might someday [inaudible]. The way politics are now it is a whole different subject. Airing it all on TV and all negative with your opponents. SM (00:34:04): What is the lasting legacy of the boomer generation? RC (00:34:09): It would probably be much [inaudible] anything specific. [inaudible] that make people a little more skeptical and questioning about what goes on in society. [inaudible] anybody suggest anything. SM (00:34:26): [inaudible] would say women have gotten better equality over time because of the movement. RC (00:34:34): I guess I could [inaudible] civil rights. SM (00:34:37): Straight into the [inaudible] lasting legacy, but historians always have this mentality. Well the best history books are yet to be written. And or the best history books will be written in 50 years or 25 years. I am trying to look down the road 25 to 50 years when supposedly the best books are going to be written. Well, how do you think historians are going to treat that period from the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, during those times. The impact on America is changing [inaudible]. RC (00:35:07): I think they are going to probably see the impact on the world, what we did to the world specifically [inaudible] and some of its allies’ cause [inaudible] that is 11 a year [inaudible] to some extent totalitarian. But one thing is our system of government and our economics system and the freedoms that are [inaudible]. Someone is going to [inaudible] that would be known as tox Americana. Just remind [inaudible] you got to go back to the early (19)60s or (19)70s. That is when there was to some extent [inaudible]. You can always go back to world war two, and then America stepping into Korea. [inaudible] a stronger face against communism. [inaudible] Russia is a [inaudible] country now. I guess the Russians must be [inaudible] to [inaudible] stay strong. And then we go in there and [inaudible] collapse. Nothing [inaudible]. To an extent all the generations had their war too. SM (00:36:24): Back to a question we talked about earlier about the healing process within the generation. Do you think it's possible to heal within a generation if the differences in opinions were so extreme? If so, is it important to try to assist in this healing process? Some of this book, project dealing with metaphors people's lives and their opinions historically and personally, is to say that there is no really clear-cut answers. There just needs to be better understanding how people felt. So that this mentality of saying that my opinion's better than someone else's or the pointing of fingers. We need to just really sit down and try to understand people better. How do you feel again about this healing? The effort to heal, Especially from the divisions of the war. RC (00:37:12): [inaudible] I guess all you really need to do is talk to a person. [inaudible]. I will never forgive the people [inaudible] Canada. [inaudible] Clinton [inaudible] Jane Fonda always preaching about the war itself [inaudible]. And then there is [inaudible] Americans [inaudible] let us lose the women thing or just being [inaudible]. SM (00:37:48): How would you compare people who say that the Vietnam War, it may not have been the civil war in America of the 1860s, but it still was a civil war and it was a coming civil war. We were pretty close to a civil war. And your thoughts on people who thought that the many people went to their graves after the civil war without healing toward the other side or forgiving the other side. And that this generation of boomers are going to be going to their graves with still the bitterness in their heart. Thoughts on that kind of thought. RC (00:38:24): Well I do not really know if anybody is bitter anymore. I lost a leg in Vietnam and I am not bitter about having [inaudible]. I do not think there is a lot of people that to me seem to give much thought about it anymore. [inaudible] every waking moment or dwelling moment. [inaudible] is 25 years old and whether it is [inaudible]. SM (00:38:58): How about this issue with trust? People will say, and again, I am using terminology, but we sense that there is a lack of trust in America today toward elected officials, people in positions of power and responsibility, whether they be Governors, Congressmen, Senators, principles of high schools. RC (00:39:17): Supreme Court Justices. SM (00:39:18): Right, Supreme Court Justices, Ministers, CEO, heads of corporations. Because the establishment, there was an attack against the establishment at that time. And that some of the mentality is never trusted people in positions of power and responsibility. And somehow that carried on to the children of today the Xers. Your thoughts on that and where we are in America with respect to trust and how serious that is in American thing. RC (00:39:43): I think I mentioned earlier we had a sense of skepticism in the institutions of [inaudible]. Skepticism is still there. Yeah, maybe it is good [inaudible] you cannot just go [inaudible], I think that is just skepticism which [inaudible]. SM (00:40:12): The lack of trust all the young people have [inaudible] many boomers who are now over 50. RC (00:40:16): I do not know if it is a lack of trust or if it is skepticism. SM (00:40:17): Okay. RC (00:40:18): We accept it we just do not [inaudible] newspapers so they would do something [inaudible]. Not some big investigation. [inaudible] as they are. [inaudible] say what is this really about, was it a political move, was it this and that. So since [inaudible] question by the press, it is the next step that may be more cynical that everybody else. SM (00:40:52): As person who served and went to war, lost a leg, but really went when your nation called, do you feel strongly toward those who did the same? And I will come back, what are your thoughts as a person cared about America and then saw elected officials lie to America, Lyndon Johnson and some people say the Gulf and [inaudible] revolution was made up. We never really should have gone to war. So how Johnson treated the war, obviously you have already made commentary on McNamara, who ran the war. Or did not [inaudible]. And then what you saw with Nixon and Watergate. And then just a lack of trust in public officials because they lied to the Americans. And yet you went to Vietnam, served your country. And then you see the politicians back home lying. Just your thoughts. It does not have to do with you being a Republican or Democrat, just being human. Just your thoughts on those leaders of those times. RC (00:41:49): Yeah, there's a lot of veterans [inaudible]. I remember I had taken [inaudible 00:41:59]. I think we were sitting [inaudible] book and donate it to some veteran’s hospital or something [inaudible]. What was the question [inaudible]? SM (00:42:16): Just your thoughts on the impact it had on you after you served, came back and then saw all this and witnessed all this. What you are feeling as a young man. And then but you still went on and served your country and you are going [inaudible] office. And you have done a lot of good things, but still it had to have an impact on you in some way. RC (00:42:34): [inaudible] impact on me was [inaudible] when I was in Vietnam. It only took me about two weeks to figure out [inaudible] screwed up. And then that is the first thing you did when you got there they sat us [inaudible] rules of engagement. Do not fire at them unless you are [inaudible] casually. Then they would send you out on some stupid patrol when you come back, they'd send you out again on another stupid patrol. [inaudible] that is what we did, that is how it was doomed to fail. [inaudible]. SM (00:43:17): Did you feel when you were going to go to political office, I am never going to be in like Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson or Robert McNamara? [inaudible 00:43:2] that was an inspiration to be better than them? RC (00:43:27): I guess I did go over to [inaudible] teach you a system to use [inaudible] trial advocacy and structure of the DA's office. Got these new DA's in [inaudible] your word is your bond [inaudible] people trust you [inaudible]. [inaudible] that is what people would trust [inaudible]. There is always going to be a first for people [inaudible]. So maybe let us say all these guys filled in like they did with Johnson [inaudible] suckered into a war that we could have won but did not win. SM (00:44:17): All the events when you read on from that period, from high school, college years and the years that you served, one event in America, one event that stands out of all others that had the greatest impact on you, what was that event? RC (00:44:31): Event in America? SM (00:44:34): Yeah, at that time it could be in Vietnam or there was one specific instance. People say the assassination of John Kennedy. Everything is different, everybody said a different [inaudible]. RC (00:44:49): [inaudible]. SM (00:44:54): Kennedy was that experience of his dad telling him that. RC (00:44:56): [inaudible]. SM (00:45:04): Experience informed who you are, that you were injured? RC (00:45:15): [inaudible] a different person, that is for sure. I will not stay in the [inaudible]. SM (00:45:16): One of the terms that always comes out of the youth of the (19)60s is the concept of empowerment, feeling that my voice counts, that people are listening to me. And so students on college campuses, even though they may have been radical and doing a lot of these things, there was a sense of maybe some might say euphoria, but there was a sense of empowerment that I can be a change agent. I am going to help end this war. I am going to help have civil rights and equality for a lot of different people in America. Do you feel this empowerment has continued amongst the 70 something million boomers as they have gone into adult life. And do you feel they have transferred this to their children, this sense of empowerment, which is basically self-esteem? RC (00:45:56): I guess that is one of the changes that happened in the (19)60s from the (19)50s. It seemed like in the (19)50s and early (19)60s the older you were the more you were respected and listened to. If you were young you were just the opposite, you were not listened to. So [inaudible] the younger folks with the experience of [inaudible] free speech [inaudible] school [inaudible] wrote an editorial about that. [inaudible] are you saying what a good thing it was [inaudible] the university [inaudible] your kids. SM (00:46:38): [inaudible]. RC (00:46:39): That is changed entirely. I guess Kennedy [inaudible] that when this started [inaudible]. And so, the-the thinking is I got him, a college kid, [inaudible] somebody ought to listen to him. But I think that still carries on, we still have young people today, we dismiss them just because they're young. Kids can have good ideas and kids can participate [inaudible 00:47:09]. That was probably one of the main [inaudible] in our society [inaudible]. SM (00:47:18): What event do you think defines the boomers then? And not your personal experience, but if there was one event in that timeframe [inaudible] that really defines the boomers. RC (00:47:28): Obviously, I could not ignore the [inaudible] it was just what was happening. Civil rights and women's rights [inaudible]. SM (00:47:37): Coalition of many things? RC (00:47:38): Yeah, [inaudible]. SM (00:47:44): I am going to just list a lot of names here. Just your overall, maybe a couple of sentences, thoughts on each of them. Positive or negative, your thoughts on them and maybe the thoughts that boomers may have had for these people. The first two are Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden. RC (00:48:00): She was a traitor, she should still get prosecuted. I know she tried to apologize a couple of years ago [inaudible]. She has never be forgiven [inaudible]. I think somebody [inaudible] of her sitting in that anti-aircraft gun, [inaudible] Jane the star. And [inaudible] Vietnam [inaudible]. SM (00:48:18): Tom Hayden. RC (00:48:18): I do not know if [inaudible] protester or hell raiser, [inaudible] in California [inaudible]. I saw that [inaudible]. SM (00:48:43): I saw them at Kent State. I saw them at the fourth anniversary of the killings at Kent State, and they were not speaking, they came together. And I will never forget being in that room with them, talking about what happened at Kent State, it was amazing. But she was certainly different. How about Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin the-the Yippies. RC (00:49:05): They were just a bunch of nutty guys that is all. If today you saw them you would say, man what are these guys? It's like some kind of throwbacks or some kind of hippies. SM (00:49:17): You remember when Abbie Hoffman died, it was in the news. He died over in Bucks County, he had $2,500 in the bank and he had given all of the money away to help people. And he left a note, and the note said that he killed himself. He was an impressive man. But no one was ever listening to me so he just did not want to go on with his life because one was listening anymore. And I said, well maybe the eccentricity is on this man, but are many boomers feeling the same way who cared about the issues of that time? And maybe society is not treating those issues the same way as they did then. Like young people are not listening as much to those issues. And that is why it kind of affects more boomers than just an Abbie Hoffman. Are people listening anymore to some of those issues? RC (00:50:05): [inaudible] I did not forget what Abbie Hoffman [inaudible]. SM (00:50:16): How about Dr. Benjamin Spock. RC (00:50:19): He probably always [inaudible]. I guess his philosophy was let your kids do [inaudible]. A lot of [inaudible]. SM (00:50:30): Timothy Leary. RC (00:50:33): He is another crack pot. Oh, he was probably far more dangerous in that era. He would have [inaudible] I guess all types not just LSD, I think he was everything. [inaudible 00:50:47] take another drug [inaudible]. Some people would have followed that. Not specifically because he said it, but because there was this feeling of they were like yeah, it was not such a bad thing. [inaudible] not have the potential to really [inaudible] our society. SM (00:51:05): What about the black power advocates, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver that whole group, the black power movement and their impact on America? And your thoughts on it. RC (00:51:15): They had some legitimate gripes, there is no doubt about that. The blacks were oppressed to some extent by systems of government and the institution of government, the police and all that stuff. They still are [inaudible] Martin Luther King. But he changed the system, non-violent, said violence was not a very good thing. SM (00:51:41): That leads me right into Dr. King, your thoughts on Dr. King and Malcolm X. RC (00:51:48): [inaudible] I was there when [inaudible]. Everybody in the south canceled their subscriptions to Time when they [inaudible] I think his impact is going to be greater [inaudible] radical change in the south. And he did not even know it too and he did it within the system, he used civil protest. SM (00:52:19): Thoughts on Malcolm X. RC (00:52:22): I guess Malcolm was [inaudible] he got other people to be in tune [inaudible] he would be secretly [inaudible] and all that stuff [inaudible]. He was a really good leader, he was [inaudible]. He was even more strict than Baptist rules and Catholic rules. SM (00:52:47): Some of the political leaders of that time and we're going to go into the presidents here. Just a few comments on Lyndon Johnson. RC (00:52:54): He was actually the most impacted society [inaudible] president. [inaudible] was passed under him. All the civil rights laws were passed under him. Medicare and Medicaid, he created that. That is [inaudible]. The housing act, I think he did that. I think he passed six or seven major legislation. Impact on us is [inaudible]. SM (00:53:30): Then John Kennedy. RC (00:53:33): He did not do that much did he. There is a lot of myth about it was Lyndon Johnson that did the stuff. [inaudible]. So, the most of the things they say about him are not even his work. [inaudible]. SM (00:53:51): Richard Nixon. RC (00:53:53): He would [inaudible]. He was part of I guess the old two government [inaudible]. That government was the be all and the end all [inaudible]. But he did open [inaudible]. Any thoughts, I guess he helped to end the Vietnam war. It has always been a weird [inaudible]. SM (00:54:19): Your thoughts on that combination of Nixon and Kissinger because the fact that in 1968 when he came in and promised Vietnamization, that he was going to end the war but he would not say how he was going to end the war. We just went over the 30,000 point of deaths in Vietnam, which means when he became president over 28,000 more Americans died in Vietnam. It took him four to five years to pull out and your thoughts on, we know how many Vietnam veterans feel about McNamara, but how do you feel about Kissinger who succeeded him in the Nixon administration, and Nixon and how long it took them to get out. RC (00:55:04): I guess they were always of the mind to get out, but they wanted to get out with some kind of [inaudible]. Did not want to just pack up and pull out. There was nothing wrong with it, once you made a commitment you have allies working with you and there was a lot of people in Vietnam who work with us and if we just packed up and left they would be dead meat [inaudible]. But they stalled on that one too long. At least [inaudible] put Jim on the trail to [inaudible]. SM (00:55:44): Is there a bitterness toward Kissinger like there is towards, not in... Is there some bitterness toward Kissinger though? RC (00:56:00): [inaudible 00:55:53]. Yes Anne? Anne (00:56:00): [inaudible]. RC (00:56:03): Okay. [inaudible] that is too slow and knew what they were doing. [inaudible]. SM (00:56:04): How about Gerry Ford? RC (00:56:10): Gerry, [inaudible] Gerry. I know Gerry Ford. He was actually a good president. He surrounded himself with smart people. And I guess that idiot McNamara was [inaudible] SM (00:56:27): I do not think so. RC (00:56:27): [inaudible] SM (00:56:38): A couple more names and we will be done. Can you [inaudible] on this [inaudible]. Some of the other names, George Wallace. RC (00:56:46): George, I knew George personally. He sign my diploma from Auburn, I have spoken to him several times. He was Governor[inaudible]. I knew him personally [inaudible] segregationist. Going back to the south of the (19)30s and the (19)20s, deeper Alabama [inaudible]. SM (00:57:11): How about Hubert Humphrey? RC (00:57:18): [inaudible] I do not think he did much as far as I can tell. SM (00:57:18): Do you think we would have been out of the war sooner if he became present? RC (00:57:26): Maybe, but I do not think anybody who got in could get out that easily or quickly [inaudible] because there is some major problems in and of itself. [inaudible] give you the war [inaudible]. SM (00:57:41): How about Bobby Kennedy? RC (00:57:42): That idiot got us into it in the first place, [inaudible] over to Vietnam. They're just sending the [inaudible] advisors [inaudible]. SM (00:58:01): How about Eugene McCarthy? RC (00:58:03): Eugene was all right. I guess [inaudible]. Some of the things he says were true about Vietnam [inaudible]. Was it really worth the life of one American? The Vietnamese did not care. Most of the Vietnamese were locked in a time warp, they lived in the 16th century. They might have had a radio in the village hall. They were just agricultural people growing rice and selling it and carrying on the-the generation. And not much had changed since [inaudible] 1500s. You have electricity in most of the places [inaudible]. They're houses did not have floors, they were dirt floors [inaudible]. SM (00:58:47): George McGovern. RC (00:58:47): [inaudible] I guess he spoke out the most on [inaudible]. He was shown to be correct in some of the things he said. I remember Eugene McCarthy [inaudible]. SM (00:59:13): Yes. Governor in (19)72, the democratic nominee. RC (00:59:19): [inaudible]. Was McCarthy a third party? SM (00:59:21): No, he was a Democrat and [inaudible] Bobby, there is a bitterness between the two of them, because Bobby said he went [inaudible]. RC (00:59:30): Interesting. SM (00:59:33): (19)68 was quite a year. RC (00:59:38): [inaudible] was Humphrey [inaudible]. SM (00:59:38): Humphrey Muskie. RC (00:59:43): Is Muskie still alive? SM (00:59:43): He died. RC (00:59:43): Really? SM (00:59:45): Died a year ago. He had severe Parkinson's disease and he had a bad heart. RC (00:59:55): Now he was old enough to be in history books, during the (19)60s. SM (00:59:56): I will recommend a book for you to read, it just came out by Joles Woodcover, he is from the Baltimore sun. It is a call 1968 a year in memory. I am just finishing, it is 500 pages, you will not be able to put it down. It basically goes over that entire year. So, as you are reading it you reflect about where you were in (19)68. Spiro Agnew. RC (01:00:32): I guess he was kind of a nice family guy, a young local celeb [inaudible] have much impact on. SM (01:00:32): But he created a lot of the lack of civility and dialogue with his assignment to go out on college campuses and really blast people. If you read (19)68 the book by [inaudible] even Richard Nixon was a little concerned about how far to the extreme he went sometimes. And he did not put a lid on it, but he embarrassed the president many times. RC (01:00:55): I guess [inaudible] civil dialogue and name calling. Because that was his specialty was to look up in the dictionary [inaudible]. But that was one of his [inaudible]. SM (01:01:06): Neil [inaudible] wrote a speech for him. RC (01:01:13): That is another nut. SM (01:01:16): Phil [inaudible]. RC (01:01:16): Phil [inaudible] somethings of some [inaudible] except when he called somebody one time. SM (01:01:24): Barry Goldwater. RC (01:01:27): I always liked Barry Goldwater, he was [inaudible]. I think he introduced me [inaudible] to the extent that world war two [inaudible] combat [inaudible] until he defends civil liberty [inaudible]. That man was something else. He had good ideas. And he was sort of carrying on the old style [inaudible]. SM (01:01:55): There has been several books written on him in the last couple of years. They were waiting for his book. Everybody else was writing about him but when is his book coming out. Muhammad Ali. RC (01:02:09): He was another draft dodger. I remember him saying he is not going, I think his [inaudible] suspended him. SM (01:02:18): Yeah, four years at least. RC (01:02:18): [inaudible]. SM (01:02:18): I read his book and he was a [inaudible] objector and he was based on his faith. RC (01:02:23): [inaudible] Muslims to me [inaudible] peaceful. SM (01:02:28): I saw him speak at the Ohio theater after I got out of grad school, when he was suspended. And he took the $3,500 in cash that was given to them and he handed it back and said, use it for a children's center. He did not take any money. He did not need it. So, it was amazing when I saw that. RC (01:02:49): Historically speaking that religion was a pretty [inaudible] religion. SM (01:02:56): Thoughts on the women leaders of that time, Gloria Steinem Betty Friedan, Abella [inaudible] the first Congresswoman [inaudible 01:03:05] power. And then Shirley Chisholm came in that. some of the women political leaders who turned things around for the women's movement. RC (01:03:12): I thought they were all generally great. A lot of the things they did, 40 percent [inaudible 01:03:19] somewhere along the line it would have been 2 percent. [inaudible] a lot of legitimate things to say [inaudible]. SM (01:03:30): Some of the people from Watergate are John Dean and John Mitchell. Some of the people that were the operatives in the White House during that time, who were the staff of Richard Nixon, those people. RC (01:03:43): I guess John Mitchell was the old style, the president was always right [inaudible] whatever we do. John Dean was sort of like I guess he was [inaudible]. How old was he when he ratted out the president? SM (01:04:00): 33 I believe. That is very young. RC (01:04:01): [inaudible] SM (01:04:05): And I guess he [inaudible]. RC (01:04:08): At least [inaudible] Mr. President [inaudible]. SM (01:04:11): How about Daniel Ellsberg? RC (01:04:19): I never was quite sure what is that thing was all about. I know he had some papers [inaudible] showed that Vietnam was one of those [inaudible]. SM (01:04:26): [inaudible]. RC (01:04:30): Yeah, hopefully [inaudible]. SM (01:04:33): What about Ralph Nader who is still living with the activism of today in a different area. RC (01:04:39): He is okay. He is sometimes pushing the envelope. So, for somebody sticking up small causes, causes that that nobody else is sticking up for. SM (01:04:51): I want to say this, someone on authority told me this, that you cannot find anything negative against the guy because he lives in a small apartment in Washington. He washes his own clothes. Never got married. I do not think he even owns a car. It is amazing that you cannot get anything in the guy because I think several political leaders try to, including Richard Nixon. They could not find anything. There was nothing negative. He practiced what he preached. He makes good money, but he just lives a very simple life. His causes are his life. RC (01:05:21): Ever heard about [inaudible] he would not be as vehement if he worked in [inaudible]. SM (01:05:29): Oh no, common cause was John Gardner. He started that, [inaudible] out of state. I am pretty sure.... Dwight Eisenhower. RC (01:05:40): He was a good man. He was a war hero [inaudible] but I guess to some extent it is true. SM (01:05:48): And the music of the year, the music that symbolize the (19)60s, when you had Janice Chaplain, Jimmy Hendrix, The Doors, The Beatles, all that music. Because that played a very important part in the war protest. Just that whole era of the music of the (19)60s and the early (19)70s, which are really [inaudible]. RC (01:06:08): I like the music of the (19)60s [inaudible]. SM (01:06:11): [inaudible] Jim Morrison. RC (01:06:14): That there was excess of those people. And they were part of it, pushing [inaudible] electronic. SM (01:06:36): Mayor Daley from Chicago. RC (01:06:39): He made that city work. He was the old guard [inaudible] Nixon. [inaudible] like his father. SM (01:06:59): And once now in the Clinton administration too. That ends the basic questions. My final question is, are there any thoughts that, passing words of wisdom you might say with respect to this business about the healing again? Because again, this project is geared toward each individual's own historical perspective and also the metaphor part of their life. If you were to put in a capsule what that era has meant to you, just your own personal feelings of your young years. What it was like to be a teenager in the (19)60s, to grow up in the (19)50s, in the (19)60s and then the (19)70s to serve your country and come back. If you were share some final thoughts on your growing up years. RC (01:07:47): I do not know, I guess I started off in the (19)50s when it was more laid back. In school it was high school. I was on the team. I was captain of the basketball team. [inaudible] cheerleader and all that stuff [inaudible] it is going to make me step up to the plate. And things never changed, [inaudible] a career, whatever. What made me kind of step up to the plate [inaudible] things were changing. I was probably a little radicalized [inaudible] in the (19)60s. [inaudible] free speech. The importance of having students on the prestige of the university. [inaudible] I was considered a radical. SM (01:08:42): Were you a Democrat then? RC (01:08:44): Probably republican at that time. Being with the military, I can tell you when I was in college I was supporting Johnson, [inaudible] Johnson. At that time [inaudible] If you were working for [inaudible] because with Johnson [inaudible]. SM (01:09:02): Think a lot of Vietnam veterans, because of that experience became Republicans as opposed to Democrats, because they looked at McNamara and Johnson. And of course, history will show Kennedy, you got to see him and realize he may have gotten this out but do you think a lot of veterans, did you experienced a lot of people that changed? RC (01:09:20): And they made them republicans and we did not call them that in the military service. [inaudible] from us all the military. SM (01:09:31): Final question is getting back to the wall in Washington. And then 1992, this is the 15th anniversary coming up. We are expecting a big turnout in Washington. It is amazing a time place. But again, your thoughts on the impact that the wall has had on America. RC (01:09:51): I think it is important [inaudible] see the names on it. It feels like having that statute they put up to [inaudible]. SM (01:09:59): [inaudible] RC (01:09:59): [inaudible] SM (01:10:02): Over there. RC (01:10:06): Yeah, they [inaudible]. I think it is like they were in combat and they came in on the last patrol and they had 58,000 [inaudible]. Yeah, I think the wall is a [inaudible] of America. However, there was never a film of the war, you never see it. [inaudible]. I think it has made people appreciate the service individual. They [inaudible] anything else to do. But at least they see that those individuals are not [inaudible]. SM (01:10:46): Do you think that, follow up for that, this last question [inaudible] coming from me, that the greatest amount of healing from the Vietnam veteran, and because now we see the first ambassador back in Vietnam who was a former POW Mr. Peterson. And there seems to be a lot of forgiving between the people who fought the war. Almost a kind of respect because of a warrior, you had your duty and we had our duty. So, there is more healing between Vietnam veterans and Vietnam and America than there is between Vietnam veterans and those who protested against the war, some divisions here. Do you think that is a good analogy and can we ever, as Jan has been trying to do with the wall, bring people together to have the ultimate healing, which is finally saying, I am sorry, I was young then, I want to be able to be a friend of a Vietnam veteran. I want you to understand where I was coming from, because I think there is a lot of guilt amongst many people when they go to that wall, where boomers who take their kids, and I did not serve. That even though they may not have tried to get out of the war, there is got to be... Everybody that I have ever talked to that goes to the wall, whether they served or did not serve, has this feeling. There's feelings, it touches people. It brings back the memories. I am just trying to find out about your thoughts on the final healing process. RC (01:12:06): Yeah, it is [inaudible] significantly. It was one of the major events that began the healing process. With other towns like us, we did five years after, we built our memorial, sort of right down to a local level. It was all started by that one unknown soldier leaving Vietnam and it sort of spread out [inaudible]. You see Vietnam mentioned all over the world. SM (01:12:34): Is Clinton's visit to the wall important for the healing? RC (01:12:36): [inaudible]. SM (01:12:40): Because President Bush did not even go to the wall, but at least Bill Clinton did. I do not think Ronald- RC (01:12:44): [inaudible] Bush [inaudible]. SM (01:12:45): He was asked, he just did not want to go. And I know that for a fact. He was asked, and he said no. RC (01:12:51): Similar to the [inaudible] too much. SM (01:12:52): Bill Clinton was asked and he was going to refuse but still went. So, I do not know if that was like the second visit to the wall, how important that was toward the healing and then the generation. RC (01:13:09): [inaudible] sort of hide what they did. Not hide it but [inaudible]. SM (01:13:14): Any final thoughts? RC (01:13:15): You have to live with your past [inaudible]. SM (01:13:18): Any final thoughts at all, anything you want to add? RC (01:13:21): No. I guess [inaudible]. SM (01:13:29): I hope that is not the case. Thank you very much. (End of Interview) Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. 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 Ron Castille Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Castille, Ronald D. ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Marines; Pennsylvania. Supreme Court; Judges; Castille, Ronald D.--Interviews Description An account of the resource Ronald D. Castille served on the US Supreme Court in Pennsylvania from 1994 to 2014 and was promoted to the Chief Justice in 2008, staying until 2014. Castille retired from office at the age of 70. He received his Bachelor of Science in Economics from Auburn University. He joined the U.S Marine Corps and received several awards along his journey. Castille received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law after his medical retirement from the Marine Corps. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997-07-16 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.37a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.37b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 73:36 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/f6e2e9c06fa5a2ac33a87fe2a657e087.jpg 10b8a0ad3b4abd697b8fa025b5c473bc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2011-08-14 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Ron Robinson Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Robinson is a native of Buffalo, New York. He has been Young America’s Foundation president for over four decades. Robinson received a Bachelor's degree in Political Science at Canisius College and a Juris Doctor degree at The Catholic University of America."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15105,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":10}">Ron Robinson is a native of Buffalo, New York. He has been Young America’s Foundation president for over four decades. Robinson served as the Director of the Long America's For Freedom (1977-1979), President of the United State Youth Council (1983-1985) and President of the International Youth Year Commission. He was also an advisor at the U.S. Department of Education during the Reagan administration. Robinson received a Bachelor's degree in Political Science at Canisius College and a Juris Doctor degree at The Catholic University of America.<br /><br /><br /></span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 62:13 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Howdy Doody; Nuclear threat; Conservatives; Leftist; Senator Jim Buckley; Lee Edwards; The Young Americans for Freedom; Senator Barry Goldwater; Vietnam War; New left."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":515,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":16370588},"12":0}">Howdy Doody; Nuclear threat; Conservatives; Leftist; Senator Jim Buckley; Lee Edwards; The Young Americans for Freedom; Senator Barry Goldwater; Vietnam War; New left.</span> Subject LCSH Lawyers; Robinson, Ron--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Ron Robinson Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Robinson, Ron ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Lawyers; Robinson, Ron--Interviews Description An account of the resource <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Robinson is a native of Buffalo, New York. He has been Young America’s Foundation president for over four decades. Robinson received a Bachelor's degree in Political Science at Canisius College and a Juris Doctor degree at The Catholic University of America."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15105,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":10}">Ron Robinson is a native of Buffalo, New York. He has been Young America’s Foundation president for over four decades. Robinson served as the Director of the Long America's For Freedom (1977-1979), President of the United State Youth Council (1983-1985) and President of the International Youth Year Commission. He was also an advisor at the U.S. Department of Education during the Reagan administration. Robinson received a Bachelor's degree in Political Science at Canisius College and a Juris Doctor degree at The Catholic University of America.<br /></span> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-08-14 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.100 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. 62:13 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3d6e3ae1bbb475fa573681b735d69ee5.jpg 60e26f57e6fe8bc2d2b58551415fa62a https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ff8c54048e3784b4ac366e4ea12b5594.mp3 4f97e2da114533d20c63291f12088908 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-07-29 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Rosalyn Baxandall, 1939-2015 Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Rosalyn Baxandall (1939 - 2015) was a feminist historian, activist, author and educator. She was one of the leading figures of the feminist movement in New York during the late 1960s. Baxandall received her Bachelor's degree in French at University of Wisconsin and her Master of Social Work at Columbia University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":6531,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"10":2,"11":4,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial"}">Rosalyn Baxandall (1939 - 2015) was a feminist historian, activist, author and educator. She was one of the leading figures of the feminist movement in New York during the late 1960s. Baxandall received her Bachelor's degree in French at the University of Wisconsin and her Master of Social Work at Columbia University.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Quakers; Sexism; Activism; Women's Liberation; Sex, Drugs; Rock n' Roll; Senator Muskie; Healing; Conservatives; Freedom; Counterculture; Woodstock; Summer of Love; March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom; Black Power; Weathermen; Students for a Democratic Society."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":14281427}}">Quakers; Sexism; Activism; Women's Liberation; Sex, Drugs; Rock n' Roll; Senator Muskie; Healing; Conservatives; Freedom; Counterculture; Woodstock; Summer of Love; March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom; Black Power; Weathermen; Students for a Democratic Society.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 111:24 Subject LCSH Feminists; Historians; Authors; Political activists--United States; Baxandall, Rosalyn, 1939-2015--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Rosalind Baxandall Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Shah Islam Date of interview: 29 July 2010 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 0:04 SM: Are you ready? 0:05 RB: Yes. 0:06 SM: [inaudible] I will continue to check this too. Who were your role models when you were growing up, who were the teachers or parents or leaders that helped you become the person that you are today? What inspired you even before you went to college? 0:23 RB: Okay, well, in some ways, my grandmother who had talked to me about marching and suffragette parades, my mother's mother. And also, she inspired me because her husband died when she was very young, leaving her with three young children, and she first took in sewing. And then she got a GED. And then she became a lawyer. And the fact that she was female, and a lawyer, and did not have a husband supporting her was inspirational to me. And she also used to go on very exotic trips. I mean, they seemed exotic to me, they would not. The world is smaller now. Like to Argentina. She would go on these trips alone. And so, she seemed extremely adventurous… to me. And then… other role mo— I mean, most of the role models were in my family. My father was a role model since he had been a communist and labor organizer and then changed his life and became a doctor. 2:15 SM: So, you had the inspirations— [crosstalk 2:17] SM: —really, RB: Within my family. 2:18 SM: Right. 2:19 RB: I would say they were really within my family. Rather than people outside. Not my teachers, particularly. When I got to college, my teachers were inspirations. 2:32 SM: Now, where did you go to school and the teachers— 2:36 RB: When I went to scho— The University of Wisconsin. 2:37 SM: Great school. 2:41 RB: I had many inspirational teachers, now let me— In American history, I have this man who taught us through using documents, and I cannot even believe that I cannot think of his name now. Anyway— William Appleman Williams. He was a real inspiration. My French teacher who I had a job working for. [inaudible] She was inspirational. I used to talk to her a lot. She had had an affair with Camus. And so it was really— [crosstalk 3:17] RB: —interesting that SM: [inaudible] Really, affair? RB: Yeah. Oh yeah. SM: Ha-ha, oh my God! 3:19 RB: I mean yeah. She had been a lover of Camus. And I mean, it is written about. 3:24 SM: Wow. 3:25 RB: So, she knew Camus and Sartre. 3:28 SM: Wow. 3:29 RB: And I majored in French, and— Simone de Beauvoir was a real… was somebody that I looked up to. 3:40 SM: She wrote The Second Sex— 3:41 RB: —Second Sex. 3:42 SM: Yeah. 3:43 RB: And I had first seen The Second Sex in my parents’ house, because I thought it was a sex book. There was a man and a woman on the cover. 3:53 SM: Right. 3:55 RB: Not dressed, so— and it was called The Second Sex. So I thought it was a sex book, and I was very curious about it. And read it. And I read it, like a guide to life. And I have my original book at home and every other word is underlined. 4:14 SM: Hard to find first editions of that book. 4:16 RB: Yeah, and I do not know if it was the first edition— 4:18 SM: They are reprinting it now. Just came out reprinted. 4:19 RB: Oh I know, a new… a new translation. 4:22 SM: Oh wow. 4:23 RB: So that was very inspirational to me. 4:25 SM: Mhm. What did… what inspired you to become a feminist? Were you part of the new left antiwar movement— [crosstalk 4:31] RB: Yes. I was. SM: —when you were younger, or− 4:33 RB: Yeah, I was part of the new left. I mean, I was not a major part. I worked on a magazine called Yet Report. I translated things from the French. I went on active— the antiwar movements. I was also, I worked for mobilization for youth, and I was active in Welfare Rights. Even in high school. I went to Philadelphia, with the Quakers and worked in slums on weekends helping people clean. And then I remember going to a night court, which was really an incredible experience. This was in Philadelphia. 5:21 SM: Mhm. 5:22 RB: Then I went, in hi— this was still in high school, up to Connecticut, where they had nuclear submarines. And we did civil resistance in front of these submarines. 5:42 SM: I think that is where the Berrigans went one time I think— 5:44 RB: Yeah, well it was a, it was a− SM: Yeah. RB: …place to go. SM: Yeah. 5:47 RB: And so I did that in high school, too. So I was already… active. But if— none of my friends did this in high school, I was very different than anyone else. I mean, no one I knew in high school was political. 6:03 SM: Where did you go— what state, did you go to school in New York? Or− 6:06 RB: In New York. [crosstalk 6:07] RB: Yeah. SM: Right. 6:08 RB: In New York. Yeah. I mean, people that I knew were political. I mean, it was the late (19)50s. They were not political. 6:15 SM: One other thing, I have interviewed Susan Brown Miller, and I have interviewed quite a few people. And what— The difference between mainstream feminism and radical feminism, correct me if I am wrong, the radical feminists were more of the new left feminine— 6:31 RB: The New Left feminists. 6:32 SM: But— RB: I was definitely a New Left— 6:34 SM: Betty Friedan is the mainstream that was— RB: —stream. Yes 6:37 SM: Ms. Magazine may be more of the— RB: —mainstream— SM: —mainstream. [inaudible] Friedan— 6:42 RB: Right. We wanted to change the whole of society, not integrate into it. We did not want better jobs in the society, we really wanted to change the society. So, we were part of the New Left. 6:57 SM: Right. 6:58 RB: And it was just that we found out in the New Left, that we needed a women's movement. It was almost by accident. 7:08 SM: Did you f— Did you feel like a lot of the women that I have interviewed, that the sexism that was so prevalent within the antiwar movement, the civil rights movement, and most recently, I have heard even in the gay and lesbian movement, and the Native American movement, and because I have interviewed people that it was ramped, and a lot of the women in those movements said, to get away from those, and join the women's movement. [crosstalk 7:31] RB: Right. SM: Do you agree with that? 7:32 RB: And that… that was in order to have you know, I— I mean, I can remember that my ex-husband, who was active in the new left, his friends, sometimes when I talk, they would answer him. [crosstalk 7:50] SM: Wow— RB: As if he had said what I had said. 7:52 SM: They will not even recognize you— 7:53 RB: It was that you were almost invisible, in meetings and things. 8:00 SM: Was that something that you were involved in the— was it Mobe? Do— were you involved in Mobe? 8:04 RB: I was involved in Mobe. 8:05 SM: Did you see these new left activists; they just treat women and like, go… go Xerox! And— [crosstalk 8:12] RB: Right— SM: and that kind of stuff? RB: Right. 8:14 RB: And also, sweep the floor, you know, not only go Xerox. And then… since we were the ones going toward the door and talking to people a lot, they would have to get information from us, and then they would give the talks. 8:30 SM: Oh my God. 8:31 RB: So, I mean, we did a lot of the labor and so on. We got very little from it. 8:39 SM: What is amazing in the studies that I have done of some of the activism, at least at the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in (19)64, Bettina Aptheker was able to stand up on that car and speak. 8:49 RB: She was able, but she says that she was one of the guys. 8:53 SM: Okay. I know that to offs— 8:56 RB: At that time, she felt like one of the guys, and she did not even think of herself as a woman. 9:01 SM: Then there is Mario Savio’s girlfriend at the time who he ended up marrying, she was also—Goldberg or− 9:06 RB: Goldberg, yeah. 9:08 SM: Yeah, there were 2 Goldbergs, [inaudible] they were… they spoke too— 9:12 RB: Right. And in the film about Berkeley women talk about being— 9:16 SM: Right. 9:17 RB: —invisible. 9:18 SM: It is amazing. 9:20 RB: And even in Wisconsin that was true. Men always wrote the things, it was just assumed. 9:27 SM: I am going to get back to books here obviously you are a scholar and a writer yourself and you have already mentioned The Second Sex but what were the— the books that really turned you on as a young person that inspired you? Wow, again, you— you already read The Second Sex and— but were there other books, like the— was The Feminine Mystique real important to you? Was— 9:49 RB: No, The Feminine Mystique, when I read The Feminine Mystique, I really thought— I know that it influenced some people, but I mean I was interested in it, but it did not influence me because it was about… over educated women who were not… were not living up to their potential, when there were so many women that did not even have opportunities to live up to their potentials. Especially at the time that I read it. I mean, the books that influenced me more was Fanshen, about the Chinese Revolution, that influenced me enormously. 10:32 SM: What year did that come out? 10:34 RB: What? Fanshen… must have come out… they have an anniversary of it. I think it came out in around… It came out in the late (19)60s. And in the book, the women get together and do consciousness raising, like we did. And they speak bitterness… about their experiences, both with men, and with the oppressive Chinese government to recall their pain. And that had a big influence to me about how people could change the whole of society and make a revolution. 11:11 SM: Do you like the term boomers? I say, I have been asking this now for the last 30 people because— 11:17 RB: I do not like the term, I do not like the term baby boomers, although that gets- 11:20 SM: Because you see what happens. You got the… you have got the greatest generation that Brokaw talks about which is the World War II generation then you have this group for five years called the Silent Generation, which is… they were not very silent. They were the people that were the leaders that were [inaudible] in (19)40 and (19)46— 11:35 RB: Right. They were in people like Ginsberg— [crosstalk 11:38] RB: —and people SM: Yeah! 11:40 SM: Tom Hayden and— RB: Yeah!— SM: —even Ronnie Davis— RB: Yeah! 11:42 SM: Richie Havens had said I am born in ’41, they said, but I am a boomer. I am not, you know, and the— Todd Gitlin told me he says, you know, kid, I will not even talk to you if you keep saying boomer I will not even— [crosstalk 11:52] RB: Right. It is not− SM: —talk to you. RB: I do not [inaudible]— SM: You know, it was… it was about a period. 11:57 RB: It is about a period and ‘boomer’, first of all, a boomer now… it just has to do with consumerism, not with activism— 12:05 SM: You see— it is also that, from what I am learning more and more is that the first 10 years of boomers, those born between (19)46 and (19)56, yes, they were all influenced. 12:18 RB: Right. SM: But when you start getting into the (19)57— RB: No− SM: —to (19)64— RB: No− 12:21 SM: They were ten years old! How can they— [crosstalk 12:22] RB: Right− SM:—you know— 12:23 RB: −they were not inf—, you know SM: Yeah, so− RB: Maybe they were influenced by other things. SM: When they get— RB: Like the media and things. 12:29 SM: When you look at your… the generation that you are linked to any… anybody born I think (19)38 on, so to speak, would you… would you say it is more like the Vie— is there a term you like to use the Vietnam generation, the Woodstock generation of the.. the protest generation that, uh, you know— 12:46 RB: The (19)60s generation or something? Or the movement? Yeah, no way. 12:50 SM: Yeah, ‘because that is kind of more of the— [crosstalk 12:51] RB: Right− SM: —definitive generation— RB: Movement generation− 12:53 RB: But not boomers. I do not like boomers, ‘because it just seems like consumerism. 12:58 SM: One of the questions… I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly, and she said, and David Horowitz said the same thing— 13:04 RB: Uh huh. SM: [inaudible] ramparts. 13:06 RB: Yeah, I-I… went out with him. So, I know— 13:09 SM: Oh you know him well? 13:10 RB: Yeah. I mean, in another era. 13:11 SM: Yeah. Well, Dav— well David's a brilliant guy. [crosstalk 13:13] RB: Right, he is— SM: You know, and I— 13:15 RB: And he wrote… very important books— 13:17 SM: Oh. RB: —early on 13:18 SM: I have them. I have all these— 13:19 RB: Yes! 13:20 SM: —books. And I have been wanting to— he wrote at Berkeley and I got— 13:23 RB: Uh huh. SM: —a first edition of it. But he will not even talk about those now. Now that is like that is— 13:26 RB: Right. Yeah. 13:29 SM: But one thing you have to admit about that— 13:30 RB: I met his parents; I was at his parents’ house. 13:33 SM: —so the passion he had back then for the left is the same passion he has for the right. So he is pretty consistent in his passion. But what I am getting at here is- 13:41 RB: He has better rewards with the right. 13:43 SM: Yeah. For money— 13:44 RB: For money, right! 13:47 SM: That the people who were the troublemakers of the (19)60s are now running today's universities, and they are running the departments and the studies department— 13:55 RB: Right, that is true. SM: —the women's studies, Black Studies, Asian American Studies— [crosstalk 13:58] RB: Yeah, American studies. SM: —Native American Studies— RB: Right. Yeah. True. SM: —gay and lesbian studies and environmental studies. 14:03 RB: Mhm. SM: Do you agree with that? 14:04 RB: I think that is one arena we have been very active in. 14:09 SM: So, you do not take that as a negative you take— 14:11 RB: No! SM: —you take that as a— 14:12 SM: That… that leads me into how had professors changed in their teaching styles since the (19)60s? What did the (19)60s and the (19)70s do to the whole new wave of teaching? 14:24 RB: Well, I mean, the content of the teaching changed. I mean, we… taught much more about social movements, rather— we taught both what was happening at the bottom as well as what was happening at the top. We did not just teach elite history. We taught peoples history as well. And… the way we taught is that we cared about our student’s experience. 15:03 SM: When do you think that began… did that begin on actually some of the professors that were teaching the boomers? 15:09 RB: Um, some of our professors I mean, like William Appleman Williams taught the original documents and us to analyze the documents. He did not just have secondhand sources, and that was very important—primary sources, go to the primary sources. 15:29 SM: Right. RB: And so, he had a big influence. In the women's movement— for a while when I was teaching Women's Studies. We… we taught a great d— we put people in circles, and talked about our own experiences as well, and that we were the experts on our own experience. It was not other people that will be experts. 16:05 SM: Right. RB: And that has held me in good stead because I wrote a book with another woman about the suburbs. And the reason we wrote the book is because the books that our students were reading lived in the suburbs said this had nothing to do with their lives in the suburbs now. 16:26 SM: Yeah, I think the… I guess… Again, I have interviewed conservatives and liberals, I am making sure you get all points of view here, and Michelle Easton from the Clare Boothe Institute. I do not know if you have heard− 16:38 RB: Uh huh, that is great. 16:39 SM: And the concern they expressed, and this is not me, I might… I am not… I just get interviewing. That is all I am. No, but… is that… that many of the new laughter of the activism that the new left… the activists in the (19)60s, wanted their point of view heard, because they felt it was not being heard, and they had to fight for it to be heard. And they were kind of shutting down the other points of view, whether it be Richard Nixon speaking on the podium, or you know, whatever. Yeah, and then they come to power within the universities, and they are doing the same thing that they accused others of doing back then of not allowing a cons— a smart conservative point of view. Because Phyllis Schlafly said to me, I bet you my… I bet you have not included any of the women's studies programs, or I bet you some of the conservative speakers— Michelle Easton says to me, I bet you they do not include Ann Coulter, because they do not consider it an intellect or Michelle Malkin, or this new congresswoman— 17:34 RB: I think, as a matter of fact, we include them far more than they include us. Because we do believe in democracy, and a balance. And I am always so pleased when the students are conservative, and that we have different points of view in the classroom. And I have debates in my classroom, and make students take different points of view. Because I think you learn a lot that way. 18:06 SM: See, then that… see that… I know that for a fact, that I have been in university for 30 years, but I hear the other side. And I have been in a university where it was of— only two… two or three tenured faculty members are free to say they are conservative, because the rest of them were all liberal for fear their jobs. But it is… that-that has come up, that feeling within the university. And certainly, when we had Ann Coulter come to campus there has been some sort of reaction to her point of view as not being smart enough to [inaudible]− 18:37 RB: And I tell the students look, I want to tell you, this is my… this is where I am coming from, this is my point of view. But I want you to have, you know, I want us to argue. 18:48 SM: So, your teaching point of view is also what Hillary Clinton said in… in her biography that she learned that she was a Goldwater girl. And she learned about the other side because she did… she was going to be Goldwater and her friend was going to be for Johnson. But their teacher in high school said you have to take the other point of view. So, you learn about everything you can about Lyndon Johnson, and you debate for him, and she will debate for Goldwater. 19:15 RB: I make black students… debate from the slavery point of view. First, they are a little… uptight. I mean, because it is really important to have other points of view. And I constantly have debates in my class. 19:33 SM: Well, that is important, [inaudible]. 19:35 RB: You know, and take sides. They have to know the other side. And they learn a lot by listening to it, and thinking of how to counteract that argument. It is really good. 19:44 SM: It can change people too, because— 19:47 RB: Right! 19:47 SM: —Hillary Clinton became a— 19:49 RB: Yes, right. 19:50 SM: —democrat when she was a diehard Republican. 19:52 RB: Right. 19:52 SM: She was a Goldwater girl! 19:51 RB: Right. 19:51 SM: So… anyway, I am trying to read my writing here. I am not going to— 19:57 RB: Is the light bad? 19:58 SM: Oh no, I just… I had to… I should use my glasses here because, if you bear with me, I am going to… put my glasses— 20:03 RB: Oh, I understand, I would need my glasses to read. 20:07 SM: But I cannot [inaudible]… I have a problem to my fam— nob— nobody-nobody in my family can read my writings. So let us do it. Bear with me here, to boomers correct me if I am wrong, grew up with a very naïve… but they were very naïve, and they learned what the meaning of fear stood for. The idea of ‘be quiet’, ‘obey orders’, ‘do not question authority’. Fear, and being quiet, and being naive was the norm in the (19)50s, to many of the boomers that were born after the war. The (19)60s and (19)70s was just the opposite for all three. There were lots of injustices, many people spoke up to challenge what I believe was wrong. And they did not… they were told not to challenge authority, but students challenged everything. And this basically is because of some of the things that took place in their lives. The McCarthy hearings in the 1950s, the concept of fear, the Cold War, the concept of fear, the worry about the bomb, the concept of fear, speaking up and you could lose your job, that was very common in the (19)50s. It was written in white collar. So, you are right, Mills talked about it. Civil— and of course, the Civil Rights and Women's Rights and all the rights in that movement, it kind of developed, which challenged that kind of mentality in the (19)60s, because— they would be questioning what was wrong with President Johnson, Nixon, and Kennedy in terms of their leadership and speaking up, or they might not have spoken up so much for Eisenhower. Your thoughts about these, the dichotomy between these two extreme periods of when that front wave New Left, people born in the (19)40s, though, say, the mid (19)50s—these qualities of fear, being quiet, and also being naive? 21:53 RB: Well to deal with the fear, I grew up… when I grew up we had FBI agents outside our house, and were told not to talk to them. So— and my father’s friends went to jail. But my father did tell me that I should be proud of those people in jail. So, I did not, I mean… I knew that there were consequences for speaking up. And I grew up with the fear. And as a matter of fact, I think people, the little older generation, like myself, who saw McCarthyism, and saw conservatism, and then saw change, were less naive. Because they saw that it could change back also. And when it did change back, they had the earlier experience, as well, and they were not as naïve, because we had seen both periods. And people who had only grown up in the (19)60s, and seeing this quick change, just expected that to be forever. 23:19 SM: Like the ones today they are— 23:21 RB: Right. And then when things got really conservative, again, they were not able to deal with it. But we had seen that that is what happens in history. And as a historian, you see, I mean, that there are shifts, things change back. And people have to change, and sure we were… we were naive. And it was good that we were naïve in some ways, because we tried things that people did not think we could do. And if we had not been naive, we would not have done it. We would have been too cautious. 24:03 SM: Right. 24:04 RB: And so you have to be a little gutsy and blind to try these things. 24:10 SM: You know it is amazing, when you reflect years later, and this is just my observation, I have heard from other people, that they were naive because parents, you know, the parents were… they were not upset with their parents, but it was the way things were in the (19)50s you know, that kind of thing. But then if you reflect on it, it is not really criticism of your parents, it is a criticism of television, what you saw, the things that you use— wait a minute, there were no black people on TV in the (19)50s, Amos and Andy was the only thing on in the early (19)50s and they made fun of— slapstick. And then Nat King Cole goes on for six weeks and that was it until the early (19)60s when I Spy and Flip Wilson and Diane Carrol on The Nurse Show came on TV so— you see— wait there were no blacks! There were no other people on there. And-and everything seen from Walt Disney was all about the cowboys and Indians! [inaudible] cowboys and Indians! Indians are always the bad people. The white hat, so you start seeing that maybe we were not as naive as we thought, you know, as we age, you can start reflecting on things that are wrong, even without somebody telling you. 25:18 RB: Right. And also, it helped in a way that we believed in democracy, because we then tried to get a better. If we had been totally cynical— my students nowadays are so cynical, they think nothing can change, everything is corrupt! We believe things could change. 25:36 SM: Yeah, yes. 25:37 RB: I mean, we believed we could make a difference. We bought that, which was great. If we had not been naïve— 25:44 SM: Do you think, though, that there is even some fear? I find that the people that run today's universities are boomers, or, you know, first gen— generation Xers who really did not get along with boomers. 25:57 RB: Right. 25:58 SM: Generation X’s, I do not think… like them. We had poor programs on it, not across the board. 26:02 RB: Yeah. 26:03 SM: So, you get the people that are into these universities are the boomers that experience what you and I experienced, and also the generation Xers who had a problem with boomers to begin with. And they see things, but they are afraid of a return to what was, particularly with the term activism. I sense that this is me. And I spoke up at the university about this, that volunteerism is fine, because 95 percent of students are volunteering, and they at the end, they are doing great jobs, and it has never been higher. However, the term activism is a term I sense they fear. They do not like it. Am I wrong in perceiving that— [crosstalk 26:39] RB: No, I think they do not like it, no. SM: —because it brings back the memories of what was, and it could come again. 26:44 RB: Right. They do not like it. And also, you know, they have seen… like I had my students read Thoreau and they were very surprised that I had them read it. And I said, why? And their idea of activism, and these were feminist students, were right to lifers, and people on the right. They did not have any idea of activism of the left. That is not what they have seen. I mean, they have seen people bombing. I mean, they have seen the Oklahoma bomber, they have seen the World Trade Center bomber. They think of that, as activism. 27:29 SM: Oh, wow. 27:30 RB: So, their activism is terrorism and the right. And that is what they equate with activism. People who are against the law. 27:38 SM: How would they think about the tea party group? 27:41 RB: Well— I know! That— they— I have not— 27:45 SM: Had a chance— RB: Yeah, to talk to them about that [laughter] 27:49 SM: That… that is amazing. Because what happened is, when I have read books, I think some people think of the negatives, they think activism is off to the left. Well, activism does not have any political— 28:02 RB: At all! SM: —control. There is left, right and anything in between! 28:06 RB: Exactly! And so therefore, my students, I have students who went for abortions, and they were trying to be stopped by life— right to lifers. They think of that, as people breaking the law, people setting clinics on fire, they think about as activism. 28:20 SM: Let me turn this one, and I can… this is a 30 minute. This is a 45. Dealing with two of these here. 28:29 RB: Okay. 28:30 SM: Bear with me. I have stopped it— 28:33 SM: [inaudible] when I finished the interviews. What are the major accomplishments of the second wave? In terms of what have been the major accomplishments in the women's movement? And secondly, what are the major failures? 28:46 RB: The major accomplishments, I really think? I mean, obviously, there were changes in laws and, you know, now girls do athletics. We have an equal rights amendment. But I think more important the way people dress, the way people… young girls dream, think, their expectations. It is so all pervasive. The changes that people do not even know that it is there. It is like the air that we breathe. Girls grow up now, ex— with great expectations. They do not think of themselves as second class citizens. They think that they can do what men can do, and maybe better, they see they are the best in their class. They are called on by their teachers. They see role models all over. And I think it is so pervasive that we cannot even see it. And I mean, obviously, you know, there is a change now it is going back, people can get abortions, there is… people are less prudish. I mean, the music changed…the way people… the way people, take for granted that girls wear pants! We had a fight for girls wearing pants… to school. I mean, all of these basic kinds of things, the fact that girls do not wear girdles, make up. Just such basic changes and freedoms. Girls do not have to wait at home when a boy asks them out, they can ask them too. It is this… basic everyday life changes. Aside from the laws and their… now girls are in all sorts of jobs that they would not have been− 31:05 SM: How about— RB: −play differently. 31:08 SM: How about— was the failure of the— 31:11 RB: And this is a big failure in that we did not, at least the radical part of the women's movement did not create lasting organizations. And so, they are not around now. Now is around. But we had such loose anarchistic structures that we did not last in that way. 31:36 SM: Yeah, one of the things that has come in some of the interviews, and it is in my belief, because I worked in the university for 33 years. And that is, that what you saw in the early— in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, where if there was an anti-war movie, you said that you saw all the movements, with their placards and signs. It seems like the movements today are in their own world, the women's movements in their world, the gay rights movements in their world, the environmental movements over here, the Native American movement is West— 32:07 RB: Although there would probably be some crossover. Some, but not— 32:08 SM: Yeah, it seems like they do not work together, that there is no collaboration. It is all— as some people said, it is a bunch of special interests and— 32:15 RB: Right. And also, people make their living that way. It is not like it was before. 32:21 SM: Right. 32:21 RB: I mean, they have these organizations. But there, they each have an interest in surviving. And not looking after the whole. 32:34 SM: One, One person, well-known female leader. And she is a liberal, said that, when I asked her about the National Organization for Women, what she thought about it, if she loves the organization and thought it was very important. But she said, if you walk into the national headquarters now… now they have literature, for she says, abortions, AIDS, and the pill. And she said, that is what they stand for now- There is no— 33:02 RB: No jobs? 33:03 SM: No, no. She said, if you walk into their office— 33:06 RB: Really? 33:06 SM: —That is all the brochures you see in these three areas. And they— you do not see anything about the laws they are working on, the-the— all the other things. And so, I am wondering your thoughts on that? It is just your thoughts. 33:21 RB: Well, I think that people characterize the women's movement that way and forget that they did other things. For example, one of the things that I was most active in was daycare centers. And you do not hear a lot about the women's movement creating daycare centers and insisting on daycare, because people have a stereotype of the women's movement as not caring about children. 33:47 SM: Right. 33:48 RB: And that stereotype, women were supposed to care about themselves and no other things. And that was not what I saw in the women's movement at all. You know, and I do not see a women's movement around today. And there is a little of a women's movement around that. I know that works on the morning after pill. So, you are right on that, but not much else. 34:17 SM: The daycare centers very important. I think that is, that is a historic accomplishment from the women's movement. But if you are talking about weaknesses, I have a niece that just had a baby and I still think that corporations and businesses are still insensitive to the needs of women raising children who are still working. She said in most places, there is no privacy. There is no— you know, if they are, if they have to breastfeed their child, there is no priv— go into the lady’s room, no! Where is there a— 34:46 RB: For executives there are but there is not for the common worker. See I read this article. 34:50 SM: Yeah. 34:50 RB: Executives could breastfeed, and they make places for them. But for the common article— women, there was nothing. 34:57 SM: That should be a major cause— 34:59 RB: Well of course it should be— 35:03 SM: —and also there is the… the thing about taking care of a child too, which is they get, I think, two months or three months off of, you know? And then something about the husband should also be— 35:13 RB: Fraternity leave— 35:15 SM: Yeah. 35:15 RB: —so the husbands get a head start. 35:15 SM: Yes. So, the— you know, I am a firm believer of six months. 35:20 RB: Right. Oh yes! SM: Have either— 35:21 RB: But other countries have two years. Sweden, Denmark, France. We are the most backward country in all of the— 35:28 SM: And why is that? Why— 35:30 RB: Because we have a very bad welfare st— state. I mean, we— it is all left up to the individual. I mean, we have the most backward healthcare system of all the so-called advanced countries too. It is part of our welfare system. 35:46 SM: You know, the idea— 35:48 RB: We are very backwards and unfortunately, I think in the movement, we were so against the government that we became against systems, and did not, we were so anti-government that we did not think of how the government can help us, as well. 35:05 SM: Right. 35:05 RB: It was a big failure in the movement. It is both things. I mean, you could be against the government. But also, we have to look at what the state can do for us. 36:18 SM: Right. 36:19 RB: Especially now. And then people started buying into all that Reaganism and the minimum state, you know, and that just really irks people who are not wealthy. I mean, it is just welfare for the rich. 36:33 SM: We know what Reagan did— the AIDS crisis. 36:37 RB: Right! 36:37 SM: And in any of the interviews I have had of some gay and lesbian, especially gay men, who were major figures. They start crying when they talk about what he did not do in the (19)80s. 36:49 RB: Oh yeah. Provincetown is the gay capital of the world, right? 36:53 SM: It is? 36:54 RB: About six miles from here. 36:56 SM: Oh, I did not know that. 36:58 RB: They call it Viagra Falls. [laughter] 37:00 RB: And, it is, I mean, it is 80 percent gay. 37:02 SM: Oh my God. 37:03 RB: Yeah. It was one of the beginning of people helping each other because there was not government help. 37:10 SM: Amazing. Why did the ERA fail? Well, my first boss at High University was really working hard for it, at… in Ohio, and I can remember her having the radio on when the vote was taking place, and it did not pass in Ohio. And she worked two years on it and when she went home, she was devastated. Your thoughts on why the ERA did not pass? 37:32 RB: I really think… it was a case where the right was in power and had the media and scared working women, who thought oh, wow! I do not want to enlist in the war. And it was all scare tactics. And the people on the left and people I knew, sort of ignored it. 38:01 SM: Yeah, Nixon was, I think, in power at the time. 38:05 RB: Yeah, and they just scared women who felt they would not be protected. 38:13 SM: Yeah. 38:13 RB: And, and then I do not think that the radical part of the movement like myself, we did not work on it at all. 38:23 SM: Some people think that Phyliss Schlafly single handedly defeated it. 38:27 RB: She did very well. I do not know about single handedly, but the mood of the country had changed. 38:33 SM: I got a question here that I will read, and that is the mothers of the baby boomers, I think my mom here, raised most of the 74 million kids from (19)46 to (19)64. Or as we have talked about those from (19)40 to (19)65. How can some of the feminists say that most women of the era were unfulfilled? How do we know this? And is not it important to know that someone was home when you arrived home from school? That is what happens when you— I have talked with even liberal, left-wing baby boomers, and they love the fact their mom was home in the (19)50s when they got home from school. And a lot of kids today are missing that because they do not see a father or mother home they just come home after work. And Phyliss Schlafly talked about she-she-she said you know all this business about being unfulfilled as a female you know, I could have gone on, and I could have been long gone on and become a senator or even a bigger name politician, but my husband did not want me to and so I listened to my husband, and I did not. 39:38 RB: She was not home. She was always out doing speeches. 39:42 SM: I know but, just— just that concept. Well, if-if you I think Sally Roche for good— for full name. 39:51 RB: Yeah, Wagner. 39:51 SM: Yeah, she-she-she made medicine that if you really talked to a lot of the mothers of the (19)50s. They will probably say that they were not fulfilled, if you had a chance to talk to them, they never spoke about it. Just your thoughts on that? 40:04 RB: I do know. I mean, my mother had resentment. She definitely had resentment in that she would have— there are some people that would like to stay home. My mother was one, who was much better at career than she was at raising children. My father was the more gentle person, and would be better home. But she was discontent. And she communicated her discontent to us, all girls. I mean, and she did put her husband first. But it was almost absurd the way she put him first, I mean, and we put in first we take turns of the table sitting next to my father. He was— the best foods would always go to my father. The best of everything. And we always knew, we said, thank God, we did not have a brother, he would have been so favored. We were so happy it was all girls, because a boy would have been favored. And my mother did communicate her discontent. 41:31 SM: When you— you cannot have— 41:33 RB: My father treated her well, but she was discontent from society’s expectation. 41:38 SM: Well, Sara Evans wrote a great book, you know— 41:42 RB: Yes, I think— 41:43 SM: —And I think it is one of the best books ever written and— 41:44 RB: It is very good. 41:45 SM: —if everybody could read the first chapter in the introduction, you would get a wide awakening because of women in professional careers, as opposed to women who are housewives, and she breaks it down. And of course, World War II, and then coming back and the whole thing there. So, and I, my, my mom was a very successful secretary, she was unbelievable, but she just stopped everything, and was raising kids. And everybody on the street that I grew up in, the mothers were home, and the fathers are off work and we never saw our dads! it was always there— 42:16 RB: Uh huh, right! 42:17 SM: So then, then all of a sudden, these changes happen in the (19)60s, mid (19)60s, basically. 42:24 RB: Yeah. 42:24 SM: The second wave move— women's movement has been all inclusive with respect to women in— no, has the second wave women's movement been all-inclusive with respect to women of color, and women with different sexual orientation? And I preface this by saying, do black women identify more with being black first and/or being a woman second? 42:49 RB: It depends on the women, some identify, like Shirley Chisholm, who ran for president, she identified as a woman and a black and could not break it down. But some identify more with women, some identified much more… with race. And we all came from the civil rights movement, so it is not that we were not concerned, we had concern. But we also came from a civil rights movement, that at that point, that the women's movement started, was into black power. 43:26 SM: Right. 43:26 RB: And did not want women as… did not want white women as part of it. They thought we should do our own thing. So, our own thing was women. 43:37 SM: Right. 43:37 RB: And we made some overtures. But it was not enough. And we also made the mistake often, of talking for all women. When we were not all, you know, we were a certain kind of woman. Although, there were like, very, varied women in the group. I gave you the name of Carol Hanisch, she is from a poor rural family. 44:04 SM: I may be interviewing her she— she just responded back in— 44:07 RB: In Iowa. I mean, I, they were varied. People just talked about certain women. But there were lots of women from different backgrounds. 44:15 SM: Let me change this tape. 44:21 RB: [inaudible] 44:21 SM: Oh, you already talked to her? 44:23 RB: I emailed her, she said, you think I should do this? I said, I do think you should do it— 44:27 SM: Oh I really— I need to make sure that women's point of view is in this project. 44:32 RB: Right, and also, you know, she was very active. She really, her idea was Miss America contest when she did all sorts of things. And she was an AP, and she was also in the South during the civil rights movement as a UPI reporter. 44:46 SM: Oh wow. 44:46 RB: But, she is from a poor family in Iowa. But people just think that it was all upper middle-class women. It was not. But that has— what has been written about. 44:58 SM: You know Kaycee Hayden came from— I am trying to get ahold of, you know, Casey— 45:04 RB: Yeah, I know her. 45:06 SM: Well, Casey says she is going to do it but then she is hesitating because she— and she has not done interviews in years. 45:09 RB: Oh I know. That would be great— 45:11 SM: And but she is… she has agreed to do it. But then she hesitates, as I get close to it so [inaudible]— 45:18 RB: That would be good if she did. 45:19 SM: We will kind of see what happens here. I also bring up here, lesbian females, you know whether they identify more as lesbians or as women first? I do not know— 45:31 RB: I do not know. I mean, it depends. It really depends on… there is a big variety. And the thing is that I do think that lesbian women identify more with women than they do with gay men. Because there is a real division in that movement. 45:47 SM: Oh, yeah. And I have been told about the sexism in that movement— 45:49 RB: Oh, yes. It is incredible. 45:51 SM: As a matter of fact, there was a period when they will not even talk to the men. 45:54 RB: Right. 45:54 SM: Which is unreal. And actually, there is some things today going on that I— 45:57 RB: Right, still, they, I mean, so that there is real divisions, and there are some that feel closer. I mean, [inaudible]. She is a woman that— who writes a lot, and she was much closer to the women's movement. 46:10 SM: See, I had three other Latino women, Native American women, certainly Asian American women, and we know ever, certainly, we know about the first two here, but Asian American women, you do not hear anything about them in the (19)60s. 46:24 RB: And there were Asian American women, in-in our book, we write a little about them, they had a little newspaper in-in California, there were some Asian Americans. 46:32 SM: Well, I am trying to interview Gary Okihiro who— 46:34 RB: That would be good, yes. 46:36 SM: We brought to our campus and I forget the other similar person. And I am interviewing Kim Phuc. But because Kim, I know Kim from the Vietnam Memorial, but I— I think it is important— the boat people, we have to talk about the boat people, but the boat people are really (19)75, and they became, they were boomers from another country, and then they grew up and they have been so successful— 47:01 RB: It is unreal, yeah. 47:03 SM: I actually am— close students— I have been most close— affiliated with other Asian American students my whole life. I do not know what it is. Because I bet, they have advised organizations on most of my Facebook friends are former students. They know I care about Vietnam— [crosstalk 47:17] RB: Uh huh, that is pro— right. SM: —and most of them are Vietnamese. 47:22 SM: Okay, where did the (19)60s begin, in your opinion, and when did it end? And what is the watershed moment to you? 47:29 RB: Okay, I think the (19)60s began in 1954. 47:37 SM: Okay. 47:39 RB: With the civil rights movement, and sort of the burning movement of all the (19)60s. And then… I think it ended in the late… in the mid to late (19)70s. [inaudible] late seventies. 48:00 SM: Was there an— 48:01 RB: Then the economy changed, there was an oil crisis, the government changed. It really became different 48:09 SM: Say around, Jimmy Carter’s period? 48:10 RB: Yes, right. It was around Jimmy Carter's period. 48:13 SM: Some people in the [inaudible] 1975 because that is when the helicopters went off the– 48:17 RB: Right. 48:17 SM: And in Vietnam, but a lot happened in, in Jimmy Carter's here, too. 48:23 RB: Right. 48:23 SM: Was there a watershed moment? 48:25 RB: I do not think it is a watershed moment. I think it is gradual. 48:30 SM: So there is no— is there any one event you would— 48:32 RB: Well, I mean, the Supreme Court decision started things that were in the works in 1954. And the water— I do not, I cannot see an end. Because there is… trickles, still. 48:46 SM: The legal love of laws that have been passed in the lines of boomers. Now when we are talk— I am still using the term, I cannot— 48:55 RB: Right, that is okay. 48:56 SM: But it is from (19)40, (19)40 on– 48:58 RB: Right, right. 48:59 SM: The laws that were passed by the Supreme Court during this timeframe, they had the greatest impact not only on boomers, male and female of all colors and sexual orientation, but certainly women. What do you think are the most important for women? We know Brown versus Board of Education— 49:18 RB: Well, the Equal Rights Amendment, Title 9 for athletics for women was very important. 49:24 SM: That was in the (19)80s was not it… I think, yeah… yeah. 49:26 RB: Yeah, Title 9 was the (19)80s. Equal Rights Amendment was before that. The EEOC was very important to the Equal Opportunities Act. 49:37 SM: Well now what would that state? 49:39 RB: That stated that… Equal Opportunities Act, it had a board of discrimination and it added women as well as blacks… 49:49 SM: Okay. 49:49 RB: –to the Equal Right Amendment. And it also said, that since it had the idea of equity as well as equality… you could not have equality if there were no women in the job. So, you have to have an idea of equity. For example, there are no women truck drivers almost. But women— nurses have more training and more responsibility than truck drivers. So, if you look at equity, they should be paid as well. So, you have to look as equity as well as equality. 50:41 SM: Now do not forget Roe v. Wade. 50:43 RB: Yes. 50:43 SM: Yeah— 50:44 RB: And of course,1973, that was so basic. I was very active in the first abortion speak and– 50:53 SM: How important were the beats, in your opinion, in shaping the attitudes of not only the new left, but— actually activists of all— 51:03 RB: They were very important to me; they were very important to me. I mean, I, in high school, go to the village, I looked up to them. Even though women were not the key in the themes, it seemed like a big breakthrough. 51:26 SM: Ann Walden was the youngest of that group. She was born in 1946. When she was very close to Ginsburg— 51:34 RB: Uh huh, really? 51:34 SM: —there seemed to be a relationship between those two that was very strong. And they had the center— 51:41 RB: Well Susan Suntodd was somebody looked up to— 51:42 SM: Right, right. 51:43 RB: —and she was involved in that movement. Beats and existentialists were influences. I mean, I read. I read Ginsburg's poetry aloud. I went to readings of his— 52:02 SM: That was one of the— I was at one of his chants. At Ohio State. 52:07 RB: Yeah, oh, no, it was very moving, and a real breakthrough. 52:10 SM: Yeah, the banning of [inaudible] I believe was 1955— 52:17 RB: It was late— yeah, it was early. 52:19 SM: That was kind of a historic happening as well. And what was it about them that they challenged authority where they were like, very unique. They did not care what people thought of them . 52:28 RB: They challenged authority. They were also— they were against war. They were against bomb testing, war, all of those things. They— for me they dressed in black when the popular culture colors at that time were fuchsia and chartreuse. And they had freedoms, I mean, not only sexual freedoms, but marijuana. I mean, they— that was very, I mean, sex, drugs and rock and roll were very important. 53:15 SM: One person I interviewed out in California who was part of the counterculture out there, is it Neal Cassady? 53:22 RB: Yeah. 53:22 SM: He said Neal Cassady is the Beat. He is— you had the Ginsburg's, and you have your Snyder— [crosstalk 53:29] RB: Roman [inaudible] 53:30 SM: —[inaudible] all these others, but something about him, attracted all the others. And so people look to him as like the model Beat. you agree with that? 53:42 RB: No, I looked at Neal Cassady as a model too. 53:45 SM: I have a question here on healing. This is a question that I have asked— actually asked everyone, even Senator McCarthy when I first started this so long ago. It is a question of healing as a generation. In 1985, I took students to see Senator Muskie, six months before he passed away, he was not well, he had just gotten out of the hospital, and Gaylord Nelson had been able to organize this meeting with him. It was one of our leaderships. So, we took 14 students there and one of the questions they came up with it was based on videos they have— they have observed in the (19)60s. And the question they wanted to ask was, thinking that he would respond about 1968 in the summer, based on all the divisions that took place in America, in the 1960s, and (19)70s, including the divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, the riots and burnings within the cities, the assassinations during the (19)60s, the extreme divisions and those who supported the war, those who were against the war or those who supported the troops and against the troops. Do you think the boomer generation, like the Civil War generation, is going to go to its grave… not healing? And then they waited for him to respond. I will tell you, his response. Do you think… do you think that the boomer generation as a whole has an issue on healing because of this extreme divisions? I know you— many do not think about it, but some do! I am one of them. The divisions have— just were, so intense. And there was so much happening, that, you know, a lot of people like closure in their lives, but I am not sure if closure is possible. Just your thoughts on the concept of healing? 55:30 RB: I do not know about— I do not know— you know, I do not know about— I mean, I think… that… as far as anti-feminists, I do not feel much healing. But I can feel a lot of healing for people who went to Vietnam, I never was against the troops themselves. And I do not think we were, you know, many of us, so… And people that were for the war, they continue to be for these wars now, you know. I do not feel much sympathy with them. 56:18 SM: Somebody said, it might be better to say [inaudible] 56:22 RB: Yeah. 56:22 SM: I think I am fine– 56:26 RB: Yeah, I do not see– 56:28 SM: I am going to use this tape here. Some somebody said that it would be better if you simply just paraphrase this question, say those who supported the war, those who were against the war, which means those who went to war and those who did not, and that— and will that can ever heal? And the reason why the question came up is, what happens to the anti-war people when they go to the war for the first time, and they are with their kids? And they say, Dad, Mom, what did you do in the war? You know, that there is any guilt that they did not serve. I think that was really getting at when, when 58,000 plus died? 57:06 RB: Well, I mean, some of the people even if they did not serve, some of them protested against it. But then they were ones that did nothing. I mean, I think if you look at the wall, I do not feel it. My grandchildren now could be— asked me about it, I can tell them about protesting against this war that was killing people, and wars that are existing now. 57:34 SM: So, in a sense, what you are saying is that even the men who served in this war, they did their purpose, and we had our purpose— 57:42 RB: Purpose. 57:42 SM: —because it was genuine and real, and it was for good… 57:45 RB: Right, exactly. 57:45 SM: –it was not for bad. So, I am not going to criticize the young man. 57:51 RB: Criticizing them, is the people that sent them to war, and did not serve. 57:55 SM: Right. And then the people that protested the war— James [inaudible] does a great job talking about, there is difference between those who protested the war and those who evaded the draft. 58:05 RB: Right. 58:05 SM: And he is guilty. He feels guilty, but he does not, he does not [inaudible]. Because they did, because those people evaded the threat never protested the war. So– 58:13 RB: Right well, some had evaded the draft. I knew people that evaded the draft and protest the war. The– 58:21 SM: The— Senator Muskie answered the question in this way, he said that he never even responded about 1916. We thought he was going to talk about all the students in the [inaudible] each other— 58:32 RB: Right, yeah. 58:33 SM: He did not even mention it. He said we have not healed since the Civil War, because we have the same problem. We have the issue of race, and it has not— said it is still here. 58:41 RB: And it is, when you look at the states that voted for Obama in the states that did not it is a Civil War. 58:46 SM: And you know something when people say that they criticize Obama and then in the next breath, they say, “And I am not criticizing him because he is black.” If I hear that one more time I am going to jump out the window. Because I know some people, you know, I am not saying they are racist, but it is like, “my best friends are black.” That saying— I do not know… you do not have to, you do not have to say it!— 59:10 RB: You do not need to say it! Right. 59:13 SM: That is what Glenn Beck says. Do you think also the word that the— this particular generation is a generation that does not trust? And is that good? 59:23 RB: No— 59:23 SM: One of the characteristics of the generation is not a very trusting generation. 59:27 RB: I think it is good not to trust. You know, there is a lot in especially big government and government not to trust and questioning authority is very useful. 59:40 SM: That— 59:40 RB: We want our students to question. We want them to ask questions and not just assume that authorities are correct, since they are not most of the time. 59:51 SM: In a sense, you are saying that then this is healthy for democracy– 59:55 RB: It is. 59:55 SM: –because we are challenging the system. 59:57 RB: Right, and we need more challenging of the system. 1:00:02 SM: Very good. One of my interviewees said that now he has become a special— now— that, oh now has become a special interest group. I cannot read my own handwriting. That concentrates more on the irony, I already— I think I have already asked that question, so… strengths and weaknesses. Okay. What do you consider some of the strengths and weaknesses of the boomer generation? And I know you cannot, you cannot talk about a whole generation of people but you can talk about people you know. 1:00:30 RB: I think the strength of the people I know was that they were very daring… that they organized with other people… and protested for what they believed and stood up for what they believed, and some of them suffered for it. Some of them benefited. And the weaknesses are… that we did not have the staying power to change with changing times. And we also did not know our enemy. 1:01:30 SM: Has the enemy been the same for— 1:01:33 RB: No, the enemy has been very different. I mean, we had good times in the (19)60s, good economic times, liberal governments. And when it changed to more conservative times, we did not know how to deal with them. They knew how to deal with it, but we did not. They divided us. 1:01:53 SM: Yes, that is— 1:01:55 RB: They had spies in our organizations, we, you know, we were trusting people, we did not know any of this. 1:02:02 SM: This leads to a question here that, what was it like? And I am basically giving this question to you, what is it like being a female in America during the following timeframes, and maybe you have probably— your experience is comparable to other females of the time. And I am only saying the, because when we are looking at the boomers now, you know, we are talking right up to today so— 1:02:27 RB: That it was the most invigorating, marvelous, fun time. 1:02:31 SM: Let me break this down— 1:02:33 RB: I loved it. 1:02:34 SM: —what was it like from (19)46 to 1964 women that were— 1:02:39 RB: That was much harder. That was much harder. It was like, continual repression. Feeling a combination between oppressed and invisible. 1:02:53 SM: How about 1961 when President Kennedy came into 1970. 1:02:58 RB: That was joyous times. Fun was so important. It was so much fun to live in. It was, the atmosphere was anything is possible. Lots of experimentation, new freedoms, adventures, incredible friendships, Re- learning, and learning things. 1:03:40 SM: How about, how did the (19)70s differ from the (19)60s, say from 1971 to Reagan– 1:03:47 RB: (19)70s just started changing. I mean, America was not a great nation, and it began to be not a great nation anymore. We stopped producing anything. And we, it was no longer the same kind of times. Starting in late to mid (19)70s. 1:04:12 SM: Would you say that that period, right up to about (19)73, (19)74 is really part of the (19)60s because, yeah. 1:04:19 RB: Yes, that was part of the (19)60s, it was late (19)60s. 1:04:21 SM: How about 1981 to 1990, which was actually the period of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, the first. 1:04:28 RB: That became much harder. I mean, it came… I mean, the sixties had ended and you had to make a new life and realize that the movement was not there anymore, although some friendships continued and… 1:04:52 SM: Do you agr— Go ahead. 1:04:53 RB: …and some protests continued. 1:04:57 SM: Yeah, I know the anti-apartheid movement was about the only one that— the only movement that, that— that was early (19)80s, (19)83 to (19)84. 1:05:04 RB: Yes early (19)80s. 1:05:07 SM: Do you feel that the criticism oftentimes of people that grew up in the (19)60s generation, which is all of them, but basically is that their idealism died as they got older, that they are no different than any other generation as time goes on. They become parents, they get a job. There is always this scattering of people that stay the way they were, but the majority of them just moved on with their lives. And, and when they said, when they were young, that they were going to change the world. And we are going to end war, great peace, and racism, sexism, homophobia, and make the world a better place to live that, that was just young people talking and dreaming and hoping but in reality, as life goes on, they have responsibilities. And, and security does mean a lot to them. Because they got to put bread on the table. Just your thoughts on that. 1:05:57 RM: I think that many, many people from the (19)60s that I know, are still active, and not active in the same way. Because the world has changed. And whenever I have a student who is an activist, it turns out that someone else is an activist in their family, and many I mean, my son's activist, I mean, they— it is not— they do change, and they do go on and their lifestyles change. But some of their idealism lives and they are still protesting in their way. 1:06:47 SM: You know, it is interesting— 1:06:48 RB: Or teaching, and passing it on to their students. 1:06:51 SM: As I, as I have gotten older, because I am in my early (19)60s, now. It has gotten stronger in me, not… not weaker, because I am more confident in who I am, what I am all about, and I know who I am as a human being, and that is who I am. And so— 1:07:09 RB: No one I know almost has— the only person that I know, personally, that has gotten conservative is David [inaudible]. But most… most of the people have not. True their lives have changed, they have jobs and things, but they have not gotten conservative. 1:07:24 SM: Think his friend [inaudible], another one. They were both- 1:07:27 RB: Oh yeah, Peter, I did not know Peter. 1:07:29 SM: Yeah, yeah. 1:07:29 RB: I did not know Peter. 1:07:30 SM: Yeah, I think he was— 1:07:31 RB: Yeah, I did not know Peter. 1:07:32 SM: —[inaudible] too. 1:07:32 RB: But I did not know. 1:07:35 SM: You already talked about the— 1:07:39 RB: Yeah. 1:07:39 SM: Alright, where is it [inaudible]. Anyway, I am moving around here. 1:07:44 RB: Right that is okay. 1:07:46 SM: And, I think you have already talked about your books, both prominent writers. Legal decisions, we were doing pretty good. If you were in a packed house, of 500 female college students today. And one asked you named the three or four events in your personal life that made you who you are today. Now, this is a little takeout, from the first question, but it is a little more specific, with all of your strengths and imperfections that we all have as human beings, what are they? And I asked this to Peter Kyer and Peter Kyer said, you know, I cannot answer that. You know, I got to think for a while. Then, he— then he thought about, jeez, yeah it was— I had a maid when I grew up, who was an African American maid, and she was very important. And then he went on to talk about the experience about the maid. And then he was writing a book on it. He was writing a book on the maid. And then he said, he talks about, well, then, then I had this person that did this for me. And then I know that I went to— I just happen to be at this particular event at this time. So, he has really just really went to town on it. Other— now you have already mentioned a lot of things that influenced you— 1:09:00 RB: Yeah, I do not— 1:09:01 SM: But are there specific events? 1:09:02 RB: Specific events… I do remember, that I could not go— my birthday party had it be called off because the Rosenbergs were being executed. And that had an enormous impact on me, not only because as a kid, I was angry that my birthday party had to end. And but I then we went to this demonstration. I was a kid about the Rosenberg— 1:09:45 SM: I do not think they were guilty. 1:09:47 RB: Well she certainly was not. 1:09:49 SM: Yeah. 1:09:50 RB: Even if, you know, the bombs he did was not even a secret. But anyway, the thing is that all around the world, they protested this. And, I mean, I saw that there were events that were much huge-er than me, like my birthday party. This execution, which was a world event, right? So, it sorts of put in perspective, the personal and political. There were these events outside that determined people's lives. Plus, it scared me that my parents could be killed. You know? Not that I even knew they were communists at that time, but I knew there was something a little different about them. 1:10:42 SM: Were you aware of the Hollywood 10? At that time, too? And their testimonies before the- 1:10:47 RB: Not totally, but my parents knew some of those people. So, I mean — 1:10:51 SM: And, and the people that lost their lives? 1:10:53 RB: Yes, I knew— 1:10:54 SM: Committed suicide because— 1:10:56 RB: Right, I knew a little about that. Yeah. 1:10:59 SM: Was there a generation gap in your family at all, but if any- were your, were your with you and your parents, in any way— 1:11:04 RB: Yeah, there was a generation gap. I mean, you know, they did not like the music I listened to or the sloppy the way they thought I was dressing, no there was definitely a generation gap. 1:11:18 SM: Now, what is interesting, I interviewed a very powerful Vietnam veteran about a month ago in Washington, Jack Wheeler was the guy who raised the funds for the Vietnam Memorial. And, and there was a symposium in 1980 with James Fallows, Phil Caputo. Really top people— Bobby Muller. And basically, they talked, they said- was talked about the generation gap. And one of them— oh and James Webb was not a senator. And I think they brought up the fact that the generation gap to them was not between parents, and their sons and daughters. It was we- it was within the generation, that the generation gap was those who served and those who chose not to serve. And James Webb, if I make sure I get his quote correct because he is a pretty tough cookie. He said that… he thinks that the boomer generation, which is being praised for being a generation that served, really is the generation that did not. By people who protested and did not go to war when people in World War II and World War I, and it was it was a rite of passage, one of the services— to serve your nation. You know we had so many, that did not serve either in a variety of ways. So that was what he thought generation gap was. Do you think you agree with that concept, or– 1:12:44 RB: I did not have that much experience with that. Yeah. 1:12:51 SM: Yeah. 1:12:51 RB: But that is, it is very different for people. So— 1:12:57 SM: Yeah, especially if there was a rite of passage that many of them have gone through. 1:13:03 RB: Right they think— people serve for many different reasons. I mean, I have this black friend that, you know, it is just a way out of his life. 1:13:11 SM: Yeah, I— 1:13:12 RB: Not like he was so gung-ho war, or saw it as a passage. You know, I do not know, he made two girls pregnant. He, you know, did not know what he was doing and it was just like kids that serve today. 1:13:26 SM: So, some go in there for a career too and some did that. 1:13:30 RB: Want to get their school paid for I have students all the time that tell me they want to enlist to get— 1:13:35 SM: One of the criticisms of the military back then is that they did that to young people that did not have any money. And as a result, they end up dead in Vietnam. There was a con job so to speak. What are, what are some of the slogans of the women's movement? I have been asking a question about slogans. And I said, there were three slogans that I personally feel kind of define the boomer generation. One of them is Malcolm X by saying and “by any means necessary”, which is symbolic of the more radical revolutionary toward violence type of mentality. 1:14:09 RB: The Women's Movement was pretty anti violence. 1:14:11 SM: The second one was the hippie mentality, which Peter max it was, I am a poster you do your thing. I will do mine. If by chance we should get together that will be beautiful. 1:14:21 RB: Yeah, no, but for movement build that is not good. 1:14:23 SM: Yeah, and the third one was the one Bobby Kennedy was quoted. He took it from the writer from the 19th century. And the summons sees things as they are and ask why I see things that never were asked why not, which is a more of an activist mentality— 1:14:38 RB: Uh huh, right, yes, that one makes more sense 1:14:40 SM: —of seeking justice [inaudible]. So those three I thought, but I did not know if there was any other— 1:14:45 RB: The woman’s movement, the personal as political. That what you think of is personal. Like if you are being beaten. It is not personal, it is political. And having an abortion, birth control, they are not only personal issues, they are political issues as well. So that was a very important one, the personal is political. 1:15:12 SM: The last two periods that I did not talk about was the period 1991 to 2000, which was the end of the George Bush period and the Bill Clinton era. What is— what is that, for women and for you, for example just— 1:15:25 RB: Pretty bleak. Pretty bleak. 1:15:29 SM: Any progress there in any way? 1:15:33 RB: Not too much. 1:15:35 SM: And then, of course, the years— 1:15:36 RB: No, I would say it was the opposite of progress. It was going backwards. They have changed abortion to make it harder to get abortions, there are fewer abortions. People do not give abortions anymore. I mean, it has gotten backwards. 1:15:52 SM: And the year— 1:15:53 RB: [inaudible] starting to get a little better. 1:15:54 SM: The year 2001 to 2010 with George Bush the second and for Barack Obama on this— 1:16:00 RB: Well with Barack Obama there is at least there is hope. We do not know where it is going to lead, but at least there was hope. 1:16:08 SM: We are in obviously, in another war with George Bush with Iraq and Afghanistan. 1:16:13 RB: Right, we are. 1:16:14 SM: And certainly, Obama's going to gung-ho. 1:16:16 RB: He is. 1:16:17 SM: So, I do not know where that will lead. 1:16:25 SM: I would like your reaction to the following people. 1:16:29 RB: Okay. 1:16:29 SM: Terms, and what these events mean to you personally. 1:16:33 RB: Okay 1:16:33 SM: And we have still got at least 15 minutes here. Kent State, Jackson State, what does that mean to you? 1:16:40 RB: It meant a lot to me, Kent State, Jackson State. First of all, Jackson State people do not know about as much as Kent State. And it was a more working-class college. It was not an elite college. So it was very important. And then Jackson State, which was much more ignored, was equally important. And even though they came at the end, they were exceedingly important, and the fact that it was getting more violent. And people getting were more frustrated on both sides was very important. 1:17:22 SM: What does the wall mean to you? The Vietnam Memorial. 1:17:26 RB: It was a very important commemoration when I have gone there and seen all those names. And I do not know people that died in Vietnam, but it was just— it was a very moving, important Memorial. Just to have some kind of commemoration of the damages. 1:17:52 SM: Have you ever met Diane Carlson Evans? The Women’s Memorial? 1:17:55 RB: No, no. 1:17:55 SM: You ought to meet her someday. 1:17:56 RB: Yeah, I know. 1:17:57 SM: Got to bring her to your class. What a- she went before Congress to fight for the women’s memorial— 1:18:00 RB: No, I know she did, I know she did. 1:18:03 SM: And because she saw the eight names that were on the wall, but with a three-man statue, she fought for that woman statue. She did a good job. It is interesting when I asked a powerful Vietnam vet that the question about what I mean I heard that Diane really had to fight to get that Memorial built. What kind of— was there any sexism within the Vietnam veteran community? And he immediately responded, he said, no, we supported Diane from the get go. And of course, I have heard otherwise, but not from him. And it was basic as that, well look at the wall, Maya Lin designed the wall, she was a female. Who designed the woman's memorial? Glenna Goodacre. And then there was a man that designed the three man statues so two of the three main standards are women. And so, so there is our case. What does Watergate mean to you? 1:18:58 RB: Watergate, was really an opening that- first of all, it was televised. And people really got to understand what this dirty Nixon government was doing. And it was the beginning of unraveling that people could really see and feel. I mean, this new unraveling it is, it is almost like the Pentagon Papers. It has, has not created a ripple. 1:19:37 SM: Yeah, starting. But just the term counterculture. 1:19:41 RB: Yeah. 1:19:41 SM: What do you think of that. Were you- I wonder how do you— 1:19:44 RB: I define myself as part of the counterculture- 1:19:47 SM: And what is the counterculture to you? 1:19:49 RB: I like the counterculture; it was not the mainstream culture. It was not having the same goals of conquering people's— treating people very differently, wanting to live life in the moment. And it was caring for the earth– 1:20:21 SM: How About hippies and yippies. Hippies— 1:20:24 RB: Yeah, I like the hippies. You know, when I felt like a hippie myself, I lived on the Lower East Side. Liked the hippie culture. It was an alternative to the admin culture. 1:20:37 SM: How about the yippies which was Hoffman and Ruban— 1:20:40 RB: Yeah, well, I knew them. I was not as— I mean, I knew them personally. And I mean, they did things like burn money. I mean, they showed contempt for values that I felt should be made to quest- to people to question. 1:21:03 SM: How about Woodstock and Summer of Love, two separate incidents. One in (19)69, and one is (19)67. 1:21:05 RB: I did not go to Woodstock. I could have, but… I mean, it was a memorable occasion. Music was good. 1:21:20 SM: A lot of people forget the summer solstice of (19)68. 1:21:23 RB: Right. 1:21:23 SM: Yeah, that is, I— nobody talks about it. But that was big, too. 1:21:28 RB: Right? 1:21:28 SM: The year 1968. What does that mean to you? 1:21:31 RB: 1968? It meant the international movement. And it meant the beginning of the women's movement. There was a movement in Mexico, there was a movement in Germany. 1:21:47 SM: Yes. 1:21:47 RB: It was a worldwide— 1:21:50 SM: France. 1:21:51 RB: —New Left. Yeah, France. New Left. It was a worldwide— New Left was an international group which was very important. 1:22:01 SM: The 1963 march on Washington. 1:22:05 RB: That was incredibly important as well, in that racism could not be denied any longer. Thousands of people were daring to dream that it might be different. And mobilizing. And even though it was not the radical part of the civil rights movement, it was people from all over the United States. Unions, different people, maids, chauffeurs so many different people coming together. 1:22:49 SM: How about the incident on Wall Street with hard hats, beating up hippies with long hair. That was pretty similar. Like– 1:22:58 RB: Yeah, that was— showed the enormous class differences. The press was pushing. 1:23:08 SM: Some people say that was what was the silent majority were those hard hats. Because that was what Nixon was always talking about , the silent majority. 1:23:21 RB: I do not think they were the silent majority. But anyway, you know, they had their point. And they blame the wrong enemy. 1:23:28 SM: You brought up black power and black power was really prevalent on college campus, late (19)60s, early (19)70s. And Kent state, you cannot even hardly find an African American student, because it is more all white students. I am actually interviewing the president of Kansas State Student Government in three weeks. And he was an African American. But there was a— if you read James’s Michener’s book, I can state there were no African American students there. And if there were, they were asked to leave, because at that time— I was on Ohio State's campus in the early (19)70s. And black students went more towards what was happening in America and not toward Vietnam. There was that split, and the Afros and everything was pretty strong there. So black power, your thoughts on black power, and its intimidation factor number one and Black Panthers and the concept of what they were all about in terms of— 1:24:23 RB: Well, in a way, black power was a lot like separatism that had been, you know, there since Booker T. Washington, and saying, look, we can do it alone. And in the women's movement in some way. We were inspired by black power, because women's power, we had our own movement. We did not have men in the movement. And it inspired us to do our thing on our own and that we did not need men to be leaders anymore. We could be the leaders. So, there were lots of correspondences between black power and the women's movement. 1:25:12 SM: What did you think of the- when… did you think Black Panthers were violent? Number one, even though they had the food program and number two, SDS went from being an antiwar group to a violent group. Yeah, well, the weatherman- 1:25:27 RB: I am actually very against the weatherman. And they were the most macho people too. And anti-women and kind of ways and guns and macho. And it was the most anti female thing. And I did not like that transition at all. 1:25:44 SM: I mentioned that even in the American Indian Movement from (19)69 to (19)73 that was so strong that the hopes that Alcatraz, when they took over Alcatraz, and then the violence at Wounded Knee showed again, the violence does not win. Right. So, you had you had Wounded Knee for Native Americans. you had the weatherman for SDS, you had the Black Panthers, right? People have Huey Newton or Bobby Seale says we were not violent. We were there— we had guns to protect ourselves because police had guns, but then then also the Young Lords, which was the Latina, Puerto Rican group, they kind of copied the Black Panthers, so— 1:26:18 RB: But they also had breakfast programs and other things, as you say that people forget. 1:26:22 SM: Right. Right. What did you think of Earth Day? 1:26:28 RB: Earth Day, I remember going to Earth Day and my son knew more people on the demonstration for the first time than I did. 1:26:36 SM: You were in Washington for the big one? 1:26:37 RB: I was in New York City. 1:26:39 SM: Okay. 1:26:39 RB: Was it June 13th? One— and I remember my son went with me and he was saying hi to everyone and knew everyone. And I thought that was just great, that he knew more people than I did. 1:26:49 SM: Let me change the tape. 1:26:58 SM: Like at least— 1:26:59 RB: And the hippies had some of the Earth kind of things and preserving the Earth in them as well. I mean, I began having gardens and sewing things and caring about the earth and the water supply and mulching as a hippie. So, Earth Day seemed a continuation of those concerns. 1:27:25 SM: Yeah, I think the environmental movement is very strong today. Of course, there is a lot of enemies of it. 1:27:29 RB: Yeah. But it is stronger. 1:27:30 SM: It is, it is very strong. 1:27:31 RB: And it will get stronger with things like BP. 1:27:35 SM: Oh, my gosh, yes. 1:27:36 SM: The Free Speech Movement, (19)64. Just your thoughts on it? Because it was really the preamble to all the foul– 1:27:44 RB: In California. 1:27:45 SM: Yeah. 1:27:46 RB: Because, I mean, I was writing about Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and, in the Wobblies, the IWW. They had to have free speech movements, and they call them free speech movements, in order to be heard. So, in order to even raise money, with people in the south, you had to have a Free Speech Movement, to even talk about the war, and to talk about the civil rights movement. So, it had to come first. And free speech is always part of a movement. 1:28:22 SM: But I always admire— I wish I had met Mario Savio; he was not a well man. He died in his fifties. 1:28:27 RB: Right. 1:28:27 SM: And I do not know if you saw him [inaudible] I mean, there is a new book by Dr. Cohen at NYU— 1:28:33 RB: Right, yeah, NYU. 1:28:35 SM: I am interviewing in September— 1:28:37 RB: Right, my son [inaudible] 1:28:38 SM: —Strictly an hour and a half. Nothing but the free speech movement. And but one of the things that stands out, and I want you to comment on it, that he… that Mario Savio, whether you liked his style of speaking or where he, you know, came I think he originally came from New York— 1:28:56 RB: He did come from New York. 1:28:57 SM: Yeah. And the fact that you got to admire this guy, because he-he got it, that the university was about ideas. And he talks about the recent, you know, stopping about literature being handed out, you are denying ideas on a university campus. And so, he did what Clark Kerr talked about in the uses of the university, the noun, not the knowledge factory was like the corporate factory. And so, he was challenging that kind of a system— 1:29:30 RB: [crosstalk] Right and he was saying— 1:29:31 SM: The corporate mentality— 1:29:32 RB: —we cannot be cogs in a wheel 1:29:33 SM: Yeah. 1:29:33 RB: We have to change. You know, we are not little cogs. We have to open our minds. And that is supposedly what learning is about, and you cannot learn unless you have many ideas. 1:29:47 SM: See that is what worries me about the lessons that were learned from the Free Speech Movement and everything right up through probably today is that is when I interviewed Arthur Chickering, who gave me an hour and a half of his time on the phone, the great educator, rural education identity that we had to read for my graduate program. I asked him, is there any last comments you would like to make when I ended the interview. He says, yes. I am disappointed in today's universities for one reason the corporations are taking over. 1:30:13 RB: Yes, they are. 1:30:14 SM: And this is from a conservative educator— 1:30:17 RB: Yeah, but it is true, yeah. 1:30:19 SM: And that was exactly what Mario was saying. And that was [inaudible] 1:30:22 RB: Things have gotten so much worse! 1:30:24 SM: Scholarships are all based on raising funds. Everything is raising, you know, buildings are named just raising funds, scholarships, it is everything. And even in activities in— 1:30:35 RB: Even the kind of funding that is given, the people's work. 1:30:40 SM: Yeah, it has got to show that it is— 1:30:42 RB: That was what we were protesting against now the university is much worse. And also, the idea of public schools. We do not even have- we used to have free public schools. Now, even though state universities are so expensive— 1:30:57 SM: [inaudible] yeah. 1:30:58 RB: It has gone up 18 times since I have taught. 1:31:01 SM: Yeah, yeah. And I do not know what is going to happen to Berkeley. Because— 1:31:06 RB: No— 1:31:06 SM: I know some students that have left, they were not coming back. They were going to, they were going to another, they were leaving, they were leaving Berkeley! 1:31:13 RB: Right, I know, they are ruining, they are really making things— also, it is what is happening in our country now, where the differences between the rich and the poor are getting greater and greater. The gaps between the rich— 1:31:26 SM: Yeah and the middle class is going to go into the poor, and the- so 2 percent and the 98 percent— 1:31:29 RB: Right, and it is really what is happening, and therefore. for public education, they do not care. 1:31:36 SM Just a few more here, Freedom Summer. 1:31:40 RB: It was very important in— that was very important, not only for the work that was done, you know, educating black people in freedom schools, but the white people changed so much. Seeing the roles of the blacks and black leaders like Fannie Lou Hamer, and that there were people who were sharecroppers who had no education but could teach you a whole lot. And it gave people a new sense of class. And what you could learn from the people. 1:32:22 SM: Sergeant Shriver in the Peace Corps, and I— and I say Sergeant Shriver, he has got Alzheimer's now just like— 1:32:28 SM: Yeah, that is what I hear. 1:32:30 SM: And he is not long for this world, unfortunately. 1:32:34 RB: But the person from Pennsylvania who started the Peace Corps, he was president of my college at first. 1:32:38 SM: I have interviewed two pe— Harris Wofford! 1:32:39 RB: Harris Wofford. He was— 1:32:40 SM: I know Harris Wofford. 1:32:41 RB: —He was president of Old Westbury. 1:32:43 SM: Yeah. And well, I know him well in fact— 1:32:45 RB: I do not know him well. But he was president of Old Westbury when I first came. 1:32:50 SM: Yeah, well, he was from, from California. He was my first speaker at Thomas Jefferson University. Then I went over to his law office before he worked for Governor Scranton and I, seeking an hour of his time, and I invited him four times to come and speak at our school once during the Rodney King crisis when he was senator. And, and I interviewed him in his backyard, before we moved to Washington, where this book, and he— his wife, was just Claire was everything to him. And he has never been the same since he last- 1:33:22 RB: Were, well, he was president of a college so I— 1:33:26 SM: But just your thoughts on Sergeant Shriver and the Peace Corps- 1:33:28 RB: I think the Peace Corps was another very important idea, especially… We live in a world economy. And it is very important that people to see what America does to the rest of the world and how what we can learn from them, and they from us. And it was very meaningful for people who went I know, people that were in the Peace Corps, and it changed them enormously. 1:33:54 SM: What are your thoughts? When you look at the Presidents since 1946, which includes, one of the things I learned very early, when I was four or five, I learned all my presidents. I learned them the least. 1:34:05 RB: Most of the presidents have been very dismal. The good ones stand out. As a historian that is what I think. 1:34:11 SM: Well, when you think of when you think of Truman, and Eisenhower, and certainly Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and then you have Ford. 1:34:23 RB: Ford, yeah. 1:34:24 SM: Carter, Reagan, George Bush the first, Bill Clinton, George Bush the second, and now Obama, when you think of these people, these are the presidents that have been alive when boomers have been alive. And if you are talking about even FDR, for those that were born in the early (19)40s. Any of those events do you admire for their issue, for their work on behalf of women when they were in positions of leadership? 1:34:51 RB: Eleanor Roosevelt, not— not Roosevelt, and under Johnson, very good legislation was passed. I mean, the Peace Corps and those things did affect women. And the War on Poverty did affect women. Not specifically, he did not appoint that many women or have feminist consciousness, but some of his programs were really important for women. Johnson above them all. 1:35:19 SM: What were some of those programs? 1:35:21 RB: Well, I said the War on Poverty, the Peace Corps… Equal Rights Amendment passed under him, ERA. 1:35:37 SM: You mentioned also Eleanor Roosevelt and I have not talked about her at all, hardly in any of my interviews, but— 1:35:43 RB: Human Rights, she was the one to talk about human rights and she is very important. And as a wife of a president, she was very active in her role. 1:35:53 SM: She lived until— 1:35:54 RB: Aside from being gay, you know— 1:35:55 SM: She lived until (19)62, 1962. 1:35:58 RB: Right, she was very active in the UN. 1:36:03 SM: So, she was too— she— would you say she was a person— 1:36:05 RB: She was someone you could— I looked up to her. 1:36:08 SM: The women's movement is also often identified as a United States effort. But when I interviewed Charlotte Bunch– 1:36:16 RB: Oh, she— 1:36:16 SM: She talked about the international aspects, was Eleanor Roosevelt, a key figure in the international women's issues in the UN? 1:36:24 RB: She was in the UN 1:36:27 SM: Right. 1:36:27 RB: In UN, in Human Rights. 1:36:28 SM: Just a few more names, I do not tell you— 1:36:30 RB: Okay, that 1s alright. 1:36:31 SM: Okay I am going to— at least they are all— because— just your thoughts on Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda. 1:36:37 SM: Um, Tom Hayden is still doing very good work. Now. I get this newsletter that he does. And he is one person who has changed with changing time and continued to be important. I mean, I really liked his Newark project… in Newark. He was not very good to Casey Hayden, or he was not good to other girlfriends, but on the whole, I think he is a very positive role. And he continues to be an activist. 1:37:14 SM: He has written and brand-new book now on the movement. 1:37:18 RB: Right, yeah, so, he continues, I mean, he is someone who is lasting. 1:37:22 SM: Jane Fonda. 1:38:25 RB: Jane Fonda. I mean, she popularized, really, fitness and protest for a while, and she certainly was hated. By the right. They made her a major enemy. 1:37:40 SM: And they still do. 1:37:43 RB: And as you know, a founder and an actress she played an important media role. 1:37:49 SM: I am interviewing Jeremy or Jerry Alinsky tomorrow, who wrote a book— 1:37:52 RB: Oh, right. Yeah, right. 1:37:53 SM: [inaudible] on Jane Fonda about Miss— Danny Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. Just your thoughts on both of them. 1:38:03 RB: They made protesting very much fun. And they, they had this yippies. I mean, I did not think of it is irresponsible, but some people good. I mean, they wanted people to feel that you could have a hell of a good time and still protest, and be very creative and inventive. 1:38:36 SM: How About the Black Panthers. And I said just like I cannot just say Black Panthers because they had like seven or eight major personalities and just if any of these people stand out— Stokely Carmichael was obviously when was— 1:38:50 RB: He is international. 1:38:51 SM: Yeah, he challenged Dr. King— 1:38:51 RB: [inaudible] Yes, right. 1:38:53 SM: —your time has passed and so Stokely Carmichael, of course, Bobby Seale, and Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver and Kathleen Cleaver and H. Rhett. Brown. 1:39:03 RB: They are all very different. Kathleen Cleaver, I was reading a book the other day; she did the introduction. She is a lawyer now. I mean, they are very, I mean, Huey Newton turned out to be a criminal. I mean, they are— they are all very different. Bobby Rush beat Obama— 1:39:20 SM: Oh, that is right— that is right. 1:39:22 RB: You know, they are very, very different people all of them. 1:39:27 SM: And the one that was murdered in Chicago. Yeah. 1:39:29 RB: Yeah. What is his name? The Chicago brown women. The Chicago branch was one of the best branches of the, of the Black Panthers. They are the ones that had a big breakfast program. 1:39:40 SM: And then there is the— Angela Davis who was not a Black Panther. 1:39:34 RB: She was sort of a media… communist, media star. 1:39:51 SM: Anything about her? 1:39:53 RB: I mean, intellectually, she, I mean, I used something that she wrote in my class about slave narratives. She wrote something about Douglass. 1:40:12 SM: How about Tommy Smith and John Carlos, they were in the 1968 Olympics. They raised their fists. 1:40:17 RB: Yeah, right, I do not, you know– 1:40:18 SM: They are black power. 1:40:19 RB: Yeah, right. 1:40:20 SM: Not Black Panthers. 1:40:21 RB: Right. 1:40:23 SM: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. 1:40:27 RB: You know, very useful event. I wish the new papers had as much impact as he did. That is a very brave individual. 1:40:37 SM: How about Dr. Benjamin Spock? 1:40:40 RB: I mean, my father was a friend of his. 1:40:43 SM: Really? 1:40:43 RB: Yeah. My father was a friend of his, he thanks him. My father, in his book. My father helped make him more left. 1:40:51 SM: Your— your father wrote a book? 1:40:53 RB: No, Ben Spock’s Book. 1:40:56 SM: Oh, I have Ben Spock’s book— 1:40:58 RB: Yeah I believe he thanked my father, Lewis Fraad, for helping him. 1:41:03 SM: How about Timothy Leary? 1:41:07 RB: LSD. I do not know, guess he escaped from prison too. No. 1:41:13 SM: Yeah. The weathermen got him. 1:41:16 RB: Yeah well, LSD, you know. 1:41:20 SM: George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy. 1:41:22 RB: I did not relate to them that much. 1:41:25 SM: Neither one of them? 1:41:27 RB: Neither of them, nope. 1:41:28 SM: What about LBJ and Hubert Humphrey? 1:41:31 RB: Oh, LBJ, in retrospect, as a historian, I think was very important to Senate leader and president, but I did not at the time. 1:41:40 SM: What about Nixon and Agnew? 1:41:42 RB: Well they were major enemies– 1:41:45 SM: And… RB: But they look good in comparison to Bush, and smart. 1:41:49 SM: George Wallace. 1:41:51 RB: At least he changed. 1:41:54 SM: Barry Goldwater and William Buckley, because those are major. 1:41:57 RB: Yeah, they were at least thinkers. They are much better than the right wingers that are around today, like Sarah Palin's much more intelligent and thoughtful. 1:42:07 SM: But the— Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan. 1:42:11 RB: I think more of Betty Friedan than I do of Gloria Steinem. I mean, she is a media figure. There is nothing that she has written or said that I think is very worthwhile, but she certainly is a figure that people look to. 1:42:23 SM: About Bella Abzug. 1:42:25 RB: I admired her a lot. 1:42:27 SM: [crosstalk] A lot of people do not realize he was waiting before she was a congressman. 1:42:29 RB: —She was very gutsy— 1:42:30 RB: Very gutsy person. 1:42:32 SM: She risked her life going down South. 1:42:34 RB: Oh I know. She was an amazing person. She-she- I helped her start a daycare center. She wanted one in her campaign headquarters. 1:42:47 SM: Wow. Muhammad Ali and Jackie Robinson— 1:42:50 RB: I looked up to Mohammed Ali and Jackie Robinson and I think it is odd that my students do not know who either of them are 1:42:56 SM: That is amazing. 1:42:57 RB: Black students, have never heard of Jackie Robinson. 1:43:00 SM: See another one that is now up there is Curt Flood because Curt Flood was [inaudible] now more is being written. There is a couple of biographies coming on, on him. And they are going to do a section in the Cooperstown on him. 1:43:11 RB: Oh, really? 1:43:12 SM: Yeah. Because he has, he has not, he has not given any [inaudible] again. 1:43:17 RB: Yeah no. 1:53:17 SM: They bought him— actually, Muhammad Ali, is… I cannot think of— anything else here? 1:43:22 RB: I did not even like boxing, but I watched Muhammad Ali. 1:43:27 SM: Yeah, he was, he was something else. As far as, as far as musicians of the period and the music was very important politically, it was in tune with the times, but how important was music in your life in terms of not only just relaxing you and laying back and enjoying it— 1:43:43 RB: Like as protests, it was. It was. 1:43:44 SM: —but in terms of stimulation, who were the artists that really stimulated you? 1:43:47 RB: I mean even though there was sexist artist, the beat and things like the Rolling Stones influenced me and I went to the concerts and Dylan. I mean, I was influenced by male rock and roll. Even if the words were saying something different to me than the rhythms. 1:44:09 SM: Were you into Folk, as much as Ryan. 1:44:10 RB: I was into folk music. 1:44:13 SM: About the Motown sound. 1:44:15 RB: I liked Motown; I still adore Motown. 1:44:16 SM: Is there one album that you have that stands out but like me people? 1:44:24 RB: Maybe, I like Janis Joplin. I like Janis Joplin a lot. And she inspired me and feminist kind of ways. 1:44:35 SM: Too bad she passed away really quick, very bad drug situation. And down to my last three questions, what role did women play in ending the war in Vietnam, because the group or groups of personalities, the role of women in building the women's Vietnam memorial. We all know about Diane Car— Carlson Evans, who was involved in that. But the reason I bring this up is because when I interviewed John Wheeler in Washington, DC who raised funds and he has, he wrote a book, Touched With Fire. He says the three most important things that happened as a result of the Vietnam War was the— that women were, were antiwar or involved in the antiwar movement. And it was really inspirational. So, it was right during the women's movement. So— 1:45:23 RB: It was during the women’s movement. And we were very involved in the antiwar movement, as involved as men. 1:45:29 SM: Do you feel that one of the things is lacking today and students understanding— they think in terms of power and empowerment, we had Tom Hayden on our campus about six years ago. And Tom, Tom talked—[third speaker interrupts]—we were talking about women— 1:45:53 RB: In Vietnam now. I think we were the troops in the movement. We I mean, I know people like Leslie Kagan that were ahead of mold and devoted their lives to the antiwar movement. 1:46:05 SM: Are there— you said you went to some of them? Protests— 1:46:10 RB: Pentagon loans. 1:46:11 SM: Were you there at the (19)67, the raising— 1:46:15 RB: Yes, the raising of the— I was there. I was even in the front lines. 1:46:18 SM: And Norman Mailer was there. 1:46:20 RB: Yes, I know. 1:46:21 SM: And as was— Dr. Spock was there too. 1:46:24 RB: Spock was there yet. My father was in jail. Yeah. 1:46:28 SM: What was that like? A lot of people will laugh, their going to levitate the Pentagon in (19)67. What is the… what was that feeling like being there? 1:46:37 RB: The feeling was, that we have the power to, we have the power. And you do not take it literally, to rock the Pentagon. To make it air. 1:46:51 SM: Were you there at the time that the guy burned himself? Underneath McNamara? 1:46:53 RB: Oh, no, I was not there. 1:46:55 SM: What do you think of McNamara and Kissinger? 1:47:01 RB: I think they are war criminals. 1:47:06 SM: Yeah, so what I was getting at here is that when Tom Hayden was on our campus, he asked our student government if they had, if they were empowered, and they said, oh, yeah, we determine budgets, we give out money. And Tom said, we control the money that goes, no, I am not talking about power. I am talking about power. They did not have a- they did not know any difference between it. And I do know that I brought up in a student affair once meeting of the word empowerment and that scared, you know, just saying power. What is it about the difference between the word empowerment as opposed to power, I mean? 1:47:40 RB: Empowerment is sort of a spiritual state of mind. And it is an individual thing, of empowerment. It means like, you can feel empowered, you can change the color of your hair and feel differently and feel empowered. But it has nothing to do with power and who rules. 1:48:05 SM: Yet, Tom— 1:48:05 RB: It is an individual kind of… thing. I feel empowered. 1:48:11 SM: See he told me at dinner, he says, I hope the students in the audience are not like the students at dinner with me. He was dead serious. And no, they were not that was, that— those students went off to student government, and— and then the students that were at the program stayed about an hour afterwards and Tom started talking to them. That is the Tom, that, yeah, those are the ones that ask the questions. My very last question, legacy. What do you—two-part question—what do you think the legacy of the women's movement will— do you think there will be a third wave? You know, there was the first wave. I even took my dad before he passed away to Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s home after her father died. 1:48:56 RB: Oh, wow that is wonderful. 1:48:57 SM: And I— one of my famous, favorite shots is walking up the back stairs with my dad looking up at me. And we were— and I have gone to Elizabeth Cady Stanton house three times now since my dad died, and again brings tears to my eyes, it was a great memory of being with him that day at the house. But getting back to this, will there be a third wave in the women’s movement? And what is the legacy of the second wave? 1:49:24 RB: I hope so. And the legacy of the second way is, as I said, the way people think, dream, act, imagine, live their lives. And I would hope that there is going to be a third wave. 1:49:44 SM: Do you think that— when— you are a scholar and you write books, and scholars often know that the best history books are written 50 years after an event like the best World War II books— 1:49:51 RB: Oh yeah definitely. 1:49:52 SM: 50 years after the (19)60s and (19)70s, I will say 50 years from 1980 when Reagan came to power, what do you think the history books are going to say about that time and the generation that grew up after World War II? 1:50:11 RB: I think people are going to admire it a great deal and see the enormous changes that were made, and that it was a real triumph of democracy, from below. 1:50:25 SM: And those media people today, whether it be Newt Gingrich or George Orwell, in his writings, or Mike Huckabee, on his TV show or some of the commentators on Fox when they say that a lot of problems in America today are due to those times in the (19)60s and (19)70s, when love was rampant, drugs were rampant, divorces were rampant– 1:50:52 RB: Well, those people are divorced more than most people in the sixties, that is all I can say. 1:50:56 SM: Yeah, you know, do you have any— was there a question that— that I did not ask you that you thought I was going to ask? 1:51:07 RB: Cannot think of it at the moment. 1:51:08 SM: Was there any final comments or– 1:51:09 RB: No, that, you know, I think a legacy of change and democracy is only going to ask, and I hope to see it again in my lifetime. 1:51:22 SM: Good. Well, thank you. I am going to— (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Description 2 Microcassettes Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Rosalind Baxandall Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Baxandall, Rosalyn, 1939-2015 ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Feminists; Historians; Authors; Political activists--United States; Baxandall, Rosalyn, 1939-2015--Interviews Description An account of the resource Rosalyn Baxandall (1939 - 2015) was a feminist historian, activist, author and educator. She was one of the leading figures of the feminist movement in New York during the late 1960s. Baxandall received her Bachelor's degree in French at University of Wisconsin and her Master of Social Work at Columbia University. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-07-29 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.21a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.21b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 111:24 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/bf6fe9a14b3e9ff7bb04d6715be41410.jpg 5f73a834a7256962bc0d8baefc49b31c https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/a22321886af954a0360ac5e152a7d065.mp3 2a991d2b5d97e1d420ea5948cd5ee976 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Roz B. (Roz Berkman) Payne, 1940- Date of Interview 2010-10-05 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 MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 144:28 Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Roz Payne is an educator, activist, and founding member of an antiwar filmmakers group called Newsreel. She released a 12-hour DVD set titled What We Want, What We Believe on the Black Panthers. She has a Bachelor's degree from UCLA."}" 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}">Roz Payne is an educator, activist, and founding member of an antiwar filmmakers group called Newsreel. She released a 12-hour DVD set titled <em>What We Want, What We Believe</em> on the Black Panthers. She has a Bachelor's degree from UCLA.</span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Baby boom generation; Black Panthers; Nineteen sixties; Activism; Student Protests; Burning of Bank of America (1970)."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Baby boom generation; Black Panthers; Nineteen sixties; Activism; Student Protests; Burning of Bank of America (1970).</span> Subject LCSH Newsreel (Firm); Political activists--United States; Payne, Roz B. (Roz Berkman), 1940--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Roz Payne Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 5 October 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: Alrighty. RP: So, what do you actually teach? What class is it? SM: Actually, I retired. RP: Oh, okay. SM: I left the university a year ago in March to work on this book because I could never really... I was too busy. I was the director of student programming co-curricular programs, and I was at the university six days a week, and I just had no time. I have been working out– RP: [inaudible] At the same university? SM: I was at the Westchester University for 22 years. Then I was at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia for four. I worked at Ohio University for four years, and then I was out in San Francisco, the Bay Area for six years. I actually was hired at Berkeley, and they froze me out after I was hired. Really frustrated me. So I ended up starting my own entertainment business out there and working all different kinds of jobs. But I had an entertainment business until I was able to come back into higher education. RP: Entertainment. SM: Huh? RP: What kind of entertainment? SM: Oh, it was basically San Francisco [inaudible]. SM: Ask my first question. RP: Yep, go for it. SM: Yep. Could you talk about your early experiences in your background, your growing up years, where you grew up, the influence of your parents and teachers, or any role models who inspire you to become who you are? RP: Okay. That is a big story. So you might also, let me just say one thing. You should go to my website. Did I send it? SM: I have read it. RP: Because there is in the family section, some photographs from that period of time. And some of them, one of them is specifically my mother getting arrested, which describes my childhood. SM: I saw that. I saw that. RP: So anyway, I grew up with ... I was born in Patterson, New Jersey. Allen Ginsburg lived a block from us and our parents are friends. And he used to occasionally watch me if my mother ran to the store or something. He was a little older than I was. I do not have any memory of it. I just remember my mother talking about it. But later on when we met, he stayed at my house one night and we went through that whole history. It was really interesting. So my parents were radicals. My father, my mother came from Poland, and she began working in the textile mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts. And she was very active in unions, and she was one of the leaders. What happened is a lot of textile unions in New Jersey, in Lawrence, and usually one would go out and strike, then everybody would go to another mill and get a job because they needed money and they never could have a general strike. Well, she helped organize a very large general strike with some other people. And I have pictures of her getting arrested from that, which are also my website, which I found in old newspapers and stuff. And my father also was a radical. He and his friend Nick San Tangelo, my father was Italian. My mother was Polish Jewish. And my father's whole family, parents came from Italy in the mountains, close to maybe two hours from Naples. I went and visited there once. And there's a church at the top of the hill in the village that says, "In honor of General Lismo Christiano." Christiano was my maiden name who helped Napoleon. And that is why everybody there has blue eyes. SM: Oh, wow. RP: So, my father was a radical in New Jersey. My mother was a radical, in Lawrence, Mass. And my mother spent about two years in jail from getting arrested. And they held her for deportation because she was born in Poland and had never gotten her citizenship papers. So, they tried to return her to Poland, but it did not work out because the borders changed in those days. Where she came from was not exactly in the right place or something like that. And then eventually my mother moved when she got out. She went to a hiking nature club overnight place in New Jersey where she met my father. It was called The Nature Friends. And the Nature Friends came out of Germany, and it was a place for people, workers mainly, not rich people that had country homes. But workers could go and they would have big lodges and communal kitchens, and it would be a place for workers to be able to enjoy nature. And they met there, and there was a pond there. I have pictures of myself when I was a little kid in the pond in the buildings. I actually went back and visited, and it still exists, by the way. When I went up to the Matterhorn a number of years ago, they have a sign with the N and the F, the F coming out of the back part of the N. And they have clubhouses all over the world. But I kept up my membership all these years so you can go. And Hitler put them on the undesirable list and was going to kill everybody because they were socialists basically. SM: Wow. RP: So that is what I grew up with. I grew up and my parents moved at some point. Well, we were in Patterson and all my father's family still remained in New Jersey. He was the only, he was the rebel and he left. My mother's family was in LA, so when I was four, they went across country and they went to live in LA. And I went to LA High School, I went to grammar school there. I went to LA High School, I went to UCLA. I went a year before UCLA to Santa Barbara. I did not exactly like it, particularly. I liked UCLA. And I graduated from UCLA in (19)62. And I was going to be an art teacher. I wanted to do art. And let us see what happened? Oh, my high school boyfriend remained to be my college boyfriend. And right after I graduated, we got married. His name was Arnold Payne. And he was a year ahead of me and he was going to Columbia University for graduate school. And so we got married and I moved. I went out to New York to live in New York with him. And let us see. My early days of political activity, by the way, since my mother was ... All those years that I grew up, my mother was held for deportation. And they had a big problem in trying to deport her after that. She was held in jail for that long time in Lawrence. They tried to deport her, but somehow the borders got changed between Poland and other countries and the papers were not ... They could not do it. There's some technological reason, and I cannot remember now what that reason was. And so she was held while I was growing up for deportation. So during my entire growing up, probably every three or four months, the FBI would come to my door and knock on the door. My mother had instructed me, just call her, close the door and do not let them in and call her. And then she would go outside and talk to them. And so, we were... Go outside and talk to them. And so, we were always going to these radical parties growing up, of the Hollywood Ten people and-and a lot of radical lawyers. People would bring my parents new political newspapers in brown paper bags. And I went to special schools at times or camps where with a lot of the Hollywood Ten kids. So, it was like people that I did not have to hide anything. The kids that I went to, like LA High school and stuff, I never talked about my political part, of that part of my life with them. And I learned not to cross picket lines. There was a group that sold, it was called Pep Boys, Manny, Moe and Jack was the name of this place that sold car repair material. SM: They are all over the country today. RP: Yeah. It was a big chain. There was a strike there and we were never allowed to go into that store. I remember things like that that happened. And my parents were not religious. My father grew up Italian Catholic. My mother grew up Jewish Polish. And so we would go to my mother's family for the Jewish holidays and eat and celebrate them. And then we always had a Christmas tree. We always had a lot of parties and lots of people in the house, in and out. And I used to take off for Jewish holidays. I would go to school the first day and then take off a second day to hang out with my friends or something. Right. It was like we were never religious, but I made use of the holidays so I did not have to go to school. SM: Was that experience of growing up in the (19)50s there and you saw what was going on with the Hollywood Ten, you saw what happened in Germany. Was there anything of those experiences growing up as a kid that got you interested in civil rights? One of the things that I have asked many people in the interview process, many of them were red diaper babies and they said their parents were communists because of the fact that the Communist party was the only one that showed any kind of empathy toward people of color, particularly African American. RP: Might be true. But also my mother especially was very strong about people of color. And for example, when Emmett Till got killed, I was 13 at the time, I believe, and there was a memorial service in downtown Los Angeles. My mother took me to it. We were the only white people. It was in a very old building with a lot of balconies. I remember going up, we were sitting in the very top part and we were the only white people in the entire building that I remember. My mother had black friends and I had black friends and I had Japanese friends. I had a Japanese friend in grammar school who had been sent away to one of those internment camps where they put all the Japanese in the desert. She was there for a while. SM: Internment camps, yeah. RP: Yeah. Linda Fukuyama. And also, by the way, I just read a book summer, my Italian relatives have a house in Acapulco for the winter they use. And I went down there and somebody had left this book about Italian internment camps. Did you ever hear that? SM: No. RP: Oh my God, you should see how many there were. When you went down to the wharf in San Francisco, the first people they picked up were the fishermen who had the boats in San Francisco. They picked them up first and then they picked up a lot of these truck farmers, Italians. What an incredible story about these guys. SM: What year was that? RP: It was the same time, it was the Japanese were being picked up and the Italians were being picked up. SM: Oh my gosh. RP: My cousin gave me ... My cousins that are there, they're not political at all, but so many thought they would enjoy reading the book because it was Italian and neither of them really read it. My cousin's wife read it a little bit, so I could not believe it when I read it. SM: That had to do with Mussolini probably and the fascism and all that other stuff going on. RP: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. SM: How did you become interested in civil rights even before you could [inaudible]. RP: I got brainwashed into it. SM: Connection with a- RP: My parent, all my life I heard about the Scottsboro boys. For example, there's a left wing, I do not know if it's communist, I do not know what kind of magazine it was that my mother had a copy of, that had a story about the Scottsboro boys. And it all had a story about when she got arrested. And it's the same time. So, my mother also had black friends. I mean, LA is a pretty integrated neighborhood. We lived in a white neighborhood, but my mother had a few black friends and my high school had black students in it because LA High School, if you went to the south, it was very interesting. From the high school, if you went south, it was a Mexican and black neighborhood. You went east, it was a Japanese neighborhood. If you went north they're gigantic white mansions. And there was one black person that lived there, Nat King Cole. There were private streets with guards at houses at different streets, so you could not go in there, gigantic mansions. I had some friends that lived there. And then if you went west, it was mixed up, a lot of Jewish neighborhoods and white and working class and more until it got further west, then it got to be fancier again. Where I happened to live was a very integrated school. And so I just grew up having black friends and Japanese friends. It's how the neighborhood was. SM: When you look at those early, late (19)50s and early (19)60s, even before the Black Panthers or even a thought, I just want to list these things and whether you personally or your parents or your family were linked to any of these. Let me list them first and then you can comment. RP: Okay. SM: And of course, the civil rights movement that was real strong in the (19)50s, Dr. King's Montgomery bus boycott, the I Have a Dream speech in Washington. We all know what happened with the lunch counters and down south, Freedom Summer of (19)64 when so many of the students- RP: Do I need to interrupt you or let you go through all of those? SM: Yeah, I am going to go through them and then the Chaney, Schwerner, Goodman situation, the church bombing of the little girls, Emmett Till, James Meredith's march. And of course, groups like SNCC, NAACP, CORE, the Urban League and the race riots that were all like Watson (19)64. Any thoughts on any of those? RP: Oh, I have a lot of thoughts because I know all ... It's a mixed bag because I grew up knowing about all of that because my parents got radical newspapers and magazines, you got to understand they were often brought in in shopping bags. But for example, when the Scottsboro boys got arrested, in the same issue of this communist magazine, I cannot think of the name, maybe it was not communist, but it was definitely a left-wing magazine, was an article my mother being in jail, being held for her strike activities in Lawrence. And the Scottsboro boys were also in that issue. So for me, that was part of my history. You named so many. I was going to tell you specific stories that happened around some of them, and I cannot remember. SM: Well, why do not I just, the first one, Dr. King and the Montgomery bus boycott. RP: Okay. I just thought of what the one I was going to tell you. So, 1962, I got married, I think it was (19)62. And after my wedding, a bunch of people, and in fact, one of my bridesmaids was going on one of the freedom rides, and she actually went to North Carolina, I think it was. And this guy, Joe Gerbracht, who's now a lawyer in California, went to see, he was not going, he was not that radical, but he got really drunk at my wedding and he went to say goodbye to a bunch of people on the bus. And he went on the bus and passed out and woke up, he was on his way to Mississippi. SM: Oh my gosh. RP: So that happened. Both of those two things happened. And just recently, my friend Carol, who kept a scrapbook of everything that happened when she went, she actually went to North Carolina or South Carolina, I cannot remember, one of them, during those Freedom Rides. And she's now very ill. But I visited her in the hospital and with her husband there about four or five months ago, and he gave me her whole scrapbook of that period of time. It included all of her photographs and leaflets and things about do not go out at night or you will be hung, posters that were put up and all this stuff. So, I grew up with, that was part of my day-to-day normal stuff somehow. And of course, it was very moving, the whole civil rights period, and I did not do it. Why did not I do it? I almost did it. I almost got on that bus, but I went to see Mrs. Clark, my stupid, I am not saying stupid, my counselor at LA High School. It was my last year, and I told her I was thinking of doing it and I wanted her advice. And she said, "Well, if you do, you may never be able to teach." SM: Oh, it was a threat then, early. RP: Yeah. SM: Oh my God. Because as we get later into the interview, we talk about the importance of Newsreel and what you did there, but how did the media's coverage of these things that I just mentioned, all these events in the late (19)50s. How did the- RP: How did they cover? SM: How did the media- RP: You got to understand that I had beyond the media we got delivered to the house, the LA Times, and we got the local paper, the Pico Post, and the small little for community stuff. But my parents had, because my mother's was held for deportation, she was always scared they're going to kick her out of the US, that her friends would come to her house with brown grocery bags and inside would be the People's Work World, which was the communist newspaper. We had all that reading material in our house, but it was brought in, not by my parents, but by her friends who had visited in brown paper bags. My parents died, they had the most incredible intensive bookshelves filled with books, radical, every book you can imagine from that period of time, radical. SM: Do you have those in archives now? RP: I definitely still have them. SM: Good. RP: They're in my bookshelves now. I do not read them, but they're there. SM: Yeah. Well, what was your thoughts on looking at television back in the (19)50s, that black and white TV and early (19)60s when President Kennedy came in (19)61, what was your thought on the media's coverage of these early events in the Civil Rights movement? They would list them on the evening news and you would see them in the paper. But was that in any way inspiring you to do something more, something more daring, more educational, more revealing? RP: Well, I was always thought that I was doing daring things. We did support things. We did not have big demonstrations in LA around civil rights that I can remember. But I watched it with in great interest, let me say that. Whatever TV had on, I watched TV all the time. My parents always had the news on, always had the news. 6:00 news it would be on. And then I cannot remember, we ate dinner before 6:00, so we would have to be done by 6:00, or we ate after the news. But I grew up with that. And not only that, but I grew up with all of my parents' radical friends, because my parents are great entertainers. Coming to the house for eating big dinners and arguing you could not imagine and discussing. I did not pay too much attention at times about all the political things happening. When the Rosenbergs were being executed, what year was that? Do you know? SM: That was in 19 ... Was that (19)54? RP: I do not know, but I am not- SM: Think it was around that time at the McCarthy hearings, it was in that timeframe. RP: Oh, it was? Well, I would rush home from school and watch the McCarthy hearings. My Uncle Norman bought us our first TV very early, and my mother would be there watching. And as soon as I got home, I would be watching the McCarthy hearings. And because some of my friends' fathers who were in the Hollywood movie industry would be testifying sometimes. And I remember Bill Jericho's father was one of them. And so we watched the news. My parents did news all the time, and I watched the hearings and there was one more thing I was going to tell you before I thought of the TV ... I lost my train of thought. SM: Magazines, or... RP: Well, we had all the radical magazines in the house. We did not have any garden magazines or anything like that. I do not know why, we did not have that kind of magazine. SM: Better Home and Gardens, that kind of stuff. RP: No, none of that was in there. But we did have the LA Times on Sunday. My parents had the commie newspaper People's World. There were ... what other magazines were there? SM: Well, there was Nation that was very popular. RP: Oh, we did not have Nation. And big arguments, my parents and their friends on all sorts of political things, which I never paid attention to the arguments. Maybe they were just discussions, I do not know. But that did not interest me in my younger years. SM: A quote that really stood out in some of the literature I read on you was that you have been quoted as saying that you used to look out when you lived in New York City near the [inaudible] RP: Out the window? SM: Out the window. RP: Watch the sun setting over in New York and wish I was there? SM: Yeah, that fire. And then the fire from the [inaudible]. RP: What it was, I was living in the New Jersey... This is later I got married. My husband was at Columbia University getting a PhD and he was working at the New York Times in the morgue. The morgue, you know what the morgue is, the newspaper? SM: You mean the obituary columns? RP: No, the morgue in newspaper is where they clip all the newspapers. They get all the stories and they file them. So, they have a back load of everything that is ever been written. SM: Oh, okay. RP: And that is called the morgue. So we lived in New Jersey. It was about the bus stopped on the corner of our street, and it was about a 15-minute ride to get into 40s, where the bus terminal was, in 42nd Street. And we had found that place because somebody else was a group of four or five little cottages going down on the Palisades overlooking the Hudson River. And it was gorgeous. And as the sunset to my east to the back of me, it would hit all the windows of all the buildings in New York, and it would turn them red on a sunset night. And so that is what I was looking at. And I would look at them and wish that I was there. Is that what I said? SM: You said, well then you said it was the inspiration that ignited you because you said- RP: Invited me to go to New York to get involved. SM: No, you said the GI Zippo lighter on the- RP: Oh, on the TV, I saw that. SM: Yeah. And it helped- RP: Oh yeah, I remember what that was. Okay. That is not nothing about the New York thing. This what really got me totally upset was this GI was in a little village in Vietnam, and the people were in these little straw houses. And first one guy goes and takes this knife and starts cutting open their bags of rice and dumping it on the ground. That was the first thing. That was really upsetting to me. And then this other guy who takes out his Zippo and he lights one of their huts on fire. And that was real. That really incensed me. And it did that somebody would, these poor people had nothing. And there were these just mainly women holding these naked kids in their arms and everybody's crying and screaming, and these guys are doing it. And that is what really ignited me to get really involved in the peace movement, antiwar movement. SM: When you were a kid at a young adult, did you take pictures and film things when you were real young, before you even knew about Newsreel? Were there- RP: No. Well, when Newsreel started, I went to the first Newsreel meeting. That happened in 1967 in New York. Well, I had my brownie camera. I took pictures when I went to camp of my friends or a deer or a tree or something, what normal kids would take pictures of. But my father, I will tell you about my father. My father and I never realized this at the time, had a darkroom in our house. We had this small room that had a single bed in it that a guest would sometimes stay there. And this is not my first house, this is towards the end. We lived in a few different places, but it was a little room. And it had the person who used to have that house turned it into a darkroom also. And it had a sink there. And my father had a lot of dark darkroom equipment and he used to take photos and he would develop them there. So that is what happened. And his photos, I have a scrapbook of a lot of his stuff, but they're just like family pictures, what you take of your family kind of, and mountains and stuff like that. But in my bathroom, I have got a beautiful, very large picture he took of a yucca. Do you know what yucca is? SM: A yucca. RP: A plant. There's a big white flower on top. SM: That is the one out in Arizona, or... RP: Oh, it could be any place. They grow in a lot of places. And he developed and it is just a gorgeous, gorgeous, and he had not colored some of the prints. SM: And who knows, maybe subconsciously, that is how you really got interested in photography. RP: My parents always had, I always had cameras. I always had the cheap little brownie type cameras. And wherever we went, if we went to Yosemite, my parents were into nature. We always went camping overnight. There were certain beaches not far from where we lived that you could put up your tent. My parents liked camping. So we put up our tent at the beach with other people, other families, and my father would take pictures. I have pictures of all this stuff. Then we would go to Yosemite and we would camp. Every year we would go to Yosemite and my father would take pictures. And by the way, I had some pine cones. But the main thing is my father belonged to this, I told you earlier, this group called The Nature Friends, that was on the Nazi list as being a socialist. Hitler hated these people and arrested and killed a lot of them. The group started out of Germany, but it spread to Switzerland and Austria and United States. And that is where my parents met, hiking at the one in Midvale, New Jersey. And I still go, by the way, I kept my membership up all these years. I pay my dues every year. SM: You do not even understand that if you know anything about Hitler, was not he really into staying fit, and the perfect male, or whatever it was there? RP: That is what all these guys look like in the pictures. They're wearing those little shorts, like Switzerland. But there's a place that is in San Jacinto, the mountain right above next to Palm Springs. My father helped build that cabin there. And as you go through it, a park, a national forest park, and there's a place where you can park your car and then you hike up about, you have to bring all your stuff. You hike up about, well, I do not know, probably a seven-minute walk. And on the top, they built this unbelievable, gorgeous cabin that looks like something out of the German or Swiss Alps. It's all stone on the bottom and then wood on the top and a big sleeping room inside and sleeping porch. Those Germans are so bright. Two miles away, there's water. This is big mountains. The pine cones are two feet big. And they piped in water two miles away, going up and down hills and by gravity fed somehow. And then they built this metal three layer box of frame with burlap over it and with a hose on the top of it. And the water then sprinkles out the top by the pressure coming down. And what's the burlap? And it drips down and the box is made out of mesh wire so animals cannot get into it to eat your food. And it keeps it cool. You're can have cold beer there. And so, they did all this stuff. I have a few films, I did not make them, but I found them in my discovery of trying to do research on this group, and I found films of them building this place. So, I have been around film stuff. We were extras in movies. I cannot even remember what movies. But when they needed audience, somebody sit in the audience or something. Growing up, that Hollywood thing was kind of important to me, living close to it. SM: Oh, you were not audience for Howdy Doody, were you? RP: No, but I was in the audience for, there was an Abbott and Costello show. SM: Oh yeah. And that Art Linkletter had his show too. RP: Do not know that. But I knew Abbott and Costello. Do you remember those names? SM: Oh yeah, I remember them well. RP: Yeah. Well, Abbott and Costello, one of them was born in Patterson, New Jersey, where I am from. SM: Oh, my golly. RP: So that was my connection to that. SM: At your school, what kids or what people did you know that were from Hollywood? RP: From Hollywood? SM: Yeah. RP: Well, it was not really from my school because my school was not in the Hollywood area, but I knew my parents from being radicals. We knew all the commie writers that got blacklisted, like Bill Jericho's kids. And I knew, I am trying to think of the name. SM: I know there was a movie out on one of them. I forget his name now, the producer. There's a movie out on them a year ago, I remember. And for Zero Mostel was in that group as well. RP: I will tell you, my parents were not in that group particularly. But we had friends that were in it. And we had individual friends because my parents were, first of all, my parents were workers. And that group was more, but my parents were intellectuals. Got to understand. We had lots of books and did all this stuff. They were still working class. That group was upper middle class or upper class, but from the industry. And they did not mingle that much with working class. Plus, my mother was Jewish and my father was Italian, and most of them were Jewish, I think. SM: Can you explain how Newsreel began, where and when and- RP: Exactly. Here is what happened. SM: Explain how the Boomer generation involvement, why did it start and who were the early people? RP: So '19, my husband and I broke up. I had friends in New York and I went to look for an apartment in New York, I wanted to move to New York. And I just looked at this apartment on 15th Street, fifth floor walkup. And I looked at it, and when I walked in, the guy says, "I am leaving right now. I am going to France. I got to catch a plane in two hours." And the apartment was filled with stuff, all over the place. And he says, "Here's the keys. If you want to take it, it's not my apartment. The guy whose actually apartment is-is already there. We're going to go work on a film with" ... Do not remember now, but some famous Italian filmmaker. And that is it. "I got to leave, I got a plane to catch." So I looked around and there was a Leica camera lying on the bed or a dresser, and there's a lot of money in change in someplace else. And he was gone. So I took the camera, put it on my shoulder. I decided I did not want that apartment. Fifth floor walkup, forget it, it was too much to walk up. And I walked out and I am walking down the street and I bumped into this guy, Marvin, who I am still friends with, and actually lives here. And Marvin says, "Oh, I am on my way to this film meeting, it's the first meeting of a group of people. And it's down on ..." We were walking down Second Avenue and 14th Street by this time. And do you know New York? SM: Yes, I do. RP: Okay. So I was at 15th near Second. Between First and Second, no, between Second and ... Anyway, it does not make a difference. It was a one block over. And I was walking down with Marvin. And all of a sudden this wild guy comes running up with us to us. And he said, "Oh my God, I am so glad to bump into you." And he sees my camera. He says, "Oh, good. You're a photographer. Well, I got to tell you, this is the first meeting right now that is happening. Immediately you have got to go to, of all these radical filmmakers. It's happening in this loft." And he told us, he says, "I am going there right now. Just follow me and da da da da da." It was Melvin Margolis, who is in our film group. He's in a lot of our films. And he was a great organizer. And he filmed some of the great shots in the Columbia University takeover film. When the black students kicked all the whites ... Do you know that film at all? SM: No, I do not know the film, but I know all about it because I had friends that went there. RP: Okay. Well, the black students took over the president's office and then kicked all the white students out at some point. And we filmed it, by the way. And Melvin, this guy that who ran up to me in the street, that said, "You got to go to this meeting, the blacks kicked all the whites out of that building." And he convinced them that is the most important thing that they were doing that has ever happened, and he has got to stay to film it. And they let him stay. He was the only white person that was allowed to stay in that building. So he filmed them soaping, putting liquid soap on all the stairs. Because there's a tunnel the cops are going to make come through the basement and come up the stairs, so they would slip on the soapy stairs. And he filmed all the notes on the blackboard about so-and-so's mother called and blah, blah. He was great. He was a really great wild man. He's dead now. He died of cancer some years ago. But anyway, so he led us to this meeting, his first meeting. And that was the first gathering of, I walked into this room. It was a basement, and it could have been either Bill Jersey or ... It was somebody else's loft. I cannot think of his name. Maybe it was not even a loft. It was in the basement. Very dark. And I looked around and they were all these really interesting people. And I said, "Oh my God, this looks like my gang of people that I want or hang out with." And I sat down and that was the first Newsroom meeting So that is how it happened. And then I kept going to the other meetings, and I finally found an apartment to rent on 15th Street. And I had friends, this old couple who lived on the second floor, and mine was on the fourth floor, I think. It was a one bedroom, a living room, a kitchen kind of dining area. And then there was a little alcove that you could put another bed in. So at times, somebody in Newsreel always needed a place to stay. So I would let them stay there. And it was a great building. I wish I did not give it up. We won it in a rent strike against the guy who owned it, and I would have owned it now. SM: How did you finance all this? In the very early- RP: I immediately, we rented a newsreel, rented an office on Seventh Avenue in the Garment District, and they needed somebody to run the office. And somebody, I think maybe Robert Kramer, somebody asked if I wanted to work in the office, because I was not working. In New Jersey I was teaching school, public school, by the way, and I began hating it. It was elementary school and I hated it. And there miniskirts were getting fashionable. I came to school in a miniskirt, and the principal sent me home one day and I said, "That is it. I am out of here." So I quit teaching and that is when I moved to New York to look for this place. I needed a job, and so they hired me at $65 a week to open. I went and there was another woman that got hired, the two of us. We would go in the morning, we would go at, I do not know, 8:00, 9:00 or whatever time, and unlock, walk up the two flights of stairs, or maybe we were on the second floor, Seventh Avenue and 18th Street, I think it was. Or 27th Street or something. It was in the garment area. That is all I can remember. Because people were pushing those things of clothing. And we would open it up and we would open the mail and then Newsroom people would start coming in. People are making films. Somebody would start bringing equipment in a movie and start editing something or somebody. We began just making films, immediately. Just people who had had equipment began sharing their equipment, and people who had money began paying the rent and paying for labs. And it was a very diverse group of people. SM: When you did that first one, the Columbia protests, how would you find out about it and how would you get access to- RP: Oh, that was really simple. So here we are. I come from New Jersey with my little red Volkswagen that I had when I taught school. And my husband and I had broken up and I kept the car. So, I am living on 17th Street, the place I just described to you. So, I am there and all of a sudden, the same guy that I told you when I was walking down the street with Marvin and this guy walked up to us and said, "Hey, there is this first Newsreel meeting happening," he told Marvin and I. Marvin calls me up, he says, "Roz, Columbia's just been taken over. I just heard about it. Get your car down here and pick me up and the cameras and we will go up there." SM: Wow. RP: So, I drove down, he loaded up cameras and film and stuff, and we drove up and parked the car there, and I never left during the protests. It was so much fun. It was one of the most fun things I have ever done. SM: Were you a little fearful though, that you were getting involved in a situation that- RP: I am never fearful like that. SM: Did they force you out too, along with the students when they took over, or the police or whatever? RP: Well, okay. Did you see the film? SM: I have not seen the film, no. But I know. RP: You should look at some of the film, will tell you so much. We will talk about that later. But what happened was, first one building was taken, then another, and then before you know it, the math building was taken in, all the math teachers were on strike. And then Margaret Meade at the anthropology building, and it was thousands. We were the majority, I never get scared of things like that. Things like that never bothered me. And I also always felt that I was safe because I was not one of them. I was documenting it. I was a filmmaker... documenting it. I was a filmmaker, so my camera kept me safe. I always felt that way. That is not necessarily true, but that is what I felt. SM: Did you film the... Again, I have not seen it, but I know the scene, the historic scene of the students in the President's office. RP: No, I did not film that, but you know who filmed it? Melvin. SM: Oh my God. RP: This is what happened. The Black students... Everybody took over the place, and Melvin was there, and he was filming it. And there were a few other, maybe another neutral person, and they opened up his cognac or his wine. And they began going through all of his files and his girly magazines. But finally, they asked all the white... The Blacks asked all the whites to leave and go take over other buildings. Everybody left except Melvin, who convinced them he had to film what they were doing because it's the most important thing. So, they allowed Melvin to stay in that building. And he filmed them soaping the stairs, this liquid soap stuff they had, and they put it down... There was a tunnel that led from another building, underground, into that building. So they thought the cops are going to come through this tunnel, so then the steps would be all slippery and slimy from the liquid soap. And we have all that on film, in our Columbia film. It is all there. SM: Of course, I am going to just briefly mention some of your other films here. But the Chicago (19)68, you were there and you covered that as well with photography and with film. I would say that must have been a scary situation too. RP: I was scared once in a while there. I will tell you, it is not like I am not ever not scared. I feel pretty good, actually, with a camera. I always feel like it's protection, but I have been hitting the head with a tear gas grenade in Washington, D.C. at a demonstration once. And that was really scary. And I immediately ran... It did not hit me hard. It came across the side of my head, but Robert Kramer had already left. He ran fast. As soon as he saw them, he got out of there and left me and this other guy there. And the other guy and I ran around for a while, and we have some great shots from that. And then we left. SM: What stands out from that experience? RP: Which one? SM: Chicago (19)68. Is there any scenes? Or just [inaudible]- RP: If you saw the films that I made, my photographs... Well, the first thing was, I went there with a group of people. Newsreel had three different groups that were making three different films on Chicago. My group was going to find some young, innocent people who get involved and then all of a sudden the cops are going to be... There's going to be all this stuff. They get disillusioned, and they're going to get beaten up and stuff. Well, we found our couple... And the next day, we lost them in the crowd. We never could find them again. And then we were on our own, and we just began filming. And I hung out a lot in Lincoln Park, which was one of the staging grounds for stuff. And that is where a lot of these Chicago young bikers hung out. I think they were called the head hunters. And there's this one kid, I think his jacket said banana on it. And we did some long interviews with them. And it was interesting to talk to alternative types of people that were in Chicago that were not the political, not the Rennie Davises, not the FBS. I hung out at night a lot in the movement center, the FBS Movement Center. And that is where everybody got together and talked about strategy, and we filmed all this, by the way. This is in our film. You got to look. You got to look at some of our films. Do you have a video machine? SM: Yes, I do. RP: Okay. Because it is hard to explain all this stuff because it is so intense. But it was really scary... Sometimes it was really scary, and sometimes it was just absolutely fun. Because I had my gang of people. I had two gangs. I had Newsreel... There were a lot of Newsreel people. My best friend Jane is too scared. She does not like to be out when there's cops and all that fighting, but she was very important. She stayed near a phone in somebody's apartment, and she manned the phones. So, whatever anybody needed, or if somebody got in trouble, or somebody got busted or something, she was there to take down all the information, and make the contacts, and everything. And at the end... I never get arrested, by the way. My mother always told me, "Do not get arrested." Because my mother got arrested and spent time in jail for her union organizing. She said, "It's a waste of time. It drains you. It is a waste of time." She says, "Just escape. Try to escape." And I always followed her advice, and I always got out of there really fast if I thought I was going to be busted. My friend Jane, who is still by the way, my best friend. I speak to her every day. She lives up here, not far from me. She did not go out the streets at all. She was at the phones in case somebody had trouble. And going home from Chicago, the cops stopped her car. And why? Because she had Tom Hayden and some other people in her car. SM: Oh, no. RP: Because Tom is a really good friend of ours. And so, the cops were probably looking at him and watching him. Saw him get in the car, stopped the car... And inside her car, somebody had hidden under the seat these little balls that had nails in them that you stick under the tires of the cops as they move forward, which she did not do. She never would do anything like that. She's very proper, wealthy girl who would not do anything like that. So, she got arrested. I do not know. You just never know. SM: The other one that really fascinates me is the 1967 protest at the Pentagon. RP: Oh, yeah. See, that was the scariest one. I was so frightened at that one. SM: Yeah, because there was a march all the way across the bridge, I believe. And then they walked up to the Pentagon? Is that what- RP: Well, what happened was we were at the... Where were we? At the Reflecting Pool? Or someplace... Where Dave Dellinger and the usual gave the speeches, and then there was a march. We filmed all this, by the way. And then we marched... Maybe we went across a little bridge. I remember a bridge, but I cannot remember that. But then I remember, somebody cut through some field. And we went up this hill, and it led us right to the Pentagon. SM: Oh, wow. RP: And that was scary. That was really scary. See, I never sit down in demonstrations. I am taking pictures. I am not going to be one that sits there and let us cops come and hit me on the head. That is scary for me. So people sat down. And the marshals, not even the cops, it's the marshals that were just violent. The marshals went after people and people would not get up. They had their arms locked, and they would just bang them with these long wooden police sticks that they had. And there was tear gas, and a lot of people had bloodied heads. SM: I think there were 100,000 people at that. RP: Yeah, they were little old ladies and all sorts of stuff. I have got thousands of photographs. SM: That is the one where that picture of the guy with the flower in his gun... I think that came from there. RP: Yeah, it did. Exactly. SM: That one of your pictures, or? RP: You know what? I do not know which ones you're talking about exactly. I remember a picture with... The kid had put a flower in the end of the gun. SM: When I look at all these, you were... Boy, it's amazing the things that you covered, beginning with Chicago. I saw the entire list, but up against the Wall, the Miss America. You did- RP: That was great. That was really my most fun thing. We got on a bus in New York, and there was this great Black woman, one of the very first Black women lawyers who's now dead, but she got on our bus with us. And I was always a fan of hers. She's very radical. And we went down to, where was it? Asbury Park, or? I am trying to think where it happened. SM: Atlantic City? RP: Where? SM: Was it Atlantic City? RP: Yeah, Atlantic City. And it was a group of women... I went as a photographer. You got to understand, I was not the organizer of this event. But Beverly Grant, who worked in the office with me in Newsreel, she is a member of Newsreel, was also part of the group that organized this. So her part of this was to go inside. They got tickets and a certain time. They had stink bombs, whatever that means. It's something that you... There's ammonia, and it smells like ammonia, and they were going to let them go inside where the pageant was being held. And the person with Beverly got arrested immediately for some reason. Maybe they saw her doing it. And Beverly did take some photographs, and I was outside the entire time. And I, basically, was taking photographs outside. And they brought a sheep, and they began comparing Miss America to the sheep. And we made a short little... Maybe 15-minute film about that event. SM: The other one that I really have to see is Bess Myerson speaking at the Women's- RP: Another Mother for Peace. SM: When I saw the that on the list, I went immediately to- RP: That was not a Newsreel film. That was a film that we found, somebody gave us. And I just kept a copy. I made Bess Myerson a copy for it. She found out about it. I made her a print of it. SM: My golly. Well, I got to definitely see that, because I would have never thought that- RP: But all she did was... It was the Beverly Hills Women's Group, Another Mother for Peace, a luncheon in a fancy hotel. She gave this great speech. SM: Well, you covered all these major things. You were up at Harvard dealing with the ROTC. You were- RP: It was not all me. It was my group. SM: Yeah, it was your group, but- RP: So, I did not... The group, various people did various things. I am not going to take credit for doing all those things. SM: The Earth Belongs to the People was another one. RP: First ecology film, that was the very first ecology film ever made. SM: 79 Springs of Ho Chi Minh. RP: That, by the way, was made by Santiago Álvarez, a great Cuban filmmaker. We distributed it. SM: Troublemakers was one. Yippie, you did a short one- RP: Oh, Yippie has a lot of footage... It's a spoof on the Chicago convention, and it is hilarious. Daley got scared that the Yippies were going to put LSD in the Lake, park. And so Abbey Hoffman and a few other people worked on that film. I did a little work on it with this guy, Bill Jersey, in his studio. Was not a Newsreel film, but it should have been because it's one of our more popular films. And that shows them in a... Keystone cops, 1930s car. And they're all dressed up like cops. And they have their big billy clubs out, and they're hitting the water to try to get rid of the LSD in it. SM: My gosh. RP: It is hilarious. SM: Yeah. And another thing too is, this is an area which I have not been able to get a whole lot of information on, is the Young Lord's film and the Puerto Rican- RP: That was my favorite group. SM: And the Puerto Ricans- RP: In Newsreel, we had different groups that you hung out with. I am still friends with these Young Lords, by the way. Do you ever watch Amy Goodman on PBS? SM: Yes, I have. RP: On Democracy Now! It's Amy Goodman and Juan González. SM: Yes. RP: He was one of the leaders, he was actually my boyfriend at that time, of the Young Lords. SM: Well, that is the one area that I have not been able to get anybody to talk about. I emailed a couple scholars, and they did not respond. RP: The Young Lords? SM: Somebody who teaches at different universities, to talk about the Puerto Rican movement, the Young Lords, that actually followed the Black Panthers in many respects. RP: That is right. And they took their berets, the Black Berets. And they were very much like the Panthers. And we made this great film because they did a takeover of a church in the Puerto Rican community in New York that was never used. Only on Sundays was it used, and the people had already moved out of that community because they went to nicer communities. Because that community was... Gotten really trashed and was really poor. And it's on the edge of Harlem. And so, they demanded that the church be able to be used for a free breakfast program. And the minister would not let them do that, so they ended up taking over the church. SM: If you have any contacts from the Young Lords, I would love to talk to them because I would like to- RP: Juan González. SM: Would he ever speak to me though? RP: Why would not he? SM: Well, he is a TV personality. RP: Oh, I do not know. I have got another guy who is really good. His name is Mickey Melendez. SM: N-I-K-K-I? RP: Friend. He and I are... Well, Juan was my boyfriend actually at one point. So, I do not know. Maybe he would speak to you, maybe he would not. What do I know? Because I am not really good friends. He is very quiet and shy, and I do not see him very much. But Mickey Melendez was very important in that takeover. And he lives in... I have his phone number. I will give you his phone number. And you can use my name if you want. If you want me to, [inaudible]- SM: Can you email that to me? RP: Let me just give it to you right now. SM: Okay, let me- RP: You have a pen? SM: Yep. RP: Give me a minute. I am just going to pull it up. I am pulling it up on my cell phone. Mickey... Mickey, come on. M-I-C-K... Why do not I have it here? Oh, here it is. It's is easier for me to do this, like this, right now. Because if you ask me to do something later, I may not do it. Are you ready? SM: Yep. RP: 646-251-7745. So tell him what you're doing. You're writing this book. Is that what you're doing? SM: Yes. RP: And just who you are, and that I gave you his phone number. SM: And his name is Mickey Melendez? RP: Melendez. And he is very important in the Young Lords. He plays a big part in the takeover of the church. The other thing the Young Lords did was they... We had a bunch of radical doctors, who I actually just saw them, one of them, this guy Michael. And Lincoln Hospital, which is in the Bronx, where all the Puerto Ricans and Blacks would be sent... Mickey worked with doing a lot of medical stuff with Puerto Ricans, and making use of that hospital, and training people to be first aid stuff and things. And one of the great things they did is the Young Lords stole a New York City Health van, and brought it down into Spanish Harlem and did lead poisoning of the kids, testing for it. SM: Oh. RP: Because those vans used to just sit there. They did really great actions like that. SM: How do you spell his first name? RP: M-I-C-K-E-Y, Mickey. SM: Oh, just like Mickey Mantle. RP: Miguel. SM: Just like Mickey Mantle. RP: Yeah, or Miguel is his real name, but I call him Mickey. SM: How did you become linked to the Black Panther Party? In other words, how did you develop their trust as a white person? RP: Okay, now I know. I had to think a minute. So, I always cared about Black people, and I loved the Black Panther Party when they came out. SM: Let me switch my tape here. Hold on one second. RP: ...another book, number one. Number two, she has got six relatives- SM: Oh. RP: That she is taking care of, somebody in her house. She has got a lot of problems. She has got kids that she has got to deal with. She's got grandkids. She has got a full plate, plus she teacher. And I am pretty good friends with her, actually. SM: She said not to contact her until she finished her book, and she said it was going to be done by October. RP: I do not know. October, this coming October? SM: Yeah, right now. How did you become linked again to the Black Panthers? RP: All right, this is what happened. I am in radical Newsreel, the film group, and I began filming every time a group of... Every time the Panthers did anything... They were our counterpart. Newsreel, we were all radicals. We had a lot of film, so I started going up to the...I was asked by one of the leaders of the Black Panther Party in New York, if I would come up and show Newsreel films to educate the new recruits of the Panthers in their office. So once a week, every Monday night I think it was, I would leave the office. I would carry this very heavy, turquoise blue projector. I cannot tell you how heavy it was. And I would take one or two films under my arm and my purse, and I would take the subway up to 127th Street. Get out, and I would walk down to...I cannot remember if it was Seventh Avenue, the street that the Panthers' headquarters were on. And this guy, he was in charge of the headquarters and the building space, exactly, and who also was in helping with the new, young recruits, the new, young high school kids, and people who came in. And he would help set me up, and I would show... How I am talking to you about the films, I would talk to these kids about what the films were about. And we would show a film, and we would have a political discussion. And I did that once a week. It would be dark by that time, so then he would walk me back. His name was Zayd Shakur. You heard of Afeni Shakur? SM: Oh, yes. RP: Assata Shakur? SM: Yeah, the [inaudible]- RP: [inaudible] Shakur? Zayd's grandfather also has the name Shakur. Their family name is Shakur. And I love Zayd. He was the kindest, softest, nicest young guy that you could ever imagine. And Afeni Shakur, Tupac Shakur- SM: Yes. RP: They are all part of the same family. SM: Oh, wow. RP: And they took that name. Some of them were born into it, but they took the name. And when they would have reunions and parties, I always got invited. And even from Vermont, years later when I left, I would get invited. And I went to the cake company here in Burlington. And I had a cake that said... Made a big sheet cake to bring down for the party that was being held in Connecticut that said, "All power to the people." So I said to the woman who is the baker, I said, "Do you know what that means?" She says, "Does it have something to do with electric company?" And that was the end of that. I tried to explain. So, I always was close to the Black Panthers. I loved the Black Panther people that I met. And to this day, they're still really kind to me, gentle to me. And Zayd Shakur got killed on a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike. And he was really a neat young man, but he worked with the new young students who came into the party. And after I would show the film, and talk about the film, and what was happening in the country, he would walk me back to the subway to make sure I would get on the subway safely. And that was my relationship with him. SM: I think it's important because there's a lot of misperceptions out there on the part of people who have read history or maybe do not know or do not want to know. Please explain the Panther links to white people and the partnerships they have with Asian Americans, and Mexican Americans, and Puerto Ricans. Because I do not think a lot of people... I think they isolate them into this one group, and they do not really see the relationships that they had with other people. Could you talk a little bit about that? RP: Well, I just told you one story about me going down there. And still to this day, when they have reunions, I go to the reunions. And there's that time... I have done a lot of work around other things. You got to understand that this is not all I have done. Because I became friends with a lawyer by the name Elizabeth Fink. Do you know that name? SM: Yes. RP: So, Elizabeth Fink worked a lot on Dhoruba Bin Wahad's case. He was a Black Panther member. And I was in her law office, that she shared with a bunch of other people, when they had requested a whole bunch of documents on this whole case and on the Panthers to come. And I was there when they arrived, and there was something like 500,000 documents, big boxes, and boxes, and boxes of stuff. And then they went through the stuff... I never saw that much stuff. And it included all the counterintelligence documents, all the dirty tricks the FBI did that you have only heard about, but it's written down there in black and white. And I said, "Oh, this is incredible." So then, they did an appeal, and a lot of things are blacked out. So the lawyers in the office, Bob Boyle, Elizabeth Fink, and Bob Bloom, they did an appeal. And they asked that all the blacked out materials be un-blackened so we could read and see what it says. Sometimes there would be a whole page blacked out, so you did not know exactly what... So they did this, and they won. And I had this brilliant idea... I always get these brilliant ideas that then cost me years, that I would go through and... Because they were not in any order, anything. They're just how the FBI put it together as things went on. But you would be reading something about some incident, and then maybe 300 pages later, it would go on about that incident, what happened. So, I organized the project here at the University of Vermont. I brought it up for my students and other people in the community. I had a big meeting. I gave them instructions. Each person got one FBI book of documents that covered a certain period of time, maybe let us say 100 or 200 pages of documents. And I gave them a coding form. I worked with a coding form with the computer department. You would say, what was the volume it was from? What page was it? What's the number? The FBI has code numbers on each thing that they do. What is it about? Is it about starting problems between different groups? Is it about schools? Is it about education? Is it about workers? Is there something about race in it? It had about maybe 70 different things that you could mark, the time, the dates, the city that it happened in... And so, I did this. And after a number of years, we collected all this material. And then, we got the computer department at the University of Vermont to enter all the data. And it printed out everything in this order, so we could tell exactly what different things the FBI had done, going through all these 100,000 pages- SM: Wow. RP: Documents. SM: And it was pretty bad, was not it? RP: Yeah, it was really bad. And the thing is that when we got these documents, so much of the stuff was not marked out. It was not blacked out because... Some of the documents were blacked out. And then Liz Fink, and Bob Boyle, and the attorneys would go to court and demand that certain things be not blacked out. And then, the FBI would have to release things that showed, really, what happened. SM: Wow. RP: And so, we would get then better documents that showed us more and told this us more. And then sometimes, you would be reading a document and you did not know what really happened. And then you would read maybe five books later... Let us say, it's 300 pages, 400 pages later. You would come across something else that would fill in the information to tell the story completely. And so, that was a really big project that I did. I got totally obsessed around that because I could not believe that the FBI actually wrote all that stuff out. And not only did they write it out, but then they allowed the lawyers and the clients to see all that. It's just shocking to me. And I got totally turned onto the FBI. And there was one agent who was the biggest sexist... And great writer, brilliant writer, but he is very racist, very sexist. He liked to make jokes about Black people and everything when he made all his comments and his initials. See, we never knew the names of the FBI agents, but the FBI agents on each page, or when they did the reports, would put their initials. And his initials were WAC. So, we called him Agent WAC. SM: Wow. RP: And years later, I am reading through some other files, and I see that... Oh, I know what happened. I had gotten some files from the FBI in San Francisco. And when they were duplicating the files for me, or for the lawyers actually, for Liz Fink, they included... I found a page as I was reading it that had all the present-day... Somebody else must have gone to the Xerox machine and said, "Oh, I need a list of everybody who's working in the office right now." And they made a copy of all the FBI agents, with their names and present phone numbers. SM: Oh my gosh. RP: So, I got that document, and there's my Agent WAC. And I get his name for the first time. I only knew his initials were W-A-C. His name was William A. Cohendet, D-E-T at the end of his name, Cohendet, but it's Cohendet. And so, I get really excited. And I finally figure out, I am going to call the FBI office and see if I could talk to this guy. But then I do not have my nerve. And then I have this friend who is working for Mike Wallace at CBS. She went through a lot of my stories with me. She said, "Well, let me try... Give me that information. Let me see if I can do it, because maybe CBS will do a story on him." So, she calls me back a week later. And she says, "Well, you know what? That list was a list of the present-day FBI agents." This is years later. This is 20 years later. And that is his son who is also an FBI agent. And his son works there, and he's retired. But she gave me the son's home phone number, so I called up the son. No. She called up the son's home-home number, said it was from CBS. And she spoke to his wife. And his wife said, "Oh, that is his father who worked in those days. I will give you the phone number." So, we got the phone number of Agent WAC. By the time I pulled together a camera team, I pulled together somebody who was Steven Spielberg's cameraman and did all the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. And it was one of the same camera... He had a lot of camera people, but this was one that did them in France, I believe, that survived. I got him, and I got a friend of mine who's a very good sound person, and I called up the number. And I told him we would like to do an interview with him, and he got thrilled. We showed up, it was his 89th birthday. And he was so happy that he got to tell his story and be a star. SM: Oh my God. RP: So, we were there all day long, from morning until it started to get dark, and I interviewed him. Part of that interview is on my DVD. You should get the DVD. The story's there. SM: Yeah, I am definitely going to get it, definitely. RP: So, I have the interview with him on the DVD, part of it. Edited it, obviously. And then I also have another interview with another FBI agent that I fell in love with... Love meaning just through the paperwork. It's this other guy, Wesley Swearingen, who turned against the FBI at some point. And he got very interested... He was trying to figure out a lot of things. Because he came out to help Geronimo and some other people, and then he thought the FBI was maybe going to kill him. And he had retired already. He got really scared. And he had been in Hawaii, and he lived on a boat for many years. He now lives in Southern California. But anyways, I got him... I wanted to interview him, so I got the University of Vermont to pay him money and bring him to the university to talk about his being an FBI agent, which they did. SM: Wow. RP: And I got him a hotel, took him out for dinner with my friends, and we hit it off really well. And the following year, he called me up. And he said, "Roz, I am visiting my in-laws who live in the southern part of the state. And can we come and visit you?" I never have any of my documents. I never saved anything. And this FBI agent is this guy who I think maybe I messed up two of the stories, combined them a little. But this FBI, this is Agent WAC who I am talking about now. And his in-laws, he said, "Oh, my in-laws live in Pittsford." I said, "Oh, I know Pittsford." Because as a joke, some years earlier...I live in this little town, and we have a constable in our town that is elected position. And nobody was running that year. And as a joke, 32 of my friends did not tell me, but they wrote my name in. And I got the most votes so I became Constable in the town. SM: Oh my gosh. RP: And then they sent me for a week at the Police Academy to study all the laws of police laws and everything, which is in Pittsford, Pittsfield. And that is where the Police Academy was. So, I said to the guy, "Well, I have been there because I was elected constable, and I went there to study for a week." He says, "Well, meet my wife and all my family and we will take you out to the Radisson for dinner." So I did meet him, and we had dinner. And the first thing his wife says to me is, "You appreciate him more than his own children." And then, we became these immediate friends. I got what I call my costume. I got all dressed up. I changed how I normally look a little, and made myself very proper. And so, it was... a little and myself very proper. And so, that is how I got to know these two agents. And through them, I got a lot of information. And they're both on my DVD. I did two interviews with both of them. This DVD, besides having just some newsreel films, the extras is the main thing. It's nothing that you sit and watch all the way through because there's like maybe a PDF file at the very end. You turn off the DVD player and you look at it. There's a way of having to look at a PDF file on a DVD. And there's probably like, I do not know, 500 items on it, which includes all the Panther position papers and FBI documents that they wrote about them and all sorts of stuff. SM: Did not you have even yourself have an FBI record of over a thousand pages? RP: I have FBI [inaudible]. It's kind of boring. It's basically that I was seen at this event or seen at that event. SM: Oh, okay. RP: I never really did anything. I mean, I am not brave like a lot of people. I never got in trouble. I never got arrested. I was there as a camera person or as a demonstrator. My mother told me, "Do not get arrested. Escape if you can." And that is what I always followed, her words. Because being arrested is not fun. SM: One of the things I wanted to ask is why did the Black Panther party begin? No, you already talked about that. Why do a lot of people believe that they were a violent group like the Weathermen? I have talked to a lot of different people, and I cannot pick on any specific person, but when they talk about how the anti-war movement and civil rights and how the movements all went negative toward the end of the (19)60s and early (19)70s, they bring up the Weathermen, they bring up the American Indian movement, which went violent at Wounded Knee, and they bring up the Black Panthers. Now- RP: All right, let me speak to that. SM: Yeah. RP: I mean, I know your question, but let me do Wounded Knee first [inaudible]. Wounded Knee, these Native people were on their own land at Wounded Knee. And who was surrounding them? Who had a blockade that kept food from coming in? Do you know? SM: Well, I would think it would be the police. RP: Yes. So, that was Native land. I mean, in this country, you have a right to defend yourself. SM: Right. RP: All right. So, I am not even going to get into that. You can go online and read what Bill Cussler, their attorneys, and various other people have written about that and what they have written about it themselves. That was their land. And there's no reason at all that the US government should have been there. My opinion. All right. The second thing about the Panthers. The Panthers and Black people have been killed for years. They have been lynched, they have been hung, they have been beaten, they have been horribly treated, and they have a right to defend themselves and not allow themselves to be lynched and hung and beaten like that. And in this country, you have a right to carry a gun. You have a right to self-defense. And none of those Panthers ever shot, to my knowledge, at anybody unless the cops were shooting at them. Actually, there's a film out right now, and we're showing it at our film festival. It's the son of one of the Black Panthers that was involved in the LA shootout of the Black Panther headquarters. He's a young man. He studied film editing at USC, and his father and his father's friend, one of them had gotten shot when the police came and just did not like the Panthers, so they're going to shoot up their headquarters. They went to South Central LA and shot up. The father's a minister, and his friend still walks with a limp from being shot in the leg. He was on the roof, and there were no guns there at all. White people carry guns. You're allowed to go hunting, you're allowed to protect yourself. There's gun control that Blacks cannot have guns, and only whites can have guns. Only police can have guns. There were some Panthers that did bad drugs, and some of them maybe did things that were not too cool. I am not going to mention names or anything, but there were Panthers that were violent. But then you have to take each case and each thing by itself and you cannot link a whole group of people like all men or all white women or whatever it is, or all Weather people did this because it was not all. Sometimes there's somebody who does something that is not a good thing. And so, I think what happened is the Panthers, as soon as the media... And I blame the media for some of this, got a hold of the Panthers when they had guns to protect themselves. You know how many Black people were killed before Panthers had guns? They felt like they have a right in this country, have a right to have a gun. I mean, people in my town, I live in Vermont, there was a girl that lived here, and we used to walk around with a... What are they called? Around your waist. You have a holster. Is that what they're called? SM: Mm-hmm. RP: There was a gun in it. And during the hunting time, there's guns. Everybody has guns in their racks of their cars. But if they were Black people, I bet you it would be another story. SM: And they forget the fine things that they did do, which is certainly the lunch program for poor kids, the sickle cell anemia drives to raise funds for that. There's a lot of issues that were very positive. Do not you somewhat blame the media though here? Because the media... I am just throwing a question out here. The media has a tendency to show the sensational every time. It's the sensational, the black berets, the intimidation, the guns, which is part of it. And two specific instances stand to mind. One was when the Black Panthers in California surrounded the Alameda County courthouse. RP: I was there, by the way. SM: Oh, were you? RP: Yeah. And it's one of our films, on my DVD about... My big box set on the Black Panthers, it has that film in it. SM: Well, it was that scene and then the one we all know at Cornell in 1969, which was the students coming out of the union there with guns. RP: Do you have a picture of that? We cannot find these picture... And I remember seeing one picture, but I- SM: I have the magazine front cover of, I think it's Newsweek, that I will send you. RP: I would love to see it because I am trying to figure out... Because it was the anniversary of that, and I was trying to figure out where... There was a film made about it, but I cannot even find that anymore. SM: I know Harry Edwards was the graduate student there who was kind of the advisor of that group. Of course, Harry went on to be a sociology professor at Berkeley and wrote Black Students, which is a great book. He's retired now. But those are the two scenes. You see students at Cornell and you see the Black Panthers at Alameda County courthouse. And what- RP: Alameda County courthouse, I have a whole film. It's on that DVD. But there were no guns at that. There were no guns at all. There was marching around the courthouse. SM: Okay. Well, the picture was seen all over the place. RP: I might have to change phones. This phone is starting to go dead, the battery. SM: Is that your cell phone? RP: I got find my other telephone because this one's starting to go dead, I think. SM: All right. RP: Oh, here. Maybe this one will work better. SM: Okay. You're still coming through pretty strong. RP: No, but I hear it be starting to beep. It's warning me. Hold on a minute. SM: Okay. RP: Can you hear me? SM: Yup. RP: Okay, let me try this phone. I have got four phones downstairs on the same line. SM: All right. RP: The one I was talking to you starts beeping, so it gives me a warning that it might go dead. SM: Could you, in your own words, talk about the fine things that the Black Panthers did do? I know I listed them. But it's my understanding too, because I have read about President Johnson, did not he take the food program and try to incorporate that into a program within the federal government? There's something there that they- RP: [01:51:34] sounds familiar about it. But they did start the breakfast program. There had never been a breakfast program. Because kids were hungry going to school in the morning. You cannot think if you do not have a good breakfast. And they would have grits and eggs and blah, blah. That is why the Young Lords had that fight over taking over the church because they wanted to also have the breakfast program there. SM: Right. When you look at the unique personalities of the leaders of the Black Panthers, Black Panthers are never looked upon, in my understanding, as a... They did not have weekly meetings. RP: They did. SM: Did they have weekly meetings? RP: Oh, yeah. SM: Did they have membership drives? RP: Well, I do not know that they had a membership drive, but they were always having new recruits coming in. SM: Yeah, well- RP: Because I actually did a PR class with new recruits one time. I showed them the old Panther film, and there was somebody else... In fact, that is what I was going up to Harlem with the projectors, to show the film to new recruits. I did it weekly. SM: There's about seven or eight personalities that were nationally known that were leaders of the party. The ones that seem to have the positive image, I will mention them first. Kathleen Cleaver seemed to have a more positive image in the minds of many people, as did Eldridge Cleaver, because he was also a writer. And even David Horowitz will say that he was a very good writer, when Soul On Ice was written. And actually, he said he did not have as much of problem with Eldridge as he did with everybody else. RP: David said that? SM: Well, David, I interviewed him over a year ago, so I am trying to think of... But it seemed like the only one- RP: Only one you cannot imagine. David and I debated each other, by the way, at an academic conference on popular culture. And he's just horrible around the Panthers. And I will tell you why I think he's horrible. This woman, Kay... Kay Spender, maybe. Kay something. She was white, and he brought her over to do bookkeeping for the Panthers. He brought her over to Oakland. There's a bar there that the Panthers used to hang out. It was very close to where Huey's penthouse apartment was. He would sometimes get take-out food sent up to his place. I know a lot of this from the FBI files, reading them, by the way. And Kay Spender one day disappeared. She was at the bar, she left to go home and she was never seen again. No body, nothing. And David was the one that brought her over to the Panthers. David Horowitz, that is. And got her set up to be their bookkeeper. And he blamed, this is my opinion, he blamed himself for her disappearance and her probably death. And what happened to her? Who knows? Because there was never any sign of anything about what happened. It could have been that she was drunk walking home and passed out or some guy grabbed her or she drowned in the water. I mean, who knows? I do not know anything. I cannot imagine why Panthers would do anything because she used to do their bookkeeping, unless she knew something that she should not have known. I do not know. SM: Well, I know that... Was not her name Mary Van Petton? Patton? RP: I do not know, maybe. SM: I think it was a different name. But he became a conservative as a result of this experience. RP: Well, he hates the Panthers. He probably hates them as much as he hates me, because I did so well in that... I have debated him a few times and people love what I say, and they tell him to shut up. SM: Yeah. We had him on our campus a couple times. But looking at these individuals, you have got to admit that Huey Newton does not have a good reputation, from all the- RP: Huey Newton is not somebody that I loved. He's a high-liver. And he used Panther money. He had a penthouse apartment, he used designer drugs like coke and various other things. A lot of white people did that too, a lot of movie stars did that too, but they did not get harassed by the police. And he was a very good speaker at times, from what I hear. I have heard him speak a few times just on tape, but I do not really know him and I am not into bad-mouthing him or protecting him, because I do not really know. He was West Coast. I only really knew the East Coast- SM: The other one that has a really bad name is H. Rap Brown, who's actually in jail for the rest of his life, I think. RP: Yeah. Well, I am not going to get into him, but I do not know him at all. SM: But Stokely Carmichael seemed to have a lot of respect- RP: Yeah, he was. SM: ... because of the fact he had been involved with SNCC. RP: He was in SNCC. I only heard him speak a few times, and he was very bright, I thought. SM: And then Kathleen Cleaver seems to have a lot of respect. RP: Very respectful of people too. SM: And Eldridge is a sad story in its own right. RP: Yeah. Well, Eldridge became later a Moonie. You know that? SM: Yes. RP: I saw him, he came to the University of Vermont. The Moonies brought him here. And so, I went out in the parking lot waiting for him to come because I wanted him to sign this book I had. And he looked at the book, it was one of the old Panther books. He says, "I ain't signing that shit." He was really pissed. And he got into crack cocaine. I mean, he became a really bad drug addict. And anybody who's a really bad drug addict at some point, you cannot take them [inaudible]. SM: The killing of Fred Hampton was a sad thing too, in Chicago. RP: Yeah. SM: Because they said he was [inaudible]. RP: Plus, the cops did that. Right? SM: Yeah. RP: And he was a very bright young man. SM: In the materials I have here, you were at all these events. RP: I was not at the killing of Fred Hampton. SM: No, no, no, no. But the Free Huey... There were Free Huey- RP: Free Huey, off the pigs. SM: Yeah. And then also Free Bobby at New Haven. And then- RP: I was there. SM: And then Free the 21 in New York City. RP: I was there. SM: So those are all major trials. RP: Yeah. Well, I loved the Panthers, number one, and so did all my friends. That is the other thing. It was a big social thing for us. And I loved Afeni Shakur, I still love Afeni Shakur. I remember Tupac Shakur when he was a little baby. And I remember the grandfather. In fact, grandfather, who was his old man, a very dignified man. My politics, my (19)60s politics, I grew up with them. They were there from the beginning of my politics. So it was like I matured with them and I knew them from places and from events. The East Coast Panthers. Then at times, I went out because we started up a San Francisco newsreel. They said, "Hey, you got to come out here and make a film." We said, "You better make your own films. We're going to send some people out and you're going to find some filmmakers, and you're going to learn how to use cameras because we cannot be every place." SM (01:59:34): You talked about COINTELPRO. My interview this morning, we talked about it as well. I had another person I interviewed this morning from California. Explain in your own words what was COINTELPRO and what did it do to activists that... In one of the articles that I read on you, [inaudible] talked about Jean Seberg the actress. Then the experience you had with Dr. Curtis Powell, that you had to walk with him into his apartment. What they tried to do to Bobby Seal and Kathleen Cleaver and the Yippies and SNCC and Southern Christian Leadership Conference. RP: I do not know anything about SCLC or SNCC, really. The counterintelligence program, you should... Have you ever interviewed any FBI agents that- SM: No, I cannot. I know if anybody would ever speak to me. RP: Yeah, I know somebody that will. SM: Oh. RP: He is a very important guy. SM: Okay. RP: You got to get my DVD. I have two FBI agents on my DVD. You will not get better talks than that. You can use any material you want from that. SM: All right. RP: The DVD, I have one of the most important FBI agents, and he's written a book exposing the FBI. And the other one is the one that is dead now, that opened up the case in San Francisco on the Panthers, because he was in the San Francisco office and he was assigned it. And he just sat there and he wrote up what happened every day. It was very boring to him. The informers would come in and he would get all these notes and he would just put it in a report. The thing was that he was a great writer. And he told funny jokes and he made fun of people, and he was sexist and he was racist. He wrote all these reports to send to his fellow FBI agent that he knew from the academy when he went to the academy. And he told me right in my DVD, he said, "I was writing the reports for them." They said, "Keep them coming. They're hilarious." He's dead now. I give you permission to use whatever you want from any of my DVD. If you want an FBI agent who wants to talk about it. SM: Because you see, the book is about the boomer generation and the young people that grew up, but they all experienced all this. They all saw these things. They became influenced by it. And the people that are going to read these oral histories, they're going to be... Well, they may not be reading history books. So, if you could, in just a few words, talk about what COINTELPRO or what they did to the actress Jean Seberg- RP: Okay. Well- SM: And- RP: What COINTELPRO did was it tried to destroy people's lives. It tried to make people look bad. It tried to embarrass people. It told lies and set up situations so that people sometimes could not face the media getting hold of these things. It was, the main thing, was the counterintelligence program to destroy, in this case, the Black Panther party. I mean, they have a counterintelligence program to destroy, let us say, the Young Lord's party or to destroy the Weathermen. The counterintelligence [02:03:26] used dirty tricks to destroy people and the FBI was pretty good at it. And in some cases, they were not very good. But with the Black Panthers, they would send out letters to people saying, "Beware. So-and-so just reported you to the police." Or "Beware. Jean Seberg is carrying a Black baby." When it was born, somebody saw the fetus and it was Black. " And we're going to feed her to the Hollywood gossip columnist..." What was her name? Jean Haber? No. Jean somebody. And some people think that that was one of the reasons that she may have killed herself, if she did kill herself, because she was embarrassed about all that, Jean Seberg. SM: Was it a Black fetus? RP: I do not know. I was not there. SM: Oh, I read it was a white fetus. She went around with it or something like that. RP: Jean Seberg went around with the fetus? SM: Yes, she did. RP: Where did you get that? SM: I read it in one of the... I will have to email that to you too. It was in one of the articles. RP: Well, you cannot believe everything you... I mean, I am not- SM: Yeah. RP: But what they did is they tried to make people look bad and embarrass people. That is the main thing about it. And sometimes, people could not take it and destroyed their lives and sometimes they killed themselves. Or sometimes they dropped out of being political people because they could not take their families knowing about [inaudible]. SM: What always amazes me is that we do live in a democracy where liberty is always protected. And of course, liberty is divine, is freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion. But here we have this COINTELPRO group that survived through '75. And then we have the FBI and the CIA, that have been infiltrating groups for years, and they destroyed many lives. In a quote that you put down here is that, "Democracy is based on openness and the existence of a secret policy, secret lists of dissident citizens, violates the spirit of democracy." That was a quote from you. RP: I cannot remember half the things I say or wrote. SM: Well, I was looking- RP: I have been looking forward to getting your book. Is it a book you're doing or what? SM: Yeah. You have time for a couple more questions? RP: Yeah, sure. SM: Yeah. You have been teaching, co-teaching, a course at the (19)60s at Burlington College for a while? RP: Yeah. SM: How- RP: Not a co-teacher, I was teaching it alone. SM: Yeah. How do the students react to courses like this, and how does the administration at the university respond to anything of the (19)60s? Because my experience has been that universities are afraid of the term "activism" due to the memories and the lessons from the (19)60s. RP: Where do you teach? SM: Oh, I used to be at Westchester University, not anymore. RP: Okay. Well, let me tell you, where I teach... Well, I am off right now. But I had been teaching at Burlington College in Vermont. You know who our dean is? SM: No, I do not. RP: Do you know who Bernie Sanders- SM: Oh, I know Bernie. Yes. Former congressman. RP: Well, his wife was our dean. SM: Oh, okay. That speaks for itself. RP: But I was teaching there before she became the dean, and she actually has been very rude to me. SM: Oh, no. RP: And she actually is one of the reasons I am not teaching there now. But do not say anything about that. SM: Oh, no, I will not. RP: But it's a big long story. But I think I was ready to retire anyway. SM: Yeah. What did the student protest movement teach universities in the (19)60s? What do you feel the universities learned from it, and maybe what have they forgotten? RP: This is how I do my class. I give a little talk in the beginning, whatever the subject matter is, and then I show them one of the newsreel films. Because the pictures and seeing the real thing, there's nothing can beat that from that time. So, they see a film every time, and we have a discussion before the film, and we have a discussion after the film, and then they have to write impressions and write papers. That is about how all my classes are. And luckily, I have the whole collection of newsreel films. And the reason that newsreel films are so good is they're not slick Hollywood films. They're like real life. They're a little jumpy, they're running in the street with a camera. Cops are chasing us or whatever it is. And they cannot believe some of the stuff. They love it. They love those films because it's like real life. SM: Well, the students love them, but do the universities love them? RP: Yeah, but I am telling you where I teach, I teach at [inaudible] College. The other thing is, the universities love our films because who's the person that buys 90 percent of the films that I sell? The universities. SM: Yes. RP: Cornell, Harvard, Syracuse, Princeton, NYU, UCLA, Santa Barbara, SF State. I mean, all these schools have collections of our films because nobody else has done (19)60s like we have done them. We have done the burning of... One of the most radical events that ever happened in Santa Barbara, my first year of college, I went to Santa Barbara. And of course, I was not there when the burning of the Bank of America happened, that was one of the first radical things in Santa Barbara, was all these blonde crew cut boys and little blonde flipped girls burned down the Bank of America in Santa Barbara. Never happened before on our campus. SM: Why would they do that? RP: You know story? SM: Well, I know that it happened, but I cannot remember why. RP: Because there was a professor, they were going to fire a professor that they liked. And he was a political person. That started it. I mean, there were other issues, I am sure. SM: Are there any myths about the boomer generation that you would like to comment on from your point of view? Any myth? RP: Like what? SM: Oh, that is why I am asking. Are there any myths? RP: Tell me what you mean by a myth. SM: A myth is a story that is- RP: I know, that is not true. But give me an example of something [inaudible]. SM: A hundred percent of the students were activists. That is a myth. It only about 10 percent. RP: That is not even a truth. SM: Right. RP: I do not know about myths, I guess. SM: Are there any truths about the boomer generation and their times that are still being used to mislead the American public about the times when boomers were young, through today? And that might be linked to the criticisms that the era that the boomers grew up in is often attacked as the era where all our problems started. Because of drugs, sex, rock and roll. RP: Rock and roll. SM: Long hair, lack of respect for authority. Challenging your point of view, the welfare state, the isms and all the other stuff. RP: What's the question around those again? SM: The question is, are there any truths about the boomer generation, their times, that are still being used to mislead? RP: Oh, I do not know about still being used because I am not really... I do not hang out with people that think like that, so I do not hear that so much. And I do not hear it on TV. I watch a lot of TV. And when I travel, I am talking... For example, three months ago, I got a grant to go to Mississippi to study Mississippi and Tennessee, but mainly Mississippi, to study the Civil Rights period. They're community college teachers, I am with like 40 community college teachers. And when you're teaching community college, you're taking for granted that these students are probably not as wealthy as regular university students, maybe. Or maybe they're not as smart. I mean, I do not know what people would think myth-wise. But the teachers there were some of the most brilliant teachers I have ever met. They talked in a language that the students could understand. And it was really interesting. I spent one week with them living, sleeping, getting up in the morning, eating, traveling. We got on a bus and we went out to the delta and we went and parked in front of the store where Emmett Till went... Where supposedly the girl was there that he whistled at. We hung out there. We went to Fannie Lou Hamer's house. We did all this stuff. And all those people there were community college teachers. I mean, they knew as much, or if not more, politics than I did, some of them. And they were brilliant. They had none of those myths that you would even think about. I never heard anything come out of any of their mouths. And they were from Texas, they were from Florida. Just community colleges. They were just like normal students who got their degree and went to teach in a community college. SM: When did the (19)60s begin and end, in your opinion? And what was the watershed moment? RP: Oh, God. Well, I do not know. I am a little confusing around that issue because you got to realize that I grew up political. All my life, I was a political person because I got it from... My parents were political. I knew nothing. I sometimes say I was brainwashed into it because that is what I knew. And that is how they acted and the way that they dealt with Black people or workers or anybody was always like this wonderful way. Did they drink? My mother did not, but my father sometimes would have a beer at night when he got home. He was a working man. I grew up in a working-class family and so, for me, I never had any pretensions of anything except a certain type of life. And you told the truth and you worked hard and you tried to help other people. So, I do not know. I mean, I do not know in my world that I ever actually encountered that. What I did encounter at some point, one of the first things that made me rebel... I do not know. It's hard to say. I do not know. I mean, I grew up in LA and Hollywood. I mean, it's very different than growing up in a normal place. SM: That is okay for your answer. Some people give a specific event or period or whatever for the beginning and the end of the (19)60s, in their opinion. RP: Well, I mean, miniskirts was not like the (19)60s - Miniskirts was not like the (19)60s, was it? SM: Yeah, that was the (19)60s. RP: What year was that? SM: It was around (19)63, (19)64. RP: Okay. Well, one of the things that happened to me, I always liked clothes, was when I was teaching school in New Jersey and the teacher sent me home from school because my skirt was too short. The teacher told me to go home and change. What's that? SM: That is okay. And that was a watershed moment. RP: That was a big watershed moment. And that is when I quit teaching. SM: Another thing... RP: That is when I decided to move to New York and I looked for that apartment. I told you that story, and then I... SM: Yes. RP: But that was a personal attack upon me. The other thing that that school did, here's another thing, the war in Vietnam, now I am thinking about it, the war in Vietnam was going on, and this is in New Jersey. This was in North Bergen, New Jersey, which is the town that I was living in at the time. And the Jersey Journal, I think was the name of the newspaper, but I am not sure. But some local newspaper sent out to all the schools these petitions that say we support our boys in Vietnam. And we were supposed to get all of our students to sign it. Well, first of all, I left it there. I said, if anybody wants to sign it, you can sign it. But then later that afternoon, when they were supposed to turn them in to the office, later that afternoon, I was walking through the office and nobody was there. I grabbed all the petitions and threw them away. So that was pretty intense for me. I knew I was quitting. I think that was probably the day I was quitting, I think. I did not care. SM: Well, one of the things that you discussed when Newsreel did their films, is revolution is a term that was used by the new left, and the Panthers used it all the time, too. Do you feel though, in the eyes of many, that that term "revolution" hurts the legitimacy in the eyes of critics? RP: Oh, I never worry about things like that, because what does the word revolution mean? How would you define it? SM: Like the American Revolution. RP: Right. That is a positive thing, is not it? SM: Yes, it is. RP: I did not understand what you said about critics, then. SM: Well, for example, when we did the... In 1976 with the bicentennial, there was a group that we brought to campus that was under the leadership of Jeremy Rifkin, and it was the People's Bicentennial Commission. And the basic premise was that the founding fathers were revolutionaries. Well, that really upset people in Ohio, because we had a program with William Pells, one of the professors who came in to talk about the revolutionaries. And we had the Daughters from the American Revolution there saying, how dare you say that these were radicals? And it was a Midwest, and they were very upset with the use of the term "revolution" and "radical". So that was just an example. RP: Well, I do not know. I do not really know because I am never really fussy about certain things. I am more of an activist. I just do my thing and I have my friends and we do it together. And I am not trying to get any place or be any place, or whatever happened to me was basically not necessarily planned. SM: We took a group of students to Washington in and to talk about the year 1968, and we met with Senator Muskie, and we thought he was going to talk about the convention of (19)68. And the question was this, that the students asked him, and I will give you his response after I get yours, the question was, due to the divisions that were so intense in the Boomer generation during the (19)60s and (19)70s, do you feel that this generation of 74 million will go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, with bitterness and dislike and hatred toward opponents, similar to what happened during the Civil War in the areas of Black versus white, male versus female, gay versus straight, pro-war, anti-war, pro-troops, anti-troops. And that was a question we asked, and we waited for his response. RP: What would he say? SM: I want to hear your response first. Do you think we have a problem? Even within the Black Panthers, is there any healing or is not healing necessary? RP: They have had healing, yes. Panthers have actually had a lot of healing stuff. And I think you have to have some type of healing stuff go on, somewhat. But you cannot have healing stuff for people who are dangerous and can kill people or kill other people. So, I do not know. I do not really know, because I have never had very many enemies to tell you the truth. For example, I did not like, at the end of Eldridge Cleaver's life, he came to UVM and he was working... The Moonies were paying his salary. I thought that was disgusting. And he said things that were disgusting things, and I would never go to see him again after that. And then he was found in an alleyway doing crack. He ruined his life. He ruined everything that he originally stood for. The people would put out bottles in Berkeley while he was being a crackhead and stuff. And people have picked them up and turned the money and the money went into the free clinic. And he would send out his guys to pick up earlier in the morning to take the bottles so they could keep the money. So there's things like that. I would just ignore the guy. That is the most I could say. He was important at his time when things were happening in the beginning, and then the drugs took over and it made him a bad person, I guess. SM: There's a couple of quotes here that I want to put in the record. These are your quotes. This is from you: "We produce various films that these groups could use to tell their stories and to use in organizing their own communities and workplaces, hopefully serving as a catalyst for social change." Another very important quote from you, and again, this is for the record: " The only news we saw was on TV and we knew who owned the stations. We decided to make films that would show another side of the news. It was clear that the established forms of media were not going to approach those subjects which threatened their very existence." And then the last one here was... RP: Where did you get that quote from? SM: I got that quote from... I would have to send that, too. RP: No, the reason I am asking, I agree with that statement, by the way it is not that I do not disagree with it. What I think is the language of that- SM: Hold on one second because my tape is running out here. Hold on, one second. Okay. Let me get my... Bear with me. RP: Okay, I am not rushing. SM: Okay. RP: I am doing my taxes, believe it or not. SM: Taxes? RP: Yeah. I screwed up. SM: Oh, my goodness. RP: And my whole living room floor has about 30 piles. SM: Oh no. RP: I am not doing it right now while I am talking to you, but I have been doing it for three days. I thought I only had to do it around certain business stuff or something else. But now my accountant told me I only have to do it around my film business. SM: Oh. RP: So, I have been working for four days on all this stuff because I save every piece of paper, but I do not file it right, organize it. It is all in one thing. So, I have been filing, I have been redoing things. So, I am looking at my living room. It is just unreal. But I think that quote that you just read to me, should I go on? SM: Yes. RP: I know that I said that we knew who owns whatever it was. I cannot remember exactly what you said. SM: Yeah, "I know who owns the stations." RP: Yes. I am wondering where specifically you got that. When did I say that? Because I am wondering, it sounds like ... I believe it totally. I could have said it, but you know what? So, could a lot of other people in Newsreel said it. SM: Yeah. RP: I could have picked it up from something that somebody else said. SM: Yeah. I actually have all the notes here. Hold on one second. I might be able to find that. Oh, here it is. I think this is it. No, that is it. I might have to email you that too. I will email you. RP: Yeah. Well, you know what? Because that sounds like to me in the old days, I would say, "Right on." It was a right on quote. But it's sounds a little sophisticated for how I talk. But then maybe sometimes I talk like that. SM: Well, the last quote here is another one, and that is that, "Newsreel worked to expand the awareness of events and situations relevant to shaping the movement. Our films try to analyze, not just cover. They explore the realities of the media as part of the system always ignores." RP: It is part that the system always ignores. I could have said that though. I do not know. It is definitely what we think about Newsreel. But it also could have been ... Because I could have been sitting around with a group of my friends who were in Newsreel and that could have been something from one of our leaflets that we wrote or something. I do not know. SM: I am almost done here. But what happens at Panther reunions? How many come to those, number one? And do you keep track of any of the Panthers who died when they were young and how many continued to fight as they got older? RP: Okay. Well, I have gone to lots of reunions. I have gone to Washington DC, I have gone to San Francisco, I have gone to New York. I have gone to smaller reunions that have to do with specific chapters. When I go, by the way, I like to hang out with Kathleen Cleaver because I really love her. She is a great talker, very bright. And I have got a few other people, this guy Billy Jennings ... Are you really interested in Panthers? SM: Oh yeah. I have very interested in Panthers. I got all of Bobby Seale's books. I got – RP: All right. Let me tell you a website to go to. SM: Oh, okay. RP: This guy is the most brilliant, smartest. He is the Panther archivist. SM: Now, where is my pen? I got too much stuff here. RP: It is okay. I went and got a pencil. I do not even have it anymore. And I have [inaudible]. SM: Okay, I got it. I got a pen. RP: All right. His name is Billy Jennings is his name. SM: Billy... RP: Jennings. J-E-N-N-I-N-G-S. He is out of San Francisco. No, he is out of Sacramento. But his website is, write this down exactly how I tell you. I-T-S. SM: I-T-S. RP: It is about, A-B-O-U-T, time, T-I-M-E, B-P-P. SM: B? RP: B as in Black Panther Party. SM: Right. RP: P-P. His website is, it is About Time B-P-P, I believe. SM: All right. RP: His name is Billy Jennings. And he is the smartest, he's the best archivist of the Black Panther Party. SM: And how old is he? RP: He is younger than me. But he is married to a woman now who opened the one of the Black Panther free clinics. She's a doctor. And she is white. And I think they both had separate families at some point. They have been married for a really a long time. And he is basically, for the last 20 years, one of the main organizers of pulling the Panther reunions together. And they are brilliant. And he is brilliant. He is very smart. He knows the history better than anybody. SM: Does he go out and speak on college campuses? RP: Yeah, he does a lot of stuff. He is fabulous. SM: Oh, wow. RP: He is smart. He is interesting. He knows everything, does trips. And he is not a poor guy, I do not know what he is, but I know that he travels quite a bit. He knows everybody. And if you do not get the website, you would have to email me and I will have to look up, maybe I said it wrong, the site. But you could find out everybody who died, how they died. You can find out about all the programs. You can find out each chapter, the New Orleans chapter, the Sacramento chapter, the whatever. You can find out how many people. My friend Michael Singer who was in Newsreel, and he is writing a book about his, I do not know what he is writing about, maybe his life. But he wanted ask some questions about Panthers. He wanted to know how many Panthers have been killed. So, I sent him to Billy. If anybody asks me a Panther question that I do not know, which are probably 90 percent of them, I send them to Billy. He knows it all, and he is the main organizer of all the reunions. Pulls it together. Very good. SM: Before I ask my very last question, that is that historic picture of Stokely Carmichael with Dr. King, where he's telling Dr. King that his time has passed, that the new Black power is now taking over for non-violent protest, which was with Dr. King and Dr. Abernathy and Bayard Rustin were into. But what what's interesting is when you look at that particular scene from a Black Panther, who was a major person in SNCC, which Stokely was first. It's almost like Dr. King saying to Thurgood Marshall after the Brown versus Board of Education decision was passed in 1954, that your gradualist approach to getting this passed was ... Well, congratulations, but pass the wand because that gradualist approach is no longer going to work because we want our freedom now. And that is what Dr. King said to nonviolent protests and then later on, Dr. King and Bayard Rustin and the group were linked with Stokely Carmichael. And he said, "Your time has passed." And that was before they were even 40 years old. But there's a lot of history there, an awful lot of history. And of course, Malcolm challenged Bayard Ruston in a debate before he died in 1965 too, about the change in Black power. My last question is, when you look at this, do you have any thoughts as a person on the generation that was born between '46 and (19)64, and that means Black, white, male, female, gay, straight, this generation that grew up after World War II, are there any thoughts you have on this generation overall? RP: Well, that is not my generation. SM: Well, I know that is not your generation, but you lived and worked with them. RP: Yeah. That all seem very different than me. I feel like my friends, most of my friends are probably born after '46, and they just seem like one of ours, us. SM: Maybe it's because the spirit. Your spirit and their spirit are united in so many different causes. RP: Yeah. Well, that is how most of my friends ... People who are my friends, that is how it is. I played poker with a group of women, and we did not know each other until we all came to Vermont. And we're all involved in a million different diverse things, but we all have this politic that is really a good, clear politic. And it did not make any difference when we were born or anything. SM: And your activism goes way beyond the Black Panthers according to what I heard. RP: The Panthers is only a small thing in there. SM: Yeah. Just list a couple of activist causes you're involved in before we close. RP: In Bethlehem? SM: Yes. RP: Middle East? SM: Mm-hmm. RP: Israel and Palestinian, I am in a sister city group in Burlington. We started it with the first sister city that took a Palestinian city, Bethlehem, the Jewish city of Arad with Burlington. And we have a three-way relationship with the three cities. And that was the first that happened. There's something called Sister City International, which hundreds of American cities take cities all over the world to be their sister city. And we knew we would never get a pass in the city council if we had a Palestinian city. So we took a Jewish city and a Palestinian city, and it passed in Burlington City Council. So that is one that I just went to a meeting last night. I cannot stand. It's a losing of that thing. It's very difficult because we cannot even bring exchange students from Bethlehem. They cannot go to the Tel Aviv airport to come here. SM: Geez. RP: We cannot bring doctors or medicine to send there. We can bring our things to Arad, which is the near the Dead Sea, the city. But they do not need that stuff so much. So it's really horrible. So that is one thing that I work with in Burlington. And what was your question again? SM: It's the other areas of activism you have been involved in. RP: Activism. Well, then for a while, I am not now anymore, but after the sixties or coming out of part of the sixties was the woman's movement somewhat. And what else would I do? Who do I give my money? Legalization of marijuana. I do not smoke now, but I am for legalization of it. SM: It's a big issue in California. RP: Yeah. Well, it's a big issue every place. SM: Right. RP: Every place. It makes our kids be criminals. That is what I cannot stand about it. And what else do they give money to? Or I still give money to ... Giving money is different than getting involved. I am not involved in the legalization of marijuana, but I send money to when they send me one of their letters. I do not know. I cannot think. SM: But you have been a lifelong activist though in many things. RP: Well, race is the key thing. But I live in white Vermont. That is the problem. There's a lot of racist stuff that goes on here. And in Burlington, we have now become one of ... They have a lot of people from African countries that the US is set up what's called Resettlement Cities and Burlington's one of them. So, we have Bosnians, we have Africans, we have people from Iraq. We have got, oh, people from ... We had a few Cubans and people, but they cannot take the weather here. It's too cold for them. And so, they got transferred to warmer places. Impossible. But I am not working with it. I know some of them, the people, they're in my classes and stuff, but I am not really working it. They get a lot of help from resettlement programs around here. I work with film stuff. Right now, we have an International Film Festival that is happening starting next week, so next week I get to ... And what I do is I care about poor people a lot. For example, I get food from places for the Food Shelf. I go to the apple orchard a friend of mine owns, and I picked a lot of apples that he gave me and I brought it to the Food Shelf for poor people. Just things that I do not do it all the time, it's just something moves me about certain things. SM: Yeah. You... RP: Vermont's a really poor place. A lot of us have money and stuff, but there's a lot of poor white people here. And it's really pitiful. A lot of old people that are starving to death and freezing to death in their houses. SM: That is sad. RP: I am not doing anything about it, to tell you the truth. I donate something, but I am not really... SM: Are these people who did not plan for the future? RP: Are what? SM: Are these people that did not plan for the future? RP: No. Vermont is one of the poorest states in the country, number one. It looks so pretty on Christmas cards with skiing and stuff, but it's a very poor place. And for people who, there's no jobs, there's no factories here. There's no big cities. There's food stamps. There's not even stamps anymore. You now get it something that looks like a credit card. So, it does not embarrass you when you go with your kids. It looks like you're paying for it with a credit card. But you have money on a card that looks like a credit card. SM: You said, and this is it, you said the camera is a weapon. Define what you mean by that. RP: Well, you use a weapon to be able to have things ... If you take a picture of something that is horrible of a GI ... Well, for example, whoever took that picture of that GI burning down that Vietnamese woman who was holding her child tightly in her arms, burns down her hot by lighting it with a Zippo lighter, that destroyed an image of what the US soldiers were doing in Vietnam for thousands of people when they saw that. That one image on TV, that was a very important image. SM: I think that was Morley Safer. RP: Is that who it was? SM: I think it was Morley Safer, 60 Minutes, I think. RP: Yeah, it could have been that. See, I do not remember those type of things. You got a good memory for that. I remember the image. I could see him right now. I can see every movement he is doing. And I can see the woman there in her shed crying ... Not in her shed outside of her draw little house or maybe her depot where she kept her rice. I read into it, whatever I read into it. SM: You also lived in a commune for a while. What was that communal experience? RP: There's my best friend still to this day. SM: Huh. RP: I am serious. That was great. I loved it. You know what? I got up in the morning and guess what? Jimmy Nelsey, who taught economics of the University of Vermont, was cooking us breakfast. And there was this other guy whose name I cannot remember, would take the garbage down to the end of the driveway for his garbage time. And I love living with people. I love having people in my house. I like sharing stuff. And I was an only kid, so I did not have any sisters and brothers. SM: And that commune, how many years were you in the commune? RP: Oh, well, I was seen in Putney for maybe, let us say six months. And then, oh, I do not know, years. Let us see. Rain was born and Rain went to grammar school, junior high. I do not know how long. It was a long time. But it changed. It turned out at the end, there were four of us only at the end. SM: With your kids. Was there any generation gap at all? RP: I have one daughter and well, she's old now. She's in her thirties. And Rain is in her thirties. What do you mean generation gap? SM: The generation gap in the sixties, in the seventies, was differences over politics and over the war and counter culture and all that other stuff between [inaudible]. RP: Oh no, they both have good politics. It might be a choice over music. Grateful Dead was big time for both of them. SM: That is a good choice. RP: That is a best choice. I love them myself. But my daughter got so into it that she wanted to go off on the road and follow them around, and then would get in trouble and I would have to bail her out of trouble and da, da, da. It was not so much fun for me. But she's fine. I have a granddaughter now. But the sixties, I never got arrested in my life. As I told you, my mother said, "Do not get arrested, escape." And I took that to mean that for real. SM: It's interesting because Dr. King used to always say that if you really want to stand up for something, you cannot be afraid to be arrested and go to jail for it. And – RP: My mother says, "You get in jail and you waste around and you're not doing what you should be doing." SM: Right. Different philosophy. This is it. And that is, what do you think the lasting legacy will be of the generation that grew up after World War II, the boomers, that were sewn down the sixties and seventies. Many of them are Black Panthers and people from all walks life. What do you think when the best history books or historians or sociologists write about this period after the 74 million have passed on? What do you think they might be saying about the generation? RP: I do not know. You could probably answer that better than me, you're a writer. I do not know. It depends on how the stories are told. Because for example, there's this TV film that was made, it's called The Hippies. Did you see it? SM: No, I have not. And I am going to check it out. RP: Well, they interview me. They come to my house. They made me look really good. They had a really good camera guy who knew how to put the right type of plastic on the window. So, the light came in beautifully. They did good makeup job. They did. They really knew what they were doing. They had no politics really on some level. They did not know about anything, but they let me talk. And then I decided to talk about some things I wanted to talk about that were not really necessarily true. And one of them had to do with LSD. We were talking at U UCLA that there was a program at UCLA while I was at UCLA that one of my friends, Lenny Leck, who's no longer, he's died, but he was a psychology professor there. And I was in the class. He was our teaching assistant, and he used to do a lot of LSD at UCLA because they had a program run by the psych department and maybe the army to see what it actually did to people. It was under lab conditions. It was a legalized program, which I never did. But I wanted to talk about how it was legal in those days and about this program and stuff, and the importance of it. So, I knew they would not put it on the camera unless I said I did. And I did not. I lied about it for the camera. And it really got me in trouble because that is the thing that everybody in my town remembered. Everybody loved the program, but I should not have lied about it. I cannot remember what your question was. SM: Just the lasting legacy. What – RP: Oh, the legacy. So sometimes, like I said something, I do not know what the last lasting legacy is for that group. We tried to have a better life. We wanted a better life for everyone. We wanted to have all the best for our kids, for every nationality, every race. We wanted there to be equality. We wanted there to be an end of war. We wanted there to be peace and justice and all those things that we wanted from the sixties, from that period of time and a lot of us worked for it and tried to live it, and some of us still do. SM: Well, that is a perfect answer. And I want to thank you. Somehow in some way, I have got to get two pictures of you, because I have to have pictures. RP: What about from my website? Can you go to my website? SM: Yeah, I can go to your website. RP: Take a look. I do not know what's on there. I do not know. SM: Well, I will check it out. I know there's a good ... Anyways – RP: Have you been – SM: I do not need it right now, but I do need two pictures between now and Christmas. RP: Well look at my website first and see if you can take anything from that. SM: Okay. RP: And if they're not good, there's a whole section there of photographs. SM: All right. RP: That start with, oh dear, I have not looked at them. SM: I know there's a picture of you at an airport. I know that. RP: At an airport? SM: Yeah. You're sleeping on luggage. RP: No, that was not at an airport. You think that was at an airport? SM: I thought either an airport or a bus station. I do not know. RP: That is interesting. I wonder what it is. SM: You were with your girlfriend. There's a girlfriend there. Anyways... RP: A girlfriend? I am going to my website right now. I think I was sleeping, because I used to fall asleep all the time. I was so tired and if I got some place where I could sleep, I would sleep. SM: Yep. Well, that is a picture of you sleeping. And then there's a picture of you awake, just two pictures of you with two different females. And you're in looks like a bus station or airport. RP: Well, I am going to go to that site and try to ... If I can even get my computer to work right. SM: Back then or now? RP: No, no. Maybe two years, three years ago. SM: Oh, geez. RP: And they said these commi something. I cannot remember what it was. It was on a bunch of really right-wing websites. I am trying to go to my website. I cannot get to my website on my computer. SM: All right. Well, I guess that is it. RP: All right. But that picture, that was at the alternative media conference. And we have just gotten driven for two days or something to get to Ann Arbor, and I was falling asleep there. SM: Huh. RP: I have been known to fall asleep in very important places. I am tired. SM: All right. RP: I just fell right out. SM: Well, Roz, thank you very much for spending this time, we went over... (End of Interview) Description 2 Microcassettes Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Roz Payne Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Payne, Roz B. (Roz Berkman), 1940- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Newsreel (Firm); Political activists--United States; Payne, Roz B. (Roz Berkman), 1940--Interviews Description An account of the resource Roz Payne is an educator, activist, and founding member of an antiwar filmmakers group called Newsreel. She released a 12-hour DVD set titled <em>What We Want, What We Believe</em> on the Black Panthers. She has a Bachelor's degree from UCLA. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-10-05 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.157a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.157b 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. 144:08 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/43d6dc9f440acc5d028d2d276035812c.jpg 2670b998c95e460221958c1a586fef35 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/6b4e839e55d34c75684f9609150751df.mp3 38b4ee5e931a29f987bfcba13a68e830 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-03-02 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sam Brown, 1943- Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Sam Brown is a politician and political activist. Brown was the head of ACTION under President Jimmy Carter, and ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He has a Bachelor's degree from the University of Redlands, and a Master's degree from Rutgers University. He also completed his graduate studies at Harvard University Divinity School."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":7043,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial"}">Sam Brown is a politician and political activist. Brown was the head of ACTION under President Jimmy Carter and ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He has a Bachelor's degree from the University of Redlands and a Master's degree from Rutgers University. He also completed his graduate studies at Harvard University Divinity School.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"The Army-McCarthy hearing; Generational Gap; National Student Association; C.I.A.; Communist Propaganda; Young Americans for Freedom; Leadership; Non-violence; Lafayette Square; Kent State; Student for a Democratic Society; Black Panthers; Peace Corps."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":14281427}}">The Army-McCarthy hearing; Generational Gap; National Student Association; C.I.A.; Communist Propaganda; Young Americans for Freedom; Leadership; Non-violence; Lafayette Square; Kent State; Student for a Democratic Society; Black Panthers; Peace Corps</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 119:03 Subject LCSH Politicians--United States--20th century; Political activists--United States; Brown, Sam, 1943--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Sam Brown Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 2 March 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:04:39): Testing, one, two. This will carry very well. Done pretty good. I noticed something when I was reading your background. It was a quote. And I would like you to explain it a little further. "It never occurred to me that America could be wrong." You are quoted as saying that when you were younger. SB (00:05:01): Well, I grew up in Council Bluffs, Iowa in an egalitarian, Republican, religious family. And part of the religion of America is that America's always right. We are the good guys, we saved Europe from itself twice. We ... You know. So as a young man, I thought that almost quasi-religious sense of America's role and mission. And it never occurred to me until, oh probably like a lot of other people I guess, probably about freshman year in college, that maybe all that history that I thought I knew, I did not know as well as I thought I knew it. And that there was another side to America that was ... That we were, in fact, just human. I should have thought ... I should have known that actually from just religious teachings. I mean if we were all fallen, then how would we create a perfect state? SM (00:06:18): Right. SB (00:06:19): So ... But in any case, you know I was a kid. I believed that that is where a simple vision of America, always right, always on the side of the underdog. SM (00:06:38): You think this was ... Because I think a lot of Boomers ... A lot of people do not like the term Boomer so I am going to say those born after 19, about (19)46 and beyond. Certainly, the first 10 years, the frontline Boomers, who lived in the (19)50s and experienced everything from the get-go. I think a lot of Boomers had that feeling, what you are talking about because the parents were home, they had defeated two of the really worst dictatorships in the world. And things looked pretty good at home despite the Cold War and McCarthy telling people they were Communists. And- SB (00:07:17): Well, and there was an enormous growth in the economy. There was all this surge in education. People who had never thought they would get a college education, knew that their kids would. I was born in (19)43 so I was very much in that ... One of my very earliest memories actually is the Army-McCarthy hearings in, which would have been I guess, (19)50, (19)51. SM (00:07:47): (19)51, yeah. SB (00:07:48): Yeah. I remember coming home from school for lunch and seeing it on our- SM (00:07:52): Black and white- SB (00:07:53): ... black and white television set, yeah. SM (00:07:56): It is amazing. See, I had a little boy. I was born at the end of 1946 and I can remember before going to the school ... Actually, I am a first-grader or kindergarten. But we had half days in kindergarten. I remember being home and being on the floor and hearing this man yell. He did not ... I did not like him. I did not like that. Did you have a generation gap with your parents? SB (00:08:24): Well, sure. I mean they really were on that World War I ... I mean, my parents were both born at the end of World War I and so their formative years were the depression and World War II. And America's enormous achievements during those years were really quite remarkable. And so, they saw in a different ... They saw the world through different eyes than somebody born in the grow and prosperity and opportunity that we were born into. So, in that sense, I did not always get along with my parents. I mean we had political differences that drove us apart for a number of years. But we were never apart as parent and child. We grew apart politically. Some things were just off the table, and I thought they were old fogies. SM (00:09:26): Yeah. You were a Republican when you were young. What changed you? Was there a specific event that changed you to become a Democrat? SB (00:09:34): Well, what changed me was not Republican to Democrat so much as the Civil Rights Movement. Remember this was the days when there was actually a reasonable Republican Party. And it was the era of Rockefeller. And the idea that the Republican Party could actually, particularly on civil rights early on, there were probably more Republicans willing to vote for bills than there were Democrats because the demographic of the Senate being so Southern, the Democrats being so Southern. So, I mean what changed me was not anything in the parties. It was that it was seeing a little more of the world and what actually happened in that world. Seeing, particularly, foreign workers in California. I was involved very early on with some efforts to ... In the unionization efforts of- SM (00:10:39): [inaudible]. SB (00:10:41): ... all of the farm workers. Not at any leadership. Just- SM (00:10:43): Right. SB (00:10:44): But you know, helping out, setting up tables, volunteering for things, that sort of stuff. In fact, that is what I was doing the day that Kennedy was ... John Kennedy was shot. SM (00:10:58): Mm-hmm. SB (00:10:59): And you saw that the world was not all this ... The same as this sort of white, red world in which I had grown up in Council Bluffs. And even Council Bluffs probably was not that way if I had had my eyes open all the time. But I had grown up in a middle class, relatively privileged family. And then you see what is happening to other people and you say, "Well, wait a minute. This is not working very well." And so that, I think, that and the Civil Rights Movement probably, were the things that eventually ... SM (00:11:38): When you were young, were you ... I know you were involved in a college but were you an involved student in high school? Did you just study and did well in classes and when was that first point where you said to yourself, "I want to make a difference in this world? I think I have it within me to"- SB (00:11:56): Freshman year in college, probably. High school, high school was high school in the late (19)50s. I was a whole lot more interested in cars and girls than I was in politics. And freshman year in college, Allard Lowenstein came to the campus. He was at Stanford then. He was Dean of Men at Stanford and came to give a speech. And he had just come back from Southwest Africa. And a small group of us, for one reason or another, met with him and got to talking to him. And it was really Allard who gave me the sense [inaudible]. You focus your attention and make an effort, you actually can make a difference in the world. So really, freshman year in college was very important for me. Very important for me. I mean, by the end of that year, I was just on campus stuff. The administration shut down the student newspaper because of an article that ... Either because of an article I had written in the paper or an article. I mean it was never quite clear but they were very angry, in any case. And so, we started an alternative newspaper and I mean ... So, by the end of my freshman year, I was pretty much involved. Then, only on campus and helping out. SM (00:13:42): That is interesting you had that experience. I saw that reference someplace in some of the information on you. And if you look later on in your life, in your young life, there's that time when you were with the National Student Association. And then as you got a more important role within that organization, you saw that the CIA had admitted to infiltrating. The organization of the International Scholars Program over in Europe, I guess. And that really upset you. SB (00:14:16): Yeah, I would not say infiltrating it, so much as that was the CIA had been funding a number of cultural institutions, the Congress for Cultural Freedom and other things in Encounter Magazine. And the National Student Association had turned out from sometime in the early 50s. And it really undermined the claim that we made because there were two sort of competing organizations of students. And the CIA knew what I believed to be true. That in developing countries particularly, the student leaders of today are likely to be the leaders of tomorrow because the very narrow elite. So, the student leaders tend to move into positions of authority. And certainly, the Russians and the Soviets knew that. And they were funding then an organization imported in Prague that was ... Pretended to be an organization of students who was really an organization of part of the Communist Propaganda Apparatus, basically. And the United States started funding an alternative organization of which the NSA was a leading player. And the agency was very smart. They knew that if ... That they probably could not fund it openly because of Congress. Because most of the people who were involved were people of moderate left persuasion because we were going to talk to European and African, Asian students. You could not go there. The right wing did not have much to talk to them about. So, from sometime in the early (19)50s until 1967, they had funded a variety, mostly of international activities for students, without telling many of the people that that is where the money was coming from. It theoretically came from a foundation in Upstate New York, Corning. That is the old Corning Glass money. So, the whole time we were pedaling along, we were saying, "Oh well, they are the bad guy, Communist Propaganda Apparatus. We are just the blossom of America's youth out to ... Because of ..." And many people did not know. I mean Gloria Steinem was on one of the first delegations to go. And there were a number of other people. I mean I have met other people through the years who were on that delegation of which Gloria was probably the most famous. But they did not know that it was CIA money. And it really was ... It just made a lie out of the whole thing because of it. I understand why it happened. I understand how it happened. But I disapproved then, I disapprove now. If it had been done directly through the State Department ... Maybe it could not have been done because of McCarthy and McCarthy [inaudible]. SM (00:17:54): Yeah. SB (00:17:55): But if it had been done straight through the State Department, you just said, "Yeah, we got a grant from the State Department to go to this trip." Well, okay, that is fine. I mean nobody would have had any problem with that. SM (00:18:06): Upon reflection, after all of your experiences even beyond when you were in college and certainly the years you were organizing the Moratorium and the Anti-War Movement, it did not surprise you then that the CIA or the infiltrating organizations to- SB (00:18:28): It did surprise me. SM (00:18:29): Even during the (19)60s and the- SB (00:18:32): Yeah, it did surprise me. That was a great shock to me. It was a great shock to me. But it is now 40 years later. I can reflect back on it and say, "Well, it was this and that, I disapprove of it still." But I was shocked at the time. I mean I was in graduate school and was Chairman of the Board of NSA at the time and I had no idea. And then this allegation was made. There was a discussion at a board meeting about the allegation and everybody said, "No, it is not true. It is not true. It is not true. It is not true. It is not true. It is this crazy left rhetoric." And then three days later, I got the call saying, "Well, it was true." So the people that I had known for many years who were aware of it had been lying to me the whole time. So ... SM (00:19:22): Wow. SB (00:19:23): And they were sort of suborned into it. They signed an oath and they were, I think, basically threatened that they had to keep their mouths shut about it. I do not find that easy to forgive either. But ... You know, you get older, you understand. SM (00:19:53): There has been so many events in your life, so many experiences that really had an impact on you. But can you pinpoint one event, whether it was something you were involved in or something beyond you where you had no control, that really had the greatest impact on you as a human being? We are talking it could be a tragedy, a ... SB (00:20:20): Oh. I mean probably the event that changed me the most was that first meeting with Al Lowenstein because it really changed the direction of my life. Beyond that, I mean I had things that were weird. I started to say, I was on a Thursday night. I was studying and slogging my way through a manuscript in German. And Sunday morning, I was on Meet the Press. I mean that is a fairly rapid change of venue. And that was the CIA stuff. And I came ... I got on the plane right away and I was in Boston at the time. I came down here and held a couple of days of hearings and then went on Meet the Press with Joe Clark and I cannot remember who. There were a couple of other people on that program. Anyway, that had an enormous impact. But so did the early successes of the McCarthy Campaign changed what I could do subsequently because I got known and got known among other things among contributor circles so that when it came time for the Moratorium, I knew where to raise the money. So, it was ... Anyway. SM (00:21:54): You were involved in a lot of anti-war activities way before the Moratorium. SB (00:21:59): Yes. SM (00:22:00): In college years and- SB (00:22:01): Yes. SM (00:22:01): And I remember reading the Vietnam ... I think it was Vietnam Summer which was the (19)67. SB (00:22:08): Yeah. SM (00:22:09): Explain what that is because people are going to be reading this now, most of them are not going to have a whole lot of knowledge of that particular period, some of the specifics. Well, the Vietnam Summer. SB (00:22:22): The Vietnam Summer was an effort, as you say, in 1967, to get some of the people who had been organizing on their college campuses to actually go do it more broadly on a community-based level. And the theory was that you get however many people you could get to spend their summer talking to friends and neighbors and trying to find beyond the campus or beyond their campus at least, a way to talk to people about the war. It was really, as I recall it, sort of a successor to the teach-in movement from before that. That was broader. It was an effort, it was a broad educational effort, an outreach effort, that was before everything went to hell. SM (00:23:14): Yeah. I remember reading that there were 500 paid staffers and 26,000 volunteers in that anti-Vietnam project all over the country. SB (00:23:24): Yeah, that sounds a little inflated, frankly. I mean- SM (00:23:28): Yeah. SB (00:23:28): ... 500 paid staffers. Not likely. SM (00:23:31): That might be misinformation [inaudible]- SB (00:23:33): Yeah. Somebody's inflated notion about how good it was. I mean it was- SM (00:23:38): But those experiences, did they help you in prepping you for McCarthy and being involved in the McCarthy- SB (00:23:44): Oh sure. SM (00:23:44): ... experience? SB (00:23:44): Sure. SM (00:23:45): And how did you ever get that position? Because my golly, people would die to get a position like that at such a young age. SB (00:23:52): Hawk, with David Hawkins, another ... I mean we worked on a bunch of different things. We worked on a series of letters from student body presidents and student newspaper editors that we published in the New York Times because the administration, the Johnson Administration, was trying to say, "Well, it' is just a radical, crazy, lefty fringe that is against the war." And we wanted to say, "No, no, no. This is a mainstream, student leader, student’s newspaper editor. This is not your ... You cannot dismiss this as just a bunch of crazies." And through that, and through NSA itself, I probably knew people on ... I do not know, 3, 400 college campuses around the country. And that was in the days when it was not so easy because without email ... I mean now you can be in touch with 400 people with the touch of a button. Then, you either had to pick up the telephone and call them or you had to send them a letter. I mean there was no real, easy way to communicate. You could do a fax, but it is the same thing. You could not ... We did not have mass blast faxes at the time. So, it was just sort of ... And a lot of students would not have access to a fax machine anyway. The newspaper editors would and probably the student body presidents, too. But in any case, it was a lot of hard work. So, we spent months making phone calls and pulling together those ads. And through NSA, which had a big gathering every summer, you would get together with people from 3 or 400 different campuses. Well that is a big benefit when you are trying to organize something to actually know people face-to-face. SM (00:25:56): See one of the things that I do not think is talked about enough in the literature on the (19)60s is the National Student Association. I think it was formed in the late (19)40s or something like that. Hubert Humphrey was somewhat connected or- SB (00:26:09): Yeah. SM (00:26:09): ... at the very beginning. Why has that organization ... Obviously, it still exists. But why is that organization not being pushed to the forefront when we are talking about the Anti-War Movement and all the groups. I do not ever hear the NSA discuss or even the Young Americans for Freedom which was a Conservative group. You hear about SDS. You hear about Vets Against the War, those kinds of groups. SB (00:26:34): It is all ... NSA also had this broad educational function and education reform function. It was not a single representative it had. And it was composed of a broad range of people. I mean I remember Danny Boggs from the Harvard delegation, every year wrapping the ... Using very clever parliamentary tactics to delay activity. I mean it was a broad-based organization and it represented a lot of different people. I knew a lot of the leadership of Young Americans for Freedom because they were also at NSA. So unlike SDS which had a conscious ideology, NSA was less ideological and certainly more modest in its moderating, I would say. Because it was broadly based. And the membership of it was student governments, not individuals. So, if the student government was headed by somebody conservative, then you get to the convention in the summer and it'd be very hard to get certain things done because you would have a resistance. Now eventually, by the summer of (19)64 as I recall, I think we got a resolution passed supporting Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party that year. And lots of people who then became well-known were there at the time. And that includes everybody from Tom Hayden and some of the people, more ideological people, to people like Rodger Reaper who was the editor of the student newspaper at Illinois or ... I do not know. There's a whole bunch of people that we knew. Rik Hertzberg is now at the New Yorker and then the editor of the Crimson and ... There are probably 50 of those people that I could Google and they'd come up with a long list of stuff. SM (00:28:54): Yeah. It is interesting that I am trying to interview him as well because he's a friend of Charles Kaiser, the writer. So, I just sent an email to him to see if I can interview him. SB (00:29:06): Tom? Oh, Rik Hertzberg, Henrik Hertzberg? SM (00:29:11): Yeah. SB (00:29:11): Yeah. SM (00:29:11): Yep. SB (00:29:11): Yeah. SM (00:29:12): So, I am hoping ... And I did not use a speech writer for Jimmy Carter and ... One of the things- SB (00:29:20): We spent the summer together, Rik and I, in the summer of 19 ... Must have been (19)65, I guess. At what later turned out to be CI Summer Camp. And then he went on to work for the US Student Press Association for a year. SM (00:29:37): The links between McCarthy, you were a very important person in that position because when you think of Chicago (19)68, that is something that comes to everybody's mind, the- SB (00:29:50): Actually- SM (00:29:51): Go ahead. SB (00:29:53): [inaudible]. I have just realized that I sort of filibustered the answer to your question about how I got there. I did not intend to, but I started a ways back. SM (00:30:02): Right. SB (00:30:03): So, the- SB (00:30:03): It started a ways back. SM (00:30:03): Right. SB (00:30:03): So, the end of all of that story is that when it came time for them... Oh, and then there was one other big piece in there, which was the summer of 1967. There was a huge fight at NSA about who was going to be president of NSA for the succeeding year. And I lost by a few votes to a guy, the name of Ed Schwartz, who lives in Philadelphia now, and Ed was really the education reform. He said that is what we should be doing. And I was the candidate of anti-war that said what we should do is that an NSA should essentially devote its resources to ending the war in Vietnam. I did not, of course, know at the time that it was... No, maybe I did. Because by that time, the CIA funding had ended that spring. That was when it blew up. Anyway, I said, what it should be doing was anti-war stuff, and I lost. But we then went on to form an organization called the Alternative Candidate Task Force, which was to be the student effort to find the new candidate, an alternative to Johnson. And I became the head of that. So, in the fall the campaign, when we found the candidate, I had already been working for months on the process of finding that candidate. I knew the people who were involved in campuses all over the country. Allard Lowenstein was the kind of Pied Piper. He would go out and give the speeches, and then Curtis Gans would do the follow-up and actually make an organization out of Allard's enthusiasm. Harold Ickes was working in New York at the time, and I was traveling around to campuses. I was doing the campus side of that. I ran the campaign to the college Young Democrats to elect the slate of officers that was against the war and then looking for an alternative candidate. And we won that to the great chagrin of the White House. And anyway, long story short is I would spent years doing this stuff. So, when it came time for the campaign to do something, there was my smiling face. SM (00:32:37): What amazes is, well, it is obvious. It comes out over and over again. Organizer, organizer, organizer. That is such a skill. Because I know, I have been working with students for 30 some years, and most of them do not know the first thing about how to organize. They have a lot of friends and they can get their friends to come to things, and they go to all these student organization lectures and conferences, but they still do not know. And so, I think it is something that we need to do a better job of, especially with college students today. That is just my personal opinion. Because the question I am tired of hearing about over and over again is, I do not know what to do. And I believe in young people. So, it is just that they need to have confidence that they can do it. But one of the things here is 1968 was such an unbelievable event. You were in Chicago? SB (00:33:32): Yeah. SM (00:33:33): What was it like being there? Tom Gorman, I interviewed too, and he told me the experience he had with Senator McCarthy in Chicago in (19)68. But explain what it was like to be there. Secondly, to be the link between Senator McCarthy and the protestors. SB (00:33:57): Yeah. Well, most of them were friends of mine. I mean, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis particularly. But I knew a lot of the other people around too. Carl Oglesby was there. They were people I knew from the years past. So, it was a natural thing that I should be asked really on behalf of the campaign to go meet with them, talk to them, try and figure out if there was a way to minimize the damage on the campaign by their actions. We had no idea, of course, that the police would turn out, that there would be a riot, a police riot as the Ryan Commission later said. We could not predict that. What we could try to do was to help the demonstrations be peaceful, well-organized, not destroy any chance of getting a resolution through the convention opposing the war. It turned out we probably did not have a chance to get that anyway. It was a kind of symbolic effort to get a peace plank in the platform, which we lost. But anyway, my job was to try to minimize the damage, which was all really, I mean, there was no way it was going to be helpful. So how do you minimize the damage is really the question. And it was natural that I should be the person asked to do that. And I spent some time with them over the summer and then early on at the convention, and then did not spend much time actually with them during the convention itself. But I was outside the Hilton Hotel when the police attacked, I was actually sitting in the street with Carl Oglesby and he said, "Well, the police are going to attack." I said, "Carl, come on. The whole damn world is watching. There is television cameras up on the ledge of the Hilton Hotel. They are not going to do anything stupid." Well, how wrong was I? SM (00:36:26): Oh my gosh. SB (00:36:27): Two minutes later. Tear gas every place and we were trying to get out of Dodge. SM (00:36:35): Yeah, just to be there. I saw it on TV. SB (00:36:41): It scared the bejesus out of you, I will tell you. Because you get in a crowd like that, the crowd is as dangerous. Just the panic. SM (00:36:52): Who was at fault? I have read many books on this. Were the young people at fault or were the police at fault? SB (00:37:02): I think there is no question it was the police. I mean, they just lost it. And they lost it, I mean, I understand most of the people in the street were kids of privilege. They were college students. They were college graduates. They were people who could afford to come, who were not working the second week in August, could afford to be in Chicago. And the cops did not have any of that privilege. Probably not mostly college educated. Their jobs to maintain order. They are pissed off because these are raggedy-looking, yada-yada, yada. I mean, in some ways they were attacking their own kids or their own family, I think part of it, or whatever. I mean, nobody will ever be able to fully explain the psychology of it. But there is no question that they lost it. I mean just completely lost it. Nothing would have happened. Maybe a few windows would have gotten broken, but I am not even sure of that. SM (00:38:07): Well, there was disruption within inside the convention too. And of course, when Ribicoff spoke, they were swearing at him up there. SB (00:38:14): Yeah. SM (00:38:16): Senator Ribicoff. So, it was happening within it, because we all know what happened to Dan Rather. They roughed him up. So, a lot of things were happening. SB (00:38:23): Well, and Daley was the lead. He is the guy standing up saying fuck you. What do you think the police think? SM (00:38:30): What was Senator McCarthy thinking though? SB (00:38:32): I have no idea. SM (00:38:33): He was seeing this too. Two things come out of this. I guess you were a witness, too, at the Chicago Seven trial? SB (00:38:41): I was. SM (00:38:41): And of course, there were eight of them. Then of course Bobby, they took him away. But what was it like to be asked to be in that room? Did you feel a lot of pressure? I mean, a lot of them were your friends, but you had to be objective. SB (00:38:58): Well, yeah, I had to say what I saw and knew, which is pretty much what I just said to you. That they did not have any, I mean, there was no plan on behalf of the leadership of those demonstrations to end up in the circumstances in which they ended up. I was there enough to know that nobody was passing out clubs or wearing helmets. None of the things that would make you think, whoa, wait a minute, what is going on here? Were there 10 rabblerousers, or 50? Maybe. I do not know. But there was no plan. I mean, Dave Dillinger was not planning some revolutionary action in the street. I mean, it was a stupid [inaudible]. SM (00:39:50): They picked those eight people. I mean. SB (00:39:53): Who knows? SM (00:39:54): Some of them were well known. But a couple of them, Lee Weiner was not well-known. SB (00:40:01): No. SM (00:40:01): There is another one that is well known. He is a professor in California. But anyway, so being in that trial, in that room with Judge Julius Hoffman, you experienced him firsthand then. SB (00:40:14): Yeah. It was not exactly an objective courtroom. I mean, the atmosphere was very hostile in the room. But I did not have so much to say. They wanted me because they wanted me as a defense witness to say I had observed the preparations. I knew that there were no plans for riot. I was there that night. I was in the campaign. I certainly was not with the demonstrators. And just they did not do it. SM (00:40:48): Did the prosecuting attorneys try to make you feel like you... SB (00:40:54): Oh yeah. SM (00:40:56): William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass were on the other side helping. SB (00:41:00): These are your friends. And of course, you are going to say what you say. No, I did not say it that way because they were my friends. I said it that way because that is the way it happened in short. But it was very brief as I recall. They wanted to get that piece on the record, and I got that piece on the record. SM (00:41:22): Yeah, I have read so much about it, and I have read so many different opinions and thoughts of it. And now quite a few of them have, well, several of them have passed on. Abbie and Jerry and have passed on, and Dave Delinger too. SB (00:41:41): Yeah. Well, Abbie and Jerry were always wild cards. I mean, I did not know them so well, unlike Tom and Rennie, Dave. SM (00:41:50): I interviewed Rennie. Rennie is smart as the dickens. SB (00:41:55): Yeah, he is. SM (00:41:56): But he does not like to talk about it anymore. He into a different sphere. Spirituality, that is his life now. And actually, his girlfriend, the person that was with him, it is the first time I have heard any of this. He does not even to talk about it anymore. SB (00:42:07): Is he living in Colorado? SM (00:42:08): He lives in Colorado. I guess he has done real well. Goes all over the country in a big expensive Winnebago with his, I am not sure if it is his girlfriend or his partner or whatever the story is. But she is also very well-educated and they talk about spirituality together. So, she is well-known too. But he is an unbelievable person. He gave me two hours of his time in a restaurant when he was in DC that is way beyond the call of duty, because he had to give two speeches that night. So, he was great. And I have interviewed David Harris, and I have interviewed a lot of good people. SB (00:42:48): Dave was a very good guy. SM (00:42:49): Dave was a great guy. SB (00:42:52): Yeah. SM (00:42:52): One of the things that really struck me when I interviewed Senator McCarthy. He did not really say anything to me. I asked Tom Gorman, I have asked other people, David Hawk, I asked people who worked on his campaign, what happened to him after Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. Because you would have thought, with Humphrey and the other guy, you would have thought. He was sad, obviously, and he had his differences. But it's my understanding that that really did affect him, the assassination, even though he did not like him that well. Why did not he go gung-ho, pick up the reins and try to be the Democratic nominee? SB (00:43:36): Well, at the time, we were all very angry at him. SM (00:43:39): Let me switch. Here we go. Okay. SB (00:43:48): So, McCarthy in the summer of 1968, I think we were all very disappointed. Quite angry, in fact. About that time, there was that Paul Simon song, "Where have you have gone, Joe DiMaggio? The nation Turns its lonely eyes to you." SM (00:44:04): Yeah. SB (00:44:05): Well, that was a kind of theme song around the office, because everybody was saying, where have you gone, Gene? I mean, what the hell's going on? Now, I do not know that we'd ever would have gotten a completely straight answer to that question. But I think it was not so much being devastated by it as it was that he was a realistic guy, and he knew he was not going to get the nomination. Or that his view was that there was nothing he could do that would get him the nomination, and therefore it was just creating false expectations and hopes to be out. Maybe he was devastated by it. Maybe he was. But what happened, of course, is a lot of Kennedy people did not come over to McCarthy, but in fact went to McGovern. And McCarthy regarded that as only one more sign of the duplicitous nature of Kennedy's supporters and whatever. And remember with him, it goes also way back to 1956 in the Democratic convention. SM (00:45:24): Oh, that is right. When John Kennedy was going to run for vice president, and he did not have to. Yes, he had no shot. Stevenson was going to win. SB (00:45:36): But McCarthy nominated Stevenson at that convention. And so, the animus there was very deep and in some way’s kind of inexplicable. I mean, his vote against Teddy for the leadership position two years later. I mean, it was crazy stuff. SM (00:45:59): Yeah, I remember Tom Gorman. You know Tom? SB (00:46:03): Yeah. SM (00:46:04): He said he was up with McCarthy looking over the protest in their room. They had a little balcony. And so, they went out on the balcony and they could smell the tear gas and all the things going on. And he thought Senator McCarthy would get very upset with what was going on. But then he said it was listening to a professor talking about philosophy or something like that, no emotion. And he said he quit on the spot. He quit because he did not see the emotion of young people being beaten in and all the things. And this is America and he is running for president. SB (00:46:43): And he is a hundred feet from it straight above. SM (00:46:45): Yeah, and that is amazing, knowing the man. I have met him three times. That is not the man that I talked to, but maybe he is different personalities, multiples at times. One of the things too, you said something that is very important, I think this is important. I mean, I am trying to interview Brian Lamb at C-SPAN, and I know his philosophy, and this is comparable to what you just said. This is a quote from you: The worst thing that can happen to an organizer is to become identified as a leader. And that is Brian Lamb at C-SPAN. We took students to see him. He said, there is no superstars at C-SPAN. If you want to be a superstar, go to ABC. He does not allow any superstars to see it at C-SPAN. And he is very sensitive when he was thrust to the front. And I know it was at a time when all young people were questioning leaders, did not trust any of the leaders, but is that very important, a little bit about who you are as a human being? SB (00:47:50): Yeah. I mean, partly it was, as you say, at the time, it was do not trust leaders, watch the parking meters. It was partly that. It was partly, too, that if you are trying to organize something, what you want is as broadly as possible for everyone to think they are a leader, for everyone to be a part of it. And if you are either self-proclaimed or proclaimed by others to be the leader, you lose people at that point. I mean, when you become visible in that way, people take shots at you, or think you are gotten too big for your britches, or you are this or you are that or the other thing. So, I mean, it is both a real sentiment about that it is better that it be broadly shared. And it is a tactical thing as well, that the more people you can drag in and make them feel good and important, the broader base of activity. Now, that is not always true, but I think it was true then. At that time, in that circumstance, I think that was true. SM (00:49:21): What is interesting is when you look at the Boomer generation of perception out there is it is a generation that does not trust, and for very obvious reasons, because so many of the leaders lied to them, whether it be Lyndon Johnson or the Gulf of Tonkin. We all know about Watergate. And even as they progressed into older age, or even older, you could say, Iran Contra with Ronald Reagan. Nobody trusted Gerald Ford. SB (00:49:50): When he pardoned Nixon. SM (00:49:53): Pardoned Nixon. Because there has got to be some sort of a deal there. Jimmy Carter at times was attacked for the amnesty for people up in Canada. And then of course, you can even go back to Eisenhower where the U2 incident relayed on public television, on TV. And I remember seeing that as a little boy, him talking about Gary Powers and saying that we are not spying, Ike-like. SB (00:50:18): No kidding. SM (00:50:19): On national television. And then of course, as you read later on, John Kennedy, and he was involved with the coup in Vietnam. I do not think Kennedy wanted him killed, but I think he was upset. But he gave the okay for the overthrow. So here we got leader after leader after leader, after leader, not trusting. And college students at that time did not trust anybody with responsibility, whether they be the president of the university, or a minister, or a rabbi. They did not trust anybody in leadership. And I think you hit something very important here. Do you feel that your feeling was really [inaudible] amongst many of the Boomers? SB (00:51:03): I do not know. I mean, I cannot speak for other people. I just know that it was a sentiment. My sense of the people with whom I worked was that you wanted to be very careful, that claiming leadership is likely to lose you the ability to actually be a leader. SM (00:51:31): Once you were designated a leader though, when you became the head of Action, when you became the head of these other organizations later in life, you were a leader. You were assigned, you were picked just like you were picked by McCarthy. You were the Clean for Gene, which I want you to talk about there, but you were picked to be the leader of this. So, you might feel that, but you are showing a lot of sensitivity here that you are more about collaboration than you are about... SB (00:52:03): Yeah. Even when I was at Action, we brought in a series of consultants to work on something that the Congress then later countered me around for called Workplace Democracy. I thought that it was important to bring people into the governance process. Not always into the policy making process because that is really the Congress and the President set direction and my job was to carry out that direction. But to set the tone of the workplace and the way to get it done, I thought the way to do that was to bring as many people as possible into it. So, we had this sort of ongoing thing, and we hired. SM (00:53:03): I know you hired Dick Celeste. I am a big Dick Celeste person. SB (00:53:06): Yeah. Well, but we hired this consultant to come to do workplace democracy. Anyway. Oh, yeah. I was very fortunate because the president gave me a lot of room to succeed or fail, and I was able to get Dick to come to the Peace Corps and John Lewis to come to run the domestic programs. And John Podesta to be my chief of staff. I mean, I had a good crowd. Betty Curry, then Betty Mitchell, but later, Betty Curry, the president's secretary, Clinton's secretary was my secretary for four years. So, for a little tiny agency, we had a lot of very high-quality people. Tom Glenn, who was later Under Secretary of Labor, worked there. I do not know. We had a good crowd. SM (00:54:09): Good people then. And then the Moratorium is something, when you look at your history, I think me personally, I think of the Moratorium and I think of Action, and certainly all your involvement as a great organizer. These things really stand out. I know I have read about the Moratorium, but how did it come about? Before we go there. Clean for Gene. SB (00:54:36): Oh, Clean for Gene. SM (00:54:37): Clean for Gene, and then we will go right to the Moratorium. SB (00:54:39): Okay. SM (00:54:40): Because those are big decisions, both by you. SB (00:54:44): Clean for Jean was, I mean, I think probably Mary McGrory probably invented the phrase, but the idea was a simple one. We are going to a place that is essentially New England, conservative, small-town America. We are trying to talk to people about voting for our candidate. You want them to listen as open-mindedly as possible to the argument and not be put off by appearance. Therefore, you need to appear in such a way that people, when they see you standing on the doorstep are inclined to open the door and talk to you or offer you a cup of coffee, rather than slamming the door in your face. So, if you are not sorted around, that is if you are not dressed properly, if your hair is too long, if you look like you are not going to be able to have that open conversation with people by and large older, a generation older in many cases, who had expectations that were framed in the forties, not in the (19)60s, then you need to appear appropriately. I mean the rules were pretty clear. If you are going to get on a bus to come to New Hampshire, do not bother if we cannot use you. Now, sometimes when people got there, if their appearance was not appropriate, then we put them to work in the basement of the headquarters filing, keeping track of file cards. But we did not put them out on the street unless we thought they had a chance to actually influence people in a positive way. SM (00:56:44): That is the New York Yankee way too. The Yankees have this thing about appearances, remember? Because Johnny Damon had the... And that is what Bobby Cox does for the Atlantic Braves. You got to look at your part, look like a pro. SB (00:56:56): Yeah. SM (00:56:57): And they can still have a mustache. SB (00:57:01): Right-right. SM (00:57:01): Yeah. SB (00:57:03): So anyway, that then the press picked up on it and sort of loved it. So, there you go. But that was really, I was in charge of that organizing effort in New Hampshire, and so I made the rules. SM (00:57:27): How were you appointed to this very important role, again in McCarthy? McCarthy had to make the final decision. He picked you. SB (00:57:37): Well, they were not initially focused on New Hampshire. In fact, there was some discussion of not even contesting New Hampshire because it's a conservative state. We did not have that good an organization on the ground. Maybe we should focus first on Wisconsin, a more congenial place. But some of us in the campaign felt that we had a shot at New Hampshire in an important way. And one way to say that was to say, okay, well, I believe it so strongly, I am want to go there. And then it turned out I ended up. I mean, they were not going to make a 60-year-old in charge of the student volunteers coming in. So, I was at the right place at the right time. Just lucky. SM (00:58:37): Now, the Moratorium, that idea came from... Oh, I remember some name came out of nowhere. I never heard of the person, but you were one of the leaders of starting the Moratorium. But originally the idea of a strike, and I have done a lot of reading about- SB (00:58:54): That is Jerry Grossman. SM (00:58:56): Yeah. Now who is he? SB (00:58:57): Jerry was the president of Mass Envelope Company. He is an older business guy who was the head of Massachusetts Peace Action Council. He is actually still alive. His son is running for Congress, the Senate, I do not know. SM (00:59:13): Oh, wow. SB (00:59:15): And used to be the Democratic National Committee, the chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, his son. Jerry is now probably in his (19)80s, writes a blog. And he had this idea, Mass PAC actually had the idea. I mean, Jerry was the president, but the idea, I think grew up sort of organically through the organization, through Mass PAC to call a national strike. And Jerry went to see, I do not know, probably Marty [inaudible] to talk to him about money to do this thing. And Marty said, "No, go talk to Sam Brown." And I was teaching a course at the Kennedy School at the time. SB (01:00:02): ... I was teaching a course at the Kennedy School at the time, and because I was not very good, I was young, I was kind of intimidated, most of the students were more or less my age. I was 25 and I had only graduate students and juniors and seniors, so it was ... Everybody in there was more or less my age. And I was fairly intimidated by that and not really very good at what I was doing. So, I threw out the standard way of doing it and said, "Look, since it is a seminar in contemporary American politics, what we are going to do here is we are going to talk about what you would do. We are going to learn about how politics works and what might work or might not work by taking a real issue, ending the war in Vietnam, and whether you agree with that or not, it does not matter. What we are going to talk about in this seminar is what might work." And at some point, in that seminar, we were talking about everything, demonstrations, letter writing campaigns, congressional campaigns, cutting off the budget, da-da, da-da. At some point, the idea of a strike came up, and Jerry had come to talk to me about it as I recall. And I said, "Nah, that can never work. It is too militant. It is too labor oriented. It does not sound like something that you can talk to people in the Midwest about. It sounds like the 1930s. It sounds like some lefty idea from the (19)30s. We cannot do that. But maybe we can find a way to think about that idea and not say we are going to have a strike and shut down American business, but to say instead, we are going to put aside a day to think about, to focus on this national issue and that they will put aside business as usual. Not shut down the factories, but put aside business as usual to contemplate what we are doing." And anyway, that grew over a period of time through that spring, in that seminar we refined that idea, and we needed ... Refined it to the place where we thought it was a pretty good idea. And then I raised some money to start the organization. And I had friends who I'd worked with in other things, David Hawk, David Mixner, Marge Sklencar, and a couple of students from my seminar, two or three students, in fact, from my seminar, who came to work in the office. And so, we started with a core staff of six or eight people, 10 or something like that. The core probably being the four of us, David and David and Marge and me as co-coordinators, term of art appropriate to the 1960s. Not leader and followers, but co-coordinators [inaudible]. SM (01:03:20): Yeah, that was what SDS was supposed to be about, everybody's ... SB (01:03:25): Yeah, right. SM (01:03:25): Yeah. No leader, just... SB (01:03:32): Yeah. So, we just came down here in June after school was out and opened an office and announced we were going to end the war. Fairly audacious undertaking, but there you go. And because of the McCarthy campaign and the CIA thing, and one thing and another, I knew a lot of press people, so I knew we could get decent coverage for whatever we were going to do. SM (01:04:01): Boy, it was big. Because I can remember students from my college going to it, and it was big. SB (01:04:11): Yes. SM (01:04:11): And I know that we had students going to it from Binghamton, and of course that was ... It was in October, I think? SB (01:04:20): October 15th. SM (01:04:22): Yeah, October 15th was the actual across the country. And then November 15th was the actual event. SB (01:04:25): The [inaudible]". SM (01:04:27): Now, how many people were actually at the Washington Monument, because that is on Thomas Power's book, the front cover of his book? SB (01:04:33): Yeah. SM (01:04:34): That is the picture. SB (01:04:35): Yeah, that picture is actually hanging over there. My wife just gave it to me for Christmas this past year. SM (01:04:41): Oh my gosh. SB (01:04:42): Yeah. That was ... Who knows? I mean, everybody lies and nobody really knows. Estimates vary, but it was probably a half a million people, something like that. But I think you'd ... On any given day, depending on somebody's political instincts, they would say it was a hundred thousand or a million, 500,000. I mean, people ... But I think it was probably around 500,000. SM (01:05:15): It was a tremendous success. But from what I gathered, Nixon, as he always did, "Yeah, it was a big event, but it is not going to affect me at all on how I run things." Is that true? He was ... SB (01:05:29): No. Well, Dan Ellsberg tells me that it is not true, and Dan was still there, and he says that Nixon, that there was serious discussion about the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam, and that the moratorium ended that. Certainly, it forced them to rethink how they were going to conduct the war after that. And their first rethink was in the spring when they actually escalated the war, substantially in April when they ... SM (01:06:07): Oh, yeah. SB (01:06:11): And then that led to its own new round of demonstrations and opposition. But I think, I mean, Dan says he knows this with absolute certainty that from inside ... SM (01:06:33): That movie is out right now, The Most Dangerous Man in America is opening tonight in Philadelphia at the Ritz Theater. I am going tomorrow to see it. SB (01:06:43): Yeah. I saw it a few months ago. SM (01:06:44): I am heading off to the 40th remembrance at Kent State too. I have a question about that, but I have a question about who the speakers were at the moratorium in ... SB (01:06:54): Oh God. SM (01:06:56): ... 1969. I know Benjamin Spock spoke ... SB (01:06:58): There was a struggle all the time because McGovern spoke, but the left did not want him to speak. I do not remember. David Hawk spoke there. I do not know. I just do not remember. I'd gotten arrested with Spock the night before. There was an effort to do something to say this was going to be non-violent. So, we were going to show the way by a demonstration at Lafayette Square, where a bunch of us got arrested. But I do not remember who ... I mean, I remember the fights about who should not speak. SM (01:07:49): Right. You had musicians there too that performed? SB (01:07:53): Yeah, I think Peter, Paul and Mary performed then. I am not sure who else. I just do not know. SM (01:07:57): I think Teddy Kennedy came and spoke too, did not he? I think. SB (01:07:59): I do not ... SM (01:08:01): I have some literature here ... SB (01:08:02): Maybe. SM (01:08:03): ... that says that he came out and said a few things. SB (01:08:04): Okay. SM (01:08:07): Kent State, obviously after the moratorium in (19)69, and the reaction that I thought that Nixon gave to that particular event, then the peace activities were going on, so people looked at him more as the peace candidate, so it kind of died. So, the protest movement kind of ended there until the Kent State killings? SB (01:08:30): Well, it was not clear what he was doing at that point. And what happened really, in my recollection is, in October and November, we spent so much energy that when it came time for December, everybody ... Students were home. They were not on their campuses. It was hard to organize. You could not reach people. We had become sort of sclerotic. We had offices all over the country at that point. We were spending a lot of money to keep alive, not much real activity, so we decided ... I mean, we just sat down with our staff and said, "This is crazy." So, we closed. And then in the spring, of course, with the bombing, the Cambodia bombing over there, yeah, it just sort of blossomed from that. I mean, that was the ... SM (01:09:37): Now that was ... I asked quite a few of my interviewees where they were when two or three of these tragedies happened. Where were you when you heard about Kent State, number one, and where were you when you heard about John Kennedy's assassination? SB (01:09:51): Well, John Kennedy, I remember distinctly, I was at Redlands and I was working on a conference, a farm worker conference that weekend. And we were setting up tables and getting ready to do this conference when I heard about it. And then went to the cafeteria, and we were just sort of all in shock. And Kent State, I was here in Washington, but I do not recall precisely where, but it was so ... I mean, that two or three days around there, it was all kind of mushes together because it was such a blossoming, really, of anti-war activity. I think that spring ... I have this vague recollection that spring was the first Earth Day. SM (01:11:06): Yes. It was April 22. SB (01:11:08): And I had been working on Earth Day with Dennis Hayes and a bunch of people. SM (01:11:12): I have interviewed Dennis. SB (01:11:12): Yeah, he is a good guy. SM (01:11:12): He is. SB (01:11:15): He is a really good guy. So, I was around here because of that, and I had probably traveled someplace on the 22nd to speak, but I was living here and I do not remember exactly where I was. SM (01:11:30): You knew Senator Nelson too, when ... Because he was very involved in Earth Day. SB (01:11:35): Yeah, oh, sure. SM (01:11:36): The organizing of it. SB (01:11:36): Yeah. SM (01:11:36): One of the things that fascinate me about your background too, and I know you are probably very proud of this, was the book that you Wrote, which is called the Storefront Organizing. SB (01:11:50): Oh, Storefront Organizing. SM (01:11:51): And what really got me excited because it was dedicated to Jesse Unruh. I know him real well from living in California, and Senator McCarthy. But I love this quote, and I am not sure ... I get these quotes out of the ... But I think this is beautiful. You got to be proud of this. SB (01:12:11): Whatever. SM (01:12:12): "The bias is against the status quo rather than for it, because the few have always been well organized. The many have never been organized and never had a voice. Grassroots organizing is the way to change this." Now, that to me is beautiful. That is something that is about grassroots organizing. That says it all, but ... SB (01:12:35): Thank you. SM (01:12:35): But no, that is beautiful. But that booklet, you saw the need, just like I mentioned about students today ... I think, I do not know if this book is out of print. I think you ought to get this book back in print, I think, and put it on college campuses, because I think they are lost. SB (01:12:51): Well, it was just, it was largely a technical manual. It is sort of where you get office space and how you do various kinds of things. And of course, the times have changed so much that the techniques would have to have necessarily changed with it. There is actually another thing you may not have seen that I am, in some ways, even prouder of a piece wrote for the Washington Monthly called The Politics of the Peace. SM (01:13:17): When was that? SB (01:13:19): That would have been in late (19)69, early (19)70. SM (01:13:26): Can you get that, or? SB (01:13:29): It is probably archived, or it is certainly in a library, or ... SM (01:13:33): Okay. SB (01:13:37): I do not know. That is what I was looking for over there was to see if I might see a copy of it, but I do not know that I have a copy of it here. Anyway, but that it was a long piece that The New York Times then wrote a very laudatory editorial about, saying that they thought it was real smart, which is always a nice thing to have someone say. SM (01:14:05): Has that ever been put into a book as a ... Like essays of the (19)60s or the (19)70s or? SB (01:14:10): No, no. I think the only place it has been published was in the Washington Monthly. But Random House then came to me and offered me a contractor to write a book, and I went to write the book and discovered when I got to writing it that I really had about 12,000 words to say, and I would said them all. So, I returned the advance to Random House and got on with my life. SM (01:14:39): Wow. That is an interesting story. If I get a copy of that ... I am going to try to find it, but ... Not today, but down the road. SB (01:14:46): Yeah. I do not know whether you can find ... Maybe you can Google or maybe it is ... Or, whatever. Anyway, the Politics of Peace. SM (01:14:56): I have interviewed quite a few people from the Peace Corps in this project. Bill Jacobson ... Bill, he's great. We had a Peace Corps conference that I organized at our camp with Harris Swafford and [inaudible] ... SB (01:15:08): He is a really great guy. SM (01:15:08): Yeah, and we brought in five or six of the original people from the beginning, and ... Of course, Sergeant Shriver could not come because he is not well, and he has got Alzheimers, but they told him that this was happening. We have got it all on tape. But that must have made you feel really good, I mean, to be picked by President Carter to be the head of action and to oversee the Peace Corps and Volunteers in Service to America, which were ... When you were a boomer in the (19)60s, you knew about SDS, you knew about Black Panthers, you knew about certain things. But you knew about the Peace Corps, and you knew about VISTA and they were important. And just any thoughts you have about that experience of working for the Peace Corps, and maybe working with Sergeant Shriver, and knowing the people that were linked to ... And being a part of the continuity of its history? SB (01:16:09): Yeah. Well, again, I was lucky. I mean, I was the state treasurer in Colorado at the time, and I have gotten to know Carter during the course of the campaign. So of course, I was ... When he asked me, I did not hesitate. I probably could have been more gracious to the people who would help me get elected state treasurer by at least having a momentary pause before leaving the job to go to Washington. But, yeah, it was a terrific opportunity. And the Peace Corps is a very interesting institution because it has the theory that people will only be there five years, can only work there for five years, and then have to go out in order to renew. It has a funny opposite effect part of the time, which is that it tends to create the myth that it is ... It clings to its founding myths more strongly, I think, because of that than it might have if the same people had just stayed on. So, I am never sure about how that idea, which seems like a really smart idea, and I thought it was a smart idea, and it seemed like the right idea, but I am not quite sure that it actually works the way the founding fathers would have wanted it to work. And it also may be that just like any other institution, when it gets to a certain size, it becomes very difficult to move it in any very substantial way. I mean, it sort of has its own path and I was too young really probably to figure out that you could not go in and say, "Okay, now we're going to do this," and not have everybody say, "No, we are not going to do that." So, it was difficult for me. I mean, thank God for Dick Celeste, because action had been sort of forced together by the Nixon administration. There was a strong year irredentist movement in the Peace Corps that said it should be independent again. I thought it should be sort of policy independent ... Well, it cannot be policy independent. It's driven by the president. The Congress and the President give the policy. So, it cannot really be ... You know, you cannot go out and remake it into something that is not. But I thought there could be more ways of cooperating and training between Vista and Peace Corps. Peace Corps resisted that pretty systematically and consistently, because they were ... Okay. They would deny this, but I think it is true because they saw themselves as the sort of elite volunteers, VISTA volunteers. I thought being a VISTA volunteer was at least as hard as being a Peace Corps volunteer because you got to deal with your friends and neighbors. SM (01:19:20): When I was in high school, I knew kids that looked at them equally. I know a couple went into VISTA, before they went off to college, they wanted to do the VISTA thing. SB (01:19:31): Yeah. Well, it was a terrific opportunity and a wonderful four years for me, and I could not replace it, and I could not replace the people I had a chance to work with those years, for me. SM (01:19:43): You seem to be a little bit like the person who founded it though, because Sergeant Shriver believed in ... From reading his biography by Stossel, he had a whip in his office. I do not know if you have ever saw the whip? SB (01:19:54): No. SM (01:19:54): Yeah. In the early offices of the Peace Corps, and people asked him, "Why do you have a whip in your office," and being the guy he is, he said, "Well, it just means that I am a hard driving person. I work very hard and I work hour after hour," because he believed that this is the toughest job you will ever have. That was kind of the philosophy, but it is the greatest feeling because he ... Stories about he would sleep on the floor of an airplane when he flew. He did everything that the workers were doing. He was a great example. And one of the things says he believed in the think of hard work, and from what I am gathering and I read about you, you would be working 18-hour days. You had the same kind of philosophy, working all kinds of ... That was one of the qualities, when I read about your background, people admired you because you were a one heck of a worker. SB (01:20:50): Yeah. Well, who is it says, Woody Allen? "Success is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration." Right? Or whoever it was that said that. I think a lot of that is true. And the only thing that they left out is that there is also a good deal of luck involved, in my experience. Being there the right time, in the right place. Now, sometimes if you're working ... Allison (01:21:14): Hello. SB (01:21:17): Hi! If you are working additional hours in one thing than another, you're more likely to be in the right place. Because we are there all the time. SM (01:21:27): In the 2004 election with Senator Carey, you made some comments too, you know one of ... SB (01:21:34): My wife, Allison. SM (01:21:35): Oh, hi. Allison (01:21:35): Oh, do not ... That is okay. We [inaudible] ... SM (01:21:39): One of the things that happens is the Vietnam syndrome. Today, you cannot even bring up Vietnam, or ... At least in the university, and I have been the university for 30 years. Whenever you bring up the word Vietnam or quagmire, it sends all kinds of unbelievable waves amongst fellow boomers that run universities or students who either their parents have told some them about bad things about that particular era or whatever, or maybe not explained it properly. But when Senator Kerry was running for president, you were very upset over bringing ... About his service record, when they were not talking about ideas. It was more, they were making comments about whether everything that he said was true. SB (01:22:24): Oh, [inaudible] because they were lying about his service record. SM (01:22:28): Yeah, yeah. And this is another quote of yours, and I think it is very important because it is somewhat symbolic of what I have witnessed in universities for the past 30 years whenever we talk about Vietnam. And the quote here is that "36 years after the idealism that produced the McCarthy insurgency, I see nasty, mean spirited, politic politics on all sides." You compare it to the Chicago comity pits. I thought that was interesting. And I do not know if that is true, whether that is an exaggerated quote, but you bring up a good point, because in that election, to me, that was ridiculous to bring those things up. SB (01:23:10): Yeah, it was [inaudible] ... SM (01:23:11): Had nothing to do with ... SB (01:23:12): Nothing to do with it. SM (01:23:13): ... what was going on. And to me, it is like the battle of Vietnam never stops. SB (01:23:21): Yeah. Well, the right has sort of demonized the (19)60s, and it was an era of loose morals and loose living and rejection of authority. And I mean, all kinds of things that the right says about it. And I just think that what they confuse, what gets conflated here is, there were really several things going on. One was a kind of cultural identity and revolution in politics, and Abby and Jerry and that crowd were into cultural revolution. Then there was the anti-war movement, which had to do ... Which was focused on political change. And sometimes those got ... They overlap, but frequently they were quite different. That is, the people who were working in the anti-war movement were not also spending their time promoting free love and free drugs and whatever other things that the right has said, "Oh yeah, well, the anti-war in the (19)60s. It is all the same." It was not all the same. There were distinct currents going on, and the anti-war current was, in fact, in some ways ... It certainly questioned authority, but it did not ... Most of us who were deeply involved did not intend to overthrow the cultural life of the world. I mean, we were more interested in ending the war and stopping the killing, and whatever we had to do to effectively do that. And we did not think that meant that the way to get that done was to go around breaking windows and making a fool of yourself. But the right has sort of stuck all that together and called it the (19)60s. And it's really quite different. SM (01:25:30): Because Newt Gingrich, when he came into power in (19)94, made some very strong comments about that particular period and blaming the breakdown of our society, the divorce rate, the second revolution, the drug culture, the isms, the welfare state, everything was blamed on that particular period. SB (01:25:49): Yeah. But I will tell you, you have been around interviewing people. David Hawk has been married for 30 years. I have been married for 30 years, and make a list of whoever you have gone to see. And by and large, I mean ... David Harris, I mean, was first divorced and then his wife tragically died. SM (01:26:12): Died, right. SB (01:26:14): But by and large, the people I know from that era have pretty stable personal lives, and family lives with a spouse or a partner or whatever. And frequently, the people throwing those rocks are the ones who themselves have personal lives that are a mess, and ... SM (01:26:40): Now George occasionally will take shots too. SB (01:26:43): Oh, yeah. SM (01:26:46): In his columns, in his books, he will have one or two little articles really attacking the (19)60s, but attacking the boomers, basically. And yeah, it is 78 million people is what we're talking about. One of the issues that I have tried to bring up with all of my interviewees is the issue of healing. I know we are getting toward the hour and a half here. We took a group of students to see Senator Musky about eight months before he passed away. It was a program we worked with Senator Nelson. I knew Senator Nelson real well. We would brought him twice to Westchester University, and we had organized nine trips. Okay. SB (01:27:30): It has been rescheduled. I am going to need to take it. SM (01:27:31): Right. SB (01:27:33): But they will call and let me know. SM (01:27:34): What was I ... I was starting to ask something here. SB (01:27:39): Senator Nelson, some trips? SM (01:27:41): OH, yeah. Yeah. It was about the issue of healing. The students actually came up with the question. The question was this, due to all the divisions that took place in America in the 1960s, particularly witnessing 1968, and since you were the vice presidential running mate at the Democratic Convention, I would like your response to this question that is, have we healed as a nation since those times or were those Black against white, male against female, gay against straight, those who supported the war, those who were against the war, those who supported the troops, those who did not, Vietnam veterans, against the anti-war people. The list goes on and on here. And the thought was that these young people who had not been born when all of these things were happening had heard that we were close to a second civil war in the United States? We were close to tearing this nation apart. Just your thoughts as-as Senator. And of course, he ... I would like your response to that first, and then I will tell you what Senator Musky said. SB (01:28:46): Yeah. No, I do not think, I mean, we were not close then. And I mean, in some ways I think we are closer now because the politics is deteriorated into ... There used to be adults in politics who could criticize each other, but still go out and have a drink. And I knew those people. I mean, I knew that time. And it seems like that time has now sort of passed. And the politics has been debased into essentially name calling and special interests trying to demonize everybody they are against. And the (19)60s make an easy target for that. But the idea that somehow or another in the (19)60s, we were close to civil war is preposterous. I mean, we were divided, but some things began to grow. I think, I mean, the moratorium was the first thing that a major trade union, the United Auto Workers, endorsed the moratorium, which we were very proud of because the unions at the time ... SM (01:30:03): ...We were proud of because the unions at the time were widely regarded as sort of flag waving. Whatever America wants to do was okay with us. And we had the usual little lefty unions, 1199 and the Leather Workers and stuff. But when we got the union, when we got the UAW of endorsement, even that, there was always a kind of tension in the room. Here's a bunch of young lefties, and here is people who are more worried about what happens on the shop floor than they are about what happens in Vietnam. And you could still have that discussion. I am not sure now you can have the discussion with the teabags. I do not know if there is any basis there to talk about. Their vision of the world is so different. So, no, I think we were not even close, and I think we're more divided in many ways right now than we were then. We thought Senator Musk, his response is, we have not healed since the Civil War. And then he went on to talk about the loss of 430,000 to 440,000 men in the Civil War where South almost lost their entire generation. And because he had just seen the Ken Burn series and he says, "I am not going to talk about (19)68". He did not even mention it. SB (01:31:36): Yeah. Good for him. SM (01:31:42): And if you go to Gettysburg, I do not know if you have been to Gettysburg. It is amazing when you go there that you see the flags on the southern side, the Confederate side, you see nothing left on the northern side. And yet I will interview Phyllis Schlafly, who I interviewed about three weeks ago here, and she said, "Oh, the North has not gotten over it, but the South has." So, we cannot even agree on the Civil War because she says the South has healed and the North has not. And if you go to Gettysburg, you would think it is the other way around. But those are pretty good comments. The students were expecting of different responses. SB (01:32:20): Yeah. SM (01:32:24): I want your thoughts on the split between the white students and the black students in the (19)60s. They were together for a while against the Vietnam War, and then toward the latter part of the (19)60s, you could see it on college campuses, they were distancing themselves from the Anti-war Movement and more toward the Black Power Movement here in the United States with Black Panthers and everything. At Kent State, you can hardly find any African American students at the protest. Although I recently saw one of an African American students holding one of the students that was wounded, so there were a few there. But did you sense the split within the moratorium? Did you sense the split that African-American students or the Latina students, the- SB (01:33:09): African-American and Latinas were never deeply involved for the reasons that I am not quite clear about, but I do not think it was so much as a split as there was never a common ground. The African-American students that I knew and the movement people tended to be focused, as you say, on identity questions of black politics, of black power, of war on domestic issues of racism and poverty. And most of the people I knew in the Anti-war Movement took a nod in that direction. Many of us came out of the Civil Rights Movement, but were focused first and foremost on the war. I do not think it was so much a split as it was never really together. SM (01:34:02): Were you pretty cognizant and- SB (01:34:04): Except during Civil Rights era. And during civil rights era, it was very much together. SM (01:34:10): You obviously went to three different schools, I think you went to the Red lands, I think Rutgers, and then you went up to Harvard Divinity School. Did you have a knowledge and a sense that the free speech movement of (19)64 and (19)65 was very important for college students beyond Berkeley? Because of the fact that those students believed in freedom of speech. Most of them had experience, which we already talked about, of going the Freedom Summer in the South. Many of them came back like Mario Sabio and Bettina after, and Tom Hayden and Casey Hayden, I am interviewing her as well. And what I am getting at here is that ideas were more important than careers. Mario Sabio talked about that all the time, that when he grew up in the (19)50s and then in the early (19)60s, the difference between his parents and that generation and our generation is that we are different. We believe that a university's for ideas, not preparing people for careers. Did that have any sense within the movement south where you worked with David Mixner and David Hawk and the others, that they were really more into ideas and not into career? SB (01:35:31): The, it is a comment of privilege, frankly. We grew up in a new prosperity that our parents had not experienced. And they were, I think more driven by career because their life experience was that it is fragile and you do not know what's going to happen, and you need to focus on that. For us, at least in my experience, it was quite different than that. Jobs were readily available. You always knew you could do something. Money was not... None of us needed a lot of money to live. Our expectations were not, at least mine, of having any substantial amount of money. You're working for 30 bucks a week or 50 bucks a week and doing organizing stuff. Well, that was fulfilling and it was enough money. We had to share houses because nobody could afford to live on their own, so you end up renting a house with six other people or something, because that was the only way we could afford it. But that was in some ways a time of... That is a comment about privilege as much as it is about the times. My kids do not feel that. They know it is going to be really hard, jobs are tough. It is hard to figure out what you are going to do. You do not have the privilege of assuming, "Oh, well I will go do that for three or four years and then I will be able to land on my feet someplace else." And so, at least in the case of my career, it is serendipitous. It certainly was not planned. I could never have planned that. I did not think when I was a young man that I was going to be a US ambassador. that I was going to be right here now. That I was going to run an agency. That I would be an elected official, none of that. It was all just sort of one thing led into another and I was in the right place at the right time. SM (01:37:33): You talked earlier about the fact that you have poor violence, because it is only negative when you have violence and it hurts the image of a group. But do you think that the violence when students from Democratic Society, which was a really legitimately good group, went to become the Weathermen, and when the Black Power Movement with the Black Panthers and a bunch Chicano movement, when the Young Lords. And when the American Indian Movement from (19)69 to (19)73 became violent around wounded knee. All these groups tended to head towards some sense of violence. Is that a first? SB (01:38:16): Yeah, sure. SM (01:38:16): Does that permanent [inaudible]? SB (01:38:19): And it destroyed them. It effectively destroyed SDS when the Weatherman split off. Suddenly you had to either denounce them or be identified with them. And I just think it is a fruitless short term, stupid dead end. It is not as if you are going to change this country by violence. And we should have learned from Dr. King, that you can change the country, but not with violence. And so, all of those split offs ended up destroying the very movement that they thought they were being the cadre or the radical cutting edge or the leadership, whatever kind of crazy terms they applied. SM (01:39:21): Your thoughts on the Vietnam Veterans of America who kind of took over the Anti-war Movement of (19)71, because SDS basically went. And the other groups had their own problems, but they seemed to carry on the anti-war movement from 71 until almost the very end. SB (01:39:38): That is true. SM (01:39:40): Yeah. How important were they overall in the scheme of things? SB (01:39:43): Well, it was terribly important because the politics of it were important. The right did not have a singular monopoly on saying, "Well, we support the troops." If the troops are saying, "We do not like this war," then those people who are against it are actually supporting the troops. So, it changed the politics dramatically. They have that, it was a big deal. It was a big deal. SM (01:40:12): When you look at, after all your years as an activist, an organizer, a leader, or an ambassador, like you said, I have not even gone into some of the other things you have done in the last 30 years. Because we'd be here five hours if that was the case. What lessons can you pass on to young people today based on your experiences, especially if young people are willing to listen in the tough times that they are living through right now, where they are just trying to survive and struggle with? SB (01:40:46): Yeah, it is very tough. SM (01:40:47): And in oftentimes had no time at all to even be involved in the classroom activities. SB (01:40:53): That is right, because they are working. SM (01:40:54): Yeah. SB (01:40:54): I remember that was also at a time when the great public universities were still accessible to people of modest means, which is decreasingly true as time has gone on, and vanishingly true now. So, what would I say? Well, I would say, I guess what I say pretty much to my kids, which is, you need to care about these things, they matter. They will matter to your children. They will matter to you. Whether it is the war or healthcare. You need to care and you need to be informed. But you also need to find sort of your own muse in terms of what you do with a career. It's not for everybody to be actively involved on a daily basis. One of my kids is an actor. One of them in graduate school at Berkeley. One of them is in a PhD program at University of Virginia. SM (01:42:02): My nephew is going there next year. SB (01:42:04): Yeah. Well, they are doing other things, but they have, all of them, a great consciousness about the common good, about the public good, and about their obligation to pay attention to that. To be involved in campaigns. To be active voters. Everybody can do that. Everybody can do that. And if you do not do that, then I do not know what it means to be a good citizen. That is the core of what it means to be a good citizen, is to pay attention. SM (01:42:44): Good words. What do you think the legacy will be of the... Yeah, we are talking 78 million people here. Todd Gitlin said... I kept talking about Boomers. He had a problem with it from the get go. And I have had several people decide, I am going to talk about Boomers. SB (01:42:57): Yeah. SM (01:42:57): I am going to talk about the period, the times, the issues. SB (01:42:57): Well, I agree with Todd about that. SM (01:43:04): And people your age, a lot of the people were the graduate students that were leading the undergraduates in the (19)60s. And Abby and Jerry Rubin and Tom Hayden, they were in the early and- SB (01:43:16): They are all a little older than me. Slightly older than I am. I think. SM (01:43:19): So, they call them pre-Boomers. And Richie Hayden, when I interviewed him, said, "I consider myself a boomer, Steve. I am a boomer. I was born in 1940, but I am a boomer." SB (01:43:30): I do not much like the term myself. But that post-war generation had a different life experience then. If the one before was the depression era, we lived through the prosperity era. SM (01:43:44): Yeah. What do you think the legacy will be when the best history books are written about the generation, particularly after on the 78 million have passed away? SB (01:43:56): I am hoping that the memory will be that we took our country seriously and we took seriously our obligations to try to set it right when we thought it had gone wrong. We were not always right, but I think it's changed and I think you see that now in, for instance, the openness toward gays. I think that is a legacy of that idea that all people should be acceptable for who they are. That is a direct derivative of the civil rights movement it seems to me. It took more years than it should have, but I think that openness of spirit is an important legacy. I would hope that would be seen. The (19)60s would be seen as the time when we began to take our country seriously enough and our fellow citizens seriously enough to really raise questions about the treatment of black people, for people. Hispanic people. Native American people, whatever. Gay people. It gets caricatured by the right as being so open-minded that our brains fell out. And I do not think that is the way it was. That is not my recollection of it. We thought hard and worried about the impact of our actions and took it seriously. SM (01:45:46): See, the no movements, you could say it, were a movement generation because a lot of these movements came about as a result of studying the Civil Rights movement and using it as an example, as a model. And certainly, the Anti-war Movement historically did that. Certainly, the Women's Movement and the separation. But if you study any of the movements, whether there's Chicano, Native American, even the Environmental Movement. Because I can remember, I have interviewed some people about how important it was with the Anti-war people making up with the Environmental people before Earth Day, and the consulting that went on between the two groups. To me that was collaboration, which should be a quality that we cannot forget. You have to collaborate to be successful. SB (01:46:29): Yeah. SM (01:46:31): And that to me, and I will get your thoughts on that, as a person who was involved in the Moratorium and the Anti-war that had the Environmental Movement student or young people consulting the Anti-war Movement, we're not going to step on what you're doing. Do you remember how important that was? SB (01:46:47): Oh yeah. That whole spring, the whole Earth Day, the first discussions were... I had been involved with this major event in the fall or events in the fall. So of course, they wanted to say, "Well, how would you do this? And what do you do about that? How do you get this done? Who do you talk to there?" So sure, there was a lot of that going on. SM (01:47:11): I only have three more questions and I will be done. I am not going to give you a name. I had this thing at the end where I give you names and terms, and what are your thought? I am not going to do that because you have given me already a lot of time. In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end? SB (01:47:29): Oh, it probably began in the mid (19)60s, actually, or the (19)60s, like (19)63, (19)64. And probably ended about (19)70, early (19)70s sometime. It did not start in 1960, at least in my recollection and experience, it did not start in 1960 before end in 1970. they certainly carried over through a year or two to get- SM (01:47:56): Stay Earth Day. In (19)73, a lot of people say went into (19)73, and you could even see on campuses the change in the fall of (19)73. SB (01:48:03): Really? SM (01:48:04): But the guy was there, and (19)72, (19)73, there were still things happening. And then on the fall, something streaking happened, and I knew it was over. SB (01:48:14): It was over. SM (01:48:17): Was there a specific event? (19)63 is the Kennedy assassination or the- SB (01:48:22): Well, the Kennedy assassination. The following year of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, the Civil Rights Movement. Everything sort of came together to raise questions about the American narrative. And it was that questioning, which really led to many other things. SM (01:48:42): When you look at your fellow Boomers, I consider you a boomer. I consider pre-Boomers as Boomers, they are all one. When you consider the 15 percent that were categorized as activists, which is still a lot of people in 70 million, can you, from the people you know, because that is all you can really talk about, what were their strengths and what were their weaknesses? If you were to, from a person who worked with so many? SB (01:49:15): Well, the biggest weakness was probably clarity of analysis. There was a lot of bullshit in the rhetoric at the time. There was a great deal of inflammatory language and schismatic politics so that you would have the, not just SDS, but Socialist Workers, Progressive Labor, the Shack Mantes, the Trotskyite, the boot-boot, boot. everything was split up. And now partly that reflected the fact that people were thinking about ideas and so they were driven in various directions by what they thought about those ideas. But I think our biggest weakness was really probably a lack of consistency in the analysis. A lack of rigor about how people thought about their own actions. The greatest strength, I suppose, was simply the incredible energy. And aside from that intellectual piece, the brains, the attention to getting things done. That is a funny thing to say, that the weakness was analysis, but one of the strengths was it was a bunch of very smart people. SM (01:50:55): My last question is, and I asked this probably on about half of the people I have interviewed, because I have been doing this since (19)96. Now the last year I have been asking, this is important. That might be your call, right? SB (01:51:01): Yeah. SM (01:51:01): And then I going- SB (01:51:20): Hello? Yes. Hey, Steve, can I call you back in two minutes? I will call you right back. No, that is not the call I have to take. SM (01:51:28): All right. Well, this is the last question though. But in your eyes, I have asked each person who has experienced the 60 plus years that Boomers have been alive from (19)46 to 2010, just a couple sentences to describe the decades that these people lived. And I break it down from right after the war, (19)46 to (19)60. (19)60 to (19)70. (19)71 to (19)80. (19)81 to (19)90. (19)91 to 2000. 2001 to 2010. Just characteristics of the legacy. SB (01:52:01): Well, the (19)50s, my experience in the (19)50s was classically late 1950s. It could not have been more suburban, bland, ordinary. That was my experience of life is everybody's stereotype of it was the life I lived. SM (01:52:24): Right. SB (01:52:27): Bland food, bland politics, bland everything. The (19)60s was in my experience as you know on a time of this incredible intellectual engagement and in ideas. And so, I kept going to school. And when I was not going to school, I was writing something or reading something or whatever. And also, of enormous change. I would say most of my best friends are people in most cases that I have known since the (19)60s. There was a kind of bond forged there in common action that even when it turns out sometimes later in life, you do not even like them much, you still think of him as friends because you shared so much, such an experience together. The (19)70s, well, for me, it was the enormous hope of finally electing a president who seemed to have some vision for the country, and then the incredible loss that it turned out that he could not actually govern. The (19)70s are a sort of lost hope generation. It went from really thinking, "Wow, the war is over. We can begin to rebuild the country. We can do some exciting things." To Ronald Reagan. The (19)80s. The (19)80s for me are all Ronald, they're just Reagan. He was the dominant figure. It was the dominant politics. It was the change and it was rejection of the two previous decades in a fundamental way, which is really what he ran on. And just to fall back into some vague America hurrah kind of thoughtless politics. In the (19)90s, we are once again an era of some hope, but much more tempered than for me. My expectations, Clinton's a friend of mine for many years before he was elected president. I thought he was the political genius that he turns out to be. Now, there is a guy that Luke Gingrich could say was undisciplined. But sadly, because he is the political genius of our generation indisputably. There is nobody even like him. The next generation has Obama, but our generation, Bill Clinton. So, the (19)90s were a much more tempered hope. Economic recovery, for me, of course, the (19)80s and (19)90s were the time when my children were young. So, a lot of that time was spent with family not doing something else. And then the first 10 years of this decade lost again to war and to growing anger. I just find it depressing. I find right now, I have never been so discouraged about the country as I am right at this moment. We have got this fabulous president who offers a real opportunity, and yet we cannot get passed the... We cannot have a real discussion about healthcare because one party has decided we are not going to have that discussion, that it is in their interest. Well, I cannot imagine it is in the country's interest to not have a discussion, a real discussion about healthcare. It is in the country's issue to fix this problem not to just say no. Anyway. SM (01:56:54): And I am done. But I would like just your thoughts. What do you think about the Vietnam Memorial? What has it really done to the nation, and why did we lose the war? I am, I am actually going over there. I go over there every time I am here. What does it mean to you that wall? James Scrap said he wrote the book to heal a nation. He said it was not only about healing the families of those who served, but and also to be a non-political entity. SB (01:57:25): Yeah. I find it terribly. I think everyone, I find the symbolism of it moving and a visit to it because of the that incredible list of names. We have now been at war for eight years in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we have lost 3,600, SM (01:57:47): Oh no. More than that. SB (01:57:47): 5,000. SM (01:57:51): It is in the 4,600 right now. We are heading to five. SB (01:57:53): Yeah. But you walk down there and walk past the 55,000 names on that wall, it reminds you of... When we went to 125,000 troops in Afghanistan that was a huge deal. Remember, we had 550,000 troops in Vietnam. SM (01:58:13): And in your opinion as a person who fought to end that war, what was the main reason that Vietnam War ended? SB (01:58:20): Oh, exhaustion. Country just got tired of it, it just wore us out. And also, if you think about what it did to Vietnam, we would pretty... There was not much left to fight over by the time we got done there. We had so destroyed that country, and it has been so remarkable the way that it's been rebuilt since then. So disappointing in many ways and some of the things that the Vietnamese leadership did after the war. But anyway. SM (01:58:59): Very good. Well, thank you. (End of Interview) Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. 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 Sam Brown Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Brown, Sam, 1943- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Politicians--United States--20th century; Political activists--United States; Brown, Sam, 1943--Interviews Description An account of the resource Sam Brown is a politician and political activist. Brown was the head of ACTION under President Jimmy Carter, and ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Redlands, and a Master of Arts from Rutgers University. He also completed his graduate studies at Harvard University Divinity School. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-03-02 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.29a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.29b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. 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Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 1997 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sam Smith Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 55:18 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 Boomer; 1960s; Generation; Rights; Lyndon Johnson; Vietnam; Green Party; Vietnam War; Civil Rights Movement; 1970s; Race. Biographical Text Sam Smith is a writer, activist, and social critic who has been at the forefront of new ideas and new politics for more than four decades. The Harvard University graduate, class of 1959, has been editing alternative publications since 1964. He is an award-winning alternative journalist and currently is editor of Progressive Review. His activism helped organize the Association of State Green Parties-predecessor to the National Green Party and, in the 1970s, was a co-founder of the DC Statehood Party. He is the author of several books including his most recent titled Why Bother? Getting a Life in a Locked Down Land and a 1990's popular book titled His Shadows of Hope: A Free Thinker's Guide To Politics in the Time of Clinton. This native Washingtonian covered his first story in 1957 as a 19-year-old. He has served on the Board of the Fund For Constitutional Government; the DC United Black Fund; Project on Government Oversight and the DC NAACP Police & Justice Task Force. 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 Sam Smith