Interview with Dr. Douglas Brinkley

Brinkley, Douglas ; McKiernan, Stephen

Dr. Douglas Brinkley is an author, scholar and academic. He is currently a history professor at Rice University and the presidential historian at CNN. He is an author and has published 12 books. He received the Ann M. Sperber Biography Award in 2013 for his book Cronkite. Dr. Brinkley has a B.A. from Ohio State University, an M.A. and Ph.D. in U.S. Diplomatic History from Georgetown University.

1997-09-27

In Copyright

2017-03-14

McKiernan Interviews

77:37

McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Douglas Brinkley
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Benjamin Mehdi So
Date of interview: 9 September 1997
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Start of Interview)

0:08
SM: Okay, get over there. I will test it after the first question too. First question I want to ask is the recently and I have seen on the news a lot lately, and I have actually heard over many years, you will see George Will who will write articles on it yet he will make commentaries on ABC, you will possibly see Newt Gingrich saying it and on the floor of Congress and politicians generalizing about the boomer generation and their impact on American today, in mostly negative terms. I would like your thoughts and not only as your personal thoughts, but even from a historical perspective, whether the criticisms of the boomer generations has been leveled at them as they are the reason for all the ills in American society today, the breakup, the American family, the increase in the drug culture, the lack of respect for authority, those types of issues that were they were some individuals and even times the media tries to portray this group as the reason why we have declined as-as an American nation.

1:02
DB: In the view. I think it is all a lot of rubbish, that notion of blaming a generation for-for anything, particularly because what-what do you what do you have in a pre Boomer period, Jim Crow America, where African Americans do not have the right to vote, that they are living in, essentially an apartheid system throughout the south, that women are on subpar salaries, that minority migrant workers, minority workers have no rights whatsoever. You know, if you go back to that glorious Eisenhower (19)50s, before his boomers got control over American culture, what you would see is a is a white male autarky controlling the United States, his finances, and in controlling government. And I think we were much better off now in the (19)90s than we ever were in the (19)50s in the sense of more equity of distribution of capital. That is more civil liberties and civil rights for people. The American pie- it has been it was, it was being shared, I think, by more people, and hopefully by more to come in the future. So, I find that the boomer generation has been extraordinarily important in for has equal claim to being a group of a generation that has done more to change America in a positive fashion than any other generation simply on the areas of spite of civil rights and civil liberties which occurred during their period. Now, if there is going to be some criticism, there is-is a kind of feeling of the cheapening of American culture, the-the advent of kind of pop culture gone mad in, in Hollywood and magazines, records, music, but that is only because there is more and more people with capital, because of these changes to purchase, you know, D run DMC, you know, rap albums or to purchase, you know, Garth Brooks Country Albums or to get experiment leisurely in the drug culture. I do think that the promotion of drugs in the (19)60s, in some ways was problematic, because it is it not so problematic for middle class and upper middle class, but that just devastatingly dangerous for the underside, the other side, or Michael Harrington called it of American life. And so, you know, as any generation, there is a downside to certain things. But all in all, I think the boomer generation should be proud that they told the spoke the truth, and opened up the democratic process for more people than ever before. That is a major accomplishment.

3:45
SM: Just double check. It is kind of a little repetitive, because you already hit on some of the points. But if you were to look in 1997, we are heading into the new millennium. The overall impact of boomers not even looking at the criticisms that I mentioned the first question, but just as you know, the boomers are now reaching the age of 50. Bill Clinton has often said as a fore-runner, he feels he just reached 50. In fact, he turned 51 this year. But if you were to again, look at just overall this 65-70 million, I am quite sure the numbers of boomers amount of course, boomers being defined as individuals born between (19)46 and (19)64. Overall impact positive or negative?

4:28
DB: Positive. All generations are positive. I think it is all you know, there is nobody that goes around identifying themselves as I am a boomer. They do they have got kind of a problem. I mean, people are people. Kurt Vonnegut once told me there is no such thing as generation X, we are all generation Z. Each generation comes up together and starts themselves together and you know, there is no- or it could be generation a- but it is mean- meaning they are these deputies’ categorizations of everybody, by age bracket song. It is useful. In some ways, when you are writing and thinking about large, long-term trends in American society, but I do not think it has much bearing when you start talking about real people, they are always gaps between age groups, dad and son, you know, always have differences of opinion. That is kind of the way like this goes back to the days of the Bible. I do not think it is some new sociological generation trend.

5:25
SM: That leads you right into the question on the generation gap. It was a term that I do not even know if they use those terms. As a historian, you might know more than I would. But uh, that term was used over and over again, for boomers during the (19)60s and early (19)70s, to divide themselves and their parents to World War Two generation, mainly because oftentimes, boomers looked at the World War Two generation like they look at IBM, the corporate mentality, everybody be in it alike that, that whole picture of the IBM family of five people walking up front door, their house, all wearing a suit and a hat going into the same current status quo. And boomer said, not me, not me.

6:02
DB: Think it gets exaggerated. But if you look in the (19)60s you know, most Americans college students were pro Vietnam war that they were more college students that were for Richard Nixon then against Richard Nixon, in 1968 on colleges, and he where are the you know, we-we become hostage to is the extravagances of the counterculture of the (19)60s of you know, the Haight Ashbury experience and Timothy Leary's, in the factory in New York of Andy Warhol. And, and we, because of that the it spoke out so loudly and flamboyantly about, from an artistic perspective, and a social perspective. I mean, Abbie Hoffman, remember talking to some years ago at Princeton, he is now deceased, that he has to say, you know, we quickly learned all you have to do is call a rally, get 10 people, but if you grab a TV on a middle of campus, smash it with sledgehammers, burn an American flag, you will find about 300 people watching the freak event. And then the media will come in and cover it and bring it into a million homes. So, what started as eight people smashing up a television suddenly looks like it is this big event on campus. I do not think they are the upheaval that the counterculture had that they kind of impact on American society as the republicans like Newt Gingrich used to say it. It is the revolution in the (19)60s was a social revolution, dealing with civil rights and civil rights for African Americans and women, the battle browns, beautiful, historic battle markers. Sure, there are some from and emerged in the counterculture in certain ways like Kent State, you know, protest, you know, but most of them are aware of Selma. And watts in the march from march to Montgomery, and Birmingham, Little Rock, you know, Albany, Georgia, these were Greensborough. These were places where direct confrontation to change society took place in this massive way. Not that that because there was a love in that in Haight Ashbury, or Woodstock Rock Festival. Those are significant, but it is just a little, that is every generation is going to have something outrages the parents, today, kids will have in college, their three earrings and go to some other kind of concert. And it is an alienation process with mother, father, that is very healthy. I do not trust students that do not have a little bit of alienation. And then when they are young, I find in there, so they are not intellectually engaging, if they are going to be 19-20. And not really care to read poetry or fiction or be idealistic, and think that they can change some of the things or want to take a few swipes at the mainstream American culture.

8:54
SM: One of the things that said would you like some water? One of the things that is interesting, I have worked in higher education on 19 years, I was out of a for a while. And when young people today look at their parents or boomers, I always keep coming back to that term. There seems to be two reactions, and this is [inaudible] your feelings, whether you see the same thing as a scholar that teaches students and has worked with him for quite a few years. Number one, I am tired of hearing about it. I have seen these people live in nostalgia the- you know, the times are so great, you know, and the and the other thing is this, basically they are sick of it and then the then the, there is no middle ground. The other side is I wish I live then. I wish there were the issues today, like the issues then civil rights, you know, certainly ending the Vietnam War, the women's movement, a lot so many of the movements came to fruition the late (19)60s and (19)70s. Your thoughts on that?

9:47
DB: Well, it that part I think is-is true. The (19)60s are exciting, because young people-people in their 20s made a difference. I love looking at the pictures of young Dr. King and Stokely Carmichael and Andy Young and Jim Lawson and you know, John Lewis and they are extraordinary to see these young men in their 20s actually changing the US Constitution and forcing governors to in the federal government to respond to their desires for their rights there is to be 20 and have-have been part of that was so exhilarating. I have talked to any number of young people now that are what you are calling boomers and they are in their (19)50s today, that their highlights of their lives we are working with snick when they you know, we are actually at these sites and the change and the-the excitement and the notion of the antiwar movement. The fact is that they did bring Richard Nixon down. that Watergate in the Vietnam War of a- the people protesting were correct that this was an immoral war. There is- we could not find an honest historian in the country today, not to say that Vietnam War was a mistake. So, what these people were protesting were in many ways, accurate and correct. So and then the fact that the music of the era was just seemed to connect to the social protest in a way through whether it was through Bob Dylan or, or, you know, Janis Joplin or-or, you know, or others that just had that link to the-the soundtrack kind of to the era all makes it combined into a certain kind of counterculture romance that you could get caught up in and look back to, and you are never going to have that now, it is not the world's not quite like that. Now-now, the romance, you know, people are taking set up websites, for their political issues out on their homes, or will, you know, kind of try to organize some kind of rallies, but it just does not quite have the fervor and flavor that it did in the (19)60s. So, if you are interested in social activism, I think there is a, there is a missing element. However, an argument could be made that young people today have more outlets to explore the spiritual realm than they did back in the (19)60s, when you had a when was a much more an LBJ, how many kids did you kill today? Now you be much more defined young people's protesting in society in a sense, by practicing yoga, or work dealing with crystals, or adopting some kind of new age, religion or philosophy, have their own way of making their own spiritual space, you know, between themselves. And in that way, it was one of the reasons why as a writer like Jack Kerouac is so popular in college campuses is he was always dealing with the spiritual, not the political. And so, there is a sense of spiritual activism going on now. People trying to look at self in new ways, understand who they are, as a purpose, trying to explore the meanings of their, their life. And so, it is a different it is a more of an inward revolution. Right now, where I think in the (19)60s, it was an outward one, these things will all come and go and there will be another era of genuine protest in this country and some somewhere down the line. Now this was set versus the (19)60s for a while, but it will come.

13:15
SM: I like to ask you a- something like a what went wrong question. When young people and again, I was in that era, we thought we were the change agents for the betterment of society. We were the most unique generation in American history and, and as a historian, you probably may have a sense of that from other generations as well. But when you are part of it, when you are living it. It was just in the fact is that they felt that there was an empowerment that there we were the change agents you are in somehow that has not been transferred to the children of the boomers.

13:49
DB: Oh, I do not know about that. I think you are a little getting a little tied up on this boomer thing. From your own personal vantage point. The truth of the matter is there is a lot of arrogance of any young generation, gets on the streets and thinks they have ripped down a president and ended a war and brought about a social revolution and through race relations in America. That is a lot of accomplishment at a young age, and you cannot keep that crescendo going. So, you tend to look back on your past glories of that historical epoch in children being raised by parents or going to the dock any generation of kids they are going to say, oh, be quiet dad. It is like some different generation had to put up listening to look through dad's World War One stories. I was there in Europe. Now. This was when I was there Woodstock. It is the same there is not this kind of dividing line. It is as old as time can be. There is no big division between generations today. They accept- you know, in ways that are-are teasingly so or ways that are just kind of surface any more than there is with any other generation, and I would reverse it and say what went right. The Cold War is over the, the equal, we have a real much greater sense of what equal rights are and fair wages, you know employment benefits. The-the bringing income to minorities American, the next century is going to be over 40 percent nonwhite and allowing these people into the mainstream culture. The whole story of the boomer generation is one of just extraordinary success. Now if-if things did not go become, you know, golden for everybody the way you when you are 21, you think things are going to be different than they turn out to be that is another story. And no, in also there is a perpetual Peter Pannus about this generation, because they define themselves not in is a world as an older generation that they defined themselves when they were young. I have to tell you, it is no different than World War Two veterans, I interviewed D Day veterans in battle of the Bulge veterans all the time, that was the highlight of their life. They are 18, throwing hand grenades, and in the, you know, along the Rhine River, and it was their moment of, they have defined their whole lives around that particular experience. So, they may have gone on to own a car dealership or be an insurance salesman, raise a family, send them to school, they still define themselves as a veteran of World War Two, and it is their one thing that they are most proud of their contribution occurred when they were young. And I think you will find some boomers who had their defining moment when they were young. That is there is nothing wrong with that there are also people who get defining moments when they are older. And there will be some boomers that you do not even know their names of now that are going to be known as being the great leaders of that generation, who-who are now in their (19)50s only in the next 10-15 years are going to be excelling in ways that are the ending of AIDS and developing clean blood supplies. So, we do not you know, people that grew up in that generation, you know, they are all over these people. And so, there is was just as many as some people when they were young, they are going to be others that peak when they are older from your generation. It is great.

17:03
SM: When you look at the Vietnam War. In your opinion, why did it end? What is the number one reason that war ended?

17:13
DB: Because we failed to win. I mean, the ended because you can only take so much toward the ark, the domestic or tour economy apart, ruin the great society broke down two presidents, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. At that point, it is time to cash in it the-the chips, call it a quasi-victory like they did and send the troops home should have been done a long time ago. But, you know, the Vietnam War only ended because we were not winning. And it seemed impossible to win short of doing a kind of massive bombing campaign, which would have destroyed Americans credibility throughout the world, and would have done grave damage to NATO, and to continuing to call us on, you know, fractious relationships in American society.

18:05
SM: How important were the college students on college campuses and contributing to the ending of that war, knowing that when you look at this large generation, the biggest generation in American history, historians will say that 15 percent were really involved in some sort of activist activity at that timeframe.

18:24
DB: They were very important for framing the argument for giving a voice to the antiwar movement, through song through protest through just bodies to constantly apply pressure, though antiwar movement of 1965 looked a lot different than 1970 at Kent State. When you started getting people like William Fulbright and George cannons denouncing the Vietnam War, Walter Cronkite in Johnson's famous line there when Cronkite was anti came out, anti-Vietnam said there goes the war. He was losing America in the Harbinger's of that were ministers, pacifist groups, and youth culture groups were the Civil Rights Organizations find when Dr. King in April in May guess, yeah, April, was in April of (19)68 or (19)67, April (19)67, gave his speech, a Riverside Drive in New York, that in announcing the Vietnam War, and connecting the civil rights movement to the Vietnam War. That was a fatal moment for Lyndon Johnson. It was that that was when everything changed. And I thought that was the point that it was going to be clear that this was truly a social revolution and the antiwar movement now merged with the civil rights movement.

19:46
SM: When you look at the civil rights movement of this year, and when you look at freedom summer of 1964, and again, I know I am getting too caught up in the terminology of the boomers, but the oldest boomers at that, at that stage are 18 years old. And so, when you look at the impact of the boomers had on various issues in American history at that timeframe (19)60s (19)70s, how important were the- these boomers who may have had their first experiences, maybe through the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley when things started in (19)63. And then they went to (19)64, down south. But how important overall were these young people in the issue of civil rights?

20:23
DB: Well, they are extremely important because they first thought the African Americans largely in the civil rights movement were in their 20s. And as they developed many, most of their followers, it is easier to get a young audience that is in college to form a crowd, if you were going to hold on activity here this afternoon and wanted to get 200 people were better than to go to a campus and generate 200 people. They are all in a condensed area at one point of time. So it allowed civil rights, also, to have, you know, a sort of intellectual strongholds scattered throughout the country words like Cambridge and Madison and Hattiesburg and, you know, other college towns became symbols of places where people could share information and read about Herbert Marcuse, or Noam Chomsky, or could share their new enthusiasm for the Bob Dylan album could, you know talk about Mao Zedong and pass out his red books on campus and kind of create a was a place to spread a lot of this kind of, you know, youthful protest energy?

21:36
SM: You have, you have talked about some of the positive and negative qualities of the boomers. But if you were just maybe give through four adjectives positives and negatives? What were those positives again, be for the boomers and the negative? Just brief descriptions?

21:50
DB: Well, I do not-not sure. On the negatives, I think positive was that that when they are they confronted the crisis of the moment at a young age, which was the crisis in American society, the crisis in confidence in American leadership, and a crisis of what is democracy? Who controls the power? Who controls the purse strings of America? And why cannot we open up to allow more people into the system, that was the game going on when they came of age, and they confronted those issues in a in a vocal and forthright manner, and we are able to make a profound difference. They also, I think we are, I think that their contribution, you know, it became the popular culture now started in the (19)50s. But by the (19)60s, it became commerce and by the (19)70s really became commerce with so what I mean, it is the second largest export in America's, after our aerospace is pop culture, they talk about contributing to American exports and money, the whole pop culture industry that that emerged on a rock and roll and, you know, the endless massive Hollywood films and book tie ins and all the promotional aspects of things, which we frown on a lot, is what were some of our biggest money making activities in this country, you know, in the entertainment industry, which kind of emerges in in the spirit. And I think all things considered and entertainment industries is not necessarily a negative thing. I think it has quite a positive impact if it brings some sort of joy into working people in middle class people's lives. I do not really have anything negative on the generation, I think that is bad karma. You know, you know, to start seeing this generation that these negative and this one did it positive, it is, you know, it is just it is too cold. You know, there is, there is every generation confronting different problems. I think that yes, it was correct in the (19)60s generation to talk about sexuality openly, to let women talk about the need for their own sexual satisfaction in life for-for homosexuals to be able to come out like at Stonewall in places and have begun gay rights. The sexual liberation of the (19)60s was long overdue and puritanical America. On the other hand, it went overboard to the degree that free love and multiple partners led into the (19)80s the problems of sexual diseases in herpes and venereal diseases and in AIDS and so there was a cost factor that came in because it went too far. And I think if there was a criticism to that boomer generation, I think it is the sense of the excess in their ideas pushing it is they really believed in William Blake's notion that wisdom is not is excess. Hunter Thompson believes that he is a product of many ways of that period of access through-through excesses comes wisdom. I do not buy that, and I think that that is probably where that generation at that period where period of time pushed these envelopes a little too far. But today they do not. Today there is responsible they are running our government, their weather, and is any other generations responsible and running, you know, they have, they have grown up. But they be because they had an impact when they were 20 and 21. It made them feel they were more empowered Tom Hayden felt like, you know, when he wrote the Port Joran statement that we are going to change the world. This is a revolution right here this statement I just wrote SDS, you know, well, of course, now you may look back at that and realize that they were they were delusional. They think they were good as supplant the World Bank and, you know, these The International Monetary Fund, you know, through their revolutionary pocket proclamations.

25:54
SM: That is, it, there is one specific event that had the greatest impact on your life from this period. What-what was, there was there were so many, but if you could pinpoint one?

26:05
DB: Bob Dylan penning like a Rolling Stone. Because I did not get to live through, you know, when John F. Kennedy was-was shot, you know, I was three years old, when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy was shot, I was a, Lyndon Johnson resigned, I was eight. I do not my memories of that those events are foggy at best; I was too young to know or appreciate him. So, I do not know quite I can see films. And I can read books, but I do not know just what it would-would have felt like to have been able to drift into San Francisco and go to Haight Ashbury and feel like you were part of this social revolution that was going on. But I can tell you one thing, I do know what it is like to drive in my pickup truck, down a country road and blast like a Rolling Stone and feel and tie all the sentiments and power of that entire generation, all kind of like pull into a funnel and transform in that one song. I get it, then I get chills. And I hear it. And I realized what that must have been like, the day that song came out. And I heard that on the jukebox. And I was sitting in a bar somewhere in America, you know, and I would have been ready to just head to any of these places that time that the moving in the just wispy right up that song.

27:24
SM: As a follow up, I want to recommend that to you. Listen, some of the country- Joe McDonald. Have you listened to the Vietnam Album? Yeah, unbelievable stuff.

27:33
DB: Yeah, that is straight Vietnam War protests like Rolling Stones piece of art.

27:36
SM: Right. One of the issues trying to get at in this project is trying to understand the healing process. There were so many divisions in America that time, different sides, lots of people that listening to each other. Again, getting back to that whole issue of not respecting authority and really challenging authority, but there were tremendous divisions. I want to get back to the Vietnam War. And those individuals who protested the war, were against the war. And of course, those who served. In your opinion, how far have we come in the healing process from the divisions of those times not only with between those who serve and those who did not serve, but even in the political spectrum, because you know, the history of the democratic party that has been the downfall is they started because of (19)68 and all the liberal mentality and conducting themselves in the war issue and, and the end only recently, are they may be trying to make the comeback?

28:35
DB: Yeah, no, I think it has been divisive in many ways. The combination of Vietnam protests the war. Also, Richard Nixon, Cambodia [inaudible], Watergate led to Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, led to them the-the reemergence of a jingoistic American stance through Ronald Reagan, and then slowly is led through Bush and Clinton into a moderate, right of center kind of approach in in this country, which is we are back kind of on the center. We are back on track during the Bush and Clinton years. But what the problem is, it is the-the part that is annoying, that still legacy of Vietnam is that in gets into your boomer question is where were how did you stand on Vietnam War. And we have to learn, I think, as a society to realize the antiwar protesters like Bill Clinton, were equally patriotic, as somebody who wanted to fight in the war. That is a hard concept for a certain portion of the population to believe. And in other words, Clinton's was denunciation of the war is refusal to fight in you know, some people look at it is cowardice and an almost cost him the election. I would argue that that he was the people that were protesting the war were equally American heroes, as were the veterans who went to war That concepts not an easy one for people to swallow. So, there was always a feeling well, if you were not pro war did not fight, you did not love your country. And I think there are many ways to loving the country. And it is not always just picking up guns and go into a war that you do not believe in. I think the civil disobedience that occurred during the (19)60s during Vietnam War was justified, I have to say, if I were grew up in that area, I would not I would have gone to war, I would have gone to fight. I know that about myself. On the other hand, I can also appreciate the courage that it took not to. Sometimes it is not just doing what you were told, but it is not doing what you were told that takes more courage. And I think that, you know, we need the-the healing process is there, it is underway, we need to constantly look at that period and realize that there-there are people that it is more people that act out of conscience and convictions of what they believe their best, are people that I can admire are not people who just were doing it because they got walking papers. Also, the disparity of who fought the war is still something that angers the black community. So many poor people and blacks ended up being the ones to shed the blood into a war, you know, where that people with money got out of the war. So, it becomes a sore point Vietnam because it shows the inequity of American life between rich and poor, yet again, I think you nailed the same thing. We look in our country. And you see that problem the vast disparity of wealth in the country.

31:39
SM: The Vietnam Memorial was opened in 1982. And it is now we are going to be having a big celebration down in Washington on the 50th anniversary coming up on Veterans Day, November 11. I have had a chance to go down there the last six years for Memorial Day and Veterans Day to try to get a feel and ambience helped me with this project get a feel about the healing process. I sense a lot of healing has taken place. But I also sense again, a little bit of a continuing divisions, the hatred for the Jane Fonda’s of the world never forgiving her for going and even Bill Clinton at times. Even Peter Arnett, who spoke two years ago, I sat next to three Vietnam veterans and they, he replaced Larry King who was supposed to speak, and they said if I knew he was coming, I want to show up today because he was the media, he was part of the problem in Vietnam. So, they had some negative stories, the media, but how important has the Vietnam Memorial itself, been in respect as Jan Scruggs wrote his book To Heal a Nation has it really healed the nation itself, man. And, of course, it was done a lot within the Vietnam veteran community. But your thoughts on the impact of that wall.

32:46
DB: I think it is important to first remember the war. It is important for the veterans that are alive today to go see, their families to see their-their buddies names on that wall, and it is always moving to watch veterans look at it. Beyond that, the memorial will be there. 100 years from now, 200 years from now, hopefully, you and I will be in our graves dead as can be. And people will be coming look at that wall and remember that moment in American history. But you have to realize its relevancy, what you are talking about today is as simple as because it is so close to our time. Years from now, it will be like going to a Spanish American War Memorial or-or Confederate War Memorial will be interest there but it will not resonate quite as strongly as it does right now in the-the nerves and the in, in the issues are so-so raw still, but it has, it has been a healer, a healer of sorts, it has been a focal point of energies for veterans to come to and hang out at. For people come and talk about the war. It has been a place to go a destination to, you know, to get some things off people's chests emotionally, mentally. So, it has, it has had a wonderful, long, cathartic service for our nation, I think.

34:03
SM: We took a group of students to see Senator Muskie because there were years before he died. And in that session, I mentioned this in your last trip here. We have to question about 1968, the convention was happening in America at that time. He was not well at that time he just got out of the hospital. We asked a question about the boomer generation and the healing process, and the divisions and we were expecting real response to talk about the (19)60s but when he responded he said we have not healed as a nation since the Civil War. He broke American the two parts and is there truth to that?

34:37
DB: No. Absolutely Could not be more true. That is what I am getting at here. When you focus so much on this boomer part, it is indulged self-indulgent because it is so close to us for looking at oh gosh is not a different look at our van it was no different than it ever was. They have it is so easy in every way imaginable. And the problems that we have international problems race has been going on for a long time violence their whole nation was founded on violence the whole selling the West was settled on extermination of Indian slavery, death, not meaning much. We are a violent nation. This is not new news that there can be people killed today in Philadelphia, oldest river countries that but we keep losing track of that in some ways, because we think everything is so new. And that is because we have no real historical sense about ourselves as a people, we always march forward without any understanding of looking backwards. So Muskie statement was one of sober reflection on the events, trying to quell the kind of hype that people keep making over Vietnam, simply because it is in their lifetime, and it is a crisis of their lifetime. Well, there have been millions of crises going on since the beginning of man, and they are going to continue to go on some large, some small, some bigger than Vietnam, some not. It was nowhere near as fatal Vietnam to our country is something like the Civil War. And it did not have anywhere near as damaging of ramifications for our country, as there was World War Two was an isolated bombing of peasant people in a remote part of the world, you know, for us, which, you know, gets way too much press and talked about and constantly simply because it is part of our life script, we experienced Vietnam in some way. So, it is a, it is a talking point, that next year is the 100th anniversary of the Spanish American War, I could not get any of the TV networks to do especially in the Spanish American War, much more significant more than Vietnam, in the forming of American life. We fire Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Philippines empire for the first time. It is the beginning of America and the world theater of trade with China wants to go on and on and on of what the Spanish American War did for American Life. We do not even want to talk about it. Nobody even wants to open a book, you cannot get a near publisher to publish a book on the Spanish American War, because nobody cares. Yeah, my god. 400 books on Vietnam, another veteran writing his story, this one from the protester, and oh my goodness, and-and if there is a criticism, I have on our modern culture is it is developing now. It is this focal point on self, to this degree that that is all we do is think about the, the tone and the tenor of our lives as being so significant, when we are just grains of sand, or just sparrows falling, where we were no different than anybody else. And we are all be ghosts soon. So, we should get on with some of the heavier matters of living in creating communities in a positive fashion instead of getting all tied up in the kind of acrimony over Vietnam.

37:36
SM: I know there is, there is so many books on Vietnam, but say 100 years from now, will they be writing books? Or is it the same?

37:44
DB: Sure, if I am saying all you have left is the war memorial that nobody goes to.

37:48
SM: And books gone on books collecting dust in a library. What do you think of the individuals again, I am just using the term here, the left leaders of that era who became conservative I think of a David Horowitz is in the world of Peter Collier, the world those individuals who are at the forefront of the left than they did a total turnaround, and then condemned all the people that were involved with them when they were young? And Just your thought on.

38:14
DB: Mr. Horwitz was a recent speaker here at your school or he was coming there. But they are, I do not have put much stock in those two gentlemen. Their books on the Roosevelt family in the Kennedy family are sleazy tabloid trash tracks. That just one step above the globe in the store, the National Enquirer in integrity, they their notion of coming out and denouncing a generation of playing all this politics, it is great press, and it puts them in the papers and headlines and people in people that are anti (19)60, anti what occurred in that period, from the left point of view, you know, meaning the right and loves this, you know, here is one coming to our side. It is like Eldridge Cleaver, leaving the Black Panthers to write for the National Review, or Jerry Rubin leaving the Yippies to work on Wall Street. You know, I think that oftentimes those characters that act like that do not have a whole lot of personal integrity of what it means to be a scholar and a true intellectual. They are simply into controversy for the sake and it makes them wonderful guest on-on the gambit of talk shows on television, but as you get right down to it, and not that they are not brilliant in their certain ways, but when you get right down to it, I do not see what they are, I just think what they are doing is creating noise and not putting the kind of sober you know, reality to it. The all of both of those books that they wrote on the Kennedys and Roosevelts are not you cannot put no I cannot use those footnotes without being considered a joke in a serious, scholarly way. It is not even pop history. It is always taking things one step at little too much of what an overstatement and inflation of fact, so you are just you are reading it-it is like you are reading a Harlequin romance, but yet they masquerade as being serious intellectuals and committed to truth so as a historian, those are not my type of characters you know and I would rather the- you know, it is me it is like with Horwitz, and Collier they bottomed out when the left bottomed out they went right there they were there for whatever the fashion of the moment is. I do not think they I mean as soon as America turned to the Reagan period, and that was where the majority seem to be at, that was where they were at. And they are, you know, they will always be there. They are never leading that movement. They are hopping on the bandwagon at any given moment. You know, if tomorrow there is a big social revolution that occurred my guess is you find them, they are jumping off the banding conservatism for the new movement of the moment. Very few people take them very seriously.

41:03
SM: You get a chance to read the radical [inaudible]

41:06
DB: No, you told me about that its worth reading.

41:07
SM: I think worth reading I think then I think that that is a lot better than the other books that you were talking about. I will not read the other two, but I think what I was on I think Brian Lamb had Horowitz or Collier on talking about one of the Kennedys of Academies of-

41:21
DB: They are, they are, they are major their major characters I mean, these are major quotes that, but they are not much above Kitty Kelly, they are getting really with the kind of with brains you know.

41:34
SM: I am going to I have got several other questions here, but I want to get into some of the individuals here of the year and I would like you to comment on your just-just brief thoughts on all of not only your personal thoughts on their impact of that period, but it is personal and an impact on the period itself. Jane Fonda.

41:57
DB: Jane Fonda is a great deal of admiration for her as an actress, she is superb as somebody who is largely been committed to-to you know, she is this is a Hollywood figure essentially, I have never taken her much more seriously than that. But she is a I think a fine woman who is a good actress, and it gets involved with some very good causes- I like her.

42:28
SM: Tom Hayden.

42:30
DB: like Tom Hayden also I think, unlike [inaudible], Collier and Horowitz, Hayden has a-a is constantly staying on the cutting edge of bringing out certain issues certainly he is no longer part of the ease of fringe character now he ran for mayor of Los Angeles and now everybody knows he is not going to win and he is so far on the left obviously but-but I think he raises some interesting points that makes us think about things he takes part in the American political process. I think he is a very honorable legislator and somebody whose ideas are always worth talking to in thinking about. I do not think Hayden does things for the money you know I do not think he is there to-to be sensational I think there is in general social commitment behind him to make-make changes I have looked at some of his recent books which will never make bestseller list because he is dealing one of them has to deal with you know, the need to study Indian culture and nature and environment all over yeah female book on environment and stuff, you know, but he is looking at issues and grappling with them he is not trying to just manufacture kind of you know, you know, hype up things. I do not think he is trying to particularly live on his past, past reputation. I think he is one of those characters has steadily been committed to-to his view of where America needs to go.

44:00
SM: Jerry Rubin and again using I am using 40 names here then so if anybody is my generation.

44:07
DB: Jerry Rubin’s you know, I think at the peak of his notoriety came with his book do it, which, you know, Jerry Rubin’s, just minor fringe figure of a really no import Abbie Hoffman had the great sense of humor, and wit, soon to be a major motion pictures deal this book, he was a lot more in that tradition of a Mort Sahl or Lenny Bruce, and Hannah. There was a great, great comment. He was a comic genius in many ways, Abbie Hoffman and I think you have to look at that side of the spoof of the hippies in his crate creativeness in guerrilla theater. And to understand that he is an important person, I think Ruben was always a second or third tier character who is never had either the charisma or the importance of Hoffman.

45:03
SM: Does not take up for going the next name [inaudible] Abbie Hoffman died several years back just outside Philadelphia. I think we were in Bucks County yeah; he was dead they found them, and he had $2,000 in the bank. Like I will never forget the article that was written the Inquirer stating that he had only had $2,000 to his name you get we have made a lot of money, but he has given away to friends having depression and that something that a note was written on his deathbed or the stating that no one was listening to him anymore. And you know, when I saw that and read that in his short obituary, despite what you might think, and what people might think about the hippie period, when he went into hiding and then he came back on the Phil Donahue show after he came out of hiding out in the state of Washington, I saw him in the Bay Area, he was working behind the scenes in the Hudson River dealing with issues on the environment and you are just your opinion on that statement that was at the end of this obituary. No one is listening to me any more so less I know he was having problems in his life but that struck me especially if people care about issues.

46:11
DB: Well, I think you have as you heard I said very nice things about Abbie Hoffman, but I mean on the front of his resume he is a con man he was a con man in a in a glamorous and funny in good one. We can always use it a couple of con men and they make life spice wants to recently William Burroughs in the New Yorker. He wrote before he died this horrible thing, but I had to kind of sick in a sick way agree with him which is a problem with Burroughs where he was saying not God, I do not. Let us hope to God that there are still people selling drugs in the streets and who wants a bland status quo America where everything looks like the strip mall, and everybody lives this perfect squeaky life what-what boredom? What dullness? I am a writer and one has to appreciate characters and Abbie Hoffman was a flamboyant, exciting, eccentric character. He but he was a con man. I do believe he was socially committed to things that he took on. And he had a massive amount of chutzpah to take on the CIA and to go and change himself to nuclear reactor sites and things as a social activist, which that kind of occupation takes, but I do not use the ways that his declining years dealing with cocaine and alcohol and depressants, I would not pay much attention. I do not think Abby was ever a symbol of that he was a symbol of the (19)60s but I do not think we want to he was only the symbol one certain aside of the (19)60s, which was the kind of hippie guerrilla theater of protest, which was mainly men on self-promotion, in getting in the news, you know, and being pranksters on the American scene. These are anarchists and we are always going to have some anarchist, I think they are healthy to have a few peaceful anarchists, not Unabomber anarchist, but people that could do social protest or play, play mild pranks on the mainstream society to make us see ourselves in Hoffman at his best, was that at his worst he was he was a criminal. And you know, so I just do not you see, it is unfortunate because what will happen is people will take Abbie Hoffman and Reuben as the (19)60s, Abbie Hoffman, you know the Yippies. This is just a fringe element of the period and I would again say take a look at the people wearing suits and ties marching with Dr. King all over the place singing We Shall Overcome. This is where the revolution in American life took place, not Abbie Hoffman staging a guerrilla theater event. And they were important Hoffman's events at the time, they are newsflashes and dramatic, and we will never forget it gets them. But it did not Abbie Hoffman, if Abbie Hoffman did not exist, not much would have changed in that course of American history.

49:00
SM: The Black Panthers is another group that certainly in this period, Huey Newton everybody remembers that poster of him. And certainly Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver. I remember seeing Kathleen Cleaver when she came to Ohio State when I was there. I mean, the whole city was in turmoil. And Kathleen Cleaver, when flew into the Columbus Airport and escorted by many-many cop cars to Mershon Auditorium.

49:28
DB: I do not place; Black Panthers are fascinating to study. I enjoy reading about Bobby Seale and Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton and the gang. But ultimately, believer in the nonviolent protest movement, also the politicized internationalizing, the civil rights movement that Dr. King was doing. I can never kind of, I think it is a mistake to glamorize the gangster mentality of the Panthers into acquainted with the-the honest civil rights efforts. That is the problem things got blurred by the late (19)60s and (19)70s where the great accomplishments of the era blurred into the Black Panthers, the great accomplishments of the peace movement got blurred into the Yippies, which became, which in many ways were the worst examples of the positive social revolution that was occurring. Yet one has to say I understand the Black Panthers the great line, the Panthers, Bob Dylan had a song it was all over now baby blue, where he has the line, the empty-handed beggar at your door is standing in the clothes that you once wore. And the Panthers changed into the empty-handed Bay, grab the door standing and the closer you once were, and he was carrying it, aka submachine gun, motherfucker. And you have got to do what we want to we are going to blow your head off whitey. That is a powerful switch of sentiment in in, it did do its desired effect of shocking white America into fearing blacks. And in that sense, hearing them more and empowering them, meaning turn the other cheek, you are not afraid if you can walk up to-to one of the students in Little Rock Nine and spit on them and they keep walking, or you can walk up to a black man and smack him in the face. And he turns the other cheek. White culture is not going to be afraid of black America when you now, since the Black Panthers. You walk down the street, I walked down tonight in Philadelphia with my suit on down the street and I see three black teenagers walking down the young, I have more money than them. I am more educated than them. Second, I see them immediately tense up, you are getting fearful. And then suddenly they are empowered, and I am not. And I think the Panthers are the ones that started that, which is an empowering black culture, which I can appreciate that on the other hand, it is not a solution. It is just, it is just more racial warfare. In so what I want to understand the Panthers and the sentiments that they had; it was it was quite primitive in its approach.

52:00
SM: The Berrigan brothers.

52:03
DB: Let me- mike was down yes, the-the Berrigan brothers are. I just got a letter to go have dinner with one of them. I forget which one, are they both alive?

52:17
SM: Ones in jail.

52:19
DB: Who is the one that is out of jail?

52:23
SM: But- Philip is in jail was give [inaudible] See, there is some- Daniel-Daniel Berrigan is out of jail. Philip is in jail.

52:30
DB: So, Daniel Berrigan went out of jail.

52:33
SM: Yeah, and I think he is not very well either.

52:34
DB: I need to catch up with him.

52:36
SM: He lives in New York, I think.

52:37
DB: He is coming to New Orleans. I am a have dinner with hi- Well, I think there are examples. I am Catholic. So, I think they are examples of the, of the role of what we call radical theology in that continues a wing of the Catholic Church that I have always admired. You know whether it is in Central America or the Philippines or their home of an activist priest and other useful, so I mean, we do not have that many of them and having Daniel Berrigan bringing some, you know, showing up, it had a calming effect for certain people connected the Catholic Church to some of the social the poor people's movement, in a very real way, the antiwar movement. I think some of Berrigan’s-Berrigan’s tactics got a little extreme of pouring blood on tanks and things such as this. But again, that was in do part to the recommendation of the media age that you need to do something extravagant. In order to bring the cameras there. The priest just held candles and sang the media was not going to cover that. But if you have started pouring blood on tanks, my God, you were going to be reading the nightly news. So um, you know, I think the Berrigan’s were shrewd in that way.

53:50
SM: There is a new book written on the Berrigan brothers, by Murray Palmer, and-

53:55
DB: I got to pick that up.

53:56
SM: Yeah, it is I am reading right now because we are trying to bring a group of students to down to Jonah's house to meet his wife because Phillip Berrigan’s his wife is in jail, because his daughter is 21 and she is carrying on the tradition of Jonah house. And I want to I want to ask students to go down and see how people are living their whole life to activism-

54:14
DB: Who is this now? Whose house?

54:16
SM: McAll- Jonah House. That is where [Elizabeth] McAllister. That is the wife of Philip Berrigan and his daughters. He has three kids.

54:24
DB: Phillip Berrigan does? Did they all live there?

54:26
SM: Yeah, they all live there and-

52:27
DB: What is it called? Jon-

52:28
SM: Jonah, j o n a h house it is in Baltimore. I want to go down and meet them. They are supposed to be three nuns there that are in-

54:34
DB: What do they do at Jonah house?

54:37
SM: It is, it is part of whatever they do is there for their livelihood is activism fighting for issues and they have someplace in the Midwest is where they have this weekly or monthly newsletter that comes out that is affiliated with Jonah house from the activities because his wife is like Philip and McAllister, I think is her last name and just impactful people because they were on 60 minutes. So, and the daughters 21. And now she is doing the same thing.

55:02
DB: At the Jonah house?

55:03
SM: Yes, she is a college graduate and-

55:05
DB: What is her name? She uh-

55:06
SM: Oh my God. There is, there is three he has got three kids and ones 16 ones 21 I think [inaudible]

55:12
DB: They all work there at the Jonah House?

55:13
SM: Actually yeah, I think the one works there. The others are going to school. They live in the area. Yep.

55:19
DB: Okay.

55:19
SM: Couple other names here, um Dr. Benjamin Spock.

55:25
DB: Oh Well, you know, Benjamin Spock is of course the baby doctor and antiwar protester and I think have also have a very positive character positive force. In the time of reassuring people in the end, it is just what both Berrigans and Spock so people said other it opened up the net of who can protest it. It brought in in people here is the most famous baby doctor denouncing sending young 18-year-olds to get their heads blown off in Vietnam. I think it had a powerful impact and convinced a lot of people. You know, I am with Dr. Spock, and it gave a celebrity status to gatherings. If you are going to want to draw 3000 people, you need some celebrities. And by having Spock there, you can guarantee people come out to hear Benjamin Spock. So, you know, he had a he had this, he has this footnote in the era.

56:19
SM: George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy.

56:22
DB: George McGovern has transcended the period really. And one of the great new deal liberals of recent times has continued to be somebody above integrity and honesty, decency. And if you really looked at McGovern’s foreign policy stances in the (19)60s and (19)70s when he was in the Senate, you would be amazed to see how right he was about so much. So, he is I think, of all these names are saying somebody is a little more special. I think he is- has a is really a maj- a major kind of alternative voice liberal voice in America and in simply carrying on the Henry Wallace tradition of the Democratic Party.

57:07
SM: And Eugene McCarthy?

57:09
DB: He is a little bit of a crackpot. In some ways, I like him. When I say crackpot, I just mean, he has become so irascible and so co- such a contrarian, that everything he does is he uses his wit and intelligence to win people over all the time. I do not think he has ever evolved out of his role in being the antiwar senator. And that was (19)68 that was 30 years ago, and he has still kind of the, you know, living on that that one moment where I think he could have been more useful in our politics if he continued to work as a congressman or, or did something beyond sort of just living on his past reputation.

57:53
SM: Getting into the presence of this era. And I will start with Eisenhower, because again, you know, as a Young Boomer that was the first person I remember, as President going from Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.

58:06
DB: Eisenhower was underrated, overrated at his time by being double elected, and love, underrated in the (19)60s and (19)70s. In truth, he kept America out of war. He was he most famously taught us that we need to balance our budget that we should not write more money for checks than we then we have to fiscal conservative in those ways, which we are seeing now is probably prudent, and was an honorable and good president. John F. Kennedy was the right man at the right time, that great passing of the torch from Ike the oldest president ever to the youngest, he represented the tenor of the times when society was changing, just think of the number of new African countries coming into the UN at that time. And, and all of this so when I think, you know, I think the Kennedy also, you know, did a fairly decent job of handling himself in the middle I am going to use the restroom. Just a minute. Kennedy. Yeah, so I think a larger question before going through each of these, I think we were lucky we had largely good presidents Sidney Kennedy was a good president in in the Cold War period, except for Nixon, I think we would say Nixon and Reagan are the two presidents that I find reprehensible in certain regards. Both because of largely their great dishonesty that both people and towards the American people, their inability to tell the truth, to me was, was frightening. But the I think Kennedy, of course, has some of that too. But he just could not help but reveal that he was the person representing into the era in a certain way. I think he made inroads with civil rights that were extremely important. I think his handling of Cubism in Britain. And we were important I think he said it kind of tenor for-for the era. And of course, assassination is such a moment in American life that will never be forgotten. I think Lyndon Johnson was much better president and some people think in some regards, certainly his Great Society programs in his fighting for civil rights, puts him at the forefront of American leadership in this period and on the other hand, it is so paradoxical you have that his obsession of seeing the world from a Cold War lens in Vietnam but I would say you know that there was many students of history there many sides of Lyndon Johnson the complex man and-and I have a large amount of admiration for him Nixon it just the paranoia factor with Nixon and with Johnson just drives you crazy as a historian I mean, these people are not are to have that kind of level of paranoia and to be in power is scary to me. You know, one of the things that I liked about Clinton, and I like about Bush, I like about Ford and Carter, was that they were not paranoid. They were my head is something in them was able to take a little bit more balanced. You they were not feeling that they were being you know, people were after them. Even Reagan did not have that kind of paranoia. They did not at all. So anyway, that is my view.

1:01:23
SM: Just a few more here. Timothy Leary.

1:01:29
DB: Leary was a kind of like a carny, at the carni- at the carnival or something, he is not really a serious character. And I think, look, I mean, what was good about Tim Leary, was that here was a Harvard psychiatrist. Experimenting was something worth experimenting with, LSD, what are the effects of this newfangled drug it was legal at the time, he the belief that it had these different powers. But I think what I do not like about Leary is not that he was willing to talk about LSD. But I think that kind of Jack Kerouac once said, when they tried to have him take LSD, then by then I mean Ellen Ginsberg and Leary and all and Kerouac said hey, guys, walking on water was a made in a day in the thought that they can walk on water in a day by eating a little tablet, to me seems, you know, that suddenly they were going to have all the answers to the universe, because of the chemical shows that kind of stupidity and naivete, and it was worse- had some very damaging effects on American culture. On the other hand, if you take the kind of Aldous Huxley approach from his book, doors of perception, certainly I think, experimenting with LSD, did open up perceptions for some people and could have been a thing but as soon as you start going over and over again doing did you become an acid head and fry your brain and to you know, there are a lot of young people that [audio cut]

1:03:14
SM: Barry Goldwater.

1:03:18
DB: Well, let me just say one thing about the Timothy Leary, what I do not like to doing on now, is the inability to talk rationally about these characters like I am trying to do, because as soon as you say anything positive about Timothy Leary people either go love Leary, that was that polarization you were talking about on figures like that? It is disturbing mean, if I told The New York Times Book reviewer that I found Timothy Leary interesting. They would not give me any more books just to review for The New York Times. These are the controversial characters because of the way we look at drugs now. But I think it is a story you just have to understand that put if you put Leary in his time and place you-you can see how he emerged, why he emerged in it was not a matter of promoting Timothy Leary, but it was a matter of just understanding that Leary's bizarre contributions to that period you know, there was all sorts of American history is replete with every kind of religious fanatic imaginable I am not sure Leary is more strange than Joseph Smith was, you know, with the more finding the Book of Mormon you know, these are kind of false prophets that are that are always out there and they are worth studying that we are talking about. That does not mean one embraces their-their efforts. Goldwater was over there was a misunderstood in some ways he is the genuine article, the real libertarian conservative, I think is its harsh anticommunist views were dangerous. With his- the way he would talk kind of cavalierly about bomb dropping bombs on Vietnam and things. I think his inability to understand the civil rights movement properly was a great drawback. In- thank goodness, we got defeated horribly by Johnson and (19)64. On the other hand, Goldwater as his career, we look at his whole career, we can see that he was a man of personal integrity of deep beliefs. A true Western conservative, somebody whose word was good, somebody who had a big role to play in the bringing down in Richard Nixon because he could not stand to have something like that wine to the American people. Somebody who supported the Panama Canal treaties, when Ronald Reagan did not. A genuinely somebody who you could at least deal with, and I think was a very positive figure in American life. As he as we look at his whole life, I think there was a moment of time when he ran for president where he was certainly not fit for that position, due to his at least the rhetoric of a kind of strike militancy that was behind him, which would not have been helpful at the time?

1:06:05
SM: What about Ralph Nader?

1:06:07
DB: Nader's the kind of the perennial watchdog, nothing new there and nothing changes there goes to the beat of his own drum, is that he has the that squeaky clean ethic, which is useful in throwing Nader on corporate America or on any issues always. It is always useful to have people that are keeping others in check. He is the unwritten check in our checks and balances.

1:06:36
SM: Hubert Humphrey.

1:06:39
DB: Classic-classic New Deal, liberal writing of the coattails of FDR well into the (19)60s. First rate senator, not much of a vice president botched his opportunity to be president in (19)68. But it is one of these sorts of honorable senators who has very good for labor and, you know, a positive force also on getting the Civil Rights Act of (19)64 and (19)65 through. so, you know, first rate, first tier senator.

1:07:13
SM: Muhammad Ali.

1:07:17
DB: Absolutely major figure, I mean, more- bigger than all the people he had mentioned so far, in the league of his own because years from now, he will be remembered forever. And probably the most well-known name in the world. Muhammad Ali, everybody knows him everywhere. He just an extraordinary combination of spirituality of political conviction, of athletic prowess, of his ability to speak so fast that in rhyme and in riddles, and he just captured all of our imaginations. And I think his antiwar protest was mutually significant. But as he has moved on in life, through his disease, he has become a symbol of disease. Here is somebody that is handicapped with that Hodgkin's disease, Parkinson's disease, right, and is able to go around the globe and constantly reach out to other people in pain and misery. And he is a symbol of many things that are that are that are positive. It is probably the most singular athlete of the 20th century most well-known athlete of the century.

1:08:31
SM: Spiro Agnew.

1:08:32
DB: Just a you know, a corrupt footnote to the times. Dirty black Asterix to the Nixon era, never had any real power ever. It was just a hat henchmen hatchet man for Richard Nixon, a bit word politician from Maryland who never really had any-any sense of real genuine accomplishment in his career, short of being, you know, working on saying pithy phrases to put down fellow other Americans. It is not leadership to win power by denouncing other Americans leadership. It is about bringing people together, as soon as you have a president that scapegoat’s elements of the population for our nation's problems. You have about bad leader, a good leader should never scapegoat a fellow citizen, no matter who he should end up liking all groups in America and you know, unless you are obviously a murderer in any criminal class, but, you know, you know, you know, in case of Agnew trying to scapegoat gays or women or the women's movement or blacks, that is the lowest kind of thing. It is like the Jonathan Swift notion that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel claim.

1:09:45
SM: Robert McNamara.

1:09:47
DB: McNamara was the as the was our worst Secretary of Defense in the history of the post since it was created in (19)47. He was the worst because he was somebody who knew Vietnam was futile as early as (19)64 and (19)65 and allow the word continue lie to himself to Lyndon Johnson to the American people. And now his as how, has a hard time living with himself, because, he started out to be a wonderful character in many ways he, you know, a decent I think, motor executive with Ford Motor. But by not having the courage to talk candidly and put his career on the line to the best of the country. He ended up leading the president and therefore our nation down the garden path in Vietnam.

1:10:36
SM: Dr. King, Martin Luther King, we could probably talk for hour and a half.

1:10:42
DB: You know the giant of our time because of his ability, oratory of writing, of the sheer courage of Dr. King, and what it took to every minute, every moment knows that there were death threats on your life, something, any protest you were had could be your last, and to constantly pick yourself up with a smile in forge forward. It was the perfect leader for the civil rights movement, and we would be hard pressed to think of a replacement for King those sorts of people with genuine leadership qualities come around even once every couple generation.

1:11:15
SM: What about some of the women of the Gloria Steinem is Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, the leaders of the women's movement, they are your thoughts on them.

1:11:25
DB: Unfortunately for the women's movement, they never had a Dr. King none of those people can hold a candle to Dr. King, but yet all of them had their significant role I think I think Gloria Steinem's come out of that group to be a somebody who understands women's issues in a way in a larger cultural context. For her generation, at least to Hillary Clinton's of the world, you know, understanding the need to be both a mother and both activists but also to you getting a little more conservative when they get older, but also wanting a sense of sexuality without, you know, saying I do not I am not disowning feminism, totally, I mean, being feminist, feminine qualities totally. So, I think she is the most-most interesting of that group as a personality. But the women's movement itself was usually important. On the other hand, I do not think it ever went far enough, due to the fact of fractions within their either coalition, and a lot of women wanted doors open for them, or wanting, you know, traditional kind of, I want to be a housewife, or I want to have that is, you know, they never really were able to capture the kind of swelling movement of two demands there for the Equal Rights Amendment. Still never really too cold yet. Any woman today, working in network news or in law firms owes a lot to those women who are, I think, a lot of doors down for them. So, the combination of a lot of minor characters added to a lot in the women's movement, but none of them exuded this kind of control or leadership over the movement.

1:13:05
SM: That he had mentioned earlier about Bob Dylan. And I just use a general term the music musicians of this period. And the impact of this generation has there ever other means there has been music in the (19)40s there was Glenn Miller and all of that, but has there ever been a generation in America where music was such a crucial part of their being?

1:13:23
DB: No, but I think everyone now it has become since then, I think it was a post war phenomenon, the beginning of the road record albums, you know, early part of the century so by the but it would be really becoming a mass product in postwar period where everybody had a record player. So, he started having a lot more people identifying with the singers in the (19)50s. But everything Elvis Presley bit more than Bob Dylan, and it was Elvis Presley, who really, really brought, you know, this sort of mass way Frank Sinatra, you know, and (19)50s rock and roll, you know, which is to be made the big change. I think Chuck Berry's an enormously influential and important and underrated figure. But that is different story.

1:14:07
SM: As we are getting close to the end if you get a meeting at 11:30 I want to end around. One question here in the final question is dealing with the issue of trust is a historian you probably can go back to other periods in American history where Americans or even leaders had problems with trust, but want to read this do you think we will ever have trust for elected leaders again after the Vietnam War after Watergate, after the enemies lists that we all knew and [inaudible] as college students, we knew what Nixon was doing. Remember being an Ohio State University and there were cameras over around the entire oval and infuriated our campus because every picture of every student was being shot and we knew it. Why? And if the boomer’s distrust what effect is this having on the current generation of youth, which is the kids-

1:14:56
DB: I think Bob Dylan often has wonderful sayings for all time. He is not a (19)60s character. He has a brilliant album out that just came out right now. And Dylan's and an album out called Empire Burlesque, which emerged in in the early (19)90s. Very, no would have been, it would have been. I am sorry, it would come, I think, in the late (19)80s. But yeah, late (19)80s. Empire Burlesque, which is a line in there, “If you want somebody you can trust, trust yourself,” is the name of the song. And I think that is sort of the subvert ethic of our time. Now, if you want somebody you trust, trust yourself. That is why there is this turning into words to self so much. The distrust of government has led to reemergence of the individual. And people now trying to learn to trust who they are on that deep turning inward right now. So yeah, there has been permanent damage done by Watergate and Vietnam, and in corruption and politics. But look, it has always been there. Nobody is ever, when is the time people truly trusted politicians. I mean, there were moments, you know, I think, during the war time, when there was a kind of, but you know, FDR was moved and distrusted by endless numbers of people. I just do not believe our countries ever based on pure trust in the politician, or anywhere in the world. But I do not think it is eerie damage. That is- I do not see a shortage of people running for Congress. I do not see a shortage of things. And I think our country is in pretty good shape. You know, I do not think that are, I think the American people should be distrustful of their government in some ways, and to keep an eye on them. And that is what the whole checks and balance system is about. We also know that we have the power and we taught our politicians through Watergate, that we can bring you down at any minute. So, you better run a straight path. And so, we get people I think, Watergate does not have to be seen as a negative and Vietnam does not have to be seen as negative. It could be the triumph of-of Watergate, the triumph of taking down a precedent that was breaking the law, replacing them and business went on as usual.

1:17:09
SM: Is that is that the lasting legacy might be that history books are written about?

1:17:13
DB: That is right now. James Cannon’s wonderful book on Gerald Ford, that came out recently, you know, it is really hammers that point home that Watergate is the triumph of the American constitutional system. It is not a negative event.

1:17:27
SM: Dr. Brinkley, thank you very much.

1:17:31
DB: You are welcome.

1:17:32
SM: Great. Excellent.

(End of Interview)

1997-09-27

Stephen McKiernan

Douglas Brinkley

77:37

English

Binghamton University Libraries

audio/mp4

Sound

2 Microcassettes

Audio

Authors; Scholars; College teachers; Rice University; Brinkley, Douglas--Interviews

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.