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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
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Audio interviews
Title
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
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English
Rights
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-03-08
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Cleve Jones
Language
English
Biographical Text
Cleve Jones is the founder of the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. He began his lifetime of activism in the 1970s, in part, due to his friendship with pioneer gay rights leader Harvey Milk. Jones worked as a student intern in Milk's office after his election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. After realizing the seriousness of AIDS, Jones created the San Francisco AIDS Foundation in 1983. He conceived the AIDS Memorial Quilt at a candlelight memorial for the late Harvey Milk. Since then, the AIDS Memorial Quilt became the largest community art project memorializing the lives of 80,000 Americans who died from AIDS. He has received international and national awards from AIDS and gay rights organizations, religious conferences, state, and national health associations, and the legislatures of California and several other states. Cleve Jones lives in San Francisco, where he serves as a community organizer for Unite Here, an international union representing hotel, food service, casino, and restaurant workers. He is also an author, lecturer, and activist who travels the country talking about his life, the AIDS Quilt, and gay activism since his early days as a student at San Francisco State University.
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
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1 Microcassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Duration
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86:20
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Public experience; Purdue University; Gay liberation movement; Vietnam War; Eugene McCarthy; George McGovern; Racism; National Liberation Front; Saigon; Democratic Party; Assassination of Harvey Milk ; Drug Culture; Sexual Revolution; Newt Gingrich; Sexual Freedom; AIDS; LGBT; Civil Rights Movement; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Equal Rights Amendment; Feminist Movement; Healing; Hippies; Baby boom generation; Activism."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":14275305}}">Public experience; Purdue University; Gay liberation movement; Vietnam War; Eugene McCarthy; George McGovern; Racism; National Liberation Front; Saigon; Democratic Party; Assassination of Harvey Milk ; Drug Culture; Sexual Revolution; Newt Gingrich; Sexual Freedom; AIDS; LGBT; Civil Rights Movement; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Equal Rights Amendment; Feminist Movement; Healing; Hippies; Baby boom generation; Activism.</span>
Subject LCSH
Human rights workers; Authors; Gay liberation movement—United States; Jones, Cleve--Interviews
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
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Title
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Interview with Cleve Jones
Contributor
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Jones, Cleve ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
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audio/wav
Subject
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Human rights workers; Authors; Gay liberation movement—United States; Jones, Cleve--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Cleve Jones is a human rights activist, author, and lecturer. He joined the gay liberation movement in the early 1970s and worked with one of his early mentors, Harvey Milk, a politician and LGBT activist. During the AIDS epidemic, he co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":515,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":14275305},"12":0}">Cleve Jones is a human rights activist, author, and lecturer. He joined the gay liberation movement in the early 1970s and worked with one of his early mentors, Harvey Milk, a politician and LGBT activist. During the AIDS epidemic, he co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.</span>
Cleve Jones is the founder of the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. He began his lifetime of activism in the 1970s, in part, due to his friendship with pioneer gay rights leader Harvey Milk. Jones worked as a student intern in Milk's office after his election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. After realizing the seriousness of AIDS, Jones created the San Francisco AIDS Foundation in 1983. He conceived the AIDS Memorial Quilt at a candlelight memorial for the late Harvey Milk. Since then, the AIDS Memorial Quilt became the largest community art project memorializing the lives of 80,000 Americans who died from AIDS. He has received international and national awards from AIDS and gay rights organizations, religious conferences, state, and national health associations, and the legislatures of California and several other states. Cleve Jones lives in San Francisco, where he serves as a community organizer for Unite Here, an international union representing hotel, food service, casino, and restaurant workers. He is also an author, lecturer, and activist who travels the country talking about his life, the AIDS Quilt, and gay activism since his early days as a student at San Francisco State University.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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2010-03-08
Rights
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In copyright
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.70
Date Modified
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2017-03-14
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McKiernan Interviews
Extent
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86:20
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
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Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2011-08-11
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Courtland Cox, 1941-
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Courtland Cox spent his childhood between Trinidad and New York City. He went to Howard University and eventually became a civil rights activist. He joined a group called the Non-violent Action Group (NAG) to fight against white supremacy and segregation and then became a member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Throughout his years as an activist, Cox helped organized groups in order to prevent segregation from occurring in the world."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":4483,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"10":2,"11":4,"15":"Arial"}">Courtland Cox spent his childhood between Trinidad and New York City. He went to Howard University and eventually became a civil rights activist. He joined a group called the Non-violent Action Group (NAG) to fight against white supremacy and segregation and then became a member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Throughout his years as an activist, Cox helped organized groups in order to prevent segregation from occurring in the world.</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":"Trinidad; Harlem; Island Scholarships Projects; Bronx; Throggs Neck Projects; Poverty; Caribbean; Segregation; Freedom rides; Bobby Mitchell; Ernie Davis; Racial equality; Discrimination; Black colleges; Black Panther; Montgomery Bus Boycott; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Baby boom generation; Gay Power; Cultural Boundaries."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":13228792}}">Trinidad; Harlem; Island Scholarships Projects; Bronx; Throggs Neck Projects; Poverty; Caribbean; Segregation; Freedom rides; Bobby Mitchell; Ernie Davis; Racial equality; Discrimination; Black colleges; Black Panther; Montgomery Bus Boycott; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Baby boom generation; Gay Power; Cultural Boundaries.</span>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
142:55
Subject LCSH
Political activists--United States; Cox, Courtland, 1941--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>.
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Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium
McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Courtland Cox
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 11 August 2011
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:04):
Testing one, two. Just hold these tapes as we go. One of the first questions I like to always ask is, how did you become-
CC (00:00:16):
Would it be better if we sat at a table that you could just-
SM (00:00:19):
Oh, no, this is fine. I sat many couches.
CC (00:00:25):
There is a table. Let us look at the other room. You want the lights on here or just-
SM (00:00:31):
Oh, no, we are fine. Yep, we are fine. Got my new glasses too, these cost me a lot of money. How did you become who you are? The first question I always ask is, what were those early years in your life when you were in elementary school and secondary school before you went off to Howard? And I always like to find out a little about where you grew up, your family, what your parents did. Who your mentors, role models were, before you ever met Bayard Rustin.
CC (00:01:04):
Well, I was born in the United States in Harlem, actually. And my mother had moved here from Trinidad. And when I was four years old, my mother sent my sister and myself back to Trinidad to live with my grandmother because she was a single parent in the United States, so it was very difficult. So we went back and I lived in Trinidad from the time I was four, until my grandmother died in (19)52, and came back here around 11, 12 years old. I think probably the biggest influence on me, in that period, was the emphasis on education that my family had. Even though my mother's generation did not go to college, my grandmother had nine children and probably about seven survived. And each of them, education was big for their families and many of them, and those who were ahead of me, had won at that time what they called island scholarships. Some attended Cambridge, some attended Oxford, some went to LSE, London School of Economics, others came to the United States. So probably the first big influence in my life was the huge stress for education and becoming educated. When I came back to the United States, around 12, we were moved out of Harlem into the projects in the Bronx, called Throggs Neck Projects. And at that point, I observed America from that vantage point. And so in (19)53, (19)54, America was a much different place as it dealt with the question of race. But a lot of the pathologies that we see today were present at that point. Kids were getting on drugs. There was heroin at that point, smoking marijuana. A lot of them were not going to school. There were no jobs. People overtly told them, "Why go to school? You are not going to have a good college education." So all of that was emphasized in the society very openly. They absorbed it. And as kids 15, 16, 17, by that time, their initiatives were already destroyed. But the thing for me was the background that I had from Trinidad in terms of education, in terms of emphasis, in terms of my mother's view, that kind of inoculated me from that environment. And so therefore, while all of them were dropping out of school, I was going to school, I was fit. My sister and I were probably two of the four people that continued to go to high school. But we dealt with high school anyhow. So that is before I got to Howard University. The whole emphasis on education, my upbringing in the Caribbean was probably the major influence of my life.
SM (00:05:12):
At what point when you were young, you could be junior high or senior high, when you're reading about the history of the United States, and you come from Trinidad and how important education is in your family, that you read the history of the United States and there was a point in time when African Americans were not allowed to read. They were punished if they were caught reading. And this is going back to even to the founding of the nation and what happened in the 1800s.
CC (00:05:49):
I think the discussion I had with the guys who were 15 and 16 years old, it was now I think about it, their analysis of the society and what was open to them and what was real or not real was very profound. I am now understanding a lot better. I think my discussion, because coming back to the United States was a culture shock in the sense that all the frames of reference that were here was something I did not really have. I was coming from one culture to another culture, but my understanding of the American environment really, my first impressions were really developed with talking to the young people who, at the end of the day, whether they be in jail, killed or so forth, but they understood what the discussion was.
SM (00:07:05):
If you were to talk about mentors and role models as you got older, obviously Bayard Rustin was one, and there were many others, Dr. King. Was there, even in your schooling here in the United States, you had your grandmother, you had your family, but was there a teacher, was there some teacher in school or some figure in the news that in the 1950s that stood out for you as a young [inaudible]?
CC (00:07:36):
I would say the name that comes to mind, but this was in the Caribbean, Ms. Curry. But when I came back to the United States, my mother sent me to Catholic schools to make sure that that shield was there. My sense is that when I came back, I went to a school that was, finishing the eighth grade or so, was the all black order of nuns at St. Aloysius School. I think it was the name after St. Martin De Porres. So that was my first thing. And then I went to Catholic high school. But that was a different shock because there were four blacks in the whole school.
SM (00:08:39):
And how many were in the school?
CC (00:08:41):
Probably hundreds of kids. Literally the whole school. And I think we were the first class. And by the second year of high school, I was the only black, no, I think there were two of us, but third year I was the only one. So coming from the contrast from Catholic school where you're the only black or one or two in back to the projects, the contrast was quite interesting as I remember it.
SM (00:09:22):
And were there any books as a young boy or young man that you read early on? Writers that inspired you?
CC (00:09:35):
I do not know inspired but the one that James Joyce, The Portrait. Reading that in Catholic school, that was quite, and also my sense is that the other one that impressed me was Zola's book. The title does not come to mind right away.
SM (00:10:12):
Émile Zola?
CC (00:10:14):
Émile Zola's book. We talked about the trial. But I think at that point, the whole discussions of right and wrong and good and bad, seems to me those kinds of things attracted my attention, the things that focused on that, right and wrong and good and bad and so forth.
SM (00:10:43):
My next question gets into the Howard years. How did you end up at Howard University? Why did you pick that school? And talking about your years in Howard, how did you become an activist for the first time? And do you remember the first time that you ever spoke up about a subject that upset you and you really became vulnerable for the first time?
CC (00:11:09):
My sense is that after I got out of college, no, while I was in high school, my mother's place was the place, that was the stop that everybody came to from Trinidad, my relatives. And my cousin, Erskine, had been accepted to Howard. So he was going back and forth to Howard, I think I was working in the post office and I was 18 or 19, I was making in 1958, (19)59, I was making $2 an hour plus 20 percent plus 10 percent night differentials. So I was making $2.20 an hour, which was a lot of money during that time. But I said to myself, "I really do not want to be doing this all." I was a postal clerk. It was not like I was-
SM (00:12:27):
This is after you graduated high school?
CC (00:12:30):
The year after I took the test, I became a postal clerk, which was a career for most people. And I was, after six months, I said, "Nah, there must be a better way. Must be a better way than this." And so I talked to my cousin about Howard, Erskine Arlene, because at that time Howard just gave a test entrance exam. You did not have to take SATs and all that. You had an entrance exam. So one day got on the Greyhound bus, came down to Washington, I remember it was snowing in New York, when I got to Washington it was sunny. And took the test and went back home. And short time later, they said, "Hey, you passed. You are good if you want to come." And at that point, it cost $7.50 a semester hour to go to school. And so it was like $107.50 for 15 hours, $40 room and board, $40 for food. And so I was working at post office making serious money and so I saved my postal money and came down to Howard to go to school.
SM (00:14:08):
And you were there four year.
CC (00:14:08):
Four years, that is right.
SM (00:14:10):
What years were those now?
CC (00:14:13):
I came down in (19)60 and left (19)64.
SM (00:14:18):
Harris Walford went there, but I think he went to law school there, did not he?
CC (00:14:21):
Who is this?
SM (00:14:21):
Harris Walford.
CC (00:14:23):
Walford? I do not know. I am not sure. He was a little ahead of me, I am sure.
SM (00:14:28):
I think he went to law school.
CC (00:14:30):
Law school there, right.
SM (00:14:36):
During those years, what was being a student at Howard during those years?
CC (00:14:39):
I am telling you a lot of energy. I think we started out, we did a number of things at Howard. We did the civil rights discussion. We did the newspaper. We did a Project awareness. We did a bunch. We were the energy bunnies. We started out-
SM (00:15:11):
Who is "we" now?
CC (00:15:13):
People like Stokely Carmichael, Bill Mahoney, Mike Thelwell, Ed Brown, people like that. We were at Cleve Sellers, who's now president of Voorhees. We started out in trying to, when I came here in (19)60, a number of things were in Washington. First, Glen Echo, the amusement park was segregated. The Washington Post had ads for coloreds and whites. They were huge swaths of the city that blacks could not live in. A number of stores, the better stores, blacks could not try on clothes. The police force was mainly guys from the south who could not find jobs elsewhere being put on the police force by the congressional people. The district was run hands on by the Congress of the United States. So we came into this environment and we started off by, right after the Freedom Rides and right after the whole question of the sit-ins, we started testing the kind of segregated facilities that they had in Washington. And we formed a group called the Non-Violent Action Group, which was one of the student groups that comprised SNCC, Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee. So that is how I started getting into it. Looking at the situation that was here in Washington in terms of the segregated facilities, the segregated political structure. The segregated economic structure. Not only does that mean Washington Redskins had no black players. So one of the first things I did was picketed RFK, what we call RFK Stadium now, because they had no black players on their team.
SM (00:17:45):
Was Bobby Mitchell the first?
CC (00:17:47):
Yeah, he came the year after.
SM (00:17:49):
From the Cleveland Browns.
CC (00:17:51):
He came in after. I think the first thing they were going to do was they were to get, what is his name from Syracuse who died?
SM (00:17:59):
Ernie Davis.
CC (00:18:01):
Ernie Davis, yes. But he died and then they brought in Bobby Mitchell. And the Redskins owner name is not coming to me now. What's his name?
SM (00:18:16):
[inaudible]
CC (00:18:16):
No-no-no. I am talking about why back, because the Redskins was a team of the South. Because remember, most football teams at that period in 1960 did not exist in the South. They did not go to the south till later on. Most of the teams, they had maybe 12 teams. You were talking about the Cleveland. The football was an industrial, northern industrial phenomena. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, New York, places like that. Philadelphia. So when you talk about the South and the West, they did not come until after (19)60 when you had the AFC and all these other guys coming in. So you got to remember that the Redskins were the team of the South. That is what everybody, there was no Dallas Cowboys, or there was no North Carolina Panthers or Atlanta Falcons. They did not have all that. They had the Redskins. This was their team. And so if they are broadcasting in the South they were not going to have a lot of black people on North's teams. So that was particularly important.
SM (00:19:34):
It is interesting because Ernie Davis, I am from Syracuse, right? So Ernie is dead from Leukemia, so sad.
CC (00:19:45):
He had a lot of potential. A big guy. We started with that non-violent action group. We had a group coming together, as I mentioned some of the people, Ed Brown, Cleve, Stanley Wise, Stokely, Mary Felice Lovelace, Muriel Tillinghast. We had a group of very, very bright people.
SM (00:20:20):
How big was the student population at that time? And were you the rare group, the ones that were really activists?
CC (00:20:29):
We were the rare group, the student population I could not tell you. Probably had to be, I do not know, probably at least maybe 15, 16, maybe 2000. I am not sure, but about at least that. But we were the group that we were seen. Interestingly enough, we were seen by the students as unusual. We were seen by the professors as their children of hope. So we were treated by the professors, at least certain professors, but I think a number of them, with a certain kind of, "We are behind you. We want to talk to you. We want to nurture you." And probably the lead in that was Sterling Brown. Sterling Brown, he did for us a number of things. He would come and he would lecture about the blues in our dormitory. We could get him to do it. He would come and talk. He would read his poetry. He would talk about jazz. But more importantly, for a small group of us, Butch Khan and Ed and Tom Khan, and people like that. Tom and Butch were also very key in this discussion. He would take us over at his house, open up some bourbon and talk about the voice, talk about the people that he knew. So it was not a book discussion. He is talking about friends. Because one of the things that interests me today, because when I am talking to people in SNCC, it is always a discussion about your life. It is always a discussion about memories. It is always a discussion about a number of things. My perspective is really just, these are the things I did. That is what it is. It is only when people are talking to me that there is a sense of history. And so what Sterling Brown did was took us inside the lives of the voice, about what he liked, what he liked to eat, what did he like to drink, how'd he wear his pass, what people would say about it, the whole discussion. He gave us a sense, there were people like Conrad Snow, who was a professor up there. People like Emmett Dorsey. They were all people who really said to us, "You are not radicals. You are not outside the mainstream." The message to us constantly from those professors were, "You are the hope of our future." And I think enough has not been said about a lot of those professors who, like Patricia. Patricia, she ran for mayor. Patricia Roberts Harris, she was secretary of HUD. She was also an ambassador too. And I remember in a little while, but she was also Dean of Women at Howard University. And Mary Felice Lovelace, who was going out, she and Stokely were an item for a long time. They went out. And when she would come back late from demonstrations, while it was a strict rule for the other women, Harris, "Well, you are coming in from demonstrations. All right." So they gave us space. And so I think on that side of it, we did that at Howard. While we were also viewed as a small band, people also looked at what we were doing. And I think probably Stokely had the biggest impact on this, is that he would also involve the other students, and going out to demonstrate. He would tell them that we were going in a demonstration, but there was a great party afterwards. And so to go to the party afterwards, these kids would go demonstrate. So we would swell our ranks with that. Now, I think for both Stokely and myself in particular, and Tom Khan, Tom obviously was very close to Bayard, but we also knew, coming from New York, both of us, knew about some of the discussions that were going on. So one of the things that we did, and this is really Tom Khan's brainchild, we created a thing called Project Awareness. And the same NAG people who were doing the demonstrations were the same NAG people who did the organization of the Project Awareness. And the first event was a debate between Bayard Rustin and Malcolm X on separation versus integration.
SM (00:27:14):
Is that the one where they are on the stage and it was taped?
CC (00:27:17):
Yeah.
SM (00:27:18):
That is a story.
CC (00:27:19):
Yes, it is. But it is interesting. This work in a number of ways. First of all, it revealed to us a split at Howard University. The head of the political science department, his name was Martin, Professor Martin, thought that it was unworthy to have Malcolm X at Howard University. Emmett Dorsey, who was a professor who was very strong on the African American status in the United States, shot pool down at the pool hall with the guys and so forth, embraced Malcolm and then moderated the debate. And he was the one that did that. Now, this was our first debate. Cramton Auditorium had just opened up. It held 1500 people. And you asked me how many people we had. We had 1500 people there. The place was packed to the gills, not only packed to the gills, they were people banging all night on the doors trying to get in. And Bayard did something that was very interesting. Each speaker had, I think, half an hour to present their case, and Bayard was up first, he spoke on the question of integration. Malcolm was speaking on the question of separation. Bayard spoke for 15 minutes, and he said, "You always-"
CC (00:29:03):
... 15 minutes. And he said, "You always hear my point of view. I am going to give Malcolm 15 minutes of my time so that you can fully hear his." And I am telling you, Malcolm was one of the best speakers around. You could not believe... I mean, he had a profound effect. So after that first event, people looked at us even more... And the professors were even more embracing, and the students were amazed. "God, how could you do that? How could you pull that off?" The next event we had on the Project Awareness was called Whither the Negro Writer. It was moderated by Sterling Brown. We had Ossie Davis, we had John Killens. We had Jim Baldwin. And it was just, again, another fabulous thing. And we used to have little after parties for the guests. Sidney Poitier flew in, said, "I heard you guys were in town. I just thought I would come and party, hang out." I mean, it was like... So now we really think, "Wow, what is going..." And then the third thing that we had was on thermonuclear warfare with Herman Kahn from, I think it was the Hudson Institute, and Norman Thomas debating the issue of thermonuclear warfare. So now we have established not only the demonstrations about trying to go against the large society, but on the big issues of the day, we are now driving that train. And in addition to that, also, Mike Falwell, who was part of the NAG.
SM (00:31:12):
Group, was the editor of the newspaper, The Hilltop, which received award after award. So not only now we are part of a group that does this in terms of outside the campus, this in terms of the campus, and then Stokely and Tom Kahn were on the student council. And Tom was very smart. He says, "I do not want to be the president. I just want to be the treasurer." He ran for being the treasurer. And he understood that was where it is. So basically we had spread, we had an entity, an organizing entity that functioned both inside and outside the campus that had a profound effect on what was going on. And the other thing was that we were probably some of the best students in the campus too. So this is, I think for even today when I talk to the people we were in school with today, they remember that, the energy we brought to the discussion. So I would say that the profound discussion at Howard to me was that. Now I think off-campus, I think probably, I would say the smartest person I had ever seen politically in terms of these things was Bayard. Because he had seen a lot of these movies. He had understood the politics. And at that point we had a lot of things with the Trotskyites and the Stalinists and all that kind of stuff. And he had been through all of that whole era, and he was able to help us sink through and deal with all of it because we had a focused message. We did not need to go into the battle of who lost Moscow and all that kind of stuff. We wanted to know what is it we were going to do here? Where were we going to go? So my sense is that, at least at Howard, through that whole Howard period, there are a number of things I found to be very important. First, I guess sense from the professors that we were Children of Hope. I think the second thing was that the energy that we were able to bring to the discussion, whether we were dealing with demonstrations or whether we were dealing with the newspaper articles, we were able to practice our craft of being very good at whatever we did. We did not lose. The whole organizing discussion, we were very good at it. The third, we were big influences of the young people who were on campus as to what was going to be their future, breaking the barriers that they had come into. And so I think in the political sense, probably Bayard was the most important. I think on the cultural historical sense; Sterling Brown was the most important. Whatever became of Sterling?
CC (00:35:16):
He died.
SM (00:35:17):
How long after?
CC (00:35:20):
Sterling was in his high (19)80s. Sterling was in the high (19)80s, and I assume Sterling died maybe, it seemed like 15, 20 years ago.
SM (00:35:36):
Okay.
CC (00:35:36):
Yeah.
SM (00:35:38):
Hey. That is a great description of your time in Howard. And the thing is, I did not know Stokely was there. I knew Ed was there.
CC (00:35:47):
Stokely was there.
SM (00:35:48):
Stokely was very-
CC (00:35:50):
He was very profound. And Cleve Sellers, Stanley Wise, Muriel Tillinghan. I mean, those people were very... Not only that, let me just also go one other point. In terms of SNCC. You had two kinds of views coming out of SNCC. The one is John Lewis's view about nonviolence. And his view was that this was a philosophy, a way of life. And what you were trying to do was appeal to people's better selves. The Howard people did not have that view. Howard people believed, thought that nonviolence was important because you did not have enough to be not non-violent. And that at the end of the day, that people operated out of their own interests, not out of any kind of goodness at the heart. So I think probably the thing while at Howard and the big debate, the NAG group in terms of SNCC, was from the beginning, our views were much sharper, much more political than the Nashville group with John and Diane Nash Bevel, and those others.
SM (00:37:30):
That is James Bevel's wife, right?
CC (00:37:32):
Yes.
SM (00:37:32):
And he died at about two years ago.
CC (00:37:33):
He died about two years ago.
SM (00:37:35):
We had him on campus twice.
CC (00:37:37):
Right. Yeah. Right.
SM (00:37:37):
And so you really met Bayard right there at Howard.
CC (00:37:41):
Yeah. Met Bayard at Howard.
SM (00:37:42):
In that debate.
CC (00:37:43):
He came to the debate. Yeah.
SM (00:37:47):
Now, how did he continue to influence the people? He came to the debate and Nelson came and they went on. You guys were with SNCC and you had your issues on campus. You were involved with many other people. Did you still stay in touch with them?
CC (00:37:58):
Oh yeah.
SM (00:37:59):
And the Congress of Racial Equality too?
CC (00:38:01):
Yeah, because one of the things, especially in terms of the demonstrations, I stayed with in touch with Bayard a lot, probably more than the others. But I think that he was very helpful in terms of trying to get us through the political thickets that we found ourselves, particularly in the demonstrations in Baltimore and the various kinds of people interests who wanted to come and take over. So, Bayard, I remember once we were in a big fight with some people in Baltimore, and Bayard got the national headquarters of court to make him a representative. So he came into the meeting as the National Representative Corps, and he just devastated the people who wanted to go against us. But the other big thing was, you remember also, Bayard was the organizer, I guess for the second March on Washington, second proposed March. So... That is definitely you.
SM (00:39:30):
Hello? Hello? How would they get my number? Bye. Amazing. I am on Facebook a lot.
CC (00:39:53):
Oh you are?
SM (00:39:55):
Yeah, I am on Facebook and I have friends, and I belong to certain organizations through Facebook. They sell your name to everything.
CC (00:40:03):
Well, guess what? I avoid that.
SM (00:40:06):
Facebook?
CC (00:40:09):
Yeah.
SM (00:40:09):
I am starting to see the dangers of it. Definitely seeing the dangers of it. Now, I will get back here. Amazing that they got up. They should have my home phone. They should not be having my cell phone number.
CC (00:40:22):
Well, that is easy to get.
SM (00:40:23):
Yeah. One of the things, you worked on the March on Washington.
CC (00:40:30):
Right. Yeah.
SM (00:40:31):
And you were the-
CC (00:40:32):
Representative of SNCC. And let me say to you that I am not sure SNCC would have been represented at the march in Washington, unless it was reason I argued for it. And I argued because my trust with Bayard. The people in SNCC were not at the initial points just ready for it, because you have got to remember, there were a number of competing interests in March and Washington, Dick Gregory and others had a view of something much more radical in terms and much more disruptive. And Bayard had something in a much more organized, much more important in terms of that. So SNCC people were torn in this discussion. And because of by my trust in Bayard, I was able to convince the SNCC people to participate. And their view was, since you want to do it, you go represent us. And that was that. So that is how we got into it. Now, I think it was an important for us to be there historically, as history has proven it was an important event. And to see Bayard having to maneuver where those guys, Roy Wilkins and the rest, I mean, he did have the protection of A. Phillip Randolph. Nobody was going to separate him from me, because as you remember, that time, the whole question... There are two issues that are much different now at this point than they were at that time. The question of homosexuality, that was just death. And the second was the question of communism and did you ever, or whatever. And Bayard had both of those on him. And so his ability to maneuver his organizational skills in terms of pulling that off under that kind of weight, political weight, because absent A. Philip Randolph, these guys would have never given Bayard the time of day if they could not deal with Randolph. And Randolph was going to have this march, especially after what happened in (19)41.
SM (00:43:18):
I read about how you were involved with changing John Lewis's speech, and I was reading in another interview that it was happening as the event was happening.
CC (00:43:29):
Yes, yes. Oh, there's a picture up there that showed we were doing it. One of those pictures we were back at the Lincoln Memorial-
SM (00:43:39):
Oh, that is that picture there?
CC (00:43:39):
Yes. Yeah.
SM (00:43:39):
Oh my God.
CC (00:43:39):
Yeah. That is what we are doing. I basically, as I said, I was representing the march of SNCC. And John's speech came out the day before, they sent the speech, then I distributed-
SM (00:43:58):
How come you did not give a speech?
CC (00:43:58):
Me? No-no. It was John's center. I do not know.
SM (00:43:59):
Yeah, he was picked by SNCC to be the man?
CC (00:44:01):
No, he was the chairman at that point.
SM (00:44:02):
Okay.
CC (00:44:05):
So John's speech was written, probably a lot of it by Julian. And I distributed it because I wanted make sure that John and SNCC did not get lost in the crowd in terms of the speeches. So I sent it out, gave it out the day before. And what happened was the Kennedy people saw it. And so they called Cardinal O'Boyle, who was a member of the March on Washington group representing the Catholic Church. And he threatened to pull out of the speak thing. And when Bayard came to us about it and asked for our support in terms of that, we told Bayard that it's all right if O'Boyle leaves. But then Bayard brought A. Philip Randolph, and A. Philip Randolph talked about how he had worked with this for 20 years and how it was important. And once he did that, then what we did was we had an old typewriter, you can see we had a portable typewriter, and Jim Foreman, John Lewis, Mildred Foreman and myself in the back of the Lincoln Memorial making the changes to the speech.
SM (00:45:35):
Unbelievable, the pressure.
CC (00:45:35):
Oh yeah.
SM (00:45:35):
The pressure is intense.
CC (00:45:42):
Oh yeah. But what it did at that point was that this country loves controversy, so basically it made John's speech much more memorable because of the controversy, because it now had something to add to it. So we published a speech at first, and we published the changed speech. Now the SNCC people did call me a sellout, John, Jim Foreman for changing the speech. But we thought that it was better to go ahead and do that. And it got much more historical recognition because of it.
SM (00:46:20):
That is amazing. And this is important. John Kennedy obviously had reservations about this whole thing.
CC (00:46:26):
Oh yes, he did.
SM (00:46:28):
And historically, at the time, correct me if I am wrong, the Southern Democrats, even in his run for the presidency, he was concerned about the Southern Democrats because if he became out too strong towards civil rights he might lose the Southern vote and all the other stuff. Then he becomes President of the United States. And we know the whole history of LBJ and what he did in civil rights. But from your experiences and from talking to John Lewis and Julian Bond and all the people, Bayard, was Kennedy just a pragmatic politician? And did he sincerely care about civil rights? Or was this just a pragmatic move on his part to get support?
CC (00:47:13):
I think that Kennedy was a smart politician, and I think he began to see the future. I do not think that Kennedy, Jack Kennedy, in any way had any strong belief in civil rights. I think he had an intellectual support of it. But in terms of if he had to choose between his intellectual kind of thing, doing good and doing well, he would choose doing well because he wanted to be president. I mean, it is an ambitious family. And so his call to Martin King was a symbolic thing that would help solidify the, at that point, the Negro vote against... Because you have to remember that Nixon had Jackie Robinson on his side, and most blacks, until (19)36, most black people were Republicans. Because remember, the Republican party was the party of Lincoln. And was only until the Depression and Roosevelt that it started turning around. And so you have people like Jackie Robinson who were Republicans who were supporting, and Jackie Robinson was a big hero. So King was a counterweight to Jackie Robinson on that side. The other thing is that I do truly think that probably the one that started to get it later on in life was Bobby Kennedy. I think that after his brother was shot, I think he became a lot more introspective. And I think only somebody who had really understood what the deal was could have given that speech the night King got killed. He's only one that you really... This was not an off the top of the head speech. This way a, I understand this. I understand this more than any of you really understand it. And I think that he understood it after his brother got killed. But before that, they were, for example, Tom Khan, Butch Khan, Stokely, and myself, we sat in his office, in Bobby Kennedy's office. And what was funny is that they decided, okay, just leave him. Wait until the building closed down and then take some wheelchairs and wheel him them out. So they knew that... And Bobby Kennedy, at the end of the day, when they had to face... They did not want to be pushed. But when they were pushed, they took the right decision in terms of sending in troops. But even at the same time, they were trying to isolate Bayard and others from Martin King because they thought they were quote, "the radical communist element." So they were doing both things at the same time. So they were very scared, both of the Southern discussion, which was centered on race, and the communist discussion, which was huge at that time.
SM (00:51:06):
And even Dr. King, if I remember correctly, he was at that group with Miles Horton. He was in the audience and they said, "He is a communist" for being at that. They were making comments about Dr. King.
CC (00:51:24):
Yeah, obviously, look, and Bayard and Martin parted ways on this issue of communism because they did not want to take the heat. And the only group that really did not care about it was SNCC. I mean, we associated with Anne Braden, we associated with Miles Horton. We went out to his place. I was in Mississippi in 1963, and a lady came up to me and she said, "I am sure glad you communists are here to help us." So she got the message about communists, communists, communists. But she said, "Well, if these guys are scared of the communists, they must be here to help us." So I just think that at the end of the day, the thing I think that SNCC did that, especially in the early days, they did two things that were very profound. Well, maybe three things. First, they broke the back of this communist discussion because they did not care and they were not old enough to be influenced by the discussion. Two, they were able to organize and stay in the communities with the people that they worked with. They did not come in and go out. And the third is that because of that, they were able to function and not be paralyzed by terrorist tactics. I think those three things, I think distinguishes SNCC in a lot of ways, especially in the period from (19)60 to (19)64.
SM (00:53:22):
And of course, did you go down to the South yourself during the Freedom Rights?
CC (00:53:28):
Yeah, yeah. No, I did not go down South for Freedom Rights, no. Stokely was there. Bill Mahoney, John Moody, a number of people from Howard, but I did not go. Dion Diamond.
SM (00:53:38):
Freedom Summer was a special year.
CC (00:53:43):
It was (19)64. Yeah, yeah.
SM (00:53:43):
Yeah. And the Schwerner, Chaney, Goodman. Boy, that must be-
CC (00:53:45):
Yeah, that was terrorism. I mean, that is basically send the message and these people, kids, would get scared. And while people were scared they were not paralyzed. And that is seems to be the key question.
SM (00:54:03):
I have a question here. Did you or your family personally experience racism? Do you ever remember yourself experiencing it personally?
CC (00:54:15):
Yeah. My sense is that at that time it was just pervasive. The messages were very clear. You never saw any people of color on TV. You got to remember that. It is just profound how... I mean for me, you never saw anybody of color. You were always told, "We could not find any qualified." You were always told that. I mean, I never went to an apartment and somebody told me, "No, you cannot rent here." That was not never the case. But it does seem to me that the ability to move within the society without barriers... I mean, I give up racists, okay. During the demonstrations and so forth, I would go to restaurants and we would be refused and that, so we knew that. I guess it is just, so we were told "We do not serve you" or "we do not serve your kind." And what's really funny, especially on Route 40, where we were demonstrating, of course remember at that point, 95 was not the major route to New York, it was Route 40. And it was only after-
SM (00:55:42):
We went through that route when we went to Florida.
CC (00:55:45):
Okay. But I remember Stokely and I, after they decided on Route 40 and so forth, to open up and desegregate the restaurants. Because frankly, we have been to hundreds of restaurants and they turned us away. So we went in to eat breakfast. And the food was god awful. And so we said to each other, is this what we have been fighting for? This is bad food. We just go back into the black community, and get some good food. We're not coming back to this food. We're not coming back to this anymore. So I just think that there were several barriers that were known and unknown by us and experienced and anticipated by us coming. And I guess the other thing is police brutality in terms of, we went down in Washington, DC, Butch Con, Ed Brown and myself. We went down to the police station to talk to them, complain to them about what we thought was police brutality. So it was an all-white station. So the desk Sergeant said to us, "Well, when you start paying my salary, you can come in here and tell me what is going on and what we should be doing." And Butch Con spoke up and said, "Well, as a matter of fact, because we citizens, we do pay your salary." The desk Sergeant reached across the thing and punched Butch in the face.
SM (00:57:48):
Oh my God. So did Butch sue him?
CC (00:57:52):
No-no-no-no. So what we did, and it was a guy named Wayne Moss, who was the union guy in town. I forgot what union it was, but so we called him.
CC (00:58:03):
... in town. I forgot what Union he was with. So, we called him. And he also knew a guy at the Justice Department, who was African American, Duncan. And I think his name... I know his father's name was Todd Duncan, the musical guy. And Duncan was, I forgot, I am not sure what his first name was. So, this African-American comes in, and so we walk back in with this African-American guy whose name is Duncan. So, Duncan says, "I'd like to speak to the person who is in charge." So, they say, "Okay. Well, here is some more of these Black people coming in here, we saw them before." So, the guy says, "Well, we do not exactly know who's in charge." Just dismissive. So, what Duncan did, he ripped out his Justice Department credentials, and said, "If nobody is in charge, I am in charge." They were like flummoxed. They could not believe. Poom! They could not believe it. Then, he took over and directed these guys what they had to do or not do. So, I am just saying to you... And Julius Hobson, who used to, he was with CORE, as you know, he would call us for demonstrations all the time. So, yeah, for me, the reason I do not focus on events of discrimination, because I was always on offense, I was always trying to break the barriers down. Therefore, I never got offended because I was always on offense. So, that is my perspective on it.
SM (01:00:10):
I see here, just, people that are going to be reading the interviews, a lot of them do not know their history, as you well know, young people. In your own just a few words, what was SNCC, when did it start, why did it start, and what were its basic goals, and who were its leaders? And I know Bob Moses was leading...
CC (01:00:37):
Oh, yeah, okay. Well, SNCC, really SNCC came as a result of the need to test the law of the land that had just been established. So, you have got to remember, in 1896 this country had declared, separate but equal, the law of the land. So, that went on till about 1954 with the Brown v Board of Education. But with the Brown V Board of Education, and later with the in-Interstate Commerce Commission laws and rulings, all of it was talked about with all deliberate speed. So, for most young Black people, we saw the same thing, the status quo, and therefore, the need to challenge and to say, "If the law on our side, we want the country to act like the Lord is on our side." So, you had the sit-ins, and then you had the freedom riots. So, the sit-ins said, we are challenging the whole concept of our right to be like everybody else and that barrier to go away. The freedom riots said, we can...
SM (01:02:05):
Hey, you are doing fine.
CC (01:02:20):
Sure.
SM (01:02:22):
Yep, that was all right. I am sorry.
CC (01:02:26):
There you go. So, you have got that the freedom riot said, we have a right to travel without being treated as second class citizens, which means, you have to sit in the back of the bus, you have to give up your seat to any White person, and when you want to use facilities, the toilets and so forth, you do not go to a nasty, dirty place which is labeled "Colored", if you want to drink water, you should drink it from the best fountain. So, all those public accommodation barriers, we were challenging that whether we had a right to do what this country now said, after the 54th Supreme Court decision and other rulings said we had a right to do. So, those two events triggered SNCC. So, what happened was, Ms. Ella Baker called together a meeting at Shore University in February 1st 1960, to talk about how you coordinated all these activities. Therefore, you got Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee. And at first SNCC was a group of campus organizations. So, as I mentioned, you had the group out of Nashville with John Lewis and them, you had a group in Atlanta, the Atlanta Student Movement, you had a group up at Howard called the Non-Violent Action Group. You had groups like that, mostly on historically Black colleges. And that is how... And SNCC functioned like that, probably from 1960 to early 1962, where they were coordinated groups of campus people. Then, what began to happen was, again, some people started dropping out of school and beginning living in the communities, or had finished school, like Bob Moses, and started living in the communities. And there was a whole big debate about whether you continued public accommodations like looking at desegregating theaters, desegregating housing, desegregating lunch counters, or whether you move into the next phase, which was the political phase, deal with voting rights. At the end of the day, people in SNCC decided to go into voting rights. Therefore, with that kind of agenda, the nature of SNCC changed. So, we were no longer just campus organizations where you could, demonstrations all over the place, but you had voting rights in the most dangerous places; Mississippi, Alabama, Southwest Georgia. So, those students... And most people, we were between 17 and 22. Julian, somebody accused Julian of saying, "Well, they were 26 years old." Julian resented that. "No, I was 21, 22 years old." And that is what-
SM (01:05:57):
He is on my Facebook.
CC (01:06:00):
Yeah. So, here is a guy, here you have people, if you try to talk to them about whole groups of fear and communism and all this other baggage, no, they see right and wrong, they see people who are supposed to be voting in the United States cannot vote, they see barriers that exist. Therefore, SNCC came in at the tail end of what I characterize as the legal fight with the NAACP and people like that, brought us Brown v Board and all the issues around that, and all the stuff that King brought in terms of testing the legal things. So, my sense is that the period of beginning to either challenge the law, test the law, really came with the sit-ins and the freedom riots. Then, the political era, I would say SNCC was very much involved in that discussion. Started in (19)62 and probably ended in 2008, where the political barriers, where you no longer had poll tax and educational tests and all that stuff to be become a voter and a citizen in the United States. So, my sense is that SNCC went from a campus organization, particularly dealing with public accommodations and public accommodations issues, to moving to become a centralized organization dealing with voting, voting rights, and political organization. And probably, the two huge things that had big impact because of SNCC, at least on the voter registration side, was the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and what it did in the challenge in (19)64, and the Lowndes County Freedom Organization. Those two, I think, had profound impact on this country.
SM (01:08:21):
It is interesting, Fannie Lou Hamer... I have a question that I have asked a lot of people. A lot of the reason why the women's movement abound was because of sexism that took place within the anti-war movement, which was really strong. And even, I talked to members of the gay and lesbian group, and they also said it was very prevalent in there. And Civil Rights too. So, when you look at the march on Washington in 1963, we know that Rochelle was involved and Bayard had many young mentees under him and he was delegating them, but obviously, it was not publicized in the media that much, unless you read the bio of Bayard and others. Because when you see all the people in front of the Lincoln Memorial, you see Dorothy Height standing over to the right, and you see Mahalia Jackson singing, but it is all men.
CC (01:09:23):
That is true.
SM (01:09:23):
It is all men. And-
CC (01:09:24):
I think, with the exception of Dorothy Height, there was nobody at the leadership level who was a woman. And she was there and probably there because of Bayard. I think that the involvement of young people... Because the other piece is that some of those guys, particularly Roy Wilkins, did not particularly embrace the involvement of young people either now. So, Roy Wilkins said, "I am not going to have you...," he told me, "I am not going to have your young people come in here and destroy everything we have worked for-for all these years. You will do it over my dead body." So, it seems to me that these guys had built themselves a structure, and were resistant to women, to young people, and other people that they were not "comfortable" with coming into that arena.
SM (01:10:38):
I think Whitney Young was in the same boat.
CC (01:10:40):
Oh, no question. He went into his thing, they would coveralls... Oh, he had a fit. He just could not understand how these young people could be so disrespectful, come into this building that Rockefeller gave them, I think on 48th Street, in coveralls. And do we care about any of that? We did not care.
SM (01:11:04):
The other thing is, James Farmer, who was arrested, I believe, and he was not at the march, he was the one leader that was not there, I believe-
CC (01:11:13):
Yeah. But I think, by that time, Farmer had given it up to what is-his-face, and he was in Black Mind, Louisiana. But he was down in-
SM (01:11:19):
Floyd McKissick?
CC (01:11:19):
Floyd McKissick, right. Yeah-yeah.
SM (01:11:24):
No, he was not resistant though, was he? He is-
CC (01:11:27):
No-no-no. I think Farmer came of the tradition much more like Bayard, being Fellowship of Reconciliation, that kind of stuff. He is much more in that kind of tradition than say Roy Wilkins or Whitney Young, and so forth.
SM (01:11:47):
Some of the transition you are talking about here too, which is really... I have done a lot of reading on Dr. King, and I am really looking forward to the week that is coming because it is long overdue. But one of the things that is interesting, I can remember reading Charles Silverman's book, In Black and White. I was in college, and it was just a tremendous book. And I still, I have got a first edition of it, mint condition. However, my other one's all marked up. But he talked about Thurgood Marshall and Jack Greenberg and the more gradualist approach, again, the Brown v Board of Education, which is so crucial, and then, you saw the resistance that took place right on the part of states to follow the law, and so forth. Then, you have got Dr. King coming along, which is basically, he respected Thurgood Marshall, but he was not a gradualist type of person. He was a guy-who-want-it-now kind of a person, and that is why he was doing the protest. Then, you get the next group, which is the question I want to ask is, did SNCC get into the Black Power issue because Stokely became so unbounded, and they trapped Brown-
CC (01:13:01):
No-no-no.
SM (01:13:03):
No?
CC (01:13:03):
No. I am going to give you a piece that I wrote. I think the Black Power discussion really came after the Atlantic City challenge.
SM (01:13:21):
And that is (19)64?
CC (01:13:24):
(19)64. I think up to 1964, the whole concept of SNCC and everybody else was that if you bring the problems out and you make it part of the conversation of the country, then people will in fact deal with it, and that, in fact, it was that your role was to make this situation known, to deal with, so that these guys who were in the centers of political, economic, cultural, and so forth, power, would do whatever they want, do the right things. One of the things leading up to the, and I will never forget this, one of the things leading up to the (19)64 summer project, I think this was (19)63, there were probably maybe 30, 35 bodies found in the Mississippi River. And it was raised with the people in New York Times, and it was about that much space. Nobody cared.
SM (01:14:59):
More than Emmett Till then?
CC (01:15:01):
Yeah. It was about 36 bodies found and it was not big news. The reason that Emmett Till was big news was because his mother decided to show the absolute brutality, and it shocked the Black community, and they reacted. And that is one of the profound things that affected me. And it affected a number of people who were in SNCC because they were just coming into their teenage years, therefore, they saw a lot of it. I think Emmett Till had a profound effect. But let us go back to this whole transition to Black power. Basically, what people realize at the Freedom Democratic Party is that even if you brought the issues and even if you played by all the rules and even if you were representing people who had been harmed all these years, the interests of the power structure did not care any of them, by the by. So, you see Ms. Hamer making a brilliant speech building sympathy, and Johnson cutting her off. You see that we have 13 votes to make a minority port, and then people, and Diggs and others betraying us and crumbling the thing. You see that in the church in Atlantic City, everybody, I am talking about Joe Raw, I am talking about Walter Luther, I am talking about Martin King, I am talking about Bayard Rustin, I am talking about everybody sided with the discussion of the Democrats must win, and therefore, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party cannot win what they're rightfully there to do. And we are given some fig leave of two things in the balcony. Therefore, the message to the young people, we were saying, okay, you are told, all right, right and wrong if, it is wrong to discriminate, if it is wrong to do this, it is wrong to do that, and you play by the rules and you do the right things, this is supposed to happen. And we saw we were in a right/wrong game, and people were in a win/lose game. So, basically, we now saw what it meant in terms of win/lose. Therefore, people said it is no longer important to ask those who caused the problem to deal with the nature of the problem. We now have to look after ourselves. We now have to think through what we are doing. So, in Lowndes County, which was 80 percent Black, our model was this, we were not going to go and ask the sheriff to do a better job, we were not going to ask the probate judge and a tax collector and a tax assessor. Basically, the concept of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization was regime change. We were going to get rid of every officer who was there. Now, they want to argue, "Well, these people are not qualified. They are sharecroppers, and so forth." What we did was we created comic books that broke the law down, that people could see the law and understand their roles and responsibilities. We had a bunch of things that encourage people to vote. We had the Black Panther as a symbol because we understood that people, the literacy rate was not high. So, basically, we're using what the Indian, Mahatma Gandhi did and other people did, with people who do not have high literacy rates, they vote for a symbol. So, basically, we said, "Pull the lever for the Black Panther across straight party line vote, and then go home. Do not think about this, that or the other. Pull the lever for the Black Panther, and then go home." So, basically, what you had... And we wanted the Black Panther... And basically the Black Panther, the Democratic Party had a rooster as their symbol for the Right. We wanted a strong black symbol, so they got the, I think the panther is the mascot from Morris Brown, or one of those schools in Atlanta. Either Morris Brown or something like that. I think it is Morris Brown. And I think Ruth Howard brought the idea to us, and Jennifer drew it. So, it was a symbol, big, it was black, and we told people, "The whole thing is pull the lever for the Black Panther, and then go home," because basically, that is a strategy that is been tried with high [inaudible]. And our objective was regime change where our view was, if you are going to get rid of police brutality, then you need to be the sheriff. If you are going to get rid of unfair tax practices, then you need to be the sheriff. If you want the federal dollars that come into the county to work in your way, you need to run the county. So, that is basically the basis on which Stokely starts saying, "You cannot ask these people, after what we saw in Atlantic City, to keep doing for you what you need to start doing for yourself." Therefore, the Black people, which is what he would be dealing with in Lowndes County, needed to assume power. And during the Meredith March, that whole discussion was capitalized in the phrase Black Power. Now, I think that in (19)63, King said, that is why you have that money, "I have a dream that is deeply rooted in the American dream." What the younger generation was saying is, "We do not believe that that dream exists for us unless we, in fact, bring it about ourselves, and therefore we have to move for power." Now, you have got to also remember that at that point, and you said you were doing stuff on jazz and arts, and so forth, you have got to remember, and if you look into this whole discussion, at that point we were Negros, Black was a fighting word, we were considered ugly, our features were considered ugly, things that we were not beautiful were us. So, the whole discussion on Black power, at least on the cultural side, had a very profound effect in terms of how Black people saw themselves, because in this sense, in this country, because of what was going on, you had a situation where the closer you were to White, the better you were off, the blacker you were... So, the whole thing about if you are White, you are right, if you light, stick around, and if you're Black, get back. There was just all, just, negativity. So, my sense is that while, in terms of the White community, in terms of the White activist community, there was a sense where you are rejecting us, and on the White community in terms of the power structure, you are challenging us, you are not connected to us. In terms of the Black community, I think at least on the cultural side, it was very profound in terms of changing their sense of themselves. But also, I think, on the political side, it started bringing the Black communities to start thinking about how, within their communities, they take responsibility for their own existence. So, I think that people really do not understand, at least for me, how profound that Atlantic City thing was, because it basically said, even if you play by the rules, you cannot win. There is no such thing as right and wrong, there is only win and lose. It is a power discussion. It is a discussion of who will run and who will control. It is not about good and bad, and wrong, it is about win and lose. That was the message I got. And at 23 years old, it was very interesting to me.
SM (01:25:00):
I know there has been two biographies out on Fannie Lou Hamer, and that convention in (19)64 is mentioned in history books, on Johnson doing what he did, and those kinds of things. I do not think there has been an in-depth-
CC (01:25:15):
You are right.
SM (01:25:16):
... that there has not been an in-depth concentrated, just on that convention, on that movement, on those few days. Someone needs to... I am just bringing this up.
CC (01:25:29):
No-no, I agree with.
SM (01:25:30):
Someone needs to write a book that just needs to cover what happened there, what led up to it, what happened during the days, what followed, the impact it is had on history or why history has not covered it better. And Fannie Lou Hamer has really risen-
CC (01:25:54):
But not only that, not only that. In addition to the Black Power discussion, that convention was responsible for the shift of the Dixie crash of the Republican Party. Basically, there is a straight line from that convention to them shifting to the Republican Party.
SM (01:26:16):
Wow.
CC (01:26:18):
So, I think this is a very big event.
SM (01:26:23):
Fannie Lou Hamer did not live very long, did she? I know she was overweight and she had high blood pressure and-
CC (01:26:31):
She was on a sharecropper, you had been beaten. Other than that, yeah, I do not think she made it to 60.
SM (01:26:38):
Yeah. I think, getting that same timeframe, maybe it is how the media tries to portray things, but there has always been this perception of, well, when Thurgood Marshall did the Brown... the decision came through based on his efforts at the Supreme Court, Dr. King was there to make the comment as the younger person, "Well, the gradualist approach is fine. Congratulations for doing this, but we're doing non-violent protest..."
SM (01:27:03):
Congratulations for doing this, but we're doing nonviolent protest and all the other things. And the Montgomery Bus Boycott was happening and then-
CC (01:27:10):
Yeah, but King did not volunteer. He was drafted now.
SM (01:27:17):
I know. But then you got the picture and the picture I am talking about, the historic picture of Dr. King with his arms crossed and Stokely's talking to him. But basically, it is a picture, it is a scene from, I do not know, they were together on some stage and I think basically, he told Dr. King, your time has passed.
CC (01:27:39):
Well, you know-
SM (01:27:41):
It was referring to Bayard Rustin. He was referring to the big four. He was, your guy's time has passed.
CC (01:27:46):
It's interesting. We, in 1968 and before King, and it must have been two or three months before King died, was killed. Excuse me. He did not died. I mean, well he died as a result of being shot. We had a meeting at the Pismo Hotel here with SNCC people and they wanted to know if we were going to participate in the Poor People's March. And we told him no. Said, are you going to disrupt it? No. He said, are you going to disrupt it? Because the rumors were going to disrupt it. No. Are you going to participate? No. And because we had always been competing, we had always been all this stuff with King. We had a great deal of respect for King, even though we were always in competition with him. And everybody from SNCC was there. Everybody from SCLC was there. And we said to him, you cannot ask those who press you to deal with the nature of your oppression. And King got quiet and we were told after we let got the press, because I mean he understood that the whole thing that he tried, it was going to be a big, big difference. Because King was coming. Because remember after King gave that speech in (19)63 about which everybody celebrates. King gave some hell of a speeches after that about the Vietnam War.
SM (01:29:29):
Oh yeah.
CC (01:29:29):
About poverty. It is like he never gave those speeches. Mean he understood more than most. When you read King stuff, he was a brilliant, brilliant man. And one of the things I do respect, the older I get the more respectful. Philip Randolph, Bayard, Martin King, Thurgood Marshall, I think we brought a lot of energy and we brought a lot of less fear and so forth. And that is what we should bring. Fortunately we had people like Ella Baker who helped us bring perspective, Bayard, who helped bring perspective and so forth. But that is what younger generations do. They go through barriers that people did not think they could go through. And my sense is that as you point out, there is always the transition. We are always going to the next phase. And that is not a bad thing.
SM (01:30:37):
I remember we had Tommy Smith on our campus, and Tommy, when he gave the Black Power fist, Harry Edwards was the graduate student. He was at Cornell too in (19)69, but Tommy and John Carlos, both of them, the perception out there and he's had to repeat it over and over again and correct people. He said, I was never a Black Panther. I was never a Black Panther that was about Black Power. And he, again, he really got upset. And he was like, now remember, if you're writing an article in the paper about this, I was never a Black Panther. I never supported the Black Panthers. I am a Black Power person.
CC (01:31:19):
Well, they do not care that, they just did not want them to quote you. Basically those guys point is that you embarrassed the United States in that because in the world state, because you got to remember in (19)69 and so forth, there was still that Russian United States Cold War discussion. And therefore the United States trying to portray itself as the defender of democracy. And the Russians can show to the world, particularly Africa, that this is not serious. Their salute in Mexico in (19)68 had profound international implications for the United States vis-a-vis the Cold War discussion in Africa. And that is why it seared into this country. And one of the things that now, and I guess I will do some writing at some point pretty soon, but it does seem to me that all this stuff has context. So an event that functions here has layers all over the place. And I think that salute. And so therefore the people who are writing this stuff want to say, you embarrassed us and we will say the most despicable things that we think we can say about you. And that is what it is about.
SM (01:32:50):
And I think Ralph Boston, he did not do the fist, but he did something comparable. He was doing the long jump. And there were many female African American athletes who did the same thing and they concentrated on those two guys.
CC (01:33:06):
Yeah, because remember that was the elite. See 100 and 200. That is the elite. That is the glamour piece. So therefore when you have in the competition of supremacy, use supremacy, my guys are faster than yours, our guys are stronger than yours, all that kind of stuff, boxing was all that. To get those guys and the heavyweights, those the heavyweight boxers to get those guys saying, making their statement at that time was a profound issue. If these guys were 6,000 meat runners, nobody would have cared.
SM (01:33:54):
George Foreman though with the-
CC (01:33:56):
He put the American flag.
SM (01:33:56):
Flag-
CC (01:33:57):
I mean they loved it. They loved it.
SM (01:33:59):
Muhammad Ali was against the war and he paid a heavy price for it. It is interesting. I was up in California and I went to the statue. I had to drive to San Jose because I wanted to see it after Tommy came to our campus. He is a great guy.
CC (01:34:14):
Well yeah, he was.
SM (01:34:15):
Ah Mike, and he is well-educated. Smart as a-
CC (01:34:17):
And not only that, they said in terms of running, he really has some techniques because he broke... you also have to realize that in (19)68, I remember Jim Ryan, I do not know if you remember him.
SM (01:34:33):
Yes, I do.
CC (01:34:35):
Okay.
SM (01:34:35):
Long distance runner.
CC (01:34:35):
A long distance runner, 1500 meters. And I remember I was with my wife in Montreal and remember listening to the announcer say, blacks will win the short distance races because there is no strategy involved, it is just muscle. And where talks about strategy and so forth, whites were going to dominate that. And that was the year Kipchoge Keino came up. I mean-
SM (01:35:06):
Since then-
CC (01:35:07):
Since then, I mean it is Africa, East Africa and East Africa has been dominant. If it is not Somalia, it is Kenya, so forth. Well keep going with your questions cause-
SM (01:35:19):
Yeah, this is a kind of general question here. I did want to mention that something that maybe you did not know the third person, the guy who finished second, Carlos was third.
CC (01:35:31):
Right Carlos was third.
SM (01:35:32):
And he died just before Tommy came to the campus. And I believe Tommy went to his funeral. I forget what country he was from, but did you know that guy supported them a hundred percent?
CC (01:35:45):
Oh yeah.
SM (01:35:45):
And Tommy said, do you want me to raise my fist too? That is not known by a lot of people, but Tommy explains it in the book. They liked that guy, the guy that finished second who was totally in support of what the athletes were doing there. And now he said, no, we have to do this and thanks, but no, do not put your fist up.
CC (01:36:07):
Yeah. Right.
SM (01:36:09):
So when you look at the boomer generation as a whole, and of course boomers are those born between (19)46 and (19)64.
CC (01:36:17):
Yeah (19)65.
SM (01:36:17):
And including all ethnic backgrounds now, all backgrounds. What are your thoughts on that generation? How important were they in the Civil Rights Movement? Because some people are saying, well, they were only 18 or 19 years old when most of the Civil Rights Movement in its heyday was the (19)50s through to maybe (19)65. And so in the boomer generation, they're only coming into, they're going to college starting in (19)65. But they were involved in Freedom Summer, they were involved in a lot of things. But what are your thoughts on this generation now, 70 million strong, that is now reaching the age of 65 this year?
CC (01:36:58):
One of the things that really is interesting, I think the boomer generation helped to change America. And one of the things that is not generally talked about but seen by people like myself is that the boomer generation fed off of a lot of what we did. And what surprised me, if you look at the letter that Clinton wrote to his draft ward where he talked about the Civil Rights Movement, and he did not know what the hell he was ever running. People thought that they were trying to embarrass him by putting out that letter that he wrote. They were profoundly impacted in terms of what we were trying to do. I think, also, that they opened up for people who may not have been boomers, technically, some space, for example, one of the things that you got to remember right after, let us talk about the Black Power thing discussion. Right after that, you had, and coming out of the Civil Rights Movement and literally coming out of it, you had the Cesar Chavez piece, and you're talking about some of the SNCC people going out to help Cesar Chavez. You had Mario Savio who was in fact in Mississippi. You had the whole discussion of the role of women in the movement and in the country where Casey and Mary King and those guys started a whole lot of that conversation and amplifying on it. You had, after the Black Power discussion, you had gray power where a lot of senior citizens started-
SM (01:39:27):
They accused.
CC (01:39:29):
Yeah started talking about that. You had the discussion of gay power. You had a whole sense of, so basically while the boomers may not have been old enough to be in central figures in the Civil Rights Movement, they were the megaphones that had kept, or the mechanism, that kept what the discussion was in the Civil Rights Movement reverberating in a lot of places and a lot of things that kept the society. Because what could have happened was you had a situation where you had that and then things closed up. No-no. They not only did it, but expanded in terms of the view of even stuff like [inaudible] giving him space or Richard Pryor giving him space. So my sense is, one of the things that I said about the Black Power discussion, at least in the black community, the cultural boundaries were broken in terms of poetry, in terms of music, in terms of art, all that stuff were there. And I think in terms of the boomer generation, the boundaries were broken. The kind of industrial Father Knows Best, Ozzie and Harriet-
SM (01:41:12):
Leave it to Beaver.
CC (01:41:13):
Leave It to Beaver. All of that stuff started and the (19)60s and late (19)60s and not only that, the other thing that started, and you see it right now with this little stuff you have here. You got to remember in the (19)50s coming out of Civil Rights Movement, you had two or three magazines. You had, Look, you had Life, you had Time. Those were the big dominant things. We had big dominant things. And then people started beginning to diversify. I think what the Boomer generation brought was a sense of diversity in terms of interest. You did not have to fit into a mold in order to be accepted. You did not have to look like this and act like this and be this. Because what happened, it was order in the (19)50s. What you had in the (19)60s was the breaking down of the disorder, particularly in the black community. But then that the breaking down of that order in terms of the hierarchical stuff. So now Look and Life does not exist anymore. People have a thousand magazines. I think what the boomer generation brought to this situation was diversity and the ability for America to be able to have to accept Mao's A Thousand Flowers so that black people could be this, that or the other. They did not have to be in this box. People who were gay did not have to be in that box. Women did not have to be in their place. People who are geeks are now accepted. That is another group that quote been viewed as such and such. So I am saying that I think probably the hallmark of the boomer generation and what is their ability to accept diversity. Now the other thing is that they have things that allow them to facilitate. We were talking about Facebook, we were talking about... Things are not always in the (19)50s when we were coming along in the early (19)60s, it was always from the top down. Now a lot of it comes from the bottom up because people with blogs, people with this, that and the other can communicate to each other that they do not have to watch ABC, CBS TV in order to get the impressions. There are a lot of people who were making other pressures outside of the hierarchy. So the boomer generation disintegrated the hierarchical structure that existed, that was brought to us by guess by the industrial age.
SM (01:44:33):
You hit it right on the target there. It is almost as if when we discussed the culture wars that we have seen since the (19)80s, (19)90s or whatever, and particularly today, it is trying to change the culture, possibly trying to get it back to the way it was. And actually I am really studying what is going on in England right now. And I think the undercurrent in England, there is a bunch of hooligans and taking advantage of things and copycats, yes. But I think this is a deep-seated problem. This has to do with as Dr. King would always say, we got to deal with the economy because it's not always, it is race, but it is also about your economic status. And I think what is happening in London today and what is happening all over England is the fact that the challenge to multiculturalism, and when I see people who start pointing fingers at the reason why we have problems is because of them. It is because it is a reaction. It is very reactionary and it is scary to me. And that is what the culture wars are.
CC (01:45:49):
Well I think also with the guy in Norway, his view was we are going to kill anybody who supports this kind of stuff. So that is my sense. But I think that the next phase, I think big phase we have to fight is the economic discussion. And that is going to be, a lot of it now centers on education. I think that is the next big Civil Rights fight. Where I think we have finished, my view is that we are finished with the political, the vote and so forth. We are going to have counteractions in terms of the Republicans trying to narrow the vote, trying to talk about frauds and cheating and stuff. But with Obama, there is a sense that that last barrier as President is broken. Because when I was coming up, the view of a black man being president was probably one of the for taken absurdities. Now, I think the whole question of who is able to participate in the economy, which is the issue that you talked about in England and other places, who is going to be able to participate in the economy? Do you have such a hierarchical piece where 1 percent of the highest income people all have as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent? How do you now begin to, given the diversity I just talked about and intellectual property becoming the raw materials of driving the economic engine, how do you now and particularly the sciences, how do you now deal with new literacies? How do you begin to deal with math and science? How do you now begin to think through the use of computer literacy? How do you now begin to, this is the new struggle. How do you now, the economic struggle, which has always been the struggle. Not all this other stuff is race and gender and so forth, the real core issue. Because African-Americans not here in the United States, not because white people did not like them, they were economic implements. They were in agriculture and agrarian economy. They were economic units needed for labor and therefore that is why they're here. And the issues that we have, have not reached beyond that. We have not dealt with the economic issues. And we are now given all these other layers, the legal layer, the segregation layer, the political layer. Now we now have to focus on the economic issues.
SM (01:49:06):
And it is interesting because this is a time when labor unions are going down.
CC (01:49:10):
Oh, they are going down.
SM (01:49:12):
And I can remember being in California before I moved back east and we were told where I worked, if you were ever to talk to anybody, a union, we would fire you. We met as a group over in Daley City just to hear someone talk to this whole group of people. And we did not know we were being spied on.
CC (01:49:39):
But here is the thing, labor unions are going down for two kind of reasons. Two or three reasons. But you got to remember, for example, the labor unions come out of the industrial kinds of things or government. Now Google basically what they have, you go out there and see their campus and all that. They get these kids and these young people and they create a different environment. Facebook, all this stuff where the new industries are. It is a whole different reality. So the same diversity that destroyed the look and the life and so forth is the same diversity that also mitigated the influence of the unions. Right now you and I do consulting. Right now. All I need is a computer and a cell phone and I have a laptop or I right now it is getting down to where all you need is a iPad and you can be anywhere and be your office. It is a whole different work environment. And so unions are going to have a tough time if they do not think through different models of what's going to go on.
SM (01:51:10):
When we are getting down there. We are going on to my next tape here in a second here. But when you look at the presidents, during the time that boomers have been alive, we are talking about Truman through Obama or basically in your lifetime, who are the presidents that, I think the word I want to use is genuine, who generally they may have passed legislation that helped people of color and African Americans. But in your studies, in your life experiences, you worked for President Clinton, but you have seen all these presidents in your life. Who are the genuine ones and who were the fakes?
CC (01:51:58):
In terms of the issues like-
SM (01:51:59):
In terms of caring about people who are having a harder time in this society?
CC (01:52:07):
Well, I think it is interesting. I think probably if you talk to black businessmen and people in that group of people, the president that they think was most helpful to them is Richard Nixon. Because remember Nixon was the one, remember Nixon came in after the riots, the rebellions and Nixon's statement was, what we are going to do is make all these guys entrepreneurs. And he opened up at Commerce through secretary Stands, Sue secretary Stands a minority business development agent was called OBME, Office of Business Minority Enterprise or something like that. Basically Nixon truly believed that the path to salvation was to create businesses that would do that. So he believed in that. I think the other person I think who was familiar and on the voting rights piece and so forth, I would say Johnson was on the voting rights piece. I think he was particularly helpful and he knew the passing of voter rights legislation and so forth. He knew that it would have a huge impact on the Democratic Party in terms of what would happen to it, particularly the Dixiecrats. So he put skin in the game and at the end of the day, while I disagree with him on the war and so forth, I think that on this issue mean he was very important, given as much as presidents can be important. I think the other one who had a profound impact I think was Clinton. And I think Clinton's contribution was his point was, I am going to have a cabinet that looks like America. And so therefore Clinton had somebody in a lot of positions of authority and power that they were not, including Department of Agriculture. He had Espy there, Commerce, he obviously Ron Brown. So it was no longer if you had a black, you put them at HUD. It was no longer the Weaver Pat Harris discussion. Almost any position in the thing you can have, there have only two positions I guess blacks have not really been cabinet secretaries, that is Treasury and Defense. But if somebody nominates a black person for a position, George Bush did for Secretary of State. It's no longer a big issue. So I think the three presidents that probably on the issue that, Nixon on business, Johnson on voting rights, and Clinton, on having a sense that this country needs to diversify in terms of its cabinet. One of the things that when I was at Commerce with Ron Brown, we went to a meeting, Brown called a meeting of the senior staff and they were all white males. So Ron walked in there and said, I do-
CC (01:56:03):
Ron walked in there and said, "I do not ever want to sit in a meeting that looks like this again." Let me tell you, bells went off. I mean they would ... But the other thing that ... And Ron was good, because I mean, he was very aggressive in terms of promoting American businesses abroad. I mean, the Republicans loved him, because he would be able to open up to Africa, to China, to wherever he went. He was that good in that sense. And he was a fighter in the sense that when Gingrich and them wanted to downsize the commerce, housing, and get rid of education, he fought them tooth and nail. Cisneros gave in, but Ron fought them tooth and nail. And all these guys who were SESs, the top of the food chain who had no respect for Black people before Ron came in, grew to love Ron because he saved their jobs.
SM (01:57:16):
Wow.
CC (01:57:17):
So my sense is, I think that the three presidents, I would say Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton, those were the three.
SM (01:57:31):
You talked about the (19)64 convention, but how about the (19)68 convention? Because the one in Chicago that was on TV-
CC (01:57:39):
Oh, the Vietnam allotment.
SM (01:57:40):
Yeah, and the year 1968, the loss of-
CC (01:57:44):
Was quite a year. But I think that year spoke a lot to diversifying. I mean, you began to see the coming apart. I mean, when I listened to Pat Buchanan, I do not know if you ever see him on Morning Joe and stuff like that.
SM (01:58:04):
No.
CC (01:58:05):
I mean, they want to go back to the (19)50s. I mean, basically (19)68 was the continuation of creating diversity, creating a sense of, we all need ... Now, I mean, because we do not need to be a Vietnam. We do not want to be drafted to fight wars that we do not want to fight. Ultimately now what they have done is gotten rid of the draft and mechanized now with drones, and now the people who are poor are fighting. So, I mean, I am not sure the outcomes of (19)68 what everybody wanted it, so they ended the draft. But now people are now forced who are poor. They got no place else to do. But God, when you look at all those deaths, notices, they're either from towns, not in the big cities, and they're all poor people. They are all poor people. And now you also got a lot more mercenaries. I mean, that is, I think what-
SM (01:59:13):
I only got about four more questions here.
CC (01:59:17):
Okay, because I got 10 more minutes.
SM (01:59:18):
Okay. I am trying to remember. It was the (19)68 convention. Oh, my God, I am forgetting what I was going to ask. Had to do with the ... Oh, the psyche. The boomer generation was made up of 70 million people.
CC (01:59:34):
Right.
SM (01:59:37):
And that year was unbelievable in so many ways. It was so tragic. And what happens is when you look at the (19)60s and the (19)70s and the boomer generation, they talk about that really 95 percent were really uninvolved in anything and they were going on with their daily lives and everything.
CC (01:59:53):
That is true.
SM (01:59:56):
Only 5 percent were really involved in any kind of an activism of any kind, including conservatives too, those conservatives. But I have always felt deep down inside that that year, subconsciously along with what happened in (19)63, subconsciously left a permanent mark on all. For the generation to see two major figures assassinated, to see ... The war in Vietnam was, we were supposed to be in control, and then Tet happened. We saw the conventions with politicians pointing and swearing at each other. And then there is so many worries in the city. It is just a terrible time.
CC (02:00:42):
No, I agree with you. See, I think it is, I mean, I would not say "a terrible year." I'd say clearly a year of transition.
SM (02:00:49):
Can you hold- You were [inaudible]
CC (02:01:00):
I think those people who say that basic 5 percent of activists, probably correct, because I think change is never brought about, it is never a mass movement. I think, however, however, just like I was saying at Howard and just like I was saying at varied people, that the people who were not activists but are more passive, tend to look at what's going on and decide who they're going to support in terms of who they will be supportive of. And I think that for a lot of people in America, they were comfortable with the changes, but were made to be afraid of them. I mean, part of the reason that you have ... And disorder is part of the reason you had Nixon. But it does seem to me that ... I think that for a lot of the boomers and for the younger ones, this was where things were going. They were being empowered. For a lot of those who were older at the time, the country was going to hell in a hand basket, and they did not know what to do. Things were moving too fast. How could this happen? So I mean, my sense is that, yeah, I mean, (19)68 was a very profound year. But I think that while it was a profound year, probably only 5 percent of the people really made it a profound year.
SM (02:02:49):
In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin and end, and what was a watershed moment?
CC (02:02:57):
For me, I mean, I think watershed moment, there's several watershed moments in the (19)60s. The Freedom Rides and the sit-ins were watershed moments. The Cuban Missile Crisis, watershed moment. We became aware of the threat of nuclear warfare in a way that we did not really ... I mean for me, I was in school and I was ... (19)63, a watershed moment. As I said earlier, (19)64, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, a watershed moment. For me also, (19)67 was a watershed moment, I mean just personally, because (19)67, I went to what was considered a war crimes tribunal convened by Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre.
SM (02:03:58):
Wow.
CC (02:03:58):
I participated in that and understood what was going on. Obviously, as we said, (19)68 was another watershed. So there were several. I mean, the Freedom Rides and the sit-ins began to break down the old order, or challenge the old order that was broken down in (19)54. (19)62, everybody was scared shitless because of thermonuclear warfare. (19)63, how could this happen in America? I think those were the times that made a difference.
SM (02:04:47):
Was Kent State in there too?
CC (02:04:52):
I would say Kent State. I would say Jackson. I would say Jackson State, all that stuff that happened on the campus. I mean, all of it was very ... I mean, the (19)60s were very intense because, I mean, a new order was being established, and as that new order was established, you had some disorder.
SM (02:05:20):
Just a little question, and that is not about Black power, but about the Black Panthers. Some people say when we talk about violence, there was a weather underground. The anti-war movement was not violent because they were very frustrated. Some people say that the Black Panthers, even though they had the food program, that they were violent in their-
CC (02:05:41):
Right. I mean, their argument is that they were self-defense. You know, first of all, I do not know much about the Black Panthers. My sense is they were ... I think it is SNCC. I mean, I think part of the Panthers that felt the need to relate to the community that they were in and move with them to make change was probably the part that I am most sympathetic to. I think the part that felt the need to show machismo and so forth and audacity and the name-calling and so forth, while I think it was all right, I mean, I guess for young people to feel that that was doing something, the older I get, my sense is that it was not a big change. I mean, my sense is, look, the older I get, the more I understand is, that revolution really is the people who you involve in the discussion. It is not guns. I mean, guns will become a reaction, but at the end of the day, basically when you look at the history of revolution, especially our armed violence and so forth, after one side wins or the other, it is always a then what? And generally when one side wins an armed struggle, it is a continuation of the same, because the people who were excluded before are still excluded now. So my sense is that the big fight is, how do you include those who are excluded, and how you bring them into the discussion and conversation where they can find their own voice? I mean, I think that is long term. That is very tough. And so I mean, I think to the terms of question of the Panthers, to the extent that they involved themselves in the urban communities, that is probably a good thing. But I think the kind of leading with your frustration led to a certain kind of violence, and that violence was felt mostly in the Black community with the killing of each other and all that kind of retribution and foolishness. I mean-
SM (02:08:42):
I know in California they surrounded the capital in Sacramento.
CC (02:08:46):
Yeah, I saw that, but at the end of the day, that was nice and a good picture. But probably, at the end of the day, they probably shot more of their own people than they did other than that.
SM (02:08:58):
And then of course, something that was not related to it was the guns at Cornell University in (19)69. The organizer was Harry Edwards, and-
CC (02:09:11):
Yeah, I mean, but it is all theater. I mean, to me, that is all theater. It's nice. I mean, the same way I view Cornel West. He is all theater.
SM (02:09:18):
Two more questions, and this is a very important one because I have asked it to everybody. This was a question that we asked Senator Edmund Muskie in 1995 when we took a group of students to Washington. And they came up with a question because they had seen videos of the 1968 year as a whole. And the question was this, "Due to the divisions that were taking place in the 1960s and the early (19)70s between Black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who were for the war, or those who were against the war, or for the troops, against the troops, whether ... Will the boomer generation of 70 million go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healed?" And is healing even an issue here? The Vietnam Memorial was built obviously to try to heal some of the veterans and their families. It was a non-political statement. It was geared toward the vets. But even Jan Scruggs in his book, To Heal A Nation, says that he hopes it goes beyond the vets, that it plays a little part in healing the nation. Do you think it's possible to heal from these divisions?
CC (02:10:27):
Oh, yeah. I mean, oh, yeah. My sense is this. I mean, I am going to go back to what I said earlier. The Civil War, you had two sides. I mean, you had the industrial north conquering the agrarian south and replacing one economic system with the other, and people were locked in, and the whole bunch of stuff that happened where the north brought the Black community in to solidify their power. I mean, so they never got over it. I mean, I am not sure they are over it yet. But I think in terms of the generation, the boomer generation, if you can isolate them out and the people who were activists and so forth, I do not have a sense that ... I mean, I think, as I said earlier, that what the boomer generation is going to be noted for is that it created space for many. And so therefore, the creating of space for Blacks, [inaudible] for gays, women, this, that, the other, I mean, people have this space. I mean, it was not necessarily ... The boomer generation did not so much create. There was a lot of conflict, but it was not a zero-sum game, which the Civil War was. I win, you lose. The boomer generation, I think, created a possibility where you had multiple winners, and I think that is ... I mean, I may hear, some would say, "Well, people thought before Black power was the good part of the civil rights movement and after that was the bad part." Or, women and men, I do not see them going after each other. I mean, I do not see gays and straights. I mean, I do not see ... I think, well, let us take for the gay community. I mean, you now have in several places. You are not going to have it in Alabama anytime soon, or some places there. But at least Perry, even in his ignorance, had to say, "Well, if the people in New York want it, let them have it." And my sense is that space is being created. I mean, even those who say, "Well, there's no place in the United States for this kind of activity," they're not the dominant discussion. People view as, "Hey, if the people in the state want to ..." I mean, and so forth. Or while he had this whole thing about Obama, whether he is legitimate, whether he was born in the United States, now he's being treated like every other president. Why are not you saving me, you dumb son of a bitch? I am just saying to you that, I mean, I do not think that the boomer generation and the actions that were going on and that created a zero-sum game. They created more space for more people, and therefore the diversity allowed various people in various ways to coexist. I mean, I do not have that view.
SM (02:14:32):
My last question deals a little bit about legacy. If you could put it in just a nutshell here, how did your experiences at Howard, your experiences with SNCC, even your relationship with Mr. Rustin and CORE, the experience of being one of the main young leaders of the March on Washington in 1963, how have these played a part in your life post-(19)60s and (19)70s? Because I know that you have been involved in many leadership roles. You still are.
CC (02:15:15):
Right.
SM (02:15:15):
I have read your background and one thing that always sticks out is that you seem to be a person that always wants to help people who really need help.
CC (02:15:29):
Well, if I-
SM (02:15:30):
You stand out there.
CC (02:15:31):
Yeah. Well, my sense is this. Here is my view. I think my worldview has been defined by the things that you talked about, and it was interesting. I was active for a long time and then I was not active, and now I am beginning to think about these issues again. And it seems to me that my view at 22, 23 is still my view today, my worldview today. I am surprised at ... I mean, I have refined it in terms of historical context, influence of more information. But my sense is that, you try to work with the people who have problems and get them to have their own voice about what is to be done. I am now more convinced ... Probably the big change, I mean, I am more convinced that probably if you want revolution, nonviolence is important in that in the sense that it is not important ... I mean, you do not make change by shooting the people who are in power. You make change by making sure that those who are powerless are empowered. I mean, I think that is the big thing in my mind. I also think that time and energy is more important than money. I also think that it is also important to be an actor and not a reactor. I think that change and diversity are important, and even if that the world is much better being diverse than it is being one color, or being Black and white in the sense that ... So, I mean, those are the things that ... I also think that war has no use, because basically it's fought for the interest of the economically powerful, and poor people are the ones who fight the wars, die, and get nothing from it. Those are the things that ... I have not changed my views on any of that.
SM (02:18:13):
Those are prophetic. You have made some very prophetic things, that you need to put these into a book.
CC (02:18:24):
Thank you.
SM (02:18:26):
Because I think that good young scholars and students and...
CC (02:18:29):
Yeah. No, I am going to start writing. I mean, people have said I need to start writing and I need to start doing that. I mean, I am going to probably just do ... I will get there. I will get there.
SM (02:18:48):
I guess the last thing is, I think you have already said it, what do you think your lasting legacy is when people ... You are going to live another 50 years, right?
CC (02:18:58):
Right, whatever.
SM (02:18:59):
Well, what will people say when they think of Courtland? And secondly, the legacy of the civil rights movement and the legacy of the boomer generation, because they are in [inaudible]
CC (02:19:11):
I think the legacy of the civil rights movement is that it broke down barriers that were assumed in the United States. That is going to be the importance of that, the racial barriers. I think the second part of that is that it empowered the boomer generation in terms of music, in terms of lifestyle, in terms of various kinds of things. I mean, it was the inspiration for the boomer generation. I think for the boomer generation, as I said earlier, it created space and diversity for Americans to live in, and they did not have to be in Black and white. They could be in whatever colors they wanted to be. I do not know if you saw that movie where it was Black and white, and I mean, the diversity gave the sense of life and explored it. I mean, and I think that it also brought technologies into the conversation that helped give power to more and more people. I am talking about communications or whatever. I mean, just both with the computer and the cell phone. They made a huge difference. And in terms of, I mean, I do not disagree with what King said the night before he was killed, "Tell them I tried to help somebody." I mean, do not tell them this, that, because material things at the end of the day, I mean, as you know, I am not a person who believes in poverty. I would let you know that right away. But I do not believe that it is what it's about. I believe that working to help people and to broaden the base of democracy is probably the important thing.
SM (02:21:33):
Is there any final comments you want to state, or-
CC (02:21:35):
No-no, I am good.
SM (02:21:37):
Any questions you thought I was going to ask? Or-
CC (02:21:40):
No-no. I got to get out of here.
SM (02:21:41):
I got to take three or four more pictures of you.
CC (02:21:43):
Okay. Okay.
SM (02:21:44):
I guess we will do it this way.
CC (02:21:45):
Okay.
SM (02:21:47):
I guess with your glasses off.
CC (02:21:50):
Okay. All righty.
SM (02:21:52):
Okay. Reset one.
CC (02:21:53):
Mm-hmm.
SM (02:21:57):
Reset two. And that picture in the background looks great. There we go. Ready, set, three. And last but not least, I will do one with grip here. Ready, set, four. That is it.
CC (02:22:16):
Okay, good.
SM (02:22:17):
Good.
CC (02:22:18):
All right. You got a cab up here?
SM (02:22:20):
No, I drove my car.
CC (02:22:21):
Oh, you drove here.
SM (02:22:22):
Yeah.
CC (02:22:22):
I did not see a car.
SM (02:22:23):
Yeah. I will just take this in the next room.
CC (02:22:29):
Okay.
SM (02:22:29):
Thank you very much for spending the time with me.
CC (02:22:33):
No problem. I have a 6:30 appointment downtown.
SM (02:22:35):
Oh, whoa.
CC (02:22:38):
Yeah, I told them that.
SM (02:22:38):
Let me get my stuff out of here. 30.
(End of Interview)
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Courtland Cox
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Cox, Courtland, 1941- ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
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Political activists--United States; Cox, Courtland, 1941--Interviews
Description
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Courtland Cox spent his childhood between Trinidad and New York City. He went to Howard University and eventually became a civil rights activist. He joined a group called the Non-violent Action Group (NAG) to fight against white supremacy and segregation and then became a member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Throughout his years as an activist, Cox helped organized groups in order to prevent segregation from occurring in the world.
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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2011-08-11
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In copyright
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eng
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Sound
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.66a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.66b
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2017-03-14
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McKiernan Interviews
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142:55
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/102169338e0fcc56c26bbe34953162fc.jpg
3546da3cb245068facbde3078fade021
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/72b2f597a8ce5ddc63e649e35b893e65.mp3
d04c605ba2d9f68c00f7e30882928f08
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/.
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Audio interviews
Title
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
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</ul>
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
9/30/10
Interviewer
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Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Craig McNamara
Language
English
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Binghamton University Libraries
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audio/mp4
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Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Vietnam War; College protests; Anti-war; Environmentalism; Criticism of war; Baby boom generation; Nineteen sixties; Activism."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":769,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0}">Vietnam War; College protests; Anti-war; Environmentalism; Criticism of war; Baby boom generation; Nineteen sixties; Activism.</span>
Duration
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3:01:44
Subject LCSH
United States. Department of Defense. Office of the Secretary of Defense;
McNamara, Robert S., 1916-2009--Interviews
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Craig McNamara is the President and owner of Sierra Orchards, a diversified farming operation producing organic walnuts and olive oil. McNamara serves as founder and president of the Center For Land Based Learning,an innovative program, which assists high school students in building greater human and social capital in their communities. He currently is the President of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture. McNamara has a Bachelor's degree in plant and Soil Science from the University of California, Davis."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15171,"3":{"1":1},"4":{"1":2,"2":11791078},"9":0,"11":4,"12":0,"14":{"1":2,"2":5526612},"15":"arial, sans-serif","16":10}">Craig McNamara is the son of Robert McNamara, former Secretary of Defense during the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson administrations. He is the President and owner of Sierra Orchards, a diversified farming operation producing organic walnuts and olive oil. He also serves as founder and president of the Center For Land-Based Learning, an innovative program, which assists high school students in building greater human and social capital in their communities. McNamara currently is the President of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture. He has a Bachelor's degree in Plant and Soil Science from the University of California, Davis.</span>
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Craig McNamara
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 30 September 2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
CM (00:00:03):
Testing one two.
SM (00:00:06):
Tape recorders. And of course, a lot of this is going to be about you, but it is also a lot on your dad too. You okay now?
CM (00:00:15):
I am ready to go.
SM (00:00:16):
How did you become who you are with respect to talking about your growing up years before you went off to college? What was it like going to high school and those early influences? And of course, you can talk about your dad and mom at this time too.
CM (00:00:34):
Are we focusing a little bit at the end of middle school and on the high school or high school?
SM (00:00:40):
Basically high school.
CM (00:00:44):
My high school was a continuation of Sidwell Friends School in Washington DC, which for me was a remarkable experience because I came from Ann Arbor, Michigan as a 10-year-old and went through the elementary school at Sidwell Friends. I came into the school system with a reading problem, with significant dyslexia problems that at that age, at that time was not really well known. It was a large kind of umbrella that covered many different parts of that learning disorder. So it was a lot of work for me. Getting to high school was a dynamic challenge. Sidwell Friends really did a remarkable job in assisting me and creating an environment that was very supportive. In ninth grade with all the excitement of sport and education and co-education, I was really in tune, and a good friend of mine had left Sidwell Friends at the end of eighth grade. And I said, "Well, where did you go, Frank?" He said, "Well, I went to this place called St. Paul's School." And what I did not realize was that he was prepared for this by his father and probably grandfather and it was the family tradition. He said, "You got to try this. You got to try this." I said, "Well, what is this?" He said, "Well, it is a prep school." I said, "I am really happy here at Sidwell Friends. Got all my friends and sports. He said, "No-no, you got to try it." So, I left Sidwell at the end of ninth grade and went to St. Paul's in Concord, New Hampshire for the remaining years of high school. It was a definite road not taken for me ever before. It was a very divergent road in my upbringing. My mom and dad had always raised us with a real foundation, I think, of social justice, of appreciation for, I am going to say the common good, the common man, for society. I did not know what I was getting into in this interesting environment that St. Paul's School provided. It was an incredibly challenging academic environment, especially for me. And it was an environment that, to be quite honest myself, I was under-prepared for and overwhelmed by. So what one normally does is learn how to compensate. My compensation was through my communication with people and my endeavors on the athletic field. So those were the areas that I really excelled in and had a very, very difficult time struggling academically there.
SM (00:04:00):
What years were you there?
CM (00:04:02):
Now that is a good question. I think that I began that school in 1965.
SM (00:04:06):
Okay.
CM (00:04:06):
And I move with the years. I was born in (19)50, so in (19)65 I would have been 15 and I graduated from St. Paul's in 1969.
SM (00:04:25):
What was it like growing up as your home base? Because your dad was working for President Kennedy and while your father was Secretary of Defense from (19)61 to (19)67 before he headed off to the World Bank, what was it like? In all these roles that he played, did you feel there was any pressure that your dad was a very... They called him one of the best and the brightest as David Halberstam had written in his book. Did you ever feel that when you had that visible a person as your dad who was very accomplished, that you could not meet his standards and you were trying to, or did you just want to get away to find your own identity?
CM (00:05:18):
You have covered a broad brush of ideas with the suggestions there, so let us look at them one by one. Pressures that a son feels from his father or a child feels from their parents, there cannot be anything more traditional than that. And so yes, of course I really have felt that throughout my life and it is a wonderful realization at certain times in your life when you realize you can appreciate what your parents have done, appreciate the leadership that they have provided in this case to their country, to their families, to their children. But yes, I felt a tremendous struggle that at times I was age-appropriately unaware of. But let me just go back to the first feelings of moving to Washington, DC. You have got to understand, I was raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but my whole connection was with nature from riding bikes to making dammed creeks to building tree houses to being out all day long with my mom whistling the special family whistle to let me know that dinner was ready. My life in the (19)50s and early (19)60s was one of edible connection with this dynamic force which ultimately has changed my life, which is nature and food system. So, coming me to Washington, DC was, I was an excited kid. I was 10 years old and slammed a little bit with this learning issue, but I took that instead and my mom worked night and day literally with me. I can remember both of us kind of weeping together over my inability to do homework, but we just kind of did it. But then there was the other side of Washington, which was the new frontier, the Camelot, the excitement of this incredible young president, family, and cabinet. They were called to serve. The cabinet members and their families were called to serve. I have fond memories of things that today are magical. They truly are magic moments that reflect back to your book, that I knew they were special, but I did not know how special they were. Joining President Kennedy at Camp David. Remembering being in the living room study of what seemed like a log cabin. It was a very understated building that the president at that time lived in at Camp David, and seeing him at ease in his rocking chair. Seeing him with his family. I remember attending in the White House, the first showing of PT 109.
SM (00:08:32):
Oh my gosh, Cliff Robertson.
CM (00:08:36):
Sitting on the floor and the president was on I think a chaise or some sort of, me being together with all of the Robert Kennedy family and president's family. It was an easy, wonderful relationship. And taking off from the White House Rose Garden or wherever the helicopters take off from as an 11 or 12-year-old, it was so impressionable, but it was part of life's fabric. I am trying to describe this incredible feeling. I am putting my two hands together because on one hand it was reality and another hand it was far removed from anything that I will ever live again.
SM (00:09:39):
What is interesting, and I can remember reading your dad's book in retrospect, in the sections where he talks about the family, which he did quite often throughout the book, and he mentioned the University of Michigan that you talked about and he wanted to live in a university environment and not in some rich suburb.
CM (00:09:57):
Yeah.
SM (00:09:57):
I thought that was, he really had his head on his shoulders and obviously it was probably very impressionable and important for him with respect to his family. And that is where you got your love for nature.
CM (00:10:08):
It really did. And it's teased out throughout our lives in the sense that in one respect, my dad must have been the first commuter, because Ann Arbor from Dearborn where he worked, I do not know in that day and age how many minutes it was, maybe 45 or 50 or an hour. And so he made that decision to have the intellectual capacity of living in a university town and back to my image here of nature, of living in an area that was not hyper economically oriented. And he would drive home the new models, whether it was the T-Bird or eventually the Edsel or whatever.
SM (00:10:57):
He drove an Edsel home, huh?
CM (00:11:00):
Whatever the new models was and would test drive them. And the other thing that my dad and mom always emphasized was a time for us as a family to be together, and typically being that he truly was a workaholic, it would be on a vacation in the Sierra Mountains because mom and dad grew up in the Bay Area of California and the Sierras were so important to them and to their generation. We would, as a family... Actually part of the family. Dad would be working in Michigan. Mom and my two sisters and I would head out in the summertime in the old station wagon and drive to the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada up with their college friends and families, and we would launch a two-week trip, initially pack trip with mules in into the Sierras. These were the most wonderful experiences of my life.
SM (00:12:10):
Wow.
CM (00:12:11):
Campfires and was skating off a snowbank into a crystal clear lake and catching fish. My mom was a tremendous fisherwoman and taught me how to fish and [inaudible] fish.
SM (00:12:32):
She was quite accomplished too.
CM (00:12:34):
She was a remarkable fisherwoman.
SM (00:12:37):
Reading about her and her background. And she passed away in (19)81, I believe?
CM (00:12:42):
She did. She had mesothelioma cancer around the pleura her lungs. It was told to us that she would have an 11-month life and she lived 11 months. But she was one of the greatest sources of inspiration, I think, to my father. She was the greatest source of love and inspiration for me and our family. Just an absolutely down to earth, remarkable human being.
SM (00:13:15):
She was involved with an organization called Reading is Fundamental. I think your sister has been somewhat linked to that too.
CM (00:13:21):
Yeah.
SM (00:13:22):
But it is a nonprofit children's literacy organization. Was that based on the fact of your experiences with her as a young child?
CM (00:13:30):
I think it was three. Certainly it was the experience that she and I shared of how difficult it is for some children. Secondly, coming to the nation's capital and realizing that the literacy rate was so poor and that that was wrong. And thirdly, as my dad felt the story when meeting with President Kennedy said, "Okay," when he brought the cabinet wives together, "Your husbands are going to be under a tremendous amount of pressure and work and I want you to do something meaningful for yourselves and for society." So, it was kind of those three or four things. And I am so proud of my mom. She started this program, Reading is Fundamental, out of a mobile unit, bookmobile that would go around to schools and have school children come on board and pick out a free book, start a library in families where there were no books at home, and that has grown into a global network. It is remarkable.
SM (00:14:37):
Is your sister linked to that in some way?
C
M (00:14:40):
My older sister Margie is on the board of RIF.
SM (00:14:43):
Okay, very good.
CM (00:14:44):
Yeah.
SM (00:14:45):
And I guess President Carter awarded her the Medal of Freedom too.
CM (00:14:48):
He did, which was an outstanding recognition of my mom's dedication to society.
SM (00:15:04):
Getting back to that time when your dad was Secretary of Defense, what memories do you have, wherever you were location-wise, about the people that David Halberstam often describes in his book, The Best and the Brightest? Your dad was part of this group. What are your memories when, and I have got about seven or eight things here that were pretty big during your dad's reign as Secretary of Defense. The inaugural speech of John Kennedy. Where were you and how did that speech influence you in any way?
CM (00:15:40):
Oh, I am so glad that you have brought that up and reminded me of that. That whole experience began for me when dad came home from work one day and said, "Well, what would you think of moving to Washington, DC?" Now, I was 10 years old and I said, "Well Dad, do not worry about that because we are not going to do that. I have got my friends here, we have got the tree house, we have got all of what we so enjoy." And he said, "Well, I have been asked by the president comment to be a part of his cabinet." And the rest of that story is history. Obviously, he went out and I did not. But I do remember my mom and dad had gone to Washington in preparation for the inaugural and my older sisters and I were to fly out to be part of the day that you are mentioning here. It was an icy winter ice storm as I recall, and I was the one in charge of the alarm clock to wake up my sisters. Now remember, they are teenagers and I am 10 years old and I was worried that if I were to wake them up, they're going to get really angry with me for waking them up. So I think we were a little late getting to the airport. Got to Washington, picked up by a limo. Now, this is something I had never even dreamed of, seen one, or certainly had never ridden in. This was very exciting, and I recall being in the audience, looking up at the President, looking up at the cabinet behind him on the Capitol steps, watching Robert Cross and just...
SM (00:17:26):
Wow.
CM (00:17:27):
... being in the palm of something, of God's hands in a very, very special way.
SM (00:17:35):
Wow.
CM (00:17:35):
And then the day, I do not remember how it totally unfolded, but I do remember in the reviewing stand in front of the White House, whatever that was in 1960. I am sure it was very different then than it is today. And I think by that time it was a chilly day, very chilly but the sun shone as I recall. And I remember the cabinet coming past in their cars that were convertibles, I think, open top, and I remember my mom and dad in their car and dad had a... Remind me the name of the hat, the stovepipe hat?
SM (00:18:18):
Oh, Abraham Lincoln stovepipe?
CM (00:18:19):
Abraham Lincoln. And I recall shouting out to my dad, "Dad, you look really great out there." And then they went on. I am looking at my office wall right now because I am looking at a picture of them at one of the inaugural balls that they attended.
SM (00:18:41):
Wow.
CM (00:18:42):
And my dad in a tux and my mom and a ball gown with her gloves and everything. Quite a remarkable...
SM (00:18:53):
Yeah, I think President Kennedy, there is pictures of him wearing that kind of a hat too.
CM (00:18:56):
Oh absolutely.
SM (00:18:57):
Yeah. And of course that was a very cold day. You remember the president was speaking, you see the breath when he was speaking. But it was a great speech. I remember it was a cold day.
CM (00:19:11):
Can you hold one second?
SM (00:19:12):
Yes.
CM (00:19:24):
[speaking Spanish] I work for Harvest, so I get lots of men coming by looking for work.
SM (00:19:35):
A couple of the other events, and you will remember maybe dad talking about it at the table or conversing. The Bay Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, because those are two very big events.
CM (00:19:47):
They are indeed. My memories of those, this wrapped into a much larger part of my life. And that is that, as you can imagine from my earlier comments, dad kept his work very separate from my life. And actually, throughout our lives, because we are talking kind of early right now, 12, 13, 14, but as I became a late teenager and all the way through my life, it was something that dad just chose not to share, not to talk about, not to engage me in. I think it was painful. I think he was trying to be protective. Was it right or wrong on his part? I do not think I can apply that sort of a rationale. Did it ultimately help me? No, it did not. But to get back to specifically your question about the Cuban Missile Crisis, I do recall that much more fervently than The Bay of Pigs. Dad would come home from work, say eight o'clock for dinner. He always sat on the same part of the couch. He would always have his hand on the coffee table to the left where the lamp was. He would typically be reading the paper. And in his hand on the coffee table was this beautiful walnut plaque. And there is some imagery here because I am a walnut grower today. This is a walnut plaque that probably measured four inches by four inches, and on top of the plaque was the most beautiful silver calendar, just a little piece of silver with the month of October, 1962, with the critical dates of the Cuban missile crisis embedded deeper in the silver calendar. And I remember my dad just kind of, his hand would be on that and it was as if it was braille, if the digits of his finger were rereading, re-recognizing the potential devastation of our world, had the United States launched their weapon.
SM (00:22:28):
Wow.
CM (00:22:28):
I have that memory emblazoned in my mind. That stayed with us forever.
SM (00:22:40):
Now that was a scary moment as we all watched President Kennedy on TV that night. And of course we all remember Adlai Stevenson at the United Nations. "I am going to wait for your reply until hell freezes over." I will never forget it. I am only a little older than you. A few more here. The Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam, obviously in 1964. A lot has been written about that. Your thoughts on that, as well as the protests on college campuses that went throughout the time that he was Secretary of Defense. And of course the big one, there were two at the Pentagon and then the one in 1967 where they levitated, supposedly, the Pentagon. And in the 1965 one, which I am going to come back to later, where the man burned himself to death, just anything really linking to Vietnam.
CM (00:23:42):
Well, let me remind us that I was 14. 1964 [inaudible] maybe 14-year-olds today are a little more worldly and they are global understanding than I was. So those memories are more in retrospect. My reflections on those as I awaken to... My personal awakening occurred closer to 1966, (19)67 I was going to say. There again, I was in Concord, New Hampshire at St. Paul's School and one of my dear friends who was going to be the president of the school had created a teach-in about Vietnam. Now think of this. This is high school, so he was 17. This is Rick King. And he had invited professors, I believe, from the Boston area and maybe from Dartmouth to speak. And I said, "Well, now, wait a minute, Rick." At that point I still said, "There must be a reason that we are in Vietnam." And I remember standing in a phone booth. We do not have phone booths anymore, but I was standing in a phone booth from school and talking with dad. "Dad, there's going to be a teach-in. Is there any material that you can send me to justify the war in Vietnam?" And it just occurred while I am speaking with on the phone why it was that no materials arrived. I think at that point I realized there was no justification for us to be there. It did not dawn on me then, but the materials never arrived. The teach-in occurred, and that was a rite of passage for me. And I remember later on being 19, being in social events in Washington, DC in backyards with friends with houses in Georgetown and the decision-makers. I will put them in one category, decision-makers. My father and other decision-makers saying, "Well, you know, you just have not read enough about this issue. You do not really know what you're talking about." And yet we knew very intuitively and from our small world exposure that the Vietnam War was not [inaudible]
SM (00:26:27):
Yeah, I interviewed Dr. Henry Graff, the former professor at Columbia University, on Monday and he did the Tuesday cabinet book, the Tuesday cabinet meetings where your dad and top people on foreign policy would meet with President Johnson every Tuesday.
CM (00:26:46):
Yes.
SM (00:26:46):
And he had chances to talk to your dad four times, and he talked to him just before he was leaving in (19)67 as well. Johnson gave him full access to the cabinet, and what is interesting is when I talked to him about the gatherings of these people is that it was known early on that McGeorge Bundy, even in his book says he was against the war from the get-go way back in (19)64. And I know that Bill Moyers was against the war himself and he was only there for three years working with President Johnson. And then your dad had misgivings about the war for a long time. And I asked Dr. Graff, here you have Secretary of Defense McNamara. McGeorge Bundy was the special assistant, I forget his full title. And you had his press secretary, Bill Moyers, against the war, yet President Johnson kept going on. And Dr. Graff said, "Well, you have to understand, these men kept their differences behind closed doors and they showed that they were loyal. And that is the kind of people that President Johnson wanted around him."
CM (00:28:01):
Well, that is such an important point that you have brought up, loyalty, because it is something that my dad always referred to. I would ask him on those rare occasions that, particularly after the fact when he was at the World Bank and finally came out with his book, Retrospect. "Dad, why could not you have addressed it? Why could not you have spared yourself and our nation so much anguish, sorrow, and grief?" And he said several things. One is that he was an appointed cabinet minister, that he was not elected. Felt that it was his duty and his loyalty to serve the president in the best capacity that he could. And then I think that there is an evolution in people's thought processes and lives that allow them to come to grace and come to some sort of understanding, and thank God he did. I mean, I do not know many other people in his situation who have publicly and privately said, "I made a mistake and I would like us, I would like myself to learn from this mistake and maybe history can use these lessons that Earl Morris so accurately developed in Fog of War." Which by the way, I think every high school...
SM (00:29:34):
Well, I agree. I have a copy of it. I think it is a classic and I agree with what you say about your dad. Because one of the issues, I was in higher education for almost 30-some years, and very few people are willing to ever admit they make a mistake. And it is a sign of a true leader when they do because they become vulnerable.
CM (00:29:56):
Exactly.
SM (00:29:56):
And then they start questioning, which happened to your dad. " Why did not you do this before you left in 1967?" Here's another criticism of your dad. "Why was it that when you left," and I remember the scene, you actually can see it on YouTube where the president is... The going away ceremony, he was very emotional and he did not really say that because he did not agree with the president. I know he did not. And then some people said, "Well, he went off to Aspen to ski and he was responsible for the deaths of so many people on the wall." So, there is so many perceptions, but you are kind of like you are damned if you do or damned if you do not.
CM (00:30:40):
Well, I think what you say is accurate, and about his welling up and being very emotional and actually very interesting, because from that point on, he probably would never admit this but I think he suffered significantly from a- But I think he suffered significantly from a post-traumatic stress syndrome that, believe it or not, I think I suffered from, too, in the sense that the events of Vietnam were so distraught, disturbing to our nation. And personally, you mentioned the emulation, the person igniting themselves in front of the Pentagon. Those events are so dark, so traumatic. I do not think one ever recovers from them.
SM (00:31:34):
Right.
CM (00:31:38):
And you cannot control them. You cannot control when those emotions... That is a significant damage to one's psyche character. And you cannot suppress that. As good as certain people are, and my father was one of the best at compartmentalizing parts of his life, that went deep into all parts of his life. I do not think for the rest of his life, he could actually do both.
SM (00:32:06):
One of the things that upset so many of the boomer generation, because TV was very important, black and white television and the news, is when your dad gave those weekly reports on the numbers killed. And many believed he was lying, because those reports included dead animals and all the other things just to please the president. But what is interesting, when he wrote, in retrospect... I have two anecdotes. My very first interview, because I started this project way back in (19)96, as it said in my letter there, and I met with Senator McCarthy. And one of the questions during my meeting when Senator Eugene McCarthy was, what do you think of the new book out by Robert McNamara? I have to listen to it again to get the exact quote, but he is a little too late.
CM (00:33:00):
Yeah.
SM (00:33:01):
A little too late, and he was very upset, and he said, "Let us go on the next question". So that was his response. And then, I have pictures at the Vietnam Memorial, because I have been going to the Vietnam Memorial since 1994 for Veterans and Memorial Day to pay my respects. And in about the year that, in retrospect, came out, I will never forget it. There were two copies of... in fact, I can look it up and send it to you on the computer. There were two copies of your dad's book that had bullet holes through it.
CM (00:33:34):
Yeah. Yeah.
SM (00:33:35):
And very bad words underneath the book. So, the feelings were still there. And then, when I go to the wall many times, I do not hear it as much now, but there's three names that always come up that were the bad people. And it if it is the veterans talking, it is Jane Fonda. Who they cannot stand, for obvious reasons, and then, they mentioned your dad and Henry Kissinger. Those three. But then, if it is the anti-war people, it is not Jane Fonda, it is your dad, Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon.
CM (00:34:13):
Right.
SM (00:34:14):
And they throw a little bit of Agnew in there, but they do not say a whole lot about LBJ because of his great society. So, those are just some anecdotes I wanted to share. Why did you drop out of Stanford?
CM (00:34:27):
Oh, largely because of my disenfranchisement with this remarkable country that I do love tremendously. That was 1971, the winter. And I just realized that having... I mean, I personally lived very close to the man who was Secretary of Defense during the lead up of Vietnam War, that getting back to these wounds, whether you want to call it post-traumatic stress syndrome or whatever, that I needed to rediscover my country. That I needed to reinvest in my country. I needed to reinvest in myself. And the only way I could do that was somehow get a new vision of the beauty, of the strength of our people, of our country. And the way I did that was to begin a journey to South America. And I began that with a few friends. And we traveled through Central America, learning Spanish along the way. And eventually, arriving in Colombia where my two friends decided today that their journey, travel journey was over and mine was not. And I continued on that point all the way down to Tierra del Fuego. Been another year and a half on the road. And the more formidable part of that journey for me was working on [inaudible] farm. Worked with [inaudible] Indians. I worked with Chilean dairy farmers. I worked with egg growers, produce people. I have worked on fishing boats, and I was immersed in something that it completely resonated for me. It was food production. For me, it brought together two worlds that I thought were very divergent at that time. One was the political world that I had somewhat grown-up in. The other was the early world that my parents had shown me, which is that of the garden of [inaudible]. My fondest childhood memories are being with my dad and mom in the garden, with him picking a fresh tomato and putting a little salt on it, taking a big bite, the juice rolling down his cheek. My mom is picking asparagus, cutting roses to bring in to our kitchen table. So those two worlds, the early ones and the mid-ones, the land and the politics to me were married in food production. And I realized after two and a half years on the road, I had no education. I had worked a little bit, but I had no education, and that I wanted to formalize that, and went to UC Davis to study plant and soil types. Knowing in the beginning, that I wanted to come out and eventually farm.
SM (00:38:07):
Wow. What a story.
CM (00:38:09):
Well, it really [inaudible]
SM (00:38:12):
Were your parents worried about you being so far away?
CM (00:38:15):
They must have been absolutely worried, I mean, for many, many reasons. And just let me remind you, I arrived in Santiago, Chile in the early days of September 1971. And that was the anniversary of Salvador Allende being the first elected socialist president in Chile.
SM (00:38:39):
Wow.
CM (00:38:40):
And Dad, being the head of the World Bank at that time, certainly knew of the difficulties that were occurring in Chile, and probably could, in his own mind, forecast what future may... how the future may unfold. I know my mom was very worried about my well-being. Of course, there was no communication. There was... Just in terms of getting mail, with my parents sending a letter to the embassy. That was the only way I could get mail. I think I called them infrequently, maybe every six months, like that. But it is so interesting now to have children who are texting and messaging and emailing and phoning, and the degree of communication today is at different level.
SM (00:39:43):
You know, one of the big things that was in the news around the mid-(19)60s was the fact that Governor Rockefeller's son was, I think, down in Brazil and disappeared.
CM (00:39:56):
He did. I recall that.
SM (00:39:56):
Yeah, that was really big in the news. Of course, he was down there to help people. He was...
CM (00:39:59):
Well, I do not know if you saw the movie, Missing, about the coup in Chile. It is a very powerful movie. And to be quite honest, my story could have been similar to that story.
SM (00:40:18):
Wow. I am going to get back to your work with the farm in a couple of minutes here, but correct me if I am ever repeating anything, because I got a series of questions here. I have an order. I do a lot of thinking before I do my interviews.
CM (00:40:35):
I know you do. I can tell, but I am grateful and appreciate it.
SM (00:40:35):
Yeah. And everyone is different, and some are some general questions...
CM (00:40:40):
Make it fun and interesting and insightful for you and for the person you're interviewing, and potentially, for the people reading the book.
SM (00:40:47):
Yeah. And I want to reach students, and high school students, college students with this, as well as the general public. Because I want people to understand where people come from, and to show a little respect for people who they may agree or disagree with. I do not have a whole lot of tolerance for intolerance at times. I understand that you were against the war, but your dad ran. Did you have any major discussions with him at different times about the war, and your differences? And did he listen? Was there a major generation gap between you and your parents? And how about your two sisters and the parents?
CM (00:41:29):
Well, as I mentioned before, Dad, in certain ways, was a master at compartmentalizing. I think he felt in his own vision as a parent of six kids that he needed, in some way, to protect his son and his children, and he did that by not engaging in conversations.
SM (00:41:51):
Okay.
CM (00:41:52):
About Vietnam. The only time I would glean information on that front would be if I had a friend who was well versed in the topic, and that friend was trying to engage Dad in conversation, that was when I could open the window to some of his thoughts on that. And that continued throughout his life. I think, here is the bottom line, between a father and a son, we never lost love for one another. We never lost respect for one another. And I give my mom tremendous credit for being the conduit of love and communication, because that is a natural way to [inaudible] in so many families. And so many of my peers lost their relationship to their father at that time, and never healed. I have friends coming up to me and say even to my dad's dying day, we never were able to reach that point. What a sad misstep. What was the other part of your question?
SM (00:43:01):
Yeah. Was there any difference between how your dad dealt with you and your two sisters?
CM (00:43:06):
I do not think so.
SM (00:43:07):
Okay.
CM (00:43:08):
My sisters are nine and six years older than I am. Really was quite... They were well off to college and gone as I was growing up. But I know that they did not engage either on that topic. Now, let me get to the issue of did my relationship as son of my father affect his decision making? It would be very egotistical for me to say yes, and yet, I do believe that my choice of life and the direction that I have taken in life very much affected him in fact. I think the fact that my sisters and I had friends who were very involved leading the anti-war movement was insightful and [inaudible] on him. He just did not let it be known. That was the problem.
SM (00:44:07):
We talked about the qualities of admitting... Making mistake and the regrets and so forth. But was there ever a feeling on the part of you or your sisters, or maybe even your mom that, if you have a problem with President Johnson over a policy, just resign?
CM (00:44:30):
Well, I think most our reflections on that afterthought there again, just because the age that I was during the event, I would say absolutely. My father was a man of tremendous integrity. And so I think you or I of this generation would say, well, if you feel differently, then you owe it to yourself, number one to your family, and to the nation, to demonstrate agreement by resigning. And I just cannot put myself in his [inaudible] and choose and know what he felt about them. It goes back to this loyalty, which I think his generation must have at a different parameter and definition than I might.
SM (00:45:27):
Just in your own words, could you please, if someone were to come up to you like a high school student and you walk in and someone were to come up to you and say, who was Robert McNamara? And you would describe your father or the leader, or how would you describe him to someone or particularly a young person? And also how would you describe your mom? Because I think your mom is very important here. She is very important in history and they are a team, in my opinion. I look at this, I see a twosome that became one. That is what marriage is supposed to be about. And just so in, how would you define both of them?
CM (00:46:11):
Well, individually first, right?
SM (00:46:13):
Yes.
CM (00:46:16):
I would respond to the question coming from a high school student or another person about who my father was... Is a very, very bright man. And who truly loved humankind. A man who wanted the best for a globe is deeply divided. The seven years that my father spent as Secretary of Defense determined the rest of his life. Yes, he lived from 1980 to the year 2009, lived another 29 years. Well, actually, the time that he left defense in (19)78, that (19)78, (19)88, (19)98, another 40 years to his life. And during those 40 years, his true ambition for the betterment of mankind and society came forward, advanced. He was able to advance that in such a significant way. And very, very few people in the United States understand that respect. And I think that that is a tragedy, a law. He was defined by Vietnam, and yet his defining moment came during the next forty years.
SM (00:48:23):
I think what you just said is very important, Craig. I will let you continue here in a second. Because as a person who believes in student development and believes in human development, and we tell students in college, or hopefully they learn this, that you are constantly evolving as a human being, and it does not stop until the day you die.
CM (00:48:43):
Exactly. And in the case of a leader, it is our society's nature to pigeonhole them to a time of their lives, of greatness, or of tremendous loss. And he was defined. He has been defined by the latter.
SM (00:49:11):
How about your mom?
CM (00:49:16):
My mom, my dad had said, was one of God's loveliest creature. She had a sparkle in her eye. She had very, very beautiful blue eyes, which... I inherited many things from my mom. My eyes, my name Craig was her maiden name. And I am so honored have my name Craig, be in more of the Latin tradition where the mother also shares her name with the offspring. I am so happy to have the name Craig. And I am so moved and touched by her spirit and her connection to Mother Nature. She gifted that to me. It is something that you were very generous commenting on in your letter and our phone call. That is something that I have explored my whole life. And in terms of the educational program, we currently offer to students across California, it is the foundation. It is my foundation, and it is what I do, my own family. It is what I do for students in California and [inaudible].
SM (00:50:39):
And you lead me right into the question is someone to ask. Who is Robert Craig McNamara?
CM (00:50:51):
Robert Craig McNamara is a reflection of both my parents. And a person who has been moved and affected by the history that I have lived true. So although I did not serve in Vietnam, I certainly have been very affected by it. It is a part of me every day. And my goals have been to really help make this world a better place for the individuals at this point in time.
SM (00:51:54):
Did you feel that when you were in that one year at Stanford and maybe your junior and senior in high school, that any of your fellow students get on you for being the son of the person who was running the Vietnam War?
CM (00:52:07):
Absolutely. It was always on my mind. It was always something that I had to demonstrate. Who I was myself. It was a life-altering pressure on me that I had to find out [inaudible] who I was and be that honest person to myself. And yes, I actually felt that in a certain way, that it was remarkable that people allowed me to be who I was and did not spit on, did not take offense, or become violent, because I know how frustrated I have been over our decision to go to war in Iraq. Our decision go to war today. I know the dark side of feelings against our leaders. So I can imagine how people have felt about me. That I was embodiment of my father, but I am not.
SM (00:53:37):
Right.
CM (00:53:39):
And I want to move this forward for one second. Dad, was asked to come to Berkeley...
SM (00:53:46):
And Craig, could you speak up just a little bit too?
CM (00:53:48):
Yep. Dad was asked to come to UC Berkeley, and I thought it was before the [inaudible] War, but you may help me out here. Maybe more in retrospect. And he came to Zellerbach Hall, which the largest hall in Berkeley. And he said he had never been back to Berkeley, his alma mater, in many, many years. He certainly could not come back during the four years because he would have been protested against. And I think because of his World Bank experience and other experiences, he just had not been back to campus. This was a beloved place for him too. Memories of meeting my mom and being a student at Berkeley. So, he was asked to come to Berkeley to speak on a retrospect for the [inaudible] War, and it was packed. The auditorium was absolutely packed with an audience outside. And I was very fearful for his life. And this was recently, this was within the last 10 years. And I felt very on edge in terms of reading the room, reading the audience, and if there was going to be any violent movement towards him. Which is pretty remarkable for me to feel that at this point in my life or in our life. And to be quite honest, his presence and his participation and his, at that point, transparency and honesty, I think really was received by the audience and was warmly received. They may have totally just not liked, but they appreciated the moment.
SM (00:55:46):
Yeah. Well I know Bobby Muller and Bobby Muller was on several panels with your dad over the last 10 years, I believe. And here's a man who came back from Vietnam, very disenchanted. And Bobby was one of the people that said when he came back, he realized that Vietnam or excuse me, that America is not always the good guy. Yet he could be on the stage with your dad. And I know he respected your dad. So that says a lot when Bobby can say really nice things about some of the things that happened to him during that time period.
CM (00:56:22):
This is Bobby Muller?
SM (00:56:23):
Yeah, Bobby Muller.
CM (00:56:24):
And did he serve in Vietnam?
SM (00:56:26):
Yeah. He was the founder of Vietnam Veterans of America. And I believe if you go into YouTube you will see your dad being interviewed by that professor. It is a show that they had and it's a tremendous interview. It is an hour and 10 minutes.
CM (00:56:47):
That is a great one. Do you remember the year of that?
SM (00:56:50):
It had to be the time that he went probably for this speech, because he talked about in retrospect, he was not there-
CM (00:56:56):
It was retrospect.
SM (00:56:59):
Yeah. It was not for [inaudible] War. I would like your comments here. I am up to this point where after Norman Morrison, a Quaker father of three, burned himself only 40 feet from your dad's window at the Pentagon on November 2nd of (19)65. Your dad states in the book, and this is very important. I knew Marge, is it Marge?
CM (00:57:19):
Margie.
SM (00:57:20):
Margie. "I knew Margie and our three children shared many of Morrison's feelings about the war, as did the wives and children of several of my cabinet colleagues. And I believed, I understood, and shared some of his thoughts." I cannot read my writing here. "This was much more Marge and I and the children should have talked about. Yet at moments like this, I often turned inward. Instead, it was a grave weakness. The episode created tension at home that only deepened as dissent and criticism of the war continued to grow."
CM (00:58:10):
Absolutely. Absolutely.
SM (00:58:14):
And that was in the mid-(19)90s when he wrote in retrospect. Or early (19)90s.
CM (00:58:23):
So the touching and reflection there is that he held that inside for all those years. If he could have brought that forward in a memoir earlier, I think it would have provided some healing for our nation. Not a mea culpa that is gone, but it would have... When you let something fester for 25 years, it is just insurmountable. I am proud of him for coming to that point in his life. And I wished for all of us, for me, for our nation, for the Vietnamese, for the men and women of the United States that died and served. For everybody who was touched globally by Vietnam, I wish my father had been able.
SM (00:59:23):
Right. Hold on one second. When you were at UC Davis back in (19)76, obviously you had not been in college since (19)69, did you notice a big difference in the types of students that were there as opposed to the ones at Stanford in (19)69?
CM (00:59:49):
Yes, I did. One of my thoughts... I am trying to remember this one thought that I think I felt that Davis was... I better not say that. I thought that it was very diverse ethnically, but I am a little [inaudible]. Let us not... When I came back, I was very directed at age 24. I knew going in what I wanted to achieve, what degree, and what my career goals were. So that was very well-defined for me. I must admit, my experience at Stanford was a very dynamic fighting one, but incredibly challenging because of the student activities against the war. So that permeated everything I did. I also, in the one thing I very much enjoyed about campus was just looking at a whole educational opportunity. So I immediately looked into theater, literature, just enjoyed in developing myself in things that, in academia and extracurriculars that were very dynamic for me. So that was very different. And [inaudible], I studied two years straight.
SM (01:01:40):
But students were probably since (19)76, they changed a lot too. They were not as activists.
CM (01:01:41):
And I think that is quite true. One of the things that was starting then, that was very formidable for me is that the food movement was just in its infancy when I went to Davis. So many of us who were on the edge and... Who were kind of on the edge and helped create a new vision for our food society. Were they're studying the beginnings of sustainable agriculture. We did not even have that word. And what I remind myself and others, particularly sometimes I have the opportunity to get guest lecture at Berkeley, UC Davis and other places. I remind our colleagues, our students, that these changes that we are enjoying today started 25 and 30 years ago. And so, the fact that we now have CSA Phoenix [inaudible], so now that we have farmer's markets and abundance, that we have incredible writers like Michael Fallon and visionaries like Alice Waters. It's taken us a quarter of a century to get to where we are today. And we mustn't forget that because going to take us another period upon to advance to the next phase.
SM (01:03:06):
How important was Earth Day to you? Because you left in (19)69 and then you were down in, well, in one of the South American countries. But were you aware of what was going on up here in 1970, on April 22? And well, how important was that to you personally?
CM (01:03:25):
When Vietnam was ending or what?
SM (01:03:26):
No, this was Earth.
CM (01:03:28):
Earth Day? I am sorry.
SM (01:03:29):
Yeah, because Gaylord Nelson was the Senator who was pushing, you worked with Dennis Haynes, but it was Gaylord, Senator Nelson that was really the leader on this.
CM (01:03:39):
Right. So, the first Earth Day was April of (19)70...
SM (01:03:41):
1970, April 22.
CM (01:03:44):
Yeah, 1970. So, I was still here in this country. But very formidable. I think where I lost some of the chronology is when I was actually out of the country. Quite a, tens of thousands of miles away and many worlds apart. So, from (19)71 to (197)3, I was more immersed in South American politics society than I was in US or global.
SM (01:04:18):
Right. And I know that Pia Nelson, which is Gaylord's daughter. Is very big in the environmental movement in Wisconsin. I do not know if you have ever met her?
CM (01:04:28):
I have not, but I know of her name.
SM (01:04:31):
Yeah, she is. I interviewed her and of course I just had the celebration. And then Robert Kennedy Jr. I think has been very involved too.
CM (01:04:38):
Very involved. My experience in Washington in those early years, was a very close friendship with the Robert Kennedy family, and a lot of time spent together in Hickory Hill with the Kennedys. With Bobby and Ethel and Kathleen and Joe. Bobby at that point was just a few years younger than I was. But he is such an incredible national spokesman and leader. I so appreciate his vision and follow.
SM (01:05:13):
Yeah, he has left a legacy with his kids. They are all doing great things. Now I am into the section that, I know you are going to enjoy, and that is talking about Sierra Orchards and some of the work you have done since (19)76. Could you talk a little bit about your dreams when you purchased the land that you now oversee? Because from what I have read, is you did a trip around the country first. See if you can find the best spot.
CM (01:05:40):
That I said.
SM (01:05:40):
And then you came back to your home area, basically, or near your home area.
CM (01:05:45):
My adopted home. But I had been here, I find myself that I arrived in [inaudible] without anything. I think I had a backpack, no bicycle, no car, no living space. And set a foot to knock on doors to find, in a college town, to find a place to live. Obviously, I did and bought a used bike. And that is how I made my rounds. I became, while I was studying, I became a beekeeper. And so I would carry wood from the lumber yard out to the house and make beehives and carry on there. So the question is my vision, once I started Sierra Orchard?
SM (01:06:31):
Yes.
CM (01:06:34):
Knowing as I did, from this journey to Latin America. Working on veggie farms, getting a little bit of an education. When I realized, that the inclusion of that was that I needed several things. Ultimately a farm, and more importantly, to learn how to farm. And so when I finished up, I had a little Datsun pickup truck and a soil auger. That is the device where you drill down into the soil to see how mother nature has created this incredible living environment. The beginning of everything. I drove across the United States in a zig pattern, stopping off at farms Colorado, [inaudible], Arkansas and back east. I realized that the best environment for me would be right where I had come from. Very soiled, by the water, the markets, the population, future. And I did that. But then there was that other ingredient that I needed, which was the experience. I thank God, I met the most incredible mentor of my life Chun Laing, Chinese farmer. And he took me under his wing in a large commercial operation, and I worked with Chun and for Chun for three years. And started a produce stand, did direct marketing, grew [inaudible] melons, shipped them back east. Suffered all the ups and downs of a young farmer. And decided at the conclusion of that, that truck farming, which is vegetables, [inaudible], et cetera. Was not for me. I needed a crop that had lesser perishability, that I would have more control over in the marketplace. One harvest and walnut fit all of that criteria. So in 1980, together with the help of my father, we bought what is today, Sierra Orchards. The name comes from the fact that I stand on the edge of the field and look to the east, see those beautiful mountains, Sierra mountains. That mom and dad and sisters and my friends used to hike in when I was six years old, eight years old. So, I also realized early, in that process, that I am just a steward of this plant. That it too shall, as it has turned over in second generations, but I too will pass it on. So, my goal was to be as sustainable at food as I could be. I started off as a conventional grower, which means I used the grow seed of petrochemical based materials to insecticide or herbicide. And about 10 years into our farming operation, transitioned to organic. But I always remind myself and others, who might listen. That I do believe in organics, but I believe it is a smaller piece of a much larger, complex fabric. And that fabric, I will call sustainable agriculture. That is the direction, our nation needs to go in and our world. Agricultural food production needs to go in.
SM (01:10:02):
In a sense, you have taken some of the qualities that your dad had, the quality of service to one's nation, and he did it as a politician in Washington and in other capacities. And you have done it in the environment by serving, by creating healthy foods. And one thing I noticed in reading about your background, these things stand out. Producing healthy foods, sustaining the environment or respect for the environment we live in. And then of course teaching the next generation these same qualities.
CM (01:10:37):
Well, thank you for saying that. I really appreciate that. And that is, I would say, the substance of my life. And there was a motto that many of us have grown up with, and that is 'those who have been given, much as expected.'
SM (01:10:54):
Yes.
CM (01:10:55):
I would change that motto a little bit, because I think that may have fit (19)40s and (19)50s, maybe early (19)60s. I think today what we need to recognize is, we all need to bring each other up and bring the best out of our brothers [inaudible] today. That is my goal, because I have been given a lot, therefore, I have to give a lot. Yeah, I think that is one side. I get a lot, I get a huge amount from the work that I have engaged in. With students and professionals in the state of California. It's just a tremendous conduit of moving forward together. That is my goal. Not that I have anything particularly unique or special to impart, other than by bringing us together to do the best job environmentally for our state, for our country.
SM (01:12:01):
Well, your mom and dad, your mom would definitely be very proud of you. And your dad obviously saw this, and that is the Farms program. If I am a college administrator and I had experienced just taking students to different places. If I was working at UC Davis, I would be coming to your place every year.
CM (01:12:20):
Oh, thank you.
SM (01:12:20):
Yeah, no, because you are exactly what we are talking about here. And could you talk about how, I think your wife has involved in this too, the Farms program. Explain how you had this hands-on experience for high school students and kind of the impact that this has had on many of them, as they have gone on with their lives.
CM (01:12:37):
Absolutely. Well, now thank you for mentioning that Farms was our flagship program that Julie and I started way back when, in nineteen ninety four-ish, I believe, or earlier. We would bring students out to the farm and feed them. My wife is an entomologist, that is insects. So she did a great job in engaging students with integrated best management. And the wonders of how, as a food producer, we can be in balance with nature. And there really truly is a long tradition, hundreds of years old, maybe thousands old. Of how we can get our natural environment in sync. So, that has just been one of the greatest enjoyable parts of our lives, together as the man and wife. And parents raising children.
SM (01:13:41):
And you are also, you like being called a farmer.
CM (01:13:45):
I love it. When it comes time to fill out that tax form, farmer. Because to me, it resonates back to that point that I made earlier, farming is political. Food security is the most important single issue facing every man, wife, and child in this globe. And it pains me tremendously to know that as a globe, we are suffering every day from malnutrition and in a globe where we have the ability to provide. And I am going to jump forward to another mentor and a person who I think has been a guiding light. And that is Michael Paulin. And Michael has said many remarkable things, but one very simple one is he says, "Vote with your fork." And what he means by that is, if you are in charge of making policy decisions. Buy what you choose to buy and what you choose to eat. Now that gets really complicated because you could say, "Oh, well, some people might say that organic foods or healthier food is more expensive." I do not think so. My wife and I cook fresh foods every night. And yes, we buy organic, but we also spend the time doing the food preparation. It does not matter whether it is an organic carrot or a sustainably grown carrot. Taking that time to eat healthy fresh food. I believe, apparently, that all of us can do that.
SM (01:15:31):
Yeah, you just got to have the willpower.
CM (01:15:35):
I think it is wherewithal and the willpower. Yeah.
SM (01:15:38):
Yeah. You also received a very prestigious award, and I will not read what they said on the award, but you won the Leopold Conservation Award. And of course, Also Leopold and I took students to meet Taylor Nelson for the first time in Washington, and at the very end of our session. One of the students asked, "Well, who did you look up to? And who do you suggest we ought to read?" And he said, "Aldo Leopold."
CM (01:16:05):
Ah, that is good.
SM (01:16:07):
And of course he went on to talk about overpopulation, which was something that he thought the world has forgotten in his plea to help the environment. But that must have been quite an honor? You got that in 2007.
CM (01:16:20):
It was a tremendous honor, and I want to just share that honor with all of our family and farm workers and staff at the Center for Land-Based Food Learning. Who helped create that environment to win that award. There's no one award goes to one person. It just has taken so many people engaged in that. And I have a funny little recent vignette. Our youngest member of our family, Emily, has just started up college and she was very excited. She has taken a course in environmental study. So, I got this text message, not a phone call, but a text message that you will not believe. We were reading this work by an incredible nationalist. I know you have never heard of him. His name is Aldo Leopold. So I texted her back and said, "Oh my God, you were right." You have discovered something absolutely remarkable. Now, you may not have known or remembered, but I did receive the Aldo Leopold Award. So, the beauty is you bring these people into the world and then they discover. So, she is in this wonderful discovery phase of her life that there is nothing sweeter than that. Nothing better.
SM (01:17:45):
Is that the one at Brown?
CM (01:17:46):
She is at Brown, yeah.
SM (01:17:47):
Well, that is a great school. I got some general questions here. Now, these are just some questions I have asked a lot of the people that I have interviewed. The Boomer generation is often, and that we see it today, is often attacked as the generation that curated all the problems in our society today. I know in 1994, when Newt Gingrich came into power, he made commentaries about the period of the (19)60s, the (19)60s generation. And we certainly see a lot on Fox today. [inaudible 01:18:20] Governor Huckabee oftentimes says it. I know when John McCain was running for President, he made some comments about Hillary. Even though they were close friends, she was from the (19)60s, kind of in a negative way. But the question is this, the generation, many people are on the right or conservatives. Are saying that the generation are just responsible for the drug culture, the sexual freedoms, the breakup of the family, the divorce rate, the lessening of the influence of religion and God in their lives. Of course, they talk about rock and roll music along here, disrespect for authority, support for the welfare state, anything they can in that period, that created an ambience that has continued and gone on to be negative. But what are your thoughts when you hear that?
CM (01:19:15):
Well, let me just delve into what you have just said. So, are you saying that those people who are critical are not part of the Baby Boomer generation?
SM (01:19:29):
Oh, no. Some of them are.
CM (01:19:30):
That is my point.
SM (01:19:33):
Some of them are, and of course some are more recent [inaudible] cultures of the world.
CM (01:19:37):
Okay. But there is a huge section that we are all together in that.
SM (01:19:43):
Yes.
CM (01:19:44):
Just a minute. This is us. If you are criticizing, you are criticizing something that you were part of. And so help bring us together. If we are polarized and we are so polarized in this nation. What is it that is going to take us to come together? I continue to believe that diversity is our greatest gift. That by having diversity of ethnic backgrounds and diversity of belief, that is our greatest gift. If it severs us, then we have not achieved, then we have not been successful. So, let us move forward and maybe move to the side of the agenda. Some of the things that have polarized us in the past, and let us just put them in a parking lot. Take some time out, take gun control, maybe even some very, very significant issues that you and I and others feel so fervently about. Write to light, maybe let us just take that issue and put it to the side and look at other issues like food security, malnutrition, war across the world. And try to solve some of these incredibly complex issues. That potentially will tear this world apart, not just the United States.
SM (01:21:13):
It's as if that, and this is, I have seen it all throughout-throughout my years in the university, too. That John Kerry ran for President in 19-, excuse me, 2004. Okay. It is the (19)60s all over again. The divisions over the Vietnam War, those that said he lied about his war record and all the other things.
CM (01:21:32):
That to me is a tragedy. We are so mired in that, and maybe that is the origin of your question. But if it is the origin, and if there is some truth to that, stand up, take us... Let us say we are all participating. We are all contributed to that. So, I had a position to counter someone else back in 1968. For crying out loud, it is time to move on. Why is that such, why is that dividing us today? Maybe that is the answer to your question.
SM (01:22:07):
Yeah. And it is also, you cannot even use the word Vietnam or quagmire because if you use those two words, they immediately think of Vietnam. And of course, we all went through when Reagan became President. And we are back and we're going to bring back the (19)50s kind of mentality again. And then you had Ron, President Bush the first saying that the Vietnam syndrome is over. And well, what is the syndrome? It is like, cannot get over it. And even as President Obama, he tries to separate himself from the (19)60s, yet his opponents say he is the epitome of the (19)60s. It has returned. So it keeps going. And I think you have raised some good points.
CM (01:22:51):
Part of it is, why are people so mean-spirited right now? Why is it? I mean, certainly throughout history, we have had leaders, politicians, religious leaders, et cetera. Who have been mean spirited. But why is it to the degree that it is today? And I do not have that answer, but I look for it.
SM (01:23:23):
Yeah. I think we got to look for the better, betterness. The better of all of us or better souls, so to speak. When did the (19)60s begin? In your opinion. And when did it end?
CM (01:23:38):
When did it begin in my life? Or when did...
SM (01:23:41):
In your opinion, when, just your thoughts. When do you think the (19)60s began and when do you think it ended?
CM (01:23:49):
I mean, do you want a feeling? Do you want a date?
SM (01:23:54):
It could be anything. People have responded in so many different ways from specific events to...
CM (01:24:00):
I got to say, it is funny you mentioned this. I first remember hearing the Rolling Stones, I cannot get no satisfaction. I think the (19)60s started me when I heard that song.
SM (01:24:13):
Okay. That was a great song.
CM (01:24:15):
A great song. I do not know what year that hit, but I was probably...
SM (01:24:20):
(19)67.
CM (01:24:20):
(19)67?
SM (01:24:27):
Yeah. It was (19)66, (19)67, because my mom used to watch As The World Turns. And they were playing that song in the background on As The World Turns. Then I remember saying, "Oh my God, now the Rolling Stones have gone mainstream."
CM (01:24:45):
Well, now that, so maybe that is not. Maybe the (19)60s started a lot earlier than the that.
SM (01:25:04):
Just your opinion.
CM (01:25:04):
Yeah. And when did the (19)60s end? I would say the (19)60s ended with the death of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
SM (01:25:16):
In (19)68? Yeah.
CM (01:25:19):
I am going to tell you, when the (19)60s began, it is interesting. I just reflected on it. I have these downers, but I think the (19)60s began when President Kennedy was killed.
SM (01:25:24):
(19)63.
CM (01:25:42):
I think that is when the (19)60s began. And I think, and they ended when Martin Luther and Bobby... And I hate to bookend that by those deaths. I am not a dark person.
SM (01:25:49):
Would that be the watershed moment?
CM (01:25:51):
[inaudible].
SM (01:25:52):
Would that be your watershed moment, too?
CM (01:25:59):
To be quite honest. I think what we are talking about, my biggest watershed moment was when my dad resigned to take care of himself.
SM (01:26:08):
Okay.
CM (01:26:09):
I actually, physically remember a crowd moving out of my mind, out of my body. Remember a dark, moving from...
SM (01:26:27):
Were you in the room when he did make an announcement or were you, saw it on TV?
CM (01:26:35):
I am pretty sure I was out of, not in.
SM (01:26:45):
And in 1963 with the assassination, where were you when you first heard it?
CM (01:26:51):
I knew exactly where I was. I was, we were at a friend’s school and, was it? It was a Friday? Was not it?
SM (01:27:00):
Yes, it was. November 22, was a Friday.
CM (01:27:02):
Yeah. We were going to have our first [inaudible 01:27:07]. Does that sound like something out of the (19)60s?
SM (01:27:07):
Yeah.
CM (01:27:12):
[inaudible]. I was very, very excited. I was always on the dance committee or on the civic. I was very excited about this event. And I think the principal may have called me to the office, prior to announcing it over the PA system. And I just was seven, six. We all were, and that began, I remember my mom picking me up and taking me home. And we had this wonderful golden retriever, who was my dog. And we just lied in bed. And then, that night we loaded into the Galaxy car and drove out to the NIH. Where the, because my dad received Kennedy, and the body well... The autopsy was going on, I was in the car waiting outside, that night.
SM (01:28:14):
Oh my gosh. That is when the plane came back from Dallas with president or Vice President Johnson and now President Johnson.
CM (01:28:23):
That is right.
SM (01:28:25):
That was must have been trying, and most people watched it on TV. But you were probably at the events, were not you?
CM (01:28:30):
I was right there, at the hospital. As I said, in the darkness, in the car. My mom was there at my dad's side.
SM (01:28:40):
Wow. And did you go to the Rotunda?
CM (01:28:44):
I did, yes. And then of course, to the grave site.
SM (01:28:45):
Were you with the people that walked from downtown to the Arlington?
CM (01:29:02):
I do not think I was involved in that.
SM (01:29:05):
As a young boy. I am getting into this because it is a very, you are the only person I really interviewed that had the experience of being this close to this particular event. When you were at the site at Arlington, it was on TV, everybody saw it. But what went through your mind? How old were you? You were only...
CM (01:29:26):
13.
SM (01:29:28):
What is going through the mind of a 13 year old that his dad's boss? Because you are probably thinking that your dad's boss, has just been murdered, in Dallas. What is going through your mind?
CM (01:29:46):
I think quite honestly, I probably may have been seen it more through his reflections than my own. Because we had, in my lifetime, I had never experienced that. I had never experienced a violent death. I had never experienced the present in that fashion, and it was absolutely unfathomable. So, to see the sadness overcome my mom and dad. And particularly my dad, because he was in the limelight. He was so involved, picking out grave sites. And I mean, with the family, he was very close to those. To the Jack's family and the President's, and to Robert Kennedy's family. So, I think it was just the towns' grief, that had no bottom to it.
SM (01:30:48):
If you were to look at the generation, the Boomers. Do you like the term Boomer?
CM (01:31:02):
Interestingly enough, I am a person who has many opinions and I am happy to share them. I am not sure I have an opinion about it.
SM (01:31:10):
That is okay.
CM (01:31:11):
I am not sure I have an opinion about whether it is just something that I have grown up with. I just, I must admit I accept it.
SM (01:31:17):
I had one person who I interviewed, he said, "If you mentioned Boomer one more time, the interview's over."
CM (01:31:26):
He was clearly, worked up about it.
SM (01:31:27):
Yeah, because he was a little older than the Boomers.
CM (01:31:30):
It is one way or the other. I mean, maybe because... And this would totally be an inaccuracy, but the thought of as elitist, it cannot be. Because that gets back to my point of we are the Boomers. How many of us are there?
SM (01:31:48):
There is 74 million.
CM (01:31:50):
Okay. So if you're a Boomer, take responsibility for yourself. Take responsibility for our society, and take responsibility for the good and the bad and decisions that we have made.
SM (01:32:06):
You are right. And I had one person that mentioned to me that he thought Boomers were white men or maybe white women, and that the people of color were not included. I said, "Oh, no, boomers are everybody who was born in that period and were American." I do not even...
CM (01:32:19):
That is my point.
SM (01:32:20):
I have been dealing, been interviewing three Asian American scholars. Because you do not hear much about Asian Americans during this period. So, when you look at this generation, are there some qualities or characteristics that you like and dislike? I know you cannot generalize about a whole generation because there's 74 million.
CM (01:32:39):
I think we are very thoughtful. I think that we are [inaudible]. I think that by and large, we want the best for our society and for our global society. I think we have very strong values, and somehow, we have allowed. Now we have allowed a divisive to come in for our world and we have got to take that back. And we probably are, I say every day that it's the next generation will be this. And they certainly will. But you know what? It's our responsibility to heal. To heal our society, to kill what is wrong with our world things and just rely on ourselves.
SM (01:33:41):
Many within the generation felt that they were the most unique generation American history when they were young because they were going to end war-
CM (01:33:48):
I think we are-
SM (01:33:50):
... racism, sexism. Your thoughts on those people that may have thought that they were unique.
CM (01:33:56):
Well, I am not going to pass judgment on people who thought they were unique. I would just caution us to look at before and after generations. I think our parents' generation, credibly had the wherewithal to survive tremendous difficulties because they were all very aware of. And I think this generation of young people is remarkably all their talents and some of their downsides. As a parent, I think some of us have raised a bit of an entitled generation that is not going to serve us and I do not think will serve them well. They will come to grips with it.
SM (01:34:47):
Yeah. We talked earlier about the generation gap between parents and children and we have discussed that. But in a book called The Wounded Generation, that came out in 1980, in a panel discussion, a symposium with five major Vietnam veterans and one of them being Bobby Mueller and Phil Caputo, who wrote the Rumor of War-
CM (01:35:10):
I know Phil well.
SM (01:35:11):
... yeah, and then the Senator of Virginia now, Jim Webb and a couple others. They talked about a lot of different issues and one of them was about the generation gap in service. And I think it was Senator Webb, but he was not senator then, of course, and he made a comment that he felt that the generation gap really was between those who went to war and those who did not. He said yeah, there was the gap between parents and children, but-
CM (01:35:46):
He was good.
SM (01:35:46):
... he said there were those who went to war and there were those who did not and so, within the generation, there was a generation gap. And he felt very strongly about that. And he went so far as to say, we look at the (19)60s generation with President Kennedy and the Peace Corps and Vista and all these service ideas, but he says, it really is not the service generation because they would have all gone to war if they were the service generation, when their nation called. Give your thoughts on that.
CM (01:36:19):
Well, I must agree with him in terms of this sub-gap, and I think that is well defined by those who serve in war and those who did not, and if they served in conscientious objector roles, or left the country, or served in other capacities. Yeah, I am not sure I have a lot more to add.
SM (01:36:53):
The two qualities here that had really mentioned to every single person starting with Senator McCarthy in 1996, was the equality within this generation that they just did not trust, because in most cases they had witnessed so many leaders lying to them. People that were observant and in the know that President Eisenhower lied to the American public when he said that the U2 was not a spy plane and it was.
CM (01:37:28):
Yeah.
SM (01:37:29):
The Gulf of Tonkin with President Johnson, history has shown that that was not really a truthful beginning of a war. And we had people like Senator Morris and others challenging the president right from the get-go. We had Watergate with Richard Nixon. We had so many leaders that students, at this time, just did not trust anybody in positions of responsibility, whether they were a religious leader, a corporate leader, a university leader, a political leader. Do you feel that that quality, that is often labeled within this generation, is a plus or a negative?
CM (01:38:08):
Well, let us talk about why it is that way first. Then let us apply a plus or negative. One of the reasons it is that way is because of the technology of the time in the media. We had never, correct me if I am wrong, experienced a way of communicating with each other that would get that word out. And of course, today you look at our ability through all of our social networking is hugely more engaged in that way. But were not we one of the first generations, and was not Vietnam one of the first occasions where we had information, right, wrong or indifferent, that we as a generation could determine whether it was truthful or not? And so that gave us the substrate or that gave us the foundation or the infrastructure to then make a judgment and I think that is what you are moving towards. We may have been in a unique position. I am not saying that our generation of boomers is any more unique than other generations, but we had a unique opportunity to view things. And yes, I think we did challenge. And I think that we did develop a significant amount of mistrust. Was that a plus or a minus? I harken back to this, "It does not really matter, the fact is we are living with it." So, I am a much more engaged person in terms of... I want to attempt to understand history so that I change our future course, but I want us to engage and make a difference today. So, I am less prone to say it was a plus or a minus, and I would rather say, "Come on. Let us get going. Let us get going in community gardens. Let us get going in getting people out of prison. Let us get going in improving society rather than being divisive."
SM (01:40:23):
Excellent response. The other one was in the issue of healing. I took a group of students that are your daughter's age, back in 1995, to Washington DC, to meet Senator Edmond Musky. We spent two hours with him and our Leadership On The Road programs. And the students came up with the questions, because they had seen videos of 1968 and all the divisions in America at that time and they knew that he was the vice-presidential running lead. And I interviewed Fred Harris and I did not know that it was between him, Fred Harris, and Edmond Musky and it was decided, right there in Chicago. But the point I am trying to get at here is that they saw the divisions, and so they came up with a question. They wanted Senator Musky to respond. And this was the question, "Due to the tremendous divisions that took part in America in the 1960s, the divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who supported the war, those who were against the war, those who supported the troops or against the troops, do you feel that all these extreme divisions, including the burnings of the cities..." They went on and on and on about all the negative stuff, the assassinations of President Kennedy and then the two that were killed in 1968. "Do you feel that the boomer generation, like the Civil War generation will go to its grave not healing? They will be bitter?" And we are not talking about everybody now, but those that were involved in all these movements and the divisions and the battles that were fought, that the boomer generation has an issue with healing?
CM (01:42:16):
No, I do not feel that we will go to our grave divided. I mean there is so many layers. You have asked very good questions. All your questions are good, but the final one, because it has to do with our sense of the future, if we cannot depend on it, but you're talking about internally, as a boomer generation.
SM (01:42:47):
Some people thought I should have paraphrased this by those who went to Vietnam, the three plus million who served and those who were in the anti-war movement. Some people say, if you really ask that question that way, then that might be a different answer, but-
CM (01:43:02):
I hope I am not naive on answering the question. I do not believe that that we will remain divide upon. I hope that is the case. I feel a tremendous sense of grief and loss over how our men were received when they came back from Vietnam. I think that is a stain on our national wellbeing and I have worked in my own personal life to understand that and to heal as best I can, and so-
SM (01:43:52):
Do you think your dad healed?
CM (01:43:57):
No, I do not think he healed. No, I think he was alone.
SM (01:44:00):
If he was an individual, it might be a person by person response to that question.
CM (01:44:05):
No, I do not think that he ever recovered from that. As hard as he worked to improve the lives of men and women and children around the world, he visited every country and every leader. And he went to many school sites and agricultural sites, attempting to bring prosperity to folks. I do not-
SM (01:44:40):
You have been to the wall in Washington?
CM (01:44:42):
I have.
SM (01:44:43):
I would like your response when you first saw it, thinking of all the things that may have come to your mind. And Jan Scruggs wrote the book To Heal A Nation, and honestly, the wall was built to heal the families that lost loved ones in the war and to heal the Vietnam veterans and their families who went through so much. And it was to be a non-political entity. That was their goal and so forth. But he also said in the book that he hoped that it would heal the nation too, even beyond the veterans, and be kind of a first step. First off, what's your first reaction when you saw the wall for the first time and your thoughts on whether it has played any part in healing the nation that Jan was talking?
CM (01:45:38):
Well, I must say, very honestly, that a few years ago, I could not have had this conversation with you, because of what I mentioned to you. Just whether one calls it post-traumatic stress, whether one calls it the deep wound scars of Vietnam, I too have been scarred by them, and I say that humbly, because I did not fight in it. But I do think that in our lives that we are scarred by events because of the various roles and actions that we have taken or not taken or have been taken by someone close to us. So, I have experienced a cathartic experience with a very important group in my life, that included a Vietnam vet that I very much respect. And for me that was, I am not sure healing is the right word necessarily, but catharsis is, so it was an evolution. It was a time when I could reveal and dig very deep into those ones that I have played. Therefore, it has helped me heal, because literally I would weep in this conversation had I not had that experience. So back to your question about the wall. My first experience at the wall was prior to this catharsis, and it was the total breaking down for me of experience. And I happened to be there I think, at twilight or in the evening, so it was very alone, very humbling. But I do. Moving towards what Jan Scruggs was saying, as a healing experience for our nation, I hope it is. I hope the true anger and our own personal experiences, we can move forward.
SM (01:47:55):
Do you know when your dad went there for the first time?
CM (01:47:58):
No, I do not. There is all sorts of stories relating to that and his first visit. I do not know if you have read Paul Hendrickson's work?
SM (01:48:12):
Yes, I did. I interviewed him for my book.
CM (01:48:14):
Oh, you did?
SM (01:48:15):
Yeah.
CM (01:48:20):
I have had an interesting experience with Paul, when he started his book, Dad called all of his friends and acquaintances to, " Please cooperate to the degree that you would like with this author. I give my go ahead." And I think as Paul's documents and manuscript matured, Dad realized it was something that he no longer wanted to cooperate with. And Paul had been out to our home here in California and stayed with my wife and I, as he was doing his investigative work. And of any author, I think the amount of research that he did on the family and the root of Dad down there, were vast and it is a fascinating piece. And Paul blends fact and fiction and creates a story, so one has to interpret that. But I moved away from my relationship with Paul, at that time, when I realized the direction he was taking the book. And I actually wrote Paul said that I did not give permission to interviews in it. And that caused, as you can imagine, a real rift in our relationship, which we have subsequently healed.
SM (01:49:51):
Yeah, I think I interviewed him six years ago. I think something like that, so he is a pen.
CM (01:49:58):
Yeah. We are back in communication. I have always respected Paul. I always appreciated his writing. I think he is a great writer.
SM (01:50:10):
Yeah, he wrote a book on the South too.
CM (01:50:11):
Yeah.
SM (01:50:13):
Speaking of books, what books did you read when you were growing up, that had really an influence on you? And what did your dad and mom read?
CM (01:50:21):
Oh, my God. My dad's bookstand next to his bed was like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was just unbelievable. Off the top of [inaudible], my mom and dad had a huge appreciation for art and for music, so I grew up with a lot of art books, of the well-known world artists, and a lot of both concertos and orchestras and jazz music. So those are some of the early ones that I remember.
SM (01:51:16):
Yeah. And we all know that President Kennedy was really influenced by Michael Harrington's book, The Other America.
CM (01:51:23):
Right.
SM (01:51:24):
And of course, I assumed when I read that, I immediately had to read it and I did. It might be I have got a first edition of that book now.
CM (01:51:31):
I apologize [inaudible].
SM (01:51:33):
Yeah. And I had all your dad's books by the way.
CM (01:51:35):
Oh, congratulations.
SM (01:51:37):
And I have read all of them. I am a bibliophile. It has been many years since I read some of the earlier ones. I think we have gone over a little bit here. Can we have ten more minutes and then that will be it.
CM (01:51:53):
Let us stop at 10 [inaudible].
SM (01:51:54):
Yeah, because-
CM (01:51:55):
You have done a fantastic job. And I really feel honored to speak with you and to know the background that you have put into all of this.
SM (01:52:02):
Well, this is a first time effort for me. And I feel funny being saying I am an author because I have been a college administrator my whole life. But I love history and I am a bibliophile. I have about 10,000 books.
CM (01:52:15):
Good for you. I hope you got them well [inaudible].
SM (01:52:17):
Well, what I am planning on doing is creating a... I have talked to the Cazenovia College, which is a small school outside Casnovia, New York, where my parents met. And my parents went to school there in (19)39 to (19)41, before my dad went off to war. And I went to Sydney Binghamton as an undergrad and then I went to Ohio State to grad school, but I want to create a center for the city of the boomer generation there. And I am willing to give them all my books as long as they create a center, hire a professor to run it, and they will get all my tapes and they will get all my memorabilia. They will get everything, as long as they stamp my parents' name and all. I have the same feeling toward my parents that you do toward yours, because I owe everything to them and way beyond the fact that I would not be here without them. But they helped form me and shape me so-
CM (01:53:19):
Well, that is wonderful. That is very generous of you.
SM (01:53:20):
Well, I am hoping it is up to the university now to follow through and so we will see what happens. I got only really two more questions and one of them though, there is sections to it. These are quotes that have had effect on a lot of boomers in the generation. And I would just like your immediate responses to these quotes that were well known, particularly in the (19)60s and seventies. By Any Means Necessary by Malcolm X.
CM (01:53:56):
I understood it.
SM (01:53:59):
Do you think it symbolized taken, creating violence in your own hand? A lot of people-
CM (01:54:10):
Yeah. Here's how it resonated with me and how I acted upon it. As a 17-year-old, I left high school the winter of my [inaudible] year and worked in Harlem, at the Street Academy program that run by the Urban League. And I worked at Charles Evans Hughes High School on the lower West Side. I understood that quote. I understood what young blacks were going through and I tried to work within the system to bring change.
SM (01:54:43):
Okay. Two very important ones from that inaugural speech by President Kennedy, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." And the second one that I think is equally important, because many people believe it was the precursor to everything that is followed, particularly in Vietnam, " We will bear any burden and pay any price for the guarantee of liberty and freedom." So, I am going to the full length of the quotes, but those are two very important quotes from JFK.
CM (01:55:12):
Yeah, they very much were. And the first one I remember fondly, because although I was not a Quaker, I was going to a Quaker school with two of my friends, so we would have Friday meetings as students, which was an assembly of quiet. And I remember standing up in one of the meetings and saying, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you do for your country." It was very profound. That was something that everybody knew. It was familiar. But it was moving and I thought I would share it, quiet meaning firm. And the other one is I think something that we lived by and it is a guiding light for us.
SM (01:56:03):
That is like a cold war. We're in the Cold War.
CM (01:56:08):
Yes.
SM (01:56:08):
Yeah. This is a quote from The Women's Movement and they use it as their central quote, "All politics is person."
CM (01:56:19):
I would agree very quickly, because to me what that means is that we all need to be engaged in politics. And politics as I have found in my own life, can be politics of the soil, of the land, politics of food, politics of health, politics of obesity, politics of social justice. I totally can.
SM (01:56:45):
How about, "I have a dream." Of course, we all know that was Dr. King.
CM (01:56:46):
I think that is both for societal as well as the individual folk.
SM (01:57:11):
And this is a paraphrasing of something that Muhammad Ali said, "I had no reason to go off to a war in Vietnam, and kill yellow people, when there is little care for black people on the home front."
CM (01:57:26):
Because of my personal experiences that I have related to, I understand.
SM (01:57:32):
Do you agree with that?
CM (01:57:34):
I do not agree with it. I understand-
SM (01:57:37):
Oh, okay.
CM (01:57:37):
... where it is coming from.
SM (01:57:40):
Yeah. "Tune in, turn on, drop out." Timothy Leary.
CM (01:57:45):
Certainly, part of my generation did not agree with it. Interestingly enough, I was back in Washington about two weeks ago and there in the National Art Gallery, I saw that theory in black and white photographic exhibit by Allen Kingsbury [inaudible].
SM (01:58:17):
And this is a quote that Bobby Kennedy used in his Indianapolis speech, which was a quote from another person from the 19th century, "Some men see things as they are and ask why. I see things that never were and ask why not?"
CM (01:58:38):
I think I have faith and I think both my friendship with [inaudible] parents have been [inaudible].
SM (01:58:48):
I mean, I am losing you. I cannot hear you.
CM (01:58:49):
I think from my friendship [inaudible]
SM (01:58:57):
Pressed it. Okay, and taping on two tape recorders. And of course, a lot of this is going to be about you, but it is also a lot on your dad too. You okay now?
CM (01:59:06):
I am ready to go.
SM (01:59:08):
How did you become who you are, with respect to talking about your growing up years before you went off to college? What was it like going to high school and those early influences? And of course, you can talk about your dad and mom at this time too.
CM (01:59:25):
So, are we focusing a little bit at the end of middle school and on to high school, or [inaudible] high school?
SM (01:59:34):
Basically high school.
CM (01:59:35):
My high school was a continuation of football friends who were in Washington DC, which for me was a remarkable experience, because I came from Ann Arbor, Michigan as a 10 year old and went to the elementary school with my friends. And I came into the school system with a reading problem, a significant dyslexia problem that, at that age, at that time, was not really well known. It was a large umbrella that covered many different parts of that learning disorder. So it was a lot of work for me. Getting to high school was a dynamic challenge. Sidwell Friends really did a remarkable job in assisting me and creating an environment that was very supportive. So, in ninth grade with all the excitement of sports and a solid education, I was really in tune. And a good friend of mine had left Sidwell Friends at the end of eighth grade. And I said, "Well, where did you go, Frank?" And he said, "Well, I went to this place called St. Paul's School." And what I did not realize was that he was prepared for this by his father and probably grandfather and it was a family tradition. And he said, "You got to try this. You got to try this." I said, "Well, what is this?" He said, "Well, it's the prep school. “I said, "I am really happy here at Sidwell Friends. I have got all my friends and sports." He said, "No. No. You got to try it." So, I left Sidwell at the end of ninth grade and went to St. Paul in [inaudible] for the remaining years of High School. It was a definite road not taken for me ever before. It was a very divergent road in my upbringing. My mom and dad had always raised us with a real foundation, I think, of social justice, of appreciation for, I am going to say the common good, the common man, for society. And I did not know what I was getting into in this interesting environment that St. Paul School provided. It was an incredibly challenging academic environment, especially for me. And it was the environment that, to be quite honest, myself, I was under prepared for and overwhelmed by. So what one normally does is learn how to compensate. My compensation was through my communication with people and my endeavors in on the athletics field. So those were the areas that I really excelled in and had a very, very difficult time struggling at Camp Cedar.
SM (02:02:43):
What years were you there?
CM (02:02:46):
That is a good question. I think that I began that school in 1965.
SM (02:02:49):
Okay.
CM (02:02:54):
And I moved with the years. I was born in (19)50, so in (19)65, I would have been 15, and I graduated from St. Paul's, 1969.
SM (02:03:08):
Yeah. What was it like growing up as your home base? Because your dad was working for President Kennedy and while your father was Secretary of Defense from (19)61 to (19)67, before he headed off to the World Bank, what was it like? In all of these roles that he played, did you feel there was any pressure that your dad was a very... They called him one the best and the brightest, as David Halberstan had written in his book. Did you ever feel that when you had that visible a person like your dad, who was very accomplished that you could not meet his standards and you were trying to? Or did you just want to get away to find your own identity?
CM (02:03:58):
You have covered a broad brush of ideas with the- A broad brush of ideas with the suggestions there. So let us look at them one by one. Pressures that a son feels from his father or a child feels from their parents. There cannot be anything more traditional than that. And so, yes, of course I really did have felt that throughout my life. And it's a wonderful realization at certain times in your life when you realize you can appreciate what your parents have done, appreciate leadership that they have provided in this case to their country, to their families, to their children. But yes, I felt a tremendous struggle that at times I was age appropriately unaware of. But let me just go back to the first feelings of moving to Washington DC. You have got to understand, I was raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but my whole connection was with nature from riding bikes to making dams, creeks, to building tree houses that have been out all day long with my mom whistling the special family whistle to let me know that dinner was ready. My life in the fifties and early (19)60s, one of edible connection with this dynamic course, which ultimately has changed my life, which is nature in food system. So coming to Washington DC was, I was an excited kid. I was 10 years old and slammed a little bit with this learning issue, but I took that instead. And my mom worked night and day literally with me. I can remember both of us kind of weeping together over my inability to do homework, but it just kind of did it. But then there was the other side of Washington, which was the new frontier, the Camelot, the excitement of this credible young president, family and cabinet. And they were called to serve the cabinet members and their families were called to serve. So, I remember, I have fond memories of things that today are magical. They truly are magic moments that reflect back to your book that I knew they were special, but I did not know how special they were. Joining President Kennedy at Camp David, remembering being in the living room study of what seemed like a log cabin. It was a very understated building that the president at that time lived in at Camp David and seeing him at ease in his rocking chair, and Emily, I remember attending in the White House, the first showing of PT-109.
SM (02:07:07):
Oh my gosh. Cliff Robertson.
CM (02:07:10):
Sitting on the floor and the president was on, I think a shade or some sort of seating. And together with all of the Robert Kennedy family and present family, it was an easy, wonderful relationship. And taking off from the White House, Rose Garden or wherever the helicopters take off from as a 11 or 12 year old, it was so questionable. But it just seemed, it was part of life's fabric. I am trying to describe this incredible feeling. I am putting my two hands together because on one hand it was reality and another hand it was far removed from anything that I will ever live again.
SM (02:08:11):
What's interesting, and I can remember reading your dad's book In Retrospect, in the sections where he talks about the family, which he did quite often throughout the book. And he mentioned that the University of Michigan that you talked about and he wanted to live in a university environment and not in some rich suburb. Well, and I thought that was, he really had his head on his shoulders and obviously it was probably very impressionable and important for him with respect to his family. And that is where you got your love for nature.
CM (02:08:39):
It really did. And it teased out throughout our lives in the sense that in one respect, my dad must have been the first commuter because Ann Arbor from Dearborn where he worked, I do not know in that day and age how many minutes it was maybe 45 or 50 or an hour. And so he made that decision to have the intellectual capacity of living in a university town and back to my image here of nature, of living in an area that was not economically oriented. And he would drive home the new models, whether it was the T-bird or eventually the Edel or whatever.
SM (02:09:29):
He drove an Edel home.
CM (02:09:29):
Yeah. Whatever the new model was and would test drive them. And the other thing that my dad and mom always emphasized was a time for us as a family to be together and typically being that he truly was a workaholic, it would be on a vacation in the Sierra Mountain because mom and dad grew up in the Bay area of California and the Sierras were so important to them and to their generation. We would as a family, actually part of the family. Dad would be working in Michigan, mom and my two sisters and I would head out in the summertime in the old station wagon and drive to the eastern slope of the Deer, Nevada. Up with their college friends and families. And we would launch a two week trip, initially packed trip with mules into the Sierras. These were the most wonderful experiences of my life. Campfires and was sating off of snowbank into crystal clear lakes and catching fish. My mom was a tremendous fisher woman and taught me how to fish and wild fish...
SM (02:10:58):
She was quite accomplished too.
CM (02:11:00):
She was a remarkable...
SM (02:11:03):
Reading about her and her background. And she passed away in (19)81, I believe.
CM (02:11:07):
She did. She had mesothelioma cancer around the throat. It was told to us that she would have an 11-month life and she lived 11 months. But she was one of the greatest sources of inspiration, I think for my father. She was the greatest source of love and inspiration for me and our family. Just an absolutely down to earth, remarkable human being.
SM (02:11:39):
She was involved with a group organization called Reading Is Fundamental. I think your sister has been somewhat linked to that too, but it's a nonprofit children's literacy organization. Was that based on the fact of your experiences with her as a young child?
CM (02:11:54):
I think it was three. Certainly, it was the experience that she and I shared of how difficult it is for some children. Secondly, coming to the nation's capital and realizing that the literacy rate was so poor and that was wrong. And thirdly, as my dad felt the story when meeting with President Kennedy said, okay, when he brought the cabinet wives together, your husbands are going to be under tremendous amount of pressure and work, and I want you to do something meaningful for yourself, for society. So it was kind of those three or four things. And I am so proud of my mom. She started this program. Reading Is Fundamental out of a mobile unit, book mobiles. They would go around to schools and have school children come on board and pick out a free book, start a library in families where there were no books. And that has grown into a global network, it is remarkable.
SM (02:12:59):
Is your sister linked to that in some way?
CM (02:13:01):
My older sister, Margie, is on the board of RIF.
SM (02:13:04):
Okay, very good. Yeah. And I guess President Carter awarded her the Medal of Freedom too.
CM (02:13:11):
Which was an outstanding recognition of my mom's dedication to our [inaudible] side.
SM (02:13:24):
Getting back to that time when your dad was Secretary of Defense, what memories do you have wherever you were location wise about the people that David Halberstam often describes in his book, The Best and The Brightest? Your dad was part of this group, and what are your memories when, and I have got about seven or eight things here that were very important during or pretty big during your dad's reign and at Secretary of Defense. The inaugural speech of John Kennedy, where were you and how did that speech influence you in any way?
CM (02:14:00):
Oh, I am so glad that you have brought that up and reminded me of that. That whole experience began for me when dad's came home from work one day and said, well, what would you think of moving to Washington DC? Now you're talking now, I was 10 years old. And I said, well Dad, do not worry about that because we're not going to do that. I have got my friends here, we have got the tree house, we have got all of what we so enjoyed here. And he said, well, I have been asked by the president prominent to be a part of his cabinet. And the rest of that story is history. Obviously, he went out and I did not. But I do remember my mom and dad had gone to Washington in preparation for the inaugural and my older sisters and I were to fly out to be part of the day that you were mentioning here. And it was an icy winter ice storm as I recall. And I was the one in charge of the alarm clock to wake up. My sisters, now remember, they're teenagers and I am 10 years old. And I was worried that if I were to wake them up, they were going to get really angry with me for waking them up. So I think we were a little late getting to the airport, got to Washington, picked up by a limo. Now this is something I had never even dreamed of being in one or certainly had never ridden. This was very exciting. And I recall being in the audience, looking up at the cabinet behind him on the Capitol, just watching Robert Frost and just being in the palm of something of God's hands in a very, very special way. And then the day, I do not remember how it totally unfolded, but I do remember in the reviewing stand in front of the White House, whatever that was, in 1960 and after it was very different than what they do today. And I think by that time it was a chilly day, very chilly but sunshine as I recall. And I remember the cabinet coming past in their cars that were convertibles, I think open-top. And I remember my mom and dad in their car and dad had what? Remind me the name of the hat. The Stove Pipe Cap?
SM (02:16:31):
Oh, Abraham Lincoln's Hose Cap.
CM (02:16:33):
Abraham Lincoln. And I recall saying, shouting out to my dad, dad, you look really great out there. And then they went on, I am looking at my office wall right now because I am looking at a picture of them at one of the inaugural balls that they attended. And my dad in a tux and my mom in a ball gown with their gloves and everything. Quite a remark.
SM (02:17:05):
Yeah, I think President Kennedy, there is pictures of him wearing that kind of a hat too.
CM (02:17:09):
Oh, absolutely.
SM (02:17:09):
Yeah. And of course that was a very cold day. You remember the president was speaking, you see the breath when he was speaking? It was, but it was a great speech. I remember it was a cold day.
CM (02:17:22):
Can you hold one second?
SM (02:17:39):
Yes.
CM (02:17:39):
[inaudible] So I get lots of men coming by looking for work.
SM (02:17:46):
A couple of the other events, and you will remember what maybe your dad talking about it at the table or conversing, the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis because those are two very big events.
CM (02:17:57):
They are indeed. My memories of those... This wrapped into a much larger part of my life. And that is that, as you can imagine from my earlier comments, dad kept his work very separate from my life and actually throughout our life, whether because we're talking kind of early teen right now, 12, 13, 14. But as I became a late teenager and all the way through my life, it was something that dad just chose not to share, not to talk about, not to engage in. I think it was painful. I think he was trying to be protective. Was it right or wrong on his part? I do not think I can apply that sort of rationale. Did it ultimately help me? No, it did not. But to get back to specifically your question about the missile crisis, I do recall that much more fervently than Bay of Pig. Dad would come home from work say eight o'clock. And he always sat on the same part of the couch. He would always have his hand on the coffee table to the left where the lamp was. He would typically be reading the paper. And in his hand, on the coffee table was this beautiful walnut plaque. And there is some imagery here because I am a walnut grower, this walnut plaque that probably measured four inches by four inches and on top of the plaque was the most beautiful silver gallon, just a little piece of silver with the month of October, 1962, with the critical dates of the Cuban Missile Crisis embedded deeper in the silver gallon. And I remember my dad just kind of, his hand would be on that. And it was as if it was braille, as if the digit of his finger were rereading, recognizing the potential devastation of our world, had the United States launched their weapon.
SM (02:20:32):
Wow.
CM (02:20:32):
I have that memory emblazoned in my mind. That stayed with us forever.
SM (02:20:44):
Now that was a scary moment as we all watched President Kennedy on TV that night. And of course we all remember Adlai Stevenson at the United Nations. I am going to wait for your reply until hell freezes over. I will never forget it. I am only a little older than you, so of course. So a few more here. The Gulf of Tonkin on Vietnam, obviously in 1964, a lot has been written about that. Your thoughts on that as well as the protests on college campuses that went throughout the time that he was Secretary of Defense and of course the big one. There were two at the Pentagon and then the one in 1967 where they levitated supposedly the Pentagon. And in the 1965 one, which I am going to come back to later, where the man burned himself to death, just anything really linking to Vietnam.
CM (02:21:43):
Well, let me remind us that I was 14, 1964. Maybe 14 year olds today are a little more worldly in their global understanding than I was. So those memories are more In Retrospect, my reflections on those [inaudible] as I awaken to Vietnam. My personal awaken occurred closer to 1966, (19)67, I am going to say. There again, I was had in [inaudible]. One of my dear friends who was going to be the president of the school, had created a teaching about Vietnam. Now think of this is high school. So he was 17, this is Rick King. And he had invited professors, I believe from the Boston area and maybe Dartmouth speaking. I said, well now wait a minute, Rick. At that point I still said, there must be a reason that we were in Vietnam. And I remember standing in a phone booth, we do not have phone booths anymore, but I was standing in a phone booth from school and talking with dad, dad going to be a teacher, is there any material that you can send me to justify the war in Vietnam? And it just occurred while I am speaking with you on the phone, why it was that no materials arrived. I think at that point I realized there was no justification for us to be there. It did not dawn on me then, but the materials never arrived, the teaching occurred. And that was a rite of passage. And I remember later on I am 19, being in social events in Washington DC in the backyard of a friends' house in Georgetown and the decision makers, I will put them in one category, decision makers, my father and other decision makers saying, well, you just have not read enough about this issue, but you do not really know what you are talking about. And yet we knew very intuitively and from our small world exposure that Vietnam War would not go forth.
SM (02:24:20):
Yeah. I interviewed Dr. Henry Graff, the former professor at Columbia University on Monday, and he did the Tuesday cabinet book about Tuesday cabinet meetings where your dad and top people on foreign policy would meet with President Johnson every Tuesday.
CM (02:24:40):
Yes.
SM (02:24:40):
And he had chances to talk to your dad four times. And he talked to him just before he was leaving in (19)67 as well. Johnson gave him full access to the cabinet. And he was, what is interesting is when I talked to him about the gatherings of these people, it was known early on the McGeorge Bundy, even in his book says he was against the war from the get-go way back in (19)64. And I know that Bill Moyers was against the war himself, and he was only there for three years working with the President Johnson. And then your dad had misgivings about the war for a long time. And I asked Dr. Graff, here you have Secretary Defense, McNamara. McGeorge Bundy was the special assistant, I forget his full title. And you had his press secretary, Bill Moyers against the war. President Johnson kept going on. And Dr. Graff, you have to understand, these men kept their differences behind closed doors and they showed that they were loyal. And that is what the kind of people that President Johnson wanted around him.
CM (02:25:52):
Well, that is such an important point that you brought up loyalty because something to my dad always referred to. And I would ask him on those rare occasions that particularly after the fact when he was at the World Bank and finally came out with his book, In Retrospect said, why could not you have addressed it? Why could not you have spared yourself and our nation so much anguish, sorrow and grief? And said several things. One is that he was an appointed cabinet senator that he did, he was not elected. Felt that it was his duty and his loyalty to serve the President in the best capacity that he could. And then I think that there is an evolution in people's, like these thought processes and lives that allow them to come to grace, come to some sort of understanding. And thank God he did. I mean, I do not know many other people in his situation who have publicly and privately said, I made a mistake and I would like us, I would like myself to learn from this mistake. And maybe history can use these, that is so [inaudible], so accurately developed in fog of war, which by the way, I think every high school [inaudible].
SM (02:27:22):
Well, I agree. I have a copy of it. I think it's a classic. And I agree with what you say about your dad because one of the issues, I was in higher education for almost 30 some years, and very few people are willing to ever admit they make a mistake. And it is a sign of a true leader when they do because they become vulnerable. And then they start questioning, what happened to your dad? Why did not you do this before you left in 1967? Here is another criticism of your dad. Why was it that when you left, and I remember the scene, it is actually can see it on YouTube where the President is the going away there when he was very emotional. And he did not really say that because he did not agree with the President. I know he did not. And then some people said, well, he went off to Aspen to ski and he was responsible for the desk of so many people on the wall. So, there is so many perceptions, but you are kind of like, you are damned if you do, or damned if you do not kind of a...
CM (02:28:25):
Well, I think what you say is accurate and about his welling up and being very emotional and actually very interesting because from that point on, he probably would never admit that. But I think he suffered significantly from a posttraumatic stress syndrome that, believe it or not, I think I suffered from too in the sense that the event of Vietnam were so distraught, disturbing to our nation personally. You mentioned the [inaudible] person igniting themselves in front of the Pentagon. Those events are so dark, so traumatic, I do not think one ever recovers from them. And you cannot control them. You cannot control when those emotions. That is a significant damage to one [inaudible] character. And you cannot suppress that. As good as certain people are and my father was one of the best at compartmentalizing parts of his life, that went deep into all parts of his life. I do not think for the rest of his life, he could actually control them.
SM (02:29:48):
One of the things that upset so many of the Boomer generation that because TV was very important, black and white television and the news is when your dad gave those weekly reports on the numbers killed. And many believed he was lying because those reports concluded dead animals and all the other things just to please the President. But what is interesting when he wrote, In Retrospect, I have two anecdotes. My very first interview, because I started this project way back in (19)96, as it said in my letter there, and I met with Senator McCarthy. And one of the questions during my meeting when Senator Eugene McCarthy was, what do you think of the new book out by Robert McNamara? And I have to listen to it again to get the exact quote, but he is a little too late. A little too late. And he was very upset. And he said, let us go on the next question. So that was his response. And then I have pictures at the Vietnam Memorial because I have been going to the Vietnam Memorial since 1994 for veterans and Memorial Day to pay my respects. And in about the year that In Retrospect came out, I will never forget it, there were two copies of... In fact, I can look it up and send it to you on the computer. There were two copies of your dad's book that had bullet holes through it. And very bad words underneath the book. So the feelings were still there. And then when I go to the wall many times, I do not get there as much now, but there is three names that always come up that were the bad people. And yeah, it depends, if it is the veterans talking, it is Jane Fonda who they cannot stand for obvious reasons. And then they mentioned your dad and Henry Kissinger. Yeah, those three. But then if it is the anti-war people, it is not Jane Fonda, it is your dad, Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon. And they throw a little bit of Agnew in there, but they do not say a whole lot about LBJ because of his great to society. So, those are just some anecdotes I wanted to share. Why did you drop out of Stanford?
CM (02:32:04):
Oh, largely because of my disenfranchisement with this remarkable country that I do love tremendously. And that was 1971 of the winter. And I just realized that having, I personally lived very close to the man who was Secretary of Defense during the lead up of Vietnam said, getting back to these wounds, whether you want to call it post-traumatic stress syndrome or whatever, that I needed to rediscover my country, that I needed to reinvest in my country. I needed to reinvest in myself. And the only way I could do that was somehow get a new vision of the beauty of the springs, of our people, of our country. And the way I did that was to begin a journey to South America. And I began that with a few friends. And we traveled through Central America learning Spanish along the way, and eventually arriving in Columbia where my two friends decided to say that their travel journey was over and mine was not. And I continued on that point all the way down to [inaudible], spending another year and a half on the road in the more formidable part of that journey for me was working on as a farmhand. I worked with some modern Indians, I worked with Julian dairy farmers, I worked with hay growers, produce people. I worked on fishing boats. And I was immersed in something that, it completely resonated for me. It was food production. And for me, it brought together two worlds that I thought were very divergent at that time. One was the political world that I had somewhat grown up in. The other was the early world that my parents had shown me, which was that of the garden of... My fondest childhood memories of being with my dad, mom in the garden with him picking a fresh tomato and putting a little salt on it, taking a big bite, the juice, rolling down his cheeks. My mom picking asparagus, cutting roses... Picking asparagus, cutting roses to bring into our kitchen table. Those two worlds, the early ones and the mid ones, the land and the politics, to me were married in food production. I realized, after two and a half years on the road, I had no education. I had worked a little bit, but I had no education. I wanted to formalize that, and went to UC Davis, to study plant and soil sciences, knowing in the beginning that I wanted to come out and eventually farm.
SM (02:35:35):
Wow. What a story. Were your parents worried about you being so far away?
CM (02:35:43):
They must have been absolutely worried, for many, many reasons. Just let me remind you, I arrived in Santiago, Chile in the early days of September, 1971, and that was the anniversary of Salvador Allende being the first elected socialist president in Chile.
SM (02:36:06):
Wow.
CM (02:36:09):
Dad, being the head of the World Bank at that time, certainly knew of the difficulties that were occurring in Chile, and probably could, in his own mind, forecast how the future may unfold. I know my mom was very worried about my wellbeing, and of course, there was no communication. Just in terms of getting mail, my parents would send a letter to an embassy, that was the only way I could get mail. I think I called them infrequently, maybe every six months, something like that. It's so interesting now to have children who are texting, and messaging, and emailing, and phoning, and the tree of communications today, and the different level of communication.
SM (02:37:08):
One of the big things that was in the news around the mid-(19)60s was the fact that Governor Rockefeller's son was` down in Brazil, and disappeared.
CM (02:37:21):
He did, I recall that.
SM (02:37:21):
That was really big in the news. Of course, he was down there to help people.
CM (02:37:24):
I do not know if you have seen the movie "Missing," about the coup in Chile. It is a very powerful movie, and to be quite honest, my story could have been similar to that story.
SM (02:37:42):
Wow. I am going to get back to your work with the farm in a couple of minutes here, but correct me if I am ever repeating anything, because I have got a series of questions here I have in order. I do a lot of thinking before I do my interviews.
CM (02:37:54):
I know you do. I saw you put in a great deal of research.
SM (02:37:58):
Everyone is different, and some are some general questions.
CM (02:38:02):
It makes it fun and interesting and insightful for you and for the person you are interviewing, and potentially for the people reading the book.
SM (02:38:09):
I want to reach students and high school students, college students with this as well as the general public, because I want people to understand where people come from, and to show a little respect for people who they may agree or disagree with. I do not have a whole lot of tolerance for intolerance at times. I understand that you were against the war that your dad ran. Did you have any major discussions with him at different times about the war, and your differences, and did he listen? Was there a major generation gap between you and your parents, and how about your two sisters and the parents?
CM (02:38:49):
Well, as I mentioned before, Dad in certain ways was a master at compartmentalizing. I think he felt, in his own vision as a parent of the (19)60s, that he needed in some way to protect his son and his children, and he did that by not engaging in conversation-
SM (02:39:10):
Okay.
CM (02:39:11):
About Vietnam. The only time I would glean information on that front would be if I had a friend who was well versed in the topic, and that friend was trying to engage Dad in conversation. That was when I could open the window to some of his thoughts on that, and that continued throughout his life. Here is the bottom line between a father and a son: we never lost love for one another. We never lost respect for one another. I give my mom tremendous credit for being the conduit of love and communication, because that is a natural way to [inaudible]. So many families, and .so many of my peers lost their relationship to their father at that time, and never healed. I have friends coming up to me and saying, to my dad's dying day we never were able to pick up that phone. What a sad misstep and what was the other part of it?
SM (02:40:17):
Yeah. Was there any difference between how your dad dealt with you and your two sisters?
CM (02:40:22):
I do not think so. My sisters are nine and six years older than I am. It really was quite, they were well off to college and beyond as I was growing up. But I know that they did not engage either on that topic. Now let me get to the issue of did my relationship as son of my father affect him, his decision making? It would be very egotistical of me to say yes. And yet I do believe that my choice of life and the direction that I have taken in life very much affected him, in fact. I think the fact that my sisters and I had friends who were very involved in leading the anti-war movement was insightful and impacted on him. He just did not let it be known.
SM (02:41:21):
We talked about the qualities of admitting, making a mistake and the regrets and so forth, but was there ever a feeling on the part of you or your sisters or maybe even your mom that if you have a problem with president Johnson over a policy just resign?
CM (02:41:43):
Well, I think most of my reflections on that are afterthought there again, just the age that I was during then. I would say absolutely my father is a man of tremendous integrity. And so I think you or I of this generation would say, well, if you feel differently, then you owe it to yourself, number one to your family and your nation. You demonstrate disagreement by resigning. And I just cannot put myself in his shoes and know what he felt about that. He goes back to this loyalty, which I think his generation must have had a different parameter and definition than I might.
SM (02:42:38):
Just in your own words, could you please, if someone were to come up to you like a high school student and you walk in and someone were to come up to you and say, "Who was Robert McNamara?" And you would describe your father or the leader, or how would you describe him to someone or particularly a young person? And also how would you describe your mom? Because I think your mom is very important here. She's very important in history and they are a team, in my opinion. I look at this, I see a twosome that became one. That is what marriage is supposed to be about. And just so in, how would you define both of them?
CM (02:43:20):
Well, individually first, right?
SM (02:43:22):
Yes.
CM (02:43:24):
I would respond to the question coming from a high school student or another person about who my father was as a very bright man and who truly loved humankind. A man who, well, one, he wanted the best or of both is deeply divided. The seven years that my father spent as Secretary of Defense determined the rest of his life. He lived, 1980 to the year 2009, lived another 29 years. Well, actually the time that he left Defense, (19)78, so that is (19)78, (19)88, (19)98, another 40 years to his life. And during those 40 years, his true ambition for the betterment of mankind and society came forward, advanced. He was able to advance that in such a significant way. And very, very few people in the United States understand that perspective. And I think that that is a tragedy, a loss. He was defined by Vietnam, and yet his defining moment during the next 40 years.
SM (02:45:26):
I think what you just said is very important. Craig, I will let you continue here in a second. Because as a person who believes in student development and believes in human development, and we tell students in college or that hopefully they learn this, that you are constantly evolving as a human being and it does not stop until the day you die.
CM (02:45:46):
Exactly. And in the case of a leader, it's our society's nature to pigeonhole them to a time of their lives, of greatness or of tremendous loss. And he has been defined by the latter.
SM (02:46:13):
How about your mom?
CM (02:46:18):
My mom, as my dad had said, was one of God's loveliest creatures. She had a sparkle in her eye. She had very, very beautiful blue eyes, which I inherited many things from my mom. My eyes, my name Craig was her maiden name. And I am so honored have my name Craig be in more of the Latin tradition where the mother also shares her name with the offspring. I am so happy to have the name Craig. And I am so moved and touched by her spirit and her connection to Mother Nature. She gifted that to me. It is something that you were very generous commenting on in your letter, our phone call, that is something that I have explored my whole life. And in terms of the educational programs we currently offer to do across California, it is the foundation. It is my foundation. It is what I do, my own family. It is what I do for students in California as the farm.
SM (02:47:38):
And you lead me right into the question, if someone to ask, who is Robert Craig McNamara?
CM (02:47:49):
Robert Craig McNamara is a reflection of both of his parents, both my parents and a person who has been moved and affected by the history that I have lived true. So although I did not serve in Vietnam, I certainly have been very affected by that. It is a part of me every day and my goals have been to really help making this world a better place for the individuals.
SM (02:48:50):
Did you feel that when you were in that one year at Stanford and maybe your junior and senior in high school, that any of your fellow students got on you for being the son of the person who was running the Vietnam War?
CM (02:49:02):
Absolutely. It was always on my mind. It was always in something that I had to demonstrate who I was, myself. It was a life altering pressure on me that I had to find out who I really was and be that honest person myself. And yes, I actually felt that in a certain way, that it was remarkable that people allowed me to be who I was and I did not get spit on, it did not take a [inaudible], or become violent. Because I know how frustrated I have been over our decision to go to war in Iraq, decision go to war today. I know the dark side of feelings against our leaders. So, I can imagine it how people must have felt about me that I was embodiment of my father, but I am not.
SM (02:50:28):
Right.
CM (02:50:30):
And I want to move this forward for one second. Dad was asked to come to UC Berkeley-
SM (02:50:38):
And Craig, could you speak up just a little bit, too?
CM (02:50:39):
Yeah. Dad was asked to come to UC Berkeley and I thought it before the Fog of War, but you may help me out here, may be before, in retrospect. And he came to Zellerbach Hall, which the largest hall in Berkeley. And he said he had never been back to Berkeley, it is his Alma mater, in many, many years. He certainly could not come back during the war years because he would have been protested against. And I think because of his World Bank experience and other experiences, he just had not been back. This was a beloved place for him. Because memories of meeting my mom and being a student at Berkeley. So, he was asked to come to Berkeley to speak on a retrospect for the Fog of War and it was packed. The auditorium was absolutely back to the audience outside. And I was very fearful for his life. And this was recently, this was within the last 10 years. And I felt very on edge in terms of reading the room, reading the audience, and if there was going to be any violent movement towards him, which is pretty remarkable for me to feel that at this point in my life or in our lives. And to be quite honest, his presence and his participation and his, at that point, transparency and honesty, I think really was received by the audience and was warmly responded-they may have totally just not liked him, but they appreciated the moment.
SM (02:52:33):
Yeah. Well I know Bobby Mueller and Bobby Mueller was on several panels with your dad over the last 10 years I believe. And here is a man who came back from Vietnam, very disenchanted. And Bobby was one of the people that said when he came back, he realized that Vietnam, or excuse me, that America is not always the good guy. Yet he could be on the stage with your dad and I know he respected your dad. So that says a lot when Bobby can say really nice things about some of the things that happened to him during that time.
CM (02:53:07):
This is Bobby Mueller?
SM (02:53:08):
Yeah, Bobby Mueller.
CM (02:53:09):
And did he serve in Vietnam?
SM (02:53:11):
Yeah, he was the founder of Vietnam Veterans of America.
CM (02:53:16):
Yeah.
SM (02:53:19):
And I believe if you go into YouTube you will see your dad being interviewed by that professor. It is a show that they had and it is a tremendous interview. It is an hour and 10 minutes.
CM (02:53:31):
That is a great one. Do you remember the year of that?
SM (02:53:34):
It had to be the time that he went probably for this speech because he talked about it in retrospect, he was not there.
CM (02:53:40):
It was retrospect. Yeah.
SM (02:53:42):
Yeah. It was not for Fog of War. I would like your comments here. I am up to this point where after Norman Morrison, a Quaker father of three, burned himself only 40 feet from your dad's window at the Pentagon on November 2nd of (19)65. Your dad states in the book, this is very important. " I knew Marge" is it Marge?
CM (02:54:02):
Margie
SM (02:54:04):
"I knew Margie and our three children shared many of Morrison's feelings about the war, as did the wives and children of several of my cabinet colleagues. And I believed I understood and shared some of his thoughts." The war, I cannot read my writing here, it was much more, "this was much more Marge and I and the children should have talked about. Yet at moments like this, I often turned inward instead. It was a grave weakness. The episode created tension at home that only deepened as dissent and criticism of the war continued to grow."
CM (02:54:51):
Absolutely. Absolutely.
SM (02:54:54):
And that was in the mid (19)90s when he wrote in retrospect, or early (19)90s.
CM (02:55:04):
So the touching reflection there is that he held that inside of him for all those years. If he could have brought that forward in a memoir earlier, I think it would have provided some healing for us, for our nation. Not a mea culpa that is gone. When you let something fester for 25 years, it is just insurmountable. I am proud of him for coming to that point in his life. And I wished for all of us, for me, for our nation, for the Vietnamese, for the men and women of the United States died and served. For everybody who was touched globally by Vietnam. I wish my father had been able.
SM (02:55:57):
Right. Hold on one second. My door here.
(End of Interview)
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Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Craig McNamara
-
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Dublin Core
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Format
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Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-10-29
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Craig McNamara2
Biographical Text
Craig McNamara is the son of Robert McNamara, former Secretary of Defense during the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson administrations. He is the President and owner of Sierra Orchards, a diversified farming operation producing organic walnuts and olive oil. He also serves as founder and president of the Center For Land-Based Learning, an innovative program, which assists high school students in building greater human and social capital in their communities. McNamara currently is the President of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture. He has a Bachelor's degree in Plant and Soil Science from the University of California, Davis.
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
5:50
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
Kennedy family; Civil Rights Movement; 1960s; 1970s; Malcom X; Generation.
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Rights Statement
Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Craig McNamara2
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js)
This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part.
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Curt Weldon
Date of Interview
ND
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
72:42
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Biographical Text
Curt Weldon is a politician who served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives. He was vice-chair of the Armed Services Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee, as well as the co-chair of the Duma-Congress Study Group. Weldon received his Bachelor's degree in Russian Studies from the West Chester University of Pennsylvania.
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; Kent State; Nineteen sixties; Vietnam Memorial; Civil Rights Movement; Lynden Johnson; John F. Kennedy; Richard Nixon; Watergate."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; Kent State; Nineteen sixties; Vietnam Memorial; Civil Rights Movement; Lyndon Johnson; John F. Kennedy; Richard Nixon; Watergate.</span>
Subject LCSH
Legislators—United States; United States.--Congress.--House; Weldon, Curt--Interviews
Accessibility
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Rights Statement
Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly.
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 Curtis Weldon
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Weldon, Curt ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
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audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Legislators—United States; United States.--Congress.--House; Weldon, Curt--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Curt Weldon is a politician who served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives. He was vice-chair of the Armed Services Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee, as well as the co-chair of the Duma-Congress Study Group. Weldon received his Bachelor's degree in Russian Studies from the West Chester University of Pennsylvania.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
ND
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.170a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.170b
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.
72:42
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
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Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
1997-09-12
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Dan Fraley
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15171,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,16777215],"9":0,"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":11}" data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dan Fraley is a veteran who served during the Vietnam War. He currently is the Director of the Veterans Affairs in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. "}">Dan Fraley is a distinguished Marine<span style="color: #202124; font-family: Thread-00002740-Id-00000072;"> </span>who served during the Vietnam War. For decades he has dedicated his life to serving Vietnam veterans, especially those who were exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam. He has been on a mission to make sure that these veterans know about their benefits related to this service. He is the founder and the current director of the Veterans Affairs in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. <br /><br /><br /></span>
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Vietnam War; Anti-war Movement; Baby boom generation; College anti-war protests; Civil Rights Movement; Questioning of authority; Emergence of a middle class; Lack of trust; Jane Fonda."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Vietnam War; Anti-war Movement; Baby boom generation; College anti-war protests; Civil Rights Movement; Questioning of authority; Emergence of a middle class; Lack of trust; Jane Fonda.</span>
Duration
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125:55
Subject LCSH
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Fraley, Dan--Interviews
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Title
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Interview with Dan Fraley
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Fraley, Dan ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Fraley, Dan--Interviews
Description
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Dan Fraley is a distinguished Marine who served during the Vietnam War. For decades he has dedicated his life to serving Vietnam veterans, especially those who were exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam. He has been on a mission to make sure that these veterans know about their benefits related to this service. He is the founder and the current director of the Veterans Affairs in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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1997-09-12
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In copyright
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eng
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Sound
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.189a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.189b
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2018-03-29
Is Part Of
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McKiernan Interviews
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125:55
-
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Dublin Core
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Format
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Audio interviews
Title
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
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Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
ND
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
David Boldt
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"David Boldt was editor of the editorial page of The Philadelphia Inquirer and a political columnist for the same paper during the 1980s and 1990s. Boldt won the Pulitzer Prize as a member of The Inquirer's team that covered a nuclear accident at the Three Mile Island electrical power plant, and received a citation for excellence from the Overseas Press Club for his reporting on the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Boldt has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in interpreting contemporary affairs as an adjunct professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. He earned a Bachelor's degree in History from Dartmouth College."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15105,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":10}">David Boldt was editor of the editorial page of <em>The Philadelphia Inquirer</em> and a political columnist for the same paper during the 1980s and 1990s. Boldt won the Pulitzer Prize as a member of the <em>Inquirer</em>'s team that covered a nuclear accident at the Three Mile Island electrical power plant and received a citation for excellence from the Overseas Press Club for his reporting on the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Boldt has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in interpreting contemporary affairs as an adjunct professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. He earned a Bachelor's degree in History from Dartmouth College.</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":"Baby Baby boom generation; Women's Movement; Civil Rights Movement; Anti-War Movement; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Tom Hayden; Linden Johnson; Bobby Kennedy; Vietnam War memorial; Bill Clinton"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":2,"4":{"1":2,"2":14281427}}">Baby boom generation; Women's Movement; Civil Rights Movement; Anti-War Movement; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Tom Hayden; Lyndon Johnson; Bobby Kennedy; Vietnam War memorial; Bill Clinton</span>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
121:15
Subject LCSH
Editors; Journalists; Awards—United States; Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant (Pa.); Iran—History—Revolution, 1979; Boldt, David--Interviews
Transcription
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: David Boldt
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Benjamin Mehdi So
Date of interview: ND
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
00:03
SM: The Boomer generations and the (19)60s and early (19)70s is being attacked as one of the reasons for the breakdown of American society. Could you respond to this criticism and comment on the period and its impact on present-day America?
00:31
DB: Oh, boy. Yeah, I could probably write a book about that. Well, you know, I think that-that it is fair to say that almost every institution in our society was kind of torn apart during the (19)60s and (19)70s. Many of them for no good reason, and often rather thoughtlessly and without giving things a lot of attention. You know, you can go through a whole series of things from the breakdown of the institution of marriage to the drop off in the sense of obligations to the community. It undoubtedly became a generation that was—was very much into what we now call 'expressive individualism.' And that basically forgot, because, for the most part, it had it so easy, and had it so easy in a very profound way. That they just did not have a sense of why certain things were done the way they were done. And principle among those is the fact that you cannot have a democratic society unless people are as aware of their responsibilities of that society as they are of their rights. And we basically lost that sense of responsibility. 'If it felt good, do it' was the maximum of the generation. They were brought up by a generation that had been through the Depression and World War II that had really been through hard times. And you know, to some extent, I think the parents of the boomer generation and my parents, I am—I was born in 1941, so I sort of saw them kind of coming up behind me. The parents, of that generation just went to incredible lengths to protect their children against the very kind of experience that had enabled them to succeed. Whether that was getting a good education, you know, establishing a successful relationship with other people, whether it was in the family, or in any of our institutions or universities, with our political community. Keep this [inaudible]
3:36
SM: What has been the overall impact of the Boomers on America? Positive or negative?
3:41
DB: Well, we just had the, I mean, it was all summed up by Tom Wolfe and the "me" decades. We had an entire huge generation dominating, or certainly its elites, as they emerged in journalism, in the media, in politics, in the entertainment industry, that was just totally self-indulgent. Or remarkably self-indulgent, not totally. The question is what was the effect? The effect was to completely lose the sense that rights carry with them responsibilities. You know, when Thomas Jefferson wrote The American Ideal that all men are created with certain unalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He was writing that in a frame of mind where he believed that if people pursued happiness, they would regard the chance to be a fully involved citizen, a parent, an effective member of the community at work and in the civic realm as maximum happiness. And for this generation, it became too often, the pursuit of happiness reverted down to the lower nature of man and became a seeking of pleasure through music, artificial substances— basically drugs, sexual experiences, and we just lost that whole enlightenment mindset which is so basic to the to the American faith and to the success of the nation. And the whole— I think the whole experiment became imperiled, because the wretched excesses of the baby boomers. Yeah, I believe that in social history, as in physics, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. And so, you had— not only did this create this tremendous culture of self-indulgent pleasure, but it created its opposite as well— the reaction to it. You know, I have often thought that the antics of the left as much created Watergate as did Richard Nixon himself. It became an atmosphere in which excess was— in which it turned out that Barry Goldwater's supposedly rejected idea that moderation is a— can be a, in certain circumstances a vice, and excess can be a virtue. I mean, he ultimately triumphed! It turned out to be what was believed and it ended up— I mean, many other commentators have written about this. And I guess the most evocative is Tom Wolfe in the "me" decade, which I still think is the most, it stood the test of time and is the clearest, most effective analysis of that time.
07:40
SM: Let us double check to make sure everything is working here. Okay, but you have to admit also that there are probably— let me get out my questions here, so I get a spontaneous feel and the written questions. [laughs] Cannot you say that there were some good things, though, with respect to the boomers, in terms of the fact that this generation ended a war, responsible for ending a war. In my comment— in my interview with Senator McCarthy, I asked him specifically that particular question that if there is not any other generation in American history that had such an impact on American foreign policy. And he said there were other perils in American history but not to the extreme of the boomers and what they did. So, they ended the war, many young people got involved in the Civil Rights Movement, many young people get involved in the environmental movement, for the Earth Day. So, with, do you think the media portrayed them in such a way that it is not doing justice to some of the good things they did?
08:50
DB: Well, that is just flat wrong. First of all, the baby boom generation did not end the Vietnam War. Like it or not, Richard Nixon ended the Vietnam War. And he ended it after defeating the Peace Party candidate George Govern— McGovern—by, I think, one of if not the biggest, one of the biggest landslides in American political history. I mean, it is amazing to look back and see that from 1970 onward, something like 70 percent of the American people were against our involvement in the war, yet somehow rather the antiwar movement, and I think this is unprecedented in our history, the antiwar movement was never able to get it together sufficiently to turn that around. I mean, what they should have done, instead of marching in Washington, which really turned out to be sort of a waste of time and, you know, everybody felt good about it, they really did not do anything. But they needed to do was go out and defeat congressmen who were voting for the war or supporting the war effort. And elect those that were, and they had to get out and elect a presidential candidate in 1972, or 1968, who would have ended the war. The Civil Rights revolution had nothing to do with the baby boomers, except that they-they were in on sort of the victory celebration of it. And that that gave them this feeling that they were both Vietnam, the fact that the Vietnam War was looked upon as a great moral victory of the people who were opposing an unjust war. And we will always wonder just why it was that all those people fled from the communists as they moved into the country, whether they really were all this capitalist dupes have always wondered why it is that the United States is now being welcomed back into Vietnam, in such an open, in such an open armed way as to whether we will always wonder if our perspective on that was-was totally correct. Either when we were for the war or when we turned against it-it was a very difficult situation very nuanced. But turning to civil rights, I mean, the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, when the baby boomers were still in the middle of a, we were just starting college, I guess, or the for the first of them had just gotten to be, just gotten to college, I guess. There were no baby boomers involved in Mississippi summer, which was when you had to really suck it up and go down there and do something that was really dangerous. They were there for sort of the celebrations afterwards. There were no baby boomers on the podium at the Civil Rights March 1963, very few I suspect in the crowd. Baby, the civil rights revolution was won by, as nearly as I can tell, there were no baby boomers on the freedom rider buses. There were no baby boomers marching in Selma. The leaders of the Civil Rights Movement had a belief, were religious leaders, were the kind of leaders that the baby boomers would later reject, laugh at ridicule. And so, I have never marked leaders of the Civil Rights revolution lest we forget, we are people like Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy. They are the people I know of who were inside the University of Mississippi, where people like Ed Goffman, who was my predecessor is the editor of the editorial page, he was down there for the Department of Justice. Right? He is a World War II veteran. The basic legislation that brought about the Civil Rights revolution in 1964, brought about the culmination of the Civil Rights revolution, was done with without any conspicuous assistance from the baby boom generation, but they always thought that they had something to do with it, because they were there. What was the third thing that you were getting credit for?
13:38
SM: Well, the environmental movement Earth Day, 1970.
13:46
DB: Well, I do not know. I do not know enough about the history of the environmental movement, to say, you know, to what extent it was, it was successful, it was always had its greatest successes. So, when it was removed from the spirit of environmental Nazism, which characterize sort of the baby boomer-boomer approach, marching in front of nuclear power plants, it was nothing. And when you had people like the Environmental Defense Fund, who were able to negotiate things that actually bring about formulas in legislation that drastically reduced the amount of pollution that was being put into the air, and to clean up rivers, and maybe there are a few baby boomers involved in there. But yeah, I mean, it is the environmental movement gets so difficult to analyze. Did you see the cover story in New York Times Magazine four weeks ago? That said basically, recycling is the most fun wasteful activity that humans engage in. That I will not attempt to recapture the entire thing, but it is- it makes us feel good. And we tell all our kids about all things that have been accomplished by recycling. And it actually turns out that it is not any particular benefit to us that we are not running out of place to put our trash that it is probably environmentally more sound certainly, and I mean, I was just thinking about this the other day, it was big fight that we had to we had to have a trash to steam plan. And I think everybody with a college degree, I think every member of the baby boomer generation in Philadelphia, certainly the college educated part of the baby boomer generation, but Philadelphia absolutely had to have a trashed steam plant to take care of its trash, and it was just kind of the low rent blue collar people of South Philadelphia, a couple of kind of aging crypto Marxists like David Cohen on the city council, who said, no this is not a good idea. Now we have to look back on that whole situation and say, those people were right. We did not need to trash the steam plan, the trash to steam plan would have actually added to pollution as opposed to what we are doing with our trash now. So, I look on the environmental movement as-as being a mixed movement. And, and I guess I should say that I do not really know a lot about who the people were. I have met the guy who was who started the first Earth Day.
16:42
SM: It was Senator Nelson.
16:44
DB: Well, no this was actually a guy named, who got Senator Nelson to do it and he went around, he was doing the 25th anniversary.
16;52
SM: Right.
16:52
DB: So you got sort of petered out, you know, the Earth Day for a few years now. Then they had a big splash on its 20th or 25th anniversary, whatever, whatever it was. And not much. And then in between, you know, the work was done. There are all kinds of ironies to the history of that situation. I will just mention one other one. John Ehrlichman, Nixon's, whatever he was, counsel, was one of the first environmental lawyer, the EPA was created during the Nixon administration. The fact that I will bet if you went around and asked 1000 people today, you could not get more than a handful to tell you that. It was because environmental ism was something that clearly had to be done at that time in terms of providing people with clean air and clean water. And we did it.
17:46
SM: We can agree that women's movement they were that was not late (19)60s, early (19)70s phenomena, as well as the same lines as the Civil Rights Movement. The terms that Laurie scholastic was not. Betty Friedan was not a boomer.
18:04
DB: Guess neither was who wrote. And neither was the woman who wrote the other. Oh, is Betty for Friedan is the feminine mystique. And then there is yet another that you have not mentioned. Yeah, the leaders that were not baby boomers. And the response to it among Baby Boomers has been equivocal, I mean, the feminist movement itself? Well, I, I do not know I have not studied the history of the women's movement that much. I never thought of it particularly as being connected with the boomers.
18:50
SM: This is kind of a long one here. Can today’s generation of youth, which is a slacker Generation X learn from the boomers. What can the boomers teach today's college students? This question is based on the fact that many of today's students often look at the (19)60s and early (19)70s as a period of activism, drugs and single-minded issues. Though many of the same issues remain there are new ones. And the lessons of the past are either not taught in schools or never discussed between the parents of the boomers and today's generation. Please keep your thoughts on the issues and Boomers lives and how they can have impact on students’ eyes today.
19:29
DB: Well, I guess what we are dealing with is the aftermath, trying to pick up the wreckage after the baby-baby boomers have gone through. And I guess in particular, destroyed our educational system came up with this idea that we no longer needed to have standards that would go to pass fail and that would be fine for college courses. We had all these grand experiments that were equally grand failures, open claims restrooms, social promotions. The new math could go on for some time. And we were now sitting around, we were trying to kind of put things back together again. And this is a federal Road A, I cannot remember his name. He is a Nobel Prize winner. He wrote a book called physics for poets. And he works with the Chicago Public Schools, one place where they-they seem to be making some progress, getting things back together again. He said somewhere back there in the (19)60s and (19)70s, we just lost it. I do not know what it was. I do not know what it was the new math, the open classroom. The fact that he says we cannot underestimate the fact that women suddenly discovered that the only career open to them was not they had other careers open to them besides teaching, and that had an effect on education was not compensated for it, I am very I am very much worried. I, you know, I would hope that generation X would represent kind of a reaction against the baby boom generation, that there would be a it would be sort of a return a new appreciation of political institutions, or social institutions. And there is not. The kids, the baby boomers not only did a bad job themselves, but they left the legacy behind of having been bad parents as well and raised a generation that does not know much or care much. And I do not know what we are going to do about that. I am not pessimistic. Because I do not think our I do not think young Americans, you know, fortunately us and for them. Still going? Yeah-yeah, I do not think young Americans are that much worse off than young Germans or young Japanese. I mean, it is sort of it is funny the way you know, kind of a spirit of the age passes around the entire world. But as luck would have it, slacker-slacker ism, is not confined to the United States. And our slackers will be up against the Germans and the Japanese slacker. And they may just come out of it. Alright. But at some time or other, I would like to see some sign that we understand again, the importance of our obligations, and our responsibilities to our community, to our families, to our government. Just like to see that. Rabbi, sometimes I feel I see signs that I do not think they can look to the boomers for that. And we have this oddity I mean, the person who seems to have the- we have the Republicans running somebody, the last tethering of the Second World War, I am sure he will run for president. And he is being run because he represents a- because it is felt- he represents a kind of moral values that he cannot find anywhere else. Or, you know, my own generation was kind of failure in terms of I mean, whatever you would call us that was kind of the last generation the niche between those people who went off to World War Two, and those who were born after World War Two. We did not for some reason, produce an effective, effective leadership. I do not know why that is. You look at the people who came close. And it is a little disappointing. I certainly do not think Gary Hart would have been a good president. And I cannot rattle off the ones that were candidates and might have even come close. But it is an interesting phenomenon that we have gone directly to a baby boom president from a world war two generation president has skipping over the generation in between. So, I am not sure it is fairly clear that generation X is not looking to us for leadership either. World War Two generation is now in its (19)70s. I think we are going through a period in which we are really going to have to reinvent America to use a cliche which it will have to be the kind of discovered anew why we did different things. And I hope it is, but I do not think they can look back. I thought, the basically Generation X from what I Read, look back at the (19)60s and they were sick and tired of hearing their parents say have great things had been good. The music had been wonderful it was to be so easily on the winning side and so many complicated. I would not say single minded, but perhaps simple minded issues that have in retrospect turned out to be a lot more complicated than we thought. I did not know what I mean, in Bill Clinton and his best, I think he has an understanding of what went wrong. And yet he is-he is also the embodiment of it. What went wrong? That is a tricky question. I do not know. I almost think that generally, the Generation X and whatever the generation is, is going to come after have to both look to the look to the past and look to the future.
25:59
SM: Some of the people-
26:00
DB: I mean the deep past, somehow or rather than have to rediscover history, there is no sign that they are.
26:08
SM: You have got to see some of the baby boomers today. Oh, no, it is still working. Yeah, read more. We have boomers like Bill Clinton, Al Gore got John Kessing, which was highly respected in the Republican Party, that you have got the Christian coalition of person like Ralph Reed. Now here, you see you have got extreme conservatives, and you have got liberals and again, moderates in the middle, you got people like Bill Clinton, and they tend to understand where he stands on an issue. There are boomers. So this is getting off the track. Here are the questions I am asking but what does that say about boomers when you see the differences even within that group? And there some may be lean towards your thoughts on what the boomer generation should be?
27:00
DB: Oh, perhaps they are. I mean, perhaps to be some, although, like, never turn around that that motif of just rampant hell for leather, damn the torpedoes. Individualism that mark the era? I mean, I guess Newt Gingrich, as close, as close as you come to sort of an antidote? I think some of them understand that. I mean, I was really, I think, actually, that was one of the things I gave you was, I thought that Al Gore's speech at the 1992 pension when he talked about how when we look into looking into his son's eyes after the accident, and saying that he then realized that we were on Earth for some larger purpose than ourselves, or however he put it. That was, I thought that was a very significant sign of maturity, of a real realization that we are part of what wolf in the me decade, calls the chromosomal flow, the flow of history of humanity through history, that we are an extension of our parents, and that our children are an extension of our lives. And it all goes on. We have an obligation to those children and their-their children, even. And so, I mean, you have people who are, you know, trying to point out the wretched excessive, somebody said, read just the other day, that Bill Clinton was the perfect expression of America at this time. Somebody who, you know, has great mind and tremendous ability, but total-total inability to control his own appetites or to dissect his own appetites, and a tremendous ambivalence. Although I sort of like his I am not one of those people who criticizes him for being wishy washy. I think a certain amount of deviousness is necessary in politics, and when used for good is not to be criticized. Franklin Roosevelt was so devious that his most trusted aides said they would come out of a meeting with him and not really sure where he stood on a particular issue. It is often a mark of greatness and a leader, and I have been a supporter of Clinton's, an avid supporter from very early on. And have this this this hope that he that because he is so much of his generation, his accesses are literally Sex, drugs and rock and roll. Even although he did not enhance Yeah. But that, you know, maybe he, because of what he understands. And I mean, is not an odd sort of way, but profoundly religious person. Which is not so odd. I mean, I think religion is one of the ways that you cope with the weaknesses of humanity. And to that extent, is somewhat different from many other boomers. But was the threat of where the question was? Maybe you better get me back on track.
30:33
SM: I am going to go on to a question here, where you could just get some adjectives to describe. If you describe the youth of the (19)60s and early (19)70s, please describe the qualities you most admire, and the qualities you least admire. first, if there is any qualities you admire. Well, okay, they are good. I think we should be pretty close to her. So, yeah.
30:54
DB: I think one thing you can say about baby boomers and whether or not they were in on the civil rights revolution, they are not racist. They are certainly not the extent they were [audio cuts] before. There you go. You know, one of the things. The other thing that happened during the baby boom, is that somehow America got separated into its cultural elites. And the great unwashed masses. And if you actually look at the voting record of baby boomers, it has been far more conservative than you think. Baby Boomers voted for Ronald Reagan. But the-the kind of opinion leaders and people who were kind of representing the generation kind of got disconnected this very complicated concept. I mean, entire books have been written about it, then Daniel Yankelovich, over to his book. Title, I have forgotten, I am getting to that age where you forget these things. Christopher Lasch wrote something that is literally like the disconnected.
32:07
SM: Elite, something of the elite. Yeah.
32:11
DB: In which he talked about this. So that happened. So it is true. I mean, you are talking about the baby boomers, you are talking about that kind of cutting edge. The baby boom, the one that was most in the media, but I will take care of all these. And so I say that. Baby boomers, whatever you make whatever else you may think about them, this is actually quoting somebody else's observation. They are not racist. And they, what else can you say that was good about them. Which me there was such a disappointment. I saw you know, as I went into my 20s, I thought, you know, gee, I am going to be part of the best educated, most healthy ablest generation in the history of the world has ever seen. So sort of, saw these, these ranks of people coming behind me that you know, in the time I grew up. I know, I am rambling. I will try to try to make a point here. My point and I do have one is that I really saw it as being the American century we hear we were intact as a nation, and you are kind of towering over war torn Europe and defeated Japanese and ravaged Chinese. And I thought that, you know, it was just going to be one of the-the golden arrows of a world history, and then kind of look back, and everything had come apart. So in terms of specific adjectives, there was hard to think of positive adjectives you want to say idealism. But it was an idealism that was so easily won so untested. In an idealism in which you had this peculiar turn about which cowardice could be seen as valor, the dodging the draft could be seen as a brave thing to do the long tradition in American history. People who disobey that, who opposed their country's position, but realize that their duty to the community required them to go along with it, you know, famous essays written by I am sorry, I cannot rattle off the names. But there is a famous poet who went off into the Mexican War American war even though he deeply opposed Oliver Wendell Holmes, I believe, sir In some war, he opposed and wrote very eloquently about, you know, I think this is wrong, but this is what my country is decided to do.
35:08
SM: But then you, William Fulbright wrote the book, The arrogance of power, that the-the true Democrats and the true will leaders were coached and refused to go.
35:19
DB: Well, that is right. So the saying became a very confused time. You are asking me to boil it down to a few adjectives, positive added adjectives would be I think you have to give them credit for being energetic, innovative. Lot of new things certainly brought up made the transition into they began the transition into the information age. Some questions whether they were making the turn or not. On the other hand, the-the advocates on the other side, I did not give you a very good answer. I mean, I suppose by thought longer, I could think of some more positive advocates. But the negative adjectives would be the ones I have used before self-indulgent, uncaring. Heedless. All of it caught so neatly in that song and hair. how can people be so cruel, especially people who care about people? There was a great tendency among the baby-baby boomers to love mankind but to be very unpleasant to be around. To love mankind, but not necessarily get along very well with people. And I think that song from here, really focused on that and really caught it. If you look at the lyrics, I think, tells you something.
36:54
SM: You hit a point though that an adjective if you were to even ask some of the generation X and the slackers characteristic that in the theory, they cared about minorities they cared about. They did not trust leaders. And that the whole concept of trust is another issue that is coming up later. Another question, but they were scared. They cared about the environment, they cared about minorities, they cared about what was happening, poverty in the inner cities they cared about. I know that some of the characteristics of the (19)60s liberals, for women behind the scenes, they were basically xeroxing off. We have heard all those stories; they really were not equal. But still, it was an era where a lot of people start caring about things feed instead of just going to work every day. That is what that that is interesting. Could you comment on that? Because I think caring you say they were not a caring group yet. So many things they got involved in that they did care that-
37:59
DB: I think it was summed up in that idea, they cared about humankind, but they did not care much about people. Going back to the civil rights, I mean, you can pick up on each one of the strands that you are pointing to. As I said, the important advances in civil rights were made by a previous generation. And they just kind of basked in the afterglow, of those accomplishments, the I mean, they created the welfare system, which turned out to be, I guess, one of the most pernicious social mechanisms in the history of the world. And now we are trying to figure out I mean, now we have had Bill Clinton come along, and say that we have got to change welfare as we know it, and everybody knows it. But we ended up spending a lot of money thinking, thinking really, that spending money on something would help. And if you go back and you look at what they actually did, there was a tremendous decline. During the ascendancy of the baby boomers, in participation in PTA meetings, in voting, I mean, if they cared, why did not they vote? In it, it is so many indices of so many indices of actual civic involvement and some extent, you cannot separate the baby boom generation and the effects that it had from the fact that it was also the TV generation. I wonder, I think we are just beginning to understand what that might mean. If someday it will be better known as the TV generation, then as the baby boom generation, because there is no question that watching television drained a lot of time that people might have otherwise spent being. Being ten mothers. What captures me is the epitome you caring about the environment, that we went from a time when my father would be president of the PTA. At the Roosevelt Elementary school would change the environment by getting a traffic light install the place where the kids had to walk across to get the school, to where the equivalent today would be someone who cares about the and that that required work, you know, going to meetings every month, getting-getting, putting up with a lot of crap going through dealing with a bureaucracy downtown. And whereas the caring about the environment seems to me to be consistent mainly, once a year, writing out checks for the Sierra Club and putting the calendar up on your wall. I do not see those signs; I think that the entire baby boom generation has been up until very recently. I know there is controversy about this, and I am following it closely. They are really trying to understand it. But certainly initially, there was a tremendous decline and involvement in civic organizations in kind of almost everything, but churches that cinco gone along almost the same level, kind of under the surface with nobody noticing. But, you know, all kinds of civic organizations, choral societies, you know, all the decline and all summarized in the essay Bowling Alone, which is a rebut by Robert Putnam at Harvard, where we stopped bowling leagues and went out and started Bowling alone. I mean, I think that is connected with the baby boom, phenomenon. There is also I noticed an essay disputing that in this weeks’ Time Magazine, that is complex. It is not, there is no simple answer, you know, as we were saying before, but the- this image of a caring is to care about them by to care about the urban poor. By having basically government programs that did not work and being tremendously reluctant to recognize only now is being recognized that we have not made a dent in poverty. And it is true. I mean, Ronald Reagan was right, we had a war on poverty and poverty won. The number of people living below the poverty line is I think, today the same as it was in 1960. Or maybe more. I mean, the poverty line is artificial blind. But, you know, I think that tells us something, we did not solve the problem. In fact, during the baby boom, ascendancy, you had the whole creation of the underclass, the whole division of the country, and the haves and have nots has accelerated, not decelerating. I do not see any signs of any great humanitarianism.
43:27
SM: Have you changed your opinion on the use of the (19)60s over the last 25 years, say when you were very 1978, what you thought about them, and maybe what you thought about in 1980, and then now in 1996-
43:41
DB inconsistent. I mean, I wrote, When the war ended in 1975, pretty much the same thing I told you about how it was not the antiwar movement that ended the war. In fact, the antiwar movement was remarkably ineffective, in terms of translating popular sentiment. Because, you know, just you had the-the radical part of the antiwar movement that could never kind of connect with the rest of the people who were upset about the war as well. It never became an effective movement. So, I mean, I can go back and if we went into the archives of the inquire, I think we can find they-they said exactly that 1974 Because anything, I have changed on that it has become an appreciation of you had really great music. The cynic might say they produce some really great elevator music. But there really has not been anything like that since. And This contributions in popular culture have been-have been pretty good.
44:57
SM: A lot of the music of that era was There are so many messages in the music. You know, there were a lot of messages written by Bill and he really sat down and listened to philharmonic orchestra some of those musicians of that era and really listened to the words and really, almost like goose bumps to you want to get out there move, be it be a changing, you know, for the betterment of society at times?
45:26
DB: Well, you know, I guess. I mean, that is-that is what I say is one thing, you ended up with an appreciation for the popular music and I heard somebody the other day, make the case that maybe we are living through a golden age now that people live in gold, the trenches never know it at the time. But we are questioning everything and kind of coming up with new forms, to-to respond to the basic requirements of human society that we are going to, we are going into the dawn of the information age, and that maybe people will look back on this kind of a great day. And my own, that was an intriguing possibility. But I would think that if we are in a golden age, we have had better art and its that thinking that maybe when the actual cultural history of this era of the last quarter 30 years of the, to get back into the (19)60s, the (19)60s, you know, really starting to 65 or so. And then and go well into the (19)70s Maybe the Beach Boys good vibrations will be what people go to hear 100 years from now or, or some kind of Jim Morrison in the door, come on baby light my fire, the long version will be seen as a as a crowning cultural achievement. And, yeah, we knew we had crummy literature and nobody could really write very well, but-but Star Wars will be remembered. The Star Wars trilogy will be remembered as the great epic of our, our time.
47:19
SM: I mean, notice how a lot of the (19)60 songs are now in oh, advertisements, including the chambers brothers time, time, which is a very big song back in the late (19)60s, time.
47:30
DB: What is amazing, and every hit movie, for a while there had to be built around some-some song, the soundtrack of lives that Stephen King movie about the kids, its all rock and roll songs. And Tom Cruise and fighter pilot movie is all built around that the righteous brothers, you have lost that loving feeling. And for while I think every single movie that came out was built around some (19)60s rock and roll song. And yeah. Look at that still going after all these years, the Beatles may not be our first not adding anything. But I am sure that so many more records since they broke up than they did. While they were all together.
48:22
SM: I am going to go double check to make sure that is still going overall. Yeah. Where would you describe the boomers as the most unique generation in American history?
48:32
DB: No, gosh, no, I certainly they were the most-most unique. I mean, there was nothing else like them. What do you mean by unique?
48:46
SM: They were so different from any other generation that they stand above the crowd, so to speak, and you look at all the generations since our founding fathers look through all the generations. There are people out there that say no, there was never a time like the (19)60s and (19)70s. Except that happened.
49:05
DB: I was going to say in terms of extraordinary generations, certainly the generation that lived through the Civil War must be up there. And the most amazing generation of Americans were the founding fathers, but he is just still fucking amazing. Now they know whether they that different from the generations that came before them are not unique. It was they were unique, in that sense. be something I would have to give more thought to. I do not know. They were a mutant generation. I am just going back to that idea of kind of forgetting the fact that being an American and having rights and responsibilities I do not think any other generation has done that. There was much in the (19)60s. It was like the 1920s, kind of in terms of indulgence, and the baby boomers coming of age rabbit gets rich in the (19)80s was rather than maybe women, really the decade of greed, very similar to the 1920s, I do not think I have a feeling for a history that would enable me to really compare them. In that way, we forget how extraordinary times we have all lived through, I mean, being on the frontier must have been this next generation, that is going to take us into the information age, I think they have a and the generation that took us through the progressive era at the end of the last century, which we really had to remake ourselves from agricultural to an industrial nation, from a nation of the little local economies into a national economy, just like now we have to go from national international, during our Roosevelt's generation, Theodore Roosevelt himself such an extraordinary individual, that it is hard to say, We have had times of wretched excess too.
51:35
SM: it is often quoted that only 15 percent of the Boomers were truly activists for the link civil rights, Vietnam or protest during lesbian youth movement, the environmental movement, and overall, being active in issues of the day was just another way to lessen the impact this group has had on Americans.
51:51
DB: Oh, I was thinking I mean, that was what I was referring to before the boomers are identified by that 15 percent. They are voting statistics are actually sort of surprising. But you know that those are the people who were activists who were I mean, they put their stamp on the generation, I think they are entitled to the credit for that. I mean, I think-I think that the- those 15 percent I think that is probably true of any generation, there is like 15 percent of them are activists. As I say, the unique thing about the unique thing, one of the unique things, something possibly you need to be careful that word. Was this splitting apart. And to elites, which function kind of independent. They thought they represented the rest of the nation, but they did not. The awful truth was the people who are going around yelling power to the people did not realize that the people already had power. And then the people were getting increasingly annoyed at the people who are going around yelling power to the people, you follow me. I mean, that was why they voted for Richard Nixon, including a lot of baby boomers. I wonder about the statistics which show but yeah, there were people who put there was an activist group that put a stamp on that generation, I think they are entitled to at least that letter. Whether I like what they did or not. I think any generation.
53:33
SM: Do you? Do you feel that the boomers are a generation that is still having problems with the healing? Veterans Memorial did a great job with veterans and in some respect for families and veterans? But do you feel that healing is really taking place in large numbers? And I am trying to getting at here is, you know, we see a lot of unsettled dialogue today in our society, shouting instead of listening, very little dialogue. And I am wondering if there is a direct correlation of that back to that era. It is-it is-
54:03
DB: But there is but I think it is television. Television is what destroyed dialogue. If you do not talk to television, you are spending six hours in front of the television, much-
54:16
SM: Do You think the computer age is going to continue that with your computer all day, you are not going to talk to anyone either.
54:22
DB: Well, I do not know. I mean, I know if you sit at your computer all day, you actually do pretty much nothing but talk to other people. I mean, that is what I do on my computer twice a day, pick up my email, send off messages. I mean, I have the sort of dream that because of email and computers, people will learn how to write again. That may be fanciful, or you know, even-even silly when especially when you look at some of the obscene crap. That is on the internet. But I, you know, funny things like that happen. I do not think though that chat rooms are really a substitute for human contact. If you want to want to know what, you did not really ask me what I expect, what was the question again? I do not want to wonder that far.
55:21
SM: Do you think here is, do you feel that boomers are a generation that is still having a prominent feeling?
55:26
DB: Oh, yeah. No, I think there is confused as ever. But I hope that there. I hope that we are starting to see in the current moment, you know, we are finally getting to the point where people are able to talk candidly about what the things are, that did not work and went wrong. I think that is Clinton's great contribution to American history is to somehow I mean, he really did get the political dialogue back to the real problems of real Americans and off of the symbolic stuff, which is the essence of the baby boom, slash television generation. The symbolism, soundbites. motional, ism sensationalism living for sensations. So, yeah, we are definitely still having a problem. I hope we are starting to do better.
56:31
SM: What are your thoughts about former left leaders who have been writing books recently about their involvement in the movement? Horowitz Rosen Collier wrote a book called the disrupter generation where they work to the extreme left, and now they are-they are analyzing themselves and saying, admitting to their wrongs and then basically condemning anybody else that was ever involved on the left. And we are seeing more and more books coming out that way. Those the left becoming basically conservatives.
57:07
DB: Right, I you know, I cited the destructive generation, we had that first conversation, I thought that was just a very, you know, that book just has a lot of truth telling in it. The class of (19)64 was another good book. I mean, I think you are right. Coming out and becoming conservatives, you are reminded about some famous person once said that anybody who, anyone under 30, who is a, who is not a liberal, does not have a heart, anyone over 30, who is not a conservative does not have a brain. And, and, you know, doubtedly, seeing that effect take place. And it is kind of I mean, I am a great believer in the pendulum theory of history, and that, you know, things had to swing back. But the question, you know, that I asked at the top of one of those columns that you put there is- is- there ever been a society that is really kind of swung so far into self-destructive behavior that has come so far? unfastened from its from its moral underpinnings and come back? I think that is the question. We are looking to find out the answer to that. What was your question? Again, I-
58:31
SM: Think the left leaders and the left leaders.
58:33
DB: Well, I think they did-did a lot of important truth telling and it had to be done. It was a dirty job, but they did it. I mean, I subscribed to Colliers. Horowitz and Colliers public publications. You know, I think sometimes they get a little bit. Neither, I mean, you have to allow them. I mean, quite often, they will go get a little spin a little bit out of control. But I think they have been very important. And-
59:06
SM: I know that you have already basically answered this question. I have to ask him directly. Again, it was boomers used to say they were going to change the world. In we were often quoted as being the that would change the world in a positive way. Was this true? Were they different? And in what way? Yeah, I have.
59:22
DB: The world has stayed pretty much the same. And what they had to discover is that there are reasons why the world is the way that there are reasons why families exist. And if you are going to stop having families, you better damn well, that some better system for working it out before you do it, and I think now they are coming back to that realization that if you are going to have successful politics, people have to participate. You have to have a dialogue. You have to talk things through they stopped doing I thought, well, we do not need to do that. We thought we already know what to do. I do not have to think about.
1:00:07
SM: How do you deal with this whole issue, though another characteristics oftentimes placed on boards that they are very- [oh, yeah] Dr. King did not he have the same philosophy. Because if you look at the civil rights movement, not to criticize Thurgood Marshall. But that was a more gradualist approach to the courts, as opposed to Dr. King's nonviolence, which was, I am tired of all the roadblocks we wanted. I want this now, we are not going to have any more of these roadblocks placed in our, in our face, to end racism, the society and to integrate society. And so do not you think the boomers had a lot of that same type of philosophy that they saw these roadblocks fully by the Bureaucracy. And, and thus, they became very impatient and basically took the line of advocate that civil disobedience, we are going to go to the streets. So, we are going to-we are not going to have these roadblocks anymore. We want to have-
1:01:02
DB: Like, I mean, what is the start of the question again? Let me try to respond to it because brought another thought to my mind.
1:01:11
SM: This whole issue that the boomers are an impatient group that they really want it now. And they use Dr. King is an example of that through his civil nonviolence, because except the Thurgood Marshall approach through the courts, he said he would not get into the streets.
1:01:29
SM: Well, you can hardly call the actions of Martin Luther King, precipitous or sudden or impatient. He was redressing wrongs that dated back 100 years if you want to count it that way. 300 years. And at that point, people, African Americans, black Americans, and I suppose Negroes or colored people. As Dr. King would have said had waited.
1:02:16
SM: This is a question dealing with just specific names and your individual response to these your gut level feelings about them as well. And maybe your also your perception of how we think boomers today, look at these people. They can be just short responses. Tom Hayden.
1:02:35
DB: Tom Hayden, replaced by Ted Turner.
1:02:45
SM: [laughs] Very Good. Any other comments?
1:02:47
DB: Oh, yeah, I guess one of the numbers of what, an example of one of the people who was who seemed to have a lot of promise that did not never, never really came off. And I could not tell you where he is today.
1:03:02
SM: The state legislator in Sacramento. I am surprised he is still an author. He is going to be at the Chicago convention as a delegate. And that is interesting, because in (19)68-
1:03:12
DB: He was outside.
1:03:13
SM: Lyndon Johnson.
1:03:16
DB: Oh, gosh. I should tell you what I think of Lyndon Johnson in 100 words or less Johnson is a tremendously complicated man and the Carroll biographies come close to perhaps they do not give him some of the credit he deserves. But he was me, he will always be hurt by the fact that people will be repelled by what a by his lack of ethics, lack of personal ethics. You basically had somebody with an amoral mentality. I have a friend named Ron Kessler wrote, it happened in the White House Science bestseller as reading lately, he is always say that the nation was really badly hurt by the fact that you had somebody who was basically a criminal, this President of the United States, and he has all this stuff about this incredible amount of White House stuffies, though, that you wanted to crisp short answer. You know, Lyndon Johnson, very complex, tremendous achievements in terms of the passage of the Civil Rights legislation. But basically, not anyone that is going to be looked back on as a great president. His personal failings were too profound. I will try to be short.
1:04:55
SM: Bobby Kennedy.
1:04:58
DB: Bobby Kennedy, you have a piece that I wrote there. I was in the hotel the night that he was shot that was one of the most was something I will never, I mean, it is just so profound, I almost cannot sum it up. Bobby Kennedy was the last political leader that might have held us together prevented the polarization. The most amazing thing I remember about him is later on doing a political story somewhere in East Texas around Lufkin. was actually a story out of Congressman. Corrupt Congressman. But in the course of the reporting there, I discovered that that a major portion of the Bobby Kennedy organization in that part of Texas had conned George Wallace. There was something about the continuation of the Kennedy Mystique, his own ability to communicate a vision of what America ought to be doing, that I think was real was powerful and that it could have held us together instead of that. That incredible period of polarization and splitting apart that we went through.
1:06:24
SM: Eugene McCarthy.
1:06:27
DB: Eugene McCarthy was thoroughly ordinary person who has kind of thrust into a role far bigger than he was capable of playing.
1:06:44
SM: George McGovern.
1:06:47
DB: I would say almost exactly the same thing about him. This man who just did not have a there was no center to it he. I have a lot of thoughts about that, because I used to actually teach a course based on the 1972 campaign put the McGovern's strategy in that was just get to be the farthest out on the left as possible. He did not really know what he was for. He has this famous $1,000 giveaway, he did not he never knew. He never really knew what he was for. He never had thought through. He was basically a weak and incompetent leader. And once campaign got to be a contest of competence versus incompetence he was done for.
1:07:50
SM: When people look at the liberals of today, they will say that man that comes to mind most George McGovern, because he stood by his liberal beliefs.
1:07:58
DB: I cannot remember a single thing that he believed in. Here is a candidate who managed to get himself, he projected so poorly, in terms of what he believed that he managed to get himself defined by his opposition as the candidate of the three a’s: abortion, acid and amnesty. Theodore White talks about that, and it is making me the president in 1972. And because he did not, you know, the whole the whole story of $1,000 giveaway you is because he just sat there and listened to these economists who just winged it and he said, he just kind of took some of the stuff they said seriously, and because he himself just had not thought things through. I mean, that was one thing that was different about Clinton was different about Carter that they either in Carter's case worked very hard to try to get to the bottom of things or just had a superior understanding of the way the world works than George McGovern did.
1:09:21
SM: Hughey Newton.
1:09: 24
DB: I think history has shown what kind of person Huey Newton was revealed.
1:09:31
SM: So did you also put in that category the bobby Seales and the Eldritch Cleavers? The Panthers too?
1:09:41
DB: Yeah, I think the but we have now seen I mean, you shall know them by their fruits. I think if you look at what became of all of them the truth has emerged.
1:09:59
SM: Jerry Rubin and Abby Hoffman.
1:10:02
DB: They were opportunistic, imposters. People you know the there are people who actually change events and they are people who were kind of thrown up like froth off the top of Wave. And Hoffman and Reuben were in the latter category.
1:10:25
SM: Timothy Leary.
1:10:28
DB: Timothy Leary was an interesting guy who kind of typifies what went wrong. The fact that somebody of his stature and ability would actually say that what young people should do is what Amis favorite tune their turn, turn on drop out? I mean, that along with if it feels good, do it? Where are the statements that characterize the era? I mean, I think he can be seen as a major, major influence on what basically became a malignant movement.
1:11:15
SM: How about Daniel Ellsberg.
1:11:18
DB: Daniel Ellsberg just, again, somebody who happened to be in a certain place at a certain time and was not particularly important before or since.
1:11:32
SM: Ralph Nader.
1:11:36
DB: Well, I mean, I think everybody has to have a certain amount of respect for Ralph Nader. And some extent is [inaudible] in his belief in the powers of litigation, have worn, have gotten to be a little bit annoying over time. I do not believe he will be effective this year as the Green Party candidate. If I have to say one thing about him is kind of an archetypal example of somebody who loved humankind, but you would not really want to be around personally for very long.
1:12:23
SM: How about Dr. Benjamin Spock?
1:12:26
DB: Well, Dr. Spock finally admitted that he did it wrong. He will be much paid attention to as a wonderful final book, and perhaps he is still alive. Yes. But he wrote a book, say basically taking it all back. I looked through the book jacket, and I did not actually get it to read it. [audio cuts] Great, you have to give him credit for that. But he also is, he also has a lot of a lot to be the answer for and he has answered. I mean, I think I would, I would take his own judgement of himself. At this point.
1:13:15
SM: Hubert Humphrey.
1:13:16
DB: Hubert Humphrey. Alright. It is one of the most well-meaning and misguided figures in American history. Misguided and star-crossed.
1:13:31
SM: John Kennedy.
1:13:33
DB: Oh, gosh. Difficult to cope with what we have to prove what we know about John Kennedy today. And yeah, there is aspects of his personal behavior affects [audio cuts] his personal behavior. We are surely reprehensible. Were absolutely reprehensible. Yet there is no question but in terms of style grace under pressure, eloquence. He has set a standard that American presidents will, presidential candidates will be measured against for the rest of my life.
1:14:25
SM: Martin Luther King Jr.
1:14:27
DB: Well, true hero. But whose contribution almost cannot be underestimated? Whose brain still sets the standard for what America should aspire to? It is amazing to think that the highlight of the opening ceremonies to me would be the clip of the King's Speech. The opening ceremonies at the Atlanta Olympics. And here that was 1964, (19)74, (19)84, (19)94. More than 30 years later to think that his words and his vision still carry such strength, meaning is amazing.
1:15:29
SM: Berrigan Brothers.
1:15:30
DB: Minor character Hello, [audio cuts] Gavin the Olympics bring him to mind. He was the only figure that could bring together the white antiwar movement and the civil rights movement. He was the unique figure is way beyond his athletic accomplishments. And I mean, not surprising or unworthy. That he would be at one point, at least the most recognized person in the world.
1:16:13
SM: He still is.
1:16:17
DB: And I think it was it was that fact that he really did seem to stand for so much during that time. And it is amazing. Just an amazing figure.
1:16:37
SM: George Wallace.
1:16:47
DB: [chuckles] George Wallace was a fascinating figure far more articulate and, in his criticism, of big government. That whole area is so complicated, I mean, to think of him as the man stood in the University of Alabama door to block the entrance of black students and yet he started off as a kind of liberal politician and then was beaten, said he would never be up Niggered again. I remember him as just being and under an underappreciated articulator of some basic American call them populist, but maybe even more profound than the label with indicate ideas. You want short sharply, right. I can still remember him speaking at Dartmouth College in 1964. He made this tour of campuses, they just went to Harvard went to Dartmouth he went to in the Northeast, and people just being stunned at his articulate [inaudible] and humor. Still remember things that he said? We down here in Alabama, do not believe that everything that comes from Washington is heaven sent. This line about the bureaucrats that could not park their bicycle straight, and that he did not believe that all juvenile criminals had gotten that way because their daddy did not take them to see the Orioles play. And he-he was an incredibly powerful speaker. When he came back again about four years later, it triggered a riot. They rocked his car and but people did not know what to expect when they went there in (19)64 were amazed that this guy they expected to be a room and a bumpkin could speak with such authority and he was he was drawing on much more than racism and should be remembered for that.
1:19:11
SM: Jane Fonda.
1:19:12
DB: Changed, the thing I always say, I got to get shorter because you know, the thing I remember most about Jane Fonda was her first husband who directed her in Barbarella explaining how their marriage had come apart, saying I simply did not want to be married to the American Joan of Arc. That is the only thing I can remember that might add to what others would say.
1:19:46
SM: Robert McNamara.
1:19:47
DB: Robert McNamara when I was a cog in a wheel I did not read this book. It is good a very good book. I remember him as somebody who set out to be the best secretary of defense he could be. Right remember about him was his idea that the army could be the thing the army did best was education. And it could become a vehicle for bringing kids out of the terrible schools in the inner cities, giving them an education and an opportunity. And then how ironic it was, that the army he created would become, although it would do that, it would become the institution in our society that was most effectively, racially integrated, would be remembered as being the institution that just so unfairly sent so many young black Americans to their deaths in Vietnam. There is such an irony involved there it is so complex. I mean, it is so terrible all of the he made mistakes, a terrible mistake. And yet, there is that other irony that we would not know about them. If he had not had the sense of his own role and history to make sure that they were recorded in the study. Who would come back and answer for them in book late in life? kind of remarkable.
1:21:39
SM: Gerald Ford.
1:21:40
DB: Gerald Ford was a thoroughly decent, honest guy. But not, did not have the makings of greatness.
1:21:52
SM: Richard Nixon.
1:21:55
DB: [chuckles] short, sharp answer. Yeah, Richard Nixon was Richard Nixon was it was really an enigma who I do not pretend to have any special insight into. Watergate was awful. And, you know, I mean, another thing that contributed to the moral smugness of the baby boomers. You know, as I suggested before, that the wretched excesses of Watergate we are in their way, and sort of equal and opposite reaction to the wretched excesses of the left. I do not have anything to add to all the other things that have been said about what an enigmatic guy was.
1:22:44
SM: How about Spiro Agnew?
1:22:46
DB: Spiro Agnew is a small, corrupt, dirty little politician, by accident of fate, ended up briefly in the spotlight and has since slumped back to the level of which is appropriate, which so far as I know is total oblivion.
1:23:08
SM: How about Barry Goldwater?
1:23:10
DB: Barry Goldwater was a man who stood the test of time. Even people who did not like him always thought that he was a decent, intelligent man. There is that irony that I talked about before, that the nation would seem to so completely renounce his philosophy of excess being a virtue and moderation being a sin. Yet ultimately, that came to be the hallmark of the generation that so many things that you remember about him? If he was a good, honest, interesting guy, the reporters that covered them used of respect him. I do not think any of them voted for him. And-
1:24:07
SM: How about John Dean and John Mitchell?
1:24:10
DB: Oh, other people who are just-just in the spotlight of history, more or less by accident. Do not think Tom Mitchell was a villain. Nor was John Dean a hero.
1:24:31
SM: Sam Ervin.
1:24:32
DB: Sam Ervin was the person who was given his role and accomplished it certainly gave us faith in the he gave us back some faith in the American political system press more than he should have. He was not that great person. But I think the Watergate hearings did establish the idea that we were capable to a remarkable degree, if not entirely, examining ourselves looking at our shortcomings.
1:25:09
SM: And Gloria Steinem.
1:25:11
DB: Gloria Steinem, I have trouble remembering anything that Gloria Steinem did as such-
1:25:21
SM: [audio cuts) money was a big factor.
1:25:24
DB: I guess I knew that it seems to have gotten so involved and you know, sort of the-the self-fulfillment movement I think her name will always be remembered and, and that many people will have the problem I am having right now that says, we will have a great difficulty remembering just exactly what for.
1:25:58
SM: And musicians of the year of Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, those-
1:26:03
DB: They will live forever No. They were the one unmitigated triumph of the (19)60s generation.
1:26:17
SM: Do you feel this is just a personal question? Do you feel that you have made an impact on American society? now, since being asked that has been asked to all the participants, including some Vietnam veteran, they know in Philadelphia and Senator McCarthy and Senator McGovern. And as a follow up, do you feel you would have made a positive impact in your life on the boomers and this current generation on generation?
1:26:43
DB: [audio cuts] Hello [audio cuts]. If I have, it has been very modest. [audio cuts] Your records more than Oh, that would be the only way I would have any effect.
1:27:00
SM: On the generation gap in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, and the generation gap and two cents on today.
1:27:05
DB: [audio cuts] was there. I do not think I have any really profound insights to offer on that, and not that I have on any of the other things. I did not feel there was a gap between myself and my parents. They are not a baby boomer do not feel I feel I am pretty close to my own son is 25, which makes him a generation Xer. But we have never talked about how he feels about baby boomers. So, I do not I just do not do not have a good sense of that all I know, all I know, is really derivative, what I have read from other people, I do not have a firsthand grasp of that.
1:28:06
SM: What is the lasting legacy of the boomer generation?
1:28:11
DB: I hope that the lasting legacy of the boomer generation will be a realization that all of the things they trampled on and tore down. By forcing us to learn the process all over again. That they will renew it sort of the way every once in a while forest has to be burned.
1:28:47
SM: Again, and this Might be repetitive, but what role at many does activism in the boomer generation penetrating the lives of-
1:28:52
DB: None that I can detect And of course, I had that question about you know, to what extent the activism was apparent and what he said was real.
1:29:11
SM: If it is possible to heal within a generation now this week, this is a little different than the previous to heal. Do You think it is possible to heal within a generation where differences and spiritual assistance healing process should we cater and is it feasible?
1:29:25
DB: Well, say that again.
1:29:31
SM: Do you think it is possible to heal within a generation where differences and positions take within-
1:29:37
DB: A generation of time or to heal within the baby boomers?
1:29:41
SM: The Vietnam veterans coming back the divisions between those with protests or heads many of our trans remember that scene in New York City. Where not all they were not all when they were younger hardhats on the front of where it was in New York. The divisions are still obviously there. Do you think it is possible to heal within a generation we are different systems decision to assist in the healing process should be cured as a peaceful? I want to follow this up for example, during my many trips to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington I have been and I have really had a cute year to what I have been hearing a lot of pictures for example, the most portrait that I have man standing at the wall with a jacket on with-with an artificial arm and an artificial leg. And a denim jacket with a big Sanjana Jane Fonda bitch. And, and then hearing in the front row with the last Memorial were for Vietnam veterans did not want to listen to Peter net, because he was the one of the reporters that said bad things about Vietnam veterans, one of the early reporters. So they were there, but they had no respect for him. Even though he-he accepted the invitation Jana scrubs to be there. And certainly, that the dislike of Bill Clinton, which is so ever present amongst all the veterans that I have talked to, I do not care if they are liberal or conservative, everyone I have interviewed so far, and even just to my observations at the wall, is that they just do not like.
1:31:06
DB: Alright, I wonder if it was actually reflected in? So, it is an eroding statistic. The? Well, I think that I think it is, it might be possible to bring about healing within a generation. In fact, you would expect that it would be taking place, it is kind of surprising that there has been so little of it. And I think that reflects the fact that not the divisions were so why certainly the divisions were as nothing compared to the divisions in the Civil War generation, or even the-the American Revolution generation were supposedly created. John Adams, you had a third of the people who were for independence, the third were for staying with England and the third who did not much care. The what has been lost are the mechanisms for healing or reconciliation, we do not have the mechanisms for civic dialogue. We do not have civil societies, everyone is now seen. And so, we do not have any place that we can go and talk about this. We do not have the civic institutions. They do not have that sense of participation in, in civic and cultural and political organizations that might allow the kind of dialogue and healing to take place. It is all taking place in the mass media, and I suppose it has had some success. But I am not optimistic. I think these people will still be fighting over it and over shuffleboard in their retirement house. But it is-
1:32:51
SM: What is interesting is that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was built to heal amongst the Vietnam veterans and their families and a chance for injury. Yet you still see the political attitudes at the wall at these ceremonies. And it is amazing. I was I was really under pressure in the Vietnam veterans a large number were truly starting to heal. And then I, but then I see [audio cuts]
1:33:24
DB: Yep.
1:33:25
SM: Your comments are interesting.
1:33:28
SM: I just wanted to mention, too, that when we went to see Senator, students to Washington, we met him about two and a half years ago, he had something comparable departments and gym shaking, but his mind was still sharp. And we had two hours with him. And did most of students had never met him, most of them and had not even heard him until they had an opportunity to meet him and read his Vita. But the one question that I asked, which brought tears to his eyes, was the question about the inability of the talking about the (19)68 Convention. The trend is divisions in America at that time, and, and the inability of a lot of boomers like myself to have to who still had this trust toward people of authority based on those times. And I thought he was just going to respond about the (19)60s and then he did a melodramatic pause. Then tears are brought to his eyes, the students are all looking at each other. I was looking at the students. And then finally he opened up and he said, I was in the hospital at that time. Looking at the Civil War, I was very sick for a while looking at the Ken Burns Civil War videos to the Secretary of State and when he was in the hospital, and he said, we have a meal since the Civil War. And so, he said for us to start talking about the (19)60s that we really had to divide America into two eras before and after the Civil War. And that was very revealing, because the Senate's clear message to the students in that room. That Civil War generation went to their graves without healing with all the Problems of reconstruction here, according to Disney, and that are is the boomer generation of Vietnam veterans on the protests of the war, the 15 percent, who are activist, some are playing the games, some who did not stay 85 percent of this were supposedly, they were not in the file, but maybe have it in their subconscious, but they take their kids to the wall. So the kids say Dad what did you do in the war. And they did not go or whatever, that there was a tremendous market. And they have made the boomer will go to their grave with [inaudible]-
1:35:33
DB: Oh, well, I think that is absolutely true. I think the Vietnam I mean, the War Memorial, just tremendously moving and effective. Memorial. I do not think anybody goes there without feeling the
sense of loss and sacrifice, and courage and bravery that was involved and played there added those figures of the people, the guy was 1000 yards, there, and so on. But I think the only hope is that the context will change. We actually check to see whether-whether Vietnam vets really vote in a block against Clinton.
1:36:21
SM: I do not know, I do know one thing in my I get to know her a little bit. Not well, phone conversations that we took students to watch. And he wrote the book, the prize winning book. Fortunately, if you have not read that book, the best written books ever written. He was hired by George Mason University to teach writing, he knew how to write was a skill that very few people had, at my understanding. He was writing essays that are carried were designed to kill themselves. He was halfway through it. But the one the one thing is that Vietnam veteran supported Bill Clinton, up until the fall of (19)93, in the spring of (19)94, and he killed himself may have a war but-but then in this in February of (19)94, something happened between love of Vietnam veterans and build one another. They say flip flopped on certain issues. And he was very bitter, and then the obituary and some of the people talked about, he wanted to become the first ambassador of Vietnam, what was the goal is to become a personal masterpiece. He was very daring to go to Vietnam to visit with some of the veterans over there to try to help them and in certain ways, so but something happened, I do not know. And I probably not investigated further. I think there is there was some sort of a break between the Vietnam Veterans and Bill Clinton in that period in 1994, the spring and I do not think it is healed because I went to the Vietnam Memorial. Veterans Day ceremony this past November and tap CEOs and corporations are really bad mouthing bills in public. And we are bad mouthing the government and some of the things. So, there are some very serious divisions now between Bill Clinton and the Vietnam Veterans and I but I do not understand why. I do not understand what is going on behind the scenes.
1:38:19
DB: Yeah, I wonder if a lot of people it is fair to Vietnam just have no connection with that. They are certainly not part of did not join veterans’ organizations are not. I, I only know one Vietnam veteran. And he was a public relations guy for-for infantry. Even I believe that there are only two Vietnam veterans that work for the Philadelphia Inquirer. I think the one thing that is really wrong in that movie is that courage under fire. Is this idea that there is some old combat veteran working for The Washington Post. I do not think there is any. I bet he checked. If you could change something you wanted to go into, Rob, that there is no combat veteran from Vietnam working for The Washington Post banquet, there might only be a handful of people who have served anywhere at all. And that was one of the things that has-that has happened. We really volunteer army and so on. The Army has become a sort of a foreign experience used to be one of the rites of passage. And that ended in the boomer era. We have not I mean, we lost the all of the things that define maturity. From the time when you had to start wearing a tie to the office or working in a farm of some kind.
1:40:01
SM: Do you think that we will ever have trust for elected leaders again after the debacle of Vietnam and Watergate and Uber's. Distrust, what effect is this having on the current generation of youth?
1:40:13
DB: That is a tough question. I mean, I think we have trust for some leaders and do not have trust for others. I think I like to think that the political process, at least at the presidential level is reconnecting. And we saw it in 1992, we will see more of it 1996. Although 1996 may end up just being a putting out election. I am not good at predicting the future, by the way. I have had a few lucky guesses, but I do not know what is going to happen next. But yeah, we have to get back to trusting our leader. If we do not, we are sunk. So, it is really asking the question whether the American experiment democracy will continue or not. And I have to believe that will. But that is part a leap of faith.
1:41:15
SM: Is still running. Yep. Yeah, please, I apologize. Some of these questions are repetitive, but I direct. How did they use it (19)60s and early (19)70s changed your life and the attitude towards that future generations? Did they have any effect on your life?
1:41:42
DB: Yeah, there is a great tendency for them, for me, for them to make me cynical. So many examples of good intentions gone awry. Which is a theme of Kurt Vonnegut's books ended up being big [audio cuts]
1:42:04
SM: Are there examples of events or activities, major cynical, or just the whole game?
1:42:12
DB: Yeah. Let us see. Let me see if I can at least pick out one. Hello, I think the one area that I have concentrated would concentrate on and I mean, I think it takes place with across the spectrum. I gave some examples earlier. And everything from trying to deal with urban poverty dealing with urban problems. But most profoundly we see it in education, where you have had all of these well-meaning quotes unquote, reforms that have had the net effect of diluting and making our education less effective. At a time when we needed more than ever. How many people who thought they were doing something good, and then having a disastrous effect? Open classrooms, the new math, social promotions, the dumbing down of the curriculum, the IT erosion of standards, grade inflation, all things done by people with proof that the road to hell probably is paved with good intentions. And you have to go back and undo it. Or the point of it that anecdote, I started on way, way back about the guy who wrote the book Physics for poets and is involved in the in the Chicago Public Schools is that we can very quickly destroy an institution, it takes a long time to build it back. I guess the people feeling that they were doing the right thing by achieving self-fulfillment in their own lives and wrecking the lives of their children. end up just shaking your head. Santa's amazement.
1:44:13
SM: Great history books are written on the growing up years from the boomers saying 25 to 50 years and I am ensuring those people do not major in undergrad program, the higher ed in graduate school. We were always taught best issued books were probably issued 50 years after events take place from best books on World War Two right now are being written today. As opposed to some books written by James McGregor burns, really? When the history books are written on the growing up years for the overseeing 2550 years from now what will be the overall evaluation of the boomers? Because of the booming right now are, Well, I do not get into this category of making (19)46 to (19)64 because sometimes those people born between (19)46 and (19)56 in the late (19)50s and early (19)60s. We got a couple of people in West Chester that I just have a hard time relate to. They are still categorized as boomers, but they had no sense of what transpired back then.
1:45:09
DB: Not only that they resent the older boomers. I think your divisions probably are better. What will History Think?
1:45:22
SM: Yeah especially some of them are just coming into power now. So-
1:45:25
DB: I am sad to say that I am not good at progress. prognosticating history, I do not think there is any way I would just stick with I have gotten really fond of this analogy with the baby boomers were like a fire that had to burn through and clean things happen. So the new growth could occur.
1:45:55
SM: [audio cuts] And last question, is this. The youth of that period of belief, they could have impact on society and government policy in the (19)50s (19)60s and (19)70s. Vietnam policy, the draft civil rights legislation, nonviolent protests, multiple months, in other words, a sense of empowering, why is society resisting this today? And why in your words, are the sons and daughters of boomers feel less confident about their ability to have an impact on society? And in some respects, less desire to seemingly less opportunity? Am I wrong in assuming this question?
1:46:30
DB: I think the problem is they turned out to be wrong. So many of them are going back with things like education what are the policies we look at? They thought they could solve poverty in the city, and they could not be now undoing the things that they tried to do to try something else. And we are going to do it with a great deal of trepidation and not going to do it, that same sense of we can change the world. And we will probably do it better. You looked at all the things that they tried to do look at things that, for example, that the baby boomer era created, whether as baby boomers did it or not, they have to reflect a lot longer, maybe even look some stuff up. But questioning whether affirmative action was the way to eradicate racism. Because we have discovered that in many cases, and it is hard to weigh the case in which it does good in the cases in which it does bad. It is exacerbated by the fact that the welfare system that we tried to create did not free people from a downward spiral. Or it did not pre bring people back up, and instead seems to launch them into a multi-generational downward spiral into which situation seems increasingly dire, which we now feel when you come right down to it, but we have too many people in America now that cannot do anything that anybody would pay them the minimum wage for, and that the system is creating more of them. What was question again? I got a little lost.
1:48:26
SM: What was the impact of the Boomers have had and they felt they could change?
1:48:37
DB: They felt they could change the world. And they were wrong. And so, people are kind of stepping out onto the charred ground, it has been left very cautiously and carefully and tried to rebuild something there that will pay more attention to the laws of unintended consequence. And things like-
1:48:59
SM: Do you feel that there is a direct correlation. I went back to the question earlier that the reason why Generation X youth or young adults cannot get involved is because of the examples that have been set by their parents. Whether it be over the kitchen table, or just by observation.
1:49:23
DB: I once again have to take myself out of that, because I did not see that. I do not know. I mean, I go to see a movie like Reality Bites are clueless or whatever. And I do not understand. I do not know what happened. I do not know why those people are the way they are. I do not know if it is a reaction to their parents. I tend to think it is because our whole society lost the ability to transmit its values. And I hope we are getting it back. But this whole the whole lack of knowledge and interest on the part of this generation is-is really appalling. And people are always trying to figure out ways to make excuses for it. I expected to be some kind of, you know, the fireman talks about a back blast when they go into a fire and the fire has gone in a certain direction for a long time. And it gets to be a, an area behind the vacuum, and then suddenly things blast pack into it. I expect we are going to see something like that. And it is going to happen, particularly in regard. I think we already see it happening in regard to spiritual values, kind of so many of these questions you bring up, you could spend an entire chapter on the boomer generation holds up as the great example of what it what was accomplished. It holds up the civil rights revolution as a great example of what can be accomplished, and yet rejects the central religious core of that movement. At least its activists. It is the least as I say, somehow, rather America just continues to be the most religious country in the world. This kind of goes on like some something underwater, a big iceberg underwater. So, you cannot say we have lost that.
1:51:33
SM: I do believe this church attendance was down from like, when-when I was getting the link with the church every Sunday and Sunday school was over. But as I got older, myself, I did not go to church anymore. And a lot of my peers get caught up into that, too. And I am kind of wondering, it was not like the (19)50s. It is fascinating.
1:51:56
DB” I mean, this sort of was my impression, but I am told that if you would look at Gallup Poll asked people what percentage 40 percent went to church, or synagogue last night went to religious services in the previous week, and it is just tasting exactly the same. Just like there is another America out there as we connect with it. Just kind of goes on.
1:52:24
SM: Person in my position to work with student’s day in and day out. And I work with a lot of faculty to work. Frustrated that today's college students love it, they have faith in them, it is not they do not have faith, have you always had faith in young people, you always give them the benefit of the doubt. And but that does not mean that they cannot be constructively criticize the time. And that is that they do not have a sense of history. They, they do not do much reading, they do not really want to understand the past. They only want to deal with the present and really care about the future. But the sense of history and a lot of a boomer faculty, they do not get frustrated with some of their students on some occasion and they go back to when they were asked. And because of those times, we questioned faculty members in the classroom. It was highly interactive, faculty were in the residence halls at that time, there was a linkage between the faculty and then now faculty members do not seem to be linked to students at all. It is I do not know I am trying to get at here and it is somewhat frustrating his friends, absolutely baffling try to see we are trying to see the image of today's students as we were in some respects and that is to challenge a lot of these young people in my opinion do not challenge the system.
1:53:44
DB: But I can tell you that is my impression as well. Correct me even to my-my-my son, his friends. I gave his girlfriend 20 bucks she would she said you know we are reading all these plays and they are just such crap. So why do not you say anything that you say challenge professors. You know, I think this stuff is just by eliminating all the ambiguity and it has come so close to some sort of quasi pornography. Brit modern British theatre, modern British drama. And this is why you might want to get an A and I am already I have a 3.78 grade average and I am getting turned down for interviews because they want people put their grade average I will give you 20 bucks if you stand up and just say one thing because I want to see if anybody else stands up and says the same thing. I want to see what Professor react and nobody joined here, except the one or two students she already knew felt that way. And professor’s kind of matter of fact in class but then when she went into took discuss her paper with women, he reduced her to tears and I think it was educational to do that.
1:55:05
SM: David Are there any other final comments you would like to say?
1:55:14
DB: No, I want to thank you very much for participating in private. No, I think I have had a chance to say pretty much everyone thought that I did not get in, you know, there was a feeling that to some extent, the assassinations, just cauterize everybody's nerve endings, that people did not feel things is profoundly anymore. That you after you have been through the death of John Kennedy, the assassination of Robert did the assassination of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, you-you got to be afraid to hope. And that was another thing that went on was that had a big effect? Hard, hard cremation.
1:56:00
SM: Could you? Just everyone out there? Were you waiting in the room for Bobby Kennedy to go through the pantry there? Because there was no more he made the announcement he told to another group. What does duh. Yes, that is exactly right. There were two ballrooms or four people in each spoke, I think the people who were I do not know how they separate. I think the people the first group were kind of more insiders, although my wife was a precinct cabinet for the time. And we were in the lower ballroom or, and he was going to the pantry to come down there. And it did not come and I just wandered out into the hall. And there were people in the rooms down the hall or watching the whole proceedings on television and went into one and there was a woman just keeled over. She had fallen over in a chair and sobbing uncontrollably. And there was great disturbance and discombobulation in the room. I thought it was over this woman who, you know, is having some perhaps some kind of epileptic fit or diabetic shock. But it was all because they just heard that shot over the television. We did not know it in the big room because televisions were off because he was going to come and speak. But the ambassador just after that, I mean, in that piece I gave you my wife said, you know, part of me died with him. And you guys never she was never able to do enthusiastically support anybody.
1:57:49
SM I have [audio cuts] Many times and I have gone to that spot.
1:57:52
DB: And neither was I-
1:57:55
SM: White crosses there in Arlington.
1:57:57
DB: Well, yeah, it makes me sad though, because the kids that come there, they do not seem to have the same appreciation. I interviewed the guard there. Something like fussy has working to the post from (19)69 to (19)72. Watching. Yeah. So over I have been there for and I remember him today, the kids now they just do not. They do not have they do not understand. And he started to cry. [inaudible] (19)63. So it was not the tenth.
1:58:29
SM: If he gets enough in here to regarding the heroes, that maybe they had heroes, they looked up to sometimes Europe may not be the right word. Think they looked up to John Kennedy, Martin Luther King and some of the other civil rights leaders to like a young man in Java who was other politicians too, that were run. Today, again, it is just a sense that I have there are no people that go for their parents, sometimes I it is interesting. I have had some interviews with students. We interviewed students for positions on our campus within our nations, and specifically asked them who their heroes are. And I thought [inaudible] majority are my sister, me and my upbringing. And my parents divorced. My-my parents, my mom and dad, they may not be both, but it may be one of them. So I find that interesting. And again, this is only about 30 or 40 students. Commentaries, but you never hear oh my heroes Martin Luther King, my hero was John Kennedy, my hero or any of the current leaders. It is just amazing.
1:59:45
DB: Yeah, as an as an editor, I tried to bring back the idea of Return of the hero. I remember back they still have the Lone Ranger on the cover. And inside the head stories that people were getting ready to go to look at heroes, again, Movie Star Wars to come out and set those turning points. But it really has not. I saw US News and World Report tried to do the same article five, five years ago or so. And turned out that heroes, they turned out to be entertainment figures, people who portrayed somebody else. And somebody talking about that was saying so amazing that when they have when they were having hearings in Washington on foreign problems that one of the people had bring in a sissy space because he was in whatever movie that was about the trouble on the farm the fact that we do not have heroes. It is really, really important.
2:00:49
SM: Joe McGuiness wrote a book about [inaudible] Did you read that book?
2:00:53
DB: Yeah.
2:00:55
SM: Talking about Teddy Kennedy segment and we are trying to get through to them for a long time. Bear with me here. [audio cuts]
(End of Interview)
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Interview with David Boldt
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Boldt, David ; McKiernan, Stephen
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Editors; Journalists; Awards—United States; Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant (Pa.); Iran—History—Revolution, 1979; Boldt, David--Interviews
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David Boldt was editor of the editorial page of <em>The Philadelphia Inquirer</em> and a political columnist for the same paper during the 1980's and 1990's. Boldt won the Pulitzer Prize as a member of the <em>Inquirer</em>'s team that covered a nuclear accident at the Three Mile Island electrical power plant, and received a citation for excellence from the Overseas Press Club for his reporting on the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Boldt has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in interpreting contemporary affairs as an adjunct professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. He earned a bachelor's degree in History from Darthmouth College.
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.23a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.23b
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McKiernan Interviews
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121:15
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c668073a72532bf0096fba82a4108371
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/bc46c808f4d4ae88c8742d71f455ce00.mp3
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McKiernan Interviews
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-01-14
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
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David R. Hawk
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
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audio/mp4
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3 microcassettes
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Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"David Hawk is a former Executive Director of Amnesty International, USA, UN human rights official in charge of the Cambodia Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and author. Hawk has been a visiting scholar at the Columbia University Institute for the Study of Human Rights, and taught at Hunter College, CUNY. Currently he teaches in the International Relations Department at the University of South Florida (Tampa). Hawk is a graduate of Cornell University and Union Theological Seminary, and he also did postgraduate work in International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Magdalen College, Oxford."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15107,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,16777215],"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,3355443],"15":"Arial","16":10}">David Hawk is a former Executive Director of Amnesty International, USA, UN human rights official in charge of the Cambodia Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and author. Hawk has been a visiting scholar at the Columbia University Institute for the Study of Human Rights and taught at Hunter College, CUNY. Currently, he teaches in the International Relations Department at the University of South Florida (Tampa). Hawk is a graduate of Cornell University and Union Theological Seminary, and he also did postgraduate work in International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Magdalen College, Oxford.</span>
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"The nineteen sixties; Nineteen seventies; Vietnam War; music styles; Bob Dylan; Civil Rights Movement; yippies; Woodstock; Counterculture; James Farmer; Vietnam War; Women's Liberation Movement."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">The nineteen sixties; Nineteen seventies; Vietnam War; music styles; Bob Dylan; Civil Rights Movement; yippies; Woodstock; Counterculture; James Farmer; Vietnam War; Women's Liberation Movement.</span>
Duration
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164:52
Subject LCSH
Amnesty International; Authors, American--20th century; College teachers; Hawk, David R.--Interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: David Hawk
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 14 January 2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:02):
Testing, one, two, testing. Testing, one, two.
DH (00:00:10):
That is one of those digitalized?
SM (00:00:12):
Yes.
DH (00:00:12):
Or is that a digitalized?
SM (00:00:15):
Oh, no.
DH (00:00:15):
Oh, no-no. It is got a little micro.
SM (00:00:17):
Yeah, but I have a digitalized one, but I am trying to figure it out. Maybe the closer I get there.
DH (00:00:21):
Okay.
SM (00:00:22):
First question I want to ask is, when you think of the (19)60s and the early (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? And please speak loud because it is catching. I have to check on this every so often too if it is working.
DH (00:00:37):
Yeah, the good old days.
SM (00:00:40):
Fine with the good old days?
DH (00:00:46):
The (19)60s and early (19)70s, well, I was in college and graduate school, and that was great fun, both. And that is the time when I met the young woman who is still my wife. And that was a time of successful political activism, the name of the civil rights movement, which worked. And the occasion of the... I dropped out of graduate school in (19)67. Took five years off to try to stop the war in Vietnam, which we did not succeed in doing. But I probably had more political influence during those years than any time since. So, even though we did not succeed to stop the war, we did at various points have a big impact on the course of events.
SM (00:02:29):
What was it about your background before you even went to Cornell University? Because I know you went to Cornell and I am from the [inaudible] area, so it is a small world. I went to Binghamton and grew up in there. I have quite a few relatives who went to Cornell. What was it in your upbringing, even before you got to Cornell University, that made you somewhat who you are? Were you an activist prior to going to college in your high school years? Were there issues that really upset you when you were younger? Things in the late (19)50s, early (19)60s?
DH (00:03:02):
Yeah. I was seized at, must have been junior high school by the... When I became aware of racial segregation and discrimination, that was offensive, which probably had most to do with my religious upbringing as a low church evangelical. And the fact that the civil rights movement in those years was led by ministers and the grievances articulated in the terms of the Old and New Testament. And we believe that segregation and discrimination were social evils that should be eliminated.
SM (00:04:21):
In the school you went to, the high school, were you the only one that felt that way? Did you feel alone, or were there other students that were thinking that as well? Seeing what was happening? Probably on black and white television.
DH (00:04:34):
Yeah. The years of Little Rock.
SM (00:04:38):
Right.
DH (00:04:42):
Of the attempts to integrate schools. Well, if you come from places like Allentown, Pennsylvania, or Lancaster or York, you go into the town squares, the monuments are, to the Civil War, dead. I mean, and they were [inaudible] Republicans. And it was not just preserving the union, part of that legacy you grew up with was ending slavery. No, so there were not many African Americans in my junior high or high school, but there were some, and the idea that they could not go to school with everybody else was offensive. But there was not much to... Where were we? Oh. Oh, right, so I remember the first occasion was... Well, so I followed that. I was interested in that. In those, I would have been a Eisenhower, Nixon-type Republican. That is what my folks were. Although the New Frontier Kennedy's administration caught the enthusiasm of a lot of young people. The idea of younger generation getting the country moving again, seeing the that as opposed to Eisenhower and the Dulleses. So I followed developments in the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King was already the nationally known figure. And then, I remember the freedom rights and the sit-ins. And sit-ins was sort of outrageous that African Americans could not eat at those lunch counter in their local Woolworths. Every town had a Woolworths. And when I used to go to the YMCA in Allentown, it was right around the corner from the Woolworths in downtown. I would have lunch at Woolworths, go back to the Y. When I was, it must have been a sophomore year, I guess. Yeah, well, maybe. Yeah, I guess. Yes, sure it would have been sophomore year at Cornell when there was a nationwide picketing of Woolworth in support of the students in the South who were sitting in at the lunch counters. And I participated in that picket of Woolworth in downtown Wichita.
SM (00:08:31):
Wow, very good.
DH (00:08:33):
That was my...
SM (00:08:35):
I know Wichita. Where was that? Was that still there? Who is there now?
DH (00:08:38):
Oh, I have no idea. It would have been on that main street.
SM (00:08:41):
Yeah.
DH (00:08:42):
Or whatever, that State Street or what?
SM (00:08:43):
Yeah.
DH (00:08:44):
Whatever it is called. But anyway, so I remember that.
SM (00:08:55):
Your years at Cornell, what were the years that you were at Cornell?
DH (00:09:00):
It would have been (19)60 or (19)61 to (19)65.
SM (00:09:08):
Obviously, the Vietnam War was not even really picking up until about after (19)65. Was there any kind of small protests against the war?
DH (00:09:15):
Yeah.
SM (00:09:16):
I know that Phil Caputo's book talks about in The Rumor of War, that is when the first large numbers of troops were going over, around that (19)65 period.
DH (00:09:25):
Well, sure. I then worked in the summer of my junior year. I participated in Mississippi Freedom Summer, so I was in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in August of (19)64 when the Gulf of Tonkin happened. And we were afraid that if the US got into a war, Johnson would be distracted and he would not implement the civil rights measures that were in the process of... The Voting Rights Act was (19)65, but the Mississippi's Freedom Summer was building up to that. We were afraid that if there was a war, it would distract attention from civil rights and anti-poverty efforts. Does that mean that World War II replaced the new deal? The Korean War overtook Truman's fair deal? I was at Cornell. I was studying industrial labor relations, so I was studying economics and history and sociology, so I was studying this stuff.
SM (00:11:07):
Did you have any fear when you went South? Did you go by yourself and met a group down there? Did you go with a group of other students and did you have a fear that something could happen to you...
DH (00:11:21):
Yeah.
SM (00:11:21):
...when you went down there? What was that feeling like? And then, the experience itself and how it can change you somewhat?
DH (00:11:27):
Well, sure. I was in... I mean, this was part of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee Freedom Summer. And there was an orientation program. People went down in two waves. I was in the second wave, but they just assigned me to that. They just told me to go. The orientation program was maybe at Oberland or some college in Ohio or something, I recall vaguely. And it was the people who were in the first orientation included Schwerner and Goodman, and they were killed along with Chaney while we were at the orientation program they had. They had gone down a week, maybe two weeks before. So, security was a big concern. Although, my parents worried about it more than I did. Yeah, the 20-year-old, what did we... But it was clear that the organization was going to have a lot of security concerns. You did not go out at night. You went out and you never went out alone. So, there were whole sets of security regulations.
SM (00:13:10):
Was Scott Lynn one of the instructors?
DH (00:13:12):
Oh, sure.
SM (00:13:13):
Yeah. [Inaudible] person.
DH (00:13:16):
Oh, yeah. I have not seen him in decades. Decades.
SM (00:13:22):
Well, he was up there.
DH (00:13:24):
Yeah, he was up there. He was a generation, he was 20 years older than we were. You were very careful. We went to the Black churches on Sunday morning, but we were not allowed to go to the African American bars and nightclubs on Saturday night. And we did not integrate. We were doing voter registration. That was the goal. We would canvas Black neighborhoods and try to talk to people about registering. And then, there was the Mississippi Freedom Democratic [inaudible] Challenge.
SM (00:14:25):
Danny [inaudible]?
DH (00:14:26):
Mm-hmm.
SM (00:14:27):
Yes.
DH (00:14:28):
So, that was the project. And we did not try to desegregate things. We did not pair up with Blacks and try to go to white only places because of the security issues, and because the aim was voter registration. It was aimed at demonstrating. The aim was to demonstrate that these people were not being allowed to vote in order to get the Voting Rights Act, which followed the next year, so that is what we stuck to. I was there during the Gulf of Tonkin, and that is when I first heard of or paid any attention to Vietnam. And then, it was in my senior year. Then you had the escalation started right after it was on [inaudible]. And you had the first round of the teachings were actually in the spring of (19)65, my senior year. And so, there were two professors at Cornell, John Lewis and... He was a China scholar. Oh, the Indonesia scholar.
SM (00:16:10):
McCann?
DH (00:16:10):
George McCann. They published one of the first major history of the Vietnam War called the US in Vietnam. The teaching was supposed to be a debate between Hans Morgenthau and McGeorge Bundy. And it was going to be televised, or not televised, broadcast in some way in a dozen campuses. But LBJ forbade Bundy from debating Morgenthau, which would have been a fabulous debate. So then, a dozen, two dozen, however many universities, particularly ones that had strong Southeast Asian departments. So you would have Berkeley, University of Michigan, Yale, Cornell. Anyway, so there were two professors who gave the teaching. Lasted all night long, and these guys alternated it. And I was just astonished at how anyone knew so much about Vietnam. What they were doing was reading the chapters of the book that they were currently writing.
SM (00:17:54):
Oh, they were looking down and up.
DH (00:17:57):
They took turns. But it was like a six-hour lecture...
SM (00:18:03):
My God.
DH (00:18:04):
...where these two professors alternated back and forth on how the US was setting off entirely the wrong course, that it was not going to work. If it was not halted and reversed, it was going to be a disaster. Anyway, that then became the serious scholarly book on the Vietnam War for the next several years.
SM (00:18:39):
What year that book come out? I have a big collection [inaudible], (19)64 or (19)65.
DH (00:18:46):
Probably came out in (19)66. It would have been in the spring of... I cannot remember. Was it... Yeah, yeah, it was (19)65.
SM (00:18:58):
Sure.
DH (00:19:02):
Spring of (19)65.
SM (00:19:03):
Do you remember the cover?
DH (00:19:05):
It was green and white.
SM (00:19:07):
Yeah.
DH (00:19:08):
Paperback.
SM (00:19:09):
Oh, it was a paperback. I know there was a green book with a yellow Vietnam on it. It was [inaudible] kind of stuff. Way back.
DH (00:19:16):
[Inaudible], I do not know. But if you look, if you check it out, McKahin and Lewis, the US in Vietnam. And then, 10 years later, 20 years later, McKahin did a second edition of it. John Lewis left Cornell, went to Stanford and he was... I am still in touch with him.
SM (00:19:46):
Good.
DH (00:19:46):
Because he has done a lot of work on China and on North... Well, he is the China scholar, on North Korea. But he is retired from Stanford now. But in any event...
SM (00:19:58):
That is become a pretty conservative institution there with the Hoover Institution.
DH (00:20:01):
Well, it is separate. The undergraduate parts, there are parts of it that are liberal.
SM (00:20:19):
When you look at the boomer generation, now, again, people have responded differently to the question. Some people do not even like this concept of generations. Todd [inaudible] said, "Quit talking about it." People that were young during the era. But he said, for example, that when you look at the Boomers between (19)46 and (19)64, which are the years that are defined as boomers, experiences that the people in the front wave of the boomers are totally different than the last 10 years. And so, those people formed the group, say (19)46 and (19)54-(19)56, they really experienced the protests on college campuses. You cannot really say that some of the students did not that were in the latter group. So, he kept saying that, and I would be interviewing him. He was saying, "Oh, correct me again, just do not say boomer generation." But I have had a couple people that have been very sensitive to this, but I am just saying what other people have defined the group as. They define the World War II generation the silent generation, and what they call the cuspers, which is the second group compared to the first group. I have just learned that in my studies. Cuspers are those born between the (19)56 and (19)64. And then, you have got, of course, the Generation Xers, and then you got the millennials that are in college right now. But the basic question I am really asking, when you look at that generation of 70 to 78 million, and the numbers differ, what are the characteristics that you admired about that group and those that you least admired?
DH (00:22:01):
I never thought about it. I do not object to the categories, but I am actually a little older. I was born in (19)43.
SM (00:22:14):
Well, a lot of the people, though, that ran were the leaders of the movement...
DH (00:22:20):
Yeah, we were.
SM (00:22:21):
...in that...
DH (00:22:22):
Yes.
SM (00:22:22):
That is why it was really ridiculous.
DH (00:22:24):
We were in graduate school.
SM (00:22:26):
Yeah.
DH (00:22:26):
I mean, I do not much like that question. I would not think about it in that way. I think about the times. And obviously, the music, it was fabulous.
SM (00:22:49):
Talk about the music because that is a question later on, but how important was the music in the anti-war movement and all the movements?
DH (00:22:56):
Oh, enormously important.
SM (00:22:58):
[Inaudible].
DH (00:23:04):
The freedom songs, I mean, during the civil rights movement were driven by... Again, because that movement is before the lawyers took over, it was still led by ministers and organized out of churches. And you sang all the hymns. And I came from a low church evangelical Protestant background. They were the same hymns that we sung. The Black churches sang with a little more fervor and better harmony, but same songs. We Shall Overcome, Amazing Grace, then that was when the folk music.
SM (00:23:54):
Oh, yeah.
DH (00:23:57):
So, you had folk music, which is what you listen to on the campuses, you had the gospel music, the church hymns that fed directly into is what you sang at the civil rights struggle. But you also had the first fabulous wave of rock and roll. Well, the first wave, I suppose would have been in the mid-(19)50s. But rhythm and blues and rock and roll either came out of Mississippi or came out of Tennessee. Or it was either Memphis or Alabama was. Pardon?
SM (00:24:54):
[Inaudible].
DH (00:24:58):
But he was covering stuff he picked up from the rhythm and blue singers, so that, you know, you had the oldies but goodies rock and roll, and the beginning of soul music, where sort of rhythm and blues went mainstream. The music was fabulous. And you had folk music. And then, Dylan merged folk music. But you had Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan. And they were the songsters, the musicians of the civil rights movement. And then, at (19)65... Whoa, was it (19)65? Dylan put folk music to rock and roll, Newport. That must have been Newport (19)65, I guess, or (19)64. But it was Highway 61 Revisited, whenever that was. So, the music was just fabulous. And then, you went (19)66, it was like the... That (19)66-(19)67 was not only the height of Motown, but also stacks and holes.
SM (00:26:46):
Oh, yeah.
DH (00:26:47):
The heavier rhythm and blue stuff, Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, the more Southern stuff. So, you have the just fabulous music. And then, it went psychedelic.
SM (00:27:07):
Saturday Night Fever.
DH (00:27:09):
No, that was later. That was disco.
SM (00:27:11):
We were talking about...
DH (00:27:13):
The Stones and the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. So, I mean, that was the music of the anti-war group.
SM (00:27:23):
Yeah.
DH (00:27:24):
The Jefferson Airplane, all that stuff. And the civil rights movement merged into the hippies. In New York, in California, there was a heavy Stanford contingent in Mississippi, so it was a heavy Yale and Cornell contingent. But you had... What was his name? One of the Yippies.
SM (00:28:05):
Abbie Hoffman?
DH (00:28:06):
Abbie Hoffman.
SM (00:28:06):
And Jerry Rubin.
DH (00:28:08):
Abbie Hoffman was in Mississippi with Snick. And he left Snick when the Black Power movement sort of thing. And he set up shop in the East Village, but others went out to San Francisco. So you had the East Village.
SM (00:28:39):
[Inaudible] Berkeley there.
DH (00:28:42):
Yeah, so that fed into the counterculture.
SM (00:28:51):
Do you remember your years, the concerts that you went to, the ones at Cornell? The speakers? In that year when you were at Cornell, who were the most important speakers that came to your college at that time to talk about issues? And secondly, who were the musicians? Because when I went to Binghamton, I was there from... The last four years when I graduated [inaudible] and I still remember all the [inaudible] and how important they were. What were the concerts and speakers that you saw when you were a student?
DH (00:29:28):
Peter, Paul and Mary my freshman year. Peter, he was a Cornell graduate. They came through there. Who was the great? Bo Diddley.
SM (00:29:43):
Oh, wow.
DH (00:29:49):
And the Isley Brothers.
SM (00:29:57):
Oh, [inaudible].
DH (00:29:57):
They were hardcore rock and rollers. And for a while, Jimi Hendrix was their guitar man. But they would come every year. Speakers, though, there were a lot of them. Hans Morgenthau did come through, Paul Tillich gave a lecture series there. I am not sure I understood what was saying, but sounded existentialist theology. It sounded very interesting.
SM (00:30:41):
Did you ever meet Daniel Barica? Because he was the Catholic priest there.
DH (00:30:44):
Oh, he actually came after I graduated.
SM (00:30:49):
Okay.
DH (00:30:49):
I was very active in the... Well, the Cornell United Religious Works, the CURW, was sort of the head and the various chaplains of which Barica became a Catholic chaplain there. But that was probably as close to the headquarters for the civil rights activities and anti-war activities as there was on campus. Certainly more than the economics department. I do not know what else you would say was, but that is where a lot of student... That is where you did a lot of that kind of activity.
SM (00:31:42):
But later on in Cornell when the Americans took over the union with the Black Power period, that was (19)61, a lot of history there.
DH (00:31:53):
Yeah. I do not think Cornell ever recovered.
SM (00:32:00):
The guy who was one of the leaders of that ended up becoming a very big CEO and actually is on a board of trustees now. Some big thing. One of the questions I have asked everybody is back in (19)94 when New Gingrich came to power, a period that the Republicans came in. I have read a couple of his speeches, he made a lot of comments about the (19)60s and (19)70s about we went backward during that era. And he really criticized the generation, the young people from that era. And then, George Will has also done the same thing. A lot of his writings, whenever he gets a chance to take a shot at the [inaudible], at the (19)60s and (19)70s, the activists. And basically what they are saying is that all the problems we have in American society today, and certainly not the terrorism thing, that has come about since. But all the problems we have in our society today, that you can go right back to that era. The lack of respect for authority, the sexual revolution.
DH (00:32:59):
Yeah, well...
SM (00:32:59):
The breakdown of divorce rate.
SM (00:33:02):
...the breakdown of the divorce rate. All the people combating the victimization, everybody is a victim. So your thoughts on those kinds of comments, it is not just them, but there are others who really say that America really went backwards instead of forwards.
DH (00:33:20):
Well, I mean, that is the culture war. They were only partially... They could not be against the civil rights that they granted. The Gingrichs and the Wills granted that we were right about that. I do not recall what Will would have said about the war in Vietnam, but that was a Democrat's war, so I do not know, I do not recall what he was saying. But what they were mostly railing against was the counterculture. It was the hippies. That was what offended the Newt Gingrichs, and particularly the George Wills. It was the long hair, pot smoking, cultural aspect of the (19)60s and early (19)70s that they were attributing all matters of evil things to.
SM (00:34:48):
I know that Barney Frank wrote a book many years ago called Speaking Frankly, and in that book, he said around, he would not talk about those two guys, but as a Democrat, he was even making comments about the fact that the Democratic Party better get their act together because they fell apart in (19)72 when McGovern was running for president because it was the anti-war group. It was the anti-war group. And the Democratic Party became identified as that anti-war group. And that is when Nixon came into power and, of course, Board filed, of course, another history there, but then Reagan. So there was a lot of backlash that party had to get away from the anti-war people, those kind of things. And he wrote about that in a book. He actually agrees, not that he agrees with it, but he says another thing there about the burden. Everything seemed to change around that time and the recommendations that we need to change our course, the Democratic Party.
DH (00:35:50):
Yeah. Well, he was and remained a liberal Democrat. He was always, he was strongly against the war in Vietnam and strongly against interventional strong policy. But sure, in large part over race, but also, over the counterculture. The Democratic Party lost the Catholic vote, the working class, the Italian and Irish Catholic stalwart voting blocks for the New Deal. Sometimes they went with Wallace or they went with Nixon and Agnew over his attacks against the student elitists and the liberal media run by the Ivy League graduates. And there was apart from the solid South, that is when you had the party realignment. I mean, the liberal Republicans became Democrats, and the conservative Democrats became Republican as the South, which Johnson said was going to happen, is that he signed the Civil Rights Act. He said that, "South is going to be Republican, and I am the one who made it sell." But he did. But you had the loss of the Irish and Italian Catholics in the cities and the suburbs went with Nixon-Agnew, and then they certainly went for Reagan.
SM (00:38:11):
In your viewpoint, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end?
DH (00:38:40):
I do not know. I do not know when it started in, I would have to think about that one. For me, it started in 1960. That is when I went off to college. I would say it ended in (19)72 with Nixon's reelection. So I think that is sort of when it ended.
SM (00:39:16):
Right.
DH (00:39:16):
That is when I would end it.
SM (00:39:22):
Do you think the Beats from... They were a small group, but they were also pretty influential, the Ginsbergs, the Kerouacs, and all that group, Waldman. They were kind of rebels in the (19)50s, I think. Of course, Ginsberg goes through, though, everything, Ferlinghetti and all of that group. They had influence on all on the (19)60s generation, the Vietnam generation.
DH (00:39:50):
Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah, sure. They fed directly into the counterculture. Well, they were all closeted homosexuals basically. Somewhere along the line, they came out of the closet, but they were involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements, and certainly, in the counterculture. Oh, okay. Let us see... Started with maybe the free speech movement in Berkeley.
SM (00:40:32):
And that was (19)64, (19)65.
DH (00:40:34):
Oh, was that that late?
SM (00:40:35):
Yeah, that was (19)64-
DH (00:40:37):
Then it started before that. No, really?
SM (00:40:41):
Yeah, that was (19)64, (19)65. And then Ginsberg wrote Howell. Of course, that was a very big thing in the (19)50s was freedom of speech and [inaudible].
DH (00:40:51):
Yeah, that is why I thought the free speech movement was earlier.
SM (00:40:56):
Yeah, that was (19)64, (19)65.
DH (00:40:57):
Really?
SM (00:40:57):
At Berkeley.
DH (00:41:01):
Oh, okay.
SM (00:41:03):
Port Huron Statement was earlier. That was-
DH (00:41:06):
Yeah, that was good. When was that?
SM (00:41:07):
That was around (19)63ish when Tom wrote that.
DH (00:41:07):
Okay.
SM (00:41:16):
And I thought, what is interesting, I always make a comment, and this is not about me, but personally, in what I have written as far as the book is that 1973 to me was the end of the (19)60s. And that is because people were streaking at college campuses. And I knew something, that the seriousness of a lot of the things back then because I am working at Ohio University and my very first job in student affairs, and my buddy's from Ohio State, he called me up, said, "You got to get back here on the weekend." I said, "Why?" "They are going to be streaking all over the place. You love beautiful women." And I said, "Well, let us go." So I drove back from OU, and lo and behold, behind the law library that the women were coming out and doing the Rockettes, and the guys would then come out. It was unbelievable. I said, "What the hell's going on here?" The protests are over [inaudible].
DH (00:42:06):
Oh, okay. Yeah.
SM (00:42:12):
Well, that is just an experience. One of the things I want to ask you, too, the boomers oftentimes, and again, I know you did not like the category, but the students that were in college in those times, in the (19)60s to maybe mid (19)70s, felt they were the most unique generation of American history. [inaudible] uniqueness. And there was a feeling that we are going solve all the problems in the world, racism, sexism, homophobia, bring peace in the world, a utopian kind of a mentality. Your thoughts on that kind of attitude that many of them had? Because I know I saw students talk about it, and a lot of them that are now in their early (19)60s, some of them still feel that. They have not lost that feeling, even though a lot of them really had gone out and made a lot of money and did not really get involved in causes. Just your thoughts on that.
DH (00:43:13):
On exactly what?
SM (00:43:19):
Oh, well, there was a uniqueness that they were the most unique.
DH (00:43:28):
Well, that is really, put that boldly is a little, off-puttingly arrogant. But you had different ways of it. You had the New Frontier getting the country moving again, and the idealism that was rekindled in various ways by the Kennedys, and the Peace Corps, that you did have that sort of optimism about getting the country moving again. And you also, you had the attitude so well expressed in Blowing in the Wind and some of the Dylan songs, get out of the way if you cannot make it. What was that song?
SM (00:44:35):
Blowing in the Wind or...
DH (00:44:43):
No, The Times They Are A-Changing. That is the one, The Times They Are A-Changing. You certainly had in the civil rights movement the sense that we were going to knock down the walls, and we did, but there was a consciousness that we were going to storm the citadels of segregation and knocked them down. I do not think you had quite that sense in Vietnam, because we had one short-lasting triumph. Well, we had two short-lasting triumphs. First triumph was the success of the Dump Johnson movement in the McCarthy campaign, both of which I was involved with. That is where I met Nixon and Sam Brown. But yeah, so we had such a good showing in New Hampshire that Bob Kennedy joined and LBJ dropped out. And then that soured real quickly and we ended up getting Richard Nixon. And four years later, I worked in the McGovern campaign. We succeeded [inaudible]. We succeeded in taking over the Democratic Party and then proceeded to lose every state except Massachusetts, I think, so that was short. And we were not succeeding. I mean, we were having big protests, and a lot of doors were open to us in Washington during the moratorium, but we were not... And we succeeded, it was actually Nixon. It was Nixon and Kissinger's plan to do what they finally did in the Christmas Bombing of (19)71, I guess. Was the Christmas Bombing (19)71 or (19)72? Must have been (19)71.
SM (00:47:38):
I know, in (19)70, is when they went in to Cambodia, though.
DH (00:47:42):
Yeah. Oh, no, maybe it was even later. Maybe it was his sec... Oh, it is all a little fuzzy now. But the massive bombing of Hanoi, it was later to force them to sign the... They were going to do that. They were going to do what became the Christmas Bombing. There is a name for it as a military operation, the Christmas Bombing is what we call it. It was not Operation Rolling Thunder. That was over Cambodia.
SM (00:48:22):
Yeah, that was early. That was earlier, yeah.
DH (00:48:24):
Whatever the name of it was, they were planning to do it in the winter of (19)69-(19)70. There was so much of an outpouring of peace sentiment that basically we organized in October and November of 1969 that they could not do it. They were afraid they would have the outcry that occurred in the spring at Kent State following the Cambodian invasion. So we forced them to postpone the carpet bombing of Hanoi for a couple of years. But you never had the sense that you were going to storm the citadels in the way we were storming them successfully in the civil rights movement. But in the civil rights movement, you had within SNCC a utopian faction called the... Well, sometimes they are called the crazy people faction and the better term was the beloved community. These were the interracial brotherhood of man folks, some of which peeled off into the hippies and yippies, but very pacifist, vegetarian, utopian. There were people involved in that who thought that they were creating the beloved community.
SM (00:50:25):
Is that Bob Moses? Was he in that?
DH (00:50:26):
Yeah, he was. Yes.
SM (00:50:27):
And John Lewis?
DH (00:50:29):
No, Lewis would have been in the realpolitik. Black Power really was sort of Black nationalist, the Stokely Carmichaels and Rap Brown.
SM (00:50:50):
Right, Eldridge Cleaver-
DH (00:50:52):
But you had Bayard Rustin from protest to politics. These people were going from protest to revolution or protest to Cultural Revolution and identity politics. But you had another stream represented by John Lewis and Julian Bond who said, "Hey, we got to vote. Let us run people from mayors and police chiefs, and I am going to run for Congress." So that was the protest to politics faction after the famous essay from Bayard Rustin. He said, "Oh, you got the vote. It is not utopia, but you will have Black policemen. You want Black sheriffs, Black policemen, Black city councilmen, you have the votes, go to it."
SM (00:52:07):
Yeah. When you think of some of the two most very important experiences, you already talked about Bayard Rustin, because he is from West Chester.
DH (00:52:16):
Yes.
SM (00:52:18):
And we did a national tribute on him during my time there. One of the great memories of that was the picture of him on stage with Malcolm X, because they debated each other. Actually, you can get that date, you can go right on the computer and get that and you can listen to it. So you got the debate between Malcolm and [inaudible 00:52:38] Malcolm says, "Your time has passed." And then there is that historic picture that I had not heard the transcript except to hear Stokely speak by himself. But those that witnessed that scene where Dr. King, his arms are folded as he is speaking to him, he was telling him, "Your time has passed." And so what you are talking, what you are seeing is you are seeing two men in their late 30s being told by people in their early 20s or middle 20s that their time was passed. Could you comment? Because you have already made reference to the fact that when SNCC went off into Black Power, it kind of disintegrated it. And the same thing happened with SDS when the Weathermen and the violent portion, people did not want to have anything to do with it anymore, including most people in SDS.
DH (00:53:31):
No. Yeah.
SM (00:53:31):
And so just what was happening there? What was this? How did they let this happen within their organizations? How did SDS and SNCC allow these more radical fringes to take over? Was it because of frustration and they were not feeling they were accomplishing anything?
DH (00:53:54):
That would have been part of it. I mean, I am sure there are a dozen books on this.
SM (00:54:00):
No, there are.
DH (00:54:02):
I would have to go back to, I mean, there are three or four histories of SDS, I am sure, or histories of the New Left that would detail its disintegration. But when would I date it from?
SM (00:54:31):
Well, when did you know, I got to get out of SDS?
DH (00:54:37):
No-no.
SM (00:54:37):
You were involved with David and Sam Brown organizing the moratorium. Obviously, you still had beliefs in (19)69, but the history says that the Vietnam Veterans Against-
DH (00:54:47):
No, they were already nuts by then.
SM (00:54:50):
Yes.
DH (00:54:53):
Well, you had different tendencies and debates within the anti-war. You had your old Left, you had your Trotskyites and your old fellow travelers from front groups originally set up by the CP 50s. And then you had your beloved community people and people like the Ginsbergs and the Ferlinghettis who were sort of in that cultural thing. And you had essentially the bulk of ADA, Americans for Democratic Action, which was the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.
SM (00:56:01):
Hubert Humphrey was in that.
DH (00:56:03):
Yeah, Hubert. That it split. But that had been organized by Reinhold Niebuhr, and Arthur Schlesinger, and John Kenneth Galbraith. And there was a hawk wing of that, but it was a small minority. Most went away. These were like Adlai Stevenson Democrats, Gene McCarthy. They were not Henry Wallace Democrats, but they were... Well, liberal Democrats. So you had the liberal Democrats turned against the war from the outset. They were opposed to the escalation of the war. And some of them were populists, like Frank Church, and the senator from Montana, he was Majority Leader.
SM (00:57:20):
Yeah, Mansfield.
DH (00:57:20):
Mansfield.
SM (00:57:21):
Mike Mansfield.
DH (00:57:25):
And some of the Democrats from California. But so were some of the Republicans from New York, Jacob Javits, they were not really. They were sort of liberals. So you had the utopians and you had the old Left. But out of frustration, I have not thought about this in a long time, why did this section of SDS go off the deep end?
SM (00:58:21):
I know Mark Rudd has written about it in his new book because he was part of that group.
DH (00:58:26):
Yeah, he sure was. I should read it. He is apologetic, I guess.
SM (00:58:35):
Yeah. Well, I did not know how much he was disliked by Bernardine Dohrn and some of those others. I mean, there is real dislike there.
DH (00:58:45):
Yeah. Oh, did he go underground?
SM (00:58:51):
Yes, he did.
DH (00:58:52):
Yes. Well, he was not exactly popular. I mean, he apparently had an abrasive personality, but that guy in Chicago who reemerged in the Clinton-
SM (00:59:11):
Obama.
DH (00:59:13):
Obama campaign. What was his name?
SM (00:59:15):
Oh, well, that is Bernardine-
DH (00:59:15):
Dohrn's husband.
SM (00:59:18):
Yeah. Oh, come on. It is Harris, I thought was his last name.
DH (00:59:24):
No-no, that is David Harris. [inaudible].
SM (00:59:26):
Yeah, I interviewed David over the phone. Yeah, so it will come to me.
DH (00:59:36):
But you started, I do not know where people got the idea that they could make a revolution. Well, yes, I do know. It started with the fact that the liberals were being seen as sellouts, the Carl Oglesby faction about Vietnam being a war of corporate liberals, that the liberals, you had people saying that it is the liberals who are the problem. Corporate liberalism was defined as the enemy. And then they got the weird idea that you could make a revolution. And people got into anti-capitalism, but not in the Ralph Nader sense, but in the Marxist sense of wanting to make socialist revolution and the goofball idea of Che Guevara about two, three, many Vietnams. Remember this slogan?
SM (01:00:58):
Two, three, many Vietnams?
DH (01:01:00):
Yeah, that is what-
SM (01:01:00):
No, I do not.
DH (01:01:02):
Oh, ah, yeah-yeah. So his thing, he thought that what you needed was two, three, or more Vietnam struggles where America would get bogged down and defeated in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. So one of his slogans that was picked up by the New Left crazies was, "Two, three, many Vietnams." Because they thought that would lead to the collapse of American imperialism. And he said, "No, wait a minute. We do not want more Vietnams. We want to stop the one that is." So they were going off in a different direction.
SM (01:01:55):
This is the complexity of the time then is trying to understand the times and all of its complexity. If I had 500 people in a room that were boomers, people that were born after (19)46, could be people that were in (19)43, (19)44, too, and in 19... Well, right now, they said, "What was the one event that had the greatest impact on your life?" What do you think a group of boomers would say, and what was the one event that had the greatest impact on your life?
DH (01:02:41):
Oh, I suppose it would have been the experience in Mississippi, Freedom Summer for my life, discovering a... I mean, I had not seen rural Southern poverty. I mean, I did not have the idea growing up in middle class Allentown, Pennsylvania. Bethlehem collapsed several years later, so there was a lot of... decades later. But growing up in Allentown, that was a prosperous little market town in between the Pennsylvania Dutch farmers, the Bethlehem steel workers, and the anthracite coal miners. Well, Allentown is sort of situated in the middle and they had textiles. The (19)50s, that is when people got the postwar American dream. So I had no idea that there was poverty, like I saw in Mississippi. I saw racial, social hatred. People hated other people. Why there was this hatred, why there was this poverty, why was there this hatred? What was that? I suppose that was-
SM (01:04:47):
It shaped your life, even beyond the anti-war and the-
DH (01:04:52):
Yeah. Well-
SM (01:04:53):
Was it because of your work with... Could you talk a little bit about how that experience may have helped shape you in terms of your professional life beyond school with Amnesty International, with the things that you have written about, I think Cambodia and-
DH (01:05:06):
North Korea.
SM (01:05:08):
...North Korea, with some of the terrible things that people do to other people, it seems like there is a link there.
DH (01:05:13):
Of course. I mean, it was called at the time, the civil rights movement. Okay, but what it was about was civil and political rights. King was never successful in turning the corner and tackling economic rights. I mean, he tried, the Poor People's Campaign, the stuff he tried in Chicago, but tackling urban poverty, and it never succeeded. But it was called the civil rights movement. 20 years later, if it were happening now, it would be called the human rights movement. And it was called the woman's movement. The gays took over- [inaudible] though the gaze took over, took the language. By the (19)70s, when that got up and going, the word human rights had entered the vocabulary. But human rights is civil right, political rights, economic rights, and social rights. Civil, political, economic, social, and cultural. The five sets of rights and that is what we would call it nowadays. The human rights movement was called the civil rights movement then. But that is what I have been doing ever since. And the Vietnam experience, working in international affairs has sort of internationalized it, so it was not just a purely domestic issue anymore. It was internationalized and it was not just Vietnam and the Tiger Cages or the treatment of POW's, our POW's or theirs. But it was the traction gained by the apartheid movement, that was international human rights. So essentially the Vietnam War gave it an international focus, but it is essentially the same kind of work that I was doing domestically in the civil rights movement in Mississippi and Georgia.
SM (01:08:17):
Basically what you was doing is what Dr. King wanted to do when he was expanding, because he talked about economics beyond race.
DH (01:08:26):
Sure.
SM (01:08:28):
And then he went north when they told him not to go north. A Cicero incident. We all know what happened there. And then of course, his speech on Vietnam, which people told him he should not do. Even people in the civil rights community.
DH (01:08:42):
Yeah, sure.
SM (01:08:43):
It was Rabbi Heschel who promoted and pushed it and said, "You need to do this."
DH (01:08:48):
Yeah. My old professor.
SM (01:08:50):
Well, he is an unbelievable person. There is a biography on him you ought to read. It is unbelievable. He has not talked about enough. People do not know him and he is very important.
DH (01:09:02):
I certainly remember him fondly. I took three classes with him. I went to Union to study with Lionel Neber. Neber had a stroke my first year, so I never got to study with Neber. But I ended up studying with Heschel.
SM (01:09:18):
You were lucky. My goodness.
DH (01:09:18):
Yeah.
SM (01:09:18):
You were close to Dr. King.
DH (01:09:18):
Pardon?
SM (01:09:22):
You were real close.
DH (01:09:22):
Oh yes, yes. I got to [inaudible]. I met King in those years. I went to his, before King gave his speech at Riverside Church. He had several meetings at Union Seminary, which is right across the street.
SM (01:09:47):
Really?
DH (01:09:47):
Yeah, because that is where Heschel was then. Heschel was still at the Jewish Theological, but he actually took a leave for two years and taught Old Testament at Union. And I was one of his students. And I taught Old Testament theology. But King, the president of the seminary was a guy by the name of John Bennett, who was Lionel Neber's main disciple. He taught Christian ethics also and wrote on ethics and international affairs, but became the president of the seminary. And he was challenging the students at Union to do more about Vietnam.
SM (01:10:40):
That is a great professor.
DH (01:10:43):
He was the president of the seminary, probably the only professor, the only president of a university that was exhorting students to do more about Vietnam. But King had several meetings and he was trying to figure out if he should come, if he should oppose Johnson as strongly as he did. If he should really break with LBJ.
SM (01:11:11):
Were you in those meetings?
DH (01:11:13):
I was. Well, I was in a couple of them. Some of them took place in Dr. Bennett's apartment at Union and others took place in his lawyer's office. He had a left wing lawyer. I forget the guy's name.
SM (01:11:34):
Oh, not Alan Mosley?
DH (01:11:36):
No-no, not Alan.
SM (01:11:37):
He was a professor at, I do not know. I do not remember the lawyer's name.
DH (01:11:42):
Oh. But Alan was very...
SM (01:11:43):
Cussler.
DH (01:11:44):
Pardon? No-no-no-no. It was not Cussler. It was...
SM (01:11:54):
Cussler worked [inaudible]. Yeah. Cussler was involved in defending people who got busted in the civil rights community. Yeah, that is what he did. Could you describe, because the only person I have ever talked to whose ever been in a meeting with Dr. King was James Farmer. In our campus and he shared so much with me at dinner and then I went with him for an hour and a half. And then of course we talked about it. But what was that like? I have some other basic questions here, but what a meeting like being with Dr. King in the room?
DH (01:12:29):
Well, he had these meetings to listen to what people had to say. He actually talked very little. I mean, he had these meetings to hear what people had to say. So he was very modest and soft-spoken. But you were obviously sitting in a living room with a Nobel Peace Prize winner who was thinking about something that was a world shaking impact and importance. So the meetings were not particularly dramatic. They were really him thinking, a little bit of thinking out loud.
SM (01:13:36):
Were you in a meeting where he actually said, "I had made the decision that I am going to go," or "Yeah, I am going to make the speech at church," or because if he had been wavering because what I read about Rabbi Heschel, you should not waiver. You ought to do it. And because people within the civil rights community, African American ministers were really upset with him.
DH (01:14:00):
Oh, sure. Well, they did not like him in the civil rights part either. Yeah. And then they, certainly, the Roy Wilkins and the Bayer trust in factions.
SM (01:14:16):
[inaudible] young was in that group.
DH (01:14:18):
Certainly opposed going against LBJ on foreign policies since what he had done so much for civil rights and was trying to do the war on poverty and going to, so it was really extraordinary, and I expect that Rabbi Heschel, who really was his spiritual mentor, he was Dr. King's rabbi.
SM (01:14:52):
I think Rabbi needs to be uplifted and not hidden. There is just so much history of this year that is hidden that our young people need to know about.
DH (01:15:04):
Yeah. Well, they do not study history anymore. But at any rate, okay, what are some of your questions?
SM (01:15:10):
Yeah, okay. Answering the one question there about what do you think the a group would say, the number one of event would be to shape their life? Yours was going down south. What would be the...
DH (01:15:25):
I have no idea. You would have to ask other people.
SM (01:15:30):
I have asked a lot of other people. Some people think John Kennedy's assassination, there is a lot of individual...
DH (01:15:36):
Oh wow.
SM (01:15:37):
It is more individual. I want to read something here. There is two basic issues that I am trying to get at in this interview process. One has to do with the issue of healing. And the other is the issue of trust. Oh, I am going to read this because we took a group of students to see Senator Edmund Muskie about a year and a half before he passed away. I got to know Gaylor Nelson and we had these unenrolled leadership trips, eight to 14 students [inaudible] meetings. And the students planned a question to ask him because they thought he was going to respond based on what happened at the 1968 convention. But, he totally gave a totally different response. This was the question the students came up with. Do you feel that the boomer generation or the young people that period are still having problems with healing from the divisions that tore the nation apart and their youth, divisions between black and white, divisions between those who support authority and those who criticize, divisions between those who supported the troops and those who did not, including those that went to war and those who did not? What has the wall played in healing these divisions? And is it, or was that just primarily healing for veterans? Do you feel that the boomer generation will go to its grave, like the civil war generation not truly healing? Am I wrong in thinking this after it was then last 30 years, now it is 40 years. Taking this after so many years, or has the statement, time heals all wounds, stay true? Now there is a lot there, but what we are trying to get at is it is like the people going to the Vietnam memorials and rethinking, or maybe I should not have been in the war. Maybe I should not have done what I did when I was young. Kids ask their father what they did in the war. Those kind of things, the healing. And I would go to Gettysburg a lot and you know, you even lived near Gettysburg when you were young. And one of the things you find at Gettysburg is the fact that on the southern side, so many things are left. People come up from the south, leave decals that they have not really forgotten.
DH (01:17:45):
No-no.
SM (01:17:45):
And you do not see anything on the northern side. Nothing. And I have noticed that for years because I go there four or five times just to get a feel of the terrible... You know, war is, it is just terrible. But Senator Muskie, basically his response was this, and then I will hear your response. His response was, he did not respond. Typical of what you saw on the news, he started to have tears in his eyes and he did not speak for a minute. And then he said, "We have not healed since the Civil War." Instead of talking about the (19)60s, he went out, I am talking for the next 10 minutes, 15, about the Civil War. Because he had just seen the Ken Burns series when he was in the hospital. The fact that we had lost almost an entire generation, 440,000 died, men died and all that other stuff. So that is what he talked about. But do you think we have a problem with healing in this nation? Is that this group of 70 million is, you know, you cannot do individually, but I have talked to enough people, there is something going on there. Is that an issue?
DH (01:18:55):
I do not think any more than any other people, and perhaps less. I bet that, well, I do not bet. I know there is more unhealing between Vietnamese who supported the North and Vietnamese who supported the South, there is still rank hostility there. That would be more comparable to our civil war, I suppose. I do not have this, and I bet Chilean people have not healed between those who were pro-Pinochet and those who were opposed Pinochet, the people who supported Allende and those who supported Pinochet probably are more hostile to each other than people who supported McGovern versus people who supported Nixon. Our disputes were, for the most part, not life and death struggles. Those other struggles were life and death. And people on both sides lost their lives.
SM (01:20:40):
Wow.
DH (01:20:41):
So I...
SM (01:20:48):
I preface this by saying, Jan Scruggs wrote that book, the founder of the Vietnam Memorial, 'To Heal a Nation', which was his book, very well received. And of course the goal of the Vietnam Memorial was to create a non-political entity [inaudible] to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice and to help their families and to heal, and the veterans themselves. I know there is still not a lot of healing within the vets, but...
DH (01:21:12):
Oh, I think it succeeded enormously. I do not know of anybody who has not moved, whether they were draft resistors or whether they were Vietnam vets. Everybody I know of whose ever seen it is enormously moved by the wall. It was just a genius of an idea.
SM (01:21:39):
Oh yeah. Well, it is still...
DH (01:21:42):
Compared to the idiotic [inaudible], the memorial to the Korean War vets is just awful. And the new one to the World War II vets is just awful also. It is that gargantuan circle with the columns in Washington. That is really ugly. Any rate, so I do not think, but I am sure there is some bitterness, but I think a lot of people have gotten over it.
SM (01:22:23):
So the walls painted, it does not have a decent job [inaudible] that is even beyond the vets.
DH (01:22:30):
I think so, yes. I mean because it is so successful as a memorial that the vets feel that their friends who lost their lives are recognized and memorialized. So, you have small, small traces of the POW mentality. But that is faded as it is now ceased to become tenable. That there are still people being held. And also by the fact that the Vietnamese and the Americans get along so well.
SM (01:23:26):
Well, 85 percent of the people I believe that live in Vietnam now, were not even alive when the...
DH (01:23:33):
And they love Americans.
SM (01:23:34):
Right. It is beautiful.
DH (01:23:36):
And veterans go back there and are received, they got up and they are received with open arms.
SM (01:23:43):
There is a respect between the warriors ever since then.
DH (01:23:48):
Yeah. Or the young people who enlist their parents and grandparents, not them.
SM (01:23:57):
The other issue is the label of trust. Boomers, people saw so many leaders lie to them in their view. And actually as they have gotten older, it is like lies continue amongst other presidents. And I guess we are looking at leadership here, whether it be Watergate with Nixon, whether it be President Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin. Even recent things written about President Kennedy and what he did or did not know about the overthrow of Diem. You know a little bit about Eisenhower lying about U2. A lot of people did not trust Ford when Nixon was leaving. And of course, Reagan and Iran-Contra. It goes on and on. So there is a lack of trust. And I am wondering if this goes back to something when I was in college where a professor said, "If you cannot trust people that you may not be a success in life. You have to trust others. Being able to trust others is important for a human being." As a generation if they are advertised or labeled as a non-trusting generation, is that good or bad? Or am I wrong in this interpretation?
DH (01:25:07):
I have no idea. I do not know. I mean, it seems so routine that governments lie. They just do. But yeah, I have no idea.
SM (01:25:36):
A political science professor would say, because they teach politics, is that the art of politics is really about not trusting your government because you do not trust your government, that is healthy. That is what a political scientist would say.
DH (01:25:50):
Okay.
SM (01:26:00):
I do not know if there is any reaction to that or not, but do you, and again, maybe you cannot answer this, but I have asked a lot of people the question is, have boomers been good parents, have they raised good kids and grandkids now? Now I cannot talk about grandkids in terms of doing some of the things they did where they were young in terms of activism. Where has activism gone? There is a lot of good things being done and there is always examples of it everywhere and Amnesty International. There is a lot of great groups out there that do great things. But did they really passed their experiences on, have you passed your experiences on to younger people? Because sometimes that is very important as they evolve [inaudible] into adults.
DH (01:26:48):
I do not know.
SM (01:26:58):
I think what I am really getting at here is, are you pleased... Forget about the boomers. These young people that were young in the (19)60s and the (19)70s who have now gone on, who are now reaching social security age this year for the first time. Have they really lived up to their beliefs, their idealism? And again, we are only talking even about 15 percent of 70 million. That is still a lot of people. Are you disappointed?
DH (01:27:29):
Never even thought about it. It is not a question that would have occurred to me. And I do not know how you generalize about that. I am just drawing a blank on that one.
SM (01:27:50):
Yeah. What were we just talking about? Had not thought...
DH (01:27:57):
I do not know about trust.
SM (01:27:59):
Yeah. But it is about the responses that many people have had is that I am very disappointed in these young people as opposed to the young people from then. So...
DH (01:28:13):
Well, I mean, I meet a lot of young people. The young people I meet, are the committed ones. The activist ones. Those are who I meet and they are great.
SM (01:28:27):
Well, a couple more questions here. And that is looking at the movements of that period because movements are really part of what the older generation was all about. There were so many movements that about, you already talked about being in the civil rights as a young person, civil rights movement and the anti-war movement itself. But the other movements that evolved around this period, the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the Chicano, the Native American, the environmental movement, all these movements kind of looked to the civil rights movement as kind of a teacher.
DH (01:28:57):
Yeah, sure.
SM (01:28:59):
And it seemed like they were together. There was a lot of togetherness. When you did that 1969 moratorium, I would assume that you had probably individuals from all those groups there. Earth Day had not happened yet, but...
DH (01:29:15):
The what?
SM (01:29:15):
Earth Day had not happened until 1970, but...
DH (01:29:18):
No, we knew the Earth Day people very well. And we agreed with them. And they agreed with us. I mean, they were all opposed to the war. They came to our demonstrations. We had not thought about the issues they were raising, but when they raised them, we agreed with them. But yes, so Earth Day was that spring.
SM (01:29:57):
Right.
DH (01:30:00):
So they were interested in us because we had run big demonstrations and that is what they were doing. So we knew them and liked them.
SM (01:30:10):
All these other groups that I mentioned. You were linked to them though in some way, were not you? Explain more of that moratorium. How much work went into that, explain when the idea came up and you know that, how long it took you and you had a big crowd, but that kind of was the last hurrah.
DH (01:30:29):
No-no-no. It was probably nothing bigger than the October (19)69 moratorium because that was decentralized. But I would not be surprised if some of the Earth Day things. But certainly you then had bigger demonstrations in Washington for various things over the years. The idea for the moratorium... Oh, excuse me.
SM (01:31:07):
I hope I am not tiring you.
DH (01:31:13):
Pain from... Oh, I think I need to make some coffee. After the McCarthy campaign, I was working for the National Student Association as their anti-Vietnam and anti-draft coordinator in Washington. And there, Sam Brown was at the Kennedy School at Harvard. There was a peace group, an old line peace group in Boston called Mass PAC, Massachusetts Peace Action Council or something. And the guy that ran it was his named Jerry Grossman. He was a businessman. I think he made envelopes. But Mass PAC had the idea of an expanding student strike of you would start off at the campuses for one day, then the next month you would try to expand it for two days and then the third month expand it for three days and you try to make it larger, bigger, and longer each month. We changed, and it seemed like a good idea. I have been at the National Student Association, you work with student governments and college newspaper editors as opposed to your local peace committees. So there is always a student body president, there is always a student council, there is always college newspaper's. So it sort of institutionalized. And by that time, almost all people who got to be student body presidents or editor of their college newspaper were anti-war. And with the editors, you had a base to get your opinions out because they ran the student newspaper, they wrote the editorials and with the student... We took the idea. No, so we had this network of student body presidents, college newspaper editors and changed the idea. Instead of calling it a strike, we called it a moratorium because there had been that spring, the spring of (19)69, I forget what campuses erupted then. Maybe Cornell, Columbia.
SM (01:34:02):
Oh yes, Cornell for sure.
DH (01:34:05):
Harvard. You know you...
SM (01:34:07):
Harvard Yard. Yep.
DH (01:34:10):
So this was not designed to, this was not a protest against the college administration. This was against, it was designed to show Nixon and Kissinger that if they wanted to close out the war in Vietnam, there would be a lot of public support for doing that. So we did not like the term, students strike because of what had gone on the campuses that preceding spring. The word strike would sound as if it is directed against the college administration. And it was not. But at any rate, it seemed like this was mixed. The four of us who did it who were the national coordinators all met in the moratorium, I mean in the McCarthy campaign.
SM (01:35:20):
Okay.
DH (01:35:20):
So we were like the liberal wing of the anti-war movement who were not opposed to electoral politics or working with capitalist politicians. So we had got a bunch of these student body presidents and editors together in my office in Washington. And Sam came down from Boston and pitched this idea, which he had gotten from Jerry Grossman. And they sort of liked it. So we set up an office and over the summer with two or three people, called college administrations to find out the name and home phone number of the student body presidents.
SM (01:36:28):
And they gave it out.
DH (01:36:29):
And in those years they gave it out.
SM (01:36:33):
They do not do that now.
DH (01:36:33):
They do not do that now. And then we tracked these people down on their, wherever they were for the summer and say, "We have this thing that we wanted to see if you are interested in. Send me some information." And because we wanted to start in the middle of October, so you would have to start organizing it as soon as kids come back in September. So there was only three, four weeks to organize it once you return to school. But originally the press was interested in us and the reporters that were assigned to cover what we were doing were the reporters for Time, and Newsweek, and US News & World Report who covered the campus, who covered education. They wanted to know what was going to happen on the colleges tonight. And so we went public about what we were doing. And so the Press Corps in Washington, we knew a lot of them. We knew the journalists who covered the McCarthy, the political journalists who covered the McCarthy campaign. Ayi-yi-yi.
SM (01:38:07):
I think you answered that pretty good. Okay. Quick question here and with respect to why the Vietnam War ended, just your thoughts on why it ended, if there is one major reason, and number two, how important were the college students in ending the war in Vietnam?
DH (01:38:47):
Well, they were probably the major, they were the face of the opposition to the war in Vietnam. It was the faculty...It was the faculty and students, and a lot more students. They were more important than the faculty. The war ended. We were able to build up enough pressure on the administration that they had to withdraw the troops in dribs and drabs. If they did not keep bringing the troops out, the pressure would have built up again. And by that time, pressure would be coming from Congress as well. It was clear enough that Congress wanted the war to be brought to a close. The clearest indication of which was the growing congressional support for resolutions that cut the funding.
SM (01:40:20):
Yeah.
DH (01:40:22):
That is real clear. And it was...
SM (01:40:29):
I believe Senator Nelson was involved in that, too.
DH (01:40:35):
Oh, sure.
SM (01:40:35):
Yeah.
DH (01:40:35):
Yeah. So it was a Republican, Goodell?
SM (01:40:42):
Yes. Yeah.
DH (01:40:43):
From New York.
SM (01:40:44):
Yes-yes. A big, big person for this.
DH (01:40:46):
Hatfield, McGovern. There were two.
SM (01:40:47):
Yep.
DH (01:40:48):
There was a softer one and a harder one. I forget which is which. But Hatfield and McGovern. Were they... That must have been the harder one.
SM (01:41:01):
Right.
DH (01:41:06):
I do not recall them exactly. They had nixed it, I remember.
SM (01:41:10):
I know that senator, the one from Alaska, too.
DH (01:41:13):
Oh, it is Stevens. Ted Stevens, yeah.
SM (01:41:15):
Hruska? I forget the... He was against it, too.
DH (01:41:21):
Oh. Oh, it was not-
SM (01:41:22):
Yeah, Stevens.
DH (01:41:22):
He is the terrible guy.
SM (01:41:23):
Yeah.
DH (01:41:40):
Oh...
SM (01:41:40):
It was H-R-U-S-K-A. I know. It was Senator Hruska. And Senator Harris was also involved in that as well.
DH (01:41:40):
Kissinger and Nixon thought that they were going to be able to rely on US air power. They were only withdrawing the troops. The US bombing in support of the South Vietnamese troops was supposed to continue. But then Congress did cut off the funds, and they could not continue the bombing. And without air support, neither the North Vietnamese nor the South Vietnamese abided by the terms of the Paris Agreement. That was a face-saving mechanism to get us out. But neither the North nor the South followed it. So it was clear that they were going to fight each other once we left. Kissinger and Nixon thought they would be able to use US air power to tip the balance, but they could not, so the two armies fought it out. And from the very first battle, the South Vietnamese Army collapsed. Precipitously, they lost the first two battles. After that, they did not fight anymore. They all just fled, and it ended in a rout.
SM (01:43:01):
In 1975, when Phil Caputo was there in Vietnam as a reporter, not as a Marine, he talks about the fear of being shot by the South Vietnamese military for "They are abandoning us." Those kinds of things. Real fast here. Books. What were the books that people were reading? Do you remember what you were reading when you were in college, and in the (19)60s? What were the Students for a Democratic Society students reading? What were the anti-war students reading? Were there any books that stood out, the authors? You mentioned Che already, Che Guevara, what he had to say.
DH (01:43:46):
No, but he was-
SM (01:43:47):
Yeah. Yeah, [inaudible].
DH (01:43:48):
He was a nut case.
SM (01:43:49):
Yeah.
DH (01:43:51):
Oh, I do not know. John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society.
SM (01:44:02):
Big book.
DH (01:44:03):
That was a... Oh. Oh, the...
SM (01:44:12):
Going to the back stretches of your mind here. We are bringing stuff out.
DH (01:44:25):
Erich Fromm, the psychologist.
SM (01:44:28):
The psychologist. Right.
DH (01:44:37):
He wrote books. Ah, Samuelson, Economics 101. Everybody read Samuelson. I am trying to think. I mean, I do not know. You could read the same...
SM (01:45:05):
Were books like The Greening of America, does that... Did you read that?
DH (01:45:09):
Yeah, but that was later. That was not college. That was much later. Yes, I remember reading it. I thought it was a very odd book to come from a law professor. But we were part of it. It was sort of fun. It was a book about us.
SM (01:45:33):
And there was Theodore Roszak's The Making of a Counter Culture. There was Harry Edwards' Black Students. There were a lot of really good ones. Most of them were in the late (19)60s, early (19)70s, those books.
DH (01:45:44):
Yeah. When I was at Union, I did read everything [inaudible] wrote. I mean, I read all of his books.
SM (01:46:03):
Did you read King?
DH (01:46:05):
Oh, you mean his-
SM (01:46:05):
He wrote six books.
DH (01:46:11):
I am sure I did, but they were mostly sermons. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Or Manchild in the Promised Land. Claude Brown, Manchild in the Promised Land.
SM (01:46:31):
Oh, yeah.
DH (01:46:32):
And the Autobiography of Malcolm X.
SM (01:46:34):
Alex Haley wrote it.
DH (01:46:36):
Yeah. C. Wright Mills.
SM (01:46:43):
White Collar?
DH (01:46:44):
Yeah.
SM (01:46:45):
Tom Hayden wrote a book on that.
DH (01:46:46):
Pardon?
SM (01:46:47):
Tom Hayden wrote a book on C. Wright Mills.
DH (01:46:53):
His...
SM (01:46:54):
Recently.
DH (01:46:55):
Oh.
SM (01:46:55):
He is a prolific writer. I mean, he is putting a book out every year now. Couple of the-
DH (01:47:03):
Oh. Oh, I am trying to think. Guy who just died. He used to write for the Village Voice. No-no.
SM (01:47:17):
I know who you are talking about. Not William Sapphire. It is... He just passed away, but... Kempton?
DH (01:47:25):
No, not Mary Kempton. No-no.
SM (01:47:28):
Well, couple of the... There were slogans. Slogans were very important part. You already mentioned Che Guevara's slogan, and "We Shall Overcome," which is the Civil Rights Movement. There were three that I have been mentioning in the last part of my interviews. The last 50 people I have interviewed. Not the first 50 because it has been going on a long time. Three that may define the entire era. One of them is Malcolm X, too. "By any means necessary." That is number one. The second one is Bobby Kennedy, which was a Henry David Thoreau quote, "Some men see things as they are and ask why, I see things that never were and ask why not." That is kind of the activism, the anti-war.
DH (01:48:14):
Mm-hmm.
SM (01:48:14):
And then you have got the counterculture, which is really the Peter Mack posters with the artists who put unbelievable quotes. And I had it on my door as one of the biggest selling posters in 1970, (19)71, at Ohio State. The words were, you do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful." And that is kind of the counterculture, hippie-dippy kind of....
DH (01:48:36):
Yeah. That is the new one. Never heard of that one. That one passed me by.
SM (01:48:41):
Well, I regret not having the poster. The poster is worth about $500. Those things you bought in the store that were in the round, they only made so many of them. Do you think those really define... If you were to say the quotes, when I mentioned those three, someone said, "You have got to say, 'We shall overcome.'" Do you think that really combines the era? "By any means necessary" is symbolic of SDS and Black Power?
DH (01:49:11):
Oh, I do not know. I mean, no, that is just, well, I do not know. My response to it is that that is empty rhetoric. There is no substance to that. What does it mean? I mean, this was just rhetorical militancy. That is like the other slogan associated with Malcolm X. "He was ready. Are you?" No, I was... The only one of those that... To me, "any means necessary" is empty rhetoric. What does it mean when the other people have all the guns?
SM (01:50:03):
Right.
DH (01:50:05):
And sometimes you have the vote, sometimes you do not. What is "any means necessary"? What is that? It is meaningless. And I never heard of the last one you mentioned. So, by a process of elimination, the Thoreau quote is probably the best example of the nerve and spirit that Bobby Kennedy struck during his last year of his political life. And that which rekindled the idealism that John Kennedy had, the new frontier had sparked five, six years earlier. Bobby Kennedy revived that, and that quote is probably the core or the essence of what he was aspiring to when he ran for president.
SM (01:51:44):
Yeah. Because, boy, that speech he gave in Indianapolis was just-
DH (01:51:47):
Whew.
SM (01:51:47):
...Off the cuff, and it was just unbelievable. There was something that Senator McCarthy, when I interviewed him in (19)96, the only thing where he basically said, "I will not comment, read it in my book" was when I mentioned Bobby Kennedy. So there was still-
DH (01:52:04):
Oh, yeah.
SM (01:52:05):
Yeah, he... Being a person, as you and David and others who worked for McCarthy, were you upset when he just simply disappeared? I mean, he decided not to run? That is still a mystery, why he just kind of gave up.
DH (01:52:22):
No-no. No. I mean, I actually stayed close with him for all of... I saw him a couple weeks before he died.
SM (01:52:36):
Oh, you did?
DH (01:52:36):
Yes.
SM (01:52:37):
I went to... Were you at the church when they had the memorial?
DH (01:52:41):
Yes.
SM (01:52:41):
I was there. I sat over to the left.
DH (01:52:43):
Oh.
SM (01:52:43):
You could see me on C-SPAN. All the dignitaries were in the center. I sat over to the left. He was just a nice person. We got along because we were both Irish, and I had met him four times. And I gave him a sweatshirt at Westchester University when we went down once. And I said something to him, "I think probably most of the people give these sweatshirts to secretaries." He says, "well, I am not going to give it to a secretary. I want to keep it and wear it because it was green." And I get this letter at home. I sent him a letter thanking him for meeting our students. And I got this nice, nice note from him that he sent to me. And then he had two pictures. He was standing in front of his home, wearing the Westchester sweatshirt. And he said basically, "See, I told you I was going to wear it." Yeah, I liked him. I liked him because we hit it off, and I love the fact that he always would quote the poet, Lowell. So he was good.
DH (01:53:50):
Yeah. How many years was he the senator? 12, 18?
SM (01:53:52):
I think it was 18. He went out along with... Boy, the 1980 coup with all of... Senator Nelson.
DH (01:54:01):
Yeah. There was a-
SM (01:54:02):
Senator McCarthy, Birch Bayh, I mean, it was unbelievable. They all went out at the same time.
DH (01:54:07):
Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah. 18 years at the same job. I have never had the same job. He had been a congressman too. Yeah. So there was nothing that he was going to do as a senator that he had not done. He had no aspiration to be head of... Speaker... Not Speaker of the House. Yeah, no. Yeah. Whatever that was.
SM (01:54:42):
Majority leader.
DH (01:54:44):
Yeah. He did not want to. He was much too much of a poet to do back room deals, which is what the majority leader has to do. And nothing he was going to do as a senator would match what he did in (19)68. So-
SM (01:54:59):
Right.
DH (01:55:10):
He was really a poet. He was an intellectual. He was much more-
SM (01:55:12):
He had a PhD, did not he, in history? And he was a professor and he was chair of his department.
DH (01:55:17):
Yeah. Yeah. He was a serious Irish intellectual. Literature, I think. Or what? Politics.
SM (01:55:28):
Yeah, I am not sure either. But I know McGovern has a PhD too.
DH (01:55:32):
Yeah, he does.
SM (01:55:33):
Very smart people.
DH (01:55:35):
So at any rate, I was not surprised. And then he wrote poetry. We stayed in touch. My wife is much more interested in poetry. So they would talk a lot because they could talk about the poets. And she was in English Lit major.
SM (01:55:59):
They said when he passed, he was in a senior home someplace or...
DH (01:56:01):
Yeah. Yeah. We went to see him there. And he was basically in and out of consciousness. Or in and out of recognition. He recognized Sam Brown. Sam and I and our wives went to see him. And he recognized Sam and he recognized me. And you would have snatches of conversation for a couple of sentences, but... So of course, we were really glad that we got to see him because he died several weeks later. So I was glad to see him before he-
SM (01:56:40):
Nice to see Bill Clinton there. Bill Clinton was there and spoke too. That was nice. I am at the last part of the interview. Thanks for going over, too. I have gone over by time here.
DH (01:56:51):
Oh, yeah.
SM (01:56:51):
Yep. But I want to just end by just, if you can just give me quick responses. These are just names of... Whoops. These are just names of people or terms or events. And just, I know it is hard to put in a few words, but just your overall quick reaction to these. What does the Vietnam Memorial mean to you?
DH (01:57:13):
Oh, the fitting and appropriate way to honor those who died, even though the war was lost and should not have been fought.
SM (01:57:41):
What does Kent State and Jackson State mean to you?
DH (01:58:00):
The tail end and the height of the protest against the war, and the increasing repression that was stimulated by the Mitchells and Agnews in their response to our protests.
SM (01:58:20):
Watergate.
DH (01:58:25):
Latent dishonesty of the administration. And its willingness to violate the law, knowingly, purposefully.
SM (01:58:37):
Woodstock and the Summer of Love.
DH (01:58:41):
Well, Woodstock was just the rock and roll and the counterculture, and the awareness of the size of the countercultural constituency. Summer of Love, because that was (19)67. That was... No, it is not San Francisco.
SM (01:59:07):
Yeah, it was San Francisco.
DH (01:59:09):
Oh. No, that was the beginning of-
SM (01:59:10):
Haight-Ashbury. Golden Gate Park, all that.
DH (01:59:14):
That was the golden era of the flower children, before bad drugs turned it nasty.
SM (01:59:30):
How about just the words hippies and yippies? They are different.
DH (01:59:36):
Yeah, sure they are different. Oh, I liked the hippies. I admired the political theater of the yippies and the idea of going to the Stock Exchange, throwing dollar bills from the balcony. I mean, you got to admire someone who came up with that idea. But for the most part, they were crazies. And we wanted them to do their thing somewhere different from where we were doing our thing. Because they were not as counterproductive as the pro-Vietcong left. I mean, those people, with their Vietcong flags, were setting us back. Because that is what drove the union people, the working people, nuts. That was really unpatriotic. Because we wanted the hippies not to do their thing at our demonstrations. So if they did their thing on their own, like bills from the Stock Exchange, fine. That is great political theater. But do not do it at our demonstrations.
SM (02:01:06):
How about the year 1968?
DH (02:01:09):
Great year.
SM (02:01:14):
That is-
DH (02:01:18):
Great Year. We drove LBJ from office.
SM (02:01:22):
We lost some important people, in Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. That was sad.
DH (02:01:30):
Oh, yeah. It surely was. But when I think of (19)68, I think of... And obviously, the Chicago convention was awful.
SM (02:01:45):
Right.
DH (02:01:47):
But I think of... (19)68 to me is New Hampshire and Wisconsin primaries.
SM (02:01:49):
Were you at the (19)68 convention?
DH (02:01:49):
I was, yes. And I was in New Hampshire and Wisconsin too.
SM (02:01:58):
Oh, my god.
DH (02:01:58):
Yeah, so...
SM (02:02:01):
How about Vietnam Veterans Against the War?
DH (02:02:07):
Fabulous. Fabulous. It was invaluable.
SM (02:02:15):
They kind of took over the movement after the SDS kind of faltered.
DH (02:02:20):
Well, SDS was involved in the first... They sponsored the first anti-war demonstration in Washington in 1965. They then dropped out of the anti-war movement and went into community organizing. And Hayden went over to Newark and did that project there. And they did not reenter the anti-war thing until [inaudible] and The Weathermen, by which time they were totally destructive. They were involved in the anti-war movement at its founding, but then they did not pursue it. They actually dropped out. They were into global revolution and anti-imperialist throw.
SM (02:03:15):
But the Black Panthers, which is really there is seven or eight of them, because you have got to think of H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael. But you think of Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Norman... Angela Davis. They are all Black Panthers in their own way. They all had a... And Elaine Brown and Dave Hilliard. There is a lot of them. Just your thoughts on the Black Panthers as a whole.
DH (02:03:42):
Well, most of them were praised nut cases. The one I remember the best is Fred Hampton.
SM (02:03:56):
Yeah, he was killed.
DH (02:03:57):
Yeah. I went to his funeral in Chicago. The police went after them in ways that violated their civil liberties, to put it mildly. And the police targeted and killed them. Those were police executions. Totally unjustified. But you know, you sort of admired the bravado of the early Panthers, but [inaudible]. And I am not sure that, what is her name... Angela Davis was never a Panther. She was really an orthodox Marxist-Leninist, Communist Party member. But a lot of the Panthers were sort of crazy. They were going off. They were off the deep end. And some of them were heavily involved in criminality. They were actually criminals who picked up on human rights, civil rights rhetoric. But they were flaky. And I guess Eldridge Cleaver wrote well or something.
SM (02:05:21):
Wrote for Ramparts.
DH (02:05:22):
Oh.
SM (02:05:24):
Yeah.
DH (02:05:24):
But after Ramparts had its... Its best [inaudible] were behind it.
SM (02:05:29):
Yeah. And Kathleen Cleavers went on to be a lawyer at Emory. So she is writing her biography right now.
DH (02:05:36):
Oh.
SM (02:05:36):
And she is a pretty nice person. Of course, she is kind of different than the rest of them. So anyways-
DH (02:05:45):
Well, you know, they burned themselves out.
SM (02:05:49):
Right. Jane Fonda. These are just names now. Just real quick thoughts on names.
DH (02:06:03):
Good actress, gorgeous lady. Made great fitness videos. Got in over her head on the... And lost her head on Vietnam. Said some dumb stuff.
SM (02:06:40):
Tom Hayden.
DH (02:06:40):
Very good writer. Went off the deep end, in my opinion, very early on.
SM (02:06:51):
About Rennie Davis?
DH (02:06:53):
A sweet guy. Rennie was a friend. We enjoyed each other's company a lot. But he burned himself out too. I do not know what he ended up doing.
SM (02:07:13):
Yeah, I interviewed him. He is doing the spirituality things right now.
DH (02:07:17):
Is that right?
SM (02:07:18):
Yeah.
DH (02:07:18):
Oh.
SM (02:07:19):
And of course he went on to be very successful in technology and things.
DH (02:07:24):
He is a very-very bright guy, but really sweet. Very nice guy.
SM (02:07:29):
Timothy Leary.
DH (02:07:43):
Oh. Someone else who also went off the deep end. Took too much LSD, I suppose. It may have happened to him anyway, but certainly, certainly he lost it.
SM (02:07:55):
Phillip and Daniel Berrigan.
DH (02:08:05):
Made a terrific contribution. I wish there were thousands more. There. Along with Pope John, the Berrigans are my favorite Catholics.
SM (02:08:20):
I think, yeah, we had them both on our campus. And actually, we brought Philip in, his last speech. His last speech was given in Philip's Library five weeks before he died. I went to his funeral.
DH (02:08:32):
Oh, my.
SM (02:08:32):
Yeah, so...
DH (02:08:34):
Yeah. Well, they were great. Yeah, the McCarthys were a little bit like that. A stream of Irish Catholicism that... They were the redeeming strain. They were really good. There was the Jesuit-trained intellectuality.
SM (02:08:55):
He was an expert. I was going to ask too. Eugene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy, just quick thoughts on both of them.
DH (02:09:07):
Well. Oh, well, McCarthy was terrific. Bobby made up for, in the last year or two of his life... Because previously, I do not know what he did that amounted to much good other than I suppose helping his brother get elected president. But he was a spoiled rich kid.
SM (02:09:53):
How about, talking about-
DH (02:09:53):
But his last two years redeemed.
SM (02:09:57):
He was very important in the missile crisis. Very important. If you read Thirteen... Well, I think one of the classic books of all time is Thirteen-
DH (02:10:08):
Oh, yeah.
SM (02:10:08):
And there is no question that he did help his brother. And thank the Lord, because they were the only two that were not going to go bombing down in Cuba. John Kennedy and Richard Nixon.
DH (02:10:29):
Well, I was... The New Frontier sparked something in my life, but I was actually never much of a fan of Kennedy's presidency. At the time, I was critical that he was not doing enough on civil rights, actually. Who was the other one? Oh, Nixon.
SM (02:11:13):
Nixon. Nixon.
DH (02:11:14):
Oh, what a very complex, very complex guy. And it is too bad about Vietnam and Watergate because he did two things in foreign policy that were terrific. One of which was the reconciliation with China, and detente with the Soviet Union. And those were brilliant. And he was-
DH (02:12:01):
...and he was such an odd liberal in his domestic policy. He did wage and price controls. He started the Environmental Protection Agency and was interested in a guaranteed annual income. Do you remember that?
SM (02:12:26):
Mm-hmm.
DH (02:12:28):
He was toying around with that idea. So he was willing to do what was then considered radical welfare reform, of the sort that welfare rights organization and only leftists were arguing for.
SM (02:12:46):
What is interesting is Dennis Hayes, who I interviewed, he mentioned that Nixon really did not give a darn about the environment. What he ended up doing is he created what you just mentioned, because he thought it was going to bring votes to him, so...
DH (02:13:00):
Well...
SM (02:13:01):
He was a pragmatist, a pragmatic fellow.
DH (02:13:04):
Yeah. But he...
SM (02:13:05):
I think of Spiro Agnew, another one from the period.
DH (02:13:09):
Oh, just a wretched crook.
SM (02:13:17):
George McGovern.
DH (02:13:20):
Very nice man.
SM (02:13:22):
Benjamin Spock.
DH (02:13:27):
He was a good guy. He played an important role. I just saw McGovern, by the way, about three weeks ago, like four weeks, a month ago.
SM (02:13:36):
Was he at the National Press Club, were you there?
DH (02:13:38):
No-no. He came up here for the memorial service for Mary Travis, of Peter, Paul and Mary.
SM (02:13:45):
Really.
DH (02:13:46):
Yeah, he spoke at it.
SM (02:13:49):
Oh my gosh. Where was that?
DH (02:13:52):
The Riverside Church.
SM (02:13:53):
Oh, geez.
DH (02:13:55):
Any rate, yeah, so I had not seen him in a decade or so. God, I hope I am in half that shape when I am his age.
SM (02:14:08):
Yeah, he is pretty sharp. He spoke at the National Press Club, talking about his new book on Lincoln. He did a great job. The women, we have not talked a lot about the women, but your thoughts on Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug, and Betty Friedan and that particular group, because the women's movement evolved out of the anti-war and civil rights, and there has been a lot of things written about the sexism that took place in the anti-war movement and civil rights movement-
DH (02:14:39):
Yes.
SM (02:14:39):
...the women's movement [inaudible] because of it.
DH (02:14:42):
Yes.
SM (02:14:45):
I know I am going overboard here, but you are a great interview and you have a lot of experience. Could you talk a little bit about, because Dr. King would be very sensitive about this today, if he was alive to see it, it was happening. In fact, I had talked to Edythe Bagley, who is the sister of Coretta Scott King, and even she brought it up. I have talked about Martin, but those kind of things. So talk about that particular thing about sexism and also about how important these women leaders were in the late (19)60s, early (19)70s.
DH (02:15:17):
Well, the leaders of the Civil Rights movement were men who took advantage of their position with women. I mean, it was really women staffers in SNCC who were the ones who rebelled against the treatment of women by the Black civil rights leaders. And most of the people in the anti-war movement initially were men also, of the four coordinators of the moratorium, one out of four was a woman, Marge Sklenkar.
SM (02:16:15):
Is she still alive?
DH (02:16:18):
No-no. She died a long time ago. But the women were important in that movement. Bella, of course, who was wonderful. She was a good friend. She was a terrific lady.
SM (02:16:41):
She always wore a hat, that is why I am wearing one.
DH (02:16:46):
She was terrific. She is a real character.
SM (02:16:48):
By the way, I can tell you why I am wearing the hat. Ohio State won the Rose Bowl.
DH (02:16:54):
Indeed.
SM (02:16:58):
I am an Ohio State graduate, and I had a bet that they were going to lose.
DH (02:16:58):
Oh.
SM (02:17:01):
Because they had lost every big-
DH (02:17:02):
Yes, they had.
SM (02:17:03):
…for a couple years. And so, I have a bet with Dr. Adell from Westchester University. The bet, since I am no longer at the school, he said, "You have to wear a hat to everything when you leave your house for the next month." So that is why I am wearing it, and I am following through because if he had lost, he was going to have to grow a beard.
DH (02:17:31):
Okay.
SM (02:17:32):
I am not going to grow a beard, I had a beard. So that is why I am wearing the hat.
DH (02:17:36):
Well, you know, other people who were... I mean, Joan Baez was real important in the anti-war movement, as was a woman by the name of Cora Weiss. She was really a mainstay of the mobilization committee. So you know, what Gloria Steinem and... I never met her, or Betty Friedan. I actually did not read Feminine Mystique, so...
SM (02:18:17):
She had a follow-up, too.
DH (02:18:20):
Yeah. So I am not familiar with their work, but of course they were pivotal figures in the women's movement.
SM (02:18:30):
Founded Ms magazine.
DH (02:18:31):
Mm-hmm.
SM (02:18:32):
Pretty good.
DH (02:18:33):
Yeah. So...
SM (02:18:37):
Lyndon Johnson ... there is three of them here. Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, and Barry Goldwater, all key figures.
DH (02:18:50):
Johnson was such a tragedy. What a complicated guy. Really. And he did the Civil Rights Act, and he did the War on poverty. And then the Kennedy liberals, the Harvard intellectuals, the best and the brightest talked him into going down the wrong path, which undid the good that he did, domestically. Unfortunately. McNamara, I have very little use for the McNamaras or Bundys of this world. They all were smart enough to have known better. And McNamara...
SM (02:20:00):
Okay.
DH (02:20:06):
I do not know when they realized they had made grievous errors and set the nation on just a horrendously wrong course, but they did. And I have read some of the books on the Bundys, but I do not remember. But McNamara clearly was saying different things in public about the war being winnable than he believed, for a couple of years.
SM (02:20:45):
In fact, when I had my interview with McCarthy, Senator McCarthy, at the time that been out for a while. In Retrospect came out in 1995, and he had read it. And it was not one of my questions, I had [inaudible]. "Bunch of lies." He got real upset. Well, and now that I am thinking about it, the only time he got upset was Kennedy. But he got upset. "Bunch of lies." Tragedy.
DH (02:21:13):
I did not read it, so...
SM (02:21:16):
...say that.
DH (02:21:16):
But I had no use for it.
SM (02:21:19):
What about Goldwater? Three years in Conservative building?
DH (02:21:29):
Well, at least he was against the draft. He was. I mean, he was in favor of an all-volunteer army. He was against conscription. Of course, he also was against the Civil Rights Act. He had more redeeming qualities as a politician than did Ronald Reagan.
SM (02:22:02):
And yeah, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter were the next two. I am going to preface when we talk about Reagan, Carter and George HW Bush, it was George HW Bush who said the Vietnam syndrome was over, when he became president in 1989. And it was Ronald Reagan who boldly stated that we were back, basically. The army back in shape, America back in shape, it was kind of like what had happened previously was real-real negative. And then Jimmy Carter, because he was amnesty for the people that had gone to Canada, and of course, he got criticized for that, too. And particularly among Vietnam vets, who [inaudible] heels. Just your thoughts on those three presidents. Personal. Just short thoughts on them.
DH (02:22:53):
Carter? I mean, obviously I was an enormous fan of Carter's, primarily because of his human rights policy. Which I was executive director of Amnesty in those days, when he became president. And his espousal of human rights was an enormous lift and boost to those of us who were working in organizations. Unfortunately, he did not apply his own principles when it came to Iran, let Kissinger talk him into being nice to the Shah. And we paid dearly for our relationship with the Shah, of course that went back 30 years before Carter came into office.
SM (02:23:54):
Right.
DH (02:23:55):
But the US paid a heavy price for our closeness with the Shah. And Carter paid the political price for having listened to Kissinger and given the Shah asylum here.
SM (02:24:23):
Reagan and President Bush, first President Bush. And the way they talked about... to me, it sounded like a slap against the previous generation, so...
DH (02:24:35):
I would not care about that. I do not like Reagan because of his Central America policies. I think he made some unnecessary wars. We should not have gotten in bed with the people in El Salvador, and the Sandinistas were not a threat to the United States. And he slightly redeemed himself by... he finally did come around and work on detent with Gorbachev. Somehow Schultz turned out to be a good Secretary of State, who prevailed over that dreadful guy in defense.
SM (02:25:39):
Not Regan. Regan did not get along with him.
DH (02:25:45):
Oh...
SM (02:25:45):
Schlesinger?
DH (02:25:45):
No-no.
SM (02:25:45):
No-no-no. James Schlesinger.
DH (02:25:49):
That was Ford.
SM (02:25:51):
Melvin Laird?
DH (02:25:52):
No-no.
SM (02:25:52):
Yeah, he was-
DH (02:25:53):
That was Nixon.
SM (02:25:54):
Yeah. Oh.
DH (02:25:57):
A guy with a real skinny face.
SM (02:26:01):
God, I do not know.
DH (02:26:03):
But any rate, but she will... pardon?
SM (02:26:06):
Cyrus Vance?
DH (02:26:06):
No-no-no. Vance is Carter.
SM (02:26:07):
I am getting them all mixed up here. Yeah.
DH (02:26:11):
Whoever... the first Bush was not that bad, actually. I mean, I knew Dukakis, and obviously we liked Dukakis. And the Bushes run nasty ... he ran a nasty, nasty campaign. But in fact, once in office, he closed off. He ended the wars in Central America. He just closed it off. So I was glad he closed off the wars there. And he withdrew nuclear weapons, not only from South Korea, but we used to have a lot of nuclear weapons on a lot of bases around the world, and a lot of aircraft carriers. He pulled them back. There were many fewer nuclear missiles on US submarines and aircraft carriers, and stationed in our bases abroad, so that was good. And I agree with his ... I mean, he did some dumb stuff like going after Noriega, but actually, I agreed. I supported the first War on Iraq. I thought that the US national interests and the regional balance of power would be adversely affected should Saddam Hussein be enabled to have kept Kuwait. I think that would have adversely affected the balance of power in the Mideast. And I supported the war to expel Saddam from Kuwait. Unlike some of the friends from the anti-war movement, who opposed the first Iraq war, I supported the first Iraq war.
SM (02:28:50):
The Uber generation has had two Presidents, George Bush, second George Bush and Bill Clinton. Do not the comment very much detail on them. But the comment I want you to react to is what some people have told me. "They are just typical boomers."
DH (02:29:08):
I have never thought of-
SM (02:29:09):
That is what they have in common. They are typical boomers.
DH (02:29:14):
Is not George Bush...
SM (02:29:15):
George Bush is...
DH (02:29:15):
Is not he too late for a boomer?
SM (02:29:16):
No-no-no. He is the same age. He was born in (19)46, I think.
DH (02:29:29):
Oh, okay. Oh no, so he is.
SM (02:29:30):
Yeah. I think Bill Clinton and him are the same age.
DH (02:29:31):
Oh.
SM (02:29:34):
I think what they are referring to was some of the qualities, when I mentioned this, some of the qualities that some people have given me of what boomers are, they are positives and negatives, and they will use the negatives for those two. I wonder your thoughts on that?
DH (02:29:54):
Well, I have yet to find what... well, if there is a redeeming quality to George W. Bush, I have not discovered it. Clinton was the political genius of our generation. He really is a political genius. There is nobody in our generation that had better political instincts, but he squandered it.
SM (02:30:26):
Right.
DH (02:30:26):
He totally squandered it. So the only thing you can say about his presidency is that he did not get convicted for impeachment.
SM (02:30:51):
He survived.
DH (02:30:52):
But...
SM (02:30:54):
I am down to my final two. One is a very general question, and the other one is that, are there pictures, when you think of the period when you were young, are there pictures that were in the news that you say, "That is that picture." You know how a picture says 1000 words? These are the pictures that really define the time when I was young. When I talk about young, I am talking about teenager, twenties and thirties, before you turned 40.
DH (02:31:26):
Sure.
SM (02:31:28):
What were the pictures that were either in the newspapers, or the magazines that really upset you or that stood out amongst all the pictures during the Vietnam War, and...
DH (02:31:38):
Well-
SM (02:31:38):
...the (19)60s and (19)70s.
DH (02:31:40):
The Vietnam War would have been that naked girl running down the street.
SM (02:31:43):
Kim Phuc. Yeah.
DH (02:31:49):
In Vietnam and the... the Viet Cong guy getting assassinated, shot in the head at Tet.
SM (02:31:53):
Yeah.
DH (02:32:02):
The civil rights movement, people getting hosed. Was it Selma? Birmingham.
SM (02:32:10):
Birmingham.
DH (02:32:11):
No. Was it... where did people get hosed?
SM (02:32:13):
Well, near the bridge. They were heading to the bridge, and-
DH (02:32:16):
Well, that was-
SM (02:32:19):
That was downtown. No, it was not Birmingham.
DH (02:32:22):
Either Selma or Birmingham.
SM (02:32:24):
It had to be Selma, because Birmingham was... King was there, and that was the...
DH (02:32:30):
But the people getting hosed, getting blown off their feet by hoses, fire hoses. The force of the water. That would have been... that one.
SM (02:32:41):
There are three pictures from that period who made the top 100 pictures of the 20th century. One of them was Kim Phuc running down ... the other two were Tommy Smith and John Carlos at the (19)68 Olympics.
DH (02:32:58):
Oh yeah-yeah.
SM (02:32:59):
Remember that? And they were not Black power. And Tommy Smith has really been upset about it. He was not a Black power person, did not like the Black Panthers at all. It was about discrimination against Black people in America. You have written about this, but we had them on our campus. And the third one was Mary Vecchio over the dead body of Jeff Miller at Kent State.
DH (02:33:20):
Oh yeah. Yeah.
SM (02:33:21):
Those were...
DH (02:33:21):
Yes. Iconic.
SM (02:33:24):
...monumental pictures. The other one, and the last question I am going to ask is that if you can go back to those (19)50s, not for the experience that you had down south, but say the experiences when you were in elementary school, and junior high school. The (19)50s, the black and white TV, the television shows that we all watch in that era. Everything seemed so calm and peaceful, even though we had the threat of nuclear war. The Cold War was going on. If you were young enough... I was four years old, but I was a four-year-old, I saw these hearings on television. That man scared me. Senator McCarthy. McCarthy hearings, blaming these people for doing things. Oh boy, he scared me. So I remember McCarthy hearings, I remember... but still, most of the people in the (19)50s that I knew, it was a great time. Your parents gave you everything you wanted. You had Christmases and Easters and everything. And the television shows were Howdy Doody, and Ed Sullivan Show and all the cowboy and Indians. And I was not sensible about what Indians should be, Native Americans. And they were portray bad. And all the sitcoms and all the other things seem to be so calm and peaceful, yet it was that generation who went into the (19)60s and really rebelled. We all know about the generation gap. So in your (19)50s, was that your (19)50s, before you went down South?
DH (02:35:07):
Oh sure. Oh yeah. Wonderful childhood. It just revolved around family, church and sports.
SM (02:35:17):
Did your parents ever-
DH (02:35:18):
-and rock and roll.
SM (02:35:19):
Did your parents ever bring up anything that was going on? Because I love my parents, but I do not ever remember ever talking about what was going on in the South.
DH (02:35:31):
Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. No, they would have been like Eisenhower Republicans, but they were politically... well, I would not say they were politically engaged. I mean, they were not active in politics, but they followed it. Huntley Brinkton. And that is when they first started televising the national conventions. So they would have been unsympathetic to the discrimination, and to the mistreatment of...
SM (02:36:27):
The Black religious people?
DH (02:36:30):
...who were... so, they did not have the kind of identification with it that I had, but they thought it was wrong. I mean, they thought discrimination was wrong.
SM (02:36:48):
I wanted to ask you last, what do you think the lasting legacy will be of the young people, of the boomers, once the best history books are written? And normally the best history books are written 50 years after a period. Sometimes after the generation has passed on, too.
DH (02:37:14):
Well, I am not sure of much of anything. I mean, I think it sort of... there was a population bulge, and we gave ourselves, and other people gave us a sort of identity, which was... and then within the last five years or so, our parents' generation, the World War II generation, was proclaimed to be the greatest generation. Is that?
SM (02:38:06):
Mm-hmm. Yep.
DH (02:38:09):
But other than this bulge, this demographic bulge, I am not sure if 50 years from now... if there is any lasting legacy, it is probably rock and roll. Music.
SM (02:38:30):
What do you hope your lasting legacy will be? What do you hope it is, when people remember you?
DH (02:38:36):
Let me think about that.
SM (02:38:41):
That is okay. You got a lot. If you were before an audience of college students today, and during the question and answer period, somebody stood up and said, "What was it like to be young in the 1960s," as a general question, and why cannot we feel that way today? How would you respond to that?
DH (02:39:16):
Well, the first thing I would say is it is like being at the center of the universe. You felt that kind of fight ...in one sense connected the world, from Footer Hill, was enormously intense. And I think if they do not feel that way, I think part of their reason is that they did not narrow in their own interest. And you have to go out and get that feeling of vitality. You have to [inaudible], and if you do not invest in anything then you do not have a thing.
SM (02:40:15):
That is a good point.
DH (02:40:17):
So start caring about something and acting on it. And at the very least, vitalize your life.
SM (02:40:29):
I was not as activist as you were, and some of the other people, but being in college at that time and being young, I do not think I have ever lost it. I remember Roy Campanella, the baseball player, he said, "If you ever lose the kid in you, it is over." And certainly when I say the kid, the youth in you, because this seemed to be a feeling that anything was possible, that your voice counted. "I can make a difference in the world." There was all these feelings among a lot of the young people of that period. And we are not only talking about white people, as one of my interviewees said, we are talking about African Americans as well, people of all colors. Because I have interviewed one about Latino boomers, and working with Cesar Chavez. And there was a feeling amongst even Native American youth. I mean, there was a feeling that they could make a difference, that things were really changing. And today's young people, again, either when we had a program on the Generation Xers, they were either sick and tired of hearing boomers talk about when they were young, or they wished that it was like that when they were young. Just your comments-
DH (02:41:43):
.. know that anything was possible, but that anything was missed.
SM (02:41:47):
Yeah. Yeah. So I do not sense that amongst today's young people, although they are concentrating so much and getting a job and getting their degree, and getting on with life, and times are very difficult economically. But it is-
DH (02:42:06):
...far before the economy collapsed from modern university and become job trained. In the attitude of most students, and most administrators, and a lot of the faculty.
SM (02:42:18):
Do you feel, and final question, do you feel that the Beat generation had anything to do with influencing the Boomer generation? Alan Ginsburg, and Kerouac, and Burrows and the writings of that period? Because they basically challenged authority.
DH (02:42:36):
They certainly had enormous impact for me. I mean, part of that, the Bay Area, always go to City Lights Bookstore there. And I remember [inaudible] (19)60s, and of course, [inaudible] Dan and Mary Frank. Kind take off from that starting point.
SM (02:43:12):
Is there any question that you thought I should have asked, or did not ask that you would like to make a comment on?
DH (02:43:21):
No, I do not have any questions. I just have answers.
SM (02:43:26):
Well, David, what an honor to talk to you. I will keep you updated on my project. Do you have a color picture of yourself too?
DH (02:43:32):
I have a black and white.
SM (02:43:37):
That will be fine. Because I take pictures of everybody and I am using my photographs at the top of each little section for the oral history project, so I would need a picture of you.
DH (02:43:49):
I have got the book jacket picture, but I can send it.
SM (02:43:54):
Okay, very good. And...
DH (02:43:56):
Send me an email reminding me.
SM (02:43:58):
Yep, will do. Boy, I would love to interview your former wife.
DH (02:44:02):
Good luck. She is on the road right now.
SM (02:44:04):
Yeah. Well, I do not know, but David, thank you very much. And you are still living in the Bay Area, you are lucky.
DH (02:44:11):
Yeah, well, I live in Marin County.
SM (02:44:13):
All right. Right across the bridge.
DH (02:44:15):
Yep.
SM (02:44:16):
Very-very lucky. Well, you have a great day.
DH (02:44:20):
Okay.
SM (02:44:20):
And carry on and continue to be who you are.
DH (02:44:23):
Well, thank you. Good luck with your project.
SM (02:44:25):
Thanks, bye now.
DH (02:44:25):
Okay.
SM (02:44:30):
What you just heard was the ending of the tape for David Harris, given on the 7th of November, 2009. Excuse me, 6th of November, 2009. Thank you.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with David Hawk
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Hawk, David R. ; McKiernan, Stephen
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Amnesty International; Authors, American--20th century; College teachers; Hawk, David R.--Interviews
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David Hawk is a former Executive Director of Amnesty International, USA, UN human rights official in charge of the Cambodia Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and author. Hawk has been a visiting scholar at the Columbia University Institute for the Study of Human Rights and taught at Hunter College, CUNY. Currently, he teaches in the International Relations Department at the University of South Florida (Tampa). Hawk is a graduate of Cornell University and Union Theological Seminary, and he also did postgraduate work in International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Magdalen College, Oxford.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2010-01-14
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In copyright
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eng
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.196a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.196b ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.196c
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2018-03-29
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McKiernan Interviews
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164:52
-
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https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/039de8f3e59dcacd77baa66cb0853216.mp3
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2007-12-21
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
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David Horowitz
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
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3 microcassettes
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Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Duration
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156:01
Biographical Text
David Horowitz grew up a "red diaper baby" in a communist community in Sunnyside, Queens. He is a far-right writer, founder, and president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC), editor of <em>FrontPage Magazine</em>, director of Discover the Networks, and founder of the organization Students for Academic Freedom. Horowitz wrote many books and he worked as a columnist for <em>Salon</em>. He also was an outspoken adherent of the New Left, which he later rejected and became a proponent of Neoconservatism. Horowitz received his Bachelor's degree from Columbia University and his Master's degree from UC Berkeley.
Keywords
Baby boom generation; Environmental Movement; Communism; Robert F. Kennedy; Black Panthers; Civil Rights Movement; Nineteen sixties.
Subject LCSH
Authors, American--20th century; Radicals—United States; Horowitz, David--Interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: David Horowitz
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 23 October 1997
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:00):
...of the (19)60s and early (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?
DH (00:00:20):
The (19)60sand early (19)70was a political orgy, destruction, just of recklessness. I do not know. I do not think that way, one thing comes to my mind. Go ahead.
SM (00:00:59):
Yep. Could you speak up a little bit louder too, David?
DH (00:01:01):
Sure.
SM (00:01:01):
Okay.
DH (00:01:01):
I did not like that question. Go ahead.
SM (00:01:04):
Okay. When you look at the boomer generation, the boomer generation is defined as those individuals born between 1946 and 1964. Of course, we know that the boomer generation has a lot of different people from all political persuasions, different-
DH (00:01:21):
Yeah. The (19)60swas a complex phenomenon. I mean, there were parts of it that were fairly benign or just injurious to self. Some parts of it were creative and some parts of it were destructive.
SM (00:01:41):
When you look at the boomer generation, what are the positive qualities and the negative qualities of the generation?
DH (00:01:54):
Well, I am inclined not to see very many positive qualities anymore. As I say, it was a complex phenomenon. The music was great. It was interesting. I do not know if it is great. But it was [inaudible]. What is the scope of this? I mean, I do not really want to answer questions about the whole (19)60s, and people think about moonshot and they think... That is not my focus.
SM (00:02:31):
Well, basically I am looking at the boomer generation and the qualities that some of them have and the events that shape their lives. I have a whole series of questions, but-
DH (00:02:42):
[inaudible] generation. Are we talking about 45 million people?
SM (00:02:44):
We are talking about (19)70 million.
DH (00:02:46):
Well, I do not make comments about (19)70 million people. I do not think that way. I think people who make comments on (19)70 million people are talking through their ass.
SM (00:03:03):
Well, how about talking about the activist portion? Because that is what really what I am getting at here. The 15-
DH (00:03:12):
Yeah. The political (19)60swas a very destructive event. I have written so much about this. It started off fairly creative. We were anti-Stalinist, although we were basically socialist and communist, but we were critical. We wanted to see a hundred flowers bloom. We were innovative. We were against orthodoxy. By the end of the decade, the political activists became Stalinists themselves. They repeated everything that their parents, all the things they had objected to in their parents. They supported the worst forces, historical forces, and they showed that there is no such thing as a New Left. There is only the left. The left is a religious formation, pseudo-religious, which is in search of an earthly redemption, an impossible dream.
SM (00:04:45):
When...
DH (00:04:49):
I am really not happy with the interview. I think I will not finish it. Either I am not in a good mood today or I do not know, but...
SM (00:04:56):
Well, I have specific questions directly to you.
DH (00:05:00):
Well, then ask me the specific questions and strike everything that I have said. I am not happy with any of it. I have written about this decade ad infinitum, and I do not want what I have written undermined by stuff I say off the top of my head in a phone interview. So just-
SM (00:05:20):
Can I ask you about some specific-
DH (00:05:21):
[inaudible] to strike that I will answer specific [inaudible]
SM (00:05:24):
Yeah. Well, how did you become who you are? Because when I think of David Horowitz, I see a tremendous scholar, a person who's written a lot of books, a lot of different subject areas, a person who was the editor of Ramparts Magazine at one time, and then due to some of the experiences in your life, you changed and became kind of a different person, more conservative. How did you really become... I know you have written this in the book, too, but a lot of this oral history is about how people evolve and change over time. I have interviewed 100 people, and a lot of them have changed their lives over specific events. But how did you become who you are today and what were the major factors in your life that made you change during the time when boomers were fairly young?
DH (00:06:17):
Well, I was not a boomer.
SM (00:06:19):
I know that.
DH (00:06:24):
What strikes me about the political generation is how many of them have not changed at all and how influential they are, like Bill Ayers, who I despised him when he was active in the (19)60sand he was a radical. He was so shallow and so destructive, and here he is a close confidant of the President of the United States. I have written about how I changed. Black Panthers, who were held up by the New York Times and by all radicals as the vanguard of the revolution, were a bunch of murderers. And they murdered a friend of mine. The left rallied around the murderers to defend them. It told me everything I needed to know about the left because that was exactly what my parents and their friends and their generation, all of whom were probably somewhat decent people. My parents were certainly decent people. But they defended murderers. And that is what leftists do because their goal is so noble. If you are going to redeem the world, if you are saving the world, or now the phrase is saving the planet, you are capable of any crime, any monstrosity because the purpose you have is so noble that it will justify anything. That is the main thing that I learned. Then when this person, when Betty Van Patter was murdered by the Panthers, the Vietnamese communists, thanks to the so-called anti-war movement... There had never been a real anti-war movement in America. The anti-American movement was victorious in Vietnam, and the Vietnamese proceeded to slaughter two-and-a-half million people in Cambodia and Vietnam, more than that probably, but at least that, without any protests from the protesters, which showed me that they never really cared about the Vietnamese or the Cambodian. What they cared about was their hatred for America.
SM (00:08:53):
Those students have protested on college campuses in the (19)60s, do you think they were a major influence in ending the war?
DH (00:09:01):
Of course, they forced the end of the war. It is not do I think. There is no question. The country was being torn apart.
SM (00:09:12):
What do today's universities learn from the students of the boomer generation? Are universities prepared to handle new student protests? I know there is protests at Berkeley now over the increase in tuition.
DH (00:09:23):
No, the first of all, no. They are supine before... very destructive forces on the campus. First of all, a large, well, I estimate 10 percent of the professorial, but that is a much larger percentage of liberal arts faculties are radicals just as destructive as the people we are talking about. They encourage it and they incite it. The administrations are afraid to do anything. I think that is going to change. I think it is in the process of changing. But basically, university administrations let the left get away with murder.
SM (00:10:12):
But do not you think, David, do not-
DH (00:10:12):
They are doing just what they did. They are giving support to the Muslim brotherhood groups, the Muslim Students Association, Students for Justice in Palestine, all these leftist group are in league with the Jihadists, and the administrations coddle them and protect them.
SM (00:10:34):
But are not a lot of the people that are running universities today, I am not talking about faculty now, I am talking about the administrators, the presidents, the vice presidents of student affairs, are not a lot of them boomers who grew up and-
DH (00:10:46):
[inaudible]
SM (00:10:46):
...saw what happened on university campuses and basically are afraid of activism?
DH (00:10:51):
No. They support activism. On the contrary. It is quite reversed. I am about to sue the Vice President of Student Affairs at the University of Southern California precisely for siding with the racist and slanderers, because they happen to be Palestinians and leftists. That is not all administrators. There is some decent ones I have encountered.
SM (00:11:22):
When-
DH (00:11:22):
But more often than not, they are totally sympathetic to the radical.
SM (00:11:29):
A lot of the people of the boomer generations thought they were the most unique generation in American history. Your comments about that kind of an attitude?
DH (00:11:39):
Well, I just said, yes, that was their self-flattering, but they ended up being communists all the same and supporting the worst, the absolute worst forces out there. This child molester that runs Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, he was a big hero at the left. Of course, that was a little later. That was the (19)80s. But they supported Mao, supported the Vietnamese murderers, the communist murderers, and the Cambodian Pol Pot. I mean, the New Left supported Pol Pot. They were not unique at all. That was their self-flattery and one of their many delusions.
SM (00:12:33):
I think in recent years. I can remember when Newt Gingrich came to power in 1994, there were some interviews given, and he talked about the (19)60sand the (19)70s, and he basically made comments that a lot of the problems in American society at that time were due to the breakdown of the American family. He blamed the breakdown of the American family, the drug culture, and all the problems in our society were shooting it back to that era. Lack of respect for authority, the victim mentality. Do you believe that?
DH (00:13:14):
The (19)60s, if you look at it in perspective, it mainstreamed Marxist, communists, the Marxist and communist war against democratic society. That is [inaudible]. It. mainstreamed the Marxist and communist war against democratic society.
SM (00:13:38):
Yeah. Just-
DH (00:13:40):
The return of antisemitism can be traced to the Black radicalism of the (19)60s.
SM (00:13:49):
What-
DH (00:13:49):
Black radicals re-legitimized, Jew hatred in America. It is horrible to say, but that is what it did.
SM (00:14:02):
One of the characteristics of that era, in that generation of course, is the many movements that evolved and were ongoing during that period, and, of course, continue through today.
DH (00:14:13):
Wait-wait-wait. The (19)60sradicals who then went into the university now have made communism, Marxism... Really, I have written about this in Unholy Alliance.
SM (00:14:31):
Right. I have that, yep.
DH (00:14:31):
Similarities. They made it part of the school curriculum, both at the college and the K-12 level. They have destroyed a great institution. The university, the modern research university, of course, it is still a great university, great institution in terms of the sciences and the professional school. But as far as the liberal arts colleges are concerned, the tenured radicals have returned those institutions to their 19th and 18th-century roots as doctrinal institutions, as religious institutions that instill a doctrine. This happens to be the doctrine of... You know, [inaudible]. We do not have a term for it because they control the institutions that-
SM (00:15:36):
If you could-
DH (00:15:37):
...legitimize the terminology, but basically, they instituted a curriculum which is indistinguishable from what the communist party was running in the (19)30s in this country.
SM (00:15:49):
Well, one of the things that I have known, because I have worked in higher education after 30 years-
DH (00:15:54):
That is in regard not to, of course, the Soviet Union because that communism has failed, that they all condemn it now. But in terms of the analysis of American society, we get this Marxism with some racial and gender prejudice thrown in.
SM (00:16:16):
Well, I know you have written about this in terms of whether universities today are about education or indoctrination. How about the universities of the-
DH (00:16:29):
[inaudible] colleges. Not the whole university [inaudible]
SM (00:16:32):
Yeah. How about the universities of the (19)60sand (19)70s? Were they indoctrinating, too?
DH (00:16:38):
No.
SM (00:16:41):
And the colleges in the (19)50s?
DH (00:16:43):
No. Not in the sense... Indoctrination is when you present one side of an issue that is controversial or you are teaching...
SM (00:16:56):
One of the-
DH (00:17:00):
...an opinion as though it were a scientific fact. That did not really take place in the (19)50s. When I went to college, the height of the McCarthy period, we read Marx and we read the critics of Marx. Now you just read Marx and his disciples.
SM (00:17:24):
What was it about that 1950s that somehow subconsciously shaped so many of the boomers? Because I guess, kids are being raised in that era. Parents are giving them everything that they have really wanted because they had gone through the Depression and World War II. And so when boomers, the early stage boomers in the (19)50s, there seemed to be a lot of contentment, a lot of happiness, and all of a sudden after President Kennedy becomes president-
DH (00:17:54):
Radicalism is not about material deprivation. It is about unhappiness with existence itself.
SM (00:18:10):
What...
DH (00:18:11):
It is a desire that life be meaningful and that it have a particular meaning, which is that the life we experience is a preparation for a true life where there will be social justice and happiness for everyone.
SM (00:18:47):
What are your... just quick comments on, do not have to go in depth on any of these, but just your comments and thoughts on the women's movement?
DH (00:18:56):
There was no women's movement in the (19)60s. It was a movement of the (19)70s.
SM (00:19:03):
Yeah. Well, [inaudible]
DH (00:19:10):
I think it was, in practical terms, it was pushing on an open door. The liberation of women is attributable mainly, or if you want to call it that [inaudible] it is sort of hyperbolic, but if you want to call it that, is attributable to the development of modern antibiotic and modern methods of birth control, particularly the pill, but any contraceptives which allowed women... Because yes, there is always going to be resistance to anything somewhat new, but there was no serious resistance to women gaining equality in the workplace, going to work, and so forth and so on. That is ridiculous. Anybody who has witnessed or remembers or has seen, say, Adam's Rib, the movies of the (19)40s and (19)50s, will see the enormously important roles that women played way before the women's movement itself had started. The women's movement today is just another anti-American, anti-capitalist... The movement, that is what it is. Women's studies programs, what they teach is hatred of America, American capitalism, calling it racist and sexist. It is not about women. If it were about women, if feminists cared about women, they would be out in the streets marching against the oppression of women in Islam against the clitorectomies that are forced on little girls, against the medieval status of women in the Muslim world. But they do not do that because their main agenda is to attack the United States and [inaudible] Islamic fascists are attacking the United States. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, that made the feminists feel an empathy with them, with the worst women abusers in human history.
SM (00:21:53):
How about-
DH (00:21:53):
That tells you how much their commitment to women.
SM (00:21:55):
How about the Native American movement and the Chicano movement?
DH (00:22:00):
Look, these were all radical movements that had nothing to do with the welfare of Indians or Chicanos, who were also motivated by their antagonism to what used to be called in the (19)50s the American way of life.
SM (00:22:23):
Where would you place the environmental movement?
DH (00:22:28):
What? The environmental movement is the new communism you are talking about under the guise of saving the planet. I wrote an article called From Red to Green about this.
SM (00:22:37):
You have children-
DH (00:22:50):
Environmental movement. It is saving the planet. Everything is justified. It is a radicalistic dream. So, all the radicals have gone into it because what they really want to do... The core of radicalism is a desire to redeem the world. It is inherently totalitarian. Environmentalism is the perfect excuse to be totalitarian. We already have a totalitarian bill, a cap and trade bill proposed by the Obama administration, which will allow them to basically control your life. If they can erase your carbon footprint without any proof that it has deleterious effect on the actual world environment. But if they can do that, they can regulate every aspect of your life.
SM (00:24:02):
Of course then you talk about the ongoing Civil Rights Movement and the anti-war movement.
DH (00:24:07):
Say what?
SM (00:24:09):
The Civil Rights Movement, we all know the change that it took-
DH (00:24:14):
I supported the Civil Rights Movement and I still support it. But the Civil Rights Movement is no longer the Civil Rights Movement. It turned into a... The kind way to describe it as a racial grievance movement. It is a racist movement. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, the two titular little leaders of this movement, are racist. Institutional racism in America is the racism of racial preferences, which is what the Civil Rights Movement supports and has supported for the last 30 or 40 years.
SM (00:24:57):
What are your thoughts on the Beats? They were very important in the (19)50s because they showed young people that you can really-
DH (00:25:07):
My thoughts about what?
SM (00:25:08):
The Beat generation, because several people that I have interviewed said they were very important in influencing many of the boomers in their protests, in their challenge of the status quo, people like Allen Ginsberg and-
DH (00:25:23):
Yeah, look. The formative influence, the influence was Karl Marx and Joseph Stalin, of course, there was a little bit of a criticism of Stalin for a while. No longer. Lenin. This was the influence on the (19)60s. At the end of the (19)50s, the Beats were a kind of model because they basically was a flipping of the bird to America. That is what it was. Oh, and Ginsburg turned out to be a loon. So, anyway.
SM (00:26:25):
Some of these names right here are people that I have talked to who, again, David, I have talked to them all a hundred people. It is very important to have your point of view here because you are about the 21st person on the conservatives. I just met last week with several individuals. I interviewed many individuals from the Heritage Foundation, Ed Volner and Lee Edwards. I have interviewed several people from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. So, I am making sure that I am fair in all this. I know your voice is very important, but these are some of the names that people have given me that they read when they were in the (19)60sand the (19)70s.
DH (00:27:11):
Well, anybody who you interview who is still a leftist is not going to tell you the truth because leftists, again, I cannot repeat this too often, in their minds, they are redeeming the world, and that is so important, that they will hide what they think and what they feel, particularly through an interview where they do not know. But in any of the interviews that they claim they are for peace. That was their concern. Social justice. Baloney. That was not their concern. If they were concerned about peace, for example... Let me give you a more recent example. The war in Iraq. There was not a single peace demonstration at the Iraqi Embassy to protest Saddam Hussein's violation of the UN resolutions and the Truce Agreement. There was not a demonstration there because it was not a peace movement. And neither was the anti-Vietnam movement. It was against American power. Anybody who says different is just not telling you the truth. So, if they say that... Of course the Beats were an influence, big deal. What kind of influence? They wrote poetry. I mean, well, Ginsburg, they wrote poetry about their disillusion with America. But why was this generation and the people who liked them, why did they like the Beats? Why did they look to the Beats? And I was one of them. They looked to the Beats because Stalinism, which is what they had, had been discredited. Communism had been discredited by Stalin for a season, as it were. Because now you have a lot of people who openly say they are Stalinists. But in those days, it was in very bad odor, and it had tainted Marxism as well. After all, they killed 40 million people. So, what people will say is, "The Beats influenced us." Why were they interested in the Beats? Were they poetry aficionados, or did the Beats write poetry, is a better question? No. It is because they were radicals who were looking to legitimize their radicalism. They were radical because they were Marxist and they were part of this perennial leftist delusion, illusion, unhappiness with the human condition as such, inability to cope with life as it is, inability to recognize that the source of social problems is human beings, not social institutions. What you are going to be told is they are always going to put the best face on it. They are not going to say, "Well, we really wanted to see communism succeed, but it became discredited by some mistakes that Allen and his cohort made." They are not going to tell you that.
SM (00:31:03):
Well, some of the... Let me just read these. There is just a few names. Herbert Marcuse, Bertrand Russell, Norman Mailer, Tom Wolf, Ken Kesey, Ginsberg, James Baldwin.
DH (00:31:15):
Yeah. Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Gramsci. Yes, of course. Marcuse was a Stalinist. So, fine.
SM (00:31:31):
I have got a few more here with Theodore Rosak, Charles Reich, Eldridge Cleaver, Martin Luther King, Thomas Merton, and William Buckley.
DH (00:31:39):
Yeah.
SM (00:31:40):
Those are some of the writers that-
DH (00:31:43):
William Buckley was not radical.
SM (00:31:49):
Yeah. He wrote God and Man in Yale, which is a great book. One of the things that... I took a group of students... I just retired from Westchester University, David. That was in my email, and that is why I...
SM (00:32:03):
...University, David. That was in my email, and that is why I am working full-time on this. I eventually plan to go back. I have seen you six times speak. I saw, of course, you came to our campus twice. And then I saw you in two unique different environments. I saw you at Villanova and then I saw you at the University of Delaware. What a difference. They treated you with respect at Villanova, and they treated you terrible at the other place. Do you remember that?
DH (00:32:33):
Yeah. You probably did not know this, but I think I was actually wearing a catheter. That is the one where I just had to stop, because I could not get the tongue. My tongue would not move. I was so tired. I had been going 17 hours or something. I do not remember, but I had just had my prostate operation.
SM (00:32:58):
How you doing? You okay?
DH (00:32:58):
Covered? Yeah, I am okay.
SM (00:33:06):
I tell you, I said in the book or in my email to you that I have all your books. And the one book, of course, I love Radical Son, but the one book that I really love is the one you talked about your illness.
DH (00:33:21):
I think that is sort of my best book. I have written another one in that vein about my daughter called The Cracking of the Heart that came out.
SM (00:33:29):
When is that coming out?
DH (00:33:30):
It is out.
SM (00:33:31):
Oh, I got to go get it. Because you see, at that time when you were ill, my dad was dying of cancer. And so my dad died right after I bought the book, and I read it [inaudible]. It is just a tremendous book. I wonder, I took a group of students to Washington DC to meet Edmond Musky before he passed away. It was part of our leadership on the road programs, and we asked him this question and the students actually wrote this question up. And we thought he was going to talk about the 1968 convention, but he did not mention anything about it. And this is the question we asked him: Do you feel that the boomers generation is still having problems from healing from the divisions that tore the nation apart in their youth? Divisions between black and white divisions, between those who support authority and those who criticize it, between those who supported the troops and those who did not. Will the boomer generation go to its grave, like the Civil War generation not truly healing? Am I wrong in thinking this after 40 years? Or is the statement, "time heals all wounds," a truth?
DH (00:34:42):
The war is still on.
SM (00:34:42):
Pardon?
DH (00:34:46):
Of course it will not heal. The war is still on.
SM (00:34:54):
Could you talk a little bit about that?
DH (00:34:54):
Well, if you understand, we are talking about the political movement of the sixties was a movement to reintroduce communist values, communist Marxist values, Leninist values and analyses into the American mainstream, and they succeeded. And so there is an ongoing war over this. Now, of course, some people will ween when I say Marxist. And I will say, "Well, Marx did not talk about sexual orientation bias." Marx believed that a lot of the oppression of capitalism took place only at the workplace. He did not, although Engels wrote about the oppression of women, Marx really did not. But we are not Marxists. Well, sure, if you understand Marxism as a view that capitalism is a system comparable feudalism, slavery, and all previous systems of domination, and that needs to be overthrown so a classless [inaudible] and now genderless society can be introduced. And of course all these radicals are Marxists. And what the sixties and seventies did was to reintroduce this heinous, poisonous ideology into the heart of American culture so that you can have a terrorist. One of the most shallow human beings ever encountered, Billères, a counselor, the president who probably ghost-wrote his autobiography. You can have a communist, an avowed communist like Van Jones, given a White House position. You see this country is in the throes of a major political cultural crisis in which the sixties and seventies generation of communist radical, that played a huge role because they not only legitimize these poisonous ideologies, but they have now made them part of the school curriculum, both at the university level and at the K-12 level. So this is a civil war that is going to go on for generations.
SM (00:37:52):
See, Edmund Musky said did not even comment about any of that. He commented the fact that we have not healed since the Civil War. And he went on to talk about the Ken Burns series that he had been watching and actually had tears in his eye just like we had seen on television.
DH (00:38:10):
Musky was a sappy liberal. Ken Burns is a leftist. Which series? The Civil War?
SM (00:38:19):
Mm-hmm.
DH (00:38:20):
It is not over in the sense that there has been a revenge here in which the Civil Rights movement itself now is the force of racism in our society, as I have already said.
SM (00:38:36):
But where would you put the gay lesbian movement too?
DH (00:38:39):
Well, I think that the movement you are talking about, these political movements are all controlled by the anti-American left. I think that the acceptance of gays is a good thing. And I think that making gays a privileged group, like Black are a privileged group, is a bad thing. I do not believe in these. I believe in the 14th amendment and one standard for all. So all racial preferences are the poison of racism reintroduced by the left into American life, in that sense, if you want a civil war [inaudible].
SM (00:39:34):
In your opinion, what was the watershed moment when the sixties began and when it ended?
DH (00:39:41):
Well, I wrote about this in an article in a book called Deconstructing the Left. I think the real sixties, the sixties decade that I am describing began in 1963 with the assassination of Kennedy and the assassination of [inaudible].
SM (00:40:08):
And when did the sixties end?
DH (00:40:22):
It really ended around (19)70, (19)71. It was over. I wrote about that too.
SM (00:40:31):
Say that again.
DH (00:40:35):
I think it was over by 1970.
SM (00:40:40):
If we were in a room with five-
DH (00:40:43):
Okay, I am sorry. It ended when Nixon ended the draft, I think. Whatever.
SM (00:40:50):
Right.
DH (00:40:53):
What happened was the anti-war so-called movement was driven by radicals like myself who were basically hostile to America, because they were Marxists in the way I have described Marxists. But its ranks were tremendously swelled. People joined it because they wanted to get out of the draft. They did not want to risk their alliance for their country. When the draft was over the sixties were over.
SM (00:41:29):
Is there one specific event that you think had the greatest impact on this generation of (19)70 million?
DH (00:41:39):
Well, I think it was probably the assassination of Kennedy and the Kennedy administration was bumbling of the war in Vietnam.
SM (00:41:48):
One of the qualities that I have asked, a question I have asked, is the issue of trust, because so many of the boomers, when they were young, saw all these leaders that lied to them, so to speak. Whether it be Eisenhower and the U-2, Johnson with the Gulf of Tonkin, of course Nixon and Watergate.
DH (00:42:06):
Oh, I just think that is an excuse. It is an excuse. Well, I do not want to excuse Johnson for lying. He lied because Democrats, even by then I guess, just did not have the stomach to-to fight a war for freedom. So he had to lie and pretend that our boats were attacked.
SM (00:42:42):
You do not think that the issue of trust is-
DH (00:42:45):
[inaudible] bring up the U-2 incident. Those are unreconstructed radicals whose deep sympathies are with communism, and that is why they did not like the U-2 incident. Geez, what was wrong about protecting... What do you mean lie? Anybody who says that is somebody who does not understand that we were fighting a totalitarian monster in communism. Anybody who told you that falls into that category.
SM (00:43:20):
Well, I have only put it into a question for them, and the people have responded.
DH (00:43:26):
You are the one who came up with it?
SM (00:43:28):
No. I have read about it in history books.
DH (00:43:31):
I know, but that is the excuse mode. I told you. People who aim at the destruction of a system that people are pretty happy with, which is ours, will make up stories. They are not going to tell you that they are just opposed to the system, because nobody wants to be isolated as a fringe kook. So they lie. They tell you it is about deception or it is about peace, or it is about justice. They are just lying. They find reasons to be communist.
SM (00:44:16):
So you do not see this is an issue within the boomers then?
DH (00:44:18):
Hold on second.
SM (00:44:25):
No. I would like to ask you, I have been asking this to everyone. Photography plays a very important role in defining a time. What were the pictures that you most remember of that period of the sixties and seventies that really defines the times? Looks like you got some dogs.
DH (00:45:04):
Oh, sorry about that.
SM (00:45:06):
I got dogs on an interview. That is great.
DH (00:45:10):
Fine protection, huh? Anyway. I am not saying that people cannot be distressed about this or that thing, but that is not what makes them radical.
SM (00:45:23):
What were the, in your opinion, pictures that-
DH (00:45:28):
America. If Black people in America were oppressed, they would be leaving. Not only are they not leaving, but they are coming here, and they are risking their lives to get here, the Haitians. There is no oppression in America. People do not revolt over they did not like that the government lied to protect one of the flyers. That is the excuse that so-called liberals make for their appeasement and desire to capitulate for our enemies.
SM (00:46:06):
I do not know if you got the question on the pictures. When you think of that period, what are the pictures that come to mind to you?
DH (00:46:12):
Which period?
SM (00:46:12):
The sixties and the seventies when boomers were young. The pictures that could define the era, the ones you saw in the magazines.
DH (00:46:25):
I do not know, because as everything I have said here reveals my view that as a whole the era is misrepresented.
SM (00:46:50):
Well, the three pictures that I mentioned to some of the other people-
DH (00:46:52):
Well, for me... You want an actual photograph?
SM (00:47:02):
Yeah, actual photographs.
DH (00:47:06):
Well, nobody took a picture of Bernardine Dohrn giving the fork salute to honor Charlie Manson. That would be certainly one, I would think.
SM (00:47:21):
The three that I mentioned was the girls standing over the body or kneeling over the body of Jeff Miller at Kent State.
DH (00:47:27):
Yeah, that is an example of the perverse. That is a picture which is taken to symbolize the bad authorities who killed an innocent student. In fact, it was Billy Ayer's friends who provoked those National Guardsmen. They were being attacked. The real picture would be the National Guards being attacked with rocks who panicked. You are talking about a media that was sympathetic to the protest.
SM (00:48:20):
And there is the one with Kim Phúc, being the girl burned walking down the-
DH (00:48:24):
And there is another one. Right. Like I said, the decade is completely misrepresented.
SM (00:48:30):
And then the Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the Olympics.
DH (00:48:33):
I think that is a disgusting spectacle.
SM (00:48:34):
I have three slogans here that I think defined the period. I would like your comments on this. First one obviously the slogan is Malcolm X's. I am going to mention all three before you comment. "By any means necessary."
DH (00:48:57):
Malcolm X was a racist who should not be honored. He was an interesting racist, but still he was a racist. He was at war with America. He hated America.
SM (00:49:14):
The second one was the slogan that Bobby Kennedy mentioned or quoted. I think it was a Henry David Thoreau statement, which is, "Some men see things as they are ask why. I see things that never were and ask why not."
DH (00:49:25):
But Bobby Kennedy, come on, he is an overrated punk.
SM (00:49:35):
And then Peter Max, the painter, had a lot of slogans on his paintings. And one of them was, "You do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful."
DH (00:49:49):
That was the benign sixties. I have no quarrel with it.
SM (00:49:52):
I am going to mention some names. This is very important, because I wanted to do this when you were at our campus. I remember you mentioned when I had let you off at the airport there, that you wanted to answer this part, but we did not have time. Just quick reactions to some of these personalities of the period plus some of the terms of the era. I will start out with Jane Fonda.
DH (00:50:17):
An airhead who betrayed her country and her countrymen and worse, because she did not do it in the abstract. She betrayed heroic men in a Vietnamese prison. And may she rot in Hell.
SM (00:50:32):
Tom Hayden.
DH (00:50:32):
Not really, not different. A pathetic individual, Tom Hayden, who betrayed his country.
SM (00:50:32):
And then Rennie Davis was the-
DH (00:50:32):
And who has learned nothing. I did not know Rennie Davis.
SM (00:50:32):
Okay.
DH (00:50:32):
I do not know much about him. I would not think much of him, but I do not know him.
SM (00:50:32):
Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin.
DH (00:50:32):
Oh, Jerry, I cannot have ill will towards Jerry Rubin. They were clowns, basically.
SM (00:50:32):
Timothy Leary.
DH (00:50:32):
An irresponsible and destructive narcissist.
SM (00:50:32):
How about Benjamin Spock?
DH (00:51:33):
I do not really know much about Spock. He had a pernicious influence on almost child-rearing on politics, but I do not really know much about him.
SM (00:51:42):
Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.
DH (00:51:51):
Well, Agnew discredited conservatism by being a crook, and Nixon was a liberal.
SM (00:52:01):
Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern.
DH (00:52:10):
Well, I think McCarthy was a dilatant who played with people's lives. I think his dropping out after leading everybody up the primrose path was reprehensible. I debated him. I did not debate him; I was a speaker at an event, I guess. He spoke before me at an event at Stony Brook, which showed that he was also a fool. He just doped up all of the nonsense.
SM (00:53:07):
George McGovern?
DH (00:53:07):
I would not characterize him any differently.
SM (00:53:07):
You had already commented on Bobby Kennedy. What are your thoughts on John Kennedy?
DH (00:53:13):
Oh, I think John Kennedy was an interesting figure. I am sorry that he was president, because he was reckless and it had consequences. Personally [inaudible], but his politics were identical to those of Ronald Reagan, which shows you how far the country had fled towards the left in these matters.
SM (00:54:00):
LBJ and Huber Huntley.
DH (00:54:00):
I do not have any thoughts about them.
SM (00:54:00):
Robert McNamara.
DH (00:54:14):
McNamara was an arrogant... He was so arrogant. He was semi-comatose when he came to the important things. He was responsible for the death of the Edsel and for a lot of the debacle in Vietnam. And then he spent his later years apologizing for the good things that he did instead of the bad ones.
SM (00:54:48):
Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.
DH (00:54:53):
I knew Daniel Ellsberg very well. He was another festively narcissistic individual who betrayed his country.
SM (00:55:04):
George Wallace.
DH (00:55:07):
Well, Wallace was a racist and a demagogue who became the unfortunate victim of a would-be assassin. I interviewed him when I did the Kennedy book, and it was amazing. He was just sucking up to the Kennedys. I did not understand it. I do not think very much of him.
SM (00:55:49):
What about Barry Goldwater?
DH (00:55:51):
Well, when Barry Goldwater was Barry Goldwater, I was a leftist, so I hated him. When he ceased to be Barry Goldwater and became a liberal, I did not think much of him.
SM (00:56:00):
How about John Dean?
DH (00:56:00):
A worm.
SM (00:56:12):
I will just list all these individuals. Gloria Steinem.
DH (00:56:14):
The futility of this. I do not do these things well. I am unhappy with these.
SM (00:56:21):
No, you have given some great responses. No, seriously, David, because some people have given one-word responses and then that is it. They have one-word response, and then some will go over somebody, and then they will be one person that, "Oh, I got to talk about this person." I am almost done here with these names anyways. But I put this group in. Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, and Betty Friedan. Shirley Chisholm. That group.
DH (00:56:53):
Well, Bella Abzug was just a communist. And Gloria Steinem is another airhead. Who was?
SM (00:57:05):
Betty Friedan.
DH (00:57:08):
Well, I have written a lot about Betty Friedan. She was a fraud. She was a communist and a fraud.
SM (00:57:13):
The other was Shirley Chisholm.
DH (00:57:16):
I do not have anything.
SM (00:57:18):
And then I know you are going to make some comments about these individuals. I want to list all seven of them before you say anything. And that is Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale. I am missing one here. The one that died in Chicago.
DH (00:57:39):
Hampton.
SM (00:57:41):
Yeah. They are kind of different. They are all Black Panthers. Oh, H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael. A lot of them are different.
DH (00:57:51):
So Hampton and Newton were basically street thugs who had some kind of appeal with that. That is not to say that street thugs do not have their own kinds of charisma. Angela Davis is a not very bright communist hack. Who else? Oh, Kathleen Cleaver. Oh God, another over-privileged, very angry, very dishonest.
SM (00:58:33):
There is Eldridge Cleaver.
DH (00:58:36):
Eldridge is probably the most interesting one, but he is the rapist.
SM (00:58:44):
Then of course Huey Newton.
DH (00:58:45):
That is another comment on the sixties [inaudible]. Made a rapist into a national figure.
SM (00:58:51):
I think Ramparts published his book.
DH (00:58:55):
Bob Shea wrote the introduction. Famous.
SM (00:58:58):
Yes. Daniel and Phillip Berrigan.
DH (00:59:01):
I do not know. They were out of my orbit. There is not much variety in them, because they are all party-lining America haters.
SM (00:59:19):
William Buckley.
DH (00:59:24):
Well, I have written a lot about Buckley too. I think that Buckley was a heroic individual. He did not need the grief that was given to him for what he did. Very bright man.
SM (00:59:43):
These last few here, you do not have to go in any depth, just some reaction. What does the Vietnam Memorial mean to you?
DH (00:59:56):
I have never been there. That is very sad. The Vietnamese and our troops were abandoned and the left had a tremendous amount to do with that for their everlasting.
SM (01:00:14):
What does Kent State and Jackson State mean to you?
DH (01:00:20):
Oh, excuses of the left for their heinous role in the murder of two and a half million Indochinese peasants.
SM (01:00:33):
What does Watergate mean to you?
DH (01:00:41):
Stupidity. Typical Republican stupidity and then a failure of nerve. Nixon should never have resigned.
SM (01:00:54):
Woodstock. The summer of Love.
DH (01:01:04):
Well, Woodstock was a big mud fest. I do not know. I have watched the film. Way overrated. People's longing for meaning. When you see the wood Woodstock film, everybody yearning to be that it was some kind of big, meaningful event. And it was just a lot of people rolling in the mud.
SM (01:01:29):
Summer of Love in that same category.
DH (01:01:32):
I was not around for the Summer of Love. I am sorry I missed. Again, I think that, it is one of those things that starts out benign and then has not so benign consequences.
SM (01:01:47):
The year 1968.
DH (01:01:49):
The love part, but the drug part.
SM (01:01:54):
1968.
DH (01:02:03):
Well, but 1968, a lot of bad things. Tet Offensive, that was misrepresented by Walter Cronkite and other ill-wishers towards America. Two terrible assassinations. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.
SM (01:02:23):
What do you think of Dr. King?
DH (01:02:28):
I am an admirer of Dr. King.
SM (01:02:29):
What did you think of his Vietnam speech?
DH (01:02:37):
It was terrible. It was written by Newhouse. It was the worst thing that he did in his entire life.
SM (01:02:41):
Why is that?
DH (01:02:45):
Because he joined. He gave a rhetorical cover to the communist left.
SM (01:02:54):
The hippies and the Yippies.
DH (01:02:57):
The whiches and the Yippies?
SM (01:03:00):
The whiches and the Yippies?
DH (01:03:03):
I do not know. Again, I do not like these one-word things.
SM (01:03:12):
The last two are Students for a Democratic Society and the Weathermen.
DH (01:03:27):
The Weatherman were terrorists. The Students for a Democratic Society were trying to overthrow the best system that human beings have ever defined.
SM (01:03:27):
Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
DH (01:03:30):
Traitors.
SM (01:03:40):
I got a few more questions here, and then we will be done. Boomers are often called... You have written a lot of this yourself, and I have read a lot of books on this generation. A lot of people that I have interviewed, David, have said, "Well, when you start talking about the boomers, that really you are only talking about the first 10 years of the boomers. The second 10 years of the boomers, you cannot throw into this group." Ten years of the boomers you cannot throw into this group. So there is a lot of negativity towards putting generations... labeling people in generations.
DH (01:04:10):
I think it is very important.
SM (01:04:16):
You do?
DH (01:04:17):
Yeah, because the Boomers were the really destructive ones. I mean we set the stage. I do not want to exculpate my generation, but when they took over, they were the force behind The Weathermen and 1969. Those were all Boomers. Well they were not all Boomers, but they were the main... they were Boomers. I Boomers knew nothing, they knew nothing and they did not care to learn.
SM (01:04:58):
The Boomers are often defined along these terms. Boomers are often defined as the most educated generation in American history. How do you respond to that?
DH (01:05:09):
Well, I mean they went to school, you know?
SM (01:05:10):
Yeah.
DH (01:05:10):
I do not put that much stock in the Boomer education.
SM (01:05:20):
Boomers are called the Vietnam Generation. Is that a good label?
DH (01:05:30):
Yeah, I mean if you mean by that people who did not want to serve their country in the cause of freedom, sure.
SM (01:05:37):
Others say Boomers are called the Wounded Generation.
DH (01:05:41):
Oh that is self-serving horse crap.
SM (01:05:47):
That has a lot to do with the Vietnam War I believe. Boomers are often defined as the Counter Culture Generation.
DH (01:05:54):
That is right.
SM (01:05:56):
And then the Woodstock generation.
DH (01:05:58):
Definitely.
SM (01:05:58):
One of the things that is really fantastic about you and makes you unique is that when you are on college campuses I think you say a lot of things that students have never heard before, and there were some speakers in the (19)60sthat I remember this, but as you go onto college campuses today, do you ever think back over your entire life and think when the Golden Era was in higher education, when all the views were desired, listened to, accepted as part of American democracy? Can you think of any period David? You are highly educated, you have been teaching... you have taught in the classroom, you have been on university campuses for forty-plus years, was there a golden era when even you felt good?
DH (01:06:47):
A golden era what?
SM (01:06:47):
A golden era when you could go on a college campus and you knew that the people were listening and they were not being, I do not want to say indoctrinated, but-
DH (01:06:53):
All right this jerk is at my door again.
SM (01:06:58):
Okay I will hold here.
DH (01:06:58):
April [inaudible].
SM (01:06:58):
That is okay.
DH (01:06:59):
Okay so the golden age, what are you asking me?
SM (01:07:24):
I am just asking, because you are obviously pretty upset with the way universities are run today and a lot of them are supposedly because of faculty and administrators that were reared and grew up as Boomers, but was there a period of time when you went to college, was there a few years where it was a golden era where you felt real good about college environments?
DH (01:07:49):
I loved my college education.
SM (01:07:54):
Yeah. Because you went to college in the early ... was it (19)60s?
DH (01:07:58):
No, (19)55 to (19)59.
SM (01:08:01):
Could you describe what it was like? Because that is still part of Boomers' lives, and they were in elementary school, what it was like to be on a college campus then?
DH (01:08:10):
Well of course there was a problem, because it was the McCarthy era, so that was fairly apolitical, although communists came to campus, John came to campus, of course it was when he was disillusioned with [inaudible] Norman Thomas [inaudible]. So the public square at the university was a little constricted, but the university community was hostile to McCarthy. The influences of McCarthyism which are now pervasive in the university because they come from the Left and the faculty Left were absent from the university. The university classroom was a very free place. Yeah and the college... you know you learn a scholarly disposition, which was skeptical, which was civilized, and reflect.
SM (01:09:30):
And-
DH (01:09:31):
There were no ideologs teaching then. I never encountered any. Whereas today there are whole fields that are totally dominated by ideologs.
SM (01:09:48):
And you did your undergrad at Columbia and then you went to Berkeley for your master’s degree, and then the Free Speech movement took place. Now that is interesting. What are your thoughts on that Free Speech movement? That was (19)64 [inaudible]-
DH (01:10:05):
I was not around. I do not think much of it. It was not a free speech movement ... even that, I mean it is perfect because... and it was led by... one of the leaders was Bettina Aptheker, who was a card-carrying communist, but it was not a free speech movement because America has a First Amendment, it was a state institution, so of course there was free speech at Berkeley. It was about the right to recruit students to political movements on campus, that is what it was about. It was the right to intrude the political world into the university, and they basically [inaudible] you know, it is weird to present problems of the modern university, and-
SM (01:11:06):
Wow that is interesting because you know Mario Savio is highly revered for-
DH (01:11:14):
Of course he is, because the university is a left-wing institution.
SM (01:11:18):
I am going to be interviewing Bettina... Dr. Aptheker in January.
DH (01:11:24):
Yeah.
SM (01:11:25):
She is on sabbatical. She is actually going to be teaching at Columbia.
DH (01:11:29):
No doubt.
SM (01:11:30):
Yeah, she is going to be there. I have got about three more questions then we are done. When you look at the presidents of the time that Boomers were alive, from Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush One, Clinton, Bush Two, and now Obama, and actually Obama is a Boomer, he was two years old, the tail-end of the Boomers, but when you look at those presidents, do you give any of them As, Bs, Cs? How do you rate these presidents and how do you think these presidents influenced this generation?
DH (01:12:11):
Who was the presidents?
SM (01:12:12):
It is all of them from Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama. I guess Obama's just recent, but you know, these are the presidents that-
DH (01:12:32):
I do not rate presidents. I just do not do that. Can I ask you... I would like you to send me the transcript.
SM (01:12:38):
Oh yeah, you will get the transcript.
DH (01:12:39):
Yeah because I... you know, I... all right. But I do not... my wife has always asked me to rate things, I cannot. I do not-
SM (01:12:54):
That is all right.
DH (01:12:54):
Not what I do.
SM (01:12:56):
The best history books are written on the Boomers' generation, what do you think... which is usually 50 years after a generation has passed, what do you think they will be writing about this generation? What do you think they will say? And the people that will be writing will be the people that are not Boomers.
DH (01:13:10):
I have no idea and I do not really care. You know I have written what I... you know I disagree with that, I think that basically everything is already known, all the important things. If you visit controversies like what were the origins of the Civil War, you will find that at the time, you know, all the positions were already taken. So I have written what I know about the [inaudible] I hope people will read it but I am not confident they will, given the dominance of the Left in our universities. The ideological Left that does not really want to hear a different point of view.
SM (01:14:10):
Do you think Boomers have-
DH (01:14:15):
I personally do not think that any one individual or any one spectrum of individuals writing about a period like this would have a monopoly of proof, and therefore it is very important that you... if you are trying to evaluate the (19)60sfor example, that you [inaudible] a spectrum on views.
SM (01:14:44):
Do you think Boomers have been good parents?
DH (01:14:58):
I am not confident that that will be happening in American universities. [inaudible].
SM (01:14:58):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Do you think overall Boomers have been good parents and grandparents in raising their kids?
DH (01:15:01):
I have no idea.
SM (01:15:02):
No?
DH (01:15:05):
Do people actually answer that question?
SM (01:15:07):
Pardon?
DH (01:15:09):
Have you had people actually answer that question?
SM (01:15:12):
Yes. But they always do it on a personal basis. So they all say, "I cannot generalize an entire generation but I can tell you about a lot of my friends who are Boomers," and you know they go to the personal, they do not put a general statement, they just give a personal, and-
DH (01:15:31):
Okay let me ask you another question. Do you find people who are still Leftists taking the view that Boomers raised their kids horribly?
SM (01:15:46):
No.
DH (01:15:47):
No.
SM (01:15:48):
I have not had anybody-
DH (01:15:50):
So they conform, in other words their estimates of how Boomers bring up their children reflects their politics, correct?
SM (01:16:02):
Yeah, you know it is interesting, some have not gone into any details, some kind of pass over the question. Some do not have any kids. But you know, I have got over 100 interviews, I lot of them are Vietnam vets, and so I have gotten a lot of different responses from them, because of course a lot of them were treated pretty poorly when they came back and so they kind of answer these questions a lot differently than some of the scholars and writers and so forth. So I guess the final question I want to ask is something that Jan Scruggs, the founder of the Vietnam Memorial in (19)82 when it opened, he wrote a book called To Heal a Nation, and of course he was referring to, I think overall, the healing within the Vietnam veteran community and their families and so forth, but he did make a reference that he felt the wall was kind of the first step in healing the nation from the war. We are not talking about all the other things, just the war issue. Do you think... you know and I think he probably still believes it to-
DH (01:17:16):
[inaudible].
SM (01:17:18):
Has it helped heal the nation?
DH (01:17:25):
Well I think, you know, that is a mouthful what you just said. It did not heal the nation. So what I would say is that I think it did a great service in bringing the Vietnam veterans into the bosom of the nation, and that was a great service, but it did nothing to heal the nation, because the nation cannot be healed... it was not, you know, mistaken views of the war or different views of the war, it was a radical movement that fundamentally hates America and the system that it represents, and is at war with it, and so that war is going to go on, and you cannot make a monument to end that war.
SM (01:18:30):
You know I never said this in any of my other interviews, but I can remember when I was living in San Francisco in the early (19)80s and they had a minster on, he was on every week, he was kind of like a [Coughing] type minster, and he was on every week and I will never forget... my ears went up when he said this, "America will be a better place when the last Boomer dies." I was shocked when I heard it. And he was referring to the entire generation. So I think that is a little too strong, would not you say?
DH (01:19:01):
I do not know about that.
SM (01:19:03):
I felt that... and that was a minister that was really preaching. David are there any other-
DH (01:19:10):
I think... let me put it this way. I understand where he is coming from, as the sheer frustration of it, but the fact of the matter is that Boomers have children, and worse than that, they are indoctrinating other people's children through their corruption of the university system. And that is going to have an impact for generations.
SM (01:19:38):
Do you have any other final thoughts? Or was there a question that I did not ask that you thought might be appropriate to ask?
DH (01:19:46):
No, that is fine. But I am a little concerned about some of my answers.
SM (01:19:53):
Well first off it takes a while for me to get these transcribed David, and I had a partial interview with you, remember in the car when I was driving you to the airport?
DH (01:20:02):
No. Yeah, I have no memory of anything.
SM (01:20:02):
Yeah. So I also had sent-
DH (01:20:10):
It is just my state of being. You know I-
SM (01:20:10):
You what?
DH (01:20:16):
And you know, this Bettina Aptheker, a horse's ass.
SM (01:20:22):
Well I have actually interviewed David Harris and-
DH (01:20:25):
Another horse's ass.
SM (01:20:26):
And [inaudible] Davis.
DH (01:20:29):
Yeah.
SM (01:20:30):
And some of the top feminist leaders too, but I am trying to get all sides because I am... the-
DH (01:20:41):
I mean it is good.
SM (01:20:41):
The book is about... and I think you would be happy, even though you do not like some of the people, I like everybody.
DH (01:20:46):
It is fine, I like the idea. You know it is a kind of... I do not do well in these kind of... I do not think this way, you know with the [inaudible] answers and the-
SM (01:21:01):
Well I am a big fan of yours, you know I am-
DH (01:21:01):
I appreciate that, it is the only reason I have stayed on the phone.
SM (01:21:06):
Well no I am a fan of yours, because I just think you are the type of speaker that we need on university campuses, that is why it works with the Young Americas Foundation, I interviewed Mr. Robinson this summer as well, and it does not matter what my politics are, what matters is that I want young people-
DH (01:21:23):
I have to go with an armed guard to campuses.
SM (01:21:26):
Well that should not happen in America.
DH (01:21:40):
I agree.
SM (01:21:40):
That should not happen David.
DH (01:21:41):
Okay.
SM (01:21:41):
[inaudible].
DH (01:21:41):
All right.
SM (01:21:42):
There has been a lot of commentary in the news in the last couple of years that the reason why we have so many problems in American society is because of the Boomer generation, because they are responsible for the breakup of the American family and the lack of respect for authority and people in positions of power and responsibility, the increase in drugs, what are your thoughts on that commentary leveled against the Boomer generation?
DH (01:22:08):
Well you know I would not pin it on a generation as though it is an age thing, there is plenty of Boomers who support traditional family values, who are opposed to drugs, and voted for Ronald Reagan. It is the Left- wing Boomers, it is the... it is really the (19)60s, and the Boomers were just one wave of the (19)60s. I was born in 1939, so I am not a Boomer, but it was my generation of the Left that created the political framework of the radicalism of the (19)60s. And then there were evidently quite a few people who... from my generation as well who started the drug movement and you know, there was a kind of fusing of the, what you might call the cultural rebels, which had something to do with drugs and something to do... I do not know, with electric rock, and of course you know since I came out of a Marxist background I do not have too great of a feel for that. But by about 19, I guess, (19)67, when they had the Be In in Golden Gate Park and people were lighting up joints, there was that kind of rebellion against authority, and then we on the political Left integrated it with our anti-American revolt against the Vietnam War and you know, sundry other oppressions that we imagined were taking place. And you know Tom Hayden and others would say that... who were not especially... you know, they were not drug enthusiasts, I guess everybody did drugs, they felt it was very useful to have middle-class kids lighting up joints, breaking the law, because that made them into rebels. In order to make a revolution, particularly in a democracy where you can vote, you have to break the law, and it was important to make people cross the line through draft resistance and through drug use, so that they disrespected authority. And of course it was the Left that invented the word, "Pigs," for policemen and began the assault on civil authority that helped the crime wave that followed, and it was... you know and the drug epidemic that followed was a direct consequence of... you know Hayden, in his Berkeley liberation statement, had the absurd clause of... or part of the Berkeley liberation statement was we will protect people's right to use hard drugs, even though they may be harmful for that. It was lunacy... lunatic decade, but the general assault on the family from the feminists and the use of drugs and the assault on police, you know it did definitely fuel the fires of all these social... the social holocaust that followed.
SM (01:25:49):
I just want to double-check here to make sure that is working properly. Testing.
DH (01:25:49):
I will do it.
SM (01:25:50):
Okay. It looks like it is.
DH (01:26:14):
[inaudible] Yeah.
SM (01:26:14):
What I normally do is... see if this is working right. [inaudible] Batteries or the ... I do not see the red light on here. I am trying to see if I see a red light on here. Testing one, two. Okay. I will be able to do it.
DH (01:26:21):
Okay.
SM (01:26:29):
Okay next question is could you give some of the, what you consider some of the positive characteristics and then some of the negative characteristics of the Boomers? Just brief descriptions. Your thoughts-
DH (01:26:40):
Okay but I want to... I mean just make that distinction between the first wave of the (19)60s, which was people of my generation pre-war or wartime, and then the Boomers who... the Boomers really fueled the phenomenon like the Weathermen, you know, they were really revolutionary, and they were more reckless, and they really carried it through in the (19)70s. I think my generation got a little tired. Positive, I think first of all, my periodization of the (19)60sis that it began in 1963, in the fall after the... with the assassination of Kennedy. I consider the movement of Martin Luther King to be a movement really of the (19)50s, something that started in the late (19)50s and in a way ended with the enactment of the Civil Rights Acts, because what followed that was a movement... the Civil Rights Movement that was taken over by Stokely Carmichael, the radicals. The guiding spirits became Malcolm X, not Martin Luther King. So you know I consider the Civil Rights Acts, you know, the tremendous triumphs of the (19)60s, but they really were pre-Boomer, let us put it that way. And your idea of Boomer is good there, because it was not the Boomers. The Boomers are the Black Power enthusiasts. But what the (19)60sdid that I think was very important was to widen the public space. It was the inclusion of Black America into the popular culture, is the most striking result of that, but there was a general tolerance for square pegs that did not fit into round holes. I think that we greatly expanded our public space in the (19)60sand that is something that was truly beneficial, and I have not only no quarrel with that, but I feel good about having played a small part in it. I liked the music, not the clothes but the music was kind of neat. And you know I... one has to separate it. In my view, the entry of women into the workplace and into public life was really effortless, I mean I think it had more to do with the development of the pill, than anything else, because until women could really control their reproductive cycle, there was no possibility for them to pursue, or there was, let us say, restricted possibility for them to pursue careers. I do not think there was tremendous resistance to women moving into the workplace and I do not think that Betty Friedan had much of a positive impact, or the Women's Movement, I think it was mainly negative. Except other areas, I think maybe sports, I do not know that women would have proceeded as directly into sports. You know maybe it accelerated it at some points, but it created so much bitterness and so much sexual confusion that... you know, unbalance, I do not think it was too positive. I am speaking of the organized Feminist Movement.
SM (01:30:28):
What are your thoughts on today's generation of young people and also the parents who are the Boomers, who have raised them? Have they shared their experiences of what it was like in the (19)60sand the (19)70with their children? I bring this question up because when you see the voting patterns of today's young people, and you compare them with some of the Boomers who actually were fighting for the right to vote, the voting patterns are pretty comparable with young people voting under 50 percent, and probably a lot of Boomers doing the very same thing. What impact have Boomers had on their kids' lives, from your perspective?
DH (01:31:05):
Well I am... you are talking about vote apathy. I have never been concerned about vote apathy, I mean I think that people do not vote either because... you know mainly because they are too busy to pay attention to what is going on in politics and I guess they are fairly satisfied with the way things are and the way things are going. I mean I have never seen it... I prefer people who are not interested, that they do not vote. But I think that the present generations are more conservative, certainly, than the Boomers were. I think that the... you know, people have seen the (19)60sdid not work. They tried to... the Boomers tried to create an alternative to the family, it failed miserably. They promoted drugs, we have a drug epidemic. You know you cannot tune in, turn on, and drop out now. If you drop out you never come back, it is too competitive. You know it was a unique period where the middle-class young people had the luxury of partying throughout their 20s and growing in politics and then coming back and getting careers, and of course what have they done? The people who said they were going to burn down the university in the (19)60s, and you know, revolution and on the barricades, they went on and they became PhDs. You know, they were the bureaucrats that run the contemporary university and have made it a more restrictive environment, ironically, than it was in the (19)50s. You know there is more university oversight and intervention in undergraduate's lives these days than there ever was in the 1950s, and so they were not exactly a revolutionary inspiration. I mean they were the thought police, if you like, they were the ones who enacted the speech codes and this very restrictive idea of political correctness. You know and Americans have a kind of... they have an innate rebellious spirit which is more anarchical than communist, and their parents are more communist than anarchist, and I think that creates a certain tension. Also the Boomers showed that although they changed the American life a lot and, in my view, a lot for the worst, they showed that you can bring about the millennium, and so their children are much more practical and looking much more to careers and things like that.
SM (01:34:06):
One of the slogans of the (19)60swhen Boomers were young, I know because I remember it from college, it said, "We are the most unique generation in American history," just your thoughts on that mentality when people were young and whether you think Boomers have carried that to adulthood, and your thoughts on that kind of an attitude when they were young?
DH (01:34:26):
Well I think everybody who is young thinks they are unique and that they know better than older people. You know there is a truth in that. I do not... you know America has not seen such an upheaval since... a domestic upheaval since the Civil War, so it is a watershed decade, the (19)60s, and in that they may be right. I think that (19)60speople are sort of gloomy. You know I think they have to feel that they failed, because their expectations were so unrealistic to begin with, so they could never succeed. That was built in. And I think they were an unhappy lot in that sense.
SM (01:35:22):
[inaudible].
DH (01:35:23):
An unhappy lot in that sense.
SM (01:35:27):
How important were the Boomers with the respect to the Civil Rights Movement, knowing that Freedom Summer really took place in (19)64, and if you look at the age group of the Boomers, they were born between (19)46 and (19)64.
DH (01:35:39):
Right, I do not think the Boomers were important at all. It was more my generation. While they were in high school or something at the time, so they did not play a role. The Civil Rights Movement as I say was really a movement of the (19)50s, it was a much... it was a very traditionalist movement a lot of religious values, you know, non-violence.
DH (01:36:01):
Values, nonviolence, the idea of integrating into American life. I mean, the Boomers rejected American life. It is quite a different phenomenon and agenda.
SM (01:36:18):
How important, again, getting to another major issue that has shaped the lives of not only your generation, but the Boomers themselves, the Vietnam War. In your opinion, what was the main reason that the Vietnam War ended, and how important were the students on college campuses in ending that war?
DH (01:36:36):
Well, I think they were... it is not that they ended the war, it Is that they caused the United States to lose the war. And I mean, you can have an end. The Korean War ended. In the Korean War, the communists were prevented from conquering the South. But the Vietnam War of the United States was forced by the American protestors to retreat from the field of battle and surrender it to the enemy. And the consequence, of course, was that two and a half million people were slaughtered in the communist peace. I think they were absolutely critical. Without the protestors, the United States would have won that war.
SM (01:37:29):
One of the terms that we often try to talk with young people about today, college students, is searching for empowerment in the sense that their voice counts, that they can actually change the world to make it better.
DH (01:37:40):
This is what you... what?
SM (01:37:42):
The concept of empowerment.
DH (01:37:44):
I hate the word.
SM (01:37:45):
Well, young people at that time felt empowered. Not all, but a lot of young people.
DH (01:37:51):
Arrogance of youth, yes. They felt they could run the world and run it better than anybody else but the President.
SM (01:37:59):
But have they carried any of that empowerment into their adulthoods? Because we see that many Boomers have gone on to become very successful in life and have gone into the materialism that they so often attacked.
DH (01:38:10):
And they got sober. Look, the schemes that the Boomers had were Marxoid schemes, were a crackpot, and they were bound to fail because they were not based on any accurate assessment or appropriate assessment of what human beings are capable of or how societies need to be ordered. They have this fantasy. Woodstock was the big fantasy that you do not need police, that there does not have to be any institutions of order. This is a [inaudible] myth. And of course, they have to sober up and get into the workforce and come to terms with reality and produce. What do they do now? They produce ice cream.
SM (01:39:08):
Ben and Jerry's?
DH (01:39:09):
Ben and Jerry's, yeah. And even Ben and Jerry's. I mean, the guy, he had to get a CEO in that was a corporate CEO. And so Ben and Jerry's is now a complete corporate... Those guys just gave up a lot of personal fortune for nothing.
SM (01:39:28):
Can you comment on a term that was well known from the (19)60s, the generation gap? Compare that generation gap of what may be a generation gap today between boomers and their kids.
DH (01:39:40):
Oh, well, I do not know. Look, the generation gap of the sixties was created by drugs and by the war, the draftable... the anti-draft movement. I do not know. I mean, I do not pretend to be an expert on the boomers and their children. And I suspect that the boomers have come to terms. They are much more conservative in their lives than they were when they were 20. So that I would say it is not as great.
SM (01:40:29):
I want to get into the issue of healing. Do you think-
DH (01:40:29):
And now, do not forget, the boomers' parents had lived through the Depression and were bound to be nervous about the downside. So the boomers have, as they say, come to terms with being in the workforce and doing the bourgeois thing. And their children certainly understand that they have been born into a very competitive environment. And if they slip by the wayside or they do not focus on their careers, they will be left behind. So as I say, there is a much narrower gap.
SM (01:41:09):
Do you think it is possible to heal within a generation, where differences of opinions of positions taken were so extreme? I say this because we took group of students several years back [inaudible] that had not been well and he asked them that question and he said, "We have not really healed since the Civil War," when we were talking about what happened during the sixties. Your thoughts on the healing process within the generation as the next generation gets older?
DH (01:41:38):
Well, look, I mean, I disagree with Musky. We have healed since the Civil War. Even there is this big controversy about the flags at Ole Miss, But the kids who are waving the flags and not waving them because they support slavery or even because they are racists. I mean, it is a pride in the school and the symbols. So I do not understand what it could mean we have not healed in that sense since the Civil War. The race issue, and I am thinking now like North South, if you are thinking of black, white, the race issue has been heated up by liberals and leftists, by multiculturalism, by emphasizing ethnicity, by a constant drum beat about how racist America is And by affirmative action, which is put black intellectuals in contexts often where they are non-competitive. But I am worried about the noise here.
SM (01:42:53):
Yeah, the noise is happening. We got a window open back here and that is why we are getting that sound.
DH (01:42:54):
Which is a prescription for resentment, racial resentments. The (19)60s, the problem is not what happened in the sixties, and it is certainly not, for example, over the Vietnam War. I mean, Ronald Reagan did a lot to heal the wounds by not attacking the left when he was president. The left has got away with murder. The people who call themselves progressive supported the communists right to the end of the Cold War, or at the very least said there was no difference between America and the Soviet Union. And nobody went after them when the Cold War was over, and they dominate our liberal arts faculties today, the people who supported communism. So that is not the problem, healing from issues that were fought out in the sixties or in the past. The problem is the carrying of those agendas into the present. The problem is the difference between people who think that we should have government, have racial preferences, who think that the government should make people equal and redistribute income and people who do not. And there the gap is as wide as it has ever been.
SM (01:44:14):
[inaudible] tape here if we are doing okay. Yeah. I cannot tell. You cannot even tell if there is light on, here, but it is working, so.
DH (01:44:21):
Okay.
SM (01:44:28):
How important has the Vietnam Memorial been, as [inaudible] when he wrote that book, To Heal A Nation, the wall was built to basically be a non-political entity to pay tribute to those who served. But if you read the book, you see the goal was not only to heal the veterans, but to heal the divisions in America and just in terms of remembrance. How important was that wall and how important, in your opinion, has the wall been in healing America as a nation, especially those who may have been on opposing sides of the war?
DH (01:44:59):
Well, like I say, I do not think that the war is divisive anymore. I think that the memorial, everybody supports the memorial. I do not know anybody... And I mean when I say everybody, not every individual, but all sides of the political spectrum have embraced the wall. I think everybody feels that Vietnam was a failure one way or another, the war. And you rarely... it is not a big issue anymore. It is too long gone.
SM (01:45:38):
The issue of trust is something we see today. A lack of trust in elected leaders, no matter what party they belong to, that this lack of trust not only is directed toward political leaders, but it is directed oftentimes towards religious leaders, presidents of universities, anybody that... CEOs, people in positions of responsibility. Your thoughts on the impact of that (19)60s era and the concept of trust?
DH (01:46:06):
I think the sixties was an era where the left set out to sow distrust and was helped by things like the Kennedy assassination and the Warren Commission report. And I think it is endemic in American life. I would not really blame the (19)60s. Conspiracy theories are as old as the republic. The idea that Washington is the enemy is as old as the republic. I think it is normal.
SM (01:47:00):
[inaudible] we will just check this again to make sure. We are almost here, by the way. We are not far. Yeah, it is almost over. I am just going to, again, [inaudible] flip before and I will switch over and just mention a few names of people and just instant quick response and your thoughts on them. George McGovern.
DH (01:47:07):
George McGovern, a fellow traveling, dimwitted political has-been.
SM (01:47:23):
Bobby Kennedy.
DH (01:47:23):
Bobby Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy was a... oh God. He was an aggressive, mean, arrogant, younger brother who felt was stricken by personal guilt when his brother was killed because he felt responsible and jumped on kind of the bandwagon of leftist causes as a way of assuaging his guilt, his personal guilt.
SM (01:48:03):
Eugene McCarthy.
DH (01:48:07):
A at dilettante, a political dilettante, Gene McCarthy.
SM (01:48:14):
The Berrigan Brothers.
DH (01:48:16):
Communists. Destructive, arrogant, religious, communists.
SM (01:48:22):
The Black Panther leaders of that era. Huey Newton, Bobby Seal.
DH (01:48:26):
Murderous thugs.
SM (01:48:26):
Eldridge Cleaver and that group.
DH (01:48:31):
Thugs. These were political gangsters.
SM (01:48:34):
Benjamin Spock.
DH (01:48:39):
A mushy-headed fellow traveler.
SM (01:48:44):
Timothy Leary.
DH (01:48:47):
An irresponsible, destructive destroyer of children.
SM (01:48:56):
John Kennedy.
DH (01:48:59):
John Kennedy, an interesting and admirable personality who ran an administration to which we could trace an awful lot of the troubles that followed.
SM (01:49:20):
Lyndon Johnson.
DH (01:49:23):
Jesus, a smarmy political operator.
SM (01:49:37):
Robert McNamara.
DH (01:49:40):
Oh, an evil robotic... an evil robotic... well, evil and robotic.
SM (01:50:02):
Richard Nixon.
DH (01:50:03):
Nixon? Oh God. A...
SM (01:50:05):
[inaudible] I think we are still... is it still going? It is.
DH (01:50:06):
Oh God. A treacherous leader with a huge ego problem who did a lot of damage to American life.
SM (01:50:36):
Malcolm X.
DH (01:50:40):
Malcolm X, a brilliant racist and a lot of psychological insights, very useful, but has had a very pernicious influence in his afterlife.
SM (01:50:56):
Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin.
DH (01:50:57):
Clowns.
SM (01:51:01):
Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda.
DH (01:51:04):
Well, they are very different. I mean, Jane Fonda is a pathetic slave to her men, shallow beyond conception, an imitation communist when she was involved with Tom Hayden and a proper corporate wife when she is married.
SM (01:51:38):
What airline are you flying?
DH (01:51:40):
Oh, well, God, airways, US Airways.
SM (01:51:41):
US Airways.
DH (01:51:41):
And Hayden is a Machiavelli-
SM (01:51:42):
There is Transatlantic [inaudible]. Is this it? US Airways [inaudible]?
DH (01:51:49):
Yeah, that is it. Not, Transatlantic. Oh my God, maybe that is it.
SM (01:51:53):
[inaudible]. Last one, Hubert Humphrey.
DH (01:51:59):
Well, Hayden was a Machiavellian political operator. Humphrey, I have very little recollection. All I remember him saying is, "I am pleased as punch."
SM (01:52:09):
[inaudible].
DH (01:52:10):
Yeah, that is it. Yep. One of the last of the old-fashioned anti-communist liberals. We did not have those last ones. Stu Wagner, a crook.
SM (01:52:26):
Did that flip or no?
DH (01:52:29):
Yeah, I do not know. Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin clowns. Hubert Humphrey, the last of the old-fashioned anti-communist liberals.
SM (01:52:37):
And last but not least, I guess two people, Dwight Eisenhower and Muhammad Ali. That is it. I got-
DH (01:52:43):
Two American heroes.
SM (01:52:45):
Great. All right.
DH (01:52:56):
[inaudible] going to have to prove that [inaudible] national security, and therefore it is going to have to reveal a lot more about this agency and then it is going to want to probably. And therefore there is a very good chance that you will not be prosecuted. And that was enough for us and we did it. And I mean, this is only one of many, many acts in the (19)60s, which were done, which violated America's national security laws, which could be called treason and probably literally were, and nobody has talked about it. I talk about meeting with the KGB or they sought me out. I rejected their advances, but they met with a lot of people. I do not know who did or who did not. And why do I think this is significant now? I think it is significant because it is not only a matter of the historical record, but for the country itself. It is important to exonerate the people who were concerned about national security and who defended this country in the (19)60sand the (19)70against its enemies. And the FBI is one of them. My experience with the Panthers showed me that the FBI, of course, COINTELPRO was ended in 1970. The FBI was inept in dealing with the Panthers. How could they kill so many people and not be prosecuted? And as I say, I am not the only writer who has discovered this. If the FBI was doing what we had said it was. And of course everybody now views the police as brutal and repressive. I point out in the book how the head of the Oakland Police Force called Huey Newton to warn him that the pimps of the East Bay had a contract on his life. And this is something that his lawyer even said. They did have a contract on his life. And Huey's response was he wanted a permit to carry a concealed weapon. But it shows... the head of the Oakland police that we have been calling the police fascist, racist and so forth. And here they are warning Newton, knowing full well that the reason the pimps had the contract on Newton was because he was shaking them down. I mean, he was extortion, shakedowns, a lot of criminal operations. And this affected my whole view of the social political struggle, if you will. I had a different appreciation of the police force, the difficulties they operate under, how hard it is for them to apprehend criminals that are protected by left-wing lawyers and the liberal press.
SM (01:55:43):
In addition to the politics of the book, you talk a lot about your personal life. Why did you do that?
DH (01:55:46):
Well, I had noticed even as when I was a radical, how left-wing memoirs often avoid the personal entirely. You can read, Irving How's memoirs, for example, and it is really a history of his political thoughts. And I understood because I had thought so much about this. I mean, these events happened in 1974, (197)5. So I have been thinking for 20 years about the impact of being a leftist on myself, of having that worldview. And I was determined to write a very personal story as well, to show what it means to be in the, what is called now, the progressive left. I believe it is a kind of religion. It is as powerful as a religion and that it has that impact. And that is my little family.
SM (01:56:50):
How about the top picture here, who is that?
DH (01:56:54):
That is Lisa, who is the mother of my children, and that is our wedding picture.
SM (01:56:59):
What year?
DH (01:57:00):
That is 1959. And I often wonder if my root, the reason that I have become who I am ... I am I guess the most prominent critic, if you like, of the left... is not because I had a nuclear family in the sixties. That has a very powerful impact on you when you are responsible for children, for leading them into a productive life. You have quite a different attitude towards some of the things we encourage in the (19)60s, like drugs, like basic kind of contempt for family structures [inaudible]-
SM (01:57:44):
Are all these your children?
DH (01:57:46):
Those are my children. They are now in their thirties. Except that I have one that is still in her late twenties.
SM (01:57:54):
How long were you married to Lisa?
DH (01:57:56):
20 years.
SM (01:57:57):
What year did you get divorced?
DH (01:57:59):
We got divorced in probably, I do not know technically, but in 1978, the Fall of 1978 is when I left the family, which is the hardest, was extremely painful and is a painful memory. And it was a direct consequence of the disintegration, I would say, of my being after the death of Betty Van Patter. The analogy I would draw is of somebody who was born to the priesthood or their rabbinate and had become a priest or a rabbi, and that had found that his church had murdered an innocent mother of three children and that the whole congregation would support the church against him. And my whole life had been lived. And that that is one of the reasons. I guess it was also working backwards, seeing the disintegration, feeling the disintegration of my person and personality. I understood how important being a radical was to the constitution of my identity. I felt I had followed all the rules. I was the good student. I was never tardy when I was in elementary school. I got As. I was responsible.
SM (01:59:25):
Where did you go to school?
DH (01:59:27):
I went to Columbia as my college.
SM (01:59:29):
But you went to... your grade school was-
SM (01:59:32):
Bryant. I went to music and art in New York City and then transferred to William Cullen Bryant. It was just a neighborhood school. Whitey Ford was probably its most illustrious graduate.
SM (01:59:45):
A famous pitcher.
SM (01:59:46):
Yes, a famous pitcher for the Yankees. I wanted to break rules. I felt I had denied myself. I had sacrificed, I had done all the right things and it had made me complicit, in a way, in a murder. I never suspected that the Panthers were that kind of... at least Huey, the people I dealt with were a vicious criminals. I did not-
SM (02:00:14):
You did not think they were.
SM (02:00:17):
I did not. And a lot of my contemporary critics, people who were in the left say, "Oh, everybody knew the Panthers were criminals." And David got involved with them. But the reality is that Murray Kempton was writing, as a left-wing journalist, wrote a review of Huey Newton's autobiography on the front page of the Sunday Times book review, comparing him to Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther in 1973. And Gary Wills wrote a similar review about the Panthers in that year. And Eric Erickson, who I guess he has kind of forgotten now, but he was the leading psychologist in the country in that period. And he held a joint seminar at Yale with Huey Newton in 1973. And just two years, well, three years before you remember, Yale University was shut down by demonstrations on behalf of the Panthers that Hillary Clinton was part of. So the Panthers were pretty well thought of.
SM (02:01:25):
You had an affair with Abby Rockefeller.
SM (02:01:28):
Yeah.
SM (02:01:28):
Who was she and how did that figure into your divorce?
SM (02:01:33):
Well, the divorce, it was part of my disorder at that time. This happened actually simultaneous with these events. And Abby was a radical. She was younger than I was, and she still had a kind of purity of faith. And although I no longer... I had many doubts, I had lots of doubts because of what happened in the Vietnam War. I guess I felt invigorated by being connected to her. It was mainly platonic, although it was not wholly platonic and it created a crisis in my marriage. But Lisa and I had been married a very long time, and we had these children, and I think a marriage would have survived something like that if that was not just an indication of much greater problems to come. And that was that I could not keep my commitments and I could not keep myself in order. I was so depressed. I felt like a dead person, and I needed to discover how to get myself out of this pit. And I could not get that out of my marriage and out of... so-
SM (02:03:02):
Where is your first wife now?
SM (02:03:05):
She is in California. I am very... as the book tells the story, you will know that I am very close to my family and I consider that one of the great blessings of my life. She is a very good woman, and we have this bond from having raised these children and the children are the joy of my life.
SM (02:03:30):
Who is this one right here?
SM (02:03:33):
That is my third wife.
SM (02:03:37):
There is no picture in here of your second wife?
SM (02:03:39):
No, I actually do not have a picture of her. It was a very... the book tells a part of the story in this book is the difficulty of putting together a life in midlife. I think a lot of people out there will identify with this. It is very hard. When you are young and romantically in love and you sort of are getting into the same boat at the same time in your life and setting out into this great unknown and then you have children... I mean, there is a lot to be said for the whole traditional way of doing things. I am a conservative now, but I have become one the hard way. And so there are a lot of bonds that strengthen the marriage, the family union, the... of course men and women, despite what some feminists think, are very different, and it is part of the excitement of any kind of heterosexual connection, but it is also fraught with difficulties, and-
SM (02:04:42):
Who was the second wife?
SM (02:04:44):
She was a California woman who had been married to a Count. I knew her as the Countess Crespi, although she was not exactly a valley girl, but she came from sort of the Los Angeles region and was a film producer at the time. But it was a very brief... Oliver Stone was at my wedding. That was part of the intoxication of being in Hollywood. See, I was somebody who had lived a very Spartan life for the revolution because I felt that was the good life. As I say, it was like being a priest or something. And when all of that collapsed and when I saw that my church was a church involved in huge crimes and unable to deal with those crimes itself, I mean still covering them up to this day. It is 20 years later and the left still covering this stuff up will not deal with it.
SM (02:05:50):
How long was that second marriage?
SM (02:05:51):
That was very brief. That was less than a year. And it just was an episode. The third one was more significant. And what it does is... this woman had a drug problem that I was not aware of how serious it was.
SM (02:06:10):
Name was Shea?
SM (02:06:11):
Shea, and I was on a... it shows how deep in my character is the rescuer. I think that people on the left are rescuers. I tell another story about a childhood friend named Ellen Sparer, who was also a missionary to poor people and to blacks and she was brutally murdered, I believe as a direct consequence of her unguarded attitude.
SM (02:06:40):
Where did she live?
SM (02:06:41):
She lived in Inglewood, New Jersey, which is an integrated area. She was a high school teacher and was sodomized and strangled by a 15-year-old whom she had helped.
SM (02:06:51):
At what time, year? What year?
SM (02:06:54):
Right after Betty's murder.
SM (02:06:55):
(19)74?
SM (02:06:56):
I had a double... two huge traumas. And anyway, I told this story of that last marriage in the book because I had actually started the autobiography when this woman disappeared. I mean, I came back one weekend and the house had been half-emptied and-
SM (02:07:24):
Shea?
SM (02:07:24):
Yeah, Shea, she was gone.
SM (02:07:25):
What year was this?
SM (02:07:26):
That was 1993.
SM (02:07:28):
No, so not too long ago.
SM (02:07:30):
It was right when I wrote the article about Elaine Brown. And in looking at myself, I have to see that I am the kind of person who a conservative person would look and say, look at this woman's past and make certain judgements about it. And as a radical, I always wanted to leap over boundaries. I mean, Huey Newton, I mean had a knife wound in his side. He had been to jail. Why would not you avoid somebody like that? Because we were making a new world. I mean, that is what it is to-
DH (02:08:03):
Because we were making a new world. I mean, that is what it is to be a progressive. You do not accept the world as it is. You want to make a new and much better world. You want people to be different. And as I said, I invoked the feminists before, but they want to end five thousand years of history between the sexes has been recorded. We know how males and females behave and think about each other. And they want to transform these relationships into something we have never seen before. And my book is a book about how dangerous that can be. And I had to tell my personal story to show what a huge price I have paid.
SM (02:08:45):
Is that hard to talk about now?
DH (02:08:47):
Well, some of these things I am even talking about them, this is fairly intimate. It is difficult.
SM (02:08:55):
I have always wondered, if people write this and then they come talk about it, it seems like watching them, it is harder to talk about it than it is to write it.
DH (02:09:03):
It was hard to write, let me tell you. It was hard to write. But of course a writer, it is a lonely profession. I mean, you are really communicating with a page and then the page goes out there. I know it is almost, that is a story about somebody else. I am already onto a new phase of my life, which is much happier. I am engaged to a woman with a very good heart. And I discovered that that is very important. It is very important to have... This woman is a very... I mean, she has a child and I have tried to learn this process through my life, to look at people and see them as they are and to realize they are not going to change very much. So if I see somebody who is loving towards their child and takes care of them and protects them, then I can know that if they love me, that it will be transferred to me. If I see somebody like Shay who is rootless, who has no connection, who had no friends, I should have been much more. I should have been warned that this is going to be dangerous.
SM (02:10:12):
Where is she now?
DH (02:10:13):
I have no idea. She disappeared.
SM (02:10:16):
Let us talk about these two people and these two pictures.
DH (02:10:20):
That on the left is my father, right near the end of his life. And on the right is myself and my mother who had some strokes. And that was near the end of her life, and I had brought her to California and took care of her out there. And below that, of course, is Ronald Reagan. And I took great pleasure in receiving an award from Reagan because Reagan, to me, symbolized all those decent Americans who stood on the Ramparts during the Cold War and defended this country against communism while I and all my fellow new leftists supported communist dictators. Whether it was in Russia or in Cuba or in Vietnam, and worked very hard to undermine the institutions of this country. And I see people like Reagan still scorned by the literary crowd a lot, who will probably watch shows like Book notes and getting no credit for what they did. And when I saw Reagan, he smiled at me and he said, "I had second thoughts before you," reminding me of how he had started out also somewhat on the left.
SM (02:11:41):
Who, by the way, would want to tangle with you today, who did not leave the left that you knew back then? Who would love to take you on and say you are nothing but a...
DH (02:11:50):
Well, they do it, but they will not do it in person. When Peter and I surfaced-
SM (02:11:57):
Peter Collier?
DH (02:11:58):
Peter Collier.
SM (02:12:00):
There is a picture in here I will show this.
DH (02:12:01):
Of Peter-
SM (02:12:01):
And his wife.
DH (02:12:02):
...and his wife Mary. When Peter Collier and I first surfaced and brought to light these stories, particularly about the Panthers, we were really savagely attacked by the Washington Post and The New Republic. Although as you know, The New Republic has at least two personalities. But the left personality attacked us, accused us of everything that we had revealed, that we were the only ones who had done it. And so, there are a lot of them, but they will not appear. I mean, I have a writer now, I have a column on Salon Magazine on the internet, Salon1999.com where I have a column opposite James Carville. And they invited Todd Gitlin, who is a very well-known professor, and he wrote a book about the (19)60sto debate me and on the internet. And Todd refused to do it. And to me, I would never confuse Todd with a Stalinist, but it reminds me of when Stalin used to airbrush Trotsky's picture out of the photographs. The left does not like to engage in dialogue or debate. I spoke at the University of Pennsylvania two nights ago, and they had a large undergraduate course in the (19)60s taught by three professors. All of them were kind of a new leftist tenured radicals, [inaudible] Kimble in Harlem. And none of them would come. They were all invited to come and debate me. None of them would. They did not invite me into their class. I am a kind of living historical specimen. You would think a professor who was teaching instead of indoctrinating their students, but actually trying to teach them, would leap at the chance to have me come to the class and just discuss my life. So, there is a wall out there that the left does not like to engage this book or me.
SM (02:14:09):
Make a connection. Did I read in your book that Marty Peretz started Ramparts?
DH (02:14:13):
Marty was an early funder of Ramparts and I think that Ramparts-
SM (02:14:18):
Current owner of New Republic.
DH (02:14:20):
Yes. And Marty Peretz, although we will disagree on some things, like Al Gore, is a good friend. He is a good man, Marty.
SM (02:14:30):
And Marty Peretz is a big fan of Al Gore's.
DH (02:14:33):
Yes. Well, I accept people and their contradictions. I welcome any people from my past, even if they are still on the left. After all, we are all getting older. This book is about mortality. I think being on the left is about mortality. It is an attempt to stay young forever, to be always present at the creation, the year zero of the revolution. But I think that any of us who have lived long enough, tend to get pretty tolerant of each other.
SM (02:15:12):
Go back to your dad and mom. They grew up where?
DH (02:15:16):
My father was born in Russia, but he came here when he was young, one. And my mother was born here. They met in the (19)30s. My dad went to the Soviet Union in the early (19)30s and I found-
SM (02:15:34):
Is this him in the picture?
DH (02:15:34):
That is my dad and I tried to understand myself through my dad.
SM (02:15:39):
And this is you?
DH (02:15:42):
And that is me. And this is a biography. I mean even people who might disagree with the political conclusions, that is not really the center of the book. This is about... It is about my odyssey and it is about fathers and sons. I mean, I think, we all, as John F. Kennedy said, we all have fathers. I think people can identify with that. The New Age people talk about having have past lives and in a sense our parents are our past lives and all of our ancestors are, because they are deeply... somewhere in the genetic code is a core of personality. I discovered this through my children. I have four children, same. Lisa and I brought them all up and they almost came out with different personalities. I mean, it was not like a child is a mere reflection of the parent. There is something in the DNA that creates that personality. And that of course is a very conservative idea. [inaudible].
SM (02:16:55):
What were the politics of your father?
DH (02:16:57):
My father was... Both my parents were members of the Communist Party, and that means that they were part of a vast international conspiracy. And that was orchestrated from Moscow. As we now know because of the opening of the Soviet archives and coding of Venona transcripts. There is a lot of vindication for the sort of anti-communist right in this book. And that is the way our lives were lived. They were middle class school teachers. They never broke laws, but they belonged to these secret cells. They had secret names. My mother told me hers, Anne Powers, from when they would move into their illegal modes to overthrow the government.
SM (02:17:42):
Because they were loyal to the Soviet Union?
DH (02:17:45):
Well, because they believed as we all did, that there was a new world possible in which there would be no war, no racism, no poverty, no, we called it male chauvinism then, no war. Oh, I said no war. Basically all social problems would be solved. And that this new world had already begun. It existed in the Soviet Union and that is why they could support a mass murderer like Stalin. Just the way the left would not believe 20 years ago that Huey Newton was a murderer. So we did not believe that Joseph Stalin was a murderer.
SM (02:18:28):
When your father went to Russia, what year was it?
DH (02:18:30):
(19)32.
SM (02:18:31):
And what did he see there?
DH (02:18:32):
Well, he saw a lot of poverty and I think he understood that there was some... I do not know if he realized there was a famine going on because that was fairly concealed, but he blamed that on the capitalist powers. He did not realize that it was the Marxist government. The Marxism is a crackpot economics as we now know because... But not everybody realized that. As late as the (19)80s, Harvard professors like John Kenneth Galbraith, very distinguished economist, Paul Samuelson were saying Russian's economy was catching up to the United States when in fact it was like a third world country. So that Marxist delusion has been very powerful in our century. And my father thought that this was the first time that the people owned their government. I mean kept writing in this book about how the people are the real owners. In capitalism, of course, he was just a peon. He was just a... And he also wrote... The thing that struck me the most was that he felt... My father was a very depressed individual and a very unhappy one. And he felt at home in Russia and he felt that there was true comradeship. He kept talking about going to events and feeling that everybody is one, it is a community. I think a lot of the left is about that, and it is a religious desire to be part of the flock.
SM (02:20:01):
Where did he go to school?
DH (02:20:03):
He went to Townsend Harris, which was a kind of special school where they taught Latin and where he had a very hard time. And then he went to City College, which was the kind of fountain of a lot of the New York intellectuals. But my father was not able to go on to an academic career. He had to support his parents. He went into teaching.
SM (02:20:27):
There have been a lot of people that have come through over the last year or two with books to talk about beginning at City College, becoming communist or socialist, transferring over to being neo-conservatives. Doing what you did, go to Columbia, have some of the same experiences. Why did you pick Columbia? What impact did that have on you?
DH (02:20:47):
I have no idea actually why I picked Columbia except it was an Ivy League school in New York. My father felt betrayed. I will never forget when I, as a freshman walking on the campus with him and being awed by the great names on the library, Socrates, Dante. And my father was distressed and I did not understand that distress till later. But he thought that I had kind of left the fold by going to the rich man school. I mean, I was a scholarship student. And when I was in my mid (19)30s, he asked me if it was Columbia that had kind of stolen my soul. But I was thrilled by learning. I mean, I loved my college.
SM (02:21:32):
How much of the radical son in you came from college, how much of it came from your parents?
DH (02:21:37):
Well, none of it. College, because I remember I belonged to the NAACP at Columbia, and we had a hard time getting signatures on a petition for a federal anti-lynch law. There was no radical activity in the (19)50s at campus. I wrote papers as a Marxist and I will say that it was freer in the McCarthy (19)50s for people on the wrong side of the kind of ideological tracks than it is today for conservatives. Conservatives in today's academy are graded politically, and they are persecuted for their political ideas. Whereas I was not at Columbia as a Marist. I am grateful to my professors for not doing that. And some of the outrage I still have... I am somewhat mellowing as I get older, but as for those students in today's colleges that are not getting the education they should be.
SM (02:22:39):
There are all kinds of connections in this book that I wanted to ask you about. By the way, there is a lot of books that have been written by people who used to be on the left to have gone to the right. How many do you know that have been on the right that have gone to the left in the last 20 years?
DH (02:22:51):
Well, there are two that I am aware of. One is Gary Wills, who was not treated the way Peter Collier and I were. One does not identify Gary Wills with being an ex-right-winger who did 180 degree turn or being a renegade. And all these terms are ritually used about Peter and me when we are treated in the press. And the other, well, I would say Gary Wills is the one. Michael Lind has also written a book, but Michael Lind was never, by his own account, in his own book, a conservative. He says he is a lifelong Lyndon Johnson democrat.
SM (02:23:35):
Name that pops up in the middle of your book on page 274, if I can find it, is Michael Lerner. Is that the same Michael Lerner of Tikkun?
DH (02:23:42):
That is the Michael Lerner of Tikkun and the...
SM (02:23:45):
I will just read it here. It says, "Michael Lerner, who came to recruit me into a vanguard, he was calling the New American movement, summed up their reactions with characteristic crudeness. Even to raise such questions, he said to me, is counterrevolutionary."
DH (02:23:59):
Right. I was trying to ask at that point. It took me many years. I did not switch sides in the way Michael Lind did or even Gary Wills. I never was an active leftist after the death of Betty Van Patter, the murder of Betty Van Patter in January (19)75. I wrote an article in The Nation in... It was not until the second Reagan election and the support for the Sandinista Marxists in Nicaragua that made Peter and me sort of come out and be political again. And when Michael Lerner said of me that my ideas, my questions were counterrevolutionary, this was part of my process. This was about 1977, and I was asking whether socialism was viable, because I say it is comparable to a religious faith. Berdyaev, the Russian philosopher compared it to idolatry in a book he wrote in 1905. Because you believe that you can create, in effect, a heaven on earth. Only you can do it without a divine intervention. And therefore what you are worshiping as saviors is the vanguard. Now that is the problem with radicals. You worship the vanguard and you give them enormous power. And of course they commit enormous crimes because the objective is so normal, which is the redeemed world. And around that period I was very influenced by the Polish philosopher, he had been a Marxist, Leszek Kolakowski, in questions that he asked, which I discussed this in the book. And I wanted to know, I did not think socialism was workable at that point. And I wanted somebody to convince me that it was, and Lerner's response was to ask those questions is counter-revolutionary. And there is a whole series of incidents I described that taught me that the left is unable to think itself and to really deal with these questions. It is a matter of faith.
SM (02:26:17):
You say that you have something in common with Whitaker Chambers and we just did his biography on this program.
DH (02:26:22):
Yes.
SM (02:26:23):
What in common do you have with Whittaker Chambers?
DH (02:26:26):
Well, Whittaker Chambers was somebody who... He had been a communist and then he was recruited into the Communist underground and did a lot of illegal things and basically spied and then went public with the fact that Alger Hiss was a spy. That was the big thing that he did. And first his attitudes was dismissed, and then he was crucified. And to this day, I mean, I am so glad you did the program on the Chamber's biography. Because I have interviewed many college students who have never heard of Whittaker Chambers, although they have heard of Alger Hiss. That is the work of the left. That is that airbrushing out of the picture. Peter Collier and I were bestselling authors when we became conservatives.
SM (02:27:18):
Having sold what?
DH (02:27:19):
We wrote biographies of the Rockefellers and the Kennedys that were not only bestsellers, they were front page New York Times reviews. The minute that we revealed that we had voted for Ronald Reagan, our literary careers, and at that level were over. We knew we were not going to get any awards because the Pulitzers... And we had been nominated for National Book Award, a heavily political. We did not expect that we did not get a front-page review in the New York Times ever again. I will say that since this... I do not want to suggest that there is a conspiracy, it is just an attitude. And there are always individuals who are very principled and whom I respect. And Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, the daily reviewer for The Times did give our Ford book and he said it was our best work. The Sunday was not the same. We found ourselves excluded from the principal magazines of the culture. Harper is the Atlantic, the New York Review and the magazines, the New York Times magazine, the Washington Post Magazine. This became terrain that we could not walk on again.
SM (02:28:39):
What is the worst thing you think you did against this country?
DH (02:28:47):
Well, I have no idea what the consequences of that one act that we did, I described earlier, were. I think the worst thing is in sowing cynicism about this country. I think what the left does, they are like termites that eat at the social foundations. And a book I wrote as a leftist, Free World Colossus had a bad influence on the National Security Council chief, the point man for Nicaragua was Robert Pastor says he was influenced by my book not to intervene in behalf of the Democrats in 1979. Nicaragua could have been saved a lot of grief if we had intervened and protected the Democrats against the Sadinistas. But the general indictment of America, my book, the Free World Colossus, was the first book that indicted, that did the litany of the CIA in Guatemala, and Iran, in Vietnam and Cuba and so forth, as though that is American foreign policy. Or even as though that is always a bad thing. But the left has gone much further. It is demonized now, not only in America, but white males, European culture. It has created a whole new racist attitude, an anti-white racist attitude that is terribly divisive and is destructive to minorities and to black people in particular. And I was part of... I was being a new left intellectual, we had a pretty wide influence in the new left. I was responsible for that. And that is one of the reasons that Peter Collier and I, instead of going on and sort of just making money or something like that, I mean, we could have written literary books. Only our biographies were not very political, have decided to get back in the fray and pay some of our social debt. I said, we have a serious debt to society. That is the way we feel.
SM (02:30:48):
You say that AIDS created your move from left to right? Yes. The AIDS epidemic and the attempts to combat it have been pretty much controlled by the liberal left. It is one of the most politically correct parts of the culture. Peter Collier and I did an early story on AIDS, 1983. There were I think only 300 cases in San Francisco at the time. And we did it... We were inspired to do it because they were attacking Ronald Reagan as the source of the AIDS epidemic. And we knew there was something wrong with that. And I contacted Randy Shilts, I tell this old story in Radical Son. I contacted Randy Shilts, who wrote And the Band Played On and was the San Francisco Chronicle's gay correspondent covering the gay community. And Randy gave us a remarkable story, it was before HIV was isolated. And the fact was that the gay community leadership, the leadership, who were highly political people and tended to be new leftists, were denying that AIDS was sexually transmitted even though the doctors knew it was, had made the literature in any health clinics not mention anything like this. And were of course, opposed to closing the bath houses, which were the kind of Petri dishes where this culture was spreading. And I went and we did an investigative report and interviewed a lot of gays, gay leaders who were terrified to state what was going on, that there was all this misinformation. It was like the McCarthy period. It was the same atmosphere, and gave us the story. And we printed the story in California magazine, and the magazine was instantly picketed. But I understood that there was a political correctness which had seeped into the battle against AIDS, which then went on to effect. There was no testing, no contact tracing. The bathhouses were not closed. And I firmly believe that the tens of thousands of deaths could have been avoided. And they are now 200,000 dead. And you could extrapolate it right then by just doubling the number every six months, which was... So I knew in 1983 that there would be two, three hundred thousand dead. Now if this politicization of the epidemic continued. And to this day, the media has not ever done an investigative report just on the issue of testing. And the big argument is people would be outed with... It is like we are going to throw gays in concentration camps, which is... it is paranoid. The reality is that when Liberace died, I mean there was this national outpouring. I mean there is tremendous feeling in the... Of course there were bigots everywhere. I mean, there has always been bigots, but the nation as a whole is not going to do that. When I interviewed Don Francis, who was the hero of And the Band Played On, he said... An epidemiologist at the Centers for the Disease Control. I asked him about the confidentiality issue and he said, "Look," he said, "we have been studying gay diseases since before Stonewall, and I do not know of a single case of breach of confidentiality." And then you have the hypocrisy of gay groups that have outed people. Like they outed Pete Williams when he was... And that is a good example. They outed Pete Williams when he was a spokesman for the Pentagon. And Pete Williams being a Republican and being in the Bush administration. And there were no consequences for Pete Williams. I mean, the fact that he was gay, republicans are not intolerant. He went on, now he is at ABC, but he was not fired or anything. And so there is a lot of... The left feeds off paranoia. It tells black people that there are government conspiracies against them, that now Tom Hayden, who is a figure in this book, is running for mayor of Los Angeles and was in a parade, a march in which he said, "The CIA is planning crack in the ghetto." I mean, that is just an incitement to race warfare, which is what the left is really about these days.
DH (02:35:15):
By the way, we are about out of a time, where is this picture? Where were this taken?
SM (02:35:18):
This was taken in the studio. I look like somebody in the witness protection program. But the publisher thought, and it probably was a good idea that that would intrigue people. And it does. It indicates, I mean, I am looking at it now, to me, although I would have liked a genial smiling picture on the front, because there is a tendency to demonize me. It shows a troubled, thoughtful... That is the look, troubled and thoughtful. And that is the book.
DH (02:35:49):
David Horowitz, our guest, Radical Son, the book. A Generational Odyssey. Thank you very much.
SM (02:35:54):
Thank you, Brian.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with David Horowitz
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Horowitz, David ; McKiernan, Stephen
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Authors, American--20th century; Radicals—United States; Horowitz, David--Interviews
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David Horowitz grew up a "red diaper baby" in a communist community in Sunnyside, Queens. He is a far-right writer, founder, and president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC), editor of <em>FrontPage Magazine</em>, director of Discover the Networks, and founder of the organization Students for Academic Freedom. Horowitz wrote many books and he worked as a columnist for <em>Salon</em>. He also was an outspoken adherent of the New Left, which he later rejected and became a proponent of Neoconservatism. Horowitz received his Bachelor's degree from Columbia University and his Master's degree from UC Berkeley.
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2007-12-21
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.200a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.200b; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.200c
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McKiernan Interviews
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156:01
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McKiernan Interviews
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-10-07
Interviewer
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Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
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David Hume Kennerly
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"David Hume Kennerly is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and photojournalist. His portfolio includes photographs taken of the Vietnam War, Cambodia, East Pakistani refugees near Calcutta, and the Ali-Frazier fight in Madison Square Garden on March 8, 1971. Kennerly photographed every American president since Richard Nixon."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15105,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":10}">David Hume Kennerly is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and photojournalist. His portfolio includes photographs taken of the Vietnam War, Cambodia, East Pakistani refugees near Calcutta, and the Ali-Frazier fight in Madison Square Garden on March 8, 1971. Kennerly photographed every American president since Richard Nixon.</span>
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Binghamton University Libraries
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Interview Format
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Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Photography; Vietnam War; War photography; Rolling Stones; Supremes; Miles Davis; Ollie F. Atkins; Time Magazine; Dwight D. Eisenhower; Vietnam Memorial; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; Joe Frazier; San Francisco State; Protest; Rock n' Roll; Healing."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":14281427}}">Photography; Vietnam War; War photography; Rolling Stones; Supremes; Miles Davis; Ollie F. Atkins; Time Magazine; Dwight D. Eisenhower; Vietnam Memorial; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; Joe Frazier; San Francisco State; Protest; Rock n' Roll; Healing.</span>
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237:33
Subject LCSH
Photographers; Photojournalists; Kennerly, David Hume, 1947--Interviews
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: David Hume Kennerly
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 7 October 2010
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(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:04):
Testing one, two. Step two. I know some people I have interviewed have been on the cell phone and then their cell phone starts to go and then they go on the landline. So anyway.
DK (00:00:15):
This works. I hear you fine.
SM (00:00:19):
Okay. First question I always ask and I really want to ask you is the beginning, how you really became a photographer as a young man or a young kid. Your early years, the influence of your parents and your teachers, your high school years, where your love for photography first began.
DK (00:00:41):
Well, I am a native of Roseburg, Oregon, which is a really small town. It was called the timber capital of the nation, right in the middle of the forest in Douglas County. And I grew up in a place that I really wanted to get out of. I do not know, I had that feeling from way back when, I do not know exactly when it started. But my dad was a traveling salesman and so I would go around with him every now and then, particularly up to Portland, nothing exotic. But I got to look at the big city after my little town of 10,000 people in the whole area or something like that, I realized that there was a big world out there. And I had taken an early interest in photography, and when I worked on the student newspaper called The Orange 'R, my first photo published was in 1963, and I think I was a sophomore in high school then. And that really made an impact on me, seeing the work I had done. It was not a very good picture, but as I recall, it was a baseball player coming across home place. And on the scale of good photos, it was about a one on a one-to-ten scale. But what it did was it really got me excited about photography, and I learned how to shoot and process. I learned with a Speed Graphic camera. Actually, it was probably a Crown Graphic 4x5, and you only had a holder, it was two frames. And so, I can see why the old-style photographers were so good at getting the moment because they had to get it, you could not just turn the motor drive on and take a lot of pictures. So I learned the business the old-fashioned way, which was one shot at a time and you better get it right. And I started getting better at it. Then we moved from Roseburg up to West Linn, which is a suburb of Portland, in midway my junior year. And a lot of people would have really been terrified, angry, resentful about having their parents uproot them at that point, but I was deliriously happy about leaving this little town. And I convinced the people who were running the newspaper at West Linn High School that I should be on the staff and all that. And I pretty well sold myself as a much better photographer than I was.
SM (00:03:52):
[Inaudible].
DK (00:03:54):
But at that point, because I was close to Portland, I had a lot more access to bigger stories and things were happening. And to shorthand it all, my senior year in high school, I was working on two local newspapers, small papers, one on Lake Oswego and the other in Oregon City. And my big score was I had a picture of a fire in Lake Oswego that was on the front page of the Oregon Journal, which was the big afternoon paper in Portland, and that really did it. I was fiercely determined to become a professional photographer probably from the time I was a junior in high school. And certainly by the time I was a senior, I was actually getting paid to take pictures for a local paper. It was not much. And when I graduated, I had a full scholarship to Portland State College, now University, and it was a working scholarship to take pictures for the paper. And that did not last too long. I had my eyes set on right down the street, literally two blocks, on the Oregonian and Journal. After I graduated from high school, I worked in a flower mill to get enough money to buy good cameras, and that had two effects. One, to help me buy the cameras. And the second was I knew I was not cut out for common labor, so I have great respect for those who do it, but it was not for me. And that fall, I started college but I was already trying to get into the Oregon Journal. And so later that year I was, I would have to think about this precisely... I was hired by the journal. I was a part-timer when I was 18 years old and while I was still going to school. I left school. I went to school for about a half hour and if it was dog years, because I had got a staff job on the Oregon's Journal, which was a huge thing. And I think the youngest photographer was probably 50 years old. So I worked and at that point, my career took off. I mean, there was no question about it. And I took a leave in (19)67, to go six months in the active duty as a National Guard. So I went to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri for basic training, then Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indianapolis after that, and then came back. And when I returned, I got a job on the Oregonian, which remains to this day as a very good newspaper. And then I was offered a job by UPI to work in Los Angeles in November in (19)67. I remember this because I had pulled up stakes and moved down to LA for UPI. And at that point, I was 20 years old and was really, I think probably ahead of almost anybody else my age in terms of working in the newspaper business. But all this is leading up to why I went to Vietnam. I mean, I was in UPI through (19)68 in Los Angeles. I was at the Ambassador Hotel the night Robert Kennedy was shot. And then I was offered a chance to move back to New York early (19)69, and I covered the World Series with the Mets that year and a lot of local news. I mean, working in New York is just the best place on earth for a news photographer. It's just [inaudible] and it was very exciting to me. And plus, it is the big leagues of photography. You had all these local newspaper guys [inaudible]. And it was still getting toward the last of the good old days of photography, certainly being digital by a long shot. And I mean the big innovation of photography was really going from the 4x5 to the 45 millimeter. That was as important a revolution I think, as going from film to digital. I mean, the digital's probably had a much bigger impact overall. But when you think about it, that small little image, which was poo pooed by the old guys. But when you look back at the Erich Salomon's back into the (19)30s, was shooting with that and it gave them much more versatility and discretion in their photography. So, I had already migrated to 35 millimeter as a senior in high school. And so, I went to New York and then I was offered a position at UPI in Washington DC, which was really the prime bureau for the wire service because of the White House, [inaudible]. The center of the power of the Earth was really Washington DC, and it was a very big deal. And I just saw it the other day, a certificate. I had my first ride on Air Force One when I was 23 years old as a member of the White House travel pool.
SM (00:10:42):
David, I want you to stop right there because I am going to go into some questions on that period in a couple minutes, but I want to go back to a second question. You are a-
DK (00:10:56):
Let me back up just a touch too.
SM (00:10:57):
Uh-huh.
DK (00:10:58):
Part of my job at UPI, because it was 1967, (19)68, there were a lot of anti-war protests going on. And even earlier than that, up in Portland, I was covering that side of things. Not as much as I probably would have liked, just because State College particularly was a high college. That had a lot to do with the anti-war movement. And the student body was very divided in terms of conservative, liberal. But I was right, because it started from the middle of that, so I was seeing a lot of the big protests. And then particularly when I got to Washington DC and that is where you can ask me questions, but I moved there and early (19)70, I believe. That sounds about right, or maybe in late (19)69. It was probably late (19)69, I do not remember precisely. And obviously Richard Nixon had just become president and it was a whole new ball game from the LBJ time, and of course the anti-war protests were building and building. And that was the home front of connection to Vietnam, certainly at that point.
SM (00:12:33):
You are a frontline Boomer. And when I say that, you were born in (19)47, and the frontline Boomers are really those born between (19)46 and (19)56. Because the Boomer generation's defined as the-
DK (00:12:45):
It's even more. I would say (19)46 to early (19)50, even (19)51, (19)52, because we were the ones looking down the barrels of this Vietnam War. Having graduated (19)65, which is a key date, (19)64. So, the Clinton, Bush, Gore guys were all born in (19)46, and they all dodged the draft essentially. No, Al Gore did. Strike that comment.
SM (00:13:20):
Yeah, he went to Vietnam.
DK (00:13:21):
Bush went in the National Guard and was a pilot, Clinton dodged the draft, and Gore went over to Vietnam, even though just for not a long time, but I always respected him for doing it. His dad definitely could have gotten out of that. And he was not a fighter, but he was like, "So what?" He went over, and I do not think he was there very long. But that group, me and the two years afterwards, I mean the crucible was the ones that graduated (19)64, (19)65, (19)66, (19)67, pretty much those four. Maybe even (19)68, although it was starting to draw back a little bit. But it was a five-year sweet spot, for getting your ass at Vietnam as a soldier. And part of my rationale in going into the National Guard was, I have always had a difficulty with authority and people telling me what to do. And so, I think I got into the National Guard, I was not opposed to war or anything like that. I was not even afraid of going to Vietnam per se, I just did not want to go as an army guy. And as a result of my being in the newspaper business, I had met Tom McCall, who was the Governor of Oregon at the Lime. Very colorful, interesting character. And just as luck would have it, I was over at covering something that he was doing visiting the Portland National Guard headquarters. And I had known McCall just by, he was really friendly with the press. And so I asked him to introduce me to the general who's in charge. And then later I went back over to Steve and said, "I am really interested in going into the National Guard, could I get my name on the list?" And so I had no family input at all. I mean, I looked at the Dan Flails and the other people who manage some family connections they get... And also, I do not even think it was a big waiting list there. It probably could have just happened [inaudible]. But I did, in my own way, I probably pulled strings for myself. And so, I got into the National Guard, went off and did my thing for the six months and then post for two weeks [inaudible]. The bigger problem I had then was getting out of the Army in order to go to the war, and that happened when I was in Washington DC. Do you have some questions? I will tell you what my motivation was. Do you have another question?
SM (00:16:32):
Yeah. Did you identify yourself as a member of the Boomer generation, and do you like that term?
DK (00:16:39):
I do not really care about the term one way or the other. No, I do not think any of us did. It's funny, one of my late close friends was Jeff MacNelly, the Cartoonist. And when I did a book, well I have done a few, but one of them was called Photo Op. And Jeff did the introduction to the book, Photo Op and he called it The Adventures of Baby Boomer: a Self-Centered Generation Comes of Age and Usually has the Name for it. To answer your question, no, I never thought of it enough. What was important to me, there were two things that I obviously I knew, I was 1-A in the draft and then I went to school. I think I got a student permit, but I did not want to stay in school. So being 1-A, and then I could be drafted. But my sole focus really was to become a news photographer, and that is what I was doing. And so really getting drafted to me, would have had a serious impact on that and I would not have been guaranteed to get a, although I probably would have become very prominent outside of the Army or whatever. In one way or another, I would have ended up in Vietnam no doubt, which did not bother me. But there was no guarantee I would get what I wanted. And so that is why I went the route of getting in the National Guard. Now the National Guard, it is almost a certain, with all those units being called up though, there is no hedge against going off to several tours in Afghanistan, Iraq, whatever. But back then it was, if you got in the National Guard or the Reserves, the chances are you were not going to go to Vietnam. So I did that. I was always calculated. Everything I have done in my career has been really about the career. Obviously, I was not afraid to go to Vietnam. So when I moved to Washington, what was happening at that point, and I can even go back and give you a single image that changed my life. Well, there is one other thing that happened in (19)66 when I was on the Oregon Journal, Robert Kennedy came to town campaigning for the local Democratic Congressional candidate. In fact, I think Edith Green was a member of Congress then, and one of the few women that had been in Congress. And I met Bill Eppridge and Steve Shapiro, two really great photographers. Bill was a LIFE photographer. And I was subjected to one of the great politicians of all time was Robert Kennedy, and it had not been that long ago that his brother had been killed. I think was in Roseburg then, I must have been. But I so vividly recall that, and I had never seen John F. Kennedy. I never saw him. So there was Robert Kennedy, and I had a really good spot. [inaudible] the LIFE guy showed me where to go, and it was very nice. But it is an image I will never forget. But that whole entourage, all the people and the two photographers and some national guys were with him. And this little makeshift motorcade went out to the airport. And back in those days, just go out onto the ramp, onto the field. So Kennedy went on. But what really struck me was these two photographers got on the plane and the door closed, then the plane backs out. It was like the final scene in Casablanca, where I am standing alone and the plane goes off into the far. And I wanted to be on that plane. I had such a visceral reaction to that. And here I was, I have never really been a small-town guy mentally. I mean, I think I am in terms of how I look at things, but I always wanted a bigger picture. And I think because of that moment, it really then made me to follow the path of covering politics. Of course, politics, was very closely aligned with war because the people, politicians sitting in a room somewhere [inaudible]. That is just how it goes. And that is a fascinating thing to know and to see, and very few people have seen it. When was the decision made to go to war here or to end the war there. But then the year before that, and I am skipping around here but now I am just thinking about, there was a story, a photo essay by Larry Burrows at LIFE magazine, and it was called Yankee Papa 13. And it was the story of a young sergeant Marine. It was really a day in the life, following this guy around. And the first images of them were sitting on the helicopter with his machine gun, and he has a huge smile on his face and all that. And what happened during the course of that day was that they went into rescue another chopper that is been shot down, so one of the crew people was killed. And the cover picture was this guy, the sergeant who a dead Marine laying in the foreground. It is just a very dramatic photo. But the most compelling image from that whole photographs, that still remains one of the great photo essays of war, was a very happy sergeant at the beginning. The last frame in the story was him in a little warehouse or something, crying with his head down, and was just all alone. It was just one image, even more than the cover image, this is considered a great photograph by me and others, but I think the more poignant on it was the one that got me. And between Robert Kennedy and Larry Burrows pictures, those two roads intersected for me.
SM (00:24:07):
And you were labeled, and I think I read that people call you a political photographer too. And you are proud of that fact, are not you?
DK (00:24:15):
Well, I do not mind that. I mean, the one term I just do not like really is journalist because it feels like changing janitors to sanitation engineers. It is the same thing to me. I am a photographer, I am a wired guy essentially. I mean, it really means you are the utility outfielder. You can cover anything, anytime, anywhere, whatever. Does not make any difference. "This is a food picture? Okay, I can do that."
SM (00:24:47):
I interviewed another photographer, a video maker a couple days ago who said she considered her camera a weapon because the pictures taken are an eyewitness account of what really happened on a particular day at a particular time for history's sake. No government can hide the truth. And as she said, "Pictures verify the truth so that nobody can say it did not happen." Do you consider your camera a weapon?
DK (00:25:19):
No, I do not think so. I mean, there is a great documentary which you must see called An Unlikely Weapon. Which is about Eddie Adams, the guy who took the picture of the General Loan shooting a DC in the head.
SM (00:25:42):
Oh, yes.
DK (00:25:44):
That documentary is an essential viewing for you, and it's called An Unlikely Weapon. I mean, maybe Eddie would have agreed to that. I do not look at it that way. I am not an activist. She's more of an activist, obviously. I am old-fashioned news guy, brought up in the business to be an objective observer as much as that is possible by people who really believed in that stuff. Nowadays, the lines have been so horribly blurred by comments like that, this weapon thing. I mean, I get it. And I have always thought that the power of photography is shedding the light and the corners that you would not otherwise see, and I am all for it. I mean, that is what journalism is really, or it should be. But it's not an activist weapon for me. I have never been that, I do not know, [inaudible].
SM (00:26:47):
Yeah. Well, this person was an activist too.
DK (00:26:52):
Right. And that is fine. Everybody does it for their own reason. I mean, Jim Nachtwey is an activist, but he is a great photographer and he would be the first to admit that his camera could influence social change. And there have been a lot of great photographers, and that was their mission. Eugene Richard. Unabashedly so, I am just not like that. That is all. I mean, I am criticized for being who I am because I do not take a more political view of things. But I had it drummed into me. In fact, when I am asked if I am a Democrat or Republican, I say I am a photographer.
SM (00:27:34):
Very good. I love that response.
DK (00:27:39):
But that is very fouled out. I mean, I am no different now than I was before. And I worked in a Republican administration, but I honestly, I would have that same relationship with a Democrat who became president. I would have worked for him. It did not matter. In fact, let us fast you forward. By the way, the President Ford one. I had been working for him for three or four months. We're alone in the Oval Office talking about how he had been a good Republican all of his career and all he wanted was to be Speaker of the House. And there he was in the Oval Office and he looked at me and said, "I have never asked you. Are you a Republican or a Democrat?" Then he said, "Do not answer that." He did not give a shit. But that was our relationship. It was a human relationship, not a political relationship. And I think one of the problems now is that everything is so political. And even if you declare anything. If you say, "I am for Jerry Brown," or, "Meg Whitman," just say here in California now, it's like, "How can you do that? You're such a dumb shit." Whatever point of view you had, it just would not make any difference. And so I do think pictures speak for themselves, and this idea of the camera as a weapon, I think is contradictory to be honest with you, from my point of view anyway. But that is someone else's point of view. That is what they said, that is fine. We all do our own thing and I am all for it. So back to my path to Vietnam because I can remember, and there's another movie analogy here which is equally old-fashioned. But because I was the Baby-Boomer generation without even thinking of it that way, all I knew was that kids that I had gone to high school with and graduated, now were going to Vietnam and getting killed. And I also saw the photographs, and arching back to Larry Burrows, 1965 was early on in the war, but already these striking images are being made by great photographers. From Robert Capa, who was the first photographer killed in Vietnam 1954, released in that conflict, I guess where you would put a pin in that somehow. But I am seeing Eddie Adams' photographs of General Loan shooting the guy. I am seeing John Olson's pictures of the fighting [inaudible]. Catherine Leroy's photographs, and Sawada's picture of UPI, won a Pulitzer of the woman with her family coming across the river. And Toshio Sakai's picture won a Pulitzer for UPI. [inaudible 00:30:52] won the Pulitzer. Malcolm Browne for Burning Monk. And all these fabulous, probably a bad word, but these fantastic, yes, amazing photographs are being taken off to his war. And I am on the sidelines and the people fighting the war were my age. And basically, the photographers, I think for the most part were a little bit older. Although John Olson and I are the same age. He was with Stars and Stripes at the time. But all of a sudden, I started feeling like, and you will understand this analogy, although no one else does. I gave a lecture at USC the other day, they had no idea what I was talking about. But I was like, "I felt like Mr. Roberts on the supply ship watching the destroyers sail into battle."
SM (00:31:48):
I know that feeling.
DK (00:31:49):
"On the supply ship in the backwater and wanted, as a naval officer, to be on a destroyer, to be in the action, to be on the front line of what was happening." And so, I had this rather profound moment where I felt like I am going to miss the biggest story of my life and it is my generation's story. And if I do not go, I will never forgive myself. And I know that is how I felt about it. It was not to go out there for the glory of being a combat photographer. So, I started lobbying the guys in New York. And here I was, I already was doing a job that most people would go to a war in order to try to get something like this, to cover the White House, which I found boring. And it was also restricting [inaudible]. And I quite frankly hated it. And so, I just felt that I had to go to Vietnam, and so I convinced UPI to send me. And now this was late (19)70, and then I was going to be then going over early (19)71. And things were drawing down, the American involvement was being cut back, but there was still a lot of action. So they decided to send me over there. I was being such a pain in the ass about it that it was better for them to send me over than to listen to all my bullshit all the time. And so, the last assignment I had covered before I left for Vietnam was the Ali, Frazier fight at Madison Square Garden in March 8th, 1971. And what is ironic about that fight is that the next day was my birthday, March 9th, and I had the front page of New York...
DK (00:34:03):
I had the front page of New York Times, New York Daily News, practically every paper in the country. I was the only photographer that got the photo of Ali in mid-air, getting knocked down on the 15th round.
SM (00:34:11):
Wow.
DK (00:34:12):
What's funny is that picture is also part of my Pulitzer Prize portfolio, which was for photography. It was not just Vietnam, it was the whole year of 1971. It was coverage from that year. The centerpiece was Vietnam, but I also covered the India-Pakistan war, and I was in Cambodia. Then that fight too, which would be my outgoing thing. What happened before I got over there was that my photo hero, whom I had never met, along with Kent Potter of UPI, whom I was going to be replacing in Vietnam, and Henri Huet of AP and Japanese photographer, Shimamoto, I think his name was, of Newsweek, were on a helicopter that was shot down over Laos in the Lam Son 719 strike invasion, and were all killed. I got to be honest with you, that scared the shit out of me.
SM (00:35:16):
Yeah.
DK (00:35:18):
That all of a sudden, even though I did not know Burrows, I was going to replace Kent Potter, Larry Burrows was really my motivation or his photos were the foundation of my interest and respect for war photography. All of a sudden, all these guys are dead. Henri Huet was one of the great survivors, AP guy, French Vietnamese guy. All of a sudden, I did not have second thoughts, but it really scared me. I was like, wow. It increased my resolve to do it. It was not like I was not going to do it, but it really made it... It was not just a pedestrian thing at that point. It was really now a serious matter. Pedestrian is not the right word. It was something that I had not thought about that much. Yes, you can get killed. I knew that conceptually, but when I really saw it happen, then that was a different deal. I ended up in Vietnam and probably got there the end of March, 1971, stayed for a little over two years.
SM (00:36:40):
Yeah, you were right in the combat zone. I have seen your pictures. I have the book, I think it is Shooter. [inaudible].
DK (00:36:48):
Shooter was the first one. Yeah, Shooter, and then there was a photo op for those cartoons of McNally are in there.
SM (00:36:56):
Right. You took some unbelievable shots. I am asking, do you remember the exact moment? You probably do. You took a lot of pictures, but the single soldier on the hill, which was an unbelievable shot. You took another shot of, it was kind of a jungle, and you could see through the jungle, the guy walking through there.
DK (00:37:17):
That was a different place. Actually, those pictures, they are a good combination because one of them just shows the lush area in which we were operating sometimes, or just a blown away hillside. The guy walking over the hillside was the photograph singled out from my portfolio, showing the loneliness, desolation of war. That was a good picture. I remember the day I shot it because it was so dangerous up there. That is the contradictory part of it, is you do not really see that many good combat action pictures because everybody's down. It is really aftermath or either the prequel or the sequel. It is never the main act usually.
SM (00:38:18):
You were right out there with them, and they accepted you. In that particular war, photographers could go right with the guys. I know Joe Galloway got on a helicopter for the Ia Drang valley when he was a reporter. You ate the same food, you had the same risks. Did you ever feel that you had, like Joe did, that you had to pick up a gun to save your life? Ever have that experience?
DK (00:38:44):
Yeah, I did. I did. It was really just ... As a kid in Oregon, I grew up shooting, hunting, everything from pheasants to quail, occasionally deer, which I never liked doing that much, but I was a good shot. In fact, I had an expert ... When I was in the army, I was an expert rifleman because I knew how to shoot. It was no big deal to me, just a different kind of a gun or weapon, I should say. Get your ass kicked the saying gun. Anyway, I have never been pacifist in that regard at all. I liked the hunt. I used to, I do not now. Nothing against it. One night I was at a place that was going to be overrun by a Vietcong attack, and somebody shoved a gun into my hand, and I was shooting back because it was nighttime. During the day, I would not have done it because I could have been taking pictures. But at night, if we were overrun, I was going to die. Self-preservation takes the priority over any other item really.
SM (00:40:06):
What were some of your other favorite shots in Vietnam?
DK (00:40:10):
That was unusual. Before, apparently, there were some photographers who would carry guns with them. I never did that. I thought that was a mistake.
SM (00:40:19):
Were there other favorite shots that you took in Vietnam that stick out?
DK (00:40:24):
Another one ... The only reason I know what photos are in the Pulitzer portfolios ... I was in Vietnam when they announced that award, and I had not even known I had been nominated for it. You can imagine the shock. There was definitely no anxiety because if I had not won, I never would have known I had been entered. They entered the editors at UPI, Larry DeSantis and Bob Schnitzlein were the two guys that did it. When I heard about it, then I was being asked all these questions about the pictures. I had no idea. I did not know. It was only about three years ago, I went up to Columbia where they had the Pulitzer archives and everything, and they had the box there with my entry in it. I went into the box, and I looked at it. Half the pictures. I did not even realize were in the portfolio. I mean you could just as easily say the photo of Ali won the Pulitzer prize, but the one they picked out, the picture of the guy going over the hillside was the one. That got published widely because of that. The citation said the pictures show the loneliness, the desperation of war. There were all these other pictures in there. One of them was a combat action picture of these two soldiers evacuating, carrying a wounded comrade off the battlefield. Another picture I always liked was near Khe Sanh, although Khe Sanh was [inaudible] as we knew it, but it was still a dicey area up there. The soldier bent over a machine gun with a cross dangling from his neck, and that was a good visual. It was symbolic too. The guy, the lone soldier, it was another lone soldier really. Much has been written about combat is 99 percent boredom and 1 percent sheer terror. That is not the quote, and that is it. You sit around, and you're anxious and tired and nervous about what might happen, and sometimes it does. To me, many times the anticipation of what might happen was worse than what really did. Not always, but sometimes. The cover picture of Shooter was during a very serious firefight and Dirck Halstead took that picture. He's another guy you should talk to by the way.
SM (00:43:44):
Yeah, I saw that. Do you think he would respond to talk to me?
DK (00:43:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hehas been teaching down at UT. He would be a great guy for you to talk to because he was there when the Marines landed in [inaudible]. Eddie Adams was there too. So Dirck can give you ... He was there when the war ended. Perfect guy. He is very articulate about it too. A good storyteller and has a really interesting point of view about it. He is an old-fashioned photographer like me, former wire guy. He and I worked together at UPI. He is the godfather of my eldest son and really was my mentor. I will give you his contact info. I am sure he will be happy to talk to you. I would do it ... Dirck's probably 10 years older than me, but he has got a ... You have guy who was there when the Marines landed and was there when they lifted off from the embassy.
SM (00:44:46):
In 1975, yeah.
DK (00:44:53):
All that and everything in between. Dirck shot that picture of me, and that was one of those occasions where we almost did not get out there alive. Galloway, Joe's an old friend and his Ia Drang experiences, I cannot imagine anything more terrifying than that. Everybody had their own war. It is like if you talk to a hundred people, you get a hundred different stories and points of view. If you walked down the street in a village, and you took a right turn instead of a left turn, you went into a different story than if you had gone the other way. It is like everybody's story was personal. When people write about the big picture ... There are some writers who have done good works that were not there because they ... It is like being a political cartoonist. You do not have to be there to put it into perspective necessarily, but the people who were there, like Bernard Fall, still to this day, one of the best books on Vietnam, Hell is a Very Small Place, and guys like ... It goes on and on, Halverson and other people.
SM (00:46:16):
Neil Sheehan.
DK (00:46:19):
Sheehan is another former UPI guy. The book he wrote, A Bright Shining Lie, that is one of the good [inaudible].
SM (00:46:31):
Stanley Karnow's Vietnam, too, was another great one.
DK (00:46:34):
What is that?
SM (00:46:35):
Stanley Karnow's Vietnam.
DK (00:46:42):
There are just tons of good ones. To me, the best ones are by the people who were there, of course because it is like being a good photographer somewhere, where you can translate what you see, and a good writer can do it with words. Rarely do the two come together. I see writing as ... It is so difficult, but I wrote Shooter. Everything I have ever done, I have written myself. It's the good news and the bad news probably.
SM (00:47:16):
What was-
DK (00:47:18):
Observations are really ... The marriage of those two is really great. Or you will take a good photo like Phillip Jones Griffith, who did Vietnam Inc I think it was, but writing ruined a really good bunch of pictures to me because it was so biased. It detracted from the photos. Sometimes you just should let the pictures tell the story and stand out of the way.
SM (00:47:52):
Good point.
DK (00:47:52):
By interjecting opinions, Philip, who was a really good photographer, did that. You should look at that book and see what I mean.
SM (00:48:05):
One question I have here is, and last one really on Vietnam, was what was Vietnam like when you were there? Did you see the divisions that were taking place in America between black and white, the issue of the drug culture, soldiers questioning their leaders and their strategy, believing that the war was a mistake while they were fighting it? What did you see and hear on the bases and in combat? Was what was happening in America happening there? Were the troops also aware of the student protests and even the Vietnam veterans against the war became a very big topic.
DK (00:48:44):
Yeah, but when you boiled it down, those kind of ... Number one, I got there ... This is kind of a funny story, but Eddie Adams, who was a prime competitor of mine because he was AP, I was UPI, before I left for Vietnam, he told me that I was too late, all the good pictures had been taken. One of my highest possessions is that after I won the Pulitzer Prize, that Eddie sent me a cable that said, "I guess I was wrong. Congratulations."
SM (00:49:35):
Well, that is an anecdote.
DK (00:49:35):
For him to do that was a very begrudging act too. I will say it. I did not see it so much. I was on fire base for now, but again, they were drawing down Americans there at that point. It was not the (19)69, (19)70, that was really (19)67, (19)68, (19)69, were probably the three biggest years, and then they started pulling them back in. The Americans were becoming more in an advisory role, not so much frontline combat, a little bit. I mainly covered the Vietnamese side, so I do not recall really ... You would see guys wearing peace symbols and all that to some degree. The black soldiers in my estimation got along fine with their white...
SM (00:50:45):
What is really amazing, you have this on your website, and it is the quote from James Earl Jones, and said that, "David Hume Kennerly is like Forrest Gump, except he was really there." You seem to be everywhere. You start out in those early years, taking pictures of musical entertainers like the Rolling Stones and The Supremes and Miles Davis, unbelievable stuff. Those are icons of the Boomer Generation.
DK (00:51:20):
I know, but you know what, I never ... this is kind of bizarre actually. I once had a ... By the way, I think James was just being funny. It was a funny quote that ... I appreciate it obviously, but I think I would be more of a [inaudible] thing surely. This little remote voice, the guy in the background, that it is always critical events that I have a camera with me. It could have gone a lot of different ways for me because I worked nights at the Oregon Journal. I guess if I were ... The Rolling Stones' first trip to America, The Supremes, they got all the big acts at the Portland Coliseum. Igor Stravinsky, Miles Davis. Some of the pictures I did in (19)66 were just these ... Not that they were the greatest shots, but they were good pictures, but nothing better. I could very well have taken that Rolling Stone magazine route, that if I really had an interest in rock and roll and music and that whole lifestyle and everything, I could have gone down a different road just like the left or the right in Vietnam. Just depends on the fate would have it. I was so concentrated on me, more important things, it was not sports photography. I was pretty good at that too. It was not rock and roll or certainly not entertainers or movie stars. Did not interest me. The conversations I had with politicians were always much more interesting than movie stars. When I look through my photos and my experiences with photographing like a film celebrity of some kind, or a Robert Kennedy or a Bill Clinton or whomever, that the best stories I have almost always had something to do with substantive matters, not with the illusory Ones.0 when I photographed celebrities, it turns out to be an empty box of memories usually, outside of a few good pictures of them, because I just do not recall anything that interesting about them. That is not to be critical, but itis why I never did the showbiz route or the rock and roll route. It would have been more fun than getting shot at in Vietnam or slogging through a rice paddy or being dehydrated in India-Pakistan war, almost getting killed. Anything. Would have been more fun than that, but that is what I wanted to do.
SM (00:54:15):
A couple things, you covered the POWs when the last POWs were coming home from the war. I think that was (19)73. You went to Hanoi I believe.
DK (00:54:28):
That right, and that was the last...
SM (00:54:29):
That is a major, major happening, and then that picture that you took in Cambodia, the little girl. We knew what was happening with the Khmer Rouge. I think it is really ... When you state underneath your picture you do not know if she even survived the onslaught of the Khmer Rouge. That is an unbelievable picture.
DK (00:54:54):
That one also won a World Press contest. That won portrait division of World Press in (19)76. It was taken in (19)75, right before Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge, with the dog tag and all that. I have no idea what happened, but I will tell you that picture in the haunting image category, that probably ... I think about that picture probably more than anything else I have done.
SM (00:55:29):
It is her eyes. It is her face.
DK (00:55:35):
It is really about the wars. It is not about the soldiers, the politicians, but really when these things happen, it is the kids and the innocents who suffer the most and have no idea what's going on or why all this is happening. It really is a brutal existence. I think that is why that picture has some resonance.
SM (00:56:02):
Did you fly to Hanoi? How did you get the Hanoi to cover and take pictures of the POWs?
DK (00:56:09):
Well, they had let in actually ... That was two weeks after John McCain and that early group of POWs had been released. There was a prisoner of war facility called the Plantation. It was not the Hanoi Hilton, which had been downtown, an old French jail. That last group were some B-52 crew that had been shot down like six months earlier. They basically had been well treated compared to McCain and those other guys because the war was kind of grinding to a halt. They let a few select people in, and I flew in on a chartered Air WOW plane from Dien Bien into Hanoi. It was Walter Cronkite and his crew and a couple of other photographers, and they took us over and let us take pictures of these guys behind bars. Then they later bused them out to the military airport in Hanoi and released them. I got that, and yeah, it is a shocking situation to see these fellow Americans in their rice pajamas behind bars. I felt kind of self-conscious about taking pictures of them, but that was my job.
SM (00:57:45):
David, let me switch my tape here. I got to turn it over here. Hold on a second. Okay, let me see here. Hold on a second. All right. When I look at that quote from James Earl Jones, I kind of wrote down... Okay, I saw the movie Forrest Gump, and I saw Forest Gump in Vietnam and saw him with Richard Nixon, so I put down some of these, what I consider some of the major things that you did and the events you were at to take pictures. I know you have already talked about Bobby Kennedy, but the first one I wrote down here was when you took those pictures of Bobby at the Ambassador Hotel and all the atmosphere, the happiness. I saw it on TV. You were taking those pictures, but you did not go back into that area where he was shot, I guess, or did you?
DK (00:58:47):
Well, no. What happened was ... It is funny. It was sort of like the Ali-Frazier fight. The reason there are not any other pictures of him doing that V sign, he just raised his hand up and put it down. It was so fast, which I did not even realize until many years later when I saw the film. There was another photographer there from UPI, and we flipped a coin to see who would be up on the podium, and then follow him because he was going to another event. It was an overflow ballroom [inaudible] there. I lost the flip, so my friend Ron Bennett went back with him. That is normally how you cover stuff, somebody's on the riser, somebody's closer in, or I would have been back there with him, and I have no idea what would have happened if I would have gotten the pictures. I have no idea. The one thing I knew was I always had a flash. Again, going back to that be prepared news shooter thing. Anyway, he went back. Then when I heard what had happened, just all of a sudden everything changed, and someone said a shooting had happened and all the rumors. I went out in the back, and the ambulance was there, and I got a picture of Ethel in the back of the ambulance because the instinct is just go right toward the action, whatever it is. Try to get it. It really was a horrible night. It was actually someone that I had ... I had been upstairs with him. I have a picture of me and Bobby Kennedy that was taken less than an hour before he was shot. Upstairs, I was invited up because I knew Bill Etheridge was there. That goes back two years. He was there with him. They had that incredibly haunting photo they took in there of the ... That was a TV light and just that guy, the waiter bending over him.
SM (01:01:04):
Yes-yes.
DK (01:01:07):
I think it was so personal, really, that somebody I would met and talked to had now been shot. That was the [inaudible].
SM (01:01:15):
Did you hear the bullets?
DK (01:01:17):
No. No.
SM (01:01:18):
Okay.
DK (01:01:18):
I did not. Big crowd there, a lot of people there.
SM (01:01:24):
Yeah. The second one that I brought up was, you mentioned it, was the coverage of the New York Mets and everybody, from last to first. Being an Atlanta Braves fan and them knocking off my Atlanta Braves in the, I think it was the best of five series at Shea Stadium. Covering that event, here it is in the 19(19)60s with all the problems, and here you have got this team who was atrocious, and then all of a sudden, the next year they become world champs. What a story.
DK (01:01:59):
The amazing Mets.
SM (01:02:02):
Did you get to know all the players?
DK (01:02:04):
I covered them all year. As part of a UPI photographer, sports was always one of the main things you had to shoot. Yeah, I had the first base dugout position during the World Series and-
SM (01:02:19):
Oh my gosh.
DK (01:02:20):
I was only 23 years old. I was sitting there next to Sports Illustrated guys. It was not like now, where you have 10 jillion photographers. Then it was like AP, UPI, New York Times, the Daily News, Sports Illustrated at that point. There were not that many. There Was third base dugout, first base dugout, these positions right next, so there were designated spots, but those were the best. You could not have a better place to see the ballgame, but all I am worried about is the pictures of it. To me, it's like, okay, it is the World Series. That ramps up the intensity of the moment, but I have always responded well to that. The pressure never got in the way of a good picture.
SM (01:03:19):
When I saw that you had taken pictures, I was just doing flashbacks of (19)69 because the Cubs were doing so well, and then they overtook the Cubs, and then they beat the Braves, and they beat the Orioles in the World, Series. When you have like Gil Hodges, and then you had Seaver, Koosman, Ryan, Mays, Charles, Kranepool, Jones, Agee, Swoboda, Weis, Grote, and JC Martin, Gentry. I will never forget Wayne Garrett. He was on the team, and he hit a home run off Pat Jarvis in the Braves Series.
DK (01:03:53):
I have a baseball signed by all those guys you just mentioned.
SM (01:03:57):
Wow.
DK (01:03:58):
At the time, including Gil Hodges and Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, Yogi Berra was their coach. They had Donn Clendenon.
SM (01:04:11):
Oh, first base, yes.
DK (01:04:15):
Right. I had a lot of really good pictures, and one of the best was after the whole thing was over with. I have a picture of Tom Seaver, and I think it was Gary Gentry. They came out after everybody left, and the field had been torn up. There were just these pieces of sod everywhere. People were just crazy. He's still got his uniform on, his shirt out, and he's like standing on the pitcher's mound, looking down. I was the only person that was out there. That picture stands out in my mind, the aftermath of it all, in a real unusual situation, which has been emblematic of my kind of photography. I have always been attracted to sort of the Pulitzer thing, loneliness, desolation. My book, Photo du Jour, you see a lot of that in there, picture a day in the year 2000. That is all part of it.
SM (01:05:20):
Yeah. Then you covered the resignation of Spiro Agnew, and then of course, the selection of Gerald Ford to be the VP. Your experience of taking that picture with Time Magazine, and you began your close relationship with President Ford. Could you talk about covering Agnew's and then of course that whole period of Nixon leaving?
DK (01:05:45):
When I came back from Vietnam, Watergate was the big story. I came back in, not sure exactly when, but I think it was like June, July, somewhere. I made a detour. I left Vietnam, although I kept going back. I lived for a while in Hong Kong, a while in Bangkok and then Paris and then back to the States and really, right into the full-frontal hurricane that was Watergate. Agnew was part of that story, although he was not really related to Watergate per se, but it was all part of the trouble that was brewing. Time Magazine assigned me to go follow him around, which was not easy because he hated the press for one thing. Those nattering nabobs of negativism.
SM (01:06:51):
Yes.
DK (01:06:51):
You know who wrote that?
SM (01:06:53):
Pat Buchanan?
DK (01:06:53):
Yep.
SM (01:06:54):
Yeah, I figured. Yep.
DK (01:06:57):
Actually, Agnew, it was impressive he could even say that. That is not [inaudible]. Anyway, I cannot say it. Then he resigned, and my classic photo of him was really the day after he resigned, in the back of the limo. It was up in Maryland. It was actually a funeral, might have been for his mother or something. That picture ran in Time. I cannot remember how much after that, not too long after, Nixon designated Ford. As I recall, it was like a Friday afternoon. I went up to take his picture up at the House. He was minority leader of the House and very friendly. Let me come in, said you're wasting your time. I took this picture with window light. That night, Nixon announced him- And then that night Nixon announced Tim, and then my picture was the cover of the magazine, the new number two, at which point Time assigned me full-time to cover Ford, which really the glory days of magazine journalism because nowadays Time Magazine does not even cover overseas presidential trips. The budgeting has gotten so bad. There are a lot of pictures not being taken as we speak every minute, every hour, because of budgetary problems in the business. Newsweek is going under us. US News is really more about lists of big colleges or hospitals. Time still remains number one, but there's no way... And somebody commented on this recently, that looking back through all my photographs, everything from Vietnam to the Middle East to Jonestown to whatever it is, that there is no way that a publication would send people off to cover stories like that anymore. As an individual [inaudible], there is no way. They cannot afford it and they do not even think about it, and honestly, I think everybody is settling for a lot less now in terms of photographic quality. And it's being replaced by somebody with a flip camera or a camera phone, snap, and that is good enough. And that is really part of the deterioration of... It does not mean there are less good photographers out there, it is just they are not traveling into the center of big stories the way they used to.
SM (01:09:56):
You became so close to President Ford and his family because he picked you as his personal photographer. And I love the terms that you gave them before you took that position, is that he would report directly to him, which was I think very important in that relationship. When you look at the time that he became president, the boomer generation, it is maybe the most historic time in their lives because of Watergate and the pressure that President Ford had to be under after Nixon left. And when you look at all of these things, not only the resignation, but then he pardoned him and he had to go before Congress. He separated the United States from Vietnam on April 30th of (19)75. And then of course he lost to Jimmy Carter, and then there was the whole Ford Carter debate. I remember living in San Francisco at the time when he had that blunder about Eastern Europe, and then a lot of people made fun of him because he golfed and he would hit a golf ball into the yard. There is a lot of things during that timeframe, but what was it like being every day around this president with these such historic events happening right around you?
DK (01:11:16):
Well, going back to my initial conversation, I lecture all the time about... My latest, one of the lectures I gave, I did it over at the Aspen Institute, and this year was the presidential [inaudible] from Lincolnville [inaudible]. But I was only the third civilian chief White House photographer, and the first was Yoichi Okamoto with Lyndon Johnson who had great access that was really the standard by all of us who followed him. Well, maybe not all, but most of us had looked to Ollie or rather Yoichi as the gold standard in presidential photography. He was the godfather of White House photography for me. And then he was followed by Ollie Atkins, who had frankly no access and a really difficult period. It was like, "Okay Ollie, that is enough. A couple pictures and then you are out." And I knew this because I covered the Nixon White House at 27 years old, and as someone who would just come back from Vietnam and [inaudible] there, et cetera, et cetera. The White House photographer job did not mean that much to me to get it, just to sit around and have somebody tell me when I can go in and out of the Oval Office. The night that Ford became president sitting over in his house with Alexandria, just the two of us after he had a few family friends come by and he had asked me, invited me over and asked me to stay after everybody left. And we had this conversation in his living room, and he said, "Well, you were going to be White House photographer. How do you see that job?" And knowing what frustrations Ollie had, I said very directly to him that I would do it on two conditions. And that one is that I worked directly for him, meaning not for the press secretary or the chief of staff, that I report directly to him, and that I have total access to everything going on, whether it's national security, any kind of... Anything. I said, otherwise I was not interested just because why would I want to do that? I love working for Time Magazine, traveling around the world and taking pictures of interesting things. But he was looking at me while I said that and puffing on his pipe, and he said, "You do not want Air Force One on the weekends?' So that was it and the deal was done, really. And that was the atmosphere in which I worked for two and a half years, and I had access to everything, whether it was top secret meetings about the Soviet Union or whatever, and including... Which was a full circle for me, was being in the room when he pulled the plug on American involvement in Vietnam. And that was in the Roosevelt Room under a portrait of Teddy Roosevelt. It's one of the most important things that I took there, and you can imagine how highly classified that was because of the security of getting out the people that wanted to get out. And it was a very decisive moment, and just having been over there, I was there only a month earlier. In March I went with General Fred Weyand, who was looking to see if there's any way they could stem the tide of the advancing North Vietnamese. And so, I had been in Cambodia and Vietnam on a presidential mission really, and that was a hard one. I had a lot of friends over there, and after the fact I sponsored more than 20 Vietnamese, getting them out of camps after they had escaped from Vietnam and all of that. So, I had always been emotionally attached to Vietnam, but having said that, I have not been... I do not think, anyway, living in the Vietnam past, and I know a lot of people who have. It was both soldiers certainly, and a lot of news people who were there, photographer who were there, and just cannot seem to shake it loose. I mean, I literally moved on. When I was out of Vietnam, that was that. Not that I did not think about it. I did think about it, but to this day, I do not look at it as the greatest story I ever covered. It was certainly one of the most important. But I have been very fortunate that I have not lived in the Vietnam past. I know a lot of people who still do, and I feel bad for them.
SM (01:16:55):
Yeah. You were there, again, those three things he took over at the time of the resignation, the pardon, having to go before Congress, his commentaries there, and of course the separation from Vietnam, those were all just major happenings. Do you think history has been fair to President Ford in terms of when they talk about the boomer presidents, we talk about Eisenhower in the (19)50s, and we talk about John Kennedy and then we talk about LBJ and Nixon? And then some people will say, well, then we had the lightweight Gerald Ford, then we go to Carter who was a disaster, and then we get to the powerful Ronald Reagan and then Bill Clinton in the 90s and George... So just your thoughts on whether history has treated him fairly?
DK (01:17:45):
I think so. I think it is treating him more fairly every day that goes by. And I think where the turnaround came was ironically with he had Kennedy giving him that profile [inaudible] for the pardoning of Richard Nixon, and Kennedy basically admitting that he was wrong in his criticism of Ford at the time, that it really did to help killed the nation, that it put Watergate behind us, but people were so mad that it cost Ford the election. I mean, he really was sacrificed on that altar of bad feelings against Nixon. And people's thought there was a deal or whatever. I mean, nobody... And everybody wanted to get rid of him, and what we ended up with was Jimmy Carter. And Carter almost lost. I mean, the more Carter was out there talking, the less people liked him, and if that election a week later, Ford probably would have beat him. And the Poland thing, you can look at anything that threw off that momentum, which Poland did. And if Ford has just said, "The spirit of the Polish people are not dominated by the Soviet Union," slam dunk, home run as opposed to "They're not dominated by the Soviet Union." That was a mistake and one that he begrudgingly admitted later, believe me. It was getting bloody, man. Most people were trying to get him to go out and clarify that. Trust me, I was one of them. But anyway-
SM (01:19:31):
You were also the person who took two historic pictures of five presidents at two different times. The first picture was Nixon, Carter, Bush, Reagan, and Ford, and the second was Bush one and two, Clinton, Obama and Carter. That is historic in my opinion.
DK (01:19:48):
No, actually that was the last one, which was early January of last year, (20)09. It was the fifth time that five presidents been together, but only the second time where they posed for a picture because the Reagan library was the first time, and then there was the Nixon funeral, and then there was the 9/11 memorial at the National Cathedral, and then there was Reagan's funeral. Might have been, actually... No, that is right. It would have been Reagan's funeral, and then president-elect Obama with the other four and that was that. It is kind of interesting there is only been two baby boomer presidents, Clinton and Bush, and now Obama is the first president of my lifetime that has been younger than me.
SM (01:20:58):
And actually, he is actually the last two years of what is defined as boomers, (19)46 to (19)60. Was not he born in (19)62?
DK (01:21:07):
I cannot remember.
SM (01:21:08):
So he was two years old.
DK (01:21:11):
Yeah, I definitely would not put him in that category, I suppose.
SM (01:21:18):
It must have been quite an honor for you to be picked as the photographer for these occasions.
DK (01:21:24):
Well, no, I was not picked. There were a lot of other photographers there. I just happened to get... By design, I got an angle where I took a chance at the Reagan library where I got off to the side and there was a little... I should admit to some premeditation there, because one of the Advanced people before called me up from Bush.... No, actually somebody doing the Reagan event and wanted me to come out, because I lived in LA here at that time, to give them some advice on what would be a good picture. And so, I had a hand in setting that up. And because I knew what they were going to do, either were going to walk out together and then stand in this one spot, and photographer were like locusts. They all gather around one place usually. And so I assumed that the head on pictures is what everybody's going to go for, but I knew the best shot would be off to the side, that Mount Rushmore type configuration. And it would not have been as good a picture if Reagan then looked over to where I was, and that is why that picture was so good. And if you see the other pictures from head on, they looked like cardboard cutouts. It's all flat lighting and I never would have taken that picture. And then the last time, because it was the Bush White House and I was not working for any news organization, but I had to get in there. So, I called Dick Cheney up, whom I am still on friendly terms with, and I told him that, I said, "Do you still have any influence over there at the White House? I got to get in and take that picture." I said, " The press office will not return my calls. I am getting no help from them." And about two minutes later, the press secretary called me up and said, "Oh yeah, sure, we would love to have you come in for that."
SM (01:23:41):
Wow.
DK (01:23:43):
But there were other photographers there, but it was not a big group, but there were others. They had like three waves of photographers. But I knew when I came in the door, that was the shot right then and there, bang-bang. It was very quick, but I had a good angle there.
SM (01:23:59):
You knew that... I think you had over 50 front covers on magazines, and 35 I think in that time period length of some of the (19)60s and (19)70s stuff. What are the front covers that stand out for you? What year and what was the picture?
DK (01:24:19):
Well, I think obviously the Ford cover was my first Time magazine cover. And then it was the... I am trying to think. Well, the other huge one was the December 4th (19)78 cover of Time Magazine, Jonestown.
SM (01:24:47):
Oh yes.
DK (01:24:48):
That was huge. And then there was Ansel Adams on the cover of Time, the only cover... September (19)79, Ansel was called the master eye, and it was him on the cover of Time. To this date, the only photographer that is ever been on the cover of Time. In October '86, Reagan and Gorbachev at Reykjavik, and it was no deal, and we transmitted that picture on a Sunday night. Early technology victory over the opposition. And I nailed the picture of Reagan kind of looking disappointed and Gorbachev, and the headline was "No Deal". Those are four covers that have all been significant, and the President Ford cover was another portrait. And the President Ford cover and Jonestown are two of the biggest selling covers in Times history, I think to this day actually, and really important events. I mean, there have been others. I have had other covers, but...
SM (01:26:06):
What was the most important event that you covered? You said Vietnam was not the one. What was the most important event?
DK (01:26:12):
It is hard to say that really, I know I said it, but I would say Sadat going to Israel was right up there. Jonestown was right up there. Reagan Gorbachev Geneva Summit was right up there. In terms of events that have profoundly impacted the world, obviously Vietnam, Reagan, Gorbachev, Jonestown would not be in the major historical importance, but in terms of drama and horror, Jonestown... I mean Vietnam affected so many people, 50,000 plus Americans being killed there during the war, hard to overlook that one. And it scared a generation of people in one way or another, at least impacted them. And I missed out [inaudible].
SM (01:27:16):
I lived in the Bay Area when Jonestown happened.
DK (01:27:19):
Oh yeah, well that was-
SM (01:27:21):
Because so much was happening at that time, not only Harvey Milk being murdered in Moscone, but Jonestown. So you flew there, took the... I have that magazine. You flew there and took all those pictures. So, when you first got to that site, it must have been... You had been to Vietnam and seen death.
DK (01:27:46):
Well, but we did not know, and that was not even the point really. I was doing another story. I was down... The story of Shooter is a good story. [inaudible] recollect because it happened so soon [inaudible]. I think it was one of the last stories, and that is a good story. That tells you what happened. But until when we first circled over Jonestown in that plane, we just heard rumors that, oh, there were a lot of kids there, that we thought maybe they were still holding out against the Guyanese army, and we just did not know. And when we circled over there in the plane, I saw those people. I thought, well, look at all these people down there. And so, they must, it is not as bad as we thought. And as we got closer, realized that all the people were dead. And that was shocking. I mean, I cannot even begin to tell you what that was like. That is probably the most difficult thing I have ever had to deal with psychologically is to see that. And I think that was... Because at least in a war, you got some sense of why people are doing it. And in this case, there was no reality spread there. There was nothing that a sane person could understand why that would have happened. And to this day, I am perplexed as anybody, why they did that?
SM (01:29:29):
And you were right down on the ground there eventually?
DK (01:29:33):
Yeah, then we got on the ground. I was one of those few people ever to be there, fortunately for everybody else who was not.
SM (01:29:40):
Did you have to wear masks? Because the stench must have been really intense.
DK (01:29:43):
It was bad. Yeah. It was like two, three days later.
SM (01:29:46):
Wow.
DK (01:29:47):
Not good.
SM (01:29:49):
Why did we lose the Vietnam War, in your opinion?
DK (01:29:54):
Well, I do not know. The historians are still fighting about that war. I think we, well ultimately, if you take it all the way back to Eisenhower era that we backed the wrong horse. I think that is what happened. I am really curious what would have happened if you looked at Ho Chi Minh as a nationalist and not a communist, if you looked at him in a different way, could there have been a decision that would have sided with Ho Chi Minh? I do not know. I mean, the resolve was there in the north, and in the south, there was so much corruption. I mean, you read all the stories.
SM (01:30:48):
Yes.
DK (01:30:49):
I am probably the last person you should ask that question of just because I have no idea. You look at the place today, it is still a communist country, but they are big time into capitalism. So, I am just wonder what was lost other than obviously all those lives. But if I were a family who lost somebody in Vietnam, I would be pretty pissed off, quite frankly.
SM (01:31:21):
Did you ever have a chance to talk to President Ford about his position on the Warren Commission? About the single bullet theory? And of course, he and all-
DK (01:31:33):
He was emphatic that he agreed with the rest of the commission, that there were no... That it was not a conspiracy.
SM (01:31:39):
When you saw the wall-
DK (01:31:42):
To this day, by the way, I have seen nothing that would prove differently. And I know it is one of ongoing fascinations that some people have, the obsession with that whole thing. It is almost like you can... It kind of goes to the category of the United States was a co-conspirator in the 9/11 Twin Towers attack.
SM (01:32:17):
Yeah, there is some that think that Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, they were all connected in some way, conspiracy.
DK (01:32:29):
It is just I cannot... It is so hard to... It is like Jones telling to me. I do not understand that kind of thinking. So, I do not know.
SM (01:32:35):
When you saw the wall, the Vietnam Memorial for the first time, what was your reaction and thinking in 1982 when all the veterans came back and since? You're the person who won the Pulitzer Prize for pictures on the war in Vietnam and experienced combat firsthand. And then of course, the decision that President Ford, to depart in 1975 after 58,290 died and 3 million Vietnamese died. What was your thought when you first saw that wall?
DK (01:33:07):
I cried. It was the single most powerful thing I have ever seen in my life as a monument. To see those names, many of whom I knew. They were guys I went to high school with were or had met. And I thought it was... I was overcome with emotional when I saw it. And I went down there on my own to see it. I did not know what to expect. And I know it was really criticized by a lot of veterans groups and people, but I think it's emerged as probably the single most powerful vision of what that war was, because it boils down to all those people were killed. And guess what? That does not even... The names of the people who were severely injured are not on there, so you could add another 100,000-
SM (01:34:14):
Oh yes.
DK (01:34:15):
... Names, not to mention all of the Vietnamese.
SM (01:34:20):
Have you ever read Lewis Puller's book, Fortunate Son?
DK (01:34:27):
I have not. And I have got it. And I have got so much. I mean, read all the time. I read so much. That is one, believe it or not, that was on my list. That is a good one.
SM (01:34:48):
Well, I knew him. And that is another story. This is your interview, not mine. But I only knew him through making an effort to contact him. He was the inspiration to write my book.
DK (01:34:59):
Oh wow.
SM (01:34:59):
He supported me to do it when I talked to him before he killed himself.
DK (01:35:03):
But Galway knows him or knew him.
SM (01:35:03):
Oh yeah, and Joe's great. Of course, Joe's now in Texas, I think so.
DK (01:35:10):
Yeah. Yeah. I have not talked-
SM (01:35:13):
And when I interviewed him for my book was many years back. His wife had just passed away, and then he ended up marrying one of the daughters of guys who died at the [inaudible] Valley. So that is an unbelievable story. In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end, and what do you think was the watershed moment?
DK (01:35:35):
That is a good question. They definitely ended in the (19)70s. And I would say they probably ended after... Definitely after Nixon resigned, because he represented the... I mean, he was elected in (19)68, took office in (19)69. The (19)60s as we remember them did not even really start till (19)65.
SM (01:36:10):
You are right.
DK (01:36:11):
And everybody talks about the [inaudible], because then all the images that you see flashed up are Rolling Stones, Beetles, hippies, et cetera. And I think you could safely say the (19)60s ended with the end fall of Saigon. That would be probably the most dramatic moment I could think of.
SM (01:36:36):
Is there a watershed moment?
DK (01:36:44):
That moment would be the fall Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. Yeah. I mean, I think that is the end of the (19)60s right there.
SM (01:36:51):
Where were you when John Kennedy died? Do you remember the exact moment when you heard?
DK (01:36:55):
Yeah, I was in social studies class in Roseburg High School, and when they came in to the class, I remember what was more interesting to me was what I found out many years later that there were people celebrating his death here in this country. That was shocking to me.
SM (01:37:26):
Oh, yes.
DK (01:37:26):
Unbelievable. Because all we can think about at the time, all the kids, they were all fine. And I mean, he was the president. He was like this character that because of modern communication, we would actually gotten to know this guy through TV. And he was a young person who... And my parents were Republican, but everybody was so upset. I mean, the part of Oregon I come from, it is a very conservative part of the state, and I remember in [inaudible] billboards, so that was... However, nobody was celebrating. We were all the kids. We were in shock.
SM (01:38:18):
When you were not San Francisco State, SI [inaudible], we back in the East saw that on tele... We knew what was going on there. And of course, a lot of the protests were in Berkeley.
DK (01:38:31):
But Berkeley I did not really do, but the SF State I did. I was actually based in Los Angeles. They flew me up there to cover that.
SM (01:38:38):
That was pretty intense. An, were not you threatened at that? Or were you beat up or?
DK (01:38:43):
Oh yeah, the cops hit me, the students threw rocks at me, and it was kind of an equal opportunity bashing.
SM (01:38:52):
Geez. What was your thought when all this was happening about higher ed, our young people, and America?
DK (01:39:05):
Nothing surprised me at that point. To me, it was a good story. It was dangerous though, but there were a lot of good pictures out of that. Hey, you know what? It's just what I have done. That is just another story along the way. And one of the things I was going to mention to you was I had gone to pitch a book of my photos to, I think it was Abraham, and all the editors could talk about was, did I have pictures of the social changes and fashion? And I said, no. They said, why? I said, "Guys, I do not give a flying fuck about any of that stuff. I do not care about [inaudible]. I do not care about fashion. I do not really care about sports that much in terms of photography. What I cared about is what you were looking at. These are my pictures, and I cannot go back into the vault and pull out a bunch of stuff that you think I should be doing as opposed to what I did." I was really offended by them, to be honest with you.
SM (01:40:23):
Well, you know what is interesting-
DK (01:40:24):
What do you see here? I said, "This is the story of one person's journey through the events of his generation". I said, "I cannot go back and do it over again. And if I did go back and do it over again, I do not think I would do it any differently." I mean, I would have taken some better pictures and not missed as many as I did, but the direction would have been the same.
SM (01:40:50):
The irony of your pictures of the Ali Frazier fight before you went off to Vietnam is interesting because, I am just reflecting, he was kicked out of boxing because of his stand on the Vietnam War and stripped of his title for a while. And then he came back and we all remember what he had said, that he's not going to go off and kill yellow boys when black boys in America are not being taken care of.
DK (01:41:17):
Yeah, that fight, I mean, that was one of the great fights of all time.
SM (01:41:21):
How important do you think-
DK (01:41:25):
[inaudible] Frazier, you will never, ever duplicate something like that. Well, the whole boxing industry is screwed anyway anymore. But those were, again, that was sort of representative of... That was still the (19)60s, even though it was 1971. That was an event with its roots going back into... See, basically, because we divide everything into... We like neat little items. 50th anniversary of this, 20th anniversary of that, the (19)60s, the (19)70s, the (19)80s. It does not mean jack shit. (19)60s, the (19)70s, the (19)80s, it does not mean jack shit. I mean, when I did my book, [inaudible] in 2000... Hang on, I was showing this to somebody the other day and I said something here, if I can find it. Hold on. Every month I wrote something about... Where is it? Well, I cannot find it. the end of the last day of 2000, I did a picture of... Actually, one of the pictures, you should get that book. I think you would find it pretty interesting, I was at the convention in Philadelphia, among other things.
SM (01:43:03):
The name of the book?
DK (01:43:05):
Photo du Jour.
SM (01:43:07):
Okay, I will find that. We have a really good bookstore.
DK (01:43:16):
Hold on a sec, I just want to see if I can find this one thing. Well, maybe I do not have it here. Dave Barry Howard Fryman wrote a piece.
SM (01:43:35):
You can email me.
DK (01:43:39):
The main thing right now, I guess, the point was that the last picture that I did, And this was a project I did with a Mamiya 7 camera, which is like a light on steroids. It is a medium format or a range finder camera. the last photo was of a volcano in Hawaii. Normally day-to-day, I did not even know where I would be one day to the next, but in this case, by that point, at the end of the year, the family and I were going to be in Hawaii on a vacation and the volcano was still active. That was the last day of December 31st, 2000, the last day of going into 2001. The symbolism of that volcano was, it did not make any difference that it was the last day of the year or the first day of the year, or the last day of the millennium. The fact of the matter, everything, it just goes over into the next day. It does not mean anything. It is like these are just all, they are days. They are false markers. I think that was point.
SM (01:45:12):
How important do you feel students were in ending the war through their protests? You saw it at San Francisco State, but they were all over the country, particularly between (19)67-
DK (01:45:21):
Hang on one second. Here is what I said. The first day of the new millennium was basically another day. The Earth continued to spin on its axis. There was no cataclysmic thunder clap wiping out our way of life as we knew it. That would wait until September 11th, 2001. That was the point. Oops. Can you hold on one second?
SM (01:45:56):
Yep.
DK (01:45:57):
Hold on.
SM (01:45:58):
Yep.
DK (01:46:08):
The point is, when you are talking, that was a good question. When did the (19)60s end? If you just sent out all of the, if you took all that stuff out, it really, it was a state of mind really more than anything. I think that is a really good question. I have talked to people about that. Well, what does it mean the (19)60s? It's almost like the (19)70s, somebody, they do not talk about the (19)70s per se. So much shit happened during the (19)70s. More than in the (19)60s almost.
SM (01:46:40):
What is interesting is a lot of people have said the (19)60s were from that (19)65 till about (19)73 because you cannot separate (19)71, (19)72, (19)73 and (19)70. You cannot.
DK (01:46:52):
Right.
SM (01:46:52):
A lot of people look at disco as a change when things start changing.
DK (01:46:58):
Yeah-yeah, yeah.
SM (01:46:59):
When you look at the generation that you grew up in, the boomer generation, this would be based, the generation 74 million total. What would be the people that you knew, can you give any strengths or weaknesses to this generation if you were to comment on them?
DK (01:47:20):
Ask me that one more time, I am sorry.
SM (01:47:22):
When you look at the boomer generation itself of 74 million, not all were activists and probably only about 10 percent were, and the rest were not. But when you look at this generation, which is all inclusive, it is male, female, black, brown, yellow, gay, straight, you name it. It is all of them. Were there any strengths or weaknesses that you could list?
DK (01:47:54):
Well, God, there is so many. In many ways, Clinton kind of epitomized all that. I mean, he was a person who, and in a way, this is not a fair thing to say, but because we all were brought up differently too, I mean, he had a hard way to go brought up. Here's the guy that overcame a background. I do not really like Clinton, by the way. I understand his strengths and his weaknesses. In many ways he represents many of the strengths and weaknesses of the generation. A lot of promiscuous people who were, if it feels good, do it. I understand that. I think those of us, products of the World War II generation or the greatest generation as to Tom Brokaw said, makes you feel a little bit strange. They went through all that. They collectively, and we were brought up in the (19)50s where prosperity was the cornerstone of the country and on the sacrifice of our parents. My parents and those people that age really have a different way of looking at stuff. Those who went through the depression. We do not know about any of that until now, but I do not think it's the same thing. It is for certain people, but not in this overshadowing way. I am rambling here because I do not have a good answer for you. It is everything from television, the advent of TV really accompanied the rise of the baby boomers. Jeff, it was very funny. In fact, you got to get the photo out if you do not have it. If you want to use Jeff's cartoons in it, I will give you the permission to do so because what it did, and a lot of what you are writing about is the baby generation. I told you what he said, the self-centered generation comes of age, but it is all, the first frame is the (19)50s and it is the golden age of television. There is a little kid sitting on a floor and the TV with the rabbit ears is up on a wood chest of drawers. Then it's the (19)60s, the next panel, the Golden Age, the rock and roll. You have got the same, the kid is not growing up now, but he is holding a guitar, watching a bigger TV set. In the (19)70s, golden age of drugs and the kid who is still a baby has got a cigarette in his mouth watching a TV in a cabinet. Then the (19)80s, the golden age of money. The kid's got a big cigar, this huge TV, the nineties, the golden age of healthcare. The kid's got to hook up to a blood pressure machines, still watching the TV. Then the two thousand, the golden age of arthritis. The kids pushing the button on the TV with a cane. Then the 2010, the golden age of death. That was his representation of the baby boom generation. I think there is something to that because we were not only growing up in a different world, we're actually watching ourselves do it on TV. Everything that happens is on TV anymore. The car chase, the plane crash, people on the hill, live C Span. Never before has a group of people been able to track their own progress in a mirror really like now. That was not the way it was before. The evolution of how you got your news from Life magazine to NBC, when they talk about life being killed by speed, that is probably true. It had its time. That is all. I was one of the last drivers hired by them, and it was a great tragedy for us but like so many other things I have moved on from there.
SM (01:52:52):
You say you moved on. That that leads me into, I only got three more questions then we're done. This question is regarding the issue of healing. We took students to Washington DC in 1995 to meet Senator Edmond Musky. The students came up with a question because they were not alive in the (19)60s and (19)70s, their parents were obviously, but they had seen a video of the year 1968. They put together a question dealing with all the divisions that were happening in America at that time. The question was this, due to all the divisions that were taking place in the boomer generation or in the (19)60s generation, divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who supported the war, those who were against the war, those who supported the troops, those who did not. Do you feel the boomer generation, the (19)60s generation, is going to go to its grave like the Civil War generation, not healing? Not healing because of the tremendous division's, animosity and sometimes outright hatred one had for the opposing point of view, or someone with a different perspective or whatever? Senator Musky, and they were thinking of the 1968 convention and all the turmoil there, the assassinations in 68, and they were thinking of Watts in 64. They were thinking of all the things about the (19)60s. What's your answer? Then I will tell you what Senator Musky said.
DK (01:54:27):
Well, of course we got a little, yeah, that is a different thing. I do not know. The healing. It seems a lot of that bad will is really carrying over to the here and the now. It almost does not seem to be getting better. I do not know about healing. I do not see how you-
SM (01:54:51):
Hold on one second. David, can you hold on one second?
DK (01:54:54):
Yeah.
SM (01:54:54):
My tape just ended. Okay. Alrighty. Go right ahead.
DK (01:55:01):
When you talk about a generation healing, I do not personally feel damaged, so I do not know how other people, it is such an individual situation that I could not tell you, but the world, it does. Things seem more divided now. I mean, that is a fact. Everybody talks about it. You have got Fox News on one hand is supposed to represent the conservative point of view and MSNBC on the other side, and people really polarize on certain subjects. That goes back to what I said earlier. I am not a Democrat or Republican, I am a photographer.
SM (01:55:48):
Right.
DK (01:55:51):
I have seen both sides.
(End of Interview)
Description
3 microcassettes
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Interview with David Hume Kennerly
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Kennerly, David Hume, 1947- ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
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Photographers; Photojournalists; Kennerly, David Hume, 1947--Interviews
Description
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David Hume Kennerly is a Pulitzer Prize winnig photographer and photojournalist. His portfolio includes photographs taken of the Vietnam War, Cambodia, East Pakistani refugees near Calcutta, and the Ali-Frazier fight in Madison Square Garden on March 8, 1971. Kennerly photographed every American president since Richard Nixon.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2010-07-10
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In Copyright
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eng
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Sound
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.6a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.6b; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.6c
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2017-03-01
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McKiernan Interviews
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237:33