Interview with Mark Rudd

Rudd, Mark ; McKiernan, Stephen

Mark Rudd is a political organizer, author, math instructor, and anti-war activist who was part of the Weather Underground group. Rudd attended Columbia University and became a member of Students for a Democratic Society in 1963. He got his commitment to "fight U.S. imperialism" by watching the revolutionary movement in Cuba. Mr. Rudd was a leader of the campus protests at Columbia University in April 1968.

2010-02-01

In copyright

2018-03-29

McKiernan Interviews

175:20

McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Mark Rudd
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 1 February 2010
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(Start of Interview)

SM (00:00:03):
Testing one, two, testing. I found that Mark, before I get with the questions that even the boomer administrators who run universities today have a tendency and a fear of going back to what was.

MR (00:00:18):
Right.

SM (00:00:18):
Because there is a symbol that it is disruption, and anyways.

MR (00:00:28):
One question is not... was not Westchester State at one point a historically black college, or am I confused?

SM (00:00:32):
No-no, just the reverse. Back in the early (19)50s and right into the (19)60s, there were very few African-American students at Westchester University. In fact, it has become a very sensitive issue at programs dealing with Dr. King in the past couple years because more and more African-American students who were at the university during that, that timeframe had to live off campus.

MR (00:00:58):
Right.

SM (00:01:00):
They were not allowed to live in residence halls. And now obviously that is changed a lot, and we have probably one of the largest African American populations in the state system with almost 10 percent of our campus being African American students.

MR (00:01:15):
10 percent?

SM (00:01:17):
10 percent.

MR (00:01:18):
And Westchester... Westchester is a largely African American town, is not it?

SM (00:01:22):
Oh, no. Westchester is mostly a white, conservative, middle to upper class town. It is the 25th richest area in America.

MR (00:01:34):
Well, what is the... There were demonstrations in around (19)63, (19)62, (19)63, and (19)64 in Westchester. Kathy Wilkerson writes about them in her autobiography.

SM (00:01:53):
I have not read her autobiography. I know there were protests at Westchester. Of course, Bayard Rustin is from Westchester, and Bayard was a graduate of Henderson High School. He was a star athlete on the football team, but he was not allowed to even go to the movie theater.

MR (00:02:13):
Right.

SM (00:02:13):
And he had to sit upstairs and he was arrested as a young high school student before he went off to Cheney. And we are talking now the forties and the early (19)50s. And so historically, it has had some major issues. And the most recent issue was the naming of Bayard Rustin High School, which became a national issue because he was going to be named in the third high school. And there was a group of people that wanted to prevent him because first off, he was a former communist. Secondly, even though they did not say it was because he was gay. And there are a lot of reasons, and I was involved with about 50 or 60 other people and trying to prevent this name change from going back to some other name. And so that the community itself, the university is much more progressive than obviously the community. In some sense, the community, even though it has become more liberal in some of its administrators, I mean politicians, it is still got a long way to go in terms of social issues.

MR (00:03:24):
Right. What is the historic black college? Is it Lincoln?

SM (00:03:28):
Oh, no, the historic black college, there is two of them. Lincoln is the private school, and that is only about 25 miles from Westchester University and then Cheney University.

MR (00:03:39):
Oh, Cheney.

SM (00:03:40):
And that is this campus of a little over 3000, and it has been struggling to survive. It has had a lot of problems financially with weak administrators and fewer students coming, but they have just hired a president the past two years. It is keeping it going. They have been hiring some pretty good administrators, and it will always be there because it is one of the historic schools.

MR (00:04:05):
Well, I hope so. It is coming up February 1st. Is today February 1st?

SM (00:04:11):
Yes, it is today.

MR (00:04:12):
This is a good place to start. February 1st, 50 years ago, 1960 was the day that black students from the historic black college in Greensboro, North Carolina sat in at the Woolworths lunch counter. And that was the beginning of an almost spontaneous uprising of black students from historic black colleges, from all black colleges in the South. Their role in the civil rights movement often does not get acknowledged much, or at least it does. People know about it, who know about the history, but most people who do not know about the history do not know much about the Civil Rights Movement, how it was organized or how it happened, and they think it was all Martin Luther King's dream.

SM (00:05:09):
It is interesting in the interviews that I have had so far, when we talk about the (19)50s, those Civil Rights events, and then very early in the early (19)60s, (19)60s and 61, how much was hidden? So people that people did not know, and so everything looked like things were okay in the (19)50s, but in reality they were terrible.

MR (00:05:32):
Right. It was not the golden era.

SM (00:05:34):
Mark, what-

MR (00:05:35):
My wife was watching Mad Men and freaking out over the, remembering the position of women at that time.

SM (00:05:42):
Oh, yeah. Well, definitely. You were young. Mark, when did you first recognize or know what was going on? What happened February 1st? I-

MR (00:05:54):
Think it was the demonstrations and the protest and civil disobedience of black people in the South. I must have been on February 1st, 1960. I was 12 years old, and I looked at... Saw these images of young people sitting in and it just stopped me. I had to pay attention.

SM (00:06:24):
So you were sensitive very early on?

MR (00:06:27):
Well, not hypersensitive, considering that I did not know any black people and personally, I lived in an all-white suburb of Newark, New Jersey and New York City. And I would not call myself hypersensitive. I still went about my 12-year-old things, but I always was the kind of person who paid attention to current events. I loved current events.

SM (00:07:04):
Well-

MR (00:07:05):
I was the kind of kid who I always read magazines and newspapers, and there was something... I think it was growing up in the shadow of World War II. Current events.

SM (00:07:20):
Were you one of those individuals that read The Weekly Reader that had all the political news for elementary school kids?

MR (00:07:26):
My parents had Time and Life. That, I assume. I would read the newspaper. I read the New York Times every day in high school, but we could get it at Study Hall and I get it for free and something. I read... No, my Weekly Reader when I was a little kid, I suppose.

SM (00:07:55):
I kept all mine. I still have them in stacks.

MR (00:07:58):
Oh, so you were that kind of person also?

SM (00:07:59):
Yes. And in fact, I, they are treasures to me because when John Kennedy was running for president and all those things. I have them in my Weekly Readers. Great pictures. Most people threw them out. I kept them.

MR (00:08:13):
How old are you?

SM (00:08:14):
Oh, I am 62.

MR (00:08:16):
Oh, we are the same age.

SM (00:08:17):
Yep. (19)47. We are in (19)47. December 27th of (19)47.

MR (00:08:24):
Well, I am six months older then.

SM (00:08:27):
Well, we are in that same group. I was at Binghamton when you were at Columbia. I knew all about what you were doing when I was a student there. I want to ask you-

MR (00:08:36):
I did not catch that you were at Binghamton?

SM (00:08:39):
Yes. I went Binghamton University.

MR (00:08:40):
Right-right-right.

SM (00:08:41):
It was Harper College. In fact, last week I interviewed Richie Havens and I asked Richie a question. I said, Richie, "Do you remember your first college concert?" And he said, "Yes." And then I said, "Well, I remember you when you came to my school. It was Harper College, the Arts and Science School at Binghamton." And he said, "That is unbelievable, because that was my first concert." That was 1967.

MR (00:09:07):
That is wonderful. Well, I have a dear friend who is the same age as us who went to Harper. I would not know her... Oh, it is Marsh. Her name is Linda Marsh.

SM (00:09:18):
Linda Marsh.

MR (00:09:19):
She was from Western New York State and she went to Harper.

SM (00:09:25):
Yeah. Well, it is a great school.

MR (00:09:26):
And then later they, several key Columbia people who had reported us. Immanuel Wallerstein.

SM (00:09:31):
Oh yes.

MR (00:09:36):
Terry Hopkins. Several other people jumped over to Harper.

SM (00:09:45):
Yeah. Well, it is a great school. One of my former professors, Dr. Kadish is still there. All the rest of them have either retired or died.

MR (00:09:52):
I just met a guy named Melvyn Dubofsky, labor historian, who did his whole career there. Do you know him?

SM (00:09:59):
That name rings a bell.

MR (00:10:01):
Yep. Yeah. I just met him the other day.

SM (00:10:05):
I have a question. This is a very important year coming up. This is the 40th anniversary of the Remembrance of the Tragedy at Kent State.

MR (00:10:12):
Yes.

SM (00:10:13):
And I know that if Allison Krause's sister and Alan Canfora are organizing the Remembrance event, hoping lots of people come back and they got these tapes for... They found out the real truth about who gave the order to shoot. So there is a lot of things that are going to take place at this year's event. But in your book, I think I have told you, your book is superb, right? I have underlined it. I have read it. I was rereading my underline. So I am basing my questions on a lot of the things you have written about for more explanation. You talk about Kent State in your book. How about-about had one of the strongest SDS groups.

MR (00:10:52):
Yes.

SM (00:10:52):
Even though when the tragedy at Kent State happened, people were saying, "Kent State of all places?"

MR (00:11:00):
Yes.

SM (00:11:00):
What was it about Kent State University that was different than the others with respect to SDS and its activism?

MR (00:11:06):
Well, I do not know if I can fully answer that. See oftentimes I use Kent State as an example of a state school that was in revolt. So we tried to portray it as not different, but I actually think it was some kind of conjunction of its late location in a demographic. It mostly took the children of the upper working class and the lower middle class from northeastern Ohio. Akron was the biggest city and that was the tire maker. That was-

SM (00:12:04):
Yes.

MR (00:12:04):
-the place where tires were made. And so you had this whole industrial union kind of an ethos. Then you had Jewish communists, Jewish kids of Communists and social backgrounds from Cleveland. Quite a few there. In fact, that the chapter had a... I think one wrote about this, but one of the oddest aspects of the shooting was that three out of four of the victims, the people who died rather, were Jewish on a campus that was only three or 4 percent Jewish.

SM (00:12:58):
Yes.

MR (00:12:58):
And in the chapter, the SKS chapter, it was not a majority Jewish, but it had a few of the leaders were Jewish. So you had this kind of mix that I always thought the people there were very serious. They did not have a lot of money. And even at Columbia, the chapter was not made up of really wealthy people, but they were not like elitist kids, but they were very serious. On the other hand, I have been back several times, twice actually in the last decade, and I have noticed that it is a very cold place, meaning that only a minority wants to acknowledge that the crimes of the shootings-

SM (00:13:54):
Yeah.

MR (00:14:00):
-and a lot of people still to this day say that the victims deserved it.

SM (00:14:07):
Yeah. When you just-

MR (00:14:09):
Not sure I answered your question.

SM (00:14:12):
Yeah, it does. I think the whole thing, this tape, you are, are you aware of the tape that is going to be played?

MR (00:14:17):
Yeah. Yeah. I am in touch with Allen.

SM (00:14:19):
Yeah. Well, I tell you, it is going... Are you going to be able to come back?

MR (00:14:24):
I do not know. I have not figured it out yet.

SM (00:14:27):
I would love to see you. I would love to meet you because-

MR (00:14:29):
Are you there going to be there?

SM (00:14:30):
Yeah, I am going to be there. I have been there the three of the last five years. Because I feel it is important. I took students at a high university back in the fourth remembrance year when Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden were there, and Julian Bond and Holly Near. And in those days, there was a more... We want to make this an educational experiences for all the college students in Ohio. So I worked at Ohio University, and I brought students back, and we learned the importance of communication. And when you do not communicate, this is what happens. And that is been lost. But I thank the Lord we had the Allens and the [inaudible] and Allison Cross's sister, working to make this continue.

MR (00:15:20):
One year... When was that? I think it was (19)95. They asked me to, if I would play the role of one of the four in the march and the role of Allison Krause and her mother was there, and we walked together and I held the first half hour of the vigil. That is done all night.

SM (00:15:52):
Yes.

MR (00:15:52):
I stood with flowers that they gave me playing the role of Allison Krause for the first half hour. And I put them down on, this was on the spot where she was killed. I put them down on the ground. Then the next morning around noon, the parking lot was reopened again. And I went to that spot, and all the flowers had been run over by cars.

SM (00:16:18):
Oh, geez.

MR (00:16:18):
It is a cold place.

SM (00:16:23):
Yeah. Last year I was at Jeff Miller's spot, and what you do, you have a half hour shifts and it goes all throughout the night.

MR (00:16:33):
Yeah.

SM (00:16:34):
And I was there for a one to 1:30 for Jeff. It was very kind of chilly too. But I was at that spot this year, you know, hold the candle.

MR (00:16:43):
Yeah.

SM (00:16:44):
Yep. And then of course, the march every year, the candlelight march where you walk around the campus and everything with the candle lights.

MR (00:16:52):
It is a good thing.

SM (00:16:54):
Yeah. I think it is important as a member of the more radical segment of the Vietnam generation, and again, I am talking more about the activists now or the organizers... I know how important Che Guevara and Mao Zedong as Sunni Binghamton, people were walking around with those red Mao Zedong, little booklets and everything. They were very popular. But what was it about she Che Guevara and Mao Zedong that really turned on the anti-war group?

MR (00:17:25):
That was the idea of the heroism of liberation. And we live in a country where the politicians are anal and are corrupt and are [inaudible] mouthed, and they are an embarrassment. So is not it wonderful to have some notion that somewhere in the world people are heroic and altruistic?

SM (00:18:01):
Well, some of some people that I have talked to in my interviews, and again, as I do more and more interviews, I get more and more different responses. And then I use some of those responses in my upcoming interviews. One of, not so much about Che Guevara, but when they talk about Mao Zedong, they call him a murderer. And because of the cultural revolution and all the millions that he killed, and so they have a tendency to attack the activists of the (19)60s as "Why would they be linked to a murder?"

MR (00:18:30):
Well, see, the idea of revolution, especially armed revolution, is that it is a smaller amount of violence than the great amount of violence the system in China, they had brutalism and they had up until the 20th century and terrible poverty and degradation, and this is true still in a lot of parts world, including China. But the idea that you could create an aesthetic and that revolutionary violence to do it is a great heroic. We thought we were living through a heroic moment in history. And violence, if you have to do violence, is like a war. It was a war for liberation. Obviously... It was incredibly utopian to think that a whole society could be remade along, egalitarian and [inaudible]. And myself, I will probably not make that mistake again. But at the time, we were incredibly idealistic. I thought that the world could be remade. Sam Green, the filmmaker who made the Weather Underground movie made now has a new movie called Utopia and Foreign Movement. And it is about, four examples of utopianism of better or worse. And his view is that there is no more utopianism. And that is a problem too.

SM (00:20:38):
Well, that was one of my questions coming up is when you use smaller amounts of violence as opposed to the larger amounts of violence, do not you think that backfires? Dr. King he always professed non-violent approach and I think you mentioned in your book that was more of a gradualist approach, and-

MR (00:21:02):
But yeah, I have come around to it to a nonviolent strategy too, of advocating a nonviolent strategy in all chains. Because I do recognize the inherent problems with violence, demonizing the enemy, and creating the... You still there?

SM (00:21:26):
Yep. I am here.

MR (00:21:27):
And creating the cycle of revenge, et cetera. So I have come to that. But no, there were in the (19)60s, remember that was the era. This is one of the most difficult things to convey to young people. That was the era of decolonization in the world. And many of the decolonization struggles were violent. Now in India was not violent. They had a great leader with a great philosophy, but the results did not look so good at the time. China, which had a violent revolution, seemed to be made making much greater progress than India, which was still a class society in the (19)60s, and still is. Although it does have the largest middle class in the world, which I guess improves the life of 150 million people, it has still got about a billion people who are in terrible poverty. So again, we were utopians. We thought that China was a better model than India. We thought that Cuba was making very great progress and still Cuba is a great model in some ways. I mean, if one asks the following question, "Where would you rather be at the bottom of society in Cuba or in one of the American neo colony, the Central America. Who has a greater opportunity for life, a Cuban [inaudible] or a Honduras [inaudible]?"

SM (00:23:08):
So what was what is really amazing is when you study the history of the (19)60s and (19)70s, and you look at Dr. King and study the comparisons between him and Thurgood Marshall, Dr. King's nonviolent approach was a step beyond Thurgood Marshall's gradualist approach and getting laws passed. And then when Stokely challenges Martin Luther King telling him that your time has passed, or Malcolm X in a debate with Bayard Russin tells him the same thing that your time has passed. I am not sure if Stokely really realized that only a couple years before in America, nonviolent protests was pretty radical.

MR (00:23:50):
Yes. Yes.

SM (00:23:50):
Compared to the Thurgood Marshall trying to get laws passed.

MR (00:23:53):
Good thing. The Black power movement was saw itself as part of the global liberation movement. Personally, I think I was a supporter of black power. It was a challenge as a white person. It was a challenge to the whole white movement, how we would respond to the notion of black liberation, black autonomy. Now of course, I see it as a terrible black power, as a defeat for the black freedom, but that is in retrospect.

SM (00:24:25):
Yes.

MR (00:24:25):
Time we were caught up in the notion of global liberation.

SM (00:24:31):
One of the other things that, and I caught a lot of things in your book that I was rereading it, prepping for the interview, is we had Tom Hayden on our campus about seven years ago, and Tom came to speak as part of our activist days, and we had a dinner prior to the program. And in that dinner, he wanted to know if the student's government association had power. And then they said yes, and they gave them their definition of power. And Tom shakes his head, and that is not power. And yet, and then he went on and gave a lecture of the difference between power and empowerment. And he was basically saying, "You are not empowered." And you state in your book that the protest movement, Columbia, was not about student power empowerment, but it was about fighting the American imperialism abroad in Vietnam and racism and the economic conditions of blacks at home in America. Is there any conflict here? Tom says you students need to feel empowered, but you were not after empowerment.

MR (00:25:39):
No. Well, I am not quite sure. I mean, I would not necessarily disagree with Tom. I mean, what is empowerment? But I mean, when one confronts the problems of the world, one becomes empowered. And conversely, if you are given, I do not know, are given or somehow get power within an institution, does that even confront the bigger problem? I do not know. I cannot answer that. It is complicated for my little head.

SM (00:26:22):
Well, one of the questions I was going to, from the questions I gave you over email about the importance of the beat, and I did not know that Richie Havens was a beat.

MR (00:26:29):
Yeah. Very important. Mean, they were true cultural rebels. And I was aware of them from a very early time in my life. I would say 13, 14, 13, 14. They were cool.

SM (00:26:48):
Yeah. Well, I was looking at the play for the poem, Howl, which was in the 1950s that was banned in many schools. And of course, the poem expresses the anxieties and the ideals of a generation alienated from mainstream society. But some of the quotes, "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked, dragging themselves through the Negro streets, had dawned looking for an angry fix. Angle headed, hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night." Very prophetic words. And obviously they had an impact, and they were a precursor to what I consider the activism of the (19)60s.

MR (00:27:37):
I think so. I believe so. For me, they were. You know? I lived in the suburbs, but I knew that there was something wrong about the suburbs that they had. They had forgotten a lot of light. Newark emptied out to create the suburb that I lived in, and my family even moved from Newark. But there is something left behind there. A lot of people left behind there. It was literally white flight that when he talks about Negro streets, that those are the streets that my family fled.

SM (00:28:19):
One of the things that I think is just fantastic in your book is, and again, I keep going back to your book, it is the scene where one of the people you looked up to at Columbia, one of the older students, was it Dave Gilbert or one of them, talked about what happened in Germany and comparing it to America. And how we cannot let that happen again. We cannot let what happened that happen again to the Vietnamese people, what happened to the Jews in Germany and in Europe.

MR (00:28:49):
Well, I noticed that I called the first chapter "The Good Germany."

SM (00:28:52):
Yes. That Could you, because again, this is a different venue. People may not have read your book, but could you talk a little bit about that experience and your feelings on this, and that is really a lot about who you are and what you became.

MR (00:29:07):
Yeah. I was a Jewish kid growing up. I was born two years after the end of World War II growing up, thinking about it, aware of the Holocaust. My father had been in World War II. He missed the fighting in the Philippines by a few months. But I saw the World War II was the great divide, the great heroic good war, and we beat the Nazis. And so the question then was, who were these Nazis? What were they up to? And I guess that reality, the reality of World War II was so bloom, so large that I felt I had attention. And one of the questions about World War II-

MR (00:30:03):
...attention. And one of the questions about World War II was where were the German people? Questions still exist. Just last night I read an article in the current New Yorker about Dresden, the rebuilding of Dresden, and the consciousness of the people of Dresden. They see themselves as victims of American air power, firebombing, total destruction. And yet they know nothing about their own country's participation in the genocide. It was not talked about. It is now 60 some years later, and the question of the of role of the German people in the rise of Nazism is still on the table. So at that time there was a phrase called "Good German", meaning somebody who willfully ignored or denied or seen what was happening. Now the phrase the "Good German" has lost its metaphorical power. Have you tried it on some young people lately?

SM (00:31:24):
Well, I left the university in March, but...

MR (00:31:28):
Try it sometime and you will find that by and large people have no idea what "Good German" means. When we were growing up, everyone knew what an ironic metaphor.

SM (00:31:40):
Right.

MR (00:31:41):
And so we always asked where were the Germans, the good Germans? Where were the German people? Same when I found out about the crimes of this country, I did not want to be a "Good German." Quite simple.

SM (00:31:57):
That is real important for young people. And actually I am a firm believer that people evolve over time. So I think older people can change too. I am one of those people who believes that. But I think this feeling that you really bring out in the book also, the we did not know mentality of silence and denial and ignorance. And I think sometimes ignorance on purpose. And you saw it in Vietnam with the terrible atrocities, and certainly we know them now that what happened. And we continue as Americans to forget that it is not only the soldiers that we are losing, American soldiers, but it is the citizenry of the nation that we are in that we are killing. And it continues today.

MR (00:32:38):
Absolutely. There is a memorial to 50,000 American dead in Vietnam. But there is no memorial to the millions of Vietnamese that we killed. And it is the same way now in Iraq and Afghanistan. If they are not Americans, they do not count. But it comes down to a very mundane level. Americans go and shop at Walmart and they see all this stuff that is pretty damn cheap. And they do not ask the question, "Why is this stuff so cheap? Who's making it? How much are they being paid? What is the environmental cost? What is the cost of the family? What is the cost in social dislocation in China?" That is a willful...

SM (00:33:36):
You talk about Malcolm X a little bit in the book in several sections, and one of the areas is when Malcolm saw the connection between the people's struggles in Vietnam and the Far East and what was happening in America with African Americans and people of color. And you felt that was why he had to be killed. When you look at some of the other individuals, not only of Malcolm, but Dr. King, Fred Hampton, even George Jackson, who was really a powerful speaker within the prison community, and even to some sense... I know you do not like a lot of the liberals and Bobby Kennedy, but he kind of changed in his last two years of his life. Do you see a connection that they all had to really go because of their stands on things?

MR (00:34:26):
Obviously in retrospect, it is hard to miss those connections. I might add too, that anytime a black person advocates armed action, they are going to be a [inaudible], they are going to be killed or jailed.

SM (00:34:43):
Getting back to...

MR (00:34:49):
Malcolm X's slogan was by any means necessary. And that eventually he had to be killed. That the government killed dozens of Black Panthers because they were advocating revolution. Blacks with guns. It was very scary.

SM (00:35:07):
Certainly Dr. King went against the Vietnam War and some people thought that was his death sentence.

MR (00:35:13):
Yeah-yeah, exactly. One year to the day, one year before his murder, he came out publicly, now. Absolutely.

SM (00:35:24):
I do not know if you were ever a Bertrand Russell fan. But I am a big Bertrand Russell fan because I think a lot of people from our generation read him as a good role model as an older person. And he lived a life that really stood for something. In the beginning of his biography, and this was brought up by one of my interviews when I asked the person, "What would you like your legacy to be once you are gone?" And this is a very well-known activist just like you from the (19)60s. And he said, "Well, I just want you to read the first paragraph in Bertram Russell's book because that is what I want to be remembered for."

MR (00:36:06):
What is that?

SM (00:36:07):
And here it is. He starts it out with three passions, simple, but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life, the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and the unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions like great winds have blown me hither and thither in a wayward course over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of the spare.

MR (00:36:34):
That is good writing.

SM (00:36:37):
And that is Bertrand Russell. And now I have been reading... Actually it is his autobiography. It was written in three parts. But this is the part from the time 1872 to 1914. And we all know right up to the time he died, he was the same guy he was when he was a young guy. Your thoughts on those three, because you are dealing with love, you are dealing with knowledge...

MR (00:37:05):
Knowledge and justice. Well, the love part is hard. One tries for love. I would not have defined it as my goal because it either comes or does not. I have been lucky in my life. I have been surrounded by love. But I grew up in a family in which there was much love. And so I do not see it as abnormal. I see it as the human condition or as an inspirable human condition. And everybody could go for it. So I am not different from anyone else. But I once heard Ramdas, Richard Albert, say that he learned from his guru in India, that the goal of life, love everybody and always tell the truth. And so I bring it down to two and I would not separate them because what is justice? So I think knowledge and justice are pretty good. Love everybody and always tell the truth.

SM (00:38:33):
Yeah.

MR (00:38:34):
Sometimes you have to dig find the truth though.

SM (00:38:36):
Yeah. When you responded to the question of the overall impact on the boomer generation, you were very good in letting me know. And others have said the same thing, "You cannot generalize 78 million Americans." But I love the way you divided it. The comments that you made was, "We helped the Black Freedom Movement. We helped them in the war in Vietnam, and we fought for the equality of gays, women, disabled, and fighting nuclear power." Do you see any negatives? And the reason why I bring this up is the drug culture, women being treated as objects and certainly violence, which not necessarily the violence that we always talk about with SDS. I am talking about what we saw in Watts and what we saw in the cities during that time. Cities going up exploding.

MR (00:39:32):
Well, yeah. I think that every deviation from non-violent struggle has been negative. And that would include spontaneous nihilistic uprising and saying it would also include calls for arm struggle. In retrospect, every deviation that I made away from non-violent struggle and democracy, too, was a terrible negative and had terrible results. So that is one big negative. Human condition, though has plenty of negatives, discrimination, and exploitation. And I probably participate. I write about this, the privilege that I have as a male within the movement led me to exploit women. But I think all that is inevitable and it will continue. But the big lesson that I take is the necessity to hold the nonviolent gratitude. Howard Zinn died last week.

SM (00:40:59):
Yes, I know.

MR (00:41:00):
And I remember back in 2000... I guess Susan Danburger of NPR asked him, she asked a lot of smart people on the radio, "What is the contribution of 20th century to the 21st?" And I remember him saying the idea of non-violent political action. That really got me. He chose one thing. And that was the idea of nonviolence. And so I reduced it down to one thing, which encompasses, incidentally, love too. Because in nonviolence you cannot dehumanize your enemy to the point where it is okay to kill him.

SM (00:41:59):
Mark, I do not know if you saw, but on Democracy Now, they had an excerpt from Howard's last speech at Boston University.

MR (00:42:10):
Oh no, I did not hear it.

SM (00:42:12):
Yeah. And I have got to get a transcript of it because he passed away within two months. But basically what he was saying... Let me turn my tape here over. He was talking to a room full of college students at Boston University, and he said, " I was a pilot in World War II and I dropped bombs on people and I killed people. I was told to do so. I did not know those bombs had chemicals in them that would last long after the war ended. But when the war ended, I got a letter in the mail." And the letter in the mail came thanking him for his service. And all World War II veterans got this letter from one of the secretaries in the government. And basically it said, "Thanks for helping us to create a better world." Because they had defeated Nazism and, of course, the Japanese. And what is interesting... Then he went on for the next 10 minutes at unbelievable words about making the world better. Then he went on to talk about all the killing that has taken place in the world since World War II. He talked about Vietnam. He talked about Iraq, Afghanistan, and he talked about all the other conflicts and wars and weaponry and so forth. So he was basically wanting young people to reflect in a lot of different ways. But it was the way that only he could say it because he is very good with the words. So I just want to mention that.

MR (00:43:52):
Oh, yeah.

SM (00:43:53):
Because I want to get a transcript.

MR (00:43:59):
Howard's whole career has a lot of integrity and he uses his personal experience. He used his personal experience really well, and he held to his principles. He is a great model.

SM (00:44:15):
You had also made a comment, and I thought that was pretty good though, where you said "The impact of boomers on succeeding generation is they hate us. We have all the good jobs and we have all the good music and sex." What is interesting, we had a couple of panels at our school when I was there between the boomer generation and Generation X students. Actually, we filled over 500 in the room for both programs. And two things came out of those programs when Generation Xers were talking about boomers. Number one, they did not like them. Just like you say, "They hate us." They are tired of hearing about what was the nostalgia.

MR (00:44:57):
Are you writing a book about boomers?

SM (00:45:01):
And then it... Huh?

MR (00:45:03):
Get off it already?

SM (00:45:03):
Huh?

MR (00:45:05):
Get off it already.

SM (00:45:07):
Yeah. And then the second part was, "I wish I had lived then. I wish I had the causes that they had. I wish I had something to fight for."

MR (00:45:19):
Right. Right.

SM (00:45:20):
There was nothing in between.

MR (00:45:22):
No, not only that, but that they do not see the causes now. And that is understandable too, why they do not see the causes now. Because I did not see the causes now until I blundered into a mass movement. And that mass movements make things easy. You are surrounded by people who think like you and you have a critical math. Now it is a lot harder. You have to be out there on the fringe.

SM (00:45:55):
That is important because we all know when a college student goes off to their first year of school that peers are the most important influence, even more than faculty members on them.

MR (00:46:06):
Right.

SM (00:46:07):
And obviously that was true with you.

MR (00:46:09):
It was easy for me, comparatively speaking. To join the movement was easy because the movement was big and growing.

SM (00:46:19):
Could you describe two terms that I think are very important in your book? And that is functional rationality and substantial rationality. That really got me, because McNamara fit the first one so perfectly.

MR (00:46:37):
Like you figure out your goal and then that is your goal and McNamara's functional rationality. But the deeper rationality involves an evaluation of both the means and the goals. Do the ends justify the means? Do the ends justify the means? No-no.

SM (00:47:10):
Well, I had mentioned three slogans to you in my email and one was the Peter Max, and you had mentioned that you did not think...

MR (00:47:22):
But that was not for me. That was for a lot of others.

SM (00:47:25):
Yeah.

MR (00:47:26):
I thought that one was some... That is all right.

SM (00:47:28):
Would you say, and I just added one, would you say "Truth to Power" may be another one that is very important? And are there other slogans that you think more define the...

MR (00:47:37):
"Truth to power" is a pretty good one. "Truth to Power" was not that [inaudible] slogan.

SM (00:47:45):
Well, I know Dr. King used it.

MR (00:47:47):
Yeah-yeah. No, that is great. Let us see. Logan. Logan. Well, "By any means as necessary" was the slogan. But it is not one that I hold to now.

SM (00:48:02):
Right.

MR (00:48:14):
We powered to the people of Logan. All the SDS cards up until the end... The slogan of SDS was "Let the people decide." And that was consistent with our ideology of participatory democracy. And when the Weathermen took over, we still let that one go and we substituted the Panther slogan "Power to the People." "Power to the People" sounds good, but it is a bit simplistic cause people think all kinds of things and there is all kinds of people. But people are not unitary, that is for sure.

SM (00:49:07):
The media oftentimes, and you brought up even your comment to me, the media has made you think this way and make students think this way. But you also state in your book that many of your peers have gone on to be very successful in life. Doctors, lawyers, heads of companies and teachers. You name it. And oftentimes the media likes to portray the generation or as one that gave up on their beliefs and their ideals and really have not contributed at all to America. Your thoughts on that?

MR (00:49:40):
No. When I wrote that... I think you are quoting from the epilogue of the book. And in that I am actually talking about the people who came back for the 40th reunion of the Columbia strike. And many of them were not successful. But that does not mean that they have lost their ideals or their motive or motivation. Not at all.

SM (00:50:05):
Yeah. Cause I think...

MR (00:50:05):
Remember Columbia was a middle class place or an upper middle class place or a ruling class place. And the idea of it was that you go there and then you take your place at the top of society. That is still the idea. And so it is very hard to get away from class privilege.

SM (00:50:25):
Well...

MR (00:50:25):
Very difficult.

SM (00:50:28):
When I was reading your book, and then of course even knowing about you even before your book came out, that being underground must have been very difficult for you. Because you have even said... I have seen some interviews when you were on CSPAN, and that you are a person of ideas. You want to be doing something, you want to be helping people. But hiding, you cannot do anything.

MR (00:50:51):
Right. I think that I recognized that very shortly after I went under. I recognized that on May 4th, 1970, about a month after I described sitting on a park bench in Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. But I think that it is interesting that even though I ostensibly gave up all my privilege, my class, I still actually retained quite a bit, even in the underground, even when I was a nobody. I got a job at a factory in the Kensington and Allegheny, K and A neighborhood. And in that factory, I started at the bottom as the laborer. And it was not long before I was promoted to be in charge of a warehouse. Why? Because I had communications, so. That the black guy who started on the same day with me, did not have. He did not speak English the same way I did. He could not communicate with the Jewish manager. I could read. He could not.

SM (00:52:11):
You had to use a fake name though, did not you then?

MR (00:52:15):
Oh, yeah. I did not put down that I had gone to Columbia University. I made up some high school somewhere and said that I had not graduated and that was it.

SM (00:52:25):
When did you know you had to go from one place to another because you went different parts of the country?

MR (00:52:34):
We always wanted to stay a couple of jumps ahead of the FBI. So if there was a security breach of any sort, we would [inaudible] a car or somebody ratting. That was the word. Okay. Help us rat it on me being in Santa Fe. Then I could not be just one step ahead. Had to be two steps ahead. So that necessitated moving. So whenever there was a serious security breach, then we would move. And the security breach would not necessarily be about where we were. But it could have even been the previous place.

SM (00:53:25):
This is really...

MR (00:53:27):
Because you do not want to live on the edge. You do not want to live believing that at any moment the FBI could come knocking on your door.

SM (00:53:36):
Do you feel you are still being watched even though you have...

MR (00:53:38):
Nah.

SM (00:53:38):
They are not watching anymore?

MR (00:53:43):
How many million people do they have to watch?

SM (00:53:44):
Yeah.

MR (00:53:45):
Well, nah. That is just paranoid. You cannot live paranoid. That is the main thing.

SM (00:53:56):
Well, I think your life is an example though of what Dr. King always said. And even though people might say, "Well, you cannot compare Mark Rudd to Dr. King." But Dr. King always said that there is a price one pays for one's beliefs.

MR (00:54:09):
Not sure I played the price. I never missed out on a [inaudible] in my life. I never missed out on an opportunity. Had Easter in a public school. I have not paid any particular price.

SM (00:54:29):
One of the questions that I asked again is the question of well, healing. And you responded "Well, I would not sit down with George Bush." And mainly what I was referring to in that question about a problem of healing was I wanted to explain it more to you on the phone. I had taken students to Washington DC to meet Senator Muskey. And the students came up with the questions because they were curious about the 1968 convention. And they thought he was going to answer questions about possible second civil war, tearing the nation apart and everything. And so they came up with a question on healing. And I think what I sent to you was misinformation. I was really referring to the 15 percent of those who were in the anti-war movement, who were against the Vietnam War and the Vietnam Veterans themselves. And that is who I am talking about just between those two groups.

MR (00:55:29):
I never accepted the division description of my generation that the vets thought one thing and the anti-war people thought another. I never accepted that. For one thing, the vets were incredibly anti-war because so many vets were drafted. And also because the anti-war movement itself was so powerful that the idea of being against the war had gone into the military. So you find vets are just as split as the general population. My best friend is a marine vet, and he and I have much more in common than guys from his old unit that he occasionally sees. Because some of them have not gotten wise to the ways in which they were used. So I do not accept that generational division argument at all.

SM (00:56:43):
I think I sense this only because I go to the Vietnam Memorial on Memorial Day and Veterans Day every year. I have done it for 14 years. And I see the slogans and the dislike for Jane Fonda and when Bill Clinton came to the wall and how they were booing him. And even though it is supposed to be a non-political entity, there is still a lot of politics around there. You can sense...

MR (00:57:07):
That is the faction. Personally, I have only gotten that a few times in my life from this. And I have been in touch with hundreds of vets. I taught Vietnam vets. And for the most part I feel accepted by the vets as a veteran of the same Goddam war.

SM (00:57:32):
Good point.

MR (00:57:38):
Maybe I am different. But I would say that of my encounters with vets, maybe one or 2 percent have been hostel. There is a fraction of people who wanted to have everything that they were involved in, all their pain and suffering and loss justified. And that is understandable. Then you have got people who I would say, for the most part, vets are very cornered about the whole thing. And Gil put it, in a way, they murdered a lot of people. Those people did not ask them to come to Vietnam. They did not ask to be murdered. Somebody killed three to 5 million people. So somebody's got to feel bad about that.

SM (00:58:26):
I think one of the things that you bring up here... When I go to the wall, I look at the wall and I see not only Vietnam Veterans, I think of the 15 percent who protested the war, who were so sincere and genuine in their anti-war protest that I can see what you are talking about, Mark, about the links between Vietnam vets and those who opposed the war. Oftentimes it is those who did not give a darn about the war. And those are the ones that sometimes vet has had more problems with.

MR (00:59:01):
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Also, there is a lot more to be said on the question of the vets. My general view of the vets is somebody murdered three to 5 million people and that the vets were forced into that position have a hard time dealing with it, very difficult time dealing with it. They are reconciling their own behavior. So sometimes they get angry and they say, "Oh, well it is your fault." And other times they get angry at themselves. They drink and they wind up on the streets or they beat their wives or whatever.

SM (00:59:48):
When you were probably doing your teaching in New Mexico and were back in the system again and you saw President Reagan come into power in 1980, 81 and in his opening speech, and I have the quotes. But he said a...

SM (01:00:03):
And in his opening speech, and I have the quotes, but he said, "America is back."

MR (01:00:07):
What? Is back? Yeah.

SM (01:00:08):
Yeah. He said, "America is back. The military is going to-

MR (01:00:11):
Reagan was a horrible disappointment to me. And it was worse when he was reelected in (19)84 and I realized that he was going to be around for a long time. And remember in (19)80, when he was elected, I was barely aware of the war in Central America. But by (19)84 when he was reelected, I had become aware of the murder that our country was perpetrating in Central America.

SM (01:00:41):
And then of course, George Bush Sr., George H.W. Bush said that the Vietnam syndrome is over, when he became President.

MR (01:00:49):
Right, right. And in a way, he was right, because maybe he was a little premature in (19)91, but by 2003, the Vietnam syndrome was definitely over.

SM (01:01:03):
Yeah. You even bring up Vietnam on a university campus, even the word Vietnam, it just rings all kinds of "Uh-oh. Here we go again." I-

MR (01:01:13):
Yeah. Right. Well, I was talking to somebody, [inaudible], and said, "People do not know when Vietnam was. It could have been before World War II.

SM (01:01:26):
These are just quick-

MR (01:01:27):
And Vietnam is 45 years ago. And when you think of when we were growing up, 40 or 45 years ago before that was World War I.

SM (01:01:36):
Yes.

MR (01:01:36):
Meaning that it is in the dark ages.

SM (01:01:42):
Yeah. In fact, I have got the book Woodstock Census that came out in (19)79. I do not know if you have ever heard of that book.

MR (01:01:47):
No.

SM (01:01:48):
Well, I am reading it right now, because one of the authors is a big, well-known person not far from where you live. And I want to get ahold of him, because he co-wrote the book in (19)79. And they were basically saying in (19)79 that people are looking at the Vietnam War like we looked at World War II.

MR (01:02:08):
Right.

SM (01:02:08):
And that was 1979. These are just really quick ... I know you do not like generalities, but just a quick response here-

MR (01:02:17):
But tell me, before you get onto that, who wrote that book?

SM (01:02:20):
Oh, hold on. Can you hold on one second? I will go get it. Hold on.

MR (01:02:23):
Okay.

SM (01:02:24):
Yep. Okay. Are you still there?

MR (01:02:54):
Yeah.

SM (01:02:55):
Okay. The book was written by ... let us see, where is it here? Written by Rex Weiner.

MR (01:03:04):
Never heard of him.

SM (01:03:05):
Rex Weiner. If you go into the web, you will find out he is a big writer, written a lot of novels. And he has been a writer for a long time. And he ran away to Haight-Ashbury in the Summer of Love and brought home a souvenir case of hepatitis, studied the effects of drugs at NYU, dropped out to be a bum in Europe and became a staff writer for the East Village Other. And his best (19)60s moment was watching Timothy Leary fix a lawnmower. And the other author, her name is Deanne Stillman. S-T-I-L-L-M-A-N. She might be married now, so I could not find her, but I want to try to get ahold ... It is very good. And your picture is in here. He breaks down the sections and there is pictures at the beginning of each section. And there is a picture of you at Columbia in the one section.

MR (01:04:08):
Oh, well that is nice.

SM (01:04:08):
Yeah. And if I find it here, bear with me as I am looking, there is a section on drugs, there is a section on heroes, and I think that is where you are. Your picture is in the beginning of the heroes.

MR (01:04:22):
Yeah, but see, just a comment on me being a hero. I was really a media creation. I was one among many, many, many thousands of people who took risks and took leadership positions. And yet, I was still chosen by the media.

SM (01:04:46):
Yeah. And the media-

MR (01:04:46):
But if you want to pursue that question, take a look at Todd Gitlin's book, The Whole World Is Watching. It was written in the late (19)70s. He interviews a guy by the name of Michael... oh God, why am I blocking his name? He is a professor of peace studies. He studies oil. Margot, what is Michael's ... the professor, his wife was in peace development. Mike ... you know who I mean.

Margot (01:05:24):
Clare.

MR (01:05:26):
Mike Clare. Michael Clare. L-A-R-E. Michael Clare was in SDS. Michael Clare. [inaudible]. He is a writer for The Nation on oil policy. Good guy. He was involved in Columbia SDS. And he talks at length to Todd Gitlin in his book, The Whole World Is Watching, on the Mark Rudd phenomenon, of how the media created me as a leader. And so if these people list me as a hero, then what they have done is they have fallen for that.

SM (01:06:09):
Yeah. Well, I know that we had a period of time in the late (19)80s where we were asking students who their heroes were. And my generation, the heroes were people like Dr. King, John Kennedy, you name it. But that the generation Xers were talking about, "My parents are my heroes."

MR (01:06:35):
Oh, that is nice.

SM (01:06:36):
Or my uncle. So even within that generation, there was a change of how people looked at people and their-

MR (01:06:43):
Remember, it is the decline of utopianism.

SM (01:06:46):
Right. Sometimes their teacher. I know a person that was very influential in your life was when you were a student. I forget his full name. Potter?

MR (01:06:58):
Paul Potter?

SM (01:06:58):
Yeah. Paul Potter. You mentioned that his speech had such an effect on you.

MR (01:07:05):
Yeah.

SM (01:07:06):
And obviously there were other things that had an effect on you, but you seemed to really emphasize that one. What was it about that peer of yours that really had an effect on you?

MR (01:07:16):
How smart he was. I never knew him. I met him only in 1982. He died in 1984. I did not know him personally. But you read a speech like that, and it is true of the whole generation of the leaders of SDS, Tom Hayden and David Gilbert, a lot of others; these people had really understood what was going on. They had uncovered the truth, and they were a lot smarter and more relevant than the professor.

SM (01:07:51):
I think Rennie Davis fell in that category too, did not he?

MR (01:08:02):
I see the rise of a new student movement very slowly, but you do not have graduate students around. And the graduate students are important, because they know more.

SM (01:08:14):
Right. Just very quick thoughts here, and they do not have to be in detail. How did the (19)50s make the (19)60s?

MR (01:08:25):
Well, I think there was all this built up repression. But the biggest single thing, which we do not talk about enough, white people do not talk about enough, is the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement shook up this country. And that is got to be acknowledged. And so I will answer your question with one answer; the (19)50s was the rise to a mass movement, of the Civil Rights Movement.

SM (01:08:51):
How did the (19)60s make the (19)70s?

MR (01:09:01):
Well, there was a loosening of everything in the (19)60s, and then the (19)70s was kind of anarchic and nihilistic in a sense, or individualistic. And then that gave rise to Reagan and the 30 years of right-wing rule that we have had.

SM (01:09:22):
Yeah, that is absolutely going right in there. How did the (19)70s lead to the (19)80s and beyond? Yeah.

MR (01:09:28):
And one aspect of Reaganism, though, which should not be forgotten, is that the Civil Rights Movement unleashed black political power, especially in the South. And that caused the Democratic coalition to disintegrate. And the Democratic coalition had held the segregationist white South in the Democratic Party. So when there was a realignment in the (19)70s that led to Reagan, that entire racist wing of the Democratic Party split and went over to the Republicans. And we have still got that now. So people could say, "Oh, it was the excesses of the (19)60s," but at its real political core, it was a realignment in which the racists went to the Republican Party. I think that is got to be repeated about 500,000 times.

SM (01:10:26):
Mm-hmm. You talk about the biggest mistake that you ever made, obviously in the book, and I have seen you interviewed on C-SPAN and some of your other interviews, that was the breakup of SDS. And for obvious reasons, because SDS was the strongest anti-war group probably in history. But the question I want to ask is you were a personality, and so was Bernadine Dohrn, and so was some of the other leaders of SDS. How much does personality play within the leadership of a student group, not only as a plus, but as a minus? Because would not you say here the personalities played a negative? Because-

MR (01:11:12):
No. I think it is less personality than it is cliques. I think political cliques are the negative, and we had a clique. And the clique had lots of different personalities in it, but the clique was powerful enough to take over a big mass organization like SDS. So I think people have to look out for cliques, rather than personality.

SM (01:11:47):
You do not have to go into detail, but you consider that the biggest mistake of your life?

MR (01:11:51):
Oh, absolutely.

SM (01:11:51):
Yeah.

MR (01:11:52):
Going off SDS, are you kidding? Well, I thought I was doing one thing, but I did the opposite. I thought we were creating the beginning of a mass revolutionary movement among white people to join blacks in this country, and instead what we were doing was we were doing the work of the FBI for them. Absolutely the biggest mistake of my life, at the age of 22.

SM (01:12:19):
Well, idealism is one of the important things, and the people that you have mentioned who were in SDS, you were very proud of your intellectual strengths.

MR (01:12:33):
Too proud.

SM (01:12:33):
And the idealism. But you also mentioned in your book something; you said, "Idealism's downside is we believe our own ideas because we had them and we wanted them to be true. Do not believe everything you think."

MR (01:12:50):
Right.

SM (01:12:51):
That is important for students to learn. I have seen this in my working relationships with students. This is a very important little quote in your book, because I am idealistic, and I think you are too.

MR (01:13:04):
And so is [inaudible]. Especially the anarchist kid.

SM (01:13:07):
Right. Could you explain that in terms of learning a little more in detail?

MR (01:13:14):
Well, see, it is really more of ideology. People need to have an ideology; a set of beliefs that explain the world. It is sort of like a religious impulse, and once you get that ideology, then you think you have got everything figured out. One current ideology is anarchism, and I find a lot of good kids are stuck in this belief that we do not need governments, and that everything would be great if we just got rid of the government. And it is a totally religious belief. It does not represent reality. And I am not sure, for real learning to take place, you have to keep a certain skepticism, and even the skepticism in your own beliefs. Even scientists make this error. There is various research fallacies. I do not know the names of them, but they have to do with the idea that since you have a hypothesis, that the hypothesis must be true. But then scientific method holds that you have to do everything you can to disprove your hypothesis. So we need that same kind of cold scientific view of our ideas, and skepticism, and the belief that no ideology can ever describe reality.

SM (01:15:03):
One of the things-

MR (01:15:03):
The Buddhist precept that no belief structure is true, including Buddhism.

SM (01:15:15):
Your thoughts on just after the Vietnam War ended in (19)73? Well, the peace talks, and then (19)75, the helicopters go off the compound there in Saigon, which is now Ho Chi Minh City. Just your thoughts on what followed. And when you read the history books, what followed was an increase in the communal efforts, more increase in spirituality, and more going inward as opposed to working together as a group. So more of an individualistic-

MR (01:15:49):
We should have kept the organizing going, in retrospect. The right wing did keep the organizing going, but our generation eventually took right wing tower under George W. Bush. So the left did not keep the organizing going. That was our big error. Now we have got to come back to it and we have got to teach young people how to do it, how to organize.

SM (01:16:18):
Well, Richie Havens said that when a lot of people look at Woodstock, they just see this bunch of kids listening to great music. But he really reveals that half of the audience were not kids. There were a lot of parents with children there, and there were actually a lot of people in their 40s and 50s there. So that is something that is never told of the 400,000. But he says that Woodstock was much more than people truly understand, because it was an awakening that the kids of the (19)60s, who had been so hidden, were now being seen. And so he brings that up. And he also talks about the musicians of the late (19)50s and early (19)60s that were in Greenwich Village. And I know you knew all about this, and you were inspired by the Beats, that the Bob Jones of the world, and even the Richie Havens and Peter, Paul and Mary and that group, they could have been recognized a lot earlier, but they were not because they were kind of hidden.

MR (01:17:21):
Well-

SM (01:17:22):
And that the music kind of exposed and brought them out.

MR (01:17:25):
[inaudible] the folk song revival was that it happened at all. No such thing is happening now. But the folk song revival happened from the late (19)40s on into and through the (19)60s, and it was a lot of product of the left wing. And I think it was important, because it brought social consciousness to so many people. But in the current musical environment, you have nothing like that.

SM (01:18:04):
One of the things that I can vividly remember when I was a student at Ohio State, because I was in grad school in (19)71, (19)72 there, and of course I was at Binghamton up to that point, is I saw the separation between black students and white students really happening around that 1969 timeframe. And that was because the African-American students said, "I am not going to be protesting the war in Vietnam. We were going to concentrate on the issues here at home with the plight of African-Americans," ala Black Power, Black Panthers, and so forth. And even at Kent State, you cannot find an African-American student at that protest. They were told to not be there. And that basically-

MR (01:18:49):
That might have been in part a result of Black Power too, the idea of separation.

SM (01:18:57):
But what is really sad is when you were going underground at Ohio State in (19)71 and (19)72, you walk into the Ohio Union and black students did not want anything to do with white students. And they were having their dances in one section, and the other group was having their dances in the other section. And of course, the Afro hairdos were there. There was a lot of stuff happening. And one of the things that was so important about the (19)60s was a sense of community, of coming together, because so many of the movements came together. And all of a sudden, you are seeing these splits.

MR (01:19:33):
Right. Well, Black Power was a powerful thing. There was recently a book written about it called Columbia versus Harlem, or Harlem versus Columbia, by Dr. Stefan Bradley, a young black historian. And he talks about the black movement at Columbia. We were really only united with them for a moment. That moment was a very powerful moment.

SM (01:20:03):
I have only got a couple more questions, then I will be done. You mentioned a couple of the people that you read. I have it right here. I know there were three different books. What were the most influential books, Mark, in your life, that you read as you were young or that you have read since?

MR (01:20:25):
The Grapes of Wrath, the autobiography of Malcolm X, and oddly enough, a rather obscure book from 1974 called Labor and Monopoly Capital by Harry Braverman. [inaudible] Review Press. The guy is a genius, an economist who himself was a [inaudible] maker machinist. And he analyzed the nature of the current economy, which was the computerization, the automation of the workforce in which the average skill level of labor is driven down. That is the whole point of computerization, is that machines take over labor, and so you do not have to pay as much, and you do not need a skilled labor force. And that then defined my whole career as a teacher at a community college, which was, "Why is there so much failure? It is because the economy does not need highly skilled workers." But anyway, as long as we are listing books, I am going to list as my third Labor and Monopoly Capital by Harry Braverman. Have you ever seen it?

SM (01:22:07):
No, I have not, but I am going to go look it up.

MR (01:22:09):
Oh, do look it up. It is an amazing book.

SM (01:22:13):
Where do you put your book? Because I think your book should be in a classroom, should be required reading. You made a question to me, "How am I going to reach young people with this book project?" Because as mentioned, you have been somewhat frustrated. I firmly believe in youth as long as the adults do what they are supposed to be doing in terms of teaching. And if I was a professor in a classroom in the (19)60s, I would have your book as required reading. I mean-

MR (01:22:40):
That is wonderful.

SM (01:22:41):
No, I would.

MR (01:22:41):
It is coming out in paperback, so maybe it will.

SM (01:22:44):
And I know some professors who teach (19)60s courses, and I will certainly recommend to them. I do not know if the chair of the department will finally okay it, but I think it is just a fantastic book. And the two books that I wanted to know if you had actually read was The Greening of America, by Charles Wright.

MR (01:23:03):
I did. I did. And unfortunately, he did not prove right.

SM (01:23:09):
Yep. And the other one was The Making of a Counterculture, by Theodore Roszak.

MR (01:23:13):
I never did. Do you like that one?

SM (01:23:16):
I liked it. I wanted to interview him, but he is not well, so he says, "I cannot." He is not doing too well. So those are important. I also felt that Harry Edwards book, Black Students, I do not know if you have ever read it?

MR (01:23:27):
No. But Harry Edwards is an important guy.

SM (01:23:30):
Yeah, he is. But he is the one professor who defined the (19)60s activists more than any other. He broke them down into revolutionaries, activists, militants. And I know he also did what we call anomic activists, which are people who will just create havoc for no reason at all. You can just pay them and they will do it. They do not care. And it was in Black Students, we read that book, it was required reading at Ohio State, and I brought him to Westchester and I got a first edition signed. So it was pretty good.

MR (01:24:13):
Great.

SM (01:24:15):
If you had to live your life all over again, would you do it?

MR (01:24:17):
The same way?

SM (01:24:20):
Yeah. What changes would you do in your life, besides-

MR (01:24:22):
Non-violence. And organizing. Much more organizing. [inaudible] nature. And I think I probably would have gone earlier into the Democratic Party.

SM (01:24:37):
What do you hope will be your lasting legacy? Say that again, because the tape just-

MR (01:24:47):
The idea that mass movement, social and political, is possible, and that it takes organizing. And to not make the same mistakes that I did, which was not organizing and going into self-expression, which is what armed struggle is.

SM (01:25:05):
And I am going to end the interview with just... I had a whole list of names. I am not going to go through those names. But I wanted just your thoughts on four people, because they were really not liked by the anti-war movement, but I want hear it from you. And the four people are Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, and what is the fourth one? Oh, and I just wanted to know a little bit more of your thoughts on Kennedy and McCarthy, because you call-

MR (01:25:36):
Okay. Kennedy and McCarthy, at the time, we thought were diversions from the revolutionary movement, which were growing. And [inaudible] back into the system. We did not believe that the system was going to survive. We thought that there would be an end to this sham democracy that we have. So in 1968, when there was an election, SDS's line was, "Vote in the streets." So we were kind of utopian anarchists at the time, and we wanted to ignore those people. I have never hated anybody in my life as much as I hated Lyndon Johnson. To this day, I despise him. I hate Lyndon Johnson more than I hate even Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. I worked for Lyndon Johnson as a high school kid, and I should have written more about this part, but I went to some demonstrations for Johnson, and I felt totally betrayed. And whatever happens to you when you are coming of age, that is very important emotionally. So I hated Lyndon Johnson worse than I hated any President, before or since. Now, rationally, I know that that is not possibly true, that Johnson was a continuation domestically of the New Deal, and there was a lot of good stuff. But I still hate him. Even Nixon, who was the embodiment of evil, I did not hate as much as Johnson. Spiro Agnew was a joke. I loved Spiro Agnew because he was so obviously unqualified to be anything. He might have been qualified to clean toilets someplace, but that is about it. And I loved Agnew because he was such a joke, and he was so corrupt that they had to fire him. They had to get him to resign before Watergate played out. So did that answer your question?

SM (01:27:55):
Yeah. And obviously I had forgotten Mr. McNamara, the best and the brightest, which Kennedy brought in.

MR (01:28:01):
Well, I never liked McNamara. I still did not like him when he wrote his so-called apology back in the (19)90s. And I hated him in [inaudible], and I despised him on the day he died.

SM (01:28:17):
And finally, the women who were the leaders of the women's movement, Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug and Betty Friedan. But I know you guys were criticized, as many people in the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-war movement, by being sexist, putting women in secondary roles. And I know I have interviewed people that were in SDS that were female, and they verify that. Just do you have any second thoughts?

MR (01:28:46):
I have a lot of respect for the founders of the women's movement. And even somebody like Robin Morgan, who eventually turned me into the FBI, I have respect for her ideas. I read her book in 1989, the Demon Lover on the sexuality of terrorism, and I learned a lot. But you might take a look at my essay, K and Me.

SM (01:29:19):
Oh, okay. I was reading some of those essays. J and Me. All right. Very good. And I guess that is it. Are there any questions that I did not ask that you thought I was going to?

MR (01:29:33):
No-no. That was good. That was a great interview. Please keep me informed of the progress of your book.

SM (01:29:39):
Oh, I will. And I really hope I can meet you. I want to get pictures of you, because I am doing that with each of the interviews.

MR (01:29:46):
Okay. I can send you any of the pictures in my book.

SM (01:29:51):
Yes. If you could send those, but-

MR (01:29:53):
No, wait. You have to ask for one or two.

SM (01:29:55):
Okay. Yeah, I will do that. Are you doing any lectures on the East Coast?

MR (01:30:01):
Let me see.

SM (01:30:03):
Lectures on the East Coast?

MR (01:30:03):
Let me see. There is one that is under discussion now in Pittsburgh.

SM (01:30:14):
Oh, okay.

MR (01:30:14):
In March. But watch on my website, I will announce it there.

SM (01:30:18):
I hope you can come to Kent State.

MR (01:30:21):
Maybe, we will see. I am involved in a political campaign here, reaching a climax in May, but we will see if there is a good role for me out there, I will come.

SM (01:30:33):
And you are still teaching, are not you?

MR (01:30:36):
At the moment? No. I taught last semester at UNM, University of New Mexico, but at the moment, I am not teaching.

SM (01:30:45):
Well, Mark, thank you very much for spending the time.

MR (01:30:49):
Sure. Good luck, Steve.

SM (01:30:50):
Yeah. And I admire what you did because you stood up and I knew about you when I was your age. You were the same age when I was at Binghamton, and I supported what you are doing. It was just the weatherman part, well, the rest is history, I guess. Mark, you take care and carry on.

MR (01:31:08):
All right.

SM (01:31:09):
Have a great day.

MR (01:31:12):
You too.

SM (01:31:12):
Bye.

(End of Interview)

2010-02-01

Stephen McKiernan

Mark Rudd

175:20

English

Binghamton University Libraries

audio/mp4

Sound

Audio

Peace movements—United States; Authors; Weather Underground Organization; Political activists--United States; Rudd, Mark--Interviews

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